Reporting on the Australian Labor government’s palace coup in 2013 was both instructive for me and jolly good fun. Fun, because I personally loathed many of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd administration’s policies and could not wait for them to be booted out of office. Changing leaders only months out from a federal election all but guaranteed they would be fired by the people in short order. Instructive, because it has made plain that the balance of our system of government has tilted markedly in the past half century.
The founding fathers who designed our Australian federation in the last decade of the nineteenth century based our system of government predominantly on the Westminster System, which was already in place in the six colonial governments of the day, with significant modifications adopted from the American Congressional model, and to a much lesser degree, the systems in use at the time in Canada, Argentina and Switzerland. So, for example, a new visitor from England, familiar with the structure and operation of the House of Commons, would find himself very much at home in the visitors’ gallery of the federal House of Representatives, viewing a sitting. He would see the Speaker of the House, the Prime Minister holding forth from the dispatch box, the Leader of the Opposition across the table, the collected volumes of Hansard, and parliamentary mace between them, the Serjeant-at-Arms (or Usher of the Black Rod in the Senate), and so on. Even the leather seats are coloured green like the Commons (though a lighter, gum-leaf green).
The structure of the legislature and executive also mirrors that of the British. Government is formed by the party (or parties) who can marshal a plurality of seats in the lower house. Those members elect one of their own number to be Prime Minister, who then (in theory) selects his cabinet of Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries. The Prime Minister, the head of government, then at regular (5-year) intervals, appoints, at his own discretion, a Governor General, who is the de facto head of state, being the official representative of the de jure head of state, the British monarch, who is also Sovereign of Australia. An important point, that: the Prime Minister is not elected to that position by the people; he is chosen by parliamentary members of the government (or in the case of the Coalition, just the parliamentary Liberals). In theory. Of course, there is a lot of argy-bargy which goes on prior to the actual ballot. Factional deals drawn up by powerbrokers outside the parliament usually underpin the selection of a leader. Generally, a Prime Minister has run for office as Leader of the Opposition. In the popular mind, this gives voters the (erroneous) impression that they have actually elected the Prime Minister.
This is in contrast to the American system, in which the head of state and head of government reside in the one office and one person, the President. He (and it has always been a he so far) is voted to that office by the people, indirectly through the Electoral College. The popular mandate this gives a President empowers him to a far greater degree than a Prime Minister, and this is reflected in the powers the United States Constitution affords him, to issue Executive Orders, or veto legislation.
In other words, unlike a President, a Prime Minister cannot claim a direct popular mandate as his right to the office. Abbott has convinced himself otherwise, declaring at the National Press Club last week that he was voted in by the people, and it was up to the people to vote him out. Even ignoring his mangling of Australian civics, that was a bit rich, considering his personal popularity as PM has never been high. Even richer, considering he toppled Turnbull as Leader of the Opposition in December 2009 by a single vote in the party room. In making this declaration, he has alienated a significant fraction of his parliamentary colleagues.
No-one expresses this better than former Liberal Senator Amanda Vanstone, who today writes that it has been Abbott’s lack of consultation, particularly with the back bench, that has angered so many of his party. This is in contrast to the leadership battles of the last government, which were driven by a vainglorious autocrat on one hand, and a Marxist ideologue on the other. Both figures marshalled front-bench support directly into opposing cabinet factions in a state of perpetual intrigue, hence the prolonged theatre we witnessed.
I have already given my opinion of the contender, Malcolm Bligh Turnbull, in the comments on the last thread and don’t intend to amplify them here. If he does win the party leadership tomorrow, and hence becomes Prime Minister of Australia, he had better learn the lessons that history has taught his predecessors. A man of the people he may fondly imagine himself to be, but it is not they who put him where he so obviously wants to be.
Be Responsible - Be Free! 
The Liberal party room meeting is in one hour – should run for an hour or so. I will post live updates.
According to Andrew Bolt, ordinary Liberal Party members across the nation are threatening to tear up their memberships in the event Turnbull is victorious. The Liberal Party may be a broad church, but to them, he is just too far outside the envelope.
For overseas readers, while the Australian Labor Party is split cleanly into factions, the groupings within the Liberal Party are more vague. Some refer to “wets” and “drys”, but this refers primarily to economic issues – “wets” are closer to the left, viewing a larger role for government, requiring higher taxation, while “drys” favour smaller government.
In fact, the Liberal Party as created by Robert Menzies in the 1940s is a broad church spanning the centre- to hard-Right, consisting of classical liberals, conservatives and traditionalists. Even those groupings are amorphous, one’s views on social issues may be more old-fashioned than one’s views on economics, industrial relations, education and health, or foreign relations. Turnbull, for example, is definitely a classical liberal on social issues (and hotly opposed by traditionalists), but is happy to impose an emissions trading scheme on the use of carbon dioxide (a commodity I was not aware was owned by the government).
Chris Uhlmann of ABC TV points out that if the spill motion is defeated, the meeting should be over quickly, possibly within ten minutes. If the spill is carried, then there will be a vote for each senior position. That will take much longer.
