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Coal peddlers are far more dangerous than heroin peddlers

By James Moylan

The science is settled regarding the relationship of atmospheric C02 and average atmospheric temperature. Ice cores demonstrate a sturdy correlation that stretches way back for many hundreds of thousands of years.

We know that there is a lag in the effect because that is apparent from the data. It seems our oceans acidify and absorb atmospheric energy at a slower rate than was anticipated by many observers, and it also seems that a higher proportion of this increase in atmospheric energy is dissipated in increased wave and tidal activity than was first accounted for.

However the discovery of unanticipated effects acting to buffer the impact of the relentlessly rising proportion of C02 in our atmosphere, only demonstrates that we don’t quite yet fully understand the nature, magnitude, and speed of the currently unfolding climate catastrophe. Yet still these minor differences between predictions and observations continue to provide solace for fools, scoundrels, and politicians.

So the political discussion in our land regarding climate change continues to be morally bankrupt.

Our major political parties refuse to even acknowledge how much Australia is actually contributing to the rise in atmospheric C02 levels. They dishonestly focus on the proportionately tiny amount of coal we burn here at home even as we simultaneously subsidise and enable the activities of some of the largest coal peddlers on the planet.

If our politicians really did comprehend the true nature of our current global predicament then their rhetoric would certainly change. They would begin to start owning up to Australia’s actual contribution to this problem and begin talking about phasing out our coal industry in its entirety. They would confront the reality that we are morally obliged to close down our coal mines and walk away from them.

We cannot continue to blithely ignore that one in seven tons of the coal that is burnt on the face of the planet comes from one of our coal mines. Nor that when this exported coal is added to our total ‘carbon footprint’ it indicates that we are responsible for more carbon emissions than Germany, a country with close to four times our population.

To continue to export coal, and then ignore these exports as if they are none of our business, is exactly akin in moral terms to a country crowing over a fall in the number of heroin addicts at home whilst gleefully turning a blind eye to the production and export of hundreds of tons of the drug. It is morally indefensible.

Yet coal is far more dangerous than heroin. The burning of fossil fuels is slowly altering the constitution of the thin gas envelope which envelops our planet. Unlike heroin, any coal exported will certainly come back to damage our society and kill our citizens. It simply does not matter where on our planet our coal might be burnt – the problem remains corporate. The ethical responsibility and the ecological disasters are all equally shared.

Yet Australia continues to be an unashamed ‘climate change peddler’. Our politicians ignore the problem and substitute their own alibis for action which they profess will somehow ‘fix the reef’ or ‘meet our greenhouse targets’ while still enabling us to continue on with business as usual. It is a lie.

There is no ‘no-cost’ option available. We will have to invest a great deal of money and simply write off a great many assets. Coal mining will have to cease. We will have to look closely at all natural and coal seam gas extraction and consider if this also is an unaffordable environmental liability.

Australia is currently living in a la-la land of ten year plans for superannuation and corporate taxation that will all likely fall by the wayside when the cutbacks in coal consumption, worldwide, as have been indicated as necessary by all of our trading partners, suddenly turn into a reality. The multi-national coal miners will all leave Australia with their riches intact and their economic future secure. The politicians who had been doing their bidding for many years will retire. Yet the cost of the environmental and economic damage inflicted by failing to listen to the scientists will remain.

So while closing our mines and changing our ways will cost us dearly. The hard facts indicate that we really have no other option. We are faced with either acting now or being forced to act later.

A change over to renewable energy systems for local power generation, and the closing of our coal mines, are both inevitable. We can either ignore this until after all our coal markets collapse, and after our international reputation is utterly trashed, and we are in the midst of a long term economic decline. Or we can simply wake up to reality, take the advice of the climate scientists, and develop and instigate an orderly transition to a 100% carbon free economy.

