Say “Yes” to Saying “Yes” to More Taxes (but Not Really)

Say “Yes” to Green Innocence

Tragedies and Accidents Just Happen*

Iambic trimeters just fell into my lap
as, like an ancient theatre-piece, some great mishap
occurred: “asylum-seekers” found themselves at sea
and wondered, “How did we get here?  A mystery!
A little while ago the family was home,
then, suddenly, we’re drowning in this briny foam.”
Calamities just happen, misadventures too,
and Sarah Hanson-Young sees nothing she need do;
she’ll ever fault some other—Greens can never err†—,
for tragedies will happen, accidents occur.

*  see  “Boat tragedy linked to smuggling mastermind”, by Peter Alford and Paul Maley, in The Australian:

As news of the disaster broke, former Labor leader Mark Latham took aim at the Greens and the Labor Left, saying the “so-called compassionate” approach of onshore processing was causing deaths at sea. “You can’t be compassionate and you can’t have a good heart, you can’t have a good soul, if you encourage people to get on boats that sink,’ Mr Latham told Sky’s Australian Agenda.

“And people just need to understand that the real compassionate policy is to stop the flow of the boats.”

Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young yesterday stood by her party’s policies.  Pressed on whether the Greens accepted responsibility for the tragedy, Senator Hanson-Young said:  “Of course not.  Tragedies happen, accidents happen.”

†  The Greens, we know, will never take the blame for acts

    they wrought (nor will they recognise objective facts).

UPDATE I:  these verses were composed as a comment for Tim Blair’s post “Cared to Death” but only the title and the footnoted couplet were accepted.

UPDATE II (29 December):  see “Police State: It is now illegal to show asylum seekers [i.e., unlawful non-citizens seeking illegal entry] on Australian TV” at Wake up 2 the Lies.

Say “Yes” to Pious Self-Censorship

Don’t Mention the Climate War

The Age must refuse
to allow its readers to
catch Climategate news.

Our ABC too
sees no point in allowing
alternative views.

The Age cannot risk its few remaining readers learning the truth behind the lies and scams and frauds perpetrated on behalf of “the cause” by pseudo-scientists.

See “Climategate II”.

(A Confession

I seldom peruse
papers, and The Age aint one
I’d normally choose.)

UPDATE (25 November):  The Age has now addressed the latest scandal with, as we’d expect, the usual dismissive “taken out of context” exculpatory tosh.  Yes, it is so unfair to interpret clear evidence of perfidious, criminal malfeasance harshly; perhaps, then, The Age might care to provide some context for the The Team’s duplicities and deceits.  See also Climate Nonconformist’s “The Age: Nothing to see here” .

Say “Yes” to Venality

At Adelaide Now, you may read Catherine Hockley’s “The cost of tackling climate change”:

Forty bureaucrats will travel to Durban in South Africa later this year for the next round of climate-change talks, at a cost of more than $500,000.

Some of the costs of the trip have been revealed as the Federal Government gets set to introduce its carbon tax legislation tomorrow.

The public servants from the Climate Change Department and other government agencies will travel business class to Durban – creating a footprint of about 270 tonnes of carbon.  (To put this in context, the equivalent emissions would be produced from the electricity use of 34 average homes in one year.)

They are expected to stay at the Coastlands Hotel and Convention Centre, in the coastal resort of Umhlanga – described by local tourism authorities as the “Riviera” of Durban.

The delegation will attend the United Nations “conference of parties” in late November and December, an annual gathering of nations with the long-anticipated goal of securing agreement on a binding international contract to tackle climate change.

Two prior meetings, Copenhagen in 2009 and Cancun last year, both failed to secure an international commitment, triggering frustration in the process.

Australia sent 114 delegates to the Copenhagen conference at a cost of almost $1.5 million.

That conference promised much progress on a deal, but failed to deliver.

It is anticipated an agreement will also prove elusive in Durban.

It is, of course, impossible for extremely well-paid public servants to negotiate agreements or to discuss how much more they intend to fleece taxpayers, whilst promoting their politically-motivated pseudo-scientific conjecture, by using mail, e-mail, telephones, video-conferencing or any other method which involves remaining in their own country.

Say “Yes” to Government Propaganda

These days, the Government’s only policy seems to be to spread its fraudulent message that carbon dioxide is responsible for global warming—and everything else that is wrong; for example:

Meanwhile, our pragmatically mendacious PM calls in vain for the media to write less crap:

(Thanks to the Tizona Group.)

Say “Yes” to More Conceits

In “$23 carbon price, but fewer pay”, it takes two writers, Tom Arup and Michelle Grattan of The Age, to compose this:

the government is expected to reveal its plans to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from new vehicles, which have been simmering on the backburner for almost a year, since Ms Gillard foreshadowed them in last year’s election campaign.

Labor floated a target to reduce average emissions of new cars, sports utility vehicles and light trucks.  But its targets were denounced as ‘weak’ by Greens deputy leader Christine Milne, who pledged stronger targets.

Plans (or, perhaps, new vehicles), which were foreshadowed, simmer on a back-burner; and weak targets float.  With such marvellously metaphoric writers, running along such tight tropes, and supplying the public with insightful and independent political news and analysis, one may well wonder how the newspapers are losing readers.

Say “Yes” to New Fuels

There’s new fuel like an old fuel.—old proverb.

