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Last updated on August 4th, 2017 at 01:10 pm
The Sydney Morning Herald scolds a reckless citizenry:
Climate change may be a global crisis, but with parts of NSW colder than Antarctica yesterday it seems we would rather keep cosy than bother about the environment.
NSW this week set its third electricity consumption record in a month. Experts blamed residents turning up their heaters and reverse cycle air-conditioners to fend off the unusually chilly winter.
Let’s try burning some experts instead. It’s even colder in globally-warmed Victoria, where icy roads caused a Gaia-angering accident:
Ice is being blamed for a huge herbicide spill after a truck rolled on black ice on the Calder Alternative Road at Lockwood about 3.45am.
The truck was carrying 64 20-litre drums of weed killer, many of which have now spilled causing emergency services to close the road in both directions.
The cold seems to have forced Jim Schembri into a denialist position.
- It’s cold, therefore normal people turn on the heating – well duh!!! Me, I have the gas heater on, the reverse cycle coal burning air conditioner, (give me nuclear power or give me death) and my cosy socks.
Greenies – get stuffed!!!
Posted by surfmaster on 2007 07 18 at 06:08 AM • permalink
- What I reckon is a hoot is how many of these armpit wildlife refuges have fireplaces or comustion stoves in their recycled poobrick yurts- the most efficient of these puts more particulate pollution into the atmosphere in a day than a Wartburg with bung rings and a cracked head does in a year. I’m peeved that no matter how much I try, I use less power in yhe bitterest winter- reverse cycle aircon and oil-filled heaters use fuck all, and even though we’ve got 4 fridges for 2 people they spend most of the time cycling, and barely turning the meter. The cold weather menu is a boon for methane production though, and I drive everywhere because it’s too brisk to walk.
- These people are fucking insane!
Coldest Qld winter I can remember
and I’m expected to freeze in
a cave to combat global warming.I”d like to ram a Patogonian err
sea bass somewhere.Now excuse me while I
go toss some more tyres
on the barbie.Why do these assclowns
change “Global Warming”
to “Climate change”
whenever it’s pissing
down or cold?I wish they’d all put
on some nikes and a
plastic bag.
- Full credit to Herald journalists for choosing to work today without air conditioning…
I mean, I just assume…
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 07 18 at 06:46 AM • permalink
- So poor Gaia is now dousing herself in weed killer in a desperate cry for help! When will she get the counseling she needs?Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2007 07 18 at 06:53 AM • permalink
- Oooooh – Labor’s launched their latest ad – John Howard sleeping through globl waming.
According to the ad he committed the greatest sin of all when he “even declared himself a global warming sceptic”.
Well John, I reckon you should keep on sleeping – cos it’s cold outside!
Posted by Vincent Gerome on 2007 07 18 at 06:59 AM • permalink
- I purchased some coal briquettes to burn so I can keep warm in my cold terrace house.
The attendant tried to steer me into buying some compressed environmentally friendly recycled burning stuff.
I demurred stating my sincere belief that it was my solemn duty to prevent the coming Ice Age as best I could by burning a carbon emitting fossil fuel.
Not having a scientific grasp on this subject like Al Gore I just hope I made the right decision.
- Kae – no i am not in the spa, the solar got turned off a few months ago, just turned thw gas heater up to “warm & toasty”Posted by surfmaster on 2007 07 18 at 07:00 AM • permalink
- Did they say “black ice”? Was it moving, seemingly on its own?
(wrings hands)
Posted by wronwright on 2007 07 18 at 07:11 AM • permalink
- It’s all very odd. When I built my house in Brisbane 7 years ago, I paid $10 – $15K over the odds with factory tinted glass, and the best insulation (wall and roof) that money could buy.
That was with view to reducing aircon opex, which has worked out quite well.
An unexpected bonus is now seen with heating in this horribly cold winter – the insulation actually keeps out the cold as well!
Although its “bloody cold”, we haven’t as yet broken out the column oil heaters from storage, where they have been for the last 5 years….
My 12 y.o. is running around in the mornings, huffing out breaths of steam, and being absolutely gobsmacked about it. Shit, I can remember doing that when I was 12!
What goes around, comes around. Hey, that describes the climate, doesn’t it?
- The study found the topic was also being used instead of water cannon by riot police around the world to disperse crowds.
