Australian Government To Axe $5 Billion Of Climate Funding – Lydia Bradbury, Liberty Voice
The funding for all government programs related to climate change is set to shrink at an alarming rate, going from $5.75 billion this year to a scant $500 million in the next four years.
The fallout from the new government’s budget is still being seen in Australia, but it is already obvious that climate change is a loser when it comes to funding. Prime Minister Tony Abbott has long been skeptical of global warming and the science behind it, but with his new-found legislative power it seems as though he is looking at making that viewpoint into law. According to critics, there is no longer even the pretense of working towards limiting the effects of climate change as the government works to protect the interests of fossil fuel producers and businesses. Whether or not there is a real connection between big business interest and the new budget, Abbott and his cabinet have taken the axe to climate change research and are poised to fundamentally damage all scientific research in Australia in the process.
The funding for all government programs related to climate change is set to shrink at an alarming rate, going from $5.75 billion this year to a scant $500 million in the next four years. Additionally, the Emissions Reduction Fund which is meant to help lower greenhouse gas emissions in Australia is going to be reduced to only $1.14 billion. This was devastating news after Environment Minister Greg Hunt had gone on record promising to provide $2.55 billion to fund the program. Nevertheless, it is not only climate change programs that are feeling the pinch of the Abbott budget.
The Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Australia’s national science agency, will have $111 million worth of funding slashed over the next four years, which will affect an uncertain number of programs and a loss of tenth of the CSIRO workforce.
The outlook is bleak from the standpoint of scientists and researchers in Australia, many of whom will probably leave the country in order to find work elsewhere.
Read the entire story here: http://guardianlv.com/2014/05/climate-change-research-axed-in-australia/
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Steven Mosher says:
Unless of course, one believes that bought-and-paid-for “science” is a bad thing. Clearly, Mosher does not. Telling, that.
Leave it to Steven Mosher to openly advocate for fundamental immorality, so long as it preserves the pie from which his piece is cut.
jimi dalek:
and who do you think is going to produce the wealth that is stolen to provide subsidies?
sorry for the loaded question- i’m giving you the benefit of the doubt, though i don’t know if that’s merited.
Nothing like complete collapse of a government gravy train in one nation to focus the attention of the principals in other nations.
Send them to the U.K. on a free trip,
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/cocaine-use-in-britain-so-high-it-has-contaminated-our-drinking-water-report-shows-9350477.html
The Queen and Co. do not drink tap water,I allways wondered why.
Stephen Richards says: May 18, 2014 at 1:26 pm
Wood overtones no doubt.
Oak or cherry? 🙂
Ode to Nick Stokes and Steven Mosher:
“Something had happened, a thing which years ago had been the eagerest hope of many, many good citizens of the town. And now it came at last: George Amberson Minafer had got his comeuppance. He’d got it three times filled and running over. But those who had longed for it were not there to see it. And they never knew it, those who were still living had forgotten all about it, and all about him.” – Orson Welles (opening narrative in the movie “The Magnificent Ambersons” of 1942)
http://youtu.be/9DFpfNFvnfM
The climate problem has just been solved.
…at least in Australia.
To put that into perspective, 5.7 Billion Australian dollars, that is:
1. Equal to South Africa’s annual defence budget
2. Nearly three times South Africa’s annual Science and Tech budget combined!
3. Half South Africa’s annual Police and Public Safety budget.
It sure is a hell of a lot of money to spend on hot air.
Cost of climate science to the sheep – billions
Cost of climate “science” to Science – unknown, untold, and unforgivable.
Mosh> “then fund them to support sceptical findings”
===
I guess…as long as they swing boths ways, depending on where the money is
Mosher
Can you tell me why I should pay one penny of my taxpayer pounds for any climate science?
Seriously?
Paul Homewood says:
May 18, 2014 at 11:31 am
On a slightly more serious note (hick!).
I gather the US climate research program costs $2.5 bn /year. I gather, in the funny money you old colonials use, this would be about half the Aussie figure of AS$5.75 bn.