Alstom which claims to be “a world leader in power generation”, and which supports the incompetent Gillard Government’s proposals to tax some industries which emit carbon dioxide, describes some of its projects on its web-site:

for a wide variety of fuel, including hydro, nuclear, gas, steam and wind.

We have a solution to the world’s energy problems: use steam!  Steam is clean and renewable, and we can use it to produce steam to power steam-engines!  As long as we have water, and steam, we shall never run out of steam power.  “What takes our heart must merit our esteem.”*  Let us steam ahead with steam!

*  Matthew Prior, in Solomon (1718), II., 101.

Say “Yes” to Self-Interest

The Sydney Morning Herald, by way of AAP, in “Businesses back price on carbon”, reveals:  “More than 50 companies including GE, AGL and The Body Shop have signed a statement backing a price on carbon.”  Similarly, the ABC’s Midday Report announced that “fifty businesses” support the Government’s plans to tax industrial emissions of carbon dioxide.  However, the ABC chose not to reveal that those companies which support “a price on carbon” expect huge subsidies from the Government if the carbon dioxide tax be imposed, and will expect far greater profits with official support for the supposedly cleaner energy technologies they spruik—at the expense of the taxpayer by way of higher costs for electricity and the like.

At Wake Up 2 the Lies, you can see a list of the companies which support the stupid tax out of unenlightened self-interest.

Say “Yes” to Defamatory Advertisements

An organisation, which exists to enrich and to promote its widdiful, proctoleichous, pæderastic, coprophagous, ægerastic and lucripetous founders and representatives whilst pretending to be a “new independent political movement to build a progressive Australia”, could not (rightly) broadcast its maliciously mendacious advertisement by way of public television; accordingly, it calls upon its gullible supporters to spread its mischievously defamatory disinformation over the internet.

UPDATE (8 July):  Now, GetUp! is threatening to arrange boycotts of any company which does not support the incompetent Gillard Government’s plans to tax emissions of carbon dioxide.

Say “Yes” to Lies on Ties and Knots

Sen. Bob Brown, in answering a question from Mark Riley at the National Press Club, said:

I was doing my Windsor knot [he fiddles with the knot of his necktie] before I came here thinking of the House of Windsor and, of course, they always get wound into these conspiracies, don’t they.  No—look—we are moving towards a globally informed community that’s got to live with itself, and we have always espoused democracy.  I can tell you that the two moves the Greens have made for a Global democratic—umm—support for moves in the United Nations, have been voted down by all other parties, both in 2002 and earlier this year—this is conceptual.

Did anyone at that function believe that Sen. Brown really had a notion of the House of Windsor as he knotted his necktie that day?  Judging only on appearances, the notorious senator’s necktie was not noticeably tied with a Windsor knot because it was not markedly wide or particularly large.  According to the Duke of Windsor, in A Family Album (1960):

The so called “Windsor knot” was I believe regulation wear for G.I.s during the war when American college boys adopted it too.  But in fact I was in no way responsible for this.  The knot to which Americans gave my name was a double knot in a narrow tie—a “Slim Jim” as it is sometimes called.   It is true that I myself have always preferred a large knot, as looking better than a small one, so during the nineteen twenties I devised, in conclave with Mr. Sandford, a tie always of the broad variety which was reinforced by an extra thickness of material to produce this effect.  As far as I know this particular fashion has never been followed in America or elsewhere.  [p. 116]

According to Thomas Fink, co-author of The 85 Ways to Tie a Tie, the Windsor:

produces a large, solid, triangular knot, which is not worn as frequently as it was in the first half of the 20th century.  [In From Russia with Love], Bond thinks the Windsor knot is “the mark of a cad”.  Today it is, curiously, the knot of choice of (once) communist leaders and dictators; Hugo Chavez, Putin and the Chinese leaders Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao are examples.

Now, nota bene, this may seem to be a trivial matter—what knot may or may not be a Windsor knot—but of great importance, notwithstanding, is how casually the leader of the Australian Greens may prevaricate when questioned—though, we recall, the Greens “value trustworthiness, sincerity and truth”.  Sen. Brown is either unaware of how a Windsor knot (a knot of nine moves) differs from a four-in-hand (a knot of five moves, also known as the schoolboy knot) or he naturally dissembles when attempting to invent a credible response on the Greens’ policies of one world government (or, of course, both)—or was referring to a half-Windsor knot: see UPDATE II below. 

To us here at Say “Yes” to More Taxes, Sen. Brown’s necktie appears to have been tied with a stock-standard four-in-hand knot, but we could be wrong.  We have asked the senator to settle this knotty matter and we shall notify our readers of any response.

UPDATE I (6 July):  John Dodd of Sen. Brown’s office has kindly responded to our enquiry; he writes:

Senator Brown ties his tie in what he has always understood to be a Windsor knot but, being unfamiliar with the intricacies of the ins, outs and unders described by you, is unable to say to which of the models you have described that his practice conforms.
He will however keep you in mind if he ever feels the need for a personal style consultant.

UPDATE II (8 July):  We were wrong—or half-wrong.  Sen. Bob Brown (by way of Kelly Farrow) has very kindly responded; he writes:

You spotted it correctly!
It was indeed a half-Windsor made with very thin material.