Speculation is that the spill motion will be defeated, but that the magnitude of the defeat will be inflated by cabinet solidarity, as I explained in the last thread. Translation: the media frenzy won’t let up until Abbott is defeated. Barrie Cassidy (left-wing media commentator and former PM Bob Hawke’s press secretary) could barely contain his glee on TV.
Abbott arriving at the party room:
I note his deputy, Julie Bishop, is walking beside him. That bodes for cabinet solidarity, and a spill defeat.
SPILL DEFEATED 61-39 WITH 1 ABSTENTION
Father of the House Phillip Ruddock just appeared to announce the result. That’s a pretty decisive result for Abbott. Malcolm will just have to bide his time.
More shortly.
MSM desperately trying to minimize the effect of Abbott’s victory. They despise him, and will make sure that leadership issues in the headlines go on and on. And on.
Currently waiting for Abbott, Turnbull and colleagues to emerge from the party room.
Abbott emerges, says he will hold a press conference sometime later today. So that’s about it.
Decisive, but here’s how Fairfax spins it. See what I mean?
Abbott disdains a press conference for the moment, gives a piece to camera instead: “We think when you elect a government, when you elect a Prime Minister, you deserve to keep that government, keep that Prime Minister, until you have a chance to change your mind” (quoting from memory, apologies if errors)
If he really believes that, then IMHO he is deluding himself – see above.
On the other hand, as I said at the top, our politics seems to be tilting away from the British system, and more towards the American one. Election campaigns here since 1972 have increasingly become more Americanized, presidential-style. We now even have a televised debate between contenders, in the American fashion. I note that even Britain does this now.
I’m not necessarily saying this is a bad thing. But clearly, there is a disconnect between the perception and the reality of our civics. If the media has become so pervasive in public thinking that we actually want to elect our leader of government directly, then we need to have a national conversation about changing our Constitution to reflect this. A directly elected Prime Minister would not be subject to any challenge from within his party. On the other hand, you could not hold a popular election for PM until after the general election – or else risk a PM politically opposed to the government! Even if held after the election, the potential for mischief and mayhem would be enormous. Really, people – politicians especially – should think this through a bit more before shooting off at the mouth.
Well he is safe for now, but he would be wise to reconnect with the backbenches.
Time to ship Turncoat off to Syria to join ISIS. The bastard should have his membership in the party rescinded.
AS for your post Ozboy, I just about fell over myself when I heard the ABBOTTABBOTTABBOTT declaring that he had been elected to govern. I don’;t know how many times I have corrected people over the years when they came out with some nonsense such as “I won’t vote for Abbott again”, or “I’m sorry I voted for Gillard”. I always respond wit “I wasn’t aware that you are resident in their constituency”.
You can say it till you’re blue in the face : we vote for party and policy , not people.
The media find it much easier to do their sheeple-worrying by completely ignoring the reality and going for the throat ; for some reason that is what the sheeple prefer.
It doesn’t help to have a PM , like John Key, who appears to bask in the attention.
Surely to God you are not pining for they days of Helen Clark?
Ozboy,
I was greatly pleased to read your updates on what’s going on in Oz. We’er far too immersed in frivolous bullshit here in the US. I’ll expand more on the American Electoral College system after I’ve has sdome sleep.
Andrew Bolt unearths a gem: the sanctimony of Macbeth:
Someone hand me a bucket.
Still, he nicely illustrates my point about the creeping intrusion of personality politics in this country. Worth a look for that reason alone.
Karabar says :-“Surely to God you are not pining for they days of Helen Clark?”
Not at all, but we seem to have got something very similar . . . the most popular NZ PM ever (That was Helen’s description of her reign).
It is not quite what we ordered. 🙂
I thought this was NZ’s most popular PM – Oz:
We all would have preferred this guy , but unfortunately he got the tap on the shoulder from upstairs:-
David Leyonhjelm nails it in today’s SMH:
Great point David. Only problem, of course, is that if you got your way, then five years from now you’d be writing in praise of conviction politicians who are permanently out of office, while the populists (read hard-core authoritarians) take over. Unless both sides were to see the light and change simultaneously. Or a UKIP-like third force were to emerge, taking votes from both sides and scaring the bejeepers out of them.
“Julia Gillard was passionate about addressing climate change, until she wasn’t.”
Some agreeable views in that opinion by David Leyonhjelm but this little quote in there is quite indicative of ideological bias. He talks as if instituting carbon pricing was a nothingburger.
To be fair, he was using the example to illustrate lack of conviction. I know for a fact there are plenty of sceptics in the Labor Party, too. Gillard neither knew nor cared about the environment – just look what her heroes in the Soviet Union did to theirs. But she saw in Global Warming an opportunity to increase state power – Oz
Update: actually, let me elaborate on that a bit. Leyonhjelm gave two absolute convictions of his own when running for office. First, he would never vote for any bill that diminished Liberty or personal freedom. Second, he would never vote to increase taxes. If a new tax is to be introduced, another of equal or greater magnitude must be repealed (impossible with the carbon tax). His opposition to all forms of carbon pricing is consistent and on the record. From his maiden speech in the Senate:
Balls! More popular than Robert Muldoon? The ultimate populist. Unfortunately crazy as a shithouse rat.
