How A Coal Baron Fooled Al Gore And The Greens
Andrew Bolt Herald Sun, 26 June 2014
What the hell was Al Gore doing at Palmer’s press conference? Why did the great global warming guru help to sanctify a press conference called by a coal baron to announce the destruction of Australia’s climate change policies?
AUSTRALIA will be left without a major scheme to cut greenhouse gas emissions after Clive Palmer last night backed the repeal of the carbon tax without supporting any concrete alternative…
Mr Palmer said the PUP would propose an emissions trading scheme to put a price on carbon but said it would only start when other nations did the same, an unlikely prospect in the short term.
He also vowed to vote against Tony Abbott’s alternative policy, the $2.8 billion Direct Action spending program, in a move that appears to kill off the scheme given it is also opposed by Labor, the Greens and minor parties.
But Fairfax newspapers buy the spin added by the introduction of warmist guru Al Gore to Palmer’s ludicrous press conference:
Clive Palmer has thrown into chaos Tony Abbott’s plan to abolish the carbon tax, demanding the Prime Minister instead create an emissions trading scheme that would swing into action when Australia’s major trading partners adopt similar measures.
That spin – that Palmer is demanding the carbon tax be scrapped in favour of an emissions trading scheme – is exploded just a few paragraphs later in the very same story:
Mr Palmer made clear that repeal of the carbon tax … would not be contingent on the other measures Mr Palmer proposed on Wednesday night, such as the proposed emissions trading legislation.
UPDATE
CLIVE PALMER: Repeal of the carbon tax is contingent upon the Government bringing into law a system where the energy producers will refund the benefit to their consumers…
TONY JONES: So – but you won’t make your repeal of the carbon tax contingent on any of these other things you want to see happen? That’s a critical question to answer tonight.
CLIVE PALMER: That’s right, yeah.
TONY JONES: So Tony Abbott, when he negotiates you with tomorrow, going on what Greg Hunt is saying today, will be able to offer you fairly easily the kind of agreement that you’ve asked for. Does that mean you’re now convinced you’ll vote the carbon tax out of existence?
CLIVE PALMER: If that’s the case, it is…
It is bad that Palmer will keep the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and (probably) the Climate Change Authority, and it’s alarming that he wants at least the framework created for an emissions trading scheme.
But it is very good that the emissions trading scheme won’t actually get off the ground under the conditions Palmer proposes.
And it is beautiful that Palmer is against Tony Abbott’s direct action policies as well, as are Labor and the Greens.
This means we could end up with a sceptics’ paradise: no carbon tax, no prospect of emissions trading and not even Abbott’s $2.5 billion direct action schemes. That is a huge win.
Thanks, Clive.
It would have saved on carbon emissions and under the table money if Clive had just used a cardboard cut out of Gore instead. He could still play the trick with cardboard.
Send in the clowns…
Gee, the politician who “invented the internet” is also not entirely consistent with his billionaire-generated vocation.
Shocking, really
Major trading partners. Like China? Chance of China creating an emissions exchange? Pretty low, I’d think….
Wile E. ManBearPig
I could never reconcile how an idiot could amass a fortune through business ventures. Everything that he did appeared to be further evidence that he was a complete idiot.
Maybe, just maybe, he has made me look like an idiot. I hope so much that this is true. I might have been hoodwinked but the Alarmists may have been well and truly outfoxed/(shafted). Please let this be my Christmas present!!!
Will the good folk of the USA please take Gore back in a hurry. It’s as “cold as a mother-in-law’s kiss” in Australia at present.
And, if you are short of buffoons, you can also take Clive Palmer – he boosts the “buffoon stocks” anywhere.
“AUSTRALIA will be left without a major scheme to cut greenhouse gas emissions …”
—————————————————————————————————————————
Yes, scheme is the appropriate word:
“scheme
noun \ˈskēm\
: a clever and often dishonest plan to do or get something”
At the end of everything Gore does, it’s always about the money to be made from fear and politics. Where’s the money angle here? Obama might tell Al that, at some point, he’s made enough. Except that Obama is probably looking to become a climate billionaire himself.
Who’d have guessed that the cookie might crumble this way? Not in anyone’s models, that’s for sure.
In Al’s Noble winning movie “The Convenient Inconvenient” [Church Lady says, “How conveeeenient.”] when he describes his high school class mate on drugs, Al was really referring to himself (and channeling future Presnuck Barak Obama “Interception”), but that’s the way Al’s brain works.
If the wind changes, tack.
