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The battle for media attention between environmentalists Tim Flannery and Bob Brown is currently running Brown’s way following a brilliantly hysterical move by the Greens senator. Flannery had earlier claimed an advantage with this powerful gambit:
It is no longer socially acceptable for Australia to keep exporting coal knowing the damage it is doing, according to the scientist and Australian of the Year, Tim Flannery.
Professor Flannery said that in the future, coal would be seen as just as dangerous as asbestos is now. “As the situation unfolds and the matters get more critical, the world is not going to allow people to pollute our common atmosphere, as occurs at the moment,” he told ABC television.
“The social licence to operate those old polluting technologies will be withdrawn.”
He also advocated shutting down the coal-fired power stations that provide the bulk of Australia’s electricity. “I think that we do need to ultimately close down those coal-fired power plants, but first we need to build the bridge to the new energy future.”
A lesser competitor would have given up in the face of what seemed an unbeatably stupid series of points; after all, what room for further insanity remained once Flannery had compared coal to asbestos, called for coal exports (worth about $25 billion per year) to be scrapped, and urged that electricity plants be shut down?
But Brown isn’t Australia’s leading enviro-crank by accident. Picture him poring over that Flannery news item, and seizing on this line:
“ ... first we need to build the bridge to the new energy future.”
That’s all Brown needed. The next day, he launched an anti-coal proposal free of any concerns for future bridge-building:
Federal Greens Leader Bob Brown today proposed that Australia should shut down its $25 billion a year coal industry within three years to help reduce global greenhouse emissions.
Coal is Australia’s major commodity export. Some 30,000 people are involved directly in the coal export trade. Shutting it down would be, let’s say, complex. Brown isn’t particularly worried:
He admits a sudden ban on exports would be massively dislocating but believes coal exports should stop within the term of one government or three years ...
“We do need extreme measures compared to what’s happened in the past, but the extremists here are the Howard Government,” he said.
Senator Brown says new jobs can be created in the renewable energy sector ...
Sensational! More on these jokers from Andrew Bolt.
What sane, rational folk we have representing us. You can bet your bollocks to a barn dance I’m glad my taxes pay their wages.
Thank heavens I’m still a drinker.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 02 09 at 10:59 PM • permalinkSenator Brown says new jobs can be created in the renewable energy sector ...
...which will no doubt have to be “nationalized” as one of the “extreme measures” to keep the evil profit motive from derailing its altruistic intentions. And then, Venezuela Baby!
Posted by Vanguard of the Commentariat on 2007 02 09 at 11:06 PM • permalink“Senator Brown says new jobs can be created in the renewable energy sector .”
40,000 places on treadmills?
Punkawallas with fans?
Coolies?
Bob Brown groupies?Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 02 09 at 11:14 PM • permalinkWhy is the Year Zero, in one thin disguise or another, so irresistably attractive to these asshats?
Posted by Don't Bogart that Midget, Comrade! on 2007 02 09 at 11:40 PM • permalink“Jobs in the renewable energy sector” eh?
Working on farms growing wheat for ethanol?
Wait until the coal miners of the Bown basin work out this means they will be required to pass up their comparitively cushy number in exchange for agricultural work…
Posted by Steve at the pub on 2007 02 09 at 11:59 PM • permalink“ ... first we need to build the bridge to the new energy future.”
I propose we construct it out of gaia fanciers. 10 lanes each way. No bus lane. No transit lane. No tolls.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 02 10 at 12:06 AM • permalinkBrown is suggesting some sort of “hot rocks” solution.
No, I’m not joking.
Posted by Quentin George on 2007 02 10 at 12:24 AM • permalinkCaptain Planet said the Australia is a wealthy country, and could afford to compensate miners for their losses; an incredible display of economic acumen. Just where does Bob think Australia’s wealth springs from- a magic pixie money tree deep in the Tarkine? Sales of reality television show? Out of his bot?
The really sad thing is that many mongs will agree with him, and continue to vote for him and his band of bampots.
I trust close attention will be paid to Bobs energy consumption from now on, and how that energy is generated- somehow I doubt his parlimentary and electoral offices have solar panels, or gerbil*-powered treadmills.
*Now there’s a hazardous occupation- you’d want danger kibble.
Bob Brown and Flannery are playing with fire here. Just think for a moment how the Chinese might react to our cutting off their energy supply.
My guess is Brown & the Flannelled Fool never read too much history or else they’d recall that one of the reasons Japan went to war in 1941 was that the United States, which at the time supplied 80% of Japan’s oil, embargoed further exports to Japan. This threatened to cripple Japan’s economy and its military forces.
Perhaps the Chinese might decide, if we are too stupid to mine our coal, simply to help themselves. Who would stop them? The UN? The EU? The Kiwis? Pardon my mirth. The United States with a Democrat in the White House? The Dems can’t stomach the loss of 3,000 in Iraq - can’t see them wanting to risk the lives of millions in a war with China.
