Simply put, the climate has always been subjected to natural variations! The sun waxes and wanes. The joint warms up then cools down.

What can't happen is an new ice age when our solar furnace in the sky waxes, nor can we have record breaking heat waves when it goes into a waning phase!

According to NASA, our solar furnace has been in a waning phase since the mid seventies! All while heating trends have continued upwards with a rising Co2 level in uncharted territory.

That said, your point about ("Benedict Arnold") electricity prices is well made, and given the right supply paradigm, could be as low as 3 cents PKH! That energy supply paradigm is one whose name can't be mentioned!

But for the record I will mention it. And it is nuclear! Not just any nuclear but walk away safe, clean cheap molten salt, thorium nuclear energy!

Which we could have if our interests were first and foremost, rather than that of tax avoiding, price gouging, profit repatriating, foreign corporations and their gold plated delivery model? Your employer?

See Super Fuel subtitled, green energy. Or type into your search engine the case for thorium. Scroll down the page to a downloadable, technical, free PDF.

I don't know where you were last summer, as record after heat records were broken, all while the great solar furnace in the sky was and remains, still in a waning phase, with some western towns reporting near bankruptcy, as all the available discretionary spend was consumed by electricity charges, given the non stop maximised use of air conditioners was mandatory, to beat unrelenting record summer heat wave conditions, that reportedly routinely topped 50C. With some folk reporting quarterly charges topping $7,000.00!?

And sure to be suitably impressed by your endless crocodile tears and your manifestly disingenuous summation of subjectively selected facts, that would seem to tell all australians, if you think the joint has warmed a tad in recent decades you're dreaming? TBC.
Alan B.

The price of electricity is rising, we're told by a plethora of hand wringing politicians, due to the regulatory framework? All while adroitly avoiding the fact that that framework is created solely in the parliaments of this nation and by our alleged representatives.

The Finkle review has come and gone, with coal not taken off the table. But all but deserted by the smart money, holding fire until there is some certainty and sanity being generated in our parliaments and in the minds of our stubbornly uncooperative, recalcitrant, intrangient "public servant", regulators!

When thorium nuclear power is no longer the energy name that can't be spoken! But allowed by regulators as for peaceful purpose use only, maybe we can not just get energy prices down, but so low as to quite massively stimulate the economy, and resuscitate the essential to our economic survival manufacturing sector!

Thorium is fertile not fissile and therefore cannot be compressed to make a thermonuclear device or nuclear bomb! And given a substantially longer half life than uranium, is three times more abundant! With enough in our dirt to power the planet for 1,000 years. And thousands more if we mine igneous rock!

Couple the 3 cents PKH thorium based power to brand new space age desalination, i.e., deionization dialysis, that turns as much as 90% salt seawater into potable water, on the fly, for far less than quarter of the current cost of traditional desal. and inside 2-3 metre pipes, at around a million LPH, if that's your choice!

And after massively restructuring/resuscitating manufacture, we can start to farm this nation most arid regions, which could easily become this nation's most productive agricultural regions? If we can but get the naysayers and the "Benedict Arnold" Peabody coal and Co serving, types out of the road!
And if the cap fits?
Alan B.

Jenny:
Thorium can be used in LFTR's to burn and burn, again and again, nuclear waste! Until the entire available energy component is extracted and the remaining half life reduced to 300 years.

And given, walk away safe, molten salt reactors are used, able to operate at near normal atmospheric pressure, while so employed!

Moreover, given the reaction is fertile, consumes a smuch as 95% of its fuel type, with such waste as is generated being eminently suitable for long life space batteries!

Because they operate at inherently safe normal atmospheric pressure, walk away safe, molten salt thorium reactors can have a nuclear waste component added on the fly, without cost creating shut downs and restarts included!

Moreover, miracle cure nuclear isotopes can also be very safely extracted on the fly from the reactor flow stream, while in operation, thereby significantly improving production and reducing production times. [Yes it's a nuclear reaction that produces gamma radiation, so shielding and robotic arms would still be mandatory!]

And all while creating energy so cheap, nothing else can compete with it? All the costs are upfront! And factory mass production can produce power plants for far less than comparative coal fired power plants!

Why, the security guard out front costs more than the fuel!

What are our parliamentarians/"energy regulators" waiting for? Permission?
Alan B.

simply put the gw religion is usually a mask to cover corrupt humans who want to display some sort of moral superiority. The problem is the pensioners are the ones paying for the shameless charlatans involved in the ' renewable' scams. Never have so many been as dumbed down. Chinese doctors are saints compared with this lot and to the Governments shame they have brought into the nonsense.

Well certainly more scientists and activists can attract government research grants and jobs if they argue man caused global warming.

They can even sell more books and films [1] or revive political careers like global messiah Al Gore.

[1] Around 2006 Al's "An Inconvenient Truth" grossed $24 million in the U.S. and $26 million at the international box office...It is the first documentary to win 2 Oscars and the first to win a best original song Oscar"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Inconvenient_Truth

That's science entertainment.

The price has risen simply because governments, bullied by rent-seekers, are subsidising totally impractical wind and solar ratbaggery. There is no great mystery involved.