They could probably make up for some of the lost ‘reveues’ by enacting a ‘Kool-Aid’ tax.
My cousin, a very astute individual, who served three terms in the United States Congress while Al Gore was there, told me that Kipper Gore was a very nice person but that Al Gore was a complete a**h***.
StoptheRot says:
June 26, 2014 at 6:35 am
I could never reconcile how an idiot could amass a fortune through business ventures. Everything that he did appeared to be further evidence that he was a complete idiot.
========================================================
Fervently religious people are always willing to send enormous amounts of money to their evangelist leaders.
Somebody PAID him, obviously. Albert is all about the benjamins.
Now to have the US wake up and return to a rational climate/energy/enviro policy……..
But instead we have our man-child in chief sitting in his echo chamber, name calling.
Tom in Florida says:
June 26, 2014 at 6:46 am
“scheme
noun \ˈskēm\
: a clever and often dishonest plan to do or get something”
=============================================================================
Yes that is what it mean in American English, but I don’t think it has negative connotation in British and Australian English. I have heard lots of British politicians talk about their own ideas as schemes, no American politician would do that, here they all have plans.
THE POLITICS OF IT
At first to make sense out of this is hard — until you realize something that everyone already knows — Palmer is a coal baron.
With that “stigma” everything he does environment-wise is already perceived by the left as being done for personal financial reasons. When he supports Abbott, environmentalists will use him to smear Abbott’s policies. He will be pinned up as the poster boy for a government run by big business for the benefit of big business.
But suddenly Al Gore is on stage with Palmer. Huh? Maybe Palmer is a coal baron with a green conscious. Maybe Palmer has a green heart.
Suddenly any poster of Palmer will have Al gore standing beside him. Palmer is now the “green coal baron” endorsed by Al Gore himself. Palmer can’t be used to smear Abbott’s policies.
A major arrow in the green quiver has just been removed. Abbott can’t be stigmatized by his association with the coal baron Palmer because Al Gore himself endorses Palmer.
The best thing about this is that Al Gore comes off looking like a fool. Palmer used Al Gore to cover both his and Abbott’s ass.
Eugene WR Gallun
.
Gore’s base fortune was inherited. That should answer a LOT of y’alls’ questions…
To be fair to St Gore , the tax would have made him nothing , the emissions trading scheme however could have made him ‘lots of cash’ . So you can see why he jumped , without thought , into supporting Palmer’s .
Should any one see ST Gore , ask him if his feeling OK , although in that photography he is looking rather ‘orange’
Eugene WR Gallun says:
June 26, 2014 at 8:20 am
THE POLITICS OF IT
Yes Eugene, I believe you have it in one!
I suspect that Palmer’s no fool – maybe even brokered the deal with Abbott because Abbott is a “denier” (like me), The “direction action plan” was proposed to keep the greens off his back.
Abbott: “Please, Mr. Palmer, don’t throw me in the briar patch.”
knr above has the truth of it. Al has always been about the TRADING of carbon. That, s were he and his type can make money in this scam. Why would he care about a tax on carbon in Australia, he can’t get at that money. But trading in an imaginary commodity that they can control the supply and force the demand of? He was set to profit from that from the start.
Business man – NO
Scam artist – YES:
The Chinese are involved in a “searching inquiry’’ that is pressing Mr Palmer to show where funds — including sums of $10m, withdrawn in August last year, and $2.167m, taken from the same account in September — went during last year’s federal election campaign, in which the resources tycoon is reputed to have spent more than $15m fielding candidates.
Lawyers for Citic Pacific have told the Federal Court that these funds could not have been legitimately spent on management of the port, which was built to ship iron ore mined by the Chinese company from tenements controlled by Mineralogy.
The $10m and $2.167m were claimed in a one-line explanation by Mr Palmer’s company, Mineralogy, to be the cost of “port management services”.
However, Mineralogy has not been operating the port and is not in charge of the port.
It appears easy to fool the gullible.
Support McKitrick’s T3 Tax
Global Warming – The T3 Tax. McKitrick proposed to the UK Parliament: Evidence-Based Approach to Pricing CO2 Emissions.
Please persuade Palmer of the wisdom of Ross McKitrick’s T3 Tax (Temperatures in the Tropical Troposphere). That would compliment his support for an emission tax when Australia’s trading partners also support it.
Together those would be game changers!
Al Gore gets fooled by his own shoe laces.
The key to understanding this is that:
…super genius!!
Maybe he was promised a cruise on Titanic II.