I’d rather risk the consequences of a bit of global warming than those associated with cutting off energy to the Chinese, thanks very much.Tim Flannery on one side - Bob Brown on the other both basically wanting to bankrupt the Australian economy. Finally the masks are off and we find their true intentions. Also don’t think these bumpkins will stop with just shutting down coal - ooohhhh nooooo next on the menu will be quite a few other energy intensive industries, probably every other mining activity you can think of. Much as I dislike the fact that we rely so heavily on it - it is fact that without mining our economy would probably tank.
Labor having courted the green vote are now being tarnished with the brush of economic destruction proposed by these two air heads.
Howard must be sitting back laughing his ass off at this spectacle which will get the labor party dissolving into a bickering mess. Is this some sort of master plan for the next election?
Karl Rove - eat your heart out!!!
Every time I hit the INTERNET or a newspaper for news, I find another envirotard jockeying for winner of The Most Stupid Statement Evah™ award.
And they only keep digging themselves deeper. Does it ever stop?
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 02 10 at 12:49 AM • permalinkFirst comment in Bolt’s thread:
Tell em where doomed Andrew coal is worth a pitiful $23 billion a year in a $ 1 trillion dollar economy,wander how much money and jobs are lost when green industries are forced to relocate to Europe China and even the USA!
Regards JulienDoes this f’tard have any idea of the (‘Green power’) industry:
• Wind turbines made in Denmark, world’s largest supplier [Vestas]
• AFAIK BP Solar Australia moved their solar panel manufacturing offshore in the early naughties, due to lack of local demand.The $ follows the path of least resistance, like much else ...
The really sad thing is that many mongs will agree with him, and continue to vote for him and his band of bampots.
#19, you’re right - there’s well over 200 nutcases agreeing with Brown on the poll on the Tele’s page alone.
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2007 02 10 at 01:20 AM • permalink#28 I forgot about the Midnight Oil factor Garrett. How is going to re-assure the coal miners that Labor will leave them alone if elected, the man is practially an acolyte of the likes of Flannery and his ilk. Also after that “debate” he had the other night he has painted himself into a bit of a corner here haha!
Does it get any better than this?
Stop this dirty coal business, let’s export sunshine!
Not only the solar variety; the one shining out of Flannery’s ass, too.Posted by Honkie Hammer on 2007 02 10 at 01:30 AM • permalinkHas Bobby Brown done the thing we have all been waiting for and committed political suicide? It is one thing to run around like a demented fairy at logging protests but it another to want to pull the rug out from under country’s economy. Will people who voted green because they thought it meant helping koalas now realise the man is seriously unhinged.
Why, his coal policy strikes at the very existance of his own supporters. Only a rich country tolerates the anarchist welfare parasites that travel the country acting as shock troops for the Greens. Only a rich country can afford to hand out millions of dollars to talentless artists and tedious actors staging predictable and childish plays. Only a rich country can afford to elect a dickhead like Bob Brown to parliament, fly him around the country, put him up in hotels, supply him with a car and a massive pay packet for giving nothing, not a thing, in return.
Silly, Bobby.
#Thanks for the link!
PETER GARRETT: Well, look, the first thing is, you need targets. If you don’t know where you’re going, then how are you going to get there? You need targets, and we are committed to a 50 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
Oh dear - 50% over what time frame? That’s a lot of coal stations going under hmmmmm can we join the dots?
Maybe they can all get jobs growing tobacco… that’s an excellent export product…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 02 10 at 01:57 AM • permalinkAw, you square-headed conservative types just don’t wanna have any fun.
It’d be really cool!
Sure, we’d destroy our industrial base and any hope of prosperity, health and longevity, but we’d save the whole wide planet from corporate greed ’n’ stuff. Besides, it wouldn’t be so bad. We could all trade in our gas-guzzling cars and trucks for Gaia friendly HappyWheels kombi vans and meet up in the hills around Nimbin or maybe up in the Daintree. All 20 million of us; there’s plenty of space up there in the northern rainforests for everyone, man. And the bourgeois capitalist fascists couldn’t stop us ‘cause it’d be an emergency.
Then, while we wait for the UN to take decisive action, you know, like pass a resolution and airlift in relief supplies, we could just smoke lots of pot, set up magic mushroom soup kitchens, strum guitar and sing happy hippy rainbow songs. Just imagine it. Peace, good vibes and free love, frolicking naked in the warm tropical mud… just like they did at Woodstock!
Howard doesn’t need to open his trap to gallop home in the next election. This pair of Industrial Strength Dunces are handing it to him on a platter. Keep on talkin’ fellas!
