G'Day - Not today, mate!

Australia's politicians from the Liberal, National and Labor parties all vow that now isn't the right time to talk about climate change.

Soon there'll be not the tiniest gap between the droughts, fires, heat waves and floods so they'll be saved from ever having to talk about climate change and what they aren't doing about it.

Courtesy of Australia's national broadcaster:

During the #bushfire crisis, many politicians have been hesitant to answer questions about climate change. But now, there's a new program more willing to accommodate their unwillingness to address the issue. #NotToday. #abc730 @markhumphries @evanwilliams @jonocoleman #auspol pic.twitter.com/8E16QmYewK

— abc730 (@abc730) November 14, 2019

If you're wondering about some of the references, here's a guide:

• Karl Stefanovic - I don't know who he is (I don't watch television). I gather he's some tv host who's changed time slots or channels or something. You'll have to Google him if you're interested.
• Dr Karl - is a popular Australian science lover who is in turn loved by many.
• Quiet Australians - our Prime Minister Scott Morrison wants to silence any Australians who speak. He only want's to listen to "quiet Australians" because they say nothing, don't make his head hurt and don't interrupt him when he's singing in tongues to his god.

If only Scott Morrison would stop telling his god what to do and start listening to what his god's been telling him for the past few years: Millennium Drought, Canberra fires, Black Saturday fires, Alpine fires, big wets and big dries, dead fish, dried up rivers, towns out of water - and all the other weather catastrophes this century including the current ones.

Australians choose a rocky road

Australians voted yesterday and, against the odds, decided to opt for speeding up climate change and destroying our wonderful land.

We had two main choices: a plan to invest in a "fair go" future setting the tone for the difficult years ahead; and a choice to defer that investment, wreck our agriculture, and transfer more wealth to the high end of town.

Australians chose the latter.

Don't get me wrong. The Australian Labor Party is far from perfect. It, too, doesn't fully appreciate the damage we are doing to our world. Nor does it fully appreciate the fragility of Australia and the dangers we face. Nevertheless, overall the choices it offered were a lesser evil than those of the Liberal National coalition.

The question is, should Australians and the world suffer because a slim majority voted against the well-being of farmers, fishers, foresters and everyone in our towns and cities? Should we stand by and allow the destruction of our rivers, grasslands, forests and precious seas because that's what slightly more than half the population voted for?

The answer is a partial yes. That's democracy. That's how our society works.

We chose to elect a government that promises continuing economic mismanagement, increasing the divide between rich and poor, delaying technological advances, depriving Australians of modern transport, and ruining our rivers and seas.

The part that is not "yes" is that we don't have to see this election as the "final nail in the coffin" of Australia. It is tempting to fall into the despair trap and believe our fate is sealed forever. It is understandable but unproductive to lie down and accept that we chose to wreck our world and continue on a path of destruction - and that's the end of that.

Now is the time to get up, dust ourselves off, and continue to push for responsible government and responsible action.

Remember that about half the country did vote for a fairer, more compassionate country. Half of us want to repair our damaged rivers, look after our farmland and forests, protect our remaining wildlife, and do what we can to save the reef. Around one in two Australians know that we will sooner rather than later need to work with the rest of the world to deal with climate migration. We will need to continue to produce food, feed and fibre for more people despite the worsening weather. To survive if not thrive we will need to work as a cohesive society, not the divided nation that people like the execrable Peter Dutton want.

That means we must continue to do what we can, but do it better. We need to continue to push for businesses and industries to take the lead where our federal government won't. We need to support the efforts of state governments to expand renewable energy and get off the fossil fuel train. And we need to demand accountability and openness from our politicians. We need to make sure everyone can see the impact of making the rich richer, the poor poorer, and the land and water degraded.

We might not succeed. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

Australians yesterday chose a rocky road, maybe confusing it with the sweet. We could have chosen a slightly smoother (though still rough) path, but we didn't. Let's do what we can to show the world Australia can be better.

Betrayed by political cowardice from Australia's "One Nation" Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull

You might have seen the appalling comments from Australia's Prime Minister yesterday. He was doing a good imitation of Malcolm Roberts. They both linked the worst storm in living memory in South Australia with renewable energy, and not in the manner one would expect.

Australia's Prime Minister and his act of political cowardice. September 2016

What you'd expect is that our political leaders would view the storm and statewide blackout as a stark reminder that we have to hurry up and reduce carbon emissions. Instead Malcolm Turnbull, in an incredible display of political cowardice, turned his back on Australians and all of humanity and used it as an opportunity to say we've got to slow the shift to renewables.

Australian politics - the Liberal National Coalition to form government

As a follow-up to my previous article about the "too close to call" election results, the Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has announced he will form government. This announcement was made, as is convention, following a phone call he got from the leader of the Labor Party, Bill Shorten, conceding defeat.

It's still not known yet whether the government will have sufficient seats for a majority in the lower house, however Antony Green has "almost" called it, and the ABC website shows the conservative coalition probably will just scrape in the required 76 seats, maybe with one more (or less).

What this election result will mean for climate action remains to be seen. The trends in the weather would be more certain.

Jo Nova and Eric Worrall, racism, conspiracy theories and climate science denial

There is a lot of overlap between racism and right wing extremism. It seems to me to both are based on the at times deadly combination of extreme fear, ignorance and bigotry. Yesterday Eric Worrall was lauding the election of a person who has been inciting violence for a long time. Today it's Jo Nova. The people who are bigoted climate science deniers are Pauline Hanson and Malcolm Roberts. The party of bigots is called One Nation, which is the opposite of what they are trying to achieve. What they stand for is a nation divided.

Pauline Hanson was voted in by people who probably claim to be Christians, but lack any virtues of love and tolerance, and who are scared to their back teeth of anyone of a different race or religion to them. Pauline wants to install video cameras to perve on people in Mosques and Islamic schