Letter to the Editor
Watts Up With That?
11th March 2012
The Australian government’s plan to sell their un-saleable carbon tax has hit a snag – their pollsters have discovered that the word ”carbon” provokes anger in the electorate.
This is no surprise. Most decent people hate liars and the carbon tax campaign has been mired in lies from the start.
The first big lie was from Penny Wong who described carbon dioxide as a “pollutant”. But people soon learned that this colourless, non-toxic, natural atmospheric gas is the essential source of food for all life on earth.
The second big lie was graphic – government propaganda pictured a “dirty” coal power station belching black pollution. Three lies in one here – the power station pictured is closed, it is in England, and all carbon dioxide it ever released was invisible.
Their next mistake was to use paid academics to spread scare forecasts of searing heat and never ending drought, all caused by the demon carbon dioxide. The reality has been no global warming for twelve years, heavy snows in the Northern Hemisphere and heavy rains in Australia.
The fourth big lie was from the leader of the government, Julia Gillard: “There will be no carbon tax under any government I lead”.
No amount of weasel words from government propagandists and apologists will erase our memory of these four big lies about carbon.
Their negative image problem is profound: Whenever the Australian people hear “Carbon” they think “Lies.”
Viv Forbes,
forbes@carbon-sense.com
I am happy for my email address to be published.
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Richard Hill says:
Commenters on WUWT consistently miss the point. WUWT commenters seem to think that politicians should ignore the advice of the peak scientific bodies and drop action against CO2.
****
Hi, Richard, do you know who Phil Jones is? He’s a “peak scientist” at the UEA and the CRU.
Here’s a recent quote from him, “There has been no (statistically significant) global warming since 1995.”
CO2 has increased in the the last 15 years, no?
Where’s the correlation?
What point am I missing?
Richard Hill wrote (in part);
“It is a brave politician who goes against the AGU, the AMS, the APS, the NAS , the Royal Society,,,, and, in Australia, the CSIRO.”
Yes indeed, and back around 1902 all of those AUGUST scientific bodies (or the equivalent at that time) were quite certain that powered flight through the air was IMPOSSIBLE. A certain pair of brothers (Orville and Wilbur, if I remember correctly) seemed to ignore those AUGUST scientific bodies, and made it happen anyway. Good thing too, since without their discovery how the H—L would all the climate scientists FLY to Cancun and discuss how to limit everybody else’s energy consumption ???
Cheers, Kevin.
When things get too hot in Australia, as when you’re knee deep in CARBON tax, take a look and venture up here to the northern latitudes, hard working folks are welcome any time.
“Richard Hill says:
March 10, 2012 at 7:19 pm”
And in Australia, Gillards climate change adviser is Ross “Gold Mine” Garnout. He’s an economist. He not only does he not understand economics too well, he understand science even less.
People of the north are practical for a reason and it’s not because they’re out to win a popularity contest. The changing seasons have a way of making important things clear.
Decimate [verb transitive]:
To kill one in ten of a population as encouragement to perform better. See more at “The torture will continue until morale improves”.
I don’t know if this is good or bad, but Julia Gillard has replaced Mick Dundee as the face of Oz. Bad hair and all.
@Steve from Rockwood
“I suppose pointing out the fact that she was voted into power doesn’t help.”
Several commentators have pointed out that she did not get enough votes to form government without a cobbled-together alliance but what they have not pointed out was that she was elected AFTER making the no-tax promise.
We will never know how many were duped by that promise but the rest of us will never let them forget how they were fooled.
cementafriend says:
March 10, 2012 at 4:30 pm
“To the farmers and older people who have experienced cycles of weather, statements about the beliefs of scientists on AGW just destroys the reputation of all science.”
I’ll second that. See Moncton’s closing comment at Union College – the CAGWers are doing more than just damage to climate science – they are doing damage to the credibility of science in general, which is a pillar of western society. As soon as scientists thought it was OK to also be activists, the game was lost & the credibility of science has been in decline ever since.
dp says:
March 10, 2012 at 8:13 pm
Decimate [verb transitive]:
To kill one in ten of a population as encouragement to perform better. See more at “The torture will continue until morale improves”….