We thank the senator for his message and, accepting his clarification, we apologise for our error.  Thomas Fink, by the way, writes this:

If a man claims to know a second knot in addition to the four-in-hand, it is likely to be the half-Windsor, the third of the four classic tie knots.  This symmetric knot [of seven moves] is medium-sized, with the silhouette of an equilateral triangle.  It can satisfactorily be worn with collars of most sizes and spreads.  Although the name of the half-Windsor suggests it is derived from the Windsor, there is little direct evidence for this claim.  Moreover, the half-Windsor is not half the size of the Windsor, but rather three-quarters.

We should also like to add that we here at Say “Yes” to More Taxes, though disagreeing with the senator and his party strongly on many issues, have met Sen. Brown many times over the years, and have found him always to be a kindly and courteous gentleman.  On the issue of CAGW, we consider that Sen. Brown acts honestly, though mistakenly: he is not evil, just wrong.

Say “Yes” to an Honest and Informed Debate

Sen. Christine Milne demands that the Australian Trade and Industry Alliance:

call off its planned advertising campaign against a price on pollution until it is in a position to engage in honest and informed debate.  [...]

Misinformation, as is being foisted on the Australian public every day by Tony Abbott and his allies, can only undermine our democracy.

“These groups should call off their campaign until an agreement is reached and announced and they are in a position to engage in honest, informed debate instead of a scare campaign that spreads yet more misinformation.”

The Australian Greens, of course, always engage in honest and informed debate, but is “undermining our democracy” really the only thing that the alleged misinformation of “Abbott and his allies” can do?

The “pollution” whereto Sen. Milne refers is not pollution but carbon dioxide, the trace gas essential for life on earth.

The Greens would never engage in an hysterical scare campaign for, remember, they “value trustworthiness, sincerity and truth”:  they’d never claim, despite a complete lack of scientific proof and with no empirical evidence, that anthropogenic global warming would inevitably cause more droughts, more floods, higher seas, more warmth, more coolth, coral bleaching and more bushfires, would they? 

Greens leader Bob Brown says bushfires like the ones raging across Victoria and New South Wales this weekend [February, 2009] will be more frequent if climate change continues.   [...]

“Global warming is predicted to make this sort of event happen 25%, 50% more,” he told Sky News.

“It’s a sobering reminder of the need for this nation and the whole world to act and put at a priority our need to tackle climate change.”

The oil, coal and big-resource companies put off the day of action and edged the world further into super-heating  [writes Sen. Brown in the Herald Sun, December 21, 2009].

That means worse drought, bushfires, snow-melt, tropical storm damage and accelerating sea level rises.

The Greens will force the introduction of a carbon price if it wins the balance of power in the senate, leader Bob Brown promised hundreds of party faithful in Brisbane [in July, 2010].
Senator Brown gave two Queensland examples – coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef, and the recent impact on water supplies of coal companies pushing into farm land on the Darling Downs – as direct reasons why.

“Burning coal is a major cause of global warming [claims Sen. Brown in a media release of 16 January, 2011].  This industry, which is 75% owned outside Australia, should help pay the cost of the predicted more severe and more frequent floods, droughts and bushfires in coming decades.  As well, 700,000 seaside properties in Australia face rising sea levels.”

UPDATE:  Despite the hysterical and deceitful shrieking of the duplicitous Prof. Hoegh-Guldberg, the corals of the Great Barrier Reef are not deteriorating from supposedly warmer seas.  See Kate Osborne et al., “Disturbance and the Dynamics of Coral Cover on the Great Barrier Reef (1995–2009)”:

While the limited data for the GBR prior to the 1980's suggests that coral cover was higher than in our survey, we found no evidence of consistent, system-wide decline in coral cover since 1995.

UPDATE II (4 July):  For more on the very silly Ove Hoegh-Gulberg, see “The Hypocritical Coral Whisperer”, at ABC Watch.

UPDATE III (5 July):  For even more on the foolish Ove Hoegh-Gulberg, see “Slurred by a Coral Whisperer”, at ABC Watch. 

UPDATE IV (6 July):  For an account of Sen. Brown’s ability to give trustworthy, truthful descriptions, see “Bob Brown v. Reality” at Stop Gillard’s Carbon Tax.

Say “Yes” to Economic Freedom

Say “Yes” to Dodgy, Partisan Polls

“Judgment Day is inevitable.” —Terminator,
in “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines”.

According to Sky News:

A leading climate change advocate maintains public sentiment for climate change action is improving despite a poll showing support has dropped to a record low.
According to the Lowy Institute poll, 75% of Australians believe the federal government has done a poor job addressing climate change.
Just 41% think the issue is a serious and pressing problem, down five points from last year and 27 points since 2006.
Australians are also much less willing to pay a price to tackle climate change, with 39% not prepared to pay anything extra.
John Connor, chief executive of The Climate Institute, a non-partisan and independent research organisation, said the polling was undertaken in April.
“It’s a worrying trend but not a surprising trend,” Mr Connor told AAP.
“We’ve picked up at least a change in the momentum since we launched the Say Yes campaign.”
Analysis of talk-back radio by the institute showed an improvement in support for climate change action since February, Mr Connor said.
“I’m not at all relaxed but I think we are seeing a turning point.”
The polling had tracked the decline of the debate over the years into one that is now extremely partisan.
“There was bipartisan support for action and the emissions trading scheme and an international legal agreement (in 2007),” Mr Connor said.
A strong commitment by the UK to act on climate change had also improved attitudes by Australians to a carbon price, he said.  [Right, John, keep thinking that.]