More popular than Jim Bolger? I remember when he put together the first coalition under MMP. (A stupid bloody system if there ever was one. Government ran smoothly to a month in 1995 after the election and before the government was announced. Problem with old Jim was he thought he was smarter than he was. He went away on a holiday and when he came back Jenny was sitting in his chair and his crap was out in the hall! She was pretty popular for a few days.
Unfortunately, it is about a great deal more than silly political games. There is a reason that the Left has declared war on our government, our countries, and our liberty.
I can forgive Viscount Monckton a little ignorance about Australian politics, but I think he can put his mind at rest: Prime Ministers do not set party policy (and hence government policy). And the Liberal Party is overwhelmingly opposed to any pricing on carbon. Turnbull is very much in the minority on this issue. In fact, he was rolled by Abbott as Opposition leader at least in part because of his support for Rudd’s ETS. Had there been no other considerations, the margin of Abbott’s victory would have been much greater – Oz
It is hard not to see the Noble Lord as a ‘Poe’, perhaps unwittingly promoting a viewpoint so extreme that it discredits any more sensible, and real, skepticism about the impacts of AGW.
“the forces of darkness…” “the UN and David King…” liberty, freedom… all the dogwhistle phrases of the stereotype conspiracy crank. I’m sorry but Monckton has for all but his dwindling band of devotees a joke figure. Made worse, not better by getting to be a peer-reviewed Peer, by publishing in a obscure new Chinese Journal.
Ironically, a nation that has woken up to the problem and has established a policy of controlling emissions by limiting energy production with coal by 2020.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014-11/19/c_133801014.htm
It is revealing, if true, that the two nations with the most to lose from limits to coal production and other low-grade high-polluting fossil fuels are apparently the ‘holdouts’ to any international agreement.
Whatever the details of attribution, climate sensitivity and rate of change impacts, the bottom line, or first response will be abandoning coal as a acceptable energy source. That makes coal (and tar sands) stranded assets.
Monckton is right that the vast majority of mainstream policy has lined up with mainstream science and accepts that continued CO2 emissions are a problem that requires a regulatory solution in the absence of a market-led transition to a energy economy that avoids the economic limits of fuel costs.
But to see that as ‘Dark Forces’ intent on removing human freedom is ideological conspiracy rhetoric that just makes him look silly to most.
The reality is that action on climate, as is now Chinese policy, will involve coal (and other low output-high emission sources) becoming a stranded asset. There will be business interests, and some governments under regulatory capture, that will oppose this change. Unable to accept that what economics classifies as wealth, science classifies as unusably dangerous.
The 3 year get out clause is presumably a sop to those interests. But the expected period between record hot years is probably going to be every 4 to 7 years given the continuous trend and interannual variation seen over the last 6 decades. How convenient that 3 years is just long enough to get away with a ‘since the last record its cooling.’ canard!
Given the persistence of CO2 added to the carbon cycle and the overwhelming scientific and policy acknowledgement of the undesirability of unconstrained additional increases because of the long timescale of the problems it is most likely to cause, there is something wonderfully ironic about the the right honourables last ringing declaration about the dangers of regulating – or NOT? – CO2 emissions.
“…to ensure the Nations of the world are not locked into something they would all bitterly regret.”
Nature is much better at locking in consequences than political belief.
Wouldn’t you view it as a better solution, if someone could invent a non-CO2-emitting energy source that could be produced abundantly, continuously, reliably and economically – without taxpayer subsidy? Oz
P.S. I’d be interested in your opinion on Yanis Varoufakis as per the previous thread. Maxist economist and game theorist – sounds right up your alley!
Karabar says ” Balls! “.
In respect of Helen Clarke, that is still a matter of some conjecture. Her sexual orientation is now openly discussed . . . as in our first (openly) gay PM.
Izen says ” the persistence of CO2 added to the carbon cycle”
Hmmm. Yes the bloody stuff persists in being re-cycled. This should be stopped immediately.
I remember one time she went to a conference of some description and some slobbering Asian dignitary described her as “beautiful”. Oh, GAWD!
I seem to remember she had some sort of consort however. Maybe “he” was a “she”.
Izen
I have a few issues with your “analysis”.
a) There is not now, not yesterday, and not tomorrow any “warming”. The data is manipulated and you are placing your faith in fairy tales.
b) There is no such thing as a “greenhouse effect”. It is a pure fabrication.
c) The mysterious substance called a “greenhouse gas” is does not exist. See (b) above.
@-” Wouldn’t you view it as a better solution, if someone could invent a non-CO2-emitting energy source that could be produced abundantly, continuously, reliably and economically – without taxpayer subsidy? Oz ”
Absolutely!
I encountered a intriguing economic slant on this in a comment about the inherent limits of producing energy from a finite material source. Even if it abundant there is a non-reducible fuel cost incurred with the energy production.
