"facts, figures, and emotion' won't work on the Dark Greens .

They are zealots .

Best ignored.

Interesting points Graham Y. Thanks for the article. Kudos.

Agree with most of this. However, on the topic of gas, every Australian family creates enough organic waste, that put through a two tank digestor system will create enough biogas (methane) to power their homes 24/7! And create a saleable surplus by adding food scraps and waste. Or if the gas is first scrubbed then fed into a ceramic fuel cell, the amount of saleable surplus goes over 50%. And becomes a source of energy we can never ever run out of!

Then there are some easily farmed algae that are up to 60% ready to use oil/biodiesel, at an estimated cost of 44 cents retail!

Your point about nuclear power is well made and while SMR's are now available and deployable, MSR thorium is superior and would be available in less than 12 short months and needs far less technical expertise to run. Moreover, nuclear power allows us to convert seawater into all manner of alternative fuels and at costs that more than compete with more expensive imports!

Then as you say we need to ramp up manufacture here. And we could more than compete with cheap imports if we rely on MSR thorium and energy price as low as 1 cent PKWH. And couple that sanity to real tax reform, manifesting as a flat tax of just 15%! And jettison the current two tax system in favour of long overdue sanity.

I mean, labour costs are just 16% in manufacturing. The other cost are energy, transport and cascading front loaded tax! And as dumb as it gets economically! And tountamont to shooting oneself in the economic foot! Transport costs are related to energy costs and rail transport is the easiest to electrify to reduce transport costs by as much as two thirds.

And can be kept down if we eliminate the sweetheart deals between ministers and trucking operators! Besides, reducing heavy transport off of our roads will reduce maintenance and repair costs! TBC.
Alan B.

Interesting discussion. A few facts get ignored in most discussions
on energy.
1. Peak Crude oil did occur in 2005.
2. Everyone ignores what the oil companies are saying.
The CEO of Royal Dutch Shell anounced at the 2015 AGM to shareholders
that the company had formed a group within the company to study how to
exit the company from the oil industry.
BP changed its motto to "Beyond Oil". It also has a "Future" policy.
Why are they doing this ? Because the cost of finding new fields and
developing them to production level is uneconomic these days.
A further straw in the wind is a couple of years later all the motor manufacturers started announcing that they will produce electric cars.
Do you think someone had a word in their ears ?
Shell announced that every service station in the world will be
equipped with chargers. Already in Europe some service stations are
being closed and converted in charging stations with multiple chargers.

3. Check the financial status of fracking companies, they have poor
ratings on performance after a year or two of operation.

As cars change the availability of oil will extend in time.

People and governments are still talking like oil will be cheap
forever. It will eventually be reserved for plastics.

most of what I've advocated is very doable if we eliminate the naysayers in government. The only impediment to the sanity and the essential cooperative capitalism required to get all of this up and running in turbocharged overdrive.

Because that is what's required to get manufacturing up and competing with the cheap imports.

That all too often have a two way transport component that could be eliminated along with the paper shuffling profit demanding middlemen who all but double the cost of living and doing business in this country! And more than halved again with direct sales and enabled (finance and facilitated) co-ops doing the manufacturing/import replacement. And given small (overlapping) co-ops competing for your dollar!

[Lincoln Welders an excellent template to emulate, when it was still an employee owned co-op!]

At prices below any imports! Just need to get the ministers with their share portfolios in current energy provision out of the picture! And if that costs them a fortune? Too bad!

Given that personal (coal-fired) investment stratergy was never ever in the national interest. And explains the (bloody-minded) reluctance to foster and promote change!?
Alan B.

We must have transport fuel, & we must have reliable transport fuel. We have seen by the dilemma in Europe. We can not depend on overseas refined oil, & shipping bringing it to us, without it city populations starve, with in a few weeks.

We have 100 years of shale oil supplies here, & perhaps much more. The very first thing we must do is start harvesting that oil & refining it here. We must make it mandatory that all transport fuels must be refined here. Time to tell the oil companies, & Coles & Woolworths we won't accept Singapore refined any longer.

