Many Australians are celebrating the win of Tony Abbott and his coalition government as a vote by the populace against the much hated Carbon Tax ramrodded by former prime minister Julia Gillard.
David Elder of Australia, commenting on this event at WUWT, condensed what many of us feel about global warming and environmentalism into a single sentence.
A great victory over the radical green extreme. We here in Oz have found WUWT invaluable in this cause. There has got to be a better way of stewardship for the planet than by scaring the hell out of everyone.
Indeed.
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Why is my post earlier today stuck in moderation?
While I am happy that Abbott won, we have to remember that he is a politician. I have strong suspicions that many in the Abbott camp are sceptics so I would expect the Carbon Tax to go and feet being seriously dragged on a replacement.
The election wasn’t a sceptic win, we simply did what a democratic nation can do and we dumped a completely useless government.
A final note. In the first paragraph Prime Minister should be capitalised. Respect for the Office if not the person, that sort of thing.
What scares me is that 30% of the population still voted Labor. If they still vote for a party that financially rapes their children and grand children what hope is there?
Cool term!
jim heath says:
September 8, 2013 at 4:27 am
What scares me is that 30% of the population still voted Labor. If they still vote for a party that financially rapes their children and grand children what hope is there?
They are not alone in voting for incompetence. Voire – Cameron, Hollande, Obama, Merkel, Clegg, Salmond, etc. Need I continue? 97% of the world’s population are thick as two short planks.
David Chappell says:
September 8, 2013 at 1:44 am
Caution before you all cheer too loud. Abbot is first and foremost a politician and a politician is someone whose electoral promises rarely translate into deeds. Remember Obama (just one amongst many)?
You clearly did not listen carefully to Hussein Obama. At no time during either of his campaigns did he define any policies. It was all retoric and anti-business pro unemployment.
Congratulations too, for Jo Nova and Anthony Watts!
May we awaken and follow the same, sane, brave, path that OZ has shown.
Greg says:
September 8, 2013 at 1:38 am
Abbot said carbon tax abolition would be this first act as PM. Let’s see how gets that through a Senate that he does not have fully on his side before jumping with joy.
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If the Senate obstructs him and if he is serious he will do what Harper did for the long gun registry. Simply defund the program and let it die a slow death. The Senate (if their powers are similar to Canada’s) can’t create or obstruct money bills. Even if a bill to eliminate the tax gets held up the Government could simply refuse to collect it through regulation.
The people of the U.S. owe a debt of gratitude to the Aussies.
Thank you.
I wonder if the Governments of BC, Ontario and Quebec are taking note?
The current liberal Prime Minister of the Netherlands called wind power “a toy of the Green Party” and told the electorate we had to stop wasting our money on this “nonsense”. The first contract he signed when arrived in office was a 35 billion euro investment program in off shore wind farms.
Let’s see how Abbott is going to handle the carbon tax and the “water tight, irreverible” legal contracting performed by the former government before people jump a hole in the air.
I’m a skeptic.
They could also simply make the tax rate 0% tomorrow until the law can be revoked.
The only election promise – “jam tomorrow.”
(Still waiting for Obama to close Guantanamo Bay.)
The problem with government intervention in the economy is that changes in government lead to changes in signals that the government gives to business. If these changes occur ever 4 years or so, businesses will not invest in anything that is subject to government control, which is quite a lot of areas. For example, alternative fuels. In the US, the misdirection and mixed signals given by the Federal Government on alternative energy has stymied investment. A business cannot count on revenue from support programs as Congress may take the support away at any time. This happened to biodiesel when Congress failed to renew the excise tax credit for biodiesel production. Many marginal producers went under. If they had a viable produce produced at an affordable price, there would be no need for government support programs. But that is not the case. If there is going to be any progress towards meeting the RFS2 mandates requiring production of 36B gal/year of total biomass derived fuel, fuel production processes will have to be able to compete with conventional fuel on cost and performance. Neither are easy, especially for ethanol. And look at how close the industry is to meeting RFS2 goals. They have essentially no commercial Cellulosic Ethanol production when the mandate already is supposed to be at over a billion gallons a year. Last year they produced something like 3 million gallons, and that was from pilot plants that are not commercial activities.