If energy production was uncoupled from fuel costs then the opportunity for greater wealth is increased. With renewable sources the costs are in manufacturing the conversion, distribution and storage infrastructure. Those are not yet fully in place, some need to be invented (TEQH!). But with zero fuel costs energy production becomes a similar prospect as electronic and engineering design and manufacture. Open to the continuing efficiencies and cost reductions that can lower energy costs far below what is possible with a fuel-based system. It gets closer to a system with a zero energy cost, just an infrastructure maintenance/replacement cost.
How much better and comparatively cheaper is the laptop, phone or car you purchased this year compared with fifteen years ago.
Sure. I’m not suggesting there will ever be free energy, but the cost will, as you say, become asymptotic to zero, or “virtually free”, as, say, sending e-mails has become. There will always be fixed costs of infrastructure manufacture, storage and delivery, but increasingly these will become one-off, rather than recurring costs. Even for all that, the multi-trillion-dollar scale of the world energy market means there will still be enough fat for private developers that the biggest technological breakthroughs (addressing your next point) are still likely to come from the private sector – a discussion we have had previously – Oz
Pure cornoco-uto-pian.
The sort of scientific advances that have been behind the vast expansion technology have been rooted in vast tax-payer funded subsidies to select fields, biochemistry in 1920 Germany, electronics and nuclear energy in the US from the 1940s, biology in the 70s. Even the most independent of modern developments is invariably deeply dependent on government funded education and research as the ‘shoulders of giant’ they stand upon.
@-“I’d be interested in your opinion on Yanis Varoufakis as per the previous thread. Maxist economist and game theorist – sounds right up your alley!”
Few decades since I paid much attention to political theory at the radical end, no idea what Marxist and game theorist would mean in that context. Lost interest in that whole theoretical side when it got infected with the meme that facts are only social constructs…
@-karabar
Izen
I have a few issues with your “analysis”.
a) There is not now, not yesterday, and not tomorrow any “warming”. The data is manipulated and you are placing your faith in fairy tales.
b) There is no such thing as a “greenhouse effect”. It is a pure fabrication.
I am aware you share a view that rejects the conclusions reach by the overwhelming majority of those who have examined the evidence of the recent observational record. I also Know you dispute the conclusions reached by the contemporaries of Darwin as they developed the explanation of the thermodynamics of the terrestrial atmosphere.
I would suggest that the issues you have are less to do with my analysis and more closely linked to the dichotomy between your views and those of mainstream science.
But you may have prompted an animation about what the BEST evidence indicates has been happening to the climate in a person’s lifetime… grin.
A timely reminder amid all the ruckus on the conservative side of politics. The Sydney Daily Telegraph today editorializes Labor leader Bill Shorten. Devastating stuff. But they are personally taking the gloves off, precisely because they know it’s only the beginning. Shorten in normal days would be regarded by any political party as unelectable, but I suspect they are keeping him on as leader for just long enough. If the Liberals implode through infighting and Labor somehow does manage to gain office, the real demolition job on Shorten will begin – from within the Labor party, that is, with MSM cheerleading. I give him six months as PM, tops. And waiting in the wings is Julia Gillard Mark II, even more divisive and hate-filled than the original.
Fair point Oz regarding Leyonhjelm above, appears to be a pretty objective guy actually from that quote making it clear that environmental fanatics should not be considered, or allow themselves to consider themselves, to be “omniscient geniuses”.
Re. leaders on the right in general, I think key is focusing on cost of living as that is actually a conservative issue in terms of people keeping as much of their earned money as possible. The left has somehow hijacked this issue with red herrings such as the minimum wage. What I am gathering from Karabar is that some of Abbott’s policies and messaging has been confused, including PPL. If he wants to address that area from a conservative angle maybe he needs to look more towards tax breaks/credits (inc. for childcare), and/or the tax code itself in a fundamental way.
@-myrightpenguin
“Re. leaders on the right in general, I think key is focusing on cost of living as that is actually a conservative issue in terms of people keeping as much of their earned money as possible….. If he wants to address that area from a conservative angle maybe he needs to look more towards tax breaks/credits (inc. for childcare), and/or the tax code itself in a fundamental way.”
The cry of ‘Lower Taxes’ is certainly a popularist trope, it even gains some traction at times…
However in reality the majority of voters get a positive return on their tax payments. They receive more in the value of welfare, education, healthcare and general civilisational infrastructure than they pay in.
This is an inherent feature of the progressive tax system of modern society, it redistributes wealth.
It opposes the inherent feature of a ‘free market’ that tends to concentrate wealth in the hands of a few monopolists.
This is the problem with calls for lower taxes and smaller government. It does not make the majority richer because it reduces the influence of a key economic component of the system. That which redistributes wealth downward.
Real world attempts to instigate such small government/low tax regimes invariably reach that conclusion, wealth inequality rises sharply, the standard of living for the majority drops and if a democracy the government gets pressured or booted out (Greece). Or it turns to increasingly oppressive social control to coerce the majority into acceptance. (Kansas?)
Outside, or internal scapegoats/enemies are always good for that.
