Essay by Eric Worrall
“… you haven’t got the intestinal fortitude to tell the truth… ” – Federal Senator Pauline Hanson addresses the Aussie senate.
I think in this day and age it is easy to be cynical, to form a view that politicians don’t care about the harm their ill considered climate policies are inflicting on people, but the truth is in every country there are politicians who spend significant time and effort fighting the green blob, trying to push back against ill considered policies which are strangling our freedoms and economic wellbeing.
I’m not saying Pauline Hanson’s One Nation is the only party which can save Australia from the climate nightmare. There are politicians in other parties who are also pushing back against the green blob. But I am saying it is up to us, the voters, to seek out politicians with the guts to speak out, and give them our support.
Otherwise nothing will change.
In her speech, Pauline Hanson accuses politicians of using climate change as a political ploy to win more votes. I personally agree with this analysis. The climate “crisis” will die as a significant political movement, the day it ceases to provide an electoral advantage to its backers.
Hanson is quite correct. It’s all about the votes.
Whilst the polls are gradually changing, and this one is out of date: “For this study we collected data from 10,009 respondents between 12th and 16th December 2022 using Focaldata’s online platform.”
This is what we are up against.
Since this data was published, there have been a couple of significant changes, the Ruislip by-election response to ULEZ (Ultra Low Emission Zone) in outer London, and the rolling back of the ban on ICE vehicles in the UK from 2030 until 2035. https://britain.unherd.com/net-zero/
Nor, of course, do we know what questions were asked in the poll.
And it’s also almost impossible to judge how Covid distracted from what was becoming the biggest political issue of our lives. Now we have Ukraine and Israel distracting attention. Or am I just being over cynical?
whatever the poll Qs were you can bet they were ever so carefully worded as to get the result they aimed for NOT an honest opinion.
That makes absolutely no sense. Political parties commission polls hoping to discover what they have to say to get votes.
There is no benefit to pollsters or their customers if they finesse the questions to get misleading answers.
No; the sorry truth is we (“we” collectively, not us here, obviously) get the choices we asked for. The answers to polls have consequences. Blame the campaigning media and activists, not the vote-chasing politicians.
(Gosh, I never would have thought I’d stand up for politicians! I’ll make up for it by saying some of them have definitely guzzled all the KoolAid.)
Polls are commonly used to massage opinion to give credibility to Government actions. And often to humilliate people, for example into not voting for a particular candidate. Polls are done for all sorts of reasons, some of which are nefarious.
Quite right. Having been involved in this business, what you see published in media are typically push polls. Invariably they are for advocacy purposes. Frequently, politicians or corporations will conduct polls for purposes of testing out particular ideas, but the results of those you will never see.
Public polling where results are divulged are purely for advocacy purposes.
It’s all about the votes.
Indoctrinate the young accordingly….
well done Pauline! and shes spot on.
as for pollies with guts we have very few that will speak out Malcolm Roberts Pauline and maybe 3 or 4 others
“in every country there are politicians who spend significant time and effort fighting the green blob, trying to push back against ill considered policies which are strangling our freedoms and economic wellbeing.”
Er, are you counting the ‘Australian’ known as Tony Abbott, who happens to be active in the UK?
“UK urged to sack Tony Abbott as trade adviser for joining climate sceptic group”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/08/calls-for-uk-to-sack-tony-abbott-trade-adviser-climate-sceptic-thinktank-global-warming-policy-foundation
I cannot think of a single politician who is, as you say, fighting the green blob. There maybe one or three vocal Tories, but they’re not exactly new to Parliament and when they retire they will be replaced by vetted candidates who will have to be on board to be selected. And so, there is no threat whatsoever to the Parliamentary agenda in reality.
“Some members claim the government’s plans to reach net zero emissions by 2050 have been dreamed up by out-of-touch elites and would impoverish working people, “making them colder and poorer”. The 19 Conservatives confirmed to be in the group say they do not dispute climate science or the need to decarbonise.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/feb/08/tories-fighting-net-zero-plans-are-dragging-climate-into-new-culture-war-experts-say
Even the so-called rebels “do not dispute climate science or the need to decarbonise.”
I admire your optimism.
Not all your politicians are useless. Nigel Farage appointed Lord Monckton to be his climate adviser once, so I think its fair to say he is of the skeptical persuasion.