“Eustace Cranch says:
June 26, 2014 at 8:01 am
StoptheRot says:
June 26, 2014 at 6:35 am
I could never reconcile how an idiot could amass a fortune through business ventures. Everything that he did appeared to be further evidence that he was a complete idiot.
========================================================
Fervently religious people are always willing to send enormous amounts of money to their evangelist leaders.
”
As I recall from ancient history recollections that algore was the son of a former school teacher
that became senator from armand hammer, oil tycoon and part of the family that received the pencil concession for the soviet union after the communists took over.
So what is Gore’s excuse? Has he explained why he was there?
“Kipper” => “Tipper”?
@D.J.Hawkins
Well. something is fishy with Gore. 😉
Here is the You Tube video: Palmer enlightened by Al Gore
That’s what Palmer said yesterday, I wonder what he will say today, and then will that be the same as what he will say the day after ? who knows ? Does he know? And maybe if Abbott waits long enough Palmer will have to leave Parliament over misuse of Chinese funds – then what ?
Palmer United Party, Published policies
Update June 27, 2014: Palmer United Party to vote to repeal carbon tax and emissions trading scheme
There is no doubt Palmer comes across as a complete imbecile. But my question has always been, how can you be in business and make an empire at the same time be a fool? The two are not compatible..
I really don’t understand all the high fiving by the warmists.
You only have to look at Palmers history of past statments on global warming.
He has been nothing less than consistant in his opposition to Abbotts
direct action plan and removal of the CO/2 tax.
I was up in arms over his support for an ETS but after looking closely at the
fine print.
I apoligize Clive.
It’s exactly what former prime minister John Howard said a DECADE ago.
“We will act on global warming but not before the rest of the world”.
All Clives done is give us one his media shows that is reminiscent with of
an organ grinder and his monkey.
A “monkey” who I might add doesn’t work for peanuts.
I wonder if its sunk into the warmists and alarmists heads yet, that they
have been played at their own game of deception?
“So what is Gore’s excuse? Has he explained why he was there?”
I can explain it partially. The Australian “carbon tax” was a fake out by the Labor party, big banks, the Baker law firm, etc. to co-opt the Green Party votes into agreeing to cap and trade. It is/was a delayed bait and switch. Many green true believers know that cap and trade is a scam (no less than James Hansen says so) and want a carbon tax. But carbon dioxide tax money goes to the government, not to the bankers, Chinese offset inventors, all the gang that return money to politicians. So the lobby created a trick bill that looks like a carbon tax, but converts into cap and trade in three years. I call it the “Australia trick”, but it was likely invented by American lawyers.
Gore was there because he was misinformed, or it was unclear that the repeal of the “carbon tax” was just of the tax, not the whole legislation that enacted it, including the cap and trade conversion. He probably thought he and others at Kleiner Perkins were outsmarting the righties.
Goldman Sachs’ Hank Paulson, whom Goldman Sachs loaned to the USA as a past treasury secretary, just went public in opinion pieces about supporting a “carbon tax”. I can guarantee you with 97% certainty, not based on model, meta-analysis, or such junk, that what he is positing is an “Australia Trick” like GS, et al. pulled in Australia. How else would GS profit?
Lewis, all coal fired power is from pulverised coal.
I will add there is a peculiar confusion about what a “carbon tax” is in general discussion (not here) that emanates from American right-wing politics. Someone decided some years back to call cap and trade “a carbon tax” and that caught one with some righties. Sometimes I have read chats where these types incessantly rename cap and trade a “carbon tax.” It is not a plainly not a tax. Why they do this, one can speculate. I think many have a cultic outlook about big business and industry, and it is scary for them to fathom these business interests don’t work in the country’s general interest. Scarier for them is to imagine various business interest use the government against each other, and that is what is the primary motivator here. They like to think of “business” as a “victim” of government. Cap and trade is all about business, carbon tax is money for the government. It is like they have a hole in their head that reality rushes into, and right out of, without leaving any education.
To be “fair and balanced” the lefties I’ve communicated with cannot fathom that their side is mostly business interests too, that have their own, not the people’s, best interest at heart. Many of them are cultic too. The Obama-worship, much of which is worship of themselves projected onto the president, shuts down any critical discussion about something the president supports. Strange times.
Delicious. Hopefully all the bureaucratic paraphernalia will die a death another day.
“Scheme” has a negative denotation only as a verb. The noun is positive. The connotative usage of language, to put it very politely, is killing it!