—————————————————————————————–
Crikey Paul you’re not all that well informed are you. 🙂
We dropped the “funny money” that we inherited from the colonial British (Pounds, shillings and pence based on 12 divisions) more than 50 years ago and changed to dollars that uses the decimal system.
Currently US$2.5 billion equates to AUS$2.67 billion. Last year we were at parity.
Liberal Skeptic says: May 18, 2014 at 11:48 am
“5 Billion Dollars is an insanely large budget for a country the size of Australia to put into just one area of science.”
The Australian Government has never spent 5 billion on climate research. Its total budget for CSIRO – all of its science science – is about $1 billion/year (and dropping).
The writer was referring to “The funding for all government programs related to climate change”. But even for that, I’m not sure that Lynda Bradbury of Liberty Voice is authoritative.
Steven Mosher says:
May 18, 2014 at 1:23 pm
It would be far better to keep the budget intact and then fund better science.
For example: fund better observation networks. Fund updating the proxies. Fund all the science that skeptics say we need..
In short, If one believes that the government buys science and buys the results it wants,
and if one believes that scientists are only in it for the gold, then fund them to support sceptical
findings.
+++++++++++++++
I think Sceptics do not like the idea that taxes are used for political reasons. Climate science is a big fat dirty tax payer funded waste of money. So, no, I think you have it wrong. Why do you want other people’s money being spent to argue political agendas? Just turn off the spigot… sooner rather than later.
gnomish May 18, 2014 at 2:22 pm,
gnomish – I am simply trying to get some accuracy into these comments. Why does no-one ever check anything? The idea that Australia spends $5billion on climate research is an obvious nonsense. I was pointing out that most of that figure is money for ARENA (look it up) for industrial projects (and subsidies) for alternative energy sources. Whether the subsidies are justified or not is a separate question, but IMO if these companies cannot make a profit without subsidy, then they should not be in business. Only a tiny fraction of that figure is spent on university based research. There will be cuts of several hundred staff at CSIRO, but that is over all sciences.
I’m so glad Richard Toll is enjoying this thread, a rock star, an economist who didn’t *fold*, like Lomborg very much did.
There is science and then there’s crime. We are not dealing with debate.
Since the “science is settled”, why not put the funds into another field where the science is NOT settled?
Those who most stoically *defend* fraud, in microscopic detail, are those who, unlike laymen or glad-handed policy makers, are *most* aware of the core corruption involved in that fraud.
Just curious!
Could somebody point to any perceivable and real actual tangible on ground benefits that climate science, both alarmist advocacy and skeptical has actually provided to mankind over it’s 30 years of existence?
Sure, we might know quite a lot more of the forces that drive the climate, both local, regional and global and even climate related satellite technology advances but in actual on ground benefits to people and governments and nations, I can’t think of any single real benefit where climate science has advanced the practical on ground interests of mankind.
Climate science in it’s entirety, in practical benefits to mankind has been almost entirely detrimental and negative to mankind’s advancement in nearly every sphere it has touched.
Guess I should qualify that last bit as the carpet baggers of the so called but un-renewable tax payer mining wind and solar energy industry and the usual green thuggery have benefitted immensely at everybody else’s expense.
Climate science is distinct from meteorology which has advanced by quite significant amounts over the same period.
“Next to the crime of oppressing the people, the worst crime is to accept oppression.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
“A fool always finds a greater fool to admire him.” – Nicolas Boileau
The main thing that worries me about this news is that Australia has been spending $5.75B per year on global warming contracts. Yikes! Scale that up to other countries, and no wonder the warmists are so religiously passionate about their assertions.
@richard Tol sadly those charlatans have already sent their scout and chief fantasist, Lewandowsky ahead to infiltrate the UK’s University of Bristol.
The US and Obama should follow
Looks like Lewandowski got out while the getting was good!
Defund the *whole* charade, upside down toilets in art museums included.
Since when did avid genocide and a potty fetish merit admiration or equal footing, instead of a firing squad?