Nothing exposes the hypocrisy of the Greens than Bob Brown campaigning against a wind farm:

"Former Greens leader and veteran activist Bob Brown is campaigning to stop a $1.6 billion wind farm development in Tasmania because it will spoil the view and kill birds.

The proposed Robbins Island wind farm in Tasmania’s northwest will be one of the world’s biggest, with up to 200 towers measuring 270m high from ground to blade tip. If it goes ahead, electricity from the Robbins Island project will be sent to the mainland via a new ­undersea cable to help make Tasmania a “battery for the nation”.

But in a letter to local media and on his foundation’s website, Dr Brown has slammed the project, which he said had echoes of earlier attempts to build skyscrapers in Hobart which were stopped by protests."

Strange. But then, Brown is strange. Very strange.

There has been a significant development that has not been mentioned
in the local media anywhere that I have heard.
The whole Global Warming syndrome has been thrown into doubt by scientists
at Kobe Uni in Japan and Turku Uni in Finland.
Start Quote
The following is a key bombshell section in one of the studies conducted by Finland's Turku University team:

We have proven that the GCM-models used in IPCC report AR5 cannot compute correctly the natural component included in the observed global temperature. The reason is that the models fail to derive the influences of low cloud cover fraction on the global temperature. A too small natural component results in a too large portion for the contribution of the greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. That is why 6 J. KAUPPINEN AND P. MALMI IPCC represents the climate sensitivity more than one order of magnitude larger than our sensitivity 0.24°C. Because the anthropogenic portion in the increased CO2 is less than 10 %, we have practically no anthropogenic climate change. The low clouds control mainly the global temperature.

This raises urgent questions and central contradictions regarding current models which politicians and environmental groups across the globe are using to push radical economic changes on their countries' populations.
end quote
The first info I have found is at

http://tinyurl.com/y23a6nev

Now obviously findings like these will cause an uproar as it
undermines an enormous amount of investment and political positions.
Stanby for for fireworks.

Unfortunately it is all so very sad as well! I'm all for turning back the clock on anthropogenic global warming but it's now really too late to do so. The advocates of business as usual are running the show so what we really need to learn is how to die in the Anthropocene, to use Roy Scranton's phrase. It's going to be interesting though to watch how events unfold as nations compete in their struggle to survive in a hotter world running short of food and fresh water. It'll be like Easter Island or Rwanda but on a much bigger scale.

Errr, but it now seems to be all over. It does explain why all the
forecasts of climate emergencies, the dams will never be full etc
have never come true over the last 30 years.

Dear Bazz,

You breathlessly announced,

“Now obviously findings like these will cause an uproar as it 
undermines an enormous amount of investment and political positions.
Stanby for for fireworks.”

Oh for crying out loud, the thing was posted on arvix.org which is virtually open to anyone and it is not peer reviewed.

In fact I want my 15 minutes back.

Even the normally sympathetic crew at wattsupwiththat are sceptical.

“Now I may have missed some detail in reading the paper but I did not see the slightest reference to where this “cloud cover” data actually came from. Let alone any discussion of its global coverage and uncertainty. If you are going to claim a change of 1% you need some damned accurate data to start with.
Are they using humidity as a proxy all the way through ? Until I see some proper attribution of this data I’m duly skeptical of their graphs and claims.”

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/07/12/new-paper-no-experimental-evidence-for-the-significant-anthropogenic-climate-change/

Nothing to see here folks.

Dear Shadow Minister,

I have objected to the site of some of the turbines near where I live. Too close to extensive bushland with significant bird populations. I don't have as much an issue with them on open broadacre farming sites where crops or livestock can still be produced. Often the money coming in supports local communities and makes marginal farms more resilient to fluctuating prices.

But like any private industry there are cowboys seeking to place them in inappropriate areas. As much as I have an issue with Mr Brown is general I have no problems with him raising these concerns.

Bazz,

So does that mean we can keep on burning fossil fuels like there's no tomorrow?

SR,

The problem is that the greenies want to have their cake and eat it.

The reality is that renewable energy comes with a price not only a huge electricity price, but an environmental one too.

One can either reduce emissions with renewables, eliminate them with nuclear, or simply not bother.