It’s funny to see the Fairfax press trying to report this lunacy. Deep down, even the extremists over at the Death Star know that these two are spouting absolute rubbish. Problemeno! Brown and Flannery are Fairfax Pin-up Boys - how do the Herald/Age report their wild ravings without making these two look like utter ratbags? How do they report it at all considering the extremism of their rants? How do they do it while protecting KRudd from the inevitable fallout? How on earth do they editorialise on it without injuring the pin-up boys?
Delicious dilemma. All our friends are getting skewered and it’s not going to go away any time soon. Howard must be almost sick with laughter.
#33 Kae, I for one was extremely disappointed in the “debate”.
It is apparent that our Dark Lord Master Rove has decreed that our side plays lip service to the popular need to be seen to be doing something about climate change, and hey, who am I to argue against the wishes of Lord Rove.
However, I wish Malcolm Turnbill had addressed his true thoughts during the “debate”.....
#42 KaBOOM
Er, I didn’t bother to watch it.
Peter Garrett, the talking corpse?
RAOTFLMAO.
Global Warming is now mentioned in EVERY item on the radio. Everything mentioned is followed by some reference to whether it is affected by or causes
Global WarmingClimate Change. There is an advert I saw on Teev today for solar hot water. “Do your bit forGlobal WarmingClimate Change”, showing COOLING TOWERS. Bloody advertising idiots.Greenpeace propaganda in support of the IPCC report. Watch the video The Angry Kid. Very threatening kid, pale face. He comes straight out of Omega Man. He will certainly appeal to hoodies. Thought it was funny initially. But this is a step too far. The message to kids is your parents are bad people who are threatening your future, from a very threatening kid.
“Unless drastic action is taken soon,
All fish will be gone
No rainforests
Both icecaps gone
Entire countries will have disappeared
Life expectancy reduced”“MY future…maybe kids today but tomorrow will be different…. Starting from today the lines are drawn you have to choose sides… you’re a friend or you’re an enemy….last time will be talking to you…we will not be denied our future..”
Greenpeace propaganda for kids
Some refer to the Global Warming War. it seems it is on and child soldiers are being recruited. Would like to know if Brown endorses it.
#43- that’s what tickles me more than anything else- this is a better racket than the Y2K flimflam, which had an end date. This one keeps on going- and if nothing happens they’ll say it’s happening next year, or change back to an incipient ice age- all the while sales of useless, inefficient gimcracks, poorly written books and badly produced, unresearched fact-free fillums grows bigger than the national debt (which Bob Brown will pay off through Cash Converters if he takes power). A nice little earner, which goes unquestioned and uninvestigated by a Chicken Little filled compliant media (who also love nothing more than a panic, great for circulation/ratings).
What shits me though is the inevitible hosing I’m going to get through carbon taxes etc- JWH and Co may well know that gerbil wormening is at best a posibility which can not be affected by human activity, but he’s never going to knock back a chance to siphon more bikkies from taxpayers, and gain some more control over business and private activities- a fan of small government he sure aint.
#45 Habib, that’s exactly right!
Governments love taxes, and the hysteria over climate change would seem to be an unsurpassed opportunity for a “but it’s for your own good!” tax, which would be accepted (if not supported) by the majority of dimwits in this country.
I have decided that I am going to be a Carbon Credit Broker when I grow up - imagine, clipping the ticket at both ends for a small percentage of vast sums of money, with full support of all the governments in the world!
Of course, I shall be based in Vanuatu, or the Isle of Guernsey, or the Carribean, so as to enhance the value-added factor of my global business….
Just you wait - Pacific Atlantic Carbon Offsets Enterprises will eventually list on most major boards - get in early, you know the routine…
Bob Brown’s been a ‘coal driller’ himself from way back.
Seriously, there is a kind of racism here. Australians are the baddies because they sell the stuff. There is never any criticism about how its used when it gets to countries such as China. They haven’t got the balls.
Bob and his buddies are happy to stroll down to Bunnings and buy a cheap drill though have no concept of where these goods come from or why they are so cheap. They think that by not selling coal, the whole pollution issue will magically go away. Thet really have no idea.
#44. Ros, I’ll bet the idiots that produce this kiddy propaganda are also the same ones who bleat on ad nauseum about McDonald’s advertising aimed at children.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 02 10 at 04:41 AM • permalink“we need to build the bridge to the new energy future.”
I suggest making it a human-powered Bridge on the River Kwai.
Brown could play the part of a [very tall]
sunken-faced Jap Commandant, and Tim Flummery looks just right for the Alec Guinness role.
What a team! We’d all be the slave-workers, dying of lack of energy of course.Tim! So yuo are impressed by the epic battle between Flappery and Groen do compete on their greenie creds?
I propose to ban all coal mining and to close down all coal-fored power plants retroactively.