For many years, a progressive taxation system was indeed a cornerstone of our cohesive society. Unfortunately, it no longer is; the problem, of course was that our welfare society was only one half of a social contract: the “take” side, if you will. The “give” side was the implicit understanding that all members of that society would contribute their fair share – would take whatever work they could find, and would not try to feign illness, “scam” disability or breed offspring they knew they could not afford to raise. Too much money in the one central kitty, plus an influx of newcomers of different cultures, many of whom see no reason to respect any social contract at all, has led to a “tragedy of the commons” – Oz
The problem with that tired old argument Izen is that more than 30 states in the U.S. have conservative governors now, and there is a reason for that, with associated inflows of revenues to states such as Texas, where it so happens that more jobs have been created since 2007 than all the other states combined.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/texas-job-growth-outpaces-rest-of-u.s.-combined/article/2557660
Texas so happens to have no state income tax. You need to look into Scott Walker and what he has been doing with Wisconsin also, balancing the books, creating a surplus, and returning some of that surplus back to the people in the form of income and property tax cuts.
I don’t know what planet you live on but even in Europe the UK is the country with GDP growth outperforming countries such as France (led by the socialist Hollande), albeit with paper thin austerity, but at least departing a little from Keynesian economics and supertaxes in other EU nations. When we talk about lowering taxes, that is not just to help the rich. The threshold for the lowest income tax bracket has been lifted to incentivise work and the top band has been reduced from 50% to 45% to incentivise employers / job creators.
You mention Greece, and yet you do not seem to understand why countries such as Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Italy are in the financial problems they are in, as well as much of the EU/Eurozone as a whole, bar the UK and Germany.
In terms of wealth redistribution you do not seem to understand how free market economics has been corrupted into crony capitalism, the latter a result of big government working hand in hand with ‘favourites’ to enable a steady supply to have snouts in the trough. For instance all the Obama super-donors for 2008 that got rich with Solyndra and the like. If you think you are on the ideological side of the masses in helping them against the 1%, I’m afraid you couldn’t be more wrong.
On very simple terms I should also add that much of the current boost to the U.S. economy is due to low gas prices. I have quotes to show that the far left kept carping on in the past how low gas/energy prices being important for economic performance was a myth, and indeed Obama and his previous Energy Department head (Steven Chu) wanted energy prices to skyrocket. Some individuals clearly have been very right in terms of the beneficial impact of the people having more money in their pockets beyond necessities (fuel to get to work, etc.), and it clearly was not the people who wanted energy prices to skyrocket. lol.
On a very simple level also, we live in a global economy nowadays, an extension in a way of the 50 state model for the U.S. If the tax environment in one country is more favourable to a neighbour it is pretty clear where private investors/entrepreneurs will take their money. Hence also why many in unstable economies across Europe have been moving their money into property in the U.K. for a safer bet.
Gasoline is a fundamental commodity used by the producers of just about every good and service we use (plus we use it ourselves directly). If it gets substantially cheaper, everything we buy costs less, and we all have more money to spend on other stuff. So the economy speeds up. I’m not an economist, but even I get that – Oz
Ozboy, it just goes to show what we are up against with the legacy/establishment media and leftist quarters of academia in spinning to such an extent that obvious common sense no longer remains common sense with a significant proportion of the population. lol. You probably are well aware of Gruber-gate in the U.S. with him (Jonathan Gruber) allowing himself to be caught on camera boasting about how he has performed such spin to take advantage of the “stupidity” of many.
Sounds about right – post a link to it if you’ve got one – Oz
Update – don’t worry, found the video. This guy designed Obamacare? And is Obama’s mouthpiece on it too???
Incredible.
@-myrightpenguin
“You need to look into Scott Walker and what he has been doing with Wisconsin also, balancing the books, creating a surplus, and returning some of that surplus back to the people in the form of income and property tax cuts.”
‘Balancing the books’ requires some creative accounting. He has also failed to increase employment in the state as he predicted, with only half the jobs growth, behind the US average. There are other cultural problems with Scott Walker of course, his antipathy towards state education does not bode well for the job prospects of inhabitants of the state.
@-“more than 30 states in the U.S. have conservative governors now, and there is a reason for that, with associated inflows of revenues to states such as Texas, where it so happens that more jobs have been created since 2007 than all the other states combined. Texas so happens to have no state income tax.”
No income tax, but purchase and property taxes that make it a higher tax state for all but the wealthiest. If you are an employee or small business your tax payout in Texas is higher than in most states, it is only the ‘1%’ who enjoy a 3.2% tax rate.
The claim about job creation is also misleading. Job creation in Texas has hardly kept up with population growth. Only a fraction of which is driven by people in other American States flocking to there. It is predominantly immigration and a high birthrate.
The majority of the jobs are also the result of the fracking/shale oil boom, part of the process that has increased oil/gas supply during a recession driving down the price. Unfortunately to a level below which most fracking is economically viable. Tighten your seatbelt for big oil price jumps and drops in the future as the supply/demand curve struggles to cope with post-peak oil.
I am at the early script stage of trying to do a skit on Kansaz. All about how you Ken follow the Brownbrick road to a future of wealth, health and prosperity. Or so the Wizard of AZ tells everyone.
This is what is so nice about the diverse State governments in the US, they provide a relatively controlled, and safe environment for local political enthusiasms to be applied and the full glory, or horror of the outcome examined.
