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Monday, September 2, 2013

Talking of fruitcake and scumbags, Topher's lying video came out with an apt warning

Sou | 10:15 AM Go to the first of 40 comments. Add a comment


UPDATE (8:00 pm 3 Sept 13) I've written another piece, which is more than the silly cartoon deserves.  You can read it here.

UPDATE (4:00pm 2 Sept 13) Anthony has an article up now. Archived here.

I'll do a detailed take down later. In the meantime it seems like the thousands of scientists doing difficult and rigorous research over the past several decades haven't much to show for it - according to science-denying Anthony Watts. Anthony sez:
There’s also the main video which sums up the state of climate science and politics in just under 10 minutes.

Wow - science and politics combined in just 10 minutes. Maybe Anthony will shut up shop now that Topher has solved all the world's problems!



A lot of the people who feature on HotWhopper can be described as nutty as a fruitcake.  Or behave that way.  Some are worse.  I call them scumbags.

I've just come across another person who fits the bill.  He goes by the name of Topher Field.  He makes videos aiming to stop the world becoming a better place.

His latest attempt is to stop any action to reduce carbon emissions.  He doesn't do this out of the badness of his heart totally.  He does it for money.  He got a whole bunch of people to pay him to do this, including some easy marks at Anthony Watts' anti-science blog, wattsupwiththat (WUWT).  Then he went around and got a bunch of talking heads, put it together with some cartoons, some magical mathturbations, which AFAIK came from the potty peer Christopher Monckton of Brenchley, and tweeted the result.

This is what he tweeted:


This is what happened to anyone who clicked the link:



That pretty much sums it up.


I did eventually locate his video.  I haven't watched it all the way through yet but I've seen enough to know how dumb it is.  He does an Alan Jones (Australian readers will know what I mean).

For example Topher makes wild claims and exaggerations about Australia's carbon tax, but doesn't mention the fact that it costs most Australians nothing at all.  They get it back in reduced taxation and supplements to pensions.  Some are even ahead of the game because of the revenue neutral system and the returns to Australians.

For this and the fact that the video contains humungous lies,  I doubt it will get much airplay here despite this being election week.  Neither the Australian Electoral Commission nor ACMA look kindly upon deceptive advertising and gross misrepresentations like is in this video.

I wonder how all the people who don't live in Australia feel about their donations going to support an Australian election campaign?  Because that's what the video is mostly aimed at.

In one part, he makes this idiotic claim: 

Thankfully we have the answer in the 2006 Stern report on climate economics. It concludes that if the planet warms by three degrees this century, it would cause damage of zero to to 3% of GDP. So climate change will cost us roughly 1.5% of global GDP if we simply adapt to it as required or 80% of GDP if we try and stop it.
80% of GDP is rubbish.  The numbers make more sense if they are reversed.  Contrast the above with this extract from the Stern Review report: (my bold italics) - if we don't take action and continue on with Business as Usual, it will reduce welfare by 20%.  Topher told a big fat lie:
In summary, analyses that take into account the full ranges of both impacts and possible outcomes - that is, that employ the basic economics of risk - suggest that BAU climate change will reduce welfare by an amount equivalent to a reduction in consumption per head of between 5 and 20%.  Taking account of the increasing scientific evidence of greater risks, of aversion to the possibilities of catastrophe, and of a broader approach to the consequences than implied by narrow output measures, the appropriate estimate is likely to be in the upper part of this range. 
And this estimate of costs - around 1% of annual global GDP according to Stern.  Topher is telling a humungous lie:
On the basis of these two methods, central estimate is that stabilisation of greenhouse gases at levels of 500-550ppm CO2e will cost, on average, around 1% of annual global GDP by 2050. This is significant, but is fully consistent with continued growth and development, in contrast with unabated climate change, which will eventually pose significant threats to growth.



And more here:

From all of these perspectives, the evidence gathered by the Review leads to a simple conclusion: the benefits of strong, early action considerably outweigh the costs.

