Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Failed Aussie Conservative Leader and ANU “Tax and Transfer Policy Chair” Professor John Hewson thinks Coronavirus “plusses” such as the noteworthy setting aside of civil liberties offers an opportunity for ramming through climate policies.
Sorry to disappoint climate deniers, but coronavirus makes the low-carbon transition more urgent
April 6, 2020 6.04am AEST
Climate deniers have been hanging out for the United Nations’ next big summit to fail. In a sense, the coronavirus and its induced policy responses have more than satisfied their wildest dreams, precipitating a global recession that they no doubt hope has pushed the issue of the low-carbon transition well down the political and policy agenda.
The next round of international climate negotiations – the so-called COP26 in Scotland – has been delayed until 2021. Presumably, climate sceptics hope governments and policy authorities will now be consumed by, in the words of our prime minister, the need to “cushion” the impact of the recession and ensure “a bounce back on the other side”.
Deniers argue that further disruption to economies and societies will be avoided at all costs.
Sorry to be the harbinger of denier disappointment, but there is every reason to expect that the virus crisis will strengthen and accelerate the imperative to transition to a low-carbon world by mid-century.
…
As Christiana Figueres, former executive secretary of the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, states in her recent book:
“We are in the critical decade. It is no exaggeration to say that what we do regarding emissions reductions between now and 2030 will determine the quality of human life on this planet for hundreds of years to come, if not more.”
…
There are a few “pluses” from the experience of coronavirus. Emissions are falling (although clearly no one would advocate a global recession as a climate strategy). And the response of governments to the crisis has seen decisive domestic action – working individually, but together, in meeting what is a global challenge.
Individual governments have demonstrated how quickly they can move once they accept the reality of a crisis. We’ve also seen just how far they’re prepared to go in terms of policy responses – lockdowns, social distancing, testing, rapid and historically significant fiscal expansions, and massive liquidity injections.
It’s noteworthy that issues that in “normal times” could not have been ignored – such as civil liberties and concerns about intrusive governments and effective competition – have so easily been set aside as part of emergency responses.
…
Read more: https://theconversation.com/sorry-to-disappoint-climate-deniers-but-coronavirus-makes-the-low-carbon-transition-more-urgent-135419
John, what is missing from your glorious climate action revolution is large scale buy-in.
Most people in Australia and elsewhere have accepted the Coronavirus lockdown because there is solid evidence that Coronavirus is a problem. Horror news videos coming from New York, Iran, Italy, Spain and Britain have sent a powerful message which most people have accepted, that it is worth some serious inconvenience to avoid joining those poor dying people gasping for breath in overcrowded hospitals.
There is no solid evidence climate change is a problem. The only “evidence” climate activists have presented for their economic lockdown is a bunch of fear mongering UN elitists whom nobody likes, a 17 year old puppet with serious psychological issues, and a bunch of jet setting professors who keep having to revise their calculations when all the bad things they predict fail to happen.
Until you and your friends can present genuine evidence climate change is a problem, nobody in their right mind is going to accept a climate change lockdown, or anything remotely resembling the kinds of economic cuts failed politicians like you want to inflict on the people you once aspired to lead.
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Gore campaigned to be the US Democratic presidential candidate in ’87 and Hewson campaigned to be Australian PM in ’93, both countries avoiding corresponding ‘bu!!ets’.
What do people like Hewson see in the climate change hysteria, he has renewable energy investments, can it be simply pecuniary⸮
Macron and his cronies are gestapo-liberals: a bunch of furor and a scintilla of liberalism, related to stuff like gay mariage and economic liberalism but only when it’s about tax free imports from China and tax free exports to the US. (No requests for tax free imports from the US.)
For the right to cross French borders, they are liberal. For the right to move within France, they are gestapists.
Also, Macron called it a war. Called for national unity etc. after sending his prime minion to tell us to fill in paperwork to have the “right” to go out, and after mocking the only credible opposition party (the “RN”, “Rassemblement National”).
I think it’s a war: the Deep State war against the People.
Ole John who lost the unlosable election in 1993 because he couldn’t explain the GST (VAT) costings on the ingredients of a cake and now earns a living as the Chair of renewable companies. Guessing he still wants his cake and eat it too!
