Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Australia’s Federal left wing opposition leader Bill Shorten, who has repeatedly demanded far more ambitious greenhouse gas cuts than the current Australian government, has just been busted on video sending a mobile text message, while driving a SUV.
According to the Australian ABC;
Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has been fined $455 and has lost four demerit points after he was caught using his mobile phone while driving in Melbourne.
A video, obtained by News Corp, showed Mr Shorten driving along Kings Way in August this year with his phone in hand.
Today he made a public apology for the incident.
“Like most drivers, I always try to do the right thing,” he said.
“But there’s no doubt that using your phone while driving is the wrong thing to do — there’s no excuse for it.
“I shouldn’t have done it and won’t do it again.”
Mr Shorten told reporters he had contacted Victorian Police about the vision and would accept any fine that is issued.
Read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-11/shorten-apologises-for-using-mobile-phone-while-driving/7020104
Lets be charitable – as a politician of the green persuasion, Bill Shorten’s SMS message was undoubtably a vital part of his campaign to save the planet from global warming. No doubt Shorten was driving a SUV rather than riding his bicycle, because his bicycle was in for repairs, due to wear and tear from overuse. Shorten is an example to us all!
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Bare faced wazzack, bet he runs the SUV 4×4 on bulls**t.
“I shouldn’t have done it and won’t do it again.”
Will be driving a bicycle, right?
Must be a slow news day Down Under.
I was kinda thinking the same thing.
It’s like, is that all you got ?
Calm before the storm, I reckon.
Clearly Bill Shorten needs a professional driver, so Bill can sit in the back and text or spill coffee on himself without endangering others on the road. This must be what progressive politicians mean by “creating green jobs”.
Fossil fuels were a nascent technology once upon a time, and that resulted in an enormous amount of job creation … why should their ultimately necessary replacements be any different?
Cost.
Fossil fuels replaced whale oil because it was cheaper. Renewables are not cheaper than fossil fuels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_oil
Fossil fuels are a finite resource. They will get expensive. Tell me why their eventual necessary replacements will not have the same job-creating benefits.
“Fossil fuels are a finite resource. They will get expensive.”
Oh dear, you’re a “Peak Oiler”, aren’t you?
Currently there are enough fossil fuels to last centuries, possibly millennia if we take into account the ocean bed methane and the new technology for in situ coal gasification.
Long before they come even close to running out, we will have energy production that is cheaper and more convenient than fossil fuels, and it won’t be unreliables such as bird mincers or solar panels.
I have to partially agree with brandon, The creation and subsequent demolition of these relatively inefficient, land consuming, ecology disturbing sources of power will be a source of employment, largely at the taxpayer’s or utility customer’s expense and all the while displacing efforts to curb things like plastics being dumped into the ocean and 3rd world water pollution remediation.
Brandon said:
“Fossil fuels were a nascent technology once upon a time”
…and completely ignores his own dependence on them.
Spoken like a true progressive, obsessed with a fantasy future which overrides the conception of present reality.
“Fossil fuels were a nascent technology once upon a time,”
Once upon a time, there were three bears.
My favorite regarding resource depletion – from Wikipedia:
Peak Copper
In 1924, noted geologist and copper-mining expert Ira Joralemon warned:
“… the age of electricity and of copper will be short. At the intense rate of production that must come, the copper supply of the world will last hardly a score of years. … Our civilization based on electrical power will dwindle and die.”
Fossil fuels are a finite resource. They will get expensive. Tell me why their eventual necessary replacements will not have the same job-creating benefits.
They might, eventually, when the technology is mature enough so they are viable replacements for existing solutions. That time is not now.
catweazle666,
In the sense that I recognize we’re depleting oil reserves faster than they replenish, sure.
And the main thing driving research into those technologies is … ?
Careful you don’t brand yourself as a “Peak Oiler” when you answer.
My vote is nuclear fission for baseload electrical power. Presently there is no equally mature replacement for liquid fuels.
Dawtgtomis,
Wrong.
Strike two.
John F. Hultquist,
If you can figure out how to recycle combusted oil, you’ll make a mint.
Eric Worrall,
Technology does not invent itself.
Research takes time and money.
