Queensland billionaire Clive Palmer has just signed a deal with China to sell $69 billion worth of coal over the next 20 years. This is believed to be Australia’s largest ever export contract and will involve our largest ever coal mine. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/06/2812195.htm

Premier Anna Bligh is over the moon about it!

The state should reap up to $500 million a year in royalties. The project will create about 7000 jobs directly and ten times as many indirectly.

So it is all fantastic……isn’t it?

Well firstly, why don’t we just forget about CO2 emissions and climate change completely? If Bligh, or Rudd, were serious about it, they would certainly not let something like this proceed. The next time either of them mentions anything to do with anthropogenic global warming; they should just be condemned outright as being the most blatant hypocrites and disingenuous sophistic politicians.

Secondly, we are still obviously entrenched in the continuous-growth totally-unsustainable-society mindset.

Thirdly, this project will just dig us deeper into a huge hole, in more ways than one. The royalties will be spent in the same old way – on expanding infrastructure and services in a battle to keep up with the demands exerted by rapid population growth rather than on improving them for the current population.

This huge project could be excellent if the windfall was to be used to steer our society onto a sustainable footing, with greatly boosted efforts to develop renewable energy sources, reduce per-capita energy usage, stabilise our population and improve our whole agricultural efficiency. But it will be used to for exactly the opposite – to just prop up profligacy and promulgate rank disregard for our own future.

There is a large and rapidly growing amount of concern about this within the Australian populace. Tony Abbott needs to sit up and take notice. This presents him with a superb opportunity to convert the Libs into Australia’s desperately needed sustainability party and harness and foster this rising tide of discontent.

Ludwig,

My sentiments, exactly!

Sounds pretty good to me.

>>The state should reap up to $500 million a year in royalties. The project will create about 7000 jobs directly and ten times as many indirectly. So it is all fantastic……isn’t it?<<

While we are still living in the real world, where people have to go out and earn a living to feed their families, digging up coal and selling it seems to be a fairly sensible concept.

Right now, there is no clear and effective response to the problem that the world is hooked on non-renewable energy.

A growing chorus from self-appointed (and self-righteous) pundits has been the driving force behind our drift into a horrendously imperfect band-aid fix called "emissions trading", that does nothing at all to solve the underlying issue.

What it has achieved, spectacularly, is to open up massive opportunities for rat-with-a-gold-tooth spruikers to make heaps of money.

http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2254865/police-claim-eu-carbon-credit

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,675725,00.html

It also gives rise to stupid anomalies, as with camel-gas emissions. Only domesticated camels fart, according to the "protocols".

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/feral-camels-clear-in-penny-wongs-carbon-count/story-e6frg6nf-1225827641354

Apparently, there is "little point doing anything about Australia's feral camels as only the CO2 of the domesticated variety is counted under the Kyoto Protocol."

It's a Through the Looking Glass World, in AGW-land.

Until and unless someone is able to bring some common sense to bear, Ludwig, it is pointless - indeed, counterproductive - to whinge on about our country selling the raw materials for our, and other, key global economies.

You can rend your garments and thkweem and thkweem as much as you like. But simply restating the AGW mantra in ever-increasingly emotional terms is to confine you to the status of being part of the problem, not part of the solution.

<< Until and unless someone is able to bring some common sense to bear, Ludwig, it is pointless - indeed, counterproductive - to whinge on about our country selling the raw materials for our, and other, key global economies. >>

Pericles, what do you think I am trying to do? I’m trying to bring some ‘commonsense to bear’.

How is one supposed to do that without ‘whingeing’?

Your message here seems highly contradictory – you want a commonsense approach, presumably along the lines that I have outlined, but you are apparently being critical of me for even daring to raise the issue!

<< While we are still living in the real world, where people have to go out and earn a living to feed their families, digging up coal and selling it seems to be a fairly sensible concept. >>

Yes, but at a declining or at least a stable rate, not at a greatly boosted rate…surely!

Pericles, do you really just want us to continue on exploiting our non renewable resources at an ever-faster rate until they are exhausted?

Even if AGW does turn out to be false or insignificant, it is still completely crazy to further entrench our reliance on fossil fuels at this point in time instead of rapidly developing alternative energy sources and a paradigm of sustainability.

I must admit, I find your position curious.

Ludwig, you seem to struggle with the “duplicity and contradiction” of Bligh/Rudd. As true believers, how can they support what whey do not purport to believe in? The answer is because they are lying.

The Donation of Constantine (Latin, Donatio Constantini) is a forged Roman imperial decree in which the emperor Constantine I transfers authority over Rome and the western part of the Roman Empire to the pope. It was devised probably between 750 and 775.

The Donation grants Pope Sylvester I and his successors, as inheritors of St. Peter, dominion over lands in Judea, Greece, Asia, Thrace, Africa, as well as the city of Rome, with Italy and the entire Western Roman Empire

Caesar Baronius in his "Annales Ecclesiastici" (published 1588-1607) admitted that the
Donatio was a forgery, and eventually the church conceded its illegitimacy.

In the meantime of course, various Popes “Taxed” European Heads of State and the public to fund military action through the Crusades, to defend these “false” Christian claims to the “Holy land”.

This continued through many Crusades resulting in horrendous loss of life and destruction of civilizations, until the emergence of Lutherans in Germany. At which point many European Heads of State and the general population switched allegiances to avoid the heavy tax burdens imposed by the Vatican.

The Vatican responded by “cranking up” the Jesuits and launching them throughout Europe upon those who strayed from the “correct” theological path.

Since the time of Caesar Baronius, we have seen some 26 instances of “impending catastrophes”, all analogous with, and based upon “the great lie”.

All one has to do is substitute The UN for the Vatican and AGW for the Donation of Constantine and the analogy is complete.

All that is left is the post Copenhagen reaction of the Jesuits. These will be represented by Academics protecting grant revenue and institutional brand value, scientists protecting recognition in their field, politicians protecting votes, legacy and personal credibility, the intelligencia/elites protecting vanity and sections of the MSM protecting the colors they have nailed to the mast.

Don’t fret, It’s all happened before and will again

I tend to agree with Ludwig, except that I think that the ALP government is no more profligate nor hypocritical than a LNP government would be when it comes to coal exports.

When it comes to coal, Queensland is like an addicted junkie who deals in dope in order to finance their habit. Ditto with Australia generally, which is why Ludwig's comment about the hypocrisy of both the Rudd and Bligh governments with respect to AGW is apposite.