Then of course we must sit on the greenies who would make this difficult to achieve quickly. World events, read China & Russia, are not going to wait for us to be ready to start exploiting our stupidity, at least equal to that of Europe.

With fuel supplied domesticated we must then arm, & that doesn't mean subs in a decade or three, again China is not going to give us that luxury. If we can waste a trillion on wind farms, & another on Covid vaccines, surely we can beg, borrow or steal another to buy right now the nuclear missiles, cruise & ICBM, that make us no longer a sitting duck. Currently it is obvious that just one election cycle in the US can see us basically defenseless.

Finally coal is our natural strategic advantage. Play with gas & nuclear generation all you want, we will need both in the future, but we must return to exploiting our coal, to return to the once wealthy "lucky country" we once were.

a two tank digestor system will create enough biogas (methane) to power their homes 24/7!
Alan B,
Yes, I have seen a similar setup in West Papua & was told it has been running for many, many years, no problem.

Graham,

It was with some sadness I read this article.

In the past I have always read anything you presented as relevant and dynamic You seemed to have the intellect and identified with great accuracy and depth issues we've faced.

To be forthright, while acknowledging and being conscious of your knowledge, intellect and expression, and without malice or intended disrespect, I think your writing here deals with the results of a fundamental problem.

I think you are very accurately dealing with and discussing the symptoms rather than the disease.

I'd suggest it isn't 'the west' that has lead us to the position we are in and the dangers we face.

It isn't our working people or our small business people who have led us to the disastrous and perilous situation we all now face.

It is our ruling 'elected' elites and the unelected and protected elite government bureaucrats and national and international corporate elites who have created todays environment.

The vast majority of these elites are University trained, in career and professional disciplines.

Most have not been taught to think ... they have been trained in roles .. only.

It follows their actions are dominated by the 'rules' and thinking of their professional educations.
They genuinelly lack the depth of thinking and understanding of 'the common man' and are often quite out of touch with what these people face in their lives.

It is the state and federal laws, trade regulations, banking regulations, business controls, labor market regulations, media controls, education curriculums and other social controls that interest and benefit these elites and which they create and talk about.

The vast excluded majority of the 'governed'; the working people and small business people do not share the consensus and concerns of the elites.

This group have little influence or interest in the issues of these elites.

This group gained control of their lives and society under the following leaders: Roosevelt, Menzies, Reagan Thatcher, Abbot and Trump. These took on and defeated the evils that had developed from socialism. (Abbot not so much but given time ...)

cont.

cont,

I'd very respectfully suggest you read the American commentator and intellectual James Burnham. Particularly The Managerial Revolution (1945) and The Machiavellians (1949).

I have them if you'd like to borrow them.

His ideas of the future, from 1945, are quite deeply relevant and reflect the causes of our circumstances rather than the symptoms. I feel after having read him our problem is the focus of our education system. It's focus is on learning skills and valuing such rather than a focus on thinking and intellectual innovations.

Kind Regards

Keith Kennelly

Thanks imajulianutter- James Burnham has been on my reading list for a while.

"I'd suggest it isn't 'the west' that has lead us to the position we are in and the dangers we face".
imajulianutter,
The West started WW2 & if not reigned in, WW3.
The West has become a cultural & philosophical No-man's land. I don't think it can hold out much longer if they're not focussing on coming to their senses !

I'll bring National Service up again. Does anyone still believe we don't need it ?

individual,

I think you missed my point. I also did state who exactly in the west is responsible.

Canem,
He writes as an learned academic and is difficult to read.

So far I've found him to be readable Ipso Fatso as a matter of fact :) - more than some- but thanks for the warning.

Keith/Ima_etc,

I've written several times on these pages about the new ruling class that has taken over much of the western world and particularly the Anglosphere. These people are variously called the managerial class or the credentialled class (ie credentialled but not educated).

That this class now rules and rules in its own interests is hardly controversial these days, at least among conservative and libertarian (small 'c'; small 'l') circles.