Shadow Minister the fight is over you fought a hard fight used every bit of junk science but lost
See clean energy now has a life of its own even the very rich see profit if no other benefits in it
It will roll out and over its opersition
And as the ice melts and both ends of the world trotting out an expert on Cats to tell us the science is wrong has had its day
Well over 50 percent of us see the science has it right and nothing can stop the changes we are seeing efforts to stall it are too moving forward and unstoppable
Remember the tobacco industry buying opinion? well they have shown the owners of fossil fuels the way and truth is a victim

Belly,

You are talking absolute bollocks. You are clearly confusing my position with that of other posters.

My position since 2005 when I first started posting on OLO hasn't changed, namely:

1 CO2 emissions cause an increase in global temperatures
2 The range of possible outcomes is huge and the media focuses on the extremes and not reality,
3 Without the major players such as China and India cutting emissions, ruining Australia's economy would make no measurable difference.
4 Pushing up the power prices through renewables would simply mean that production of power hungry products would not reduce, but simply move to countries without a huge power tax
5 Renewables are inherently unreliable, and any power system has a limit of power generated by renewables before the network itself becomes unstable, typically between 30-40%.

Considering the rocketing energy prices in Australia, the blackouts in South Australia, the recent close calls in Victoria, and the collapsing industrial base in the country, I have no reason to doubt my original assessments.

P.S. Renewable investment is likely to come to a shuddering halt as the Paris targets are due to be met by 2022 and the coalition is unlike to keep up the ruinous subsidies.

Mr Opinion, if you had studied something useful, like math when you spent all that time at university, you might just be able to understand that CO2 can not do most of the things it is supposed to have the ability to do, like heat the planet as much as 1 degree C.

What I can't understand is how ALL the lefties take global warming as a fact. Surely some lefties have enough science to understand the impossibility of CO2 causing runaway heating. I guess they are just being obedient minions of their masters.

Bazz,
Anyone who makes the claim that the anthropogenic portion of the increase in CO2 is less than 10% should not be taken seriously - they are trying to mislead the public. The amount of CO2 added to the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels exceeds 100% of the increase.

______________________________________________________________________________________

Hasbeen,
It may surprise you to learn that your arrogance is not regarded by others as evidence of how the climate works.

In interesting little piece in The Spectator on 15th July points out that the Greens have been going backwards over the last decade. (“About that climate change election ….. “ by Tarric Brooker)”.

Not only did the Greens fail to capitalise on what they were so sure was an election on climate change – they just retained the senate seats they had, and received a derisory 0.2% swing – but their percentage of the primary vote was 13% lower than when Bob Brown was leader in 2010. So much for the “larger degree of influence” and the “broader appeal among the wider electorate” predicted by political “experts” over the last 10 years. Those pesky ‘quiet Australians’ weren’t listening.

The depth of the Greens’ problem is caused, according to Brooker, by “ innumerate reporting, which confuses percentage points with percentage and fails to record a drop from, say, 10 per cent of the vote to 7.5 as a fall of a quarter, focusing instead on the 2.5. Further masking the ineptitude of the Greens is the Left inspired media’s insistence on being positive about the Greens, probably thinking that if they keep up the patter, everyone will believe it.

Brooker, saying that the Greens are going nowhere fast, believes that left-leaning voters are “increasingly turn back to the Labor party after years of frustration with the Greens ‘everything or nothing’ political tactics”.

Makes sense to me. Australians are not ready for a proper conservative party; and it seems that they are not interested in the opposite either.

Fair enough Shadow Minister sorry I in part got it wrong
However Renewables are here to stay, subsidies or not
And as expert after expert is trotted out, [not one in the field they judge] it remains clear we are going to take action
Action on climate change and too the rubbish we produce and litter the planet with
It will cost us, but not as much as doing nothing will
See Germany has developed a polymer brick, makes using desert sand possible
We should look at reusing plastic as a road sealer

Dear Hasbeen,

Prior to going into humanities I studied engineering completing a degree in mechanical engineering, which involved a lot of maths, chemistry & physics. I'm no scientist but I can follow their arguments on global warming, climate change, etc.

Also, there is now a growing body of evidence for anthropogenic global warming over the past 250 years in support of what the scientific community is saying coming from environmental research now being conducted in the humanities by historians, anthropologists, sociologists, and archaeologists.