This is sort of a ‘Now that China’s biowarfare has Western capitalism’ down on the mat, Okay socialists< "Unite!" and now kick 'em hard — Don't let the Western affluent middle class rise again to use fossil fuels in abundance.
I have to disappoint the greenpeacy. THEY have been telling us what they believe about pollution for the last months. They came clear about it, and they don’t even know that, because they are really really dumb:
Air pollution does not matter. That’s what they told us when they claim they could measure the health risk of an air born disease from China numbers. Industrial regions in China are hyper polluted. If that does not impact the proportion of people with weakened lungs and the health risk when exposed to a given dose of any air microbe, then nothing environnemental does.
They have been telling nonsense about air pollution forever. And when faced to a practical case, they let it be known that they never deeply believed it.
Social Changes with COVID-19 are a prelude to life with less fossil fuels. With COVID-19 we’ve seen extensive self-imposed social adjustments to transportation that are very similar to what will be required to live with less fossil fuels in the future. As we weed ourselves from unrestrained use of oil, we’ll need to lower our demands from the transportation infrastructures and the leisure and entertainment industries to the best of their abilities to conserve oil for where its most needed for society, to make the thousands of products that support lifestyles as well as worldwide sustainable economic development. http://www.capoliticalreview.com/capoliticalnewsandviews/stein-social-changes-with-covid-19-are-a-prelude-to-life-with-less-fossil-fuels/
“Fox Business host Trish Regan claims the coronavirus outbreak is just “another attempt to impeach” President Donald Trump.”
Trish Regan is correct. But Kung Flu is a lot more than that. It’s the ultimate meltdown of rationality and the coup by the medical establishment.
https://twitter.com/NRA/status/1060256567914909702
“Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane. Half of the articles in Annals of Internal Medicine are pushing for gun control. Most upsetting, however, the medical community seems to have consulted NO ONE but themselves.”
The NRA is right. Putting these noisy doctors in their place was a smart move. Genius even. It caused HUGE push back from very very dumb doctors who insisted that was their lane when it obviously was not.
But we should be worried about the good doctors not just about gun laws, but about everything else.
Those who whined not about the dumb noisy doctors but about the NRA being “unwise” or “improper” or “lacking taste” are responsible for the present situation.
Being unsure about the goods and services tax applicable to a cake killed his political career.
So, what I’d like to know is how much carbon tax he’d now propose for the same cake?
We must take a stand and threaten that we’ll remove all “constitutional” protections for those who attacked these protections. It means we’ll pass post hoc laws and enforce them. It means that we’ll renege on anything legal, any act, any contract, that profited someone who acted against our rights. That civil servants that can’t be fired won’t fired, but retroactively un-hired. That money earned will be collected back.
We must say that we’ll do anything – as in a war.
So, what he’s saying, is that the problem is not CO2, but rather a religious (i.e. moral, “ethical”) imperative to reduce carbon. Perhaps a Green Blight, Planned Parenthood, or some similar solution. #Wicked
“We’ve also seen just how far they’re prepared to go in terms of policy responses…”
This is the part that is truly terrifying. These people think nothing of draconian measures to control the sheep. In fact, the more brutal and murderous, the more they like it. An earth with 7 billion fewer humans is a better earth, according to them.
The COVID models that predicted millions to die in the United States due to COVID-19 and a later model that said 100,000 to 200,000 looks to be close to how many will die in the world! Yep a model that predicts the out come for 360,000,000 is closer to the outcome of 7,000,000,000. Now that modeling at it finest, and now they are still going to tell us their models will tell us the climate a hundred years from now, if their errors are anything thelike COVID-19 modelers they have no idea what they are talking about. Yet the are just as insane to think we should have faith in their models after a simpler model failed miserably. It about time the model community start admitting if the do not have a test bed that can verify there models against know data, and data points that are known, as to affectis, and where the model should go. In engineering models where they can be tested in the real world with known variables, even then sometime a variable that critical variable gets left out and the building, equipment or bridge fails. When you cannot measure your variables as to the effect they might have in a model, modeling is a fun what if game but in the real world, the models are junk.
206 million people in the US in 1968; 100,000 die from the Hong Kong flu (H3N2).
330 million in the US in 2020; a similar rate yields 175,000 deaths (adjusted to account for the hype and making sure that EVERYONE is counted, whereas in 1968 there were deaths not attributed to the specific flu).