The evidence shows that ignoring climate change will eventually damage economic growth. Our actions over the coming few decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, later in this century and in the next, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century. And it will be difficult or impossible to reverse these changes. Tackling climate change is the pro-growth strategy for the longer term, and it can be done in a way that does not cap the aspirations for growth of rich or poor countries. The earlier effective action is taken, the less costly it will be.
At the same time, given that climate change is happening, measures to help people adapt to it are essential. And the less mitigation we do now, the greater the difficulty of continuing to adapt in future.


So how did Topher do his sums?  Why does he misrepresent the Stern Review?  Why does he make up numbers and falsely attribute them to the Stern Review?

His target audience is the uneducated and illiterate.  I don't know if they will be taken in by him, but best take no chances.  He is lying and trying to con people by making these false claims.  He has a lot of other people on his show who are equally disreputable.  They include the conspiracy theorising gold bug "Jo Nova", Anthony Watts who is as silly as they come and doesn't want to pay tax and other dubious characters.

If I get the time in the next day or so I'll go through his nonsense and maybe even rebut it item by item.  I'm away at the moment and don't have time right now.

Suffice to say, Topher whatshisname joins the ranks of those who are "nutty as a fruitcake" as well as the ranks of those dishonourable people who will tell lies for cash.

Watch out for the scumbags of the world.  They will do anything for money or warped, selfish ideology, including telling lies so silly you'd wonder who but the 8% dismissives would believe them.

PS Anthony Watts hasn't put up an article about this one yet.  When he does, I'll let you know how he presents it and the reaction from the comments.  Will they fall for this crap hook, line and sinker?  Will Anthony say he agrees with the lies?   He's featured on it but I haven't watched that segment so I don't know what he says.  I doubt it will be pretty.

PPS (Update) I skipped to Anthony Watts' few seconds. Here is what he had to say (yes, you guessed right - anything but taxation!):
I just think we should stop being so worried and just take a pragmatic approach to increasing efficiency to improving our energy production and going down different pathways to energy production and we'll get to where people say we should be without having to tax people and without having to change our lifestyles in a negative way.


Trust Tony to be more concerned about his tax and lifestyle than about the future of the world as we know it.

Donna Laframboise is of similar mind.  She reckons to pass the problems onto our children and grandchildren and presumable every generation to come for the next few centuries.  They'd have less capacity to adapt, of course, because of global warming.  But Donna and Anthony don't care.  All they are concerned about is the here and now.

The one thing they are all correct about is that global warming is happening, it's real.  What they won't tell you is how much worse it will get if we don't act now.

Going by this video, the age of complete denial has ended.  Welcome to the age of immediate gratification and contempt for future generations.


Click here to go to a more detailed article.

40 comments:

  1. Sad world. "Greed is the root of all evil."

    Meanwhile Australia just had its hottest year on record.

    http://www.theage.com.au/environment/weather/warm-winter-caps-nations-hottest-year-20130901-2syzt.html

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    1. The motive for the video is clear. Topher saw an opportunity to cash in on gullible WUWT deniers and took it.

      It's so over the top that I don't know it will get any airplay outside of the GalileoMovement and similar crackpots.

      Anthony Watts hasn't put anything up yet. Is he uncomfortable with the extent of the lies? Is he cross that he only got in one sentence, and that right at the end, after it was his website that probably raised most of the funds from his gullible audience? Is he cross that the video is just an election gimmick for an Australian audience and doesn't translate well into other countries?

      The over the top lies might not stop him. He does that sort of thing himself (eg Marcott, Cook etc) The rest might have got him a bit annoyed though.

      He still might put up an article about it. He's suffering from a lack of articles to post. If he doesn't write about this he might have to resort to copying and pasting science press releases - and that does his "credibility" no end of damage (among his target audience).

      Delete
    2. I think sometimes he doesn't notice things for several weeks until someone points it out to him. His own talk to the concerned doctors was online for over a month before he put it on his own website. I wonder if he hasn't got the hang of Google yet.

      Delete
    3. Yes, I don't think he's got the hang of Twitter. (It looks as if he's unblocked me after blocking me months ago. I'll have to wait till I get home to check. He probably doesn't know how to see my tweets while he's got me blocked but has finally figured out that blocking me doesn't stop me from seeing his tweets. Or maybe he hasn't even figured that out yet.)

      Google would probably be asking too much of him.

      However someone did put a note in his tips thread the other day and I know he relies on that for his articles, so he probably does know about the youtube atrocity.