In North America “scheme”, the noun, has a negative denotation. At least in my parts! Not so in Australia apparently.
About my comments about cap and trade being misnamed a “carbon tax”, I’ll correct that to being misnamed a “tax.” Darn, these crafty PR wordsmiths got me saying “carbon” rather than “carbon dioxide” as a custom almost!
This appears to be a master stroke by big Clive: No Carbon Tax, no effective ETS, no Direct Action Scheme, and all done with the endorsement of Big Al.
I don’t think most of the punters have figured it out yet!
Didn’t Hitler make a pact with Stalin?
@Thingadonta – Molotov Ribbentrop Pact
Ah I feel a new cartoon by Josh, A gleeful Clive Palmer leading his new al gore headed PUP onto the media alter of public opinion. I’m sure Clive would treasure the original image in his rapidly growing selfie collection! A nice dog chain and studded collar would complete the image.
can u imagine how dazed & confsued our CAGW academics/MSM in australia are of late. keep in mind, they – one and all – detest the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott….and they love – one and all – the US President and former VP:
first, following Abbott’s visit to the White House earlier this month, we had:
Barack Obama has offered an olive branch to Prime Minister Tony Abbott on climate change, conceding that he won a mandate in 2013 to get rid of the carbon tax
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/abbott-obama-in-frank-climate-talks-20140613-3a160.html
then, from Gore, yesterday, via Bloomberg:
The former vice president had convinced Palmer to consider Abbott’s laws and that the world needed to work together to combat climate change, the lower-house lawmaker said today.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-25/palmer-to-support-abbott-s-australia-carbon-price-repeal.html
our MSM, which gladly picks up Bloomberg reports that suit the CAGW agenda, have taken no notice of Gore’s advice to Palmer! u have to laugh.
for the benefit of non-australians, Clive Palmer is not the only eccentric (?) entering the Senate next month. perhaps even more incomprehensible, policy-wise, than Clive, is Ricky Muir of the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party, who is now making his vote to repeal the carbon tax conditional on getting something in return.
CLIVE Palmer’s alliance with incoming Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party senator Ricky Muir may unravel on the very first vote of the new Senate after July 1.
The Australian understands that Mr Muir plans to vote against the carbon tax repeal bills unless the Abbott government supports the automotive transformation scheme…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/ricky-muir-link-to-pup-strains-on-repeal-bill/story-e6frg6xf-1226968255774
i would have thought motorists stand to suffer more than non-motorists from the many consequences of such a tax, not to mention how such a tax impacts on distribution (trucks, other vehicles) which then increases the cost of EVERYTHING, but Ricky is apparently considering throwing his own spanner in the works. sigh.
Al Gore has heavily invested in Green Energy, and anyone who remembers the ETS was scrapped by Kevin Rudd. The carbon tax was supposed to be the first stage of introducing a Emissions Trading Scheme, and without a carbon tax, it can’t happen. He spoke with forked tongue with Gore, and loves the media limelight. He would like the clean energy commission to remain or rather the bank, and of course Gore was interested in keeping that! Anyway the carbon tax repeal passed the lower house as well as the mining tax, now it is up to the senate to approve it with Clive Palmers Pups agreeing. As far as the direct action policy, I don’t think that will happen either.
Re: Follow the Money, June 26, 2014 at 6:08 pm
Does that mean that the phrase “colour* scheme” might be translated as some kind of racist plot! Are schematic diagrams and schemas also unheard of in the US? 😉
Yeah I agree, calling CO2 carbon, is like calling water rocket fuel (It does fuel the Space Shuttle).
Perhaps the old saying about diamonds should be altered to “Carbon is a girls best friend” given that diamond is just an allotrope (One physical form) of the element! 😉
* Color in North America
I cant stop smiling. and for once agree with Clive. kill the CT and forget about the silly salve for the greens. Easy to get the state forestry departments to ship seedlings to the right people at the right time and place and they can do it themselves, no need to blow $2.8B!! $200m ought to do it..
‘It is bad that Palmer will keep the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and (probably) the Climate Change Authority, ‘
They can be merged and starved of funds.
Eugene WR Gallun says:
June 26, 2014 at 8:20 am
THE POLITICS OF IT
Maybe Palmer has a green heart.
Ah . A lettuce.
BTW The Australian Tax Office does not look kindly on ‘schemes’
@RogerKnight
At least the Clean Energy Finance Corporation in now under the control of the conservatives. I have no more faith that the conservatives can pick winners in business than the lefties, but at least it’s no longer a slush fund bribe for the Greens and their mates, to get them to support the previous left wing government.