 

39 comments

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  1. Pingback: Coal peddlers are far more dangerous than heroin peddlers – The AIM Network via #AusPol – #AusPoll

  2. Kyran

    There was an old ‘Irish joke’ with the usual participant’s, Paddy and Michael. Paddy was hitting his head against a wall. Michael asks “Doesn’t that hurt?” to which Paddy replies “Yes.”. Michael persists and asks “Why are you doing it?”. Paddy’s response, “It just feels so good when I stop.”.
    On AM this morning, bookcase brandis was being interviewed by brissenden, quite possibly one of the most incompetent ABC employee’s. Not one question about brandy’s “Joh” moment about the separation of powers, where he decided he would be a gate keeper to any government agency or department seeking advice from the solicitor general. In years gone by, any PM would have sacked him, not just for the interference, but also for the fact that he has, again, lied.
    I digress. The interview was about how Adani/Carmichael would generate 10,000 jobs and that was what Queensland needed.
    “On Tuesday’s program, Attorney-General George Brandis says employment was the core issue for the Queensland electorate of Capricornia and the Adani coal development was crucial for jobs;”
    It took a minute or so before brandy was challenged on the ‘10,000 jobs’ number, to which he suggested it may be less. Adani have already conceded it is unlikely to exceed 3,000. It was about that time I zoned out. I have yet to read any article that suggests the Adani proposal is, in any way, economically viable.
    On midday radio was a report about BHP. I haven’t been able to find a link to that broadcast. From a separate article;
    “BHP expects to boost its coal output by 8 per cent in the three years to June 2018, and cut costs by 16 per cent over the next year.
    “Against the backdrop of greater uncertainty in the outlook for thermal coal, we are confident that base demand in emerging economies will remain resilient for decades to come.”
    However, BHP expects demand to increase by 10 to 15 per cent by the mid-2020s, with low-cost energy coal to be a preferred fuel source in India and South-East Asia.”
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-21/bhp-billiton-targets-another-$us600m-from-coal-arm-by-mid-2017/7528390?section=business
    The midday radio broadcast pointed out the bleeding obvious. India’s current government has already declared they have stockpiles of coal and will source any ‘new’ requirements from their own mines. The Chinese have already declared they also have stockpiles and are seeking alternative ‘renewable’ sources. BHP share values are dropping.
    There was an old adage. ‘Sometimes, the best way to convince a fool is to let them have their own way.’
    If only the repercussions of these fools convictions didn’t have such dire consequences.
    I wish you well, Mr Moylan. You are up against one heck of a wall. Thank you. Take care

  3. Jexpat

    And dumber too.

    Coal Fitzgibbon apparently got the call when Newcastle Council passed a largely symbolic effort to divest from unsustanable fossil fuels (a wise investment strategy, if there ever was one- as has been shown emphatically in accounts for several years running).

    Like a bumbling Barnaby banshee, down came Fitzgibbon from Labor HQ to attempt a browbeat of Newcastle of Lord Mayor Nuetalli Nelmes on local radio.

    Fortunately, Ms. Nelmes (also a Labor party member) requited herself quite well- leaving listeners to magine that Fitzgibbon- hot in the face, was about to burst an embolism

  4. Stephen Brailey

    The old the blind and the stupid are scared of change they fall for the blandishments of the greedy and never ever think of the reckonning.

  5. Miriam English

    Problem is that it isn’t just change now or be forced to change later. It is change now while it is relatively cheap and we can still make money investing in renewable energy skills and technology, or change later when it will be much more expensive to do so and we will have to pay through the nose to buy all our renewable energy tech from others.

    Our politicians are hopeless, bumbling, corrupt ignoramuses.

  6. Möbius Ecko

    Miriam an example of this is the recent NSW budget where they gloated over a surplus and planned spending on public transport, a good thing, and education, mainly in fixing things that should have been fixed over the last decade or more.

    But what is not being done is spending on hospitals and health, the reason given is that it will cost too much to fix every hospital and problem in one go. So allowing the health infrastructure to deteriorate further, as happened with the education infrastructure, will end up costing NSW far more down the track. Why not fix it as you go and forget this nonsense of cutting and hoarding money for bragging rights, and to build up war chests for elections.