      Delete
    4. Sou, I'm embarrassed to admit I knew topher intimately for a few years & got to understand him better than most. My personal world view is vastly different than his & as he is incapable of being disagreed with & will just keep railroading his opinions down your throat untill you either walk away or accept his opinions as true & validate them for him this inevitably led to an unpleasant parting between us not long before he created this ridiculous 50 to 1 film. I can however assure you that for him it all has much less to do with the money & much more to do with his warped, selfish ideology, which in many ways is far more concearning. Rather than being a bkack hearted person fleecing money from the gullible, he is an arrogant, self-righteous, home schooled, theologically brainwashed infividual who honestly believes he is affecting positive change in the world with his silly little films (despite the fact that it's glaringly obvious to me & others that he's speading self deluded propaganda that is doing harm not good). He will never accept the posibility that he could be wrong tho. His ideology runs deep to his core & I doubt anything could ever wake him up to the possibility that his ideas are false. Anyway, thanks for the read, it gave me a good laugh. You wont have much luck trying to convince topher he is misinformed, but understanding that it's anout his personal belief system & not about being evil or greedy may help if you ever engage him again. Good luck :)

      Delete
  2. I must say I don't feel sorry for the deniars parting with their cash to fund this idiot.

    Remember these people are generally greedy by nature that's were the denialism stems from. I don't want to pay taxes or my shares to be hit in order to fix the planet.

    Take the greed on HotCopper for instance Sou. They've had a fund going for the past 6 or so months to support posters that face litigation for libel from companies. There were Alan Jones like theatrics and outcry when a co. took a hotcopper share holder to court for libel (like the same apoplectic postings on there whenever a refugee boat arrives).

    They say they have 170,000 active members. Now this fraternity of
    self proclaimed high flers, share traders and business owners have only mustered a measley $13,000. And they bicker between each other about who has donated. One poster said they donate to World Vision because they thought it was a more worthy cause.Only to be berated.

    Yes little sympathy.

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    1. Haha - HC gets no sympathy from me either, Cliff. Nor do the ratbags who donated to Topher's video.

      Delete
  3. WUWT had a post about this a few months back which I commented on here here. As you mention, the whole 50:1 project appears to be based on a Monckton calculation suggesting that it will cost 50 times as much to mitigate as to adapt. Of course, the calculation is simply a set of numbers combined in a way so as to another very big number which shows that it's all clearly bad, but that doesn't include even a moments sanity check.

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    1. It's up at WUWT now. Won't link.

      Delete
    2. Catmando, hi,

      Pro tip: if you want to link to a website, but don't want that site to get 'credit' (i.e. a boost in their Google PageRank) for that incoming link, then you just put a rel="nofollow" in the link and search engines like Google won't include it in their stats. So to link to WUWT from here in this manner, you would use:

      <a href="http://www.wattsupwiththat.com" rel="nofollow">Link to WUWT</a>

      --metzomagic

      Delete
    3. Of course, I forgot to see if the rel="nofollow" appears in the resulting HTML when the page is rendered after you submit your post. Let's see...

      Link to WUWT

      --metzomagic

      Delete
    4. Yep, it does. And in fact, I can see by viewing the page source that Wotts Up With That Blog did the same above :-)

      --metzomagic

      Delete
    5. Thanks. My IT skills could do with a brush up.

      Delete
    6. Yes, that's an old one. I've started now but haven't gone back and edited all my old posts (yet) :-)

      Delete
    7. It is even easier. NoFollow is added to every links in every comment. Only few bloggers have or can change this default behavior. Only when blogging yourself or commenting in some forums you need to add NoFollow.

      Delete
  4. Fields schtick appears to be that people are willing to pay to hear someone pay out on the government (theirs specifically, or just governments in general.

    I will confess to having liked "The Hustle", which showed in this years Tropfest. His other "work" appears to be just the same old libertarian twaddle. Fact is, he's just another underemployed actor panhandling for tips. Maybe if he was a better actor, he wouldn't have to.

    FrankD

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  5. Ahh, Sou! I see where you've come from now. I also have some idea why you are so able to completely misunderstand everything contained in a clearly laid out video. Birds of a feather...