________________________________________
Is that a recommendation of how we should bring our politicians back under control???
michael hart says:
March 10, 2012 at 6:20 pm
“Australia is, I believe, the world’s largest exporter of coal. So does the Australian carbon tax also apply to the coal that they sell to other nations?”
No it doesn’t and that is the rub isn’t it? – and makes it even more nonsensical especially when China proposes to introduce a token carbon tax of about $A1.55 per tonne by 2015, USA has zero and India has 50 rupees (less than $1 per tonne on coal only – including imported I think).
There is no doubt that Greg Combet, the Minister of Climate Change has jumped the gun by a mile and made a major misjudgement at introducing a tax of $A23/ tonne starting 01 July 2012 and looked the image of Neville Chamberlain when he arrived back from Durban waving a piece of white paper above his head saying “Carbon tax in our time.”
With Carbon prices plummeting in Europe and European leaders more concerned about whether countries like Greece, Italy and Spain will be able to trade ANYTHING let alone carbon credits I suspect if Gillard goes to an election with $23/tonne she will be slaughtered unless she has not decimated Australia’s manufacturing industry first.
Problem is she has already made promises of big compensation packages to low income earners in a gigantic money go around which in itself is crazy logic if she is trying to change public behaviour so this would now be hard to abandon. She has also stated the government will return a surplus budget by 2013 and this will rely on all the taxes she can hit big business with.
So, it will be interesting as to what way she jumps. My guess is that she will have no alternative but to lower the carbon price and she will dream up some reasons as to why it was so. Problem for her is people stopped believing anything she says a long time ago.
“Problem for her is people stopped believing anything she says a long time ago.”
Yep, If Gillard is talking, there is a pretty darn good chance that she is lying, or totally off the question she was asked. And I HATE being lied to !!!!!!
An evil, despiteful, deceitful woman.. and all those in the Labor party who have backed her are no better.
I for one will never vote Labor again while any one of the current members are in the party.
Steve from Rockwood,
That’s just it. She wasn’t voted in, she didn’t get a majority. She is doing the CO2 tax because the Green Party requires it for their vote of support.
Take a look at the information document sent to householders her in Australia
http://www.cleanenergyfuture.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/What_a_carbon_price_means_to_you.pdf
See page 5
It tries to confuse people – Nowhere does it actually link fossil fuels to CO2 to the global temperature rise.
It also interchanges CO2 with Pollution (Of course we all want to reduce pollution)
It also states the Australia emitts the most CO2 per population (Not true)
It even states that “Australia generates more pollution per person than any other developed country”
This is all BS to make Joe Public feel guilty.
WRT coal production and export. Some Green Groups like to make us feel even more guilty by somehow including the energy (coal) we export into our CO2 emmissions calculations. This is double counting. Say if Australia exports coal to China and Cihna use it to generate electricity, you can only count the emmissions to China or Australia NOT both.
Reblogged this on contrary2belief and commented:
Not much to add, other than theses are just the lip of the lie-berg.
Australia is a Dictatorship run by a clique labor party. The government controls everything there There are police everywhere watching you, signs telling what you can’t do everywhere. Police can arrest you for any reason on the street. You can’t even light a barbeque in your own house by law because the smoke may bother neighbors.The statement above “The level of scientific ignorance in Australia is simply staggering.” is also very true. The level of education especially in maths and science in primary schools is third world status that is why the people are quite ignorant about basic sciences.
Anthony Watts says – Article
The second big lie was graphic – government propaganda pictured a “dirty” coal power station belching black pollution. Three lies in one here – the power station pictured is closed, it is in England, and all carbon dioxide it ever released was invisible.
Make that Four – at least 3 and probably 4 of those supposed belchers are Natural Draft cooling towers. Yes they are emitting GHG’s, but it is condensed water vapor, you know the most dominant one. See –
http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com/the-nuclear-cooling-tower.html for a very good description.