The Climate Institute is “a non-partisan and independent research organisation” though its representative admits involvement in a decidedly partisan “Say ‘Yes’” campaign?  It seems that The Climate Institute is a non-partisan and independent research organisation because it says so—and in the same, contradictory, post-modern way whereby a promise not to introduce a ‘carbon’ tax is parsed as a clear undertaking to impose the tax, and any conflictual evidence or incorrect prophecy from a climatologist constitutes a proof of whatever he conjectures.  Well, Say “Yes” to More Taxes, a leading, non-partisan, institute of analytical excellence in natural philosophy, says, “Rubbish.”

Here is what we can learn of The Climate Institute from its own web-site:

Who is The Climate Institute?
Established in late 2005, The Climate Institute is a non-partisan, independent research organisation that works with community, business and government to drive innovative and effective climate change solutions.  We research.  We educate.  We communicate.
Our vision is for an Australia leading the world in clean technology use and innovation, with clean and low carbon solutions a part of everyday life throughout the community, government and business.
The Climate Institute is primarily funded by a donation from the Poola Foundation (Tom Kantor Fund).

Climate Change & Faith
Faith is an important part of the Climate Institute’s perspective on climate change.  Religion, spirituality and faith provide an ethical and values based foundation to motivate actions for a better environment and a sustainable future.  The Climate Institute’s activities draw from close connections in many community and faith groups, and reflect concerns of these groups as well as their aspirations to create a more harmonious planet.

“Climate Partners” of The Climate Institute include The Westpac Group, GE and KPMG.  It is hard to discern any vested interest there.

Science out of thin air.  Energy out of taxpayers’ pockets.

As well as John Connor, who is destined to defeat an empire of robots amassed by the rogue military supercomputer, Skynet, the board of The Climate Institute also includes Andrew Demetriou, CEO of the Australian Football League since 2003, and Clare Martin, former Chief Minister of the Northern Territory.

So, clearly, from the same people who promote computer-modelling over empirical data, we now have the supremacy of talk-back radio analysis over a nationally representative opinion survey.

For an example of some egregious push-polling, see “A Survey on a ‘Price on Carbon’”.

(Thanks to a tip from Patrick Kelly.)

Say “Yes” to Tortured Tropes

Not since Sen. Bob Brown referred, many years ago, to “a slowly unfolding kettle of fish” have we heard such a finer exponent of the tortured metaphor as that rug-selling carpetbagger, and sometime school-bully, Mr. Andrew Wilkie MHR.  This week, on the ABC’s “4 Corners”, he opined that the Gillard Government’s implementing pre-commitment technologies on poker machines is:

one of the key issues upon which my support for the Government hinges.

From the same interview, the dippy but poetic parliamentarian explains vividly: 

It wasn’t on the radar.  No senior politician in the Government or the Coalition would go anywhere near an issue like this with a barge-pole.  It’s an absolutely [sic] minefield for one of the big political parties because it is just so hard.*  [...]
The moment I opened my mouth publicly I became a lightning rod.

The highly conductive member concludes:

People will be helped but if for any reason the wheels fall off and these reforms are not realised, so long as I know I’ve given it my very, very best shot, then I’ll be able to live with myself afterwards. 

*  such language, seemingly, is contagious: the reporter, Matthew Carney, explains:  “Julia Gillard was locked into Wilkie’s deal.  If Gillard didn’t make the reforms law by Budget 2012, Andrew Wilkie would pull the pin.”  The pin, no doubt, not of a grenade but of a lock’s hinge.

Say “Yes” to More Radical “Refugees”

Sen. Sarah Hanson-Young asserts that we should welcome all alleged refugees who have paid ten grand or more to be smuggled into the country—even those who might call for an overthrow of Australian democracy* or those who would demand that halal training centres† be funded by taxpayers—because refugees since federation have contributed to Australia.

“Australia’s a better place because of the more than 750,000 refugees who have settled here since 1901.

“From businessman Frank Lowy, who has changed the face of retailing in Australia, to comedian Anh Do, whose best-selling memoir which [sic] makes you grateful for one’s family, refugees have helped improve this great country.  [...]
“We also will continue agitating for all sides to back our bill before the Senate to amend the Migration Act so all MPs and Senators can have a vote on expelling asylum seekers to any third country, not just Malaysia.”‡

It is good to see Sen. Hanson-Young approve of Mr. Lowy’s capitalistic efforts which, usually, the Greens tend to calumniate;  see, for instance, Sen. Bob Brown’s media release, from March, 2009:

“The Greens welcome the government’s belated decision on ‘golden parachutes’ but we will continue to tackle the government’s failure to regulate CEO greed, which sees some annual remuneration exceed $10 million.  Most CEOs will be considering public hostility to excessive pay packets, but it’s the few who give the rest a bad name who require curbing,” Senator Brown said. 

*  see “Democracy is evil, Parliament is evil’ says radical Muslim cleric in billboard debate”, by Clayton Hinds, in Christian Today Australia:

Democracy and parliaments are evil, declared a radical Australian Muslim cleric in Sydney on Friday night during a debate with two Christian politicians.

Ibrahim Saddiq Conlan also called for the overthrow of the Australian legal system in favour of the controversial sharia law, the Islamic legal system.

“[the Australian legal system is] the primary cause of the spiritual, economic and environmental crisis in Australia,” he said.

“Democracy is evil, the parliament is evil and legislation is evil,” said Mr Conlon.

†  see “Australian Muslim community demands ‘taxpayer-funded halal training centre’”:

Australia’s top Muslim body has demanded a new taxpayer-funded halal training centre that would prepare refugees for jobs slaughtering animals in rural areas.