Much of western society is now geared to the interests of this class. Production has been sent off-shore chasing lower prices while those whose jobs are destroyed are ridiculed as 'deplorables' and 'clingers' and told to learn to code (although coding is also sent off-shore).

It is instructive that, during the recent covid hysteria, the managerial class got through with their power and wealth enhanced (not a single public servant lost a single day's pay) while the underclass suffered lockdown, lost wages, lost jobs and lost self-esteem. When the Canadian truckers tried to protest and fight back, the entire weight of the modern state was levelled against them. Similarly, dissent in Australia was ruthlessly suppressed.

While these new arrangements have been good for the new ruling class, that's not so for the nations they now rule. Economies are unravelling, new international rivals are rampant, war after war has been launched and lost.

Quite how this gets unwoven is unclear. Trump (contra your claims) was the opponent of this class and the champion of the deplorables. As such, again the levers of the state were launched against him (FBI, DOJ, CIA, legacy media) and ultimately overwhelmed his presidency. Perhaps a Trump 2.0 will have more success. In Australia, both parties are the creatures of this new managerial class and there is no prospect of anyone opposing them in the near future. Things are getting bad but they'll need to get much worse before the Australian credentialled class are seriously challenged.

Graham,

I'd certainly agree that the Putin/Xi axis detected weakness in the west, exemplified by Biden, but also apparent in the Afghanistan withdrawal disaster. While the west has shown unexpected firmness in response to the invasion this has mainly been led by those East European states that best know Russia, not to mention Zelinskky and his bravery.

Still the war and its aftermath will have repercussions for the world economy and therefore Australia. Oil and wheat prices are the most obvious, but also further pressures on the supply chain. We also see European countries finally realising Trump was right and deciding to increase military spending and reduce imports of cheaper gas. This will necessarily mean less spending power for their populations.

Australia enters the crisis in bad shape having mortgaged the future for temporary sugar-hits. The government thinks it'll have achieved something if the budget forecasts debts just short of $1 Trillion....sheeesh.

Inflation in the US can only be addressed by higher interest rates. This will pressure the Aussie Dollar and cause us to raise rates at a time when we can least afford it. Stand-by for a crisis in the housing market.

Chickens are coming home to roost and they're all arriving at once.

As to energy, as I might have mentioned once or twice before (smile) I have no fear of CO2 and therefore prefer that we go full coal. But that battle has been lost and, therefore, I concur nuclear is the next best bet.

It is said that we always do the right thing....after trying everything else. I fear things will have to get very much worse before the penny drops for the electorate.

before the penny drops for the electorate.
mhaze,
The electorate will drop before the Penny !

My goodness the far right in this country is delusional. What a tortured, revisionist, ideologically riven piece.

The author claims: “Putin has been beating his chest for quite a while, and the ascent of Joe Biden made it likely that he would see how far he could push the USA.”

To claim Trump was stopping Putin from doing anything is just bonkers. Trump was Putin's best asset.

Trump threatened to break up NATO, he was avowedly anti-interventionist, he tried to drop sanctions against Russia for their proven interference in the US elections and their invasion of Crimea, only to be stopped by Congress including by members of his own party. He took no action when the Russians put a bounty of US servicemen. He withdrew the US from Syria effectively handing many US assets to the Russians. He withheld meagre military aid to Ukrainian in order to secure an investigation of his opponent's son. Why on earth would Putin not cherish having the orange buffoon on the end of his string?

Biden has imposed dramatic sanctions on the Russians, dramatically stiffed the NATO alliances, and dramatically increased military aid to Ukrainian. Russia is facing a West with far more resolve than could ever have been mustered under the corrupt idiocy and incompetence of the Trump era and by all account is being diminished as a power base on almost a daily basis.

Biden has certainly risen to the occasion and it has been admirable to watch.

Wow!! SR really is cooking the tripe now.

I wonder if he actually believes any of this stuff?

SR,

Just saying Trump was Putin's asset isn't evidence, except evidence of your inability to deal with facts.

