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The Forum > Article Comments > Fourteen days to seal history’s judgment on this generation > Comments

Fourteen days to seal history’s judgment on this generation : Comments

By The Guardian, published 10/12/2009

Editorial 'The Guardian': On December 8, 2009 56 newspapers in 45 countries took the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice.

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That is a typo in the opening line, isn't it? "On December 8, 3009 56 newspapers in 45 countries...."

Is the focus of this editorial compiled by The Guardian newspaper a tacit admission by trans-national governments and bureaucracy to what can be loosely referred to as 'peak oil'?

It strikes me that focussing the world's attention upon climate is the perfect diversion for avoiding public focus upon the seeming lack there has been at governmental level for provisions for bringing on-stream alternative energy sources.

For if public attention was to be focussed upon alternative energy substitution, instead of upon (fast running out) fossil-fuel derived climatic effects, the realization by the public that if it has to effectively fund the changeover then perhaps it should also own outright the new industry, might get to be avoided. There are indications in Australia that only around 80% of the public have opposed the privatisation of the largely coal-fired domestic (electricity) energy supply industry. If the replacement non-fossil fuelled alternative was to be brought on-stream in public ownership, might that not mean that a higher degree of public accountability would be both expected and in due course be unavoidable? What interests would stand to be disadvantaged in such circumstances of public focus upon alternative energy source substitution?

I have more questions. Should it become apparent that there has either been a failure to effectively anticipate 'peak oil', or a covert plan to give the 'inside track' to certain established interests that have otherwise seemingly left their customers in the lurch, would not significant changeover in management at industry, bureaucratic, and governmental levels be indicated?

What is the ownership of The Guardian, and from where is its editorial policy directed?

What is the ownership of the other 55 newspapers in which this editorial appeared?

This year the Australian government committed $450 million of taxpayers money to fund hot dry rock geothermal electricity generation. Who have been the beneficiaries?

Maybe Mark Twain was wrong. Perhaps somebody is trying to do something about the weather, to the public detriment.
Posted by Forrest Gumpp, Thursday, 10 December 2009 8:46:17 AM
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"An outrageous attempt to orchestrate media pressure. Go to hell.” said one US newspaper that defies the left's emasculation of the press.

So there goes journalistic integrity and objective reporting, and here comes finger wagging group think.

It's interesting they didn't run a similar line on the Mohamed cartoons, also linked to Copenhagen incidentally.
Posted by Amicus, Thursday, 10 December 2009 9:36:16 AM
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This article contains a number of widely held beliefs which are either contradicted or not well supported by evidence, examples:

"11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record" - Reliable satellite data only goes back 35 or so years, and when coupled with the long established fact that the earth's temperatures at any particular time are either going up or down there is nothing remarkable about that statistic except to say that the last 14 years represent an upward trend (which occurs about 50% of the time over any particular period). If we are talking about older, less precise measurements than satellite, then there is wide agreement in the scientific community that the Middle Ages were at least as warm as the modern world, without any assistance from the extra CO2 atom per 10,000, which Mankind has added.

"The science is complex but the facts are clear" - As clear as mud. The data for the last 9 or so years do not show the clear upward trend that the years before predicted, even though CO2 emissions have continued to accelerate. So the 'fact' that the planet is now warming isn't even clear, let alone the causes.
Posted by Kalin1, Thursday, 10 December 2009 9:58:34 AM
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<continued>

"The controversy over emails by British researchers that suggest they tried to suppress inconvenient data has muddied the waters but failed to dent the mass of evidence on which these predictions are based" - A good chunk of the evidence on which the predictions are based has been greatly influenced by the work of the scientists at the heart of the Climate Gate scandal, including, for example, scientists who came up with the Hockey Stick graph used in "An Inconvenient Truth." Their very great influence on the IPCC's reports must significantly undermine any rational person's confidence in the IPCC.

"The transformation will be costly, but many times less than the bill for bailing out global finance - and far less costly than the consequences of doing nothing." - We just plain do not know the answer to this question. Trashing our economies with emissions caps will drastically reduce our ability to adapt to the same changes that the doomsayers claim are already locked in, and could well make the impact on people much worse. Moreover, there are some benefits to a warmer CO2 rich world which just aren't being dealt with in all the doom and gloom scenarious being sold by the media.

In short, the media should report facts, not promote their own green belief systems
Posted by Kalin1, Thursday, 10 December 2009 10:00:23 AM
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Listening to the daily summary of the Copenhagen Conference on ABC ‘News Radio’ yesterday evening, I heard a pro-warming scientist advise repeatedly that we were experiencing the third highest temperatures on record.

Not the HIGHEST temperatures on record; the THIRD highest.

This admission from a proponent of global warning that temperatures have been higher in the past than they are now (as dissenters have always said) casts further doubts on the motives of the eager beavers of the climate change industry.

Today’s news reports that “Australia has firmly committed itself to funding poor nations to tackle climate change. Australia co-wrote a discussion paper on how this funding should work.”

There were vague reports about a ‘leaked’ paper yesterday which was said to have Australia’s “fingerprints all over it”. The Danes at first denied the existence of the paper, and then denied only that they had anything to do with it.

Australia has no business firmly committing to anything. The ridiculous Rudd proposal to move our wealth to Third World countries with no effect on the climate has been thrown out by the Senate.

Added to the fact that Rudd’s ETS has been defeated, an article in ‘The Independent Australian’ for Spring 2009 suggests that the Australian Constitution precludes our Governments from making treaties with the United Nations unless they are of a commercial nature, without first being approved by referendum.

That claim warrants further investigation of course, but it is something to think about at a time when the incumbent government wants us to believe that transferring money to developing countries will have any effect on climate change.

The complexities of the Constitution make it far too easy for governments to pull swifties. It doesn’t matter whether the governments are Labor or Coalition. Turnbull wanted to help Rudd our; and he has vowed to cross the floor when the bill is next tabled.

Too many Australians are fooled by the word ‘democracy’ and believe that our politicians are honest.
Posted by Leigh, Thursday, 10 December 2009 10:33:01 AM
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The pumped up climate scam is about to be exposed. The conference delegates at Copenhagen will suffer a rapid and painful process of deflation. The excess gaseous mixture of hot air, carbonic oxides and other noxious substances will evacuate though the distal segments of their collective alimentary tract.
Posted by anti-green, Thursday, 10 December 2009 10:43:53 AM
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