As to the comment (elsewhere) that coal-baron Clive might have a “green heart”, well – when I see any evidence that Clive is interested in anything other than Clive’s interests, then I’ll listen to him. The delightful irony is that this person is probably going to be pivotal in dismantling Australia’s climate change policies.
My favourite story about the nature of the world we live in is in regards to Australia’s most remote territory – the Heard & Macdouglas Islands, which are Volcanic. About 7 years ago one erupted and totally destroyed everything on the island – there was nothing but molten rock and ash over the entire island – it was effectively killed off by nature herself. 5 years later the island has completely regrown, is covered with vegetation and once again home to a myriad of wildlife. Nature saved herself as well. Lessons can be learnt from that.
Don’t come to Hervey Bay thanks Al. With yr icey touch embracing Australia’s southern states, should you decide to come to Qld there’s a good chance you’ll strand our our winter visitors incl our famous whale Migaloo.
On that note, ive just eaten an absolutely delicious Bombay Fish Curry dinner using a freshly caught Golden Trevally. Perfect fish for that dish & if the bay freezes over then that tropical fish will be lost to our waters.
Yes, another possible climate change refugee.
Why would Al Gore want a carbon tax anyway? All it would do is raise the cost of energy and reduce co2 emissions somewhat. But an ETS – that’s another matter. Shed loads of bucks to be made out of that .
Eugene WR Gallun says:
June 26, 2014 at 8:20 am
THE POLITICS OF IT
At first to make sense out of this is hard — until you realize something that everyone already knows — Palmer is a coal baron.
With that “stigma” everything he does environment-wise is already perceived by the left as being done for personal financial reasons. When he supports Abbott, environmentalists will use him to smear Abbott’s policies. He will be pinned up as the poster boy for a government run by big business for the benefit of big business.
But suddenly Al Gore is on stage with Palmer. Huh? Maybe Palmer is a coal baron with a green conscious. Maybe Palmer has a green heart.
Suddenly any poster of Palmer will have Al gore standing beside him. Palmer is now the “green coal baron” endorsed by Al Gore himself. Palmer can’t be used to smear Abbott’s policies.
A major arrow in the green quiver has just been removed. Abbott can’t be stigmatized by his association with the coal baron Palmer because Al Gore himself endorses Palmer.
The best thing about this is that Al Gore comes off looking like a fool. Palmer used Al Gore to cover both his and Abbott’s ass.
Eugene WR Gallun
Great insight – and wonderfully funny!
What is Gore doing in Australia? He should be home, looking on his internet for evidence of the moon landings or downloading photos of the union label on a hanging chad. While Gore luxuriates down under, we’re in real danger of being devastated by a counterrotating category 7 hurricane. My newly designed Goreometer™ shows 23 inches of mercury, an all time record low. Please Al, come home and save us from ourselves.
Mr Clive Palmer was a servant of Queensland Joh who “daily fed the chooks”, that is, the media. This is a PR stunt. Abbott gets his “Carbon Tax” abolished/ Clive gets the rid of his “denier” label, therefore would make him get stacks of votes when the DD comes.
Hehe
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/how_did_palmer_fool_so_many_journalists_while_saving_himself_a_motza/
Google – Palmer’s big hoax creates a climate of uncertainty – to read the paywalled “The Australian” article.
Tanya better mention that those volcanic islands are not on the mainland, they are in Australian antarctic territory. I don’t know if there are any pics of Herd island?
“bushbunny says:
June 27, 2014 at 9:34 pm”
You may have already seen this;
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/three-new-volcanoes-found-in-victorias-southwest-20140626-zsmr7.html
Brilliant Palmer has completely fooled all of them and basiocally destroyed the whole AGW in Australia foreever we hope. What a laugh! It the biggest S#### that Gore ever got.
“Eliza says:
June 28, 2014 at 5:32 am”
I disagree simply BECAUSE of his position. He “wants” and ETS…because he will make more money. This man, no disrespect in terms of “making money out of dirt “he” dug out of the land”, he can can make more on keeping it there! Aussie Al Gore anyone?
Time will tell.I reckon he’s misled all of them (the warmists) hahahaha
Patrick I knew about these, even in Aboriginal dream time stories there is a reflection on an eruption in SW Australia. They are considered hot spots nowadays. But one last eruption was 5,000 years ago, so it is not considered extinct as yet. Let’s hope it don’t blow again.