There have been four US presidents this century. Putin launched foreign invasions during the terms of three of them. I'll leave you to try to work out which president Putin was too scared to take on.

"Trump threatened to break up NATO".
He used it as a tool to get the Europeans to see the truth. They have now done so. Trump was just a few years ahead of them.

You raised the sanctions assertions before only to be set straight. Its a shame you've forgotten that. Trump never reduced sanctions and instead significantly increased them.

"He took no action when the Russians put a bounty of US servicemen."
That story has long since been debunked. There were no bounties, it was a made up anti-Trump hoax. Why am I not surprised you fell for it.

"He withheld meagre military aid to Ukrainian in order to secure an investigation of his opponent's son."
Nup never happened. More lies you fell for. Indeed after the Obama refused to provide lethal weapons to Ukraine, it was Trump that started giving them the means to defend themselves. Many a Russian tank are no more due to the weapons Trump gave Ukraine.

SR, we all know from watching your writings since 2016, that you hopelessly fell for the Russia-Trump collusion story. But as that fell apart, you're utterly incapable of adjusting your views since it would require an admission, if just to yourself, that you were wrong. The Mueller report which so comprehensively debunked the collusion fiction didn't change your mind. Now we see that you've fallen for the bounty fairy-tale. You might want to look in the recent revelations about Hunter Biden's laptop to see how you were duped there also

SteeleRedex
do you suffer from nihilistic depression?

mhaze,
we apparently have identical views of Trump. He is a great US President. Burnham forecast the situation. we are in today, when he wrote in 1945 and 1945.

Keith

Dear mhaze,

As a Trump cultist and apologist you will not accept a single thing I am about write so I am doing it for the record not you.

“Mr. Trump told his top national security officials that he did not see the point of the military alliance, which he presented as a drain on the United States. At the time, Mr. Trump’s national security team, including Jim Mattis, then the defense secretary, and John R. Bolton, the national security adviser, scrambled to keep American strategy on track without mention of a withdrawal that would drastically reduce Washington’s influence in Europe and could embolden Russia for decades.

Now, the president’s repeatedly stated desire to withdraw from NATO is raising new worries among national security officials amid growing concern about Mr. Trump’s efforts to keep his meetings with Mr. Putin secret from even his own aides, and an F.B.I. investigation into the administration’s Russia ties.”
New York Times 2018

Concerns about Trump pushing hard to abandon NATO even caused a republican led “House of Representatives in January 2019, to pass the NATO Support Act (H.R. 676), confirming Congress' support for NATO and prohibiting Trump from potentially withdrawing from NATO. On December 11, 2019, the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee passed a bill to be put in front of Congress which would require Congressional approval for American withdrawal from NATO. 9 of the the 19 co-sponsors were Republican.
Wikipedia

“Former National Security Advisor John Bolton: “In a second Trump term, I think he may well have withdrawn from NATO … And I think [Russian President Vladimir] Putin was waiting for that.”

As to Russian interference in the elections 98 out of 100 Senators and 419 out of 422 House of Representative members voted to enforce sanctions on Russia over Trump's objections and specifically “The bill, which includes a provision that allows Congress to stop any effort by Trump to ease existing sanctions on Russia, will now be sent to the White House for Trump to sign into law or veto.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-sanctions-idUSKBN1AC1U8

Why can't you accept there was interference when they all can?

SR,

If Trump wanted out of NATO, he could have easily done it. He exited the Paris Accord. He exited the disastrous Iran deal. If he wanted out of NATO, it was entirely his call.

Now he might have discussed this with advisors. Discussions aren't decisions. (But I'd point out that you're basing this on a NYT claiming that the famous multiple sources told them. Unnamed sources. This is the same trick that led many to be duped into buying the collusion fantasy. Multiple unnamed sources caused you to fall H/L&S for that fantasy as well as this.)

Trump wanted NATO members to pull their weight so that the US wouldn't have to do all the heavy lifting. Nations like Germany are now acknowledging he was right. One of the ways to get them to see sense was to hold the threat of withdrawal over their head.