The attempt to produce “Drop-In Hydrocarbon Fuel” is probably the only way to get around the debits of oxygenated biofuels (biodiesel and ethanol), but converting a solid resource containing >50% oxygen into a liquid hydrocarbon fuel is not trivial and costs a lot of money in capital equipment and feedstock. Using Gasification and Fischer-Tropsch conversion, drop in diesel and jet fuel of high quality can be made from any carbon containing resource. But these plants are not cheap to build. They can use NG, Coal, Pet Coke, very heavy crude oil, or any other resource with carbon energy content. But no one will build these plants if Government regulations change day to day. This will be a challenge for Australia that could use its coal resource to be energy independent. Will the current government provide a stable regulatory environment upon which to build an energy infrastructure that will allow economic growth and prosperity. It can, but the country must be committed to it and never again try to use environmental regulations (e.g., GHG regulations) to control energy production.
First off I am not Australian, but it seems to me a Prime Minister who lays out what he plans to do in plain talk is a good leader. If this leader also happens to have good ideas its a win win. I am hoping that the Honorable Mr. Abbott succeeds in his efforts to prove who he says he is. Good luck sir!!
“Dr. Bob says:
September 8, 2013 at 6:39 am”
Australia already can be energy independent, right now! LNG is being sold and shipped offshore at ridiculous prices. And we have ~500 years of known coal reserves…
Here’s what Abbott should do. Convene a “science court” (google for papers describing its details) consisting of non-climate scientists in related disciplines who can understand climate science papers. Divide the court into several sub-courts dealing with different aspects of the topic. Invite warmists and contrarians to make their case to each sub-court, and to cross-examine each other. Then each sub-court would sum up its findings, ala the IPCC’s reports.
Or something less formal could be done, such as debates before an audience of scientists, with votes before and after the debates as to how much of a threat AGW is.
Or there could be long-running legislative hearings to which scientists on both sides were invited to give testimony.
Incredibly, governments have shirked their duty to investigate and “vet” warmist claims using these traditional investigatory tools. So this is a great opportunity for Australia to pioneer and “put itself on the map” scientifically and politically.
Admad says:
September 8, 2013 at 3:35 am
Hmm. Listened to BBC radio news this morning and MOST SURPRISED that there was ABSOLUTELY NO MENTION of this. Can’t quite understand why not (sarc off, or in the case of the BBC, naff off!)
======
this am the ABC new pet labor fella :First Dog on the moon”s rant was ripper,
so prolabor its…embarrasing
of course the entire ABC science leaning is led by one R williams it would appear and he?? is such a watermelon fawning over any prowarmist he can get onto the show and pretty much barring ANY and ALL sceptical views for the last few years.. dissing Ian Plimer who he handed TWO Eureka science awards to a tad earlier:-) short memory that lad.
a LOT of the abc is in for a bit of a shakeup I reckon
and not before time!
Abbot was once heard to say Climate change is a load of Bullshit.
very truthful our Tony:-)
one hell of a lot of relieved and happy folks in Aus today.
“Skeptical Science Syndrome” does seem to be on the wan. Looks like this election is a clear result of this.
I wonder what stance they will take when CO2 is found NOT to cause any appreciable warming of the planet? What can they ban next to still remain in control?
“Baa Humbug says:
September 8, 2013 at 4:28 am”
Lets put the “asylum seeker” and (So called) “illegal immigrant” entry to Australia to rest. 99% of all migrant entry, to Aus, is legal and at borders at airports.
If by ‘stewardship’ one basically means government action, then scaring strategies are the rule rather than the exception.
If by ‘stewardship’ one means basically wanting to live in a relatively healthy place, that is nice. That is a self-correcting, sensible and personal motivation that is very effective.
John
Mr Abbot must get rid of the 20% renewable energy target legislated by the previous Liberal government under John Howard. Only then will we have cheap energy.
Link: http://jennifermarohasy.com/2013/09/remembering-appalling-policies-introduced-by-previous-coalition-governments-part-1/
Science institutions such as the CSIRO are riddled with cagw faithful whose job depends on the continuation of the thermogeddon gravy train.
Regards, Pete
Hopefully all the people of Oz realize that REGARDLESS of what is happening on earth, making changes in their country will never ever affect anything global as far as CO2 or weather. Even if they had a contribution, it would be a pimple on an elephants ass quite literally.
Now they can lead the way regarding climate science and its relation to politics.