0.05(x) + 0.003(x) = y
(my model takes 45 seconds to complete … it will be more accurate than all the other the models (except for the models that are completed/refined after at the 70% complete phase).
Hewson believes that since governments have proven that they are willing and able to trample on the freedoms of their citizens for the real hazards of a very infectious disease with no treatment, that they should be willing to do the same for a perceived issue supported by adjusted and cherry picked data just because he supports it. The one hazard has the world’s best medical researchers and clinicians working tirelessly to find a solution, whereas the other one has claimed that the science is settled.
I am so happy that the Corona virus is not being solved by the likes of Michael Mann.
Can any of these self-proclaimed experts at “The One-Sided Conversation” actually name a climate denier? I certainly don’t know of any.
How do you even DENY climate? What is the hell is denying climate? I’d like a picture.
Presumably, a perturbation from the normal temperature distribution (e.g. +/- 10, 20, 40, 80 degrees) that produces a sustainable (“30 year”) shift of the average measured? modeled temperature. Then there is their carbon fixation, with motives that can and should be separately scrutinized.
“How do you even DENY climate?”
Of course, what the alarmists are talking about is “Human-Caused Climate Change, and when they call skeptics “deniers” they are saying that skeptics deny Human-caused climate change, and they would be correct in the sense that skeptics don’t outright deny Human-caused climate change, the skeptics just say there is no evidence for Human-caused Climate Change, and if CO2 does make changes in the Earth’s atmosphere, they appear to be minimal, since we have searched for decades for evidence of such changes and can’t find any.
Alarmists want everyone to think of “Climate Change” as meaning “Human-caused Climate Change. They want everyone to assume there is evidence for Human-caused Climate Change so we don’t have to add in the “human-caused” part. What else could it be but human-caused, they say, so why state the “obvious”..
So when they say skeptics “deny the climate”, they are playing word and head games with the public. It’s attempted psychological manipulation.
It’s their shorthand. I’m not required to figure out what they mean. And I’m sure it means different things to different alarmists. If they’re trying to say we deny human-caused climate change, even that blanket statement isn’t true for all of us.
If they can show evidence beyond simple loose correlation, then maybe I won’t “deny climate” any more.
People like Newson think that they should be in control because they know best .
Here in New Zealand we are under severe lock down and all gatherings are forbidden and we are not allowed to travel except for essentials .
This is the first time this has happened in my lifetime but most people are on side as the government are now doing their best to stop this Covid 19 as the corona virus is called here.
Just over 1100 have tested positive with 12 in hospital and 4 in intensive care .One death so far.
New cases are from tracing contacts of those with the virus ,and testing large numbers to find all positives.
The general population can see that this can be controlled and will be ready to start normal life as soon as the emergency is lifted.
What fellows like Newson fail to see is that modern civilization depends on cheap affordable energy and not one of these people calling for a reduction in fossil fuel use call for nuclear power plants to reduce CO2 emissions .
Do they live in a bubble ? ( like we are doing right now in NZ ) no they fail to understand how the world works and how far we have all progressed in the last 70 years around the developed world .
They cannot see that billions have been lifted out of poverty by the use of fossil fuel and that as the countries standard of living improves the birth rates start falling .
A lot of the proponents of CAGW were arguing that the world was over populated 60 tears ago and that we would all starve.
Nowhere does Hewson mention nuclear, but his article does include a photo of wind turbines as well as a photo of steam coming from cooling towers labelled: “The pandemic has slowed global emissions growth” which it probably has, but the critical question in this context is: has it slowed the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration?.
The energy return on energy invested for solar and wind including storage is a fraction of the equivalent ratio for fossil-fuelled, hydro and nuclear.
http://rameznaam.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/EROI-of-Solar-Wind-Nuclear-Coal-Natural-Gas-Hydro.png
What Hewson (doctorate in economics) is pushing is the equivalent of a return to subsistence farming.
Hewson has no investments in nuclear.
He has substantial investments in wind power (ie government subsidies).
Hewson is not nor never was a Conservative leader, he was leader of the liberal party, and please note small l not L.
