Posts Tagged climate change

One Nation radio

Last night I had cause to drive around Sydney for a couple of hours in a car generously borrowed to me by a close friend. As I flew through the streets I searched through the AM radio band for something to listen to. Landing on one particular frequency, I was assaulted by the voice of ex-One Nation supremo David Oldfield who is now apparently doing an evening show for 2UE. I decided to listen for a while and, solid gold as it was, I’d like to paraphrase for you what I heard. Here was his first segment:

I don’t want to patronise anyone, but earlier today I asked my wife what air was made up of. My wife is a university-educated woman but she couldn’t tell me the gasses that were in air. I reckon she’s like most people who don’t really know that sort of thing. Anyway, air is made up of — and excuse me for rounding the percentages here — about 80% nitrogen and 20% oxygen. The nitrogen is a useless, filler gas, and oxygen is the stuff we need. There are also a bunch of trace gasses like argon. There’s also carbon dioxide, which is the gas we’re told is responsible for global warming, and it’s found in air in about the concentration of a tiny fraction of a percent. That’s air.

Now, when we breath in we take in a lungful of air — 80% nitrogen, 20% oxygen, and a range of trace gasses including carbon dioxide — and our bodies use about a quarter of the oxygen. When we breath out can you guess how much carbon dioxide is in our breath? Remember, only a fraction of a percent of this global warming gas went it. Well, we breath out 4% carbon dioxide. That’s right, our bodies actually produce carbon dioxide which we’re told causes global warming. There are seven billion of us on the planet, each of us breathing ever five seconds, or three seconds for children, and each time we breath we produce carbon dioxide.

And you know what? I’ve never heard a single scientist talk about this.

Flushed with pride after pwning the world’s entire scientific community, Oldfield took a call:

Caller: I just think that if they come here they shouldn’t try to make it like it was at home.

Oldfield: Yeah, well you’d think that if things were so bad at home, and things are so much better here — which is why 99.999999% of them apply to come here in the first place — then they wouldn’t want to change this place once they got here.

Caller: Yep. This is not a Muslim country and they should stop trying to make it one.

Oldfield: Well, I don’t think that it’s so much Muslim culture as it is Middle East culture, and people shouldn’t come over here and try to build Middle East culture in the place of Australian culture.

Then Oldfield brought a news story to the attention of his listeners:

Four men have been charged over a credit card skimming scam. Three of them, it turns out, are boat arrivals who are now either citizens or have permanent residency. The government says that its vetting procedures are sound but obviously they’re not.

I just can’t believe this because what we have here is a case of three people accepting Australia’s compassion and then turning around and biting the hand that feeds them.

And finally, Pauline Hanson’s ex-colleague took a call and jumped on the dump button.

Oldfield: We have [caller] on the line. Hello, [caller].

[Caller] (with thick accent): Hello, David. I just wanted to talk about the Jews killing the Muslims.

Oldfield: Um, well, we won’t be allowing that call. We can’t broadcast racism. Racism is when you make sweeping perjorative statements about one group of people instead of restricting those statements to only those individuals for whom those statements might apply.

Got that?

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Your ABC and climate change balance – a tale of two pricks

In 1998, while living in London, my 18-month-old daughter wasn’t feeling well and came out in a strange rash. The local GP had no idea what she had and referred her to the Great Ormond Street Hospital, one of the world’s leading children’s clinics.

The doctors were unfamiliar with Sarah’s condition, but further investigation showed she had measles. The delayed diagnosis wasn’t due to any shortcomings in the National Health Service, but because a vaccine had all but wiped out the disease and none of the doctors, including experienced pediatricians, had actually seen it before. Luckily Sarah had that vaccination, as part of the Measles, Mumps, Rubella (MMR) injection, and while she showed the symptoms she never suffered the full effects, which could be deadly.

So why did my daughter get measles in a first-world city, two decades after a vaccination had all but eradicated it? The BBC’s policy of giving all issues and views equal measure regardless of their credibility had something to with it.

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Does you like pointless graphs to illustrate your point?

At the tafe Internets course I learnt that on the Google there is a function called Google trends. You type things in to see their relevance to other things and you can separate them by what is called a comma.

Behold the graphs I made below:

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Her Genocidal Majesty

I reproduce this Citizens Electoral Council press release that lobbed into my inbox this arvo (I subscribe to a lot of shit, okay?) without comment.

Citizens Electoral Council of Australia
Media Release 1st of December 2009

Queen flexes muscle to demand Copenhagen genocide treaty

Just as the climate change hoax is about to derail completely, Her Britannic Majesty herself, Queen Elizabeth II, whose family spawned the modern green genocide movement*, has pulled rank on the Commonwealth group of nations—her repackaged “Empah”—to demand they deliver a treaty at Copenhagen.

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The ETS for Dummies

What is the ETS?
ETS stands for Emissions Trading Scheme, which means that companies will have to pay for credits to create pollution.

Why?
To combat climate change caused by man-made carbon emissions. The idea is if companies have to pay to pollute they will pollute less; the climate will stop changing and baby polar bears will live to become big polar bears allowing them to scavenge through Alaskan rubbish tips.

But companies pollute because they make things or produce power. How will they be able to keep providing us with their important products and services?
This is the smart bit. They will pay the ETS and the government will give them the money back so they can continue what they’re doing to protect jobs and working families. At the same time they will pass the ETS costs to the consumer which means some polluting companies and industries will be better off under an ETS despite not actually reducing their carbon footprint.

That’s fucked!  
That’s your interpretation shithead, but at least the government will look like it’s doing something to stop climate change.