Sorry about that Brandon,
I was too quick to jump to the conclusion that you were pushing the low density renewables.
I agree that the medium-term future of energy depends on bridging the gap between fossil fuels and viable fusion power. I see molten-salt nukes as the best candidate with an emphasis on using spent fuel from conventional nukes. If radiation standards were set more realistically, the fear factor would be reduced. I was exposed to considerable radiation from the pulverization and burning of Wyoming anthracite when I worked in the power industry. The company told us that we were in radiation higher than was allowed at the nuclear plant when we were close to the bunkers, mills and burners.
Dawtgtomis,
Appreciated. No worries.
I’m not against solar and wind where they make sense. Like you, I think nukes are the better medium-term baseload power option. While many of the proposed reactor designs look attractive, the latest production designs have performed quite well, and I think they’re still the best way to feasibly address the urgent calls for emissions reduction.
I really don’t want coal to be the mid-term answer for liquid fuels, but that’s probably what we’ll get unless one or several of the large petroleum companies are closer to bringing competitive biofuels to market than they’re letting on.
Well, as Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds says, “I’ll believe there is a climate change crisis when those who are telling there is a crisis ACT like there is a crisis”.
I don’t own a car, which in the Morality Shame Game apparently gives me a bazillion points on this bozo to start with…added to the fact that I don’t own a cell phone, I’m practically a Green Pope.
Bill Shorten – ex Trade Union big honcho – leads the Oz Labor Party and has recently announced –
Renewable energy: Labor puts forward 50 per cent target by 2030; pledges to introduce emissions trading scheme
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-22/labor-puts-forward-50-per-cent-renewable-energy-target-by-2030/6638880
Bill Shorten lays out bold climate aims as Malcolm Turnbull heads to Paris
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/nov/27/bill-shorten-lays-out-bold-climate-aims-as-malcolm-turnbull-heads-to-paris
All subjects relevant to this blog.
There will be more Labor people now thinking his days leading Labor are numbered but their recent rules changes means that a rank and file vote is needed before Bill could be sacked.
RH, In reference to your suggestion, Greenshirts< I think you somehow got an r in there by accident.
The first mobile phones to come out were called CAR PHONES . Now their called MOBILE PHONES implying their used on the go. So should all fines be passed on to your phone provider ? Should they be promoted as “stop and use phones” or “wait a while phones” or none car phones anything but Mobile would be appropriate. The technology here via GPS to switch of your phone automatically, if say you were traveling over 10 km or link them to the horn and the hazard lights as a warning to others that your on the phone or texting . There’s plenty of ways to address the problem electronically. But what about the revenue the fines bring in would be the cry. And here’s another , why don’t they put a chip in our car’s that read the chip in the speed sign , and our cars would not be capable of going over the speed limit. What no speeding fines, where’s all the money going to come from to pay for policing. I wounder how long it will be before you get a fine in the mail because you mobile was caught going over the speed limit.??
Here in Australia you can be fined for parking your car in a parking bay even after you paid for a ticket. Once, when my sister was here in Aus, I parked my car in a parking bay at a local beach, Coogee. I could not read the small print on the sign up the street only the large number, which was 3, meaning up to 3hrs parking with a ticket. I parked, in that case front of the car in the bay to the curb. I came back to find a ~AU$80 fine. At first I could not understand why I got the fine. The car was parked neatly in the bay, between the lines, not obstructing the road, other parked cars or the footpath/sidewalk. So I took a walk to the sign further up the road that had the number 3 on it and in small print it stated “Boot to curb” (Trunk). Technically, it made no difference.
Labor = hard physical work .
Liberal = Sit on your ASS and make money from the hard working .
Greens = Will sell their soul to the highest bidder, Greenbacks.
Australia equals nanny state I pity the people that live there I left years ago and will never go back even for a holiday LOL
Only 2 weeks ago, Australia’s official opposition Drongo crashed his mother’s car in to three parked cars when he said that he spilled hot coffee into his lap. It is far more likely that this was a previous texting episode, or perhaps he is as bad a driver as he is a politician.
” as bad a driver as he is a politician” – that’s hard to believe – he’s only the opposition leader because his predecessor changed the rules to make it impossible to remove himself (and then resigned after he lost the election).