  7. Jack

    Just heard Malcolm Roberts a Climate Change Sceptic on Alan Jones’s program who’s affiliated with Pauline Hanson and Coal. He has zero evidence also. He states that there is no evidence “that HUMAN CARBON DIOXIDE causes Global Warming”. He sounds like a statement isolationist. ie like many other things cause Climate change DAh! like COAL. you can here him on a podcast 612 Abc with Steve Austin.

  8. Kaye Lee

    May 2016 was the hottest month on the planet since we started keeping records, with the Arctic in particular seeing temperatures way above what might normally be expected. Alaska had its warmest spring on record by a “wide margin”, the statistics show, while temperatures in Finland during May were 3-5°C higher than they usually are at this time of year. All told, the all-time record for a May temperature was broken in 20 observation stations across the world.

    There’s more: Australia has just had its warmest autumn on record (1.86°C above average), and a new low was logged in terms of snow and ice cover in the Arctic, with a mere 12 million square kilometres (4.63 million square miles) averaged over the month. That’s almost 1.4 million square kilometres (537,000 square miles) below the long-term average measured from 1981 to 2010.

    Meteorologists say increased carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere, caused by human emissions, has been made worse this year by the 2016 El Niño.

    “Since human emissions are now 25 percent greater than in the last big El Niño in 1997/98, this all adds up to a record CO2 rise this year,” said Richard Betts from the University of Exeter in the UK.

    Oh, and April 2016 was the hottest April on record too, in case you were wondering. From the looks of it, 2016 is on course to be the hottest year we’ve seen since we started measuring temperatures properly in the 1950s, and by quite some distance.

  9. mark

    the undoing of civilisation.Sooner than later.mark

  10. Brad

    Good on ya James! Keep spreading the message.

  11. Stephen Brailey

    Actually reasonably accurate temperature records to back to the 1880’s! While there is a great deal of variability between temperature stations due to different methods employed and a whole other bunch of variables scientists who are actually very very clever in their field (something politicians wont admit these days) figured out the various errors and allowed for them in their calculations.
    Yes it was the hottest April on record this year but this was preceded by the hottest Mar, Feb-the hottest month ever recorded, Jan-2nd hottestJan, hottest Dec ’15, hottest Aug’15, hottest July’15! Climate change…ppfftt.

  12. Anomander

    The biggest cost will be the environmental legacy left behind by those abandoned mines, as the miners fold-up their business, shift their profits off-shore and abrogate all responsibility. We face ongoing bills into the hundreds of billions of dollars remediating those mine sites and preventing any more damage to our water table from leaching chemicals and run-off.

    Not to mention the fall-out form the job losses and the blow to the economy from the loss of investment, industry and employment.

    We will also be paying others for the use of their energy technology, when we could have been at the forefront – developing our own technology to sell onto other nations.

    The Libs are fond of telling voters that we should not leave a “debt legacy” for future generations, while conveniently overlooking the environmental legacy we leave our children and grandchildren, who will have to endure a future much worse than our own, trying to survive in a poisoned world.

  13. winter is here

    “…one in seven tons of the coal that is burnt on the face of the planet comes from one of our coal mines.”
    Should the concern be about where the other 6 tonnes comes from?

  14. mark

    How much of the global c02 is produced by man ? What proof do you have that c02 is the main driver in climate when the ice data says temps rose before the c02 in the past. Hot autumns or hot days mean little in the overall scheme

  15. corvus boreus

    ‘How much of the global CO2 is produced by man?’