I agree Britain is in a bad place right now, but nothing is forever. How long are people going to stand for paying £4000 / year for their heating bills before they start pushing back? Let’s not forget the shock ULEZ election result.
Nigel Farage is in no position – even on GB News – to do anything whatsoever. So far he is now fighting alleged wars on two fronts at least: Net Zero ( Vote Power Not Poverty campaign, nothing doing there), and debanking. His debanking whilst very public, was totally endorsed by the elites and whitewashed by the report and subsequent retraction by the Information Commissioner
“UK watchdog apologises to ex-NatWest chief for misleading impression on Farage probe”
https://www.ft.com/content/04798e4f-c96c-4d4a-9135-c31d0409da6e
I replied to your assertion that “in every country there are politicians” and my answer remains entirely correct, Eric. Farage is a talking head.
This country has nobody in politics worth urinating on
There was a lovely little gem went past recently, it came out the Covid enquiry, concerning Bojo
It was that everybody was driven nuts by ‘Prime Minister’ Bojo, because he was terminally indecisive.
i.e. Every single day, in every new meeting, he said something contradictory to what he said yesterday or previously.
He totally lacked any direction or conviction.
I’ve explained it plenty times. As a bloated alcoholic and cnut-struck diabetic, The Only Thing on BoJo’s mind at all times was concern about how quickly he could get to his next plate of pasta & bottle of wine and via the least possible effort on his part.
The Princess had him exactly where she wanted.
And Brandon is exactly the same
The Only Thing on BoJo’s mind at all times was a bonk.
The Princess had him exactly where she wanted.…
Not true.
The Net Zero Scrutiny Group comprises around 20 backbench MP’s including Steve Baker, trustee of the GWPF.
650 – 20….
As I stated: “ And so, there is no threat whatsoever to the Parliamentary agenda in reality.”
And there is not.
Change always begins somewhere.
Were it not for Farage Brexit would never have happened.
Nigel Farage then fired Lord Monckton in 2013. I fail to see what point you were trying to make there.
according to Crikey Abbot said, “So I think it is worth stating that the anthropogenic global warming thesis, at least in its more extreme forms, is both ahistorical and utterly implausible. The climate cult will inevitably be discredited, I just hope we don’t have to endure an energy catastrophe before that happens.”
The IPCC Physical Science Basis says – ” The high-end scenarios RCP8.5 or SSP5-8.5 have recently been argued to be implausible to unfold (e.g., Hausfather and Peters, 2020; see Chapter 3 of the AR6 WGIII).
WG1 4.2.2
Such a denier. 😉
Every moment is different from the last. There can be no repetition.
That makes contemporary climate [modelled] science utterly implausible. It”s a weird form of stasis; frozen in time. Not going to happen.
It sounds like Tony understands the CO2 situation.
I like that “ahistorical” part. In other words, extreme weather today is not unprecedented (as climate alarmists claim).
Look, I have to agree with what you are saying about the UK politics and global warming scepticism, the UK is in a sad place because there is no formal debate on climate science, and the impossibility of Net Zero policies. However, this is sadly true of most western countries under the sway of the UN-EU political axis. Even in Australia, as Hansen rightly stated there is almost total acceptance of the climate mantra by people in authority and scientific institutions, they won’t rock the boat that is delivering a gravy train of funding to all these institutions. If climate change is so important and is a national or global crisis, it is a national disgrace that there is no ongoing climate dialogue between scientists, the informed public and politicians, about the way forward to achieve national goals without ruining our economy or impoverishing the poor in our society.
Given that the BRICS – ‘developing’ nations that represent 2/3rds of the world’s economy are ignoring the UN Paris Agreement net zero protocols and powering ahead with coal, gas and nuclear energy, why is the West obsessed with following the UN dictates and trying to replace fossil fuels when doing so will have no climate impact? Is feel good, woke environmental activism worth ruining our lifestyles now, to supposedly save those of future generations?
So, we are ignoring the real science on climate to our deep peril. How stupid are we !!?
The climate panic can be understood as another chapter of Charles Mackay’s book published in 1841, titled, “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.” That book details mass manias from history, like Tulipmania, the South Sea Bubble, panics over witchcraft, and more. An idea takes hold, runs away with the popular imagination, and takes on a life of its own, regardless of facts.