As stated there – “Print and TV journalists maintained that there was nothing remarkable-looking about a nuclear power plant, except for the cooling tower. Thus, they would continue to use the image for all their reports. As for the belief that the reactor was inside the tower, nearly all media bosses said it was not their job to tell the public they are wrong about something. Their job was to transmit information, not educate.”
Steve from Rockwood. Others have noted that your belief “she was voted into power” isn’t entirely accurate. Her party got 50.1% of the vote while the main opposition party got 49.9%. Ms Gillard had to combine with the Greens and get the support of two Independent members of parliament to form government. It was before voting occurred that Ms Gillard said “there will be no carbon tax in a government I lead” but after stitching up deals to get the necessary numbers to form government she said there will be a carbon tax. It is a reasonable question, asked repeatedly by the opposition, if she had said before voting occurred “there will be a carbon tax in a government I lead” the result would have been the same
To Robert of Ottawa. The greenies have only one member in the Government chamber which is the House of Representatives. Gillard was actually blackmailed by the greenies in the senate. That is the ONLY reason she changed her mind on the CO2 tax AFTER the 2010 election. One can only guess what those greenies threatened. Did they threaten to paralyze the Government by blocking ALL legislation in the Senate? A stronger Prime Minister would have called their bluff and stuck to his/her guns. It is Gillard’s fundamental weakness of character that has put Australia in its present mess. The independents who supported Gillard in her quest to remain PM didn’t instigate the CO2 policy; they just jumped on the green band wagon when they were big-noting themselves after the election. They hate the conservative parties, (that actually nurtured their political careers), so much that they would have sided with Gillard regardless of the CO2 tax. Anyway, from what I recall the independents sided with Gillard mainly because of her policy to build the National Broadband Network, which, incidentally, is progressing at snail’s pace in marginal electorates, and which will cost much more than we were lead to believe. The upshot of all that is that the gutless, spineless, mendacious PM of Australia ALLOWS a small cabal of green senators to dictate government policy in Australia. She took the easy way out by giving us the C02 tax and she, and sadly, the party I used to vote for, will pay dearly next year.
Bravo! Kev-in-UK
I’m all for forcing serious change to the political system to stop these thieves.
Any suggestions?
“Pour encourages les autres” the French were pretty good at that too during the first world war.
Thank Voltaire for part of the phrase in Candide. In fact, almost all combatants, including the Canadians, shot their own soldiers, after a proper trial, of course.
I being an Australian of advanced years have suffered two governments of this ilk. Idealogicaly driven fools, that believe that what ever it takes to achieve their goals is OK. Lying cheating fraud and black mail apparently works for them, almost all in government are union apparachiks that have never had a real job.
The last mob that was almost this bad was in the 70ties and they were sacked by our governor general, the Queens representative, some what like having an ombudsman overlooking the government and signing off on legislation.
This time we are in a pickle, the governor general was appointed by this government and is a mother in law of one of the prominent politicians, thus we have an incestuos relationship with the government and no matter how crazy it gets we have no redress.
Thus we wait for an election that will not be a decimation, it will be close to an elimination.
I predict the current government will lose the next election so badly it will be an embarassment.
The carbon tax will cause a significant of labor supporters to vote against it.
Australia could be free of this monstrosity in a few short years – August 2103 is not that far away and the hatred of this broken pledge will not fade.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUr8mWNJ_0U&w=405&h=320]
I prefer this Gillard video…
And do their mates a favor. One Independent is great pals with a solar company. Great mates.
Penny Wong said ‘the planet is cooling’ during the last election night. She also said without carbon tax, the budget will not get into surplus. I reckon she is the only honest one in the government.
There is an argument which states we should preserve Cuba the way it is now to remind future generations why communism/socialiasm doesn’t work.
Likewise, we should perhaps preserve Australia’s carbon tax to remind future generations why punitive carbon taxes don’t work.
Economic misery, censorship, deceit and political ineptitude are the common factors here, so Australia think of your imminent carbon tax as being for the global good in showing the rest of us what not to do, likewise thank you Fidel Castro.