    It's incredibly kind of you to dedicate so much time to trying to 'take me down', but it would help if you actually listened to what I said in the first place. Taking down straw men is intellectually dishonest and leads me to suspect that you don't believe you COULD take me down if you actually told your readers what I really said.

    I'll cite one specific example and then I'll leave you to marinate in your self delusion.

    You take me to task for misrepresenting Stern, but it is you who is misrepresenting me. You are every bit as guilty of all the crimes you accuse me of.

    I clearly stated that I as accepting the IPCCs central AR4 estimate of 3deg per century warming, the using Stern to find out the cost of that 3 deg. I even gave the page number from Stern where I found the information in black and white.

    Now that may be a little bit complicated for you. I understand if you get confused by the fact that I'm going deeper than just headlines and google searches and that I'm actually cross-referencing data from one academic body to another... but if you'd listened carefully you would never have come to the conclusion that I'd misrepresented anyone, and if you'd had the integrity to actually look up the page I quoted you'd have seen it for yourself.

    Anyway, that's all from me, I've learned long ago not to argue with those who prefer to believe their own reality rather than the one in front of them.

    All the best.

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    1. I see you indeed have attracted the haters. Congratulations!!!

      Delete
    2. Go Topher!

      Sou, you haven't offered any single counterargument based on the mathematics and references that he put forward. You just rubbish them in completely invalid attacks.

      Delete
    3. I clearly stated that I as accepting the IPCCs central AR4 estimate of 3deg per century warming

      Topher, I find it hard to believe you've read any part of any IPPC report because nowhere is there any statement that "there will be three degrees of warming per century". Either you made it up yourself out of thin air, or a potty peer told you it did and you believed him, or similar.

      I even gave the page number from Stern where I found the information in black and white.

      Oh yes? What page number was it? I hope you're not saying you found AR4 info in the 2006 Stern Review :(

      I'm actually cross-referencing data from one academic body to another..
      Do you seriously regard Christopher Monckton of Brenchley as an academic body? Seriously! :D

      Anyway, that's all from me, I've learned long ago not to argue with those who prefer to believe their own reality rather than the one in front of them.

      It's not all from me. It took you several weeks to make your silly video. It won't take me that long to pull it down. Watch this space.

      Although your 9 minute cartoon is ridiculous, you seem to "believe" it - or are trying to convince yourself you do. Hard to credit that even today there are people who still associate with Monckton and don't bother checking just how far off the planet he's fallen.

      Since you take the potty peer at his word (which you don't understand) I have to ask. Are you a birther too? Do you believe Monckton found a cure for AIDS? Did you follow him into the bizarre hate organisation the Rise Up Party?

      Delete
    4. It's incredibly kind of you to dedicate so much time to trying to 'take me down',

      I wrote the above article in a very short time. I don't care about you one way or another although I've formed an opinion about your political ideology, from this and other videos you've made, and your scientific and economic illiteracy. Your ideology explains your motivation for spreading disinformation, which speaks to your lack of ethics. But I'll grant you that you may merely be supremely ignorant. A veritable example of Dunning and Kruger. Or you could just be trying to make a crust and, like some people, are willing to sacrifice integrity in the process. Any or all of those could be the driving force or none of them. It doesn't matter. Therefore I'll skip the speculation as to what drove you to spend other people's money producing utter nuttery.

      What I'll address in a future article is the content of your video and that of Monckton's ridiculous pdf file that I gather you've used as the basis for your nonsense claims.

      Delete
    5. ".....Anyway, that's all from me, I've learned long ago not to argue with those who prefer to believe their own reality rather than the one in front of them....."

      BOOOMMMMMMMMM!!!!! My irony meter just exploded.

      Delete
  6. Sou, put away your own blatant political ideology and get back to basics: explain why there has been a global surface temperature standstill for 17 years, something that even Hansen acknowledges. Also help the IPCC out by explaining this standstill to the US and EU, as they have asked for further explanation. Is it volcanoes, heat-absorbing oceans, aerosols, or what? And if the IPCC can't say, how can they be so (95%) sure it's man's CO2 that's driving the (non-)warming.

    How also can you not have seen that just about every serious economist rejected Stern's report, citing wholly unrealistic discount rates? Stern's own response is to become every more alarmist with each pronunciation.