    Around 5 % of overall annual emissions is a reasonably uncontroversial estimate.
    The rest of the global carbon carbon emissions (approx 95%) occur within relatively stable systems.
    The 440 odd gt of annual emissions occurring through vegetative demise, consumption, decomposition and respiration are roughly balanced by around 440 gt annual vegetative sequestration of carbon (mainly through plant growth).
    Similarly, balance occurs in the oceans with the approx 330 gt of carbon emitted yearly (mainly through the consumption and decomposition of phytoplankton) balanced by about 330 gt sequestered by photosynthesis.
    The extra (about) 5% emitted by human activity (mainly burning fossil fuels) is unable to be absorbed by terrestrial vegetation (a trend exacerbated by global trends of increasing deforestation and desertification) and the extra absorption of carbon into the oceans is increasing their acidity, thus diminishing their biota and biodiversity (although the jellyfish do not care).
    Approximately 60% of all current annual human emissions persist as atmospheric carbon, an amount which measurably increases year by year (approx 315 ppm in 1955 to over 400ppm in 2014).

  16. Miriam English

    Poor mark. I hope they’re paying you lots.

    If you’re really interested in answers to your questions (I doubt it as I think you’re more likely trolling) then I’d suggest you do a little research.

    On one of the programming lists I frequent, if someone comes along with questions that require an hour or more to find all the references, the questioner is generally told to do their own homework.

    Google is a useful tool, Mark. Use it. Learn a little about the world. Don’t just spit out the same old bullshit questions from climate change denialist websites. It makes you look either stupid or corrupt.

  17. mark

    Thanks Corvious. So your saying there is a difference between man made c02 and naturally occuring c02. Something i would question as they have the same chemical composition. Yes Miriam -It was a question to see if you actually knew the answer. As Corvious said it is approx 5%. But neither of you answered the last part of the question. Ice core samples say that the temps in the past changed before the rise in c02. So what proof is there that c02 is the main driver of yhe climate.

  18. Möbius Ecko

    “So your saying there is a difference between man made c02 and naturally occuring c02. Something i would question as they have the same chemical composition.”

    mark, there are markers that differentiate the types carbon in CO², with the best one for differentiating between natural and man made CO² is carbon-14.

    Carbon-14

    An important difference between CO2 from natural sources and CO2 from fossil fuels is the age of the carbon it contains. Younger natural sources of CO2 are relatively rich in carbon-14. But since carbon-14 has a half-life of about 5,700 years, it can’t be found in fossil fuels that are millions of years old.

    Using this difference, the research team could easily differentiate between natural CO2 emissions and anthropogenic ones. They also measured 22 other atmospheric gasses tied to human activities. The emission source of these gasses could be estimated by using the same ratio as that of fossil fuel and natural originated atmospheric CO2.

  19. corvus boreus

    mark,
    You asked for ratios of ‘man-made’ contributions to atmospheric CO2, which I provided for your benefit, based upon available published and peer reviewed science.
    In response, you want to engage in semantics over whether exclusively human emmission are still classified as natural. If you make such distinction in the question, do not question the same distinction in the answer.

    Rather than undertake pre-work research into core samples in order to answer your further question (based upon an unsupported claim, I ask you to provide a link to a credibly peer-reviewed science paper (not WUTT?) explicitly declaring that analysis of ice-core samples empirically proves that all previous temperature rises occurred prior to, or independent of, any rises in CO2.

    Failing that, I would ask you to answer a very simple question yourself;
    Do you disagree with the theory that, for starters, chopping down swathes of heat-absorbing, shade providing canopy vegetation might be contributing to the well documented increase in the temperature of the planet’s surface?

  20. Möbius Ecko

    You want proof mark? No proof but there is theory, and there are several out there, but the only one so far that fits closest to what’s happening with global climate is anthropogenic produced gases and other human activity.

  21. Stephen Brailey

    Winter is Here…yes but that doesn’t stop us from taking responsibility for what is ours!

  22. Miriam English

    Mark the climate change denier, I’m loathe to reply to you, as I’m sure you’re not actually interested in the answer and even if you are interested you’re obviously too lazy to look outside your mind-numbing circle of climate deniers to genuinely look for answers, but I’ll give a brief reply.