Well, it certainly disperses the crowds in my house.
Why has climate change/global warming been allowed to become yet another stick to beat us over the head with? Why are we no longer allowed just to get on with – and enjoy – living? Where did all these misery guts come from and who let them out in the first place?
Too many people with not enough to do, or is it simply that self-righteousness is now more common in the gene pool, like an allergy to peanuts?
- And in Melbourne about 1,000 homes in the eastern suburbs went without natural gas last night because the huge demand drained the system. Must have been fun.Posted by walterplinge on 2007 07 18 at 07:17 AM • permalink
- Meantime Flanners gets in a snit—
Being Australian of the Year has been no walk in the park for Professor Tim Flannery…it’s also made him a bigger target for sceptics who accuse him of being an alarmist about global warming.
Among them, New South Wales Treasurer Michael Costa went so far as to call Prof Flannery an “idiot” on the floor of State Parliament. “If that’s what passes for public debate in the NSW Parliament, then God help us all,” the 51-year-old scientist and prolific author says with a chuckle…Prof Flannery appears to hold climate change deniers in contempt, bluntly declaring the debate about the causes of global warming is over. “In 2005 the deniars about climate change were winning. Today they’ve been vanquished, I believe, once and for all.”
He refused to participate in last week’s televised debate after the ABC’s broadcast of The Great Global Warming Swindle documentary. “That whole issue was just for entertainment. “I didn’t watch any of it [“My mind is made up and I’m not changing it ever ever ever”]. My only question was why did the ABC even put that to air? “It will be very interesting to see if the truth ever does come out as to why that program was put to air in Australia.” [snip]
Prof Flannery says he endeavours not be outrageous or one-sided in his public comments. “I’m very aware as Australian of the Year that I don’t want to politicise this position and I try to be objective as I can and let the science drive my analysis.” [and he said that with a straight face!]
Posted by walterplinge on 2007 07 18 at 07:28 AM • permalink
- Kae – that’s classical gas.Posted by surfmaster on 2007 07 18 at 07:29 AM • permalink
Experts blamed residents turning up their heaters and reverse cycle air-conditioners to fend off the unusually chilly winter.
So what do those experts expect people to do? Freeze?
Anyway, I’m doing my bit. The wood heater in the family room is running full bore and has been for the last week or so and that’s 24 hours per day. Now we have a shirtsleeves climate inside.
Besides a little over a month ago I bought 3 tonnes of firewood, thinking will I buy 2 tonnes or 3? Then I reckoned, WTF, this winter will be cold.
So we have wood to burn! Bring it on I say, bring on the cold weather! Let it freeze.
I blame Al Gore.
O/T,More holy crap! Over lunch today, on the ABC I watched the last half hour of Flummery at the National Press club answering questions from the obsequious press corps.
Flummery freely admits that he is no economist but:
•He asserts that a move to a low emissions economy will not cost Australia much (Stern report);
•He does not recognise when a questioner is talking about life cycle costing, in fact he has no idea and waffles about finding arguments for and against replacing older motor cars. [i.e., he has no idea whatsoever about economics but is not short in offering an opinion] •He thinks that the market economy will be essential in achieving the required emissions reduction to avoid dangerous climate change (I think he’s advocating somewhere between 60 and 80 percent by 2020 or maybe 2050 – WTF so many numbers), but
•He says that heavy government regulation will be required, and
•a carbon tax will be required, and
•an emissions cap and trade system will be required.And when it comes to the emissions from other countries like China, Flummery:
•has great faith in the Chinese people to develop and implement low emissions technologies because that is the only way the aspirations of the Chinese people will be met,
•says that China is in an advantageous position as it is building its power system now and can build low emissions systems, but [presumably?] unknown to Flummery, the Chinese power system is about 8 times the size of Australia’s and is expanding at more than 8% per year. Most of it is coal fired plant.Oh yes, Flummery has:
•great faith in the Chinese being able to manufacture vast numbers of solar panels (I think I got that right), though he didn’t specify the energy source that would be usedSo as always, complete drivel in everything he says as he continued on….there’s more but it’s too painful.
That man Flummery is an idiot. He does not have a clue. He’s a fuckwit yet the press corps seemed incapable of asking any reasonable questions. And how strange that so many of them addressed Flummery as Professor. I wonder how he will be reported in tomorrow’s papers?
