The fight deepens over the Carbon Tax in Australia

There is quite a fight brewing in Australia between regular folks and the Gillard government. It will come to a head when a big nationwide convoy of truckers descend on the delicate government types in the Canberra Australian Capital Territory. The great unwashed meet the ruling class in wrecktacular style.

Meanwhile, as the truckers beef up their roobars for the possible collisions ahead, I have this speech from my friend David Archibald.

David Archibald Speech for Rally in Canberra August 16th, 2011

My first duty to you today is tell you what is happening to the climate.  What is happening is cooling.  The oceans started cooling in 2003, and the atmosphere is following.  There has been no warming since 1998.

In fact, the temperature of planet today is almost the same as it was when satellites first started measuring it in 1979.  No one under the age of 32 has experienced global warming.  Some of us predate that and remember the heavy frosts of the nineteen seventies.  Those frosts are returning, and worse.  Solar activity is weakening, and will remain weak for another 22 years.

We in this blessed country will be spared the worst of it, but a large portion of the grain belt in the northern hemisphere will have crop failures due to longer winters and early frosts.  Canada will go from being a large exporter of grain to becoming a frequent importer.  As long as Australia remains a net food exporter, we will benefit from the shorter Northern Hemisphere growing season.

For us, climate is a non-problem.  Carbon dioxide’s heating effect is real, but minuscule.  The one hundred parts per million that we have added to the atmosphere in the last one hundred years has heated the planet by one tenth of a degree.  We will add another hundred parts per million over the next fifty years.  The total of two tenths of a degree will be very welcome by mid-century.

In fact, the more carbon dioxide we add to the atmosphere, the better.  During the ice ages of the last three million years, the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere got as low as one hundred and seventy-two parts per million.  Plant growth shuts down at one hundred and fifty parts per million.  Life above sea level was almost snuffed out due to a lack of carbon dioxide.  We were only twenty-two parts per million from extinction.  We came so close to dying out due to a lack of carbon dioxide.  And, for those amongst us who like plants and animals, they would have died out too.

The more we can increase the carbon dioxide level of the atmosphere, the safer life on this planet will be.

The more we can increase the carbon dioxide level of the atmosphere, the safer life on this planet will be.  For those amongst us who feel for the Third World, increasing the carbon dioxide level of the atmosphere is like giving them free fertiliser.  Their crops will grow faster.  Who amongst us would be so heartless as to deny the Third World that benefit at no cost to themselves?  The Government hunkered down here in front of you is that heartless.  But then, they don’t care about Australians either.

This fake problem of climate is distracting us from real problems.  The first of which is the fact that our oil self-sufficiency is declining rapidly.  It is 40% now.  It will be down to 25% by 2015.  We now import oil from as far afield as Azerbaijan, Algeria and the Congo.  We are forced to rely upon their kindness to keep our farms and factories running.

It need not be like that.  We could make our own transport fuels from our own coal.  And keep the money we pay for them in Australia.  But that won’t happen while the carbon tax lives.

…most of our institutions have failed in their duty to serve and protect

As a scientist, what saddens me is that most of our scientific institutions have failed in their duty to serve and protect the Australian people.  The CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology, the universities – have all failed us. And then there are the institutions that actively, and purposefully, and very treacherously, conspired against us.  Chief of which is the ABC, which has ceaselessly promoted the bizarre cult of carbon.

The next Government will inherit a lot of debt. To pay off that debt as quickly as possible, sacrifices will have to be made.  The easiest sacrifice to make would be to shut down the ABC.  None who love this country will weep for it.

Just as this Government did not weep for the cement workers who have already lost their jobs due to the carbon tax.  The ABC is well past its use by date.  It sees Australia through its perverted lens of self-loathing.  The large fortune that is spent keeping the beast alive would be better spent paying off Labor’s legacy of debt.

Consumer confidence took a dive when Australians realised that the Government was pressing ahead with the carbon tax.  It is hard to be positive when you realise the Government is doing its best to destroy the economy.  Long term damage to the economy from this tax has been going on for years, but is now accelerating.

Ideally, there could be a very good outcome from this carbon tax debacle.  It is not enough to merely put things back the way they were before this particular lot of Australia-haters came along.  We must use this opportunity – your righteous anger – to unleash the Furies on those who failed us, and those who conspired against us.

There are so many wrongs that need to be righted if we are to make Australia the earthly paradise it is meant to be.  So let’s right those wrongs.  It is not enough to simply defeat this tax.  Let’s not put up with the system that took Australia down the road to disaster.

Let’s have a good cleanout.  It requires effort on your part.  Coming here today is only the beginning.  Many of you are shareholders, and many of the companies you are invested in have sold their souls to get their snouts into the carbon trough.  Make their lives hell.  They deserve it.  Hound the directors until they recant.

As for any politicians who have ever believed in global warming, or supported the carbon tax, or a carbon-constrained economy, there is no hope for them.  They are either too stupid or incompetent to be taken seriously.  Merely recanting, at this late stage, won’t be enough.  Make their lives hell too, just as they wished a diminished life on you.

Australia will soon face some big challenges as the world enters one of its most turbulent periods.  Just maintaining our standard of living in the face of those challenges will require a lot of rigor.  We will only get the required level of rigor if we demand it.  Firstly of ourselves, and then of the politicians we choose to represent us.  Even then, keeping Australia safe and secure and happy will take our eternal vigilance.