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The difference between appearances and reality
Bjørn Lomborg click for source
COPENHAGEN – Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital, wants to be the world’s first CO2-neutral city by 2025. But, as many other well-meaning cities and countries have discovered, cutting CO2 significantly is more difficult than it seems, and may require quite a bit of creative accounting.
More surprisingly, Copenhagen’s politicians have confidently declared that cutting CO2 now will ultimately make the city and its citizens wealthier, with today’s expensive green-energy investments more than paying off when fossil-fuel prices rise. But how can deliberately limiting one’s options improve one’s prospects? These sound more like the arguments of green campaigners – and they are most likely wrong.
The first challenge that Copenhagen faces in reaching its zero-emissions goal is the lack of cost-effective alternatives for some sources of CO2, particularly automobiles. Denmark already provides the world’s largest subsidy to electric cars by exempting them from its marginal 180% car-registration tax. For the most popular electric car, the Nissan Leaf, this exemption is worth $85,000 (€63,000). Yet, just 1,536 of Denmark’s 2.7 million cars are electric.
If there is one thing that distresses me more than any other when it comes to warministas is their naive belief that the so called “alternatives” can be viable as this piece form Bjørn Lomborg argues in the piece that I quote that it needs much more than creative accounting and the pretense of viability .
Rudd’s rant – so f*cking what?
This video, that’s making all the headlines, was actually made some time ago, when Kevin Rudd was still PM. It’s a ‘blooper tape’ of Rudd attempting to record a message for the Chinese New Year, getting frustrated with it and letting fly with a few adjectives.
Obviously he knew the camera was still running so you’d reckon he felt pretty sure it’d be secure and not become public. It’s equally obvious that whoever posted it did so in an attempt to damage Rudd’s chances of retaking the leadership from Julia Gillard. At least that’s what’s implied in this Age article ‘Rudd row gets dirty’:
A Labor insider said the video could only have come from the Prime Minister’s office, which stores such clips. If true, that would suggest a bitter escalation of the leadership crisis between Ms Gillard and the Foreign Affairs Minister.
Gillard, of course, denies it came from her office. Then again, she also denied that the stirring up of the tent embassy people on Australia Day came from her office too. I reckon this will backfire on her just like that event did.
Quite frankly, I don’t think there’s anything in the video for Rudd to be ashamed of. We all know that, as PM, he had a reputation for not suffering fools and throwing the odd tantrum. So what? He wouldn’t be the first PM to bang his fist on a table and come out with a few expletives to describe the idiots around him. Keating comes to mind. So does Hawke.
The reality is that good leaders don’t have to be Saints or even liked by their underlings. This is politics and sycophantic nice guys do not good Prime Ministers make. I also like the fact that Rudd is not afraid to show his feelings about – and dislike of – the Chinese:
Mr Rudd has previously used disparaging remarks in relation to Chinese officials. It was reported in June 2010 that he had privately told journalists in Copenhagen amid climate change talks: “Those Chinese f*ckers are trying to rat-f*ck us
Way to go Kevin. Bring him back … please!
Has anyone got a new climate change shirt for Brother Number One?
Brother Number One needs a new climate change shirt.
There has been a definite mood shift in the Australian electorate when it comes to climate change, I have noticed it when I have spoken to friends and acquaintances about the issue. The flurry of desperate commentary on the opposition ‘s direct action approach from the likes of Penny W(r)ong and Brother Number One makes it very clear indeed that the government has slipped back from their previously commanding position in the eyes of the public to being very much on the back foot. The desperate scare stories emanating from government offices paints a far from glowing picture of a government that has bet all on a way of approaching the issue and lost its shirt.
Until this week the Rudd government was able to assume a receptive public and a sympathetic media over climate change and an ETS. The government had placed all its politics in one ETS basket, committed to climate change action as a core promise and an ETS as the platform for that promise.
Coalition critics of the ETS, such as Liberals Nick Minchin and Cory Bernardi and Nationals Ron Boswell and Barnaby Joyce, were subjected to media grillings and derision as climate change deniers. But after the fiasco of Copenhagen, a new Coalition policy and the desperate attempts by the government to tackle the new political framework have started to change the media atmosphere.
The questions are now more sceptical and concentrate on ETS costs, not the science or morality of believing in climate change.
As ABC Lateline host Tony Jones said to Wong on Thursday, the question of who’s putting forward a climate change policy is now not the only question. “The policy question now on a lot of people’s minds is how much is it going to cost,” he said.
Dennis Shanahan
Is there anyone out there who still thinks that Brother Number One will pull that double dissolution trigger to fight an election on climate change now?
Frankly I say bring it on!
Cheers Comrades
The reason that Brother Number one wants to go to Copenhagen???
A most amusing snippet has emerged about the upcoming gab-fest in Copenhagen it seems that delegates can get their ends away for free while they are on this otherwise entirely futile junket.
Saving the planet one root at a time
Prostitutes of a Danish sex workers association will offer their services for free to delegates of the UN climate summit in Copenhagen.
Association official Susanne Moeller told AFP on Saturday the move is a protest against an anti-prostitution initiative undertaken by Copenhagen city hall.
The city, host of the December 7-18 UN climate summit, distributed postcards in Copenhagen’s hotels that said “Be sustainable: Don’t buy sex”. It also sent letters to hotel managers inviting them to take measures to avoid prostitutes meeting clients in their establishments.
The prostitutes, whose work is not illegal in Denmark, promptly reacted to the move.
“All delegates who come to Copenhagen for the world climate summit will be able to use the postcards for payment after making a request on our website,” Moeller, of the Danish association for the defence of sex workers, said.
Who would have thought that the real attraction of this otherwise futile event would be a bit of the the old in and out? Hmm maybe this is why the government jet is on standby. After all having failed to get his ETS through the parliament, Brother Number One and Penny W(r)ong must be feeling mighty frustrated that they were unable to fu*k the economy with their horrible Green Tax so the generous offer from Danish sex workers may just ease their tensions, just a little.
Cheers Comrades
😉
Up Up and away Brother Number One!
The talkfest in Denmark is looking more pointless by the day and this morning we hear that Brother Number One is going to attend early. I want to know if our beloved leader is going to go early and stay longer or is he going to go early fly home and return later thereby doubling the contribution of his RAAF jet to atmospheric CO2.
Despite intensive diplomacy and emission reduction pledges in recent weeks from major emitters including the US, China and India, negotiators have not resolved the divisions between rich and poor nations that have blocked a global emission reduction deal for years.
And on the eve of the talks, criticism of their “cap and trade” framework is growing, with world-leading climate scientist James Hansen arguing the approach is “so fundamentally wrong” it would be better to scrap it and consider a carbon tax. The International Monetary Fund is also arguing for carbon taxes over emissions trading because they deliver greater reduction in emissions and more certainty.
At the same time Saudi Arabia, long resistant to an international deal, said emails released by hackers from the University of East Anglia cast doubt over climate change science.
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong told The Weekend Australian “it would always be good to have more momentum” but the talks between leaders were the key. “It is positive that so many political leaders are attending because the thing most needed here for a deal is political will,” Senator Wong said.
She leaves for the two-week conference on Monday.
The Copenhagen standoff comes as the Prime Minister is being forced to defend his emissions trading scheme from Tony Abbott’s attack that it’s just a “great bloody big new tax” and that “direct government action” could deliver emissions reductions at a lower price.
But the new Opposition Leader’s likely emissions trading spokesman, Greg Hunt, told The Weekend Australian yesterday the Coalition might also embrace some kind of carbon price or tax, but not for several years.
“We won’t have any carbon price at this stage, but we will consider one when we know what the US is going to do,” Mr Hunt said. “But it will probably be four or five years until the US has a system in place and operating.”
Mr Abbott told Sydney radio: “If the Americans have an ETS then it will become part of world trade and it will be hard for Australia to avoid it. But until they have one we really don’t need one and shouldn’t have one.“
On Thursday Mr Abbott admitted that the “direct action” climate policy he was working on might not be able to cut Australia’s emissions by more than the minimum 5 per cent committed to by both major political parties.
“Now . . . it’s possible that you can’t cut emissions as far without an ETS as might otherwise be the case, but I’m quite confident that we can find ways of achieving our 5 per cent mandatory target without an ETS or a carbon tax,” he told the ABC.
While Brother Number One is playing the “Up Up and away” game and hypocritically spewing huge amounts of CO2 from his jet the newly energised opposition is talking down to earth good sense about how to reduce our emissions without reducing our trade and industry to penury.
Cheers Comrades
😉
Iain Hall's SANDPIT 