‡  The Migration Amendment (Declared Countries) Bill 2011 seeks to amend the Migration Act 1958 to require that any agreement to send asylum seekers to a third country is brought before both houses of Parliament as a disallowable instrument.

Say “Yes” to More Green Hypocrisy

Simon Benson and Gemma Jones, in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, report:

Greens leader Bob Brown is often accused of behaving like the defacto [sic] prime minister but no one expected him to take it seriously.

On Monday MPs were stunned to see he [sic] and his excited entourage commandeer the Prime Minister’s private cabin aboard the RAAF Boeing 737 VIP jet on a flight from Hobart to Canberra.

Several staffers aboard the flight – chartered to collect members stranded [!] in Tasmania due to the volcano ash cloud – claimed to have seen Mr Brown and his deputy Christine Milne make a “bee-line” for the front of the plane. [...]

“They definitely made a point of taking up the PM’s cabin at the front of the plane,” one Labor staffer said.

Another MP’s staffer also confirmed they were walking down the aisle at the front of the plane and looked in to see Mr Brown and Ms Milne in the private cabin. [...]

[The aeroplane] was used on Monday when Qantas cancelled its flights to and from Tasmania.

Nineteen people, made up of MPs and their staff booked on cancelled Qantas flights, had to use the RAAF jet to make it to Canberra for the start of the sitting week.

Other staffers of MPs aboard noted that the Greens leadership made sure, however, that they were the last off the aircraft when it landed in Canberra.

“They made sure they were the last off, so it looked like they had been sitting up the back of the plane. The imagery was that they were up the back among the people, when in fact they were in the PM's private suite.”

The 737 would normally take about 150 people on a commercial flight, sharing the carbon footprint around.

Neither Mr Brown or Ms Milne’s offices would comment yesterday.

These allegations raise many doubts because we here at Say “Yes” to More Taxes remember that, unlike other parties, the Greens have ethics and principles:  the Greens, according to their own Members Handbook, “value trustworthiness, sincerity and truth.”  For the Greens, furthermore, “the journey is as important as the final destination:  the processes [they] use to achieve social change must be consistent with [their] principles.” (p. 4)

The Greens famously oppose both hypocrisy and unnecessary emissions of carbon dioxide; accordingly, we eagerly await their refutation of these astonishing claims from what they pithily term “the hate media”.

Say “Yes” to Killing Endangered Birds

The Tasmanian sub-species of the wedge-tailed eagle (Aquila audax fleayi) is protected by State and Federal law and, under the Tasmanian Threatened Species Protection Act 1995, it is an offence even to disturb its general habitat.  Fewer than one hundred and thirty breeding pairs are left in the State.


If a farmer or hunter or anyone else deliberately killed a wedge-tailed eagle, the Greens would be among the first calling loudly for exemplary punishment—but not when giant whirligigs slaughter the birds.  In “Deaths of rare eagles rise”, Andrew Darby, of The Age, wrote last year:

The number of eagles killed by turbine blades at one of Australia’s largest wind farms is climbing, with a rare juvenile wedge-tailed eagle the 22nd to die at Woolnorth in Tasmania’s north-west.
The farm is killing two protected species at the rate of about 3.2 eagles a year, according to a count by the operator, Roaring 40s.
Most of the birds were wedge-tailed, but three white bellied sea eagles have also been killed by the blades, Roaring 40s avian ecologist Cindy Hull said in Hobart. [...]
Tasmanian Environment Minister David O’Byrne [Labor, but supported by the Greens in the Labor/Green alliance] said that wind farms made up only a small proportion of overall eagle deaths in the state, compared with shooting, trapping, and collisions with electrical and fencing wires.
Mr O’Byrne said collisions were anticipated in Woolnorth’s development approval.
“It is an unfortunate outcome that with developments of this nature some bird collisions are inevitable,” he said.

Well, that’s all right then.

Elsewhere in the world, the slaughter continues, and more wind-turbines are killing more birds.  Last week, in “The green killer: Scores of protected golden eagles dying after colliding with wind turbines”, David Gardner, of The Daily Mail, wrote:

California’s attempts to switch to green energy have inadvertently put the survival of the state’s golden eagles at risk.
Scores of the protected birds have been dying each year after colliding with the blades of about 5,000 wind turbines.  [...]
‘It would take 167 pairs of local nesting golden eagles to produce enough young to compensate for their mortality rate related to wind energy production,’ field biologist Doug Bell, manager of East Bay Regional Park District's wildlife programme, told The Los Angeles Times. ‘We only have 60 pairs,’ he added. [...]
‘Once, I discovered a wounded golden eagle hobbling through tall grass, about a quarter mile from the turbine blades that had clipped its flight feathers.’
‘A wind farm owner once told me that if there were no witnesses, it would be impossible to prove a bird had been killed by a wind turbine blade.
‘My response was this: If you see a golden eagle sliced in half in a wind farm, what other explanation is there?’ he added.

See also “We Don't Need No Stinking Giant Eagles” at Small Dead Animals.