The climate panic is NOT a hoax. A hoax is based on fraudulent data that can eventually be uncovered and disproved. The climate panic is much worse than a hoax; it’s a FAD that has taken on a life of its own. Facts are no longer relevant. If you don’t BELIEVE in climate change, you’re a dragon that must be slain. Math? Who needs math when there are dragons on the loose?
The entire country of Australia has fewer people than Shanghai metro. The heavily industrialized, export-oriented Chinese province of Guangdong has more people than the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Australia put together. China will sell the climate hypochondriacs all the gizmos they want, but China will NOT cripple its own industrial growth to chase dragons instead.
Australians should know better than anyone that nothing they do or don’t do will even show up on a climate pie chart. Antics over windmills, guilt trips, etc. have no more relevance than the joke from “Crocodile Dundee” about two fleas arguing over which flea owns the dog.
Aussies and other guilt-trippers in the English-speaking world will wake up eventually, but it’s going to take time. As Charles Mackay writes in the preface to his book:
“Men, it has well been said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”
“mass manias”
That is definitely what is going on when it comes to the unwarranted fear of CO2.
There is no evidence CO2 is anything other than a benign gas, essential for life on Earth, but millions of people are convinced that CO2 is a danger and needs to be reduced.
Who is the source of this “convincing”? Who is the source of all our problems when it comes to CO2. The Alarmist Climate Change Data Mannipulators are the source of all this “convincing”.
The problem for the world is they believe the lies and distortions of the Data Mannipulators. Believing these lies causes politicians to take destructive actions detrimental to the entire society.
Alarmist Climate Change lies about CO2 are the basic cause of this CO2 phobia and subsequent mania aided by instant communications all around the world through the internet.
I disagree that carbon capture doesn’t work. Warm shallow seas are remarkable CO2 sinks and have been for billions of years. Why else would all those low lying atolls be growing today rather than being inundated? Given northern Australia’s tropical location, perhaps they need to just help natural processes along rather than pump CO2 deep under ground or under the ocean.
Pure and simple, Pauline Hanson needs to be Australia’s next prime minister. I however have serious doubts that it will happen. There are too much vested interests in the climate alarmist and green energy status quo for someone like her to ascend to office of prime minister.
Everything she said applies to the U.S., Canada and Europe as well.
Pauline may be a ‘lone voice in the wilderness’ but this epic speech enters the parliamentary record: Australians and their lackluster politicians are proving themselves to be gullible in the extreme and are bending over backwards to convince themselves that they wouldn’t be so childishly stupid as to fall for such an obvious con job. But there you go: they’ve fallen for it: hook, line & sinker.
In the UK, the only party with a sensible policy (anti-climate change) is ReformUK.
“ politicians of using climate change as a political ploy “
My view is politicians use “climate change” to blame for all the ills they are unwilling in trying to solve. They allocate lots of money on “TheClimate”™ and tell us everything will get better as CO2 goes the way of the Dodo. After their do-nothing time in office, they retire with tax paid pensions and go on to second and third careers mostly funded by public (tax) money.
Unfortunately, for that Green blob to be defeated will require a modicum of knowledge and willingness from the voting public – something which seems to be distinctly lacking, compared with their acceptance of the lies from the ignorant politicians! That truth is seen every day, in the number of unjustifiable EVs driving on our roads!
Great speech. Good luck to her.
I have no idea what One Nation is but Pauline is exactly right, it is past time to put all this CAGW and Net Zero crap behind us. It is all lies, I am tired of being lied to.
PHON is the only party in Australia that can hold its head high on the politics of climate.
CSIRO, BoM and ABC should all be defunded. Let them survive on their own if they can. These three institutions are now public policy units for the ALP. They have lost their way. They are a disservice to Australia.
Canadians too are generally suspicious about politicians’ motives in their climate change support, and when they hear some of the details of a report from the Commissioner of the Environment’s office, they’re hardly reassured. Among other things, the report claims that during the last two decades, the only significant drop in the country’s emissions came in 2008. In addition, Canada is the only country in the G7 that has not achieved any emissions reductions since 1990. Nor has there been any sustained downward trend in emissions since 2005. All this despite the government’s posturing on the need for climate action and a national carbon tax that has been equated with contributing to inflation while having negligible effects on any aspect of the climate issue. So it’s no wonder politicians get roundly denounced for supporting emissions reduction efforts that only amount to higher living costs.