I do not think the record is one you would be keen to promote despite the apparent success of Texas. That seem to be driven by Nature, the geological distribution of oil/gas deposits, rather more than political action. Except where the Texas government has subsidised the big oil companies. (only quid pro quo, look how much they give to the politicians)
For an insight into the geology is can be revealing to look up on googlemaps the small Texas town or Iraan. select the satellite view and check out the area to the bottom left of the town.
http://tinyurl.com/q9c52u2
I look at an image like that, with its myriad well sites and dirt track connections, and the first word that comes to mind is “wildcatter”. In this case, it was not so. It appears that the field was well scoped by the time of the Great Depression – Oz
I’m tied up for the next 9 days, but will try to check the blog at least once a day. New thread out sometime after Tuesday 24th February.
@-karabar
Now look what you made me do!
https://izenmeme.wordpress.com/2015/02/15/lifetime-of-the-climate/
Farmerbraun
This morning’s AFR has a slightly different take on your PRime Minister than you (I think).
” When New Zealand’s Prime Minister John Key cut government spending, voters understood. When he brought back Kiwi knighthoods, his popularity rose. When Prince Philip was knighted, Key got an invite to Balmoral with Queen Elizabeth.
When Tony Abbott did the same, he almost lost his job.
Well okay – Tony Abbott hasn’t actually cut spending, he just keeps saying that he has.
Keys also privatised utilities – and was threatened by electoral loss, did it anyway, and then won handsomely at the last election.
How does Luke Malpass explain this success?
To get to this point, clear, consistent communication was crucial. Both Key and Finance Minister Bill English delivered a clear message: the country could not afford its spending and was strangling the economy to boot.
…
As part of this process, English’s office in particular cultivated an environment of “policy contestability”, drawing advice and research from outside the Treasury and bureaucracy to counter policy group-think. Although genuinely consultative on many policy reform areas, particularly in social services, the Key government has not tried to be friends with its enemies and those who will never agree with it anyway.
In short, everything our Liberals haven’t done.”
http://www.afr.com/p/opinion/kiwis_can_have_knights_and_surplus_imIVzmo1lAFF1RiSTSqF3L
Izen
It must be fun to make pretty pictures with fictitious data. Michael E. Mann certainly found it lucrative.
The parameter “global average temperature” is a mathematically impossible, or at best as meaningless as an average of the numbers in the telephone book.
In the meantime, back at the ranch, in the real world, antarctic ice extent is larger than ever witnessed, arctic ice continues to grow, the Great Lakes freeze over early and thaw late, and Boston has had as much snow in three weeks as Chicago has ever got in an entire year.
But of course we both know it has nothing to do with carbon dioxide, temperature, weather, or the environment.
TIMOTHY WIRTH
Al Gore’s former U.S. Senate pal, Timothy Wirth, observed, representing the U.S. as Clinton-Gore administration’s undersecretary of state for global affairs at the U.N.’s 1992 Rio de Janiero Climate Summit: ” We have got to ride the global warming issue. … Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.”
It was never about ‘global warming’.
MAURICE STRONG
Summit Chairman Maurice Strong agreed with Wirth and his policy priorities. “We may get to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for industrialized civilization to collapse,” he said.
From a post at Forbes by Larry Bell.
It was never about science.
OTTMAN EDENHOFFER, co-chair of the IPCC Working Group III:
“First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.”
It was never about climate.
CHRISTIANA FIGUERES, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, second Term
“This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history”, Ms Figueres stated at a press conference in Brussels.
“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the industrial revolution. That will not happen overnight and it will not happen at a single conference on climate change, be it COP 15, 21, 40 – you choose the number. It just does not occur like that. It is a process, because of the depth of the transformation.”
It was never about carbon dioxide.
So here’s your chance to do some actual science yourself.
I suggest you calculate the cross-correlation coefficient between the Veizer plaeotemperature (published in peer-reviewed literature, and cited by others) and the Berner & Kothavala GEOCARB III (published in peer-reviewed literature and cited by others) data sets.
They’re banking on us all having very short memories – Oz:
Forgot the URL http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070315101129.htm
@-Karabar
The metric of global average temperature is just as valid as global average adult weight. Sure there is a lot of local variation, and you have to sample, you cannot measure everybody. But the derived metric from such sampled measurements would give legitimate and useful data about the average body weight and the variations from that. If measured over several decades it would be possible to detect trends….
So you think I am using fictitious data to make pretty pictures… then send me to look at Steve Goddard’s mess… sigh.
That blinking gif of different graphs isn’t even lined up properly, yes the graphs use different zero baselines, and it is obvious that in the earlier efforts by Hansen he had not allowed for the cooling effect of the TOBs change in the 50s.
Perhaps you could explain why you think that attempts to make the rather messy data we have more accurate are some fraudulent conspiracy. Perhaps you have a set of data showing cooling you regard as reliable, despite the fact that it conflicts with every other source of measurement we have – including satellites, although it is clear that RSS is having problems, but then satellite measurement of atmospheric temperatures is more an art than a science.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/plot/uah/from:2000/to:2014/trend
Here is what that attempt to combine Hansen 1981 1999 and GISS 2014 looks like if you take the trouble to correctly scale and zero the graphs instead of ‘accidently’ positioning them to exaggerate the variations.