I am also a little bewildered why a reputable scientific site like WUWT should choose to kick poor old Mr Fourteen Percent whilst he is down – even under Ridiculae – who poses less threat to the well being of Australians than the great white shark pictured on the post.
If you want to identify the real menace, it is in the darling of inner city latté drinking set, Lord of Waffle, accomplished pretender and narcissist, champion of the true global warming believers – newly appointed prime minister Malcolm Bligh Turnbull – who walked past me a few weeks ago striding up and down the platform of Sydney Central Railway station saying “look at me, look at me, I travel by train”,
The great tragedy in the theft of the country’s leadership was the loss of Tony Abbott as the shining light in combating the waste and misdirection of the CAGW movement. Fortunately he still has a voice but his attendance in Paris was very sorely missed. And Turnbull now holds all the levers of power.
This grip on steering the country further to the left is only being held in check by those to the right of the Coalition who are holding him to deals in giving him their vote. But mark my words, if he retains the polls over poor old Bill, it is only a matter of time that these tenuous agreements will disappear and we will be looking at the whole gambit of CAGW action.
Sure Shorten may be a figure of ridicule of the Left but the man to really fear is the devious pretender leading the Right. So Come on Bill – get on your bike.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Malcolm “Look at moi, look at moi” Turnbull will be a disaster for Australia. The pantomime that is Australia politics has been running since Rudd(erless) took office in 2007.
Last month – November 2nd to be precise – I was in Honiara airport in the Solomon Islands. I briefly rubbed shoulders with Tania Pliberseck, who is Bill Shorten’s deputy leader. Ms Pliberseck promptly boarded a private jet and flew off to the Marshall Islands. I did not see Blundering Bill but Ms Pliberseck’s Facebook page was subsequently bedecked with photo’s of she and Bill meeting with various groups from several different island nations. Why were the opposition (ie not the official government) leaders flying around the Pacific in a private jet I hear you ask. Cue drum roll . . .Their mission was to talk about the impact of climate change. The muffled boom you can hear is the sound of my irony chip going super nova.
Perhaps you should get your chip updated so that it can tell the difference between irony and hypocrisy.
Lets be clear here – Bill Shorten isn’t a Green polititian. He is Labor party – the relationship is that the Greens tell the Labor party what to do and they do it.
A rose by any other name,…
Is there a difference? If Labor still cared about the working people they claim to represent, they wouldn’t be trying to drive up the price of energy.
Aye, and I’ll drink ta that sir!
This is stupid insipid bullshit preaching to a throng of the converted. Come on sceptics at least try to be better than our opposition.
Steven, that is the motivation here, what suggestions do you have?
Sorry, should have quoted this, first: “at least try to be better than our opposition.”
I resemble that remark 🙂
Now define “better”.
Many years ago I was not concerned about the US NSA “dragnet”. At the time I thought that if archived it would yield great evidence of the nefarious day-by-day conquests of the likes to Obama and Kerry, members of the US Congress, Merkel and her East German benefactors, the Greens and even people whose lives or deaths do not matter even in the least of quantities, like the Prime Minister of Greece, Australia, Austria, Italy, Spain, Vietnam and Japan, amongst many others.
I find it curious that Obama, and his bisexual lover John Kerry, have not sued NSA, for holding such incrimination information on their many trists. Surly the Supreme Court of the USA would want to own all of the incriminating information of Obama and Kerry trists, just for the purposes of Black Mail and Extortion! Well. What Supreme Court Judge does NOT wan to the a Billionaire! Ha ha.
Bureaucracy serves Bureaucracy and its criminality and nothing more.
Let’s be fair. Bill is of the beige persuasion in politics. Towards the end where green can be found but not green.
That’s nothing. The Finnish Green Party leader Ville Niinistö, environment minister at the time, was caught by Finnish police over-speeding 39 km/h with his green ex-wife and both their kids in the car. As a bonus evading harsh green car taxation in Finland by driving a car registered abroad.
The MSM reported it, but only in Finland it turns out http://www.iltasanomat.fi/kotimaa/art-1288557461931.html
The best part in my opinion: the Finnish Green Party was unable to find a more suitable leader among their own ranks.