    The whole climate alarmist movement has produced too many failures of prediction to give any of them any credibility. This massively high error rate is just one reason why mitigation is such bad value for money.

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    1. "Just about every serious economist"?

      John Roemer, a serious economist, agrees with Stern. Robert Solow, James Mirrlees, Amartya Sen, Joseph Stiglitz, and Jeffrey Sachs also agree, and yet they are all serious economists (heck, one even a Nobel Prize winner in economics). Ross Garnaut, yet another serious economist, thought Stern had even been too positive. Kenneth Arrow, another Nobel Prize winner in economics agreed with the Stern report, even *if* the discount rates were too low (he didn't really say they were).

      Yes, but all those *other* "serious economists", eh...

      Marco

      Wonderful cherry picking again

      Delete
    2. Unlike the nutty fringe extremist libertarians, I don't have any particular political ideology that would be in the least bit relevant to climate science.

      Oh, and people do keep shifting the goal posts, don't they.

      What's that about 16 or is it 17 years? Since 1996, you say?

      How's this for a prediction? I predict that the more climate change becomes evident, the nuttier the utter nutters will become.

      Delete
    3. Interesting that Ilma, who appears to be a DuKE of the first order, rejects Topher/Monckton's silly video - albeit for different reasons to the more educated.

      I'm not surprised that deniers of all persuasions ignore the inconsistencies and contradictions and wild errors and lies in Topher's nonsense. One of them even found a "global temperature will drop 0.5 degrees within seven years".

      Most of them don't say what it is they like. I expect they have the same reaction as to art. They don't know nuffin'
      about it but they know what they don't like :(

      Delete
  7. Does the comment policy "steer clear of personal attacks" not apply to ms Sou herself? Just wondering who is allowed to write of "fruitcakes and scumbags" and accuse people of lying, and who isn't.

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    1. You can accuse me of anything that takes your fancy within reason.

      The comment policy precludes you from making personal attacks on other people who comment.

      Anyone who misrepresents climate science in a public fashion and tells lies about it, like Topher Field and Christopher Monckton, Anthony Watts and other people who promote themselves as science deniers, are fair game.

      The scumbag is the Australianised version of "scumbuckets" from Robert Altemeyers' book The Authoritarians. There is a link at the top right of the page.

      Delete
    2. "Scumbag" is valid UK English usage too, Sou. As is "scum", which I actually prefer.

      Delete
  8. Sou, you said this:

    "For example Topher makes wild claims and exaggerations about Australia's carbon tax, but doesn't mention the fact that it costs most Australians nothing at all. They get it back in reduced taxation and supplements to pensions."

    I'm trying to figure out how imposing a tax to stop climate change and then giving that money to the people of today in the form of reduced taxes and increased pensions will help the children of tomorrow handle climate change. This sounds like a way for politicians to buy votes. I thought the whole reason for a climate tax was to change behavior and make it more expensive for everyone in order to change behavior.

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    1. No, it's not a vote buying exercise although obviously it does lead to voter acceptance. It's also a more equitable approach because otherwise it wouldn't discourage polluters - they might simply pass all the costs onto others.

      This is a common mechanism for restructuring an aspect of the economy, particularly for shifting from an undesirable to a desirable situation. The money is collected from polluters to discourage them from polluting (or to pay the cost of pollution) and find a way to reduce pollution, and part is returned to people to whom the polluters may pass on the cost. Some of the revenue goes to investing in clean technologies.

      You might be interested in looking up the "tragedy of the commons" and Pigovian tax.

      It's also a market-based mechanism as opposed to a 'socialist' approach.

      What is fascinating in Australia is that it's the Labor Party (more socialist in ideology) that introduced this market-based approach. Whereas the conservative party wants to replace it with a socialist approach, whereby taxpayers rather than polluters pay for the cost of carbon pollution, through general taxation revenue.

      Delete
    2. It seems to me as though Australia is not only transferring money to the voters, Australia is also transferring CO2 to other countries. It might look like you are reducing emissions, but what good is that if you are shipping all your coal to China? So I'm still not seeing how this carbon tax is helping climate change. Still seeing it as a political way to buy votes and to look like they are doing something about the climate.

