Look Out! Carbon!

Ziggy Switkowski in The Australian:

Water vapour, as seen billowing from the hyperboloid cooling towers much favoured by photo editors, is not pollution unless we include clouds and rain in that definition, which few do.

HRT writes:

Go to: www.climatechange.gov.au/ and click on the No 2 photo on the top left of the page. It is called Carbon Price Announced.

Note the photo of cooling towers emitting steam.

Coming soon - A tax on Dihydrogen Monoxide.

Elektrizität

An interesting setback for nuclear power advocates:

BERLIN (AFP) – Germany on Monday became the first major industrialised power to agree an end to nuclear power in the wake of the disaster in Japan, with a phase-out to be completed by 2022.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said the decision, hammered out by her centre-right coalition overnight, marked the start of a "fundamental" rethink of energy policy in the world's number four economy.

"We want the electricity of the future to be safer and at the same time reliable and affordable," Merkel told reporters as she accepted the findings of an expert commission on nuclear power she appointed in March in response to the crisis at Japan's Fukushima plant.

"That means we must have a new approach to the supply network, energy efficiency, renewable energy and also long-term monitoring of the process," said Merkel, whose popularity had suffered over her previous pro-nuclear stance.

The commission found that it would be viable within a decade for Germany to mothball all 17 of its nuclear reactors, eight of which are currently off the electricity grid.

So where will this safe, reliable and affordable electricity come from? Windmills on every strasse? Solar panels on top of every haus? Nein.

Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen:

"We assure that the electricity supply will be ensured at all times and for all users," he pledged.

The government must now determine how it can make up the difference with renewable energy sources, natural gas and coal-fired plants.

Yes but...

The new pro carbon dioxide tax "Just Say Yes" campaign, is a great start for the Australian chapter of the Film Actor Guild (FAG).




They have already embarrassed themselves.

What really irks me, is the smug suggestion 8 seconds into the clip, that solar and wind generation produces clean energy "that never runs out".

Except at night, or when the wind isn't blowing.

Solar and wind advocates never want to discuss that. They don't need to, as long as there is eeeeevil coal powered baseload generation ensuring that 'somehow' the lights still come on at night.

Of course you can also use batteries to provide power when the solar/wind generators are idle. You know, those batteries filled with lead acid and other delightful ingredients that need to be disposed of.

At best, solar and wind energy is either unreliable or unclean.

The only thing we have to fear...

In Doug Cameron's speech on the future of the Australian Labor Party, he said:

In the next year or so, overcoming the politics of fear and disinformation on climate change and mining taxation will be fundamental to the short term political future of the Party.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard, trying to promote her Carbon Dioxide tax accused Tony Abbot similarly:

"All of these figures have been made up by the leader of the opposition in pursuit of his fear campaign," Ms Gillard responded.

Excuse me?

Complaining about a new tax, which Ms Gillard said she wouldn't introduce, and which hasn't been properly costed (nor proven to have any real effect) is not a fear campaign.

Telling kids that the world will end. Now that's a fear campaign. And it's already contributing to mental illness in youth, with young kids feeling guilty for daring to sit with the lights on.

Last year a 17-year-old boy in Melbourne became the world's first person to be diagnosed with "climate change delusion".

Dr Robert Salo at the Royal Children's Hospital reported that his patient believed his water consumption would deplete water supplies, leading to the deaths of millions of people, and that he had internet research to prove this.

He had attempted to stop drinking and checked for leaking taps to prevent the catastrophe.
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The boy had a major depressive disorder with delusions specifically relating to climate change.

There are many more people with delusions specifically relating to climate change. They just haven't been diagnosed yet.

Crikey political "analyst" clueless, as usual

Analysis from a Crikey political media expert:

Labor now has a huge fight on its hands, trying to explain a difficult policy to voters in respect of which the media and certain vested interests are, it turns out, implacably hostile. Gillard – who before the election made it very clear she saw a “carbon price” and a “carbon tax” as two different things, and that whilst she ruled out the latter she believed in the former – is being pilloried by the shameless for supposedly “changing her mind”. (All you have to do is take her remark about a tax in isolation, and then, ignoring that she always made a distinction between the tax and a price, argue that the carbon price policy is a tax and therefore she broke her own promise according to your definition you know she made clear when making the earlier remark she didn’t share.)

Is that clear... as mud?

The Prime Minister is of the opinion she flip-flopped, however:

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has admitted she promised there would be no carbon tax during the election and said circumstances had changed.

She qualified her comments made a week before the August 2010 poll, arguing her Government had wanted to legislate for an emissions trading scheme.

"Yes, I did say that and circumstances have changed," Ms Gillard told Channel 9 today.

"What my vision was was to be elected as Prime Minister and to introduce an emissions trading scheme, which is not a carbon tax."

If Crikey pays its apprentice political expert a cent, he's overpaid.