Tim, I didn’t see you there. What happened? Have you had your entry pass revoked?
- Cambridge U.K.
Still cold and wet here.
Posted by ThinAndBritish on 2007 07 18 at 07:34 AM • permalink
- #15 ann_j:
Unfortunately, self-righteousness is the key.
Even I, neo-con extraordinaire, have fallen for the righteous path, on occasions.
It’s the “feel-good” factor, of not dumping your fag-end out the window during summer fire season, whilst driving through the bush.
Too many graphic pictures and videos of burnt and bloated volunteer fire-fighters has caused a paradigm shift in sensibilities for me! I now feel good about butting out in the ashtray, rather than flicking the glowing butt-suck out the window.
Yes, I feel good about it, and I can see how an extension of this guilt/reward trip over quaintly irrelevant household activities could cause my inferiors to become, shall we say, less lucid….
- #20 Wand
Some nong radio talkback (that’s a joke on ABC!) caller in Brisbane was banging on thismorning about public transport and how all those emissions from cars was so bad in Bris and how we should use more public transport and gas buses. Everyone should be catching the train, the buses should feed to the railway stations and people should catch the train into the city… less pollution.WTF does he think the train runs on? Fresh air and fairy dust?
Fortunately the radio host, a special kind of nong himself, pointed out that this idea may add quite a bit of commuting time with changes from the bus to the train, etc. That’s when he got the “stop harmful emissions by using the train…” speech.
Idiot.
- Flannery should have been asked about his bewildering obfuscation about nuclear energy and why he has had an apparent turnabout from previous published positions.
He also needs to be asked whether there is any correlation between his opinions on nuclear and his funding by environmental organisations.
If he’s not serious about nuclear energy, then he’s not serious about anthropogenic global warming.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 07 18 at 07:59 AM • permalink
- #4- Forgot about the spa, it’s running the heater 24/7 despite the fact we haven’t been in it for months. You never know, I might want to cook some crabs in the middle of the night. The aquarium heater’s chomping some watts as well, and I leave one of the splits going for the hounds- wouldn’t want them getting a chill just for the sake of a fatso failure former VP, and a dinosaur fancier*.
*I’ll bet Flannels got into paleantology after he saw Jurrasic Park, and thought them raptors an’ that are really boss; this followed his disco phase, brought on by Saturday Night Fever.
John Doyle has greatly diminished in my estimations over the last few years with some of his more idiotic pronouncements on assorted luvvie cause du’ jour s, but his failure to pitch Flannels out of the dinghy with a besser block around his scrawny neck, or stuffed into a crabpot during that inane series is beyond redemption.
- I have embraced climate change.
I am booking a week in the snow.
Bring it on baby, bring it on.
Posted by mr creosote on 2007 07 18 at 08:11 AM • permalink
- He thinks that the (free) market economy will be essential in achieving the required …
Sounds like Flannery has as much grasp of economics as Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin used to make grand pronouncements along the lines of “we must carefully handle the transition to the free market, and make sure the free market serves the Russian people”. Idiot.
- Totally O/T, but can anyone say just what in Hell is a space archaeologist?
FFS, “Space” as an exploration concept has only existed for the last 40 years or less!
- #29- That sketch with the Howard muppet was so bad it made Rubbery Figures look professional and not at all like a pathetic knock-off of Spitting Image. What’s the betting the artiste responsible is about to trouser an Australia Council grant to further his puppety endevours, and will shortly embark on a national tour of schools like the bloody Tintookies.
- #26: This is NOT Jim Schembri. Jim Schembri, is one of the PACO nom de plumes.
Well, Jim may get a commission from the public interest organization, People Against Climate Ogling, from time to time.
NSW this week set its third electricity consumption record in a month. Experts blamed residents turning up their heaters and reverse cycle air-conditioners to fend off the unusually chilly winter.
Here’a a tip for those wanton Gaia mashers: instead of turning on your heaters, just break up the furniture and burn it in your environmentally-friendly fireplaces. Also, dried cow pies make good fuel.
- From Schembri:
Of all the issues raised in the survey, most common was whether the global warming debate was all just an elaborate ruse designed to sell stuff.
Who holds the global rights to climate change products? Gore? Is there a Climate Change Inc based in Tennessee? And how much does a Flannery pay for the licence to market climate change to Australian consumers?
So many questions
- What the neo-Marxists don’t ever tell you is the inconvenient truth that in order to reduce the chance of “extreme climate change” from greenhouse gases won’t simply mean “cap and trade” or “green taxes” but rationing of fossil fuels and reducing most people to subsistence agriculture.
Meanwhile the ever increasing taxes on fossil fuels will cause the price of everything to rise, and as people are less able to get basic foodstuff then societies come apart at the seams.
Also in rationing regimes, care of the environment gets pushed right down the list of priorities as people’s health gets pushed up the agenda.
And all of this to produce a reduction in the projected warming that cannot be measured using any available technology.
- Ford is closing down its Geelong engine plant, so sad, 600 jobs lost, Victorian union officials alternately wringing hands and spitting bile and blaming JWH.
BHP closes down Newcastle Steelworks, 3000 jobs lost, union wrings hands, loses 3000 members as everyone goes and works in the coal industry at triple the salary on individual contracts.
Newcastle is going gangbusters, nobody has a thought for BHP except for share dividends. Geelong needs a collective move to WA, Qld or the Territory, and an escape from the clutches of the AMWU and CFMEA.
And all this coal we’re digging up hasn’t done a thing for warming. It’s 4.5 degrees by my outside thermometer, with a foul wind off snow on the Barrinton Tops.
- According to SMH it’s colder in NSW than in Antarctica but we are asked not to use heating so that the climate can cool down further.
And the ‘experts’ are blaming the consumers for trying to keep warm. Shouldn’t they be blaming the state governments for failing to upgrade the ancient and inadequate infrastructure?
- #33,Kaboom
I think that is just a fancy new term for historian. Fancy new name means underserved academic class which means greater potential for grants and getting published because you are the only one in the field with that name.
Before I went to the link I was all ready to talk about cosmology and archaeoastronomy but this just looks like more academic puffery.
- #52: “I’m very aware as Australian of the Year that I don’t want to politicise this position and I try to be objective as I can and let the science drive my analysis.”
What, is that Flannery, again? Way to deflect undue attention from your Australian of the Year award, dude. Does he work that into everyday conversation? Is it a line he uses to pick up dates? “Hi, I’m Tim Flannery – Australian of the Year – can I buy you a drink?” “Listen, this is Tim Flannery – Australian of the Year – I ordered that pizza over an hour ago; where is it?” “Excuse me, my name’s Tim Flannery – Australian of the Year – can you pass the salt?” I half expect that when he talks in public to a large group of people and mentions the award, a kazoo somewhere plays “Waltzing Matilda”, and an Australian flag pops out of his hat.
- “The Sydney Morning Herald scolds a reckless citizenry:”
Yeah, I’m scolding my reckless self today. I was doing a big houscleaning thing, and I left a bunch of stuff out on the deck, including several boxes of books, some 18th century Japanese prints, and a couple of Persian rugs.
To add insult to injury, my clothes dryer broke yesterday, so I hung all the wash out on the deck to dry.
Then I woke up this morning to find it cold and…raining! This is California, it’s not supposed to be cold and raining in July.
Damned weather.
Now that I’ve moved everything back inside, I’m sitting here wondering what I did to piss God off.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2007 07 18 at 12:30 PM • permalink
- It’s raining by me, too, Dave. And it’s downright chilly (god, but I love it). Perhaps it’s a combination of the Gore Effect and Gaia punishing California for the Great Chilean Sea Bass Debacle.
How dare you NSWers try to keep warm!
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2007 07 18 at 01:25 PM • permalink
- “god, but I love it”
Yeah, I like it too…but, I wish I hadn’t left those Persian rugs outside.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2007 07 18 at 02:15 PM • permalink
Totally O/T, but can anyone say just what in Hell is a space archaeologist?
I think it means he did his thesis on the Skylab crash.
“It’s big. It’s stuck in the ground. It came from space. That makes it space archeology.”
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 07 18 at 10:31 PM • permalink
- #59
Thanks, Grimmy.
A couple of things got wrecked, but what the hell, it’s just stuff. I can always buy more stuff.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2007 07 19 at 02:41 AM • permalink
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I wonder how the SMH got printed yesterday. By magic?