      From Reuters:

      China's coal imports, excluding lignite, rose 26 percent in July from the previous month after two months of falls in shipments, as a drop in overseas prices led end-users to ramp up orders of Australian coal and restock for peak summer demand. The jump in imports was largely led by Australian coal, which rose by 3.59 million tonnes to 8.52 million tonnes, accounting for nearly three-quarter of the total volume increase.

      http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/08/21/china-trade-coal-idUKL4N0GM0NN20130821

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    3. Australia isn't transferring money to voters. You misunderstand the mechanism. Polluters are paying a price for carbon but are passing some of what they pay onto consumers. Instead of consumers having to wear the cost, some of the money polluters pay that they charge consumers for is passed back to consumers. That means consumers aren't out of pocket. But they don't make money out of it. They only way consumers would gain is if they themselves also cut their power costs by, say, using less electricity. If they do that then everyone wins. You seem to think it's a handout. It's not.

      As for Australia shipping coal overseas yes indeed. It's bad. We also are one of the biggest coal users domestically if not the biggest per capita. That's another reason for it being so important to shift away from coal and onto clean energy.

      Australia is no saint when it comes to carbon emissions. Topher and Monckton and others want to keep polluting. Most reasonable people know it's a bad thing to do. We have to work hard to turn around our history of reliance on coal, oil and gas. Some states have done wonders (eg South Australia has really ramped up wind energy. AFAIK it's now approaching 30% of their electricity). Others almost seem to be going backwards, like Victoria with it's domestic use of the dirtiest coal for power production; and Queensland with its coal exports.

      Tasmania produces a lot of hydro electricity, some of which was also at a cost to the environment for other reasons, but at least it's not adding CO2 to the air.

      Delete
    4. Yes, Australia is transferring money to voters. The whole purpose of a carbon tax is to make fossil fuels too expensive to use, therefore changing behavior and stopping climate change. This is not what you are doing. You are charging a tax to the polluters who then pass it on to the consumer and then the government gives that tax back to the consumer either through a rebate, tax decrease, or increase in pensions. If you send a rebate check or increase pensions or decrease taxes, the consumer sees this as extra money in their pocket whether or not it is. They don’t associate that money with an increase in the cost of energy, therefore there is no incentive to stop using fossil fuels.

      I have linked an article that explains how a true carbon tax to stop climate change should work.

      From the article, “Should the US Implement a Carbon Tax:”

      The problem with the proposed $20/MT carbon tax and the rebate process is the likely ineffectiveness of the proposed energy policy in actually reducing significant U.S. fossil fuels consumption and associated carbon emissions. The problem statement is that the average Households, including Lower income groups, consume the majority of U.S. fossil fuels; directly + indirectly. If a proposed carbon tax policy is going to be effective, the majority of the population’s fossil fuels consumption must be significantly reduced. This is not likely to happen with a $20/MT carbon tax that only increases average Household fossil fuel costs by $2.47/day. Likewise, if the below average income Household’s receive significant carbon tax rebates the net impact could also eliminate any motivation to significantly reduce their fossil fuels consumption.

      If our voters and Legislators truly want to reduce U.S. fossil fuels consumption and associated carbon emissions substantially in the future, the level of proposed carbon taxes must be adjusted to levels that will significantly reduce average Household demand. This would require rapidly increasing carbon tax to levels that would truly discourage current consumption levels. Increasing the carbon tax up to $100/MT would increase the direct + indirect average Household fossil fuels costs by up to about $4,514 per year (assuming all carbon taxes are passed-through to Residential customers). This represents 9% of average Households’ annual income. This level of increased fossil fuels expense should very significantly reduce the demand of nearly all average Households.

      http://theenergycollective.com/jemillerep/218116/should-us-implement-carbon-tax

      So like I said, this carbon tax is doing nothing but transferring money and CO2 and doing nothing to stop climate change. And to say you are doing something when in fact you are actually contributing to the problem by sending coal to China is misleading.

      Delete
    5. Yes, Australia is transferring money to voters. The whole purpose of a carbon tax is to make fossil fuels too expensive to use, therefore changing behavior and stopping climate change.

      Wrong on both counts - by implication anyway.