UPDATE I (16 May, 2013):  see “Obama administration gives wind farms a pass on eagle deaths, prosecutes oil companies”: 

The Obama administration has never fined or prosecuted a wind farm for killing eagles and other protected bird species, shielding the industry from liability and helping keep the scope of the deaths secret, an Associated Press investigation has found.
More than 573,000 birds are killed by the country’s wind farms each year, including 83,000 hunting birds such as hawks, falcons and eagles, according to an estimate published in March in the peer-reviewed Wildlife Society Bulletin.
Each death is federal crime, a charge that the Obama administration has used to prosecute oil companies when birds drown in their waste pits, and power companies when birds are electrocuted by their power lines.  No wind energy company has been prosecuted, even those that repeatedly flout the law.
Wind power, a pollution-free energy intended to ease global warming, is a cornerstone of President Barack Obama’s energy plan.  His administration has championed a $1 billion-a-year tax break to the industry that has nearly doubled the amount of wind power in his first term.
The large death toll at wind farms shows how the renewable energy rush comes with its own environmental consequences, trade-offs the Obama administration is willing to make in the name of cleaner energy.  […]
One of the deadliest places in the country for golden eagles is Wyoming, where federal officials said wind farms had killed more than four dozen golden eagles since 2009, predominantly in the southeastern part of the state.  […]
Nearly all the birds being killed are protected under federal environmental laws, which prosecutors have used to generate tens of millions of dollars in fines and settlements from businesses, including oil and gas companies, over the past five years.
“What it boils down to is this: If you electrocute an eagle, that is bad, but if you chop it to pieces, that is OK,” said Tim Eicher, a former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service enforcement agent based in Cody, Wyo. […]
Meanwhile, the Obama administration has proposed a rule that would give wind-energy companies potentially decades of shelter from prosecution for killing eagles.  The regulation is currently under review at the White House.
The proposal, made at the urging of the wind-energy industry, would allow companies to apply for 30-year permits to kill a set number of bald or golden eagles.  Previously, companies were only eligible for five-year permits.

UPDATE II (18 May, 2013):  see “Wind turbines blow and they suck!”, by Brian Keelan, at First Monday:

A few weeks ago I went to a wind energy presentation (and protest) in Camlachie.  The event was sponsored by Suncor and took place inside the Camlachie Community Centre to promote the wind turbine energy project they have a contract with the Ontario government to build up near Ipperwash.  Outside the Camlachie Community Centre the project was being protested by the people who did not want the wind machines installed.  […]
When I asked how much money they were spending on the project they told me, “Three hundred million dollars,” and gave me some data on the number of hours of employment that would bring to Lambton County.  We all know that work is badly needed in our community.  This would be good work too since it would mean union wages and that’s good money plus they would buy a lot of cement.  You would be amazed at the amount of cement used to anchor one of those things to the planet.
When I asked their people how much money they were going to be paid for the energy they would create I was told eleven and a half cents per Kilowatt hour… a number which all the protestors I talked to thought was low but which the Suncor people stood by.
When I asked about the noise issue—the hum caused by the rotation of the giant blades—they pointed to a non-Suncor specialist who had been hired by Suncor to help us, “get to the truth of the matter,” and he assured me that there was no noise at all.  When I asked him about sub-harmonic frequencies which were not audible but sometimes caused other things to vibrate in harmony and thereby make a noise that seemed to bother people, notably children, he started talking to someone else and soon walked away.  […]
Later it came out that even the 46 people who had turbines being installed on their land might not be so happy about it but we would never officially know, since there is a gag order on the deal once you take the down payment.  So you not only can’t get out of the contract, you also can’t discuss how much money you are getting paid or even say that you are not happy about it.  […]
One other question I wish I had asked the Suncor guy was, “I am told that you will hire a guy just to go around to all the windmills and gather up the bodies of all the birds that get killed by these things… especially during the migratory seasons when birds with no local knowledge come through here.  Is that true?”  I wonder how the greenies rationalize that one.  […]
Then I found a guy named Ross McKitrick, a Ph.D in Economics at The University of Guelph who says that a typical residential electricity bill would rise about 7.9% annually over the next five years and half of that increase would be due to government investment in renewable energy.  Do you want to hold cards like that?
He goes on to say that wind energy is not only intermittent, the energy output is out of phase with the demand for the power since output declines in the morning when demand is increasing and increases in the evening when demand is decreasing.  Wind energy output also peaks in the mid-fall when demand is decreasing since our air-conditioners are off and our furnaces are not yet on.  So wind produces energy at times that we don’t need it. When I hear that, I’m seriously thinking about folding.
According to the Auditor General of Ontario, in every year since 2006 the entire output of the wind sector is surplus to current demand and has been dumped on the export market at typically less than 4 cents per kWh. There are even times when we pay to get rid of the stuff.  […]
I learned that Spain and Germany, the countries Ontario modeled their wind energy programs on, are losing their shirts on wind energy subsidies and doing everything they can to get out of the contracts.
Now I’m not just walking away from the table, I’m running […].  Sure, I think renewable energy sources are fine as long as we can make the numbers work.  […]  The free market will not invest in this kind of energy unless they get a ridiculous, no-lose guarantee from a government that wants to be judged by their intentions… not by their results.