That’s right people, if elected i will go back to 1949 when commie gaia despoilers ran the country and singlehandedly shut down all of this stuff, thus saving future generations from the death and dstruction of globule worming
Posted by Jack from Montreal on 2007 02 10 at 05:51 AM • permalinkBTW, anyone here know who was the first black man to fly the Atlantic?
Alcock and BrownPosted by Jack from Montreal on 2007 02 10 at 05:53 AM • permalinkSorru about the italics and underlines, but I did turn of the bold when I left the room.
Geez, I’ll be glad when the footy season starts and I’ll be able to spend my saturday arvos in HCMC more productively.
Go Bombers
Posted by Jack from Montreal on 2007 02 10 at 05:56 AM • permalinkOhh sure you are all focussed on coal but what are you doing about the cows!!!!
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=20772&Cr=global&Cr1=warmingBoy is India in trouble with its giving cows sacred status.
Posted by the nailgun on 2007 02 10 at 06:01 AM • permalinkApropo of almost nothing, my grandmother knew Alcock (or it might have been Brown) I don’t recall. She also saw Buffalo Bill when he came to the UK around 1900.
And, Fisk may remember the snow in Maidstone in ‘63’ but we had real snow up in Essex. Nothing between Harlow and the Ural mountains over 300 feet. So nothing to stop those Siberian winters coming our way.
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Posted by Jack from Montreal on 2007 02 10 at 07:36 AM • permalink”Perhaps the Chinese might decide, if we are too stupid to mine our coal, simply to help themselves. Who would stop them? The UN? The EU? The Kiwis? Pardon my mirth. The United States with a Democrat in the White House? The Dems can’t stomach the loss of 3,000 in Iraq - can’t see them wanting to risk the lives of millions in a war with China.”
Actually the country which is the main importer of Australian coal is, by far, Japan, and not China, which is a next exporter of the stuff.
http://www.australiancoal.com.au/exports.htmAnd Japan does have form in invading countries when it is cut off from receiving its vital raw materials.
#44 - Greenpeace engaging children against their parents - it is the Red Guards and the cultural revolution all over again. These Greenpeace maggots are reading directly from Mao, Lenin and Marx, and using modern electronic media to disseminate the message.
Appointing Flannery as AOY was masterstroke of genius. Give the Warmening kook a mouthpiece and he’ll start “outgreening” Labor and the Greens - which exposes their policies to attack from both sides, enabling swinging voters in suburban Mel/Syd/Bris to see their weakness AND destablise safe labor seats in QLD and WA (mining seats) the same way Latham’s environmental idiocy cost Labor seats in Tasmania in 2004.
Posted by CanberraNeoCon on 2007 02 10 at 08:48 AM • permalink#77, you’re right about China’s coal production.
From memory, Australian coal exports acount for 20% of coal traded but we’re really only small fry when it comes to total world coal production (I heard 3% on the news tonight). The difference of course arises from the fact that large coal producers such as China consume their production domestically rather than trade it internationally (if that makes sense).
Shutting down the coal industry here (like limiting our CO2 emissions) would achieve very little apart from destroying jobs and income.
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2007 02 10 at 09:00 AM • permalinkI read Flanneriy’s jaw-dropping nonsense yesterday.
He is a fool.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 02 10 at 10:44 AM • permalinkAnd I don’t have a clue about economics, but its not just 30 000 workers and $25 billion. Its the knock on effect to all the communities, mostly in regional areas. The service industries, general commerce. After the drought crushes farmers, lets really go for the jugular in rural and regional Australia.
And that’s before governments starts paying tens of billions of compensation to all the multinational coal mining companies for tearing up their long term mining leases. In essence, we would be nationalising an industry, then crushing it. Wonderful stuff. And on compensation, add the ports corporations. And the railway and road carriers. Logistics companies. There would be a huge line of companies with their hands (legitimately) out.
And, of course, all adding immensely to our international commercial reputation in the cut-throat fight for development global capital.
Posted by boxofmatches on 2007 02 10 at 12:12 PM • permalinkMaybe Brown Bob sees the sacked mining workers and families participating in renewable, green energy production, Matrix-style?
Posted by boxofmatches on 2007 02 10 at 12:25 PM • permalink#19 Habib, what’s a mong? Is it like a swampy?
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 02 10 at 01:05 PM • permalinkPerhaps they are not as dickheaded as you all think they are. You see if 40,000 lose their jobs if coal is phased out, they then build 120,000 wind turbines. It has been found that you need about one maintenance/repair/administration people per 3 turbines, so there you have work for those 40,000, plus they generate an average of about 120,000/3= 40,000 MW of electricity to replace the coal based electrical generating plants. Wind is no problem. Timmy and Bobbie both generate enough wind for all the turbines.
Posted by ElectronPower on 2007 02 10 at 08:28 PM • permalink
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