Yes, the later graphs show higher temperatures in 1980, an adjustment confirmed by sea surface temperatures, you cannot have warmer seas, with an expanding ocean and get cooler land.
Note that the adjustment made to the 100 year record made between 1981 and 2014 is about +0.2degC at 1980 over the century. An amount of warming that was exceeded in the next decade by a measured and confirmed rise, it even appears in the satellite data.
While there may be a few fringe cranks that see AGW as a means to leverage their political or economic goals, they are ‘balanced’ by those that see AGW as a threat to their political and economic goals.
The ideological preferences of neither fringe have any influence on Nature.
Adaption is inescapable, mitigation is probably cheaper, and safer.
@-Karabar
Went looking for a measure of the warming independent of thermometer manipulation.
Frost incidence and its effect on plant growth.
You cannot fool plants.
http://www.arborday.org/media/mapchanges.cfm
Or, sea level rise, that can only come from thermal expansion and melting land ice, two more measures independent of weather station quibbles.
http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/
You really should do a stand-up comedy act some day Izen.
Sea level rise? What sea level rise? Did you see the photos of the Florida beach in the movie “Where the boys are” then (1964) and now? Can you spot any difference? Didn’t think so.
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/06/sea-level-rise-less-than-1mm-for-last-125-years-nils-axel-morner/
Next you will bring up ‘ocean acidification” or some such fairy tale.
If your forte is constructing “global averages” I have a task for you Consider all the cross rates on teh currency exchange and compute a “global exchange rate”. It will be just as meaningful as a “global average temperature”.
Izen, I don’t intend to be rude, I suppose some counterargument is good and in some forums those with opposing views tend to get nasty (which you are not), but my impression is that generally in response to points made you go trawling the internet (Google, etc.) to force fit your “beliefs” in line with confirmation bias. That’s fine to a point but at the same time you cannot believe everything you find. You could say the same about individuals such as myself, karabar, and others but the difference is we tend to join dots through collection of data and facts over time.
Therein lies the difference between a rationalist and a cultist. A rationalist looks at the *rate* of sea level rise since the end of the Little Ice Age and sees it has more of less been constant. That therefore debunks the anthropogenic contribution, which theoretically would be increasing with increased CO2 emissions.
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/07/global-sea-levels-started-rising-before-1800-jevrejeva/
It’s the same with the extent and rate of warming comparable ~1910-1940 and ~1970-2000.
It’s the same with all the failed scaremongering predictions and abysmal IPCC climate models.
As I said, there is a difference between rationalism and cultism 😉
I’m quite proud of the civility and convivial nature of the Bar and Grill. Those who have been here long enough will understand why. Robust debate is still possible within the constraints of civil discourse, and I would argue is enhanced by them. Izen, as we all now know, isn’t evil – just mistaken about one or two matters – Oz
A bit OT, but an old acquaintance of mine, one of Australia’s leading journalists (and well to the left of me), shared this story today about censorship in the UK Telegraph. I have no other knowledge about the events it describes.
I know it may be raking over old coals for him, but I wonder what GE would make of this?
Update: well there ya go: this is what he makes of it.
@-myrightpenguin
“…but my impression is that generally in response to points made you go trawling the internet (Google, etc.) to force fit your “beliefs” in line with confirmation bias. ”
Yes, its true… well I go trawling google etc to force my beliefs, or more accurately understanding, to be in line with the best evidence I can find. I am biased towards evidence confirmation.
-grin-
@-“Therein lies the difference between a rationalist and a cultist. A rationalist looks at the *rate* of sea level rise since the end of the Little Ice Age and sees it has more of less been constant. That therefore debunks the anthropogenic contribution, which theoretically would be increasing with increased CO2 emissions.”
I will resist the temptation to deluge you with a googleplex of scientific evidence of why this claim is nonsense. Perhaps you should have been alerted by the source. I doubt they will ever live down ‘The Notch’ and ‘Factor X’.
@- “Izen, as we all now know, isn’t evil – just mistaken about one or two matters – Oz”
Thank you Ozboy, the feeling is mutual. I am happy to avoid this subject if it does become ‘heated’ or the discussion becomes ‘too warm’.
-Grin-
Not too heated, but perhaps for you and me: too old. We have arrived at a single point of agreement on this topic, and I propose to leave it there until Mother Nature suggests otherwise 😉
I will leave it to others to pursue it here if they wish – Oz
“Izen, as we all now know, isn’t evil – just mistaken about one or two matters – Oz”
Seconded 🙂
As far as climate change alarmism is concerned, tbh Izen most of the arguments are pretty mundane now as they are more or less the same as a few years back, the reason being that there is largely an impasse, due in no small part to cultism. As Ozboy says, let Mother Gaia prove or disprove the climate models; so far it is not looking good for those models.