UPDATE III (27 May, 2013):
 

UPDATE IV (13 September):  see “Study: Wind farms killed 67 eagles in 5 years”:

Wind energy facilities have killed at least 67 golden and bald eagles in the last five years, but the figure could be much higher, according to a new scientific study by government biologists.
The research represents one of the first tallies of eagle deaths attributed to the nation’s growing wind energy industry, which has been a pillar of President Barack Obama's plans to reduce the pollution blamed for global warming.  Wind power releases no air pollution.
But at a minimum, the scientists wrote, wind farms in 10 states have killed at least 85 eagles since 1997, with most deaths occurring between 2008 and 2012, as the industry was greatly expanding. Most deaths—79—were golden eagles that struck wind turbines.  One of the eagles counted in the study was electrocuted by a power line.
The vice president of the American Bird Conservancy, Mike Parr, said the tally was “an alarming and concerning finding.”
A trade group, the American Wind Energy Association, said in a statement that the figure was much lower than other causes of eagle deaths.  The group said it was working with the government and conservation groups to find ways to reduce eagle casualties.
Still, the scientists said their figure is likely to be “substantially” underestimated, since companies report eagle deaths voluntarily and only a fraction of those included in their total were discovered during searches for dead birds by wind-energy companies.  The study also excluded the deadliest place in the country for eagles, a cluster of wind farms in a northern California area known as Altamont Pass.  Wind farms built there decades ago kill more than 60 per year.

Say “Yes” to Green Hypocrisy

The Australian Greens party, according to the Australian Greens, is like no other party; for example, according to the Members Handbook (p. 4), there is a code of ethics:

Greens aspire to a code of ethics that guides our behaviours.  We hope that new members will embrace these principles and enjoy the Green ‘spirit’.
We endeavour to be tolerant and respectful, avoiding demeaning behaviour towards any person or group. We value trustworthiness, sincerity and truth.

So, we might reasonably hope that Sen. Sarah Hanson-Young would behave rather ethically, valuing truth even if she can’t quite bring herself to be honest on such subjects as the fraudulent conjecture of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.  Does she treat even those whom she regards as mistaken with tolerance and respect?  Does she, for instance, ensure that she makes no accusation of hypocrisy without first ensuring that she is fully aware of pertinent facts and that she quotes accurately and contextually?

Last Tuesday Sen. Hanson-Young posted an article on the Greens’ website, “Attack on campaign is hypocritical”, wherein she referred to some journalists, tolerantly and respectfully, as “News Ltd hacks” and claimed (inter alia):

Tony Abbott and his Coalition colleagues are being hypocritical because while they relish the chance to mock Ms Blanchett and actor Michael Caton for being part of the ‘Say Yes’ campaign, they don’t have any qualms with other wealthy Australians standing up for what they believe in.

Mr Abbott in question time last week ridiculed Ms Blanchett, saying “people who live in eco mansions have a right to be heard ... but their voice should not be heard ahead of the voice of the ordinary working people of this country.”

Mr Abbott, every Australian has the right to have their voices heard, regardless of whether they are working or unemployed, whether they are homeless or have a roof over their head.

Mr. Abbott had said:

People who live in eco-mansions have a right to be heard.  They really do.  People who are worth $53 million have a right to be heard, but their voice should not be heard ahead of the voice of the ordinary working people of this country.

It might seem that Mr. Abbott was expressing a very similar sentiment to that which Sen. Hanson-Young claims to support, yet she derides him as a hypocrite; it would seem that the Senator is the hypocrite.  Next, we may suppose, Hanson-Young will start accusing other politicians of having crazy eyes.

Say “Yes” to the Usual Lies

Say Yes Australia has a new campaign:  credulous busybodies are encouraged to download a letter (authorised by Sam McLean, Surry Hills, NSW), print it—somehow Say Yes Australia or Sam McLean can discern that people will print the letter “on recycled paper using environmentally friendly ink”—and then deliver it to grateful neighbours.  Determining neighbours’ e-mail addresses must, we may suppose, be more polluting.

The letter asserts:

Australia produce[s] more carbon pollution per person than any other country in the world[.]

If we interpret “carbon pollution” as “carbon dioxide”, Australia does not produce more carbon pollution per capita than any other country in the world.  (See here.)  Calling industrially produced carbon dioxide “carbon pollution” is deliberately deceitful; and, since carbon dioxide consists of more oxygen than carbon, it would be just as appropriate to call emissions of carbon dioxide “oxygen pollution”.

In fact, a new independent Commission, made up of leading Australian climate scientists, just found that the next decade is the ‘critical decade’ to stop devastating climate change before it’s too late.

No real, independent commission or unbiassed scientist has found any such thing.

The carbon price would only apply to fewer than 1,000 of the biggest polluting companies in Australia – it is not a tax on you and me.  [...]  Polluters might still try to pass the costs on to us.  But revenue from the price will be made available to households to assist with price rises.  That way the policy stays focused on changing the behaviour of the biggest polluting companies.

Of course, big companies are notorious for choosing not “to pass the costs on to us”.  No doubt, any publicly listed company which did choose to pass rising costs on to customers would be roundly condemned by shareholders at the subsequent annual general meeting.

P.S.  I know there are a few people still arguing that climate change doesn’t exist, but the fact is that 97% of climate scientists working in the field say it’s happening, it’s caused by humans, and it’s already causing us major damage like more extreme weather events and sea level rise.  I figure that even if the 3% who claim climate change isn’t real end up being right, not following the advice of the 97% who say we need to reduce pollution now is just not worth the risk.

Ah, yes, the old lie that people deny that the climate changes, and the old lie of the 97% consensus:  seventy-five out of seventy-seven self-selected scientists of unknown qualifications endorsed the man-made global warming orthodoxy in one spurious poll.  The old lie of saying that some scientists argue against “climate change” whereas most real, independent scientists rightly reject the flawed conjecture of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.  The old “not worth the risk” fallacy, equating the devastation of economies and the ruination of industries to the disbelief in the deity of Pascal’s Wager.