But will an ETS stop climate change? Surely once the Antarctic sheds millions of tons of ice and sea levels rise there’s not much we can do to stop it. It’s like trying to stop a freight train with a wet kipper.

You know, for a dummy you’re a smart-arsed little fucker! Listen, this isn’t about stopping climate change it’s about feeling good that we’re doing our best without having to actually give up anything that causes pollution. We’ll still use electricity and drive cars, but we’ll do it safe in the knowledge that it really gives conservatives the shits.

You’re a deranged lefty idiot. This isn’t about climate change at all, it’s about idealism.
Oh, do fuck off!

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Square pegs and round holes

I won’t pretend to be on top of the detail when it comes to AGW. But let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that it is a real problem.

Does anybody seriously believe that the ETS, a market solution, par excellence, is going to make the slightest bit of difference? That in placing all of our eggs into the capitalist basket, we are trusting in a magic talisman that can, at best, merely tinker on the margins?

Using capitalist structures and processes as a means of combating AGW is like trying to fight a live bushfire by opening up a a farmers’ market, and putting a tax on undergrowth.

And this at a time when support for ‘the market’ has never been lower.

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ETS and One World Government

As you all know I’ve been following the climate change and emissions trading scheme debate very closely. Earlier this year I travelled to the USA to consult widely with the Heartland Institute and they gave me a nifty graph to show to all my friends at Parliament. Nick Xzennophone asked if I made it myself in crayon but he shut his mouth quick smart after I showed him the quality of the laminate and the superb laser printing.

I like to make sure that I look at both sides of the story, and the ETS debate is no different. I’ve looked at the government’s side (anthropomorphic climate change is definitely real and we need an EMS right now) and the opposition’s side (anthrophomorpic climate change is possibly real and we might need an LMS sometime in the short or medium term), but Family First’s side of the story is quite different again: anhtro antro antrhop man-made climate change is a myth and the PMS is completely unnecessary and will destroy man’s way of life.

But you wouldn’t believe the trouble I’ve had in getting my view heard! Penny Wong and Ian Macfarlane meet regularly to thrash out a version of the government Bill that the coalition might support, but the way they’ve dismissed Family First’s role in these crucial negotiations is a disgrace to Australian democracy. Imagine a democratically-elected Senator being manhandled and ejected from meetings inside Parliament House! It’s not like they didn’t know I was coming; each time I’ve told Xzennophone to tell Barnaby to tell Macfarlane, and Xzennophone to tell Conroy to tell Wong.

Some nights I’ve been in tears at home, burning up with the indignity of the way the other MPs treat me. I tried telling David Hawker about the teasing and bullying but he didn’t seem to care. Even my son, when he got home from school the other day and found me on the lounge with Blanky, told me to “harden the fuck up”. I told him that’s not very Christian language but he just mumbled something about wishing he was adopted.

So when I heard some people this week start talking about a One World Government that might be formed in Copenhagen soon, I got very excited. Maybe I could run for election to a government that is kinder and more accepting. A government that is inclusive and considerate. A government that looks at all of my sides of the story. I mentioned to Susan that this new government will add significantly to the Pope’s workload given that he’s the head of the world, but Susan told me he’s only the head of the Catholic Church. And you could’ve blown me right there and then when Susan dropped the bombshell that the Pentecostal Church is not part of the Catholic Church so the Pope isn’t even the head of me! A lifetime of delusion, it seems.

Anyway, I’ve started doing some research into how one would go about running a campaign for the One World Government, and I’m trying to book a flight to the Hungarian capital to be at the centre of the action at its inception. Given that Australia is part of the world, and the One World Government will be the world’s boss, I will be able to have much more influence over Australia’s PMT policy from the OWG Parliament than from the chamber of Australia’s Senate.

Until next time.

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University of East Bumcrack: more better learning

If you haven’t seen yesterday’s Insiders you simply must go to iView and watch from about the 44 minute mark. Andrew Bolt tells everyone that they should be more like him and do more learning about climate change, and Annabel Crabb tells everyone exactly what sort of learning Bolt is talking about.

Annabel Crabb: Can we be realistic about what’s going on here. This is the pointy end of the lobbying process for a piece of legislation that’s waiting, having it’s fate decided in the Senate, right? Everybody involved is bringing out their best material, you know, and whether it’s Peter Garrett flee your homes or whether it’s (motions to Bolt) you know …

Andrew Bolt: You’re right, but I think there’s a wider thing happening here in the psychology of the debate. I think the scaremongering has got to such absurd levels, absurd levels, that a lot of people even if they believe as you do in the theory and all that are sceptical.

AC: I’m not a practitioner in this debate like you are, all I’m saying is …

AB: You don’t believe it? I thought you did …

AC: … well, you’re a lobbyist too …

AB: … let me finish my point please.

AC: … you are!

AB: I’m a sceptic! I am! But the point is there are so many scares around: there’s apocalyptic fires, run for your lives the seas are coming, everything …

Barrie Cassidy: At both extremes of the debate to be fair.

AC: … I mean you post stuff on your blog that’s, you know, a new study from the University of East Bumcrack about, you know, penguins still being alive in …

AB: At least I study it. You don’t. So perhaps you let me finish my point until you know something about it.

But once you’ve done your Bolt-style learning you obviously want to tell the world so that everyone knows you’re smart with knowledge about the climate change con. With that in mind, make sure you go buy a t-shirt from Groupthink Jason’s very, very nice t-shirt shop.

I went on Insiders and all I got was this dumb t-shirt

I went on Insiders and all I got was this dumb t-shirt

All proceeds from sales go to Annabel Crabb’s chosen charity: Mallala Hospital in South Australia. Do it.

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