When I look at Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, etc. and see their objections to nuclear (as well as fracking) I can see a lot of what is going on is perpetual scaremongering as opposed to looking for genuine solutions. Intermittent (and low density) wind has marginal impact on CO2 emissions even if a problem and only serves to support those dependent on state subsidisation. As Bjorn Lomborg says the current generation of ‘clean energy’ is next to useless (bar hydroelectric wherever geography makes it possible). It’s just one big racket that extorts taxpayers and raises their energy bills.
@-myrightpenguin
“When I look at Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, etc. and see their objections to nuclear (as well as fracking) I can see a lot of what is going on is perpetual scaremongering as opposed to looking for genuine solutions.”
Agreed, their ideological beliefs about society and its relationship to the environment distorts their policy options.
They are not unique in that.
@-“Intermittent (and low density) wind has marginal impact on CO2 emissions even if a problem and only serves to support those dependent on state subsidisation. ”
All energy sources are subsidised to some extent by governments, it is always very difficult to determine the true cost of energy because there are so many indirect government subsidies and indirect costs that tend not to be included when calculating comparative costs. Denmark now regularly derives 30% of its energy needs from wind, not a majority, but rather more than marginal.
@-“As Bjorn Lomborg says the current generation of ‘clean energy’ is next to useless (bar hydroelectric wherever geography makes it possible). It’s just one big racket that extorts taxpayers and raises their energy bills.”
Lomborg is as suspect as FoE and Greenpeace as a source, the alternative view would be that the current generation of coal fired electricity generation in big central plants with a pole and wire distribution system is next to useless for developing nations like India and Africa. To provide electricity to the vast majority of the population will be cheaper, more efficient using PVs than the old tech of centralised power generation and distribution. The comparison is with phone systems.
China of course is finding that coal generation is not sustainable because of the smog pollution. The big advantage of renewables is that never mind that whatever the initial capital costs the fuel costs are zero. That’s what makes wind viable even with the low energy density of the source.
Fuel costs are zero? Yes, that’s as true as it is irrelevant. Whole-of-life costings consistently show solar, wind and tidal energy generation systems are unviable without being propped up by the involuntary generosity of the taxpayer. Privatize the profits, socialize the losses – as usual. And don’t even get me started on geothermal unless you want to be “googleplexed” yourself.
I’m not saying future technologies will never be able to harness these energy sources profitably by private enterprise; on the contrary, I’d love to see it happen. But the prospect appears a long way off – Oz
Here’s some local council politics, Australian style. A donnybrook between a mayor and former mayor at a polling booth resulted in one being taken to hospital and the other facing charges.
This one resonates with me, because I grew up in the council area in question, and was actually born in the aforementioned hospital.
Gotta love ’em!
Some pretty tawdry politics from Britain today, in the form of cash for comment. (via Andrew Bolt)
I would love to think a party like UKIP is above this sort of thing. However I am too disabused of human nature to think it won’t emerge with them, too, once elected.
Sigh.
Rifkind: “I want to have a standard of living that my professional background would normally entitle me to have.”
http://order-order.com/2015/02/23/rifkind-its-all-about-the-price-tag/
… symptomatic of a permanent ruling class (LibLabCon cartel) that has become all too comfortable.
As an update on these two former foreign secretaries: Rifkind has resigned and Jack Straw wasn’t standing for re-election in the coming May election anyway.
Rifkind: “I want to have a standard of living that my professional background would normally entitle me to have.”
The other nice quote was when he claimed it was unrealistic to expect an MP to live on a mere 63k
Given that the median income in the UK is less than 20K, claiming that 3x what most people earn is not enough to live on is not good politics.
Of course given the area of London he represents, Kensington, he is right that 63k puts him in the poverty bracket. The average income in that constituency is over 100k.
If I remember my nuns correctly, a jackstraw was an old Irish term for a toothpick.
I reckon a toothpick would be more electable now in Britain than a certain Australian, following a rather embarrassing interview:
And I’m trying to stifle a laugh here, but this story in today’s Australian…
If only he’d stuck to writing soft-core bolly-porn 😆
Vale Leonard Nimoy, who passed away this week.
I was never into Star Trek, but I was always intrigued by the emotionless, logic-driven Vulcan character he played. Here he is, talking about climate change way back in 1978:
Beam me up!
It was always a matter of embarrassment to star-trek Spock fans that he took voice-over jobs for pseudo-science programs, and even ghost-supernatural ‘documentaries’. It was an obvious choice for dubious and sensationalist media programs trying to ice their nonsense with science credibility to use the voice of the worlds most famous ‘logical’ voice, and I guess Nimoy had to eat…. but, oh dear.
The Young researcher who appears around the 5:30 mark quite correctly states that the ice-cap and glaciers on Baffin island show a slow cooling since around 3000 years ago, the expected pattern of climate after the peak warmth of an interglacial period like the Holocene optimum.
It is interesting to note that the young man seen in the video continued to work on Baffin island to the present day. Rather than seeing further expansion of the ice-cap and glaciers however he has documented the rapid and exceptional LOSS of ice in recent decades. A retreat that has exposed land surface that has not been exposed and ice-free since the Eemian climate warm peak 120,000 years ago.
https://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/tag/gifford-miller/