Sam McLean (or his anonymous ghost-writer) is either wilfully, deliberately and mischievously duplicitous or is the deluded dupe of meretricious, lucripetous pseudo-scientists and the mendacious, misanthracist misanthropists who feign to be in favour of conserving the environment.

UPDATE:  In light of the Say Yes Australia Administrators’ famed propensity to delete comments as supposedly “irrelevant, spam or abusive”, it is interesting to see the published comments:

Say “Yes” to a Long Stretch

Sen. Sarah Hanson-Young recently travelled to Christmas Island (by rowboat or sail, indubitably), and posted this:

Locked in a legal limo?  That’s all the poor “asylum-seekers” have to chauffeur all that trouble to sneak into Australia?  If the Greens are so firmly opposed to the Gillard Government’s mistreating people so egregiously, of course, then the Greens could stop supporting the incompetent Government so proctoleichously.

Say “Yes” to Removing Unsatisfactory Polls

Until recently, the websites of all The Australian Greens’ federal members provided a poll (available since May, 2009) whereby people could vote on the question, “Do you support the Greens’ plan on emissions trading?”  Here it is on Sen. Bob Brown’s website:

For some reason—uncharitable cynics (which does not include us) might suggest that the results were not quite was the Greens would favour—the poll is no longer available.  Joanne Nova reports that, of 2,000 votes, 80% were “No”.  The Greens, however, do provide other polls for concerned visitors to express their agreement, or otherwise, with Green policies:

We have written to the Australian Greens asking for an explanation for the poll’s disappearance; naturally, we shall provide details of any response we receive.

By “emissions”, the Australian Greens refer to industrially produced carbon dioxide, that benificent gas which we all exhale and which is necessary for life on earth.  According to the Greens’ policy document, “Why do we want to cut emissions?”:

It can never be said too often that emissions reductions have one purpose only – to avoid catastrophic climate change. 

The Australian Greens will surely be glad to learn that reputable scientists can assure us that anthropogenic carbon dioxide does not and will not cause catastrophic climate change; the Greens can, therefore, safely reject any proposal for taxing carbon dioxide.

UPDATE I:  David Paris, Digital Communications Coordinator for the Greens’ Parliamentarians, has kindly and swiftly responded to our query; he writes:

We have not used the poll feature on our website for some time.
There are several old items on our site that relate to the 2009 negotiations around the Rudd government’s deeply flawed CPRS that have been removed to avoid confusion with the current debate about a price on pollution.  The poll you are referring to is one of those – from May 2009.

By “price” he means a suitably punitive tax-rate, we assume, and by “pollution” he means carbon dioxide.  Someone might excusably wonder whether the poll question—still open—from 12 October, 2009, “Do you think the Government should support the Greens’ Safe Climate Bill”, did not also relate to “the Rudd government’s deeply flawed CPRS”.

UPDATE II (10 June):  The story continues at Joanne Nova’s site. 

UPDATE III (11 June):  See, there is no recent, catastrophic warming:

Say “Yes” to Censorship

Over at Say Yes Australia, some naughty people are trying to post comments which don’t conform to the prevailing orthodoxy or ask uncomfortable questions.  Heretics!  Comments are being ruthlessly pruned, sometimes on the grounds that the comments were “irrelevant, spam or abuse” but, more often, furtively.
The comments pictured below were removed (or have, at least, failed to appear yet) on the grounds of heterodoxy or inappropriate questioning of authority, perhaps.  The third comment, sent by Don, appears under a different poster’s pseudonym because the site (owing to someone’s egregious incompetence) kept displaying other posters’ details over the weekend.

A supportive comment from the late Alena Composta,* however, was published:

UPDATE (8 June):  The questions posted by Julia Abstrahenda’st have failed to appear, but a more orthodox comment was allowed by the diligent moderators:

UPDATE II (8 June):  The third question posted by Don (as Julia Abstrahenda’st) has now, after several days, appeared, as well as another by me (as Julia Abstrahenda’st); “admin” has replied to the latter with the following:

The assertion, “That the science behind the carbon tax cannot be substantiated is untrue”, is, of course, a lie.  The alleged science behind the ‘carbon’ tax—the pseudo-science of CAGW—cannot be validated.
For those whose Latin is rusty, by the way, Julia abstrahenda est means “Julia must be dragged away.”

UPDATE III (11 June):  The earlier questions posted by Julia Abstrahenda’st have now, after five days, appeared.

UPDATE IV (12 June):  Comments on 45000 Australians Say “YES!” to a Price on Pollution include some by characters from David Copperfield:

UPDATE V (13 June):  Observed by the author:

UPDATE VI (14 June):  Though allegedly abusive posts have been swiftly deleted, names which consist of very rude invective in Latin are allowed.  (“Pedicabo vos” is derived from Catullus’ Carmen XVI):

UPDATE VII (2 July):  The humour continues.  A polite query asking the moderators whether they know what pedicabo vos means is censored, but obvious spam is not:

*  or not; at Verdant Hopes,  she spells her first name Alene, and one might think that she of all people would know how to spell her own name.  On the other hand, death and its attendant indignities usually rob people of orthographical dexterity.

Say “Yes” to Indoctrination in Schools

(Thanks to Small Dead Animals.)

See also:  “Enforced Donation in Addition to Indoctrination”.