CO2 is actually a trigger in the atmosphere that starts the global warming process. The real culprit is water vapour which in itself is the most powerful of the greenhouse gases. CO2 is present in small amounts but lasts in the atmosphere for hundreds of years and therein lies the danger because we keep adding to it instead of depleting it. One of the big problems is that the oceans hold about 40% of the earth's CO2 when cold but releases it back into the atmosphere as the ocean waters warm up, which makes more CO2 available to trigger the production of more water vapour which in its turn heats the planet even further.

Question is, irrespective of who is right and who is wrong, should we risk putting more and more CO2 into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels? What if the climate change scientists are correct in their warnings and we realise too late that they are right? Do you want to allow the global TNCs of the world who are driven by the want of more profits to drive us towards a hotter planet devastated by droughts, floods, environmental degradation and species extinction? Do you want to take that risk Hasbeen?

Mr Opinion, we know that the climate scientists, & the gravy train riders are con men of the highest order. Yes we should put every bit of CO2 we can in the atmosphere. If the con men are even partly right, it might delay the onset of the next ice age, due very soon.

It might at least green the planet as it is now doing on the fringes if the Sahara desert among others. Currently NASA has advised that the flora of the planet has increased by 14% over the period of satellite mapping of such things. If you think that is bad, please tell us what is good.

Belly old mate, there is no way that current alternate energy, as in wind & solar can power more than 25%, of our power requirements ever, & that would be at a cost no country could afford.

Try looking at something other than lefty sites like the ABC, & get some facts.

Dear Hasbeen,

So that's it. You and others who want to keep business as usual are willing to take the risk that the scientific community has got it wrong on global warming and its consequences.

I've always held the view that it would be the conservatives and climate change denialists and those who think that it is someone else's problem would win the day on this debate. You're willing to risk everything because you don't want your world to change in order to prevent the destruction of the planet and life on it How selfish!.

Once again I agree with Bob Brown, wind farms do spoil the view, one has only to drive between Inverell and Glen Innes to see the effect of wind farms; another point is that they should never be built in sight of a winding country "highway", gaping motorists become a danger to themselves as well as to others.

Dear Shadow Minister,

You wrote;

"SR, The problem is that the greenies want to have their cake and eat it. The reality is that renewable energy comes with a price not only a huge electricity price, but an environmental one too."

Sure mate, drove through the Latrobe Valley few months ago (you know, the one with three large coal fired power stations. This is the kind of warning they get regularly;

"Air quality in the Latrobe Valley is classified as UNHEALTHY FOR SENSITIVE GROUPS at Churchill and Newborough. Air quality at Moe is UNHEALTHY FOR ALL – in those conditions everyone should reduce prolonged or heavy physical activity.

Stronger winds and forecast rain are expected to bring improved conditions during the day.

EPA’s forecast is for POOR to VERY POOR air quality in the Latrobe Valley for the next 2 to 3 hours. Air quality is expected to improve to GOOD this afternoon..

Everyone should take necessary precautions to protect their health. People are reminded to open their windows and ventilate their homes and businesses during periods of reduced smoke activity."

Can your neighbourhood host the next coal fired powerstation your lot want to subsidise into existence?

Shadow,
It's disappointing your opinion failed to change when the facts did. Renewables used to be an expensive option, but now they're cheaper than new coal. And our high electricity prices stem not from renewables but from market manipulation and high gas prices. More use of renewables brings electricity prices down - see http://theconversation.com/wind-and-solar-cut-rather-than-boost-australias-wholesale-electricity-prices-119979

So take another look at your position:
1) is true.
2) is true to some extent, but the denials position now gets vastly more airtime than it deserves.
3) is arguably true, but other countries (including China) have used our inaction as an excuse to do nothing.
4) is irrelevant, as renewables reduce power prices (see the above link)
5) Reliability and dispatchability are very different things. Australia's coal fired power stations are unreliable - they keep breaking down. Renewables are more reliable. And even when you do nothing to boost network stability, you can get a lot more than 40% of your power from renewables before it becomes a problem. When the proportion is enough to cause problems, they're merely technical issues to overcome rather than insurmountable obstacles.

"Considering the rocketing energy prices in Australia, the blackouts in South Australia, the recent close calls in Victoria, and the collapsing industrial base in the country, I have no reason to doubt my original assessments."