Referring to caption under photograph of Hewson, he was never leader of Conservatives, has always been a small l liberal in the Liberal party
Mr. Eric Worrall
Appreciate your excellent research of all your various contributions to this blog .
It obviously takes much time and commitment to do so .
In regard to Hewson and co. and Turnbull etc , do you have any details of how much investment these type of people have in the renewable industry .
They should be called to account for their own involvement and perhaps income from the sources they are recommending .
cheers
“Mr. Eric Worrall
Appreciate your excellent research of all your various contributions to this blog .”
I appreciate it, too, Eric. You don’t get nearly enough credit for all you do on this website. Ignore the nitpickers, all three of them. 🙂
“george1st:) April 6, 2020 at 11:29 pm
…Turnbull etc…”
Talk to his son, Alex IIRC. He’s in to renewable financing in a big way. Turnbull made most of his millions by turning an AU$500k “mum and dad” investment in OneTel, then selling up large to the tune of a couple of hundred million just a few months before OneTel went bang in the late 90’s!
Why does John Hewson repeatedly refuse to declare his blatant conflicts of interest when he regularly pontificates about the “climate change”?
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/why-does-john-hewson-not-disclose/news-story/fa3ecc72e8f8d34cbb4c5789036352ff
Andrew Bolt elaborates:
“Why didn’t Hewson disclose that he earns his living by promoting global warming schemes and policies?
For instance, he is chairman of the Asset Owners Disclosure Project :
The Asset Owners Disclosure Project (AODP) rates and ranks the world’s largest institutional investors and assesses their response to climate-related risks and opportunities.
He is also paid to spruik global warming to students at the Australian National University:
Dr John Hewson
HONORARY PROFESSORIAL FELLOW CRAWFORD SCHOOL
Policy and economics of climate change….”
Quote,
“There are a few “pluses” from the experience of coronavirus. Emissions are falling (although clearly no one would advocate a global recession as a climate strategy).”
Clearly Newson was out, when the memo was sent through from the UN, saying global recession is precisely the preferred option of Climate Alarmists.
Destroying capitalism is the most certain route to global recession.
Somebody should let his know, the Green New Deal is all about global recession.
It is wise to listen to the people on the other side. For one thing, they may be (at least partly) right. It’s frustrating with climate change catastrophists though, because they’ve coupled their concern about the dangers of climate change with a large leaven of moral vanity. They are good people because they care about the climate, and you are a shallow Science-denier who cannot understand simple facts. So yeah, after a while you give up.
But they’re sincere. Greta Thunberg really means it, although I doubt if very many of her admirers actually think that endless economic growth is a fantasy, and should be abandoned.
My own theory is that money will eventually win out, and the impossibly faulty economics of climate change mitigation will eventually doom the whole thing. The coronavirus recession is going to sabotage interest in expensive climate change swindles like wind power. Not only that but, as the decades pass and the climate catastrophes just don’t happen, people will just lose interest. How many people are worried about global nuclear war these days? That is a once-popular anxiety that has mostly been discarded.
The cancellation of COP26 comes as a huge relief to the Alarmist camp. It would have been a disaster. However incompetent and biased the British MSM, they couldn’t have ignored ALL THOSE AEROPLANES! The crowds of funny foreign faces. The weird behaviour of hanger on pressure groups. Chaired by a British nonentity. The rain. With a bit of luck the snow. The rambling nonsense right up to the final cobbled together ‘statement’ kicking the can down the road once more, once more, once more. The 400 Ivory Coast delegates fly home without any Green Climate Fund money because they failed to bribe anybody.
Don’t bother with the moron. His use of the derogatory term ‘denier’ tells us more than we need to know about his ethics.
His religion, or its relativistic counterpart, “ethics”.
“….there is every reason to expect that the virus crisis will strengthen and accelerate the imperative to transition to a low-carbon world by mid-century….”
OK. Give us some of the reasons.
As far as I can tell, the reason is that the virus crisis shows that governments can take advice from scientists and apply it to populations when a real threat is discovered. And not when a threat is not discovered.
I suggest that responses to the Climate Change threat should wait their turn in the queue. Just behind the threat of radiation from 5G phone masts enabling shadowy committees of multi-billionaires to take over the world…
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/revealed-extinction-rebellion-s-plans-to-exploit-the-Covid-crisis
What can one say?