      The only "money going to voters" is what they paid extra from any increase in cost of goods and services as a result of the carbon tax.

      The purpose of the tax is not primarily to make ordinary people use less electricity. It's to make more electricity come from clean energy. It's a bonus if people also become more energy efficient.

      When it comes to the guzzlers of fossil fuel - what were originally going to be the top 500 or so polluters, the same thing applies. It's not to encourage them to use less power, it's to encourage them to use power from renewable sources. To switch from a polluting source to a non-polluting source. The government rightly doesn't want to shut down the country. It wants a thriving economy but based on clean energy not polluting energy.

      The problem is carbon emissions rather than power usage.

      And to say you are doing something when in fact you are actually contributing to the problem by sending coal to China is misleading.

      Switching to clean energy on the domestic front *is* doing something. It's a whole lot better than doing nothing. Ex-PM Gillard managed this in a hung Parliament, which is a huge achievement. Is it sufficient? No, not by a long way but it's a step in the right direction.

      As for coal production - I've responded twice already in two separate threads to your comment about sending coal to China. At least have the grace to acknowledge what I wrote instead of insinuating I'm claiming something I'm not!

      The article I wrote is about disinformation and lies. There are all sorts of lies told by all sorts of people! I'm not one of those people. Are you?

      Delete
  9. Off topic to this thread, but...

    rel="nofollow"

    hmmm, that's pretty interesting - never knew about that. Glad to know! thanks

    >>> Can anyone recommend any good YouTube videos, that teach about such internet tricks and other lessons about using the internet and blogging?

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    1. Not a nice video, but I just wrote a post about NoFollow, as I noticed that many people do not understand the way search engines work and some may thus unintentionally help the climate ostriches.

      Delete
  10. As for the topic at hand.

    My head is spinning again, i'm amazed and dizzy from then maze of 'worm-holes of distraction' that Libertarian/neo-Republican(USA & their Australian parrots)
    types constantly regurgitate.

    Repeating vacuous mantras and aphorisms all intent on wasting precious time and directing attention away from looking up towards the flash flood coming down the valley.
    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

    All of this CarbonTax Business will continue to be nothing but a dog-chasing-tail game - until everyone figures out some basic truths - and developed a collective goal !
    ~ ~ ~

    LESSON ONE - GHGs are holding in more heat and warming our planet.

    LESSON TWO - Energizing our global heat distribution engine will radicalize weather patterns that had attained a most particular equilibrium over the past thousands of years

    LESSON THREE - Climate change has always radically disrupted and destroyed systems and patterns that had developed under the previous climate regime

    LESSON FOUR - WE the people ARE THE ONES DRIVING our global heat distribution machine into these more energetic realms - that will have impacts we can't fathom, since the coming conditions had never existed before.

    LESSON FIVE - You don't bitch about the paint job on the Life Boat that's about to get you off a sinking ship ! ! !

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  11. Sou, I'm embarrassed to admit I knew topher intimately for a few years & got to understand him better than most. My personal world view is vastly different than his & as he is incapable of being disagreed with & will just keep railroading his opinions down your throat untill you either walk away or accept his opinions as true & validate them for him. This inevitably led to an unpleasant parting between us not long before he created this ridiculous 50 to 1 film. I can however assure you that for him it all has much less to do with the money & much more to do with his warped, selfish ideology, which in many ways is far more concearning. Rather than being a black hearted person fleecing money from the gullible, he is an arrogant, self-righteous, home schooled, theologically brainwashed infividual who honestly believes he is affecting positive change in the world with his silly little films (despite the fact that it's glaringly obvious to me & others that he's speading self deluded propaganda that is doing harm not good). He will never accept the posibility that he could be wrong tho. His ideology runs deep to his core & I doubt anything could ever wake him up to the possibility that his ideas are false. Anyway, thanks for the read, it gave me a good laugh. You wont have much luck trying to convince topher he is misinformed, but understanding that it's about his personal belief system & not about being evil or greedy may help if you ever engage him again. Good luck :)

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    1. Fascinating. I really just took him for a hustler out to make a buck from anyone stupid enough to send him money. You're saying he's just another conspiracy theorist of the ideological kind. Some people are odd, aren't they.

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