Then you're not considering them in enough detail:
The rocketting energy prices in Australia are due to market manipulation and high gas prices.
Blackouts in SA are far less frequent then they used to be, and are comparable to the other states - see http://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/914-Keep-calm-and-carry-on.pdf
Transmission and distribution faults cause far more blackouts than supply problems do.
The recent close calls in Victoria were caused by failure of a coal fired power station (plus one being offline for scheduled maintenance) at a time of very high demand.
The collapsing industrial base of the country was mostly the result of an overvalued Aussie dollar. High power prices did lay a part too, but renewables weren't to blame for that.

The Greenys? Shadow Minister is not alone in using that term like a swear word
He, his side of politics, see every concern for the environment as GREENY JUNK
Yet more and more true conservationists, even from his camp, are saying enough
Still those who get their views from Sky/Fox/The paper the fish and chips came in,buy that greeny stuff
Yes, no fan, not any more, of the green party but they sometimes get it right
After all even this Government gets it right, not often but some times

SR,

I have spent some time at the Latrobe valley, and while the fine particle emissions are a threat to a small number of those sensitive to them, the visual impact of these power stations which generate roughly 30x the power of the proposed super wind farm at Robbins island, and supply base load is probably less.

Add that these power stations are several decades old and new coal power stations would emit far less CO2 and a tiny fraction of the particle emissions, and you get a better comparison.

However, as the point I was making that renewable energy also has a high environmental cost, your response confirms it.

Aidan,

With regards your response:

3 China from the start made it known that it would continue increasing emissions, and made no commitments, so claiming that they nearly doubled their emissions because Aus didn't reduce fast enough is laughable.
4 This is deceitful. While the wholesale price which does not include the subsidies is slightly lower, the retail price which claws back the subsidies is significantly higher. The correlation between a country's electricity prices and renewable energy is nearly 100%.
5 Aidan, you are talking to a power systems engineer. The power stations have multiple generators. That there is a crisis when one generator breaks down is due to the lack of reserve capacity in the system when renewable power crashes.

I was in a heavy industrial plant that saw large scale electricity prices shoot up from 4c/kWhr to 10c/kWhr in a decade, and the plant close down. The high Aus dollar also contributed, but for many the electricity price was the last straw.

Mr. Hypocrite Brown is now calling for 'moderation' on unreliable energy projects. Typical of the Left's attitude when ugliness touches on their lives. It's really meant for the plebs.

SM, rather than take SR's word for something which apparently you know more about, I'd like to hear your take on this latest revelation from BAZZ about the new GW discovery.
SR typically comes out immediately attacking the veracity of these new findings.
The fact that they have been discovered at all is enough for a thinking man to stop and seek more information rather than reject it outright from the comfort of ones chair.
As I've always said, we don't know the truth about this GW debacle, so who do we believe?
My position of skepticism has never changed, but I admit I am no expert, so therefore not qualified to comment.
What I am allowed to do is ask questions, and having continually done so I have always found the GW thing a very hard sell.
Renewables, even harder.
The problem with renewables is that they are a fledgling and yet truly untested (commercially), product or concept.
Historically renewables do not have a very good duty cycle, and it is this that has kept it in the 'development' category still.
The price of power, like all our other commodity prices, we are told, are high because that is what it costs, RUBBISH, all the prices are high because these essential services have been sold off to the govts various mates and are now privatised.
This fact alone should have sent warning bells to the public when they first started selling them off.
Renewables are even more precarious, and will NEVER see price drops.
It's called, PROFITS

Al,

Sorry to disappoint you but I largely agree with SR's scepticism of the article. That the CO2 level has roughly doubled is not in dispute and neither is the heat retention properties of CO2.

Where I disagree with SR and others is:
1 Existing renewables technology is not capable of doing the job. The proof of this is that the proportion of renewables has roughly stayed the same for 40yrs.
2 Killing our economy to reduce emissions more than the rest of the world is idiocy.

It seems that Bob Brown has been 'unpersoned' by the ABC. All other news outlets are reporting the hypocrite's objection to the Tasmanian windfarm and his call for moderation in unreliable power generation, but not the ABC: the same ABC that reported Brown's every word during his anti-Adani posturing. Silence. They are probably very embarrassed