If he really wanted to do it, he'd have done it.

But its rather quaint that you claim Trump was owned by Putin by referring to the things Trump DIDN'T do, while ignoring all the things that he DID do which prove your claim wrong.

"The bill, which includes a provision that allows Congress to stop any effort by Trump to ease existing sanctions on Russia, will now be sent to the White House for Trump to sign into law or veto.”

Did he veto it? No. Why not? Because he agreed with it.

"Why can't you accept there was interference when they all can?"

The famous SR deflect. I didn't say there was no interference. I said their was no collusion with Trump. Indeed there was minor interference, some designed to help Trump, some designed to help Clinton, all designed to create chaos in the US. Chaos was created by those who pushed the false collusion myth. They were doing Putin's biding.

Dropped the bounty fable? Good idea. But, as usual, no acknowledgement of error.

Dear mhaze,

As I said a Trump cultist and apologist but also it seems deeply delusional.

No he could not have easily done it as the bill specifically forbid him from doing so.

You claim: “Did he veto it? No. Why not? Because he agreed with it.”

No he did not. He had no choice as it was obvious there were the numbers to overturn any attempt by him at a veto.

To imply that little mhaze sitting at his little keyboard here in Australia knew different to the 98 out of 100 Senators and 419 out of 422 House of Representative members with all their advisers and their deep inside knowledge about Trump and his plans is utterly daft.

Such a decisive bipartisan move to protect this alliance against a sitting president was unheard of in American political history.

Trump was Putin's best asset in this and the destruction of NATO was very much on the agenda from even before the election.

This is the man you have so much time for.

Shame.

You assert “There were no bounties, it was a made up anti-Trump hoax. Why am I not surprised you fell for it.”

So you are claiming that the intelligence briefings referring to the bounties which had come from captured prisoners were an anti-Trump hoax? What idiocy.

“The intelligence in 2019 and 2020 surrounding Russian bounties was derived in part from debriefings of captured Taliban militants. Officials with knowledge of the matter told the AP that Taliban operatives from opposite ends of the country and from separate tribes offered similar accounts.”

“Concerns about Russian bounties flared anew this year after members of the elite Naval Special Warfare Development Group, known to the public as SEAL Team Six, raided a Taliban outpost and recovered roughly $500,000 in U.S. currency. The funds bolstered the suspicions of the American intelligence community that Russians had offered money to Taliban militants and linked associations.”
AP

Nor should we forget Trump's pressure to get Russia admitted back into the G7 from which it had been ousted in 2014, but of course you will.

SR wrote..."He had no choice as it was obvious there were the numbers to overturn any attempt by him at a veto."

So he didn't veto it for reasons you've divined. Or perhaps he didn't veto it because he agreed with it. Any evidence to the contrary? Nup. But who needs evidence when you have multiple unnamed sources, eh?

Re the bounty hoax, you quote old outdated assertions.

"Now, however, the Biden administration says the U.S. intelligence community only ever had “low to moderate” confidence in the bounty allegation, the Daily Beast reports, adding, “Translated from the jargon of spyworld, that means the intelligence agencies have found the story is, at best, unproven – and possibly untrue.”

"I know. I am just as surprised as you are that the same people who alleged, without evidence, that Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh is a serial gang rapist and that Trump “colluded” with the Russians to steal the 2016 election would get a story of this magnitude wrong.

"If you can believe it, this bounty business may have originated with a single detainee who simply told his jailers what he thought they wanted to hear."

But if you rooly rooly want it to be true.....

There is so far no question about who pays to repair all the
damaged buildings. Obviously Putin will refuse to pay, so
perhaps if the UN has the guts to try, place a charge on
Russia moved by the General Assembly.
Alternatively the European countries could make it a condition
of reopenning trade with them and also other countries that a
tariff be placed on all trade with Russia the proceeds be paid
to Ukraine to rebuild their cities.
This way it will not affect the peace negotiations and will
set a principle that attacking residential areas is a crime.
It could be a condition of removing other restrictions.