    I know you’d like things to be simple and clear-cut, but they aren’t. Warm the planet (whether through increase in greenhouse gasses as we are currently doing, or though variability in Earth’s orbit, or any other means) and you trigger a series of other changes, some of which increase CO2 in the atmosphere. In the past, temperature change was largely a result of natural cycles (the Milankovitch cycle for example), but now we’ve started warming the planet on our own by burning fossil fuels and by deforestation. This will, in time, release more CO2 which will worsen the warming.

    The oceans are the largest sink of CO2, but as the seas warm they are less able to hold CO2 in solution so it goes back to the atmosphere. Normally it takes hundreds of years to warm the oceans sufficiently for this to happen, but now we’re seeing dramatic rises in sea temperature within decades. I’m not aware of this ever happening on this scale before in the history of the Earth. That is, to say the least, worrying, especially since we’re now seeing the release of methane (another potent greenhouse gas) from the thawing tundras and methane clathrates bubbling up from previously stable stores on the sea bed.

    We have set off something that is rapidly running out of control. And idiots are still blithely questioning that it is even happening despite clear evidence right before them, simply because they prefer bullshit “answers” from corrupt TV personalities rather than face reality. Wake up Mark.

    (Huh… so much for my “brief” reply. 🙂 )

  23. Kaye Lee

    While there are many drivers of climate, CO2 is the most dominant radiative forcing and is increasing faster than any other forcing.

    At any given time, the Earth’s climate is subjected to a myriad of natural influences. The impact of each influence varies based on the magnitude of the natural change, the duration over which the change occurs, and whether or not that change is part of an overall repeated cycle.

    Processes that have historically altered the face of the planet, like cycles in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun or shifts in continental tectonic plates, occur over tens of thousands to millions of years. While not nearly as dramatic, the influence of solar, ocean, and wind patterns is much more immediate, but these effects generally alternate between warming and cooling over the course of months to decades in relation to their respective cycles. Volcanic eruptions and impacts from celestial bodies, like asteroids, have a near instantaneous effect, but very few of these one-time events are of sufficient size to impact the global climate for more than a few years.

    The industrial contribution of CO2 and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere differs from its natural counterparts in fundamental ways. This human influence is happening very rapidly, is not cyclical, and pushes the climate continually and relentlessly in the single direction of warming.

  24. Miriam English

    I noticed part of my reply was not completely clear.

    We are warming the planet by releasing massive amounts of the greenhouse gas CO2 through burning of fuels and through deforestation. The warming that we are causing is beginning to release even more CO2 (and methane) by triggering natural mechanisms, amplifying our already stupendous output.

    Unfortunately the only mechanisms that I know of that can slow, stop, and reverse this trend are a) encouraging plants to grow, especially in the ocean, and b) polluting the atmosphere with particulates. And I just know which choice the politicians will make when things start to get really bad. They’ll choose the most industrially compatible one. Prepare to lose all our pollution standards in the near future. Maybe the Bladerunner vision is more accurate than we think.

    We are in for a very rough time. People like Mark the climate change denialist, have the greatest repository of knowledge in history right there at their fingertips, yet they choose to languish in ignorance, not content merely to fiddle while the world burns, but to actually fan the flames. Perhaps Harquebus is right and we are indeed fcked.

  25. Miriam English

    There I go and say the problem is complex, then yield to the impulse to simplify it. It isn’t simple.

    In the past CO2 worked to amplify temperature changes along with other greenhouse gasses. There was a relatively stable cycle that worked fairly dependably for hundreds of millions of years.

    Today we have suddenly heated the planet by burning billions of tons of fossil fuels releasing unprecedented amounts of the greenhouse gas CO2 into the atmosphere. This is well documented and beyond dispute. Unfortunately that trigger is now affecting a whole slew of other cascading mechanisms adding to warming — phytoplankton in the oceans taking up CO2 when they live and releasing it when they die; overfishing wrecking oceanic ecologies, upsetting the balance between the predators of the animals that graze on the phytoplankton and the animals whose poop nourishes the phytoplankton; ocean currents releasing CO2 or taking it up depending on temperature and turnover of deep water; albedo of our planet changing, with ice reflecting more back heat out into space, or increased ocean absorbing heat; methane clathrate destabilising and bubbling up from the oceans as an extremely potent greenhouse gas.

    There are many more interdependent effects, yet there is one very clear signal that comes out of it all. The Earth is warming faster than humans have ever seen and it tracks accurately with the excessive greenhouse gasses (mostly CO2) we are emitting. And as it’s an exponential change we’ve only seen the beginning so far.

  26. mark

    Miriam -i am not a climate change denier. I agree that the climate always changes and alway will. What im asking is the hype on c02 justified. How much do humans contribute and is this the only factor driving yhe change. You dont know me so done assume what my intentions are.

  27. Miriam English

    Mark, it is clear what your intentions are. I don’t have to assume anything. You asked about the CO2 rise following temperature rise in the deep past and I (against my better judgement) replied. Then straight afterward here you are again asking the very same thing, pointing to climate change denier Joanne Nova’s article on the topic, where in the very best tradition of Erich von Däniken style of anti-science journalists she poses misleading questions to point people in the wrong direction.

  28. corvus boreus

    Mark,
    The samples of Vostok Ice analyzed that exhibited lag in CO2 increase behind temperature rise were ones taken from the end of glacial periods (ice ages), which are generally accepted to have been most likely caused by fluctuations in solar radiation, thus the increase in temperature in these cases were not initially driven by increasing amounts of atmospheric carbon.
    Note that many other ice core samples conversely exhibit evidence of carbon increase preceding temperature rise.
    If you had bothered to read the interpretations given in credible scientific journals, rather than merely accepting the claims in Jo Nova’s blog, you would probably have seen this extra information.

    Ps, for some reason you keep adding extra letters to my nom-de-plume.

  29. Mark

    Corvus – sorry for the incorrect spelling. Must be fat fingers. Miriam – i asked the question again because i didnt get an answer the first time. I certainly didnt ask it after you called me a climate denier. From your post – Normally it takes hundreds of years to warm the oceans sufficiently for this to happen, but now we’re seeing dramatic rises in sea temperature within decades. I’m not aware of this ever happening on this scale before in the history of the Earth. So how long have we been measuring the oceans temperatures. Seems a pretty big statement. The ocean heat sink arguement is a bit convenient for me. Heat travelling to the bottom of the ocean when the surface shows minimal effect. It looks like some reverse engineering going on here. The temps havent responded as the IPCC predicted so people are now working backwoods to put caviats on the results. You all have acknowledged that there are other factors involved in the climate changing. Why the fixation on c02. Corvus has stated that we are reponsible for 5 per cent approx. He even said that it isnt all of that c02 that is causing problems. Australia wants to cut its emissions by 10 per cent . So we are looking at a percentage cut of a percentage cut of 5 percent and that is supposed to alter the climate . I would suggest that the sun is the main driver of our climate and coping with a warmer / cooler climate would be far more cost effective than the current system.

  30. corvus boreus

    Mark,
    Do not presume to misrepresent me as part of your argument.
    I repeat my previous simple question, which relates to directly observable consequences of human activity.

    Will cutting down most of the shade trees on an area of land generally make that patch of ground get hotter?

  31. Rossleigh

    So the IPCC are “working backwoods”, Mark?
    Do you have a problem with this?
    Have you got something against people living in the back woods?

  32. Matters Not

    Climate change is all down to ‘fat fingers’ apparently.

    Please don’t ‘entertain’ trolls. By all means provide some ‘links’ that might ‘educate’, but don’t respond when they don’t read same.

  33. Miriam English

    Mark, perhaps you are genuinely interested in answers, and maybe I was too rudely dismissive. If you want to find the answers to your questions it’s probably better to find out from the source rather than questioning us. If you’re interested in the topic, but not enough to really dig into it then perhaps you might like to read the short book Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism by Australian scientists John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky it is free, online, easily downloadable, easy to read, only 16 pages long, and will give you some insight into how climate denialists trick people into believing fakery.

    If you think that fixing global warming is more expensive than the risks of trying to ride it out, then perhaps read one of the free online books by the Rocky Mountain Institute (I’ve listed them below). They detail how taking advantage of alternatives to fossil fuels is actually cheaper, creates jobs, uses the market to give people what they want instead of being forced to pay billions of dollars in subsidies for fossil fuel magnates and wars in the Middle East while we screw our climate.
    Find Natural Capitalism on Google, or read the overview on Wikipedia.
    Find Winning the Oil Endgame on Google, or read the overview on Wikipedia, or watch the talk at

    Find Reinventing Fire on Google, or read the overview on Wikipedia, or watch the talk at

  34. Matters Not

    Miriam English, may I suggest that if mark doesn’t ‘demonstrate’ that he’s read your links in future postings and considered same, then you regard him as a ‘troll’ and not contribute to the downgrading of this site.

    Already we have NoS capturing ‘threads’ because supposedly ‘intelligent’ commentators who respond to each and every ‘bait’. And do so because of persistent, ongoing warnings not to do exactly that.

    From my point of view, the blame must always be the responsibility of the first responder.

    NoS doesn’t ‘read’ in any ‘intelligent’ sense and neither does ‘mark’ and yet people respond. Here’s something to be considered. You are ‘suckers’. They know it. But you don’t.

    Further, one wonders who the ‘stupid’ really are? Evidence of the pejorative ‘slow learners’ dominating this site.

  35. Miriam English

    Matters Not, yeah, I was thinking the same thing and promised myself that I wouldn’t take part anymore in discussing further with him unless he’s actually seen the info pointed to (literature or talks).

    I just re-watched the two Amory Lovins talks. They are brilliant and should be required viewing by all conservatives and climate change denialists because they don’t fight against those people, but speak in their language to detail how we can save money and fix our economy and environment at the same time, and how that change is already well underway regardless of people’s ideologies.

  36. Miriam English

    Wow! Amory Lovins gives a great talk. During breakfast this morning I watched this one:
    Rocky Mountain Institute 2015-08-31 – Disruptive Oil Futures

    In it he covers some of the ground of his previous videos, but at an easier rate. He also gives more up-to-date info on Europe’s use of renewable energy (though it too is a year and a half out of date now — latest figures are even better). He talks about a lot more too.

    Watching his talks always leaves me feeling optimistic again because he makes me realise it really doesn’t matter what climate change denialists think. They’re left arguing about irrelevancies when everybody, even fossil fuel enthusiasts, have walked away because they want a cheap LED light, just like everybody else does.

    In the end it doesn’t matter if we do it to save the planet, it just matters that we do it. And we are — at an accelerating rate — because it is cheaper, cleaner, faster, and just plain better.

    The arguments of the climate change denialists have as much relevance to the modern age as the product of the 300 million year old Carboniferous Period swamps that they love so much. They can drag their feet all they want. They can propagate lies and fabricate misleading questions and create anti-windmill commissioners and prop up the coal mines, but they’re living on borrowed time.

    It will almost be fun to see the LNP gain power for the next three years and make a utter mess of our energy economy while other countries that embrace renewables surge ahead… except for the small problem that they’ll ruin our society in so doing. Although more than a million Australian households already have solar panels and we’re adopting LED lights and other energy saving technologies at a rate that gives the coal companies headaches. We that do change will be insulated to some degree from our inept, lying government backing the wrong horse.

    Maybe next time people will learn not to listen to the mainstream media and never trust the LNP on anything ever again.

  37. jim

    How dare The Labor party whack on a carbon tax when we give the miners $11Billion in subsidies we should give em twice that LOL.

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