As far as Ukraine and NATO is concerned agree to that and then
wait a suitable time such as the end of Putin, then join NATO.
Oh dear a solemn oath was made that you would not join NATO.
Well promises made under duress have never been valid !

"If Trump were the Manchurian candidate that people keep wanting to believe that he is, here are some of the things he’d be doing:

Limiting fracking as much as he possibly could
Blocking oil and gas pipelines
Opening negotiations for major nuclear arms reductions
Cutting U.S. military spending
Trying to tamp down tensions with Russia’s ally Iran."

Who did those things? Obama. Who's doing most of them now - the clown in the White House."

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Bazz,

Italy has already said they'd rebuild the theatre in Mariupol bombed by Russia (?). I think we'll see a lot of western money flow into Ukraine once this is over, assuming they retain some level of independence.

Dear mhaze,

So you are contending that Trump fully supported a bill specifically designed to box him in on NATO and to directly curb his powers to act on exiting from it?

What risible nonsense.

As to your unaccredited piece about Trump it was written by Walter Russel Mead in 2017. By 2020 he was saying:

“As a beleaguered Trump administration struggles with an unprecedented surge of domestic challenges, foreign leaders friendly and otherwise are recalibrating their strategies for coping with an unconventional administration embroiled in turbulence. It now looks as if China, Russia and Germany have decided how to handle President Trump through November. Berlin will ignore him; Moscow and Beijing will take advantage of U.S. Distraction.”
…
“For its part, the Chinese leadership seems to believe that it is impossible to conciliate Mr. Trump, but that there is also little to fear from him. An economic crisis worse than 2008, the greatest surge in racial and political dissension since 1968, and a presidential election likely to test America’s strife-filled political climate—no Chinese leader, least of all Xi Jinping, could be expected to ignore opportunities like these.”
…
“The president’s critics will pounce on his inability to coordinate a united allied response to Chinese and Russian provocations as further proof of his inability to achieve constructive results in foreign affairs. They will not be entirely wrong, but this story has more characters than Donald Trump.”
...
“Recent events reinforce a belief in many foreign capitals that U.S. society has entered a period of dysfunctional chaos and that the American political system is no longer capable of providing consistent leadership in international affairs.”
…
“Whatever happens in the election, the U.S. administration next year will face a problem even more daunting than the intellectual challenge of crafting a national strategy for an increasingly dangerous time. It will have to convince the world that this time, America really means what its president says.”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-world-waits-out-trump-11591052890

He woke up, why don't you try it?

It follows from this discussion that America is more of a hindrance than support, that they are the weakest link: without their hesitation and silly internal issues, a determined and united Europe would have already struck back and driven Putin out of Ukraine, tail between his legs. Remember that France and the UK have also got nukes!

But the situation here in the pacific is different: we don't have as much conventional power as Europe and as we cannot rely on America, we must assume that they do not exist and we got just ourselves plus Indian nukes to back us... unless we secretly have our own already.

Given that useless America is out of the picture, perhaps rather than waiting for the inevitable terrible war, our best option is a peaceful separation settlement with China, whereby the hostage population of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Tibet is allowed to leave peacefully and be settled in Japan, the Philippines, India and Australia; and the Uyghurs in Turkey.

Absorbing some 35,000,000 refugees between us is still much cheaper than nuclear destruction.

Via Putin's actions there was a clear and compromised weakness in the 'west', especially the Anglosphere UK and Oz following the US GOP of Trump et al.?

Trump, when President, actually praised Putin and Russian security services over the US; treason in any normal person's mind, but not for white Christian nationalist &/or RWNJs?

From Brexit UK, US alt right/evangelicals, Hungary, Poland, Salvini, Le Pen, Bosnian Serbia et al. all hero worship Russia, but the 'Murdoch sphere' is very coy about clear links between Putin's Russia and the Anglosphere; not just fossil fuels but white nativists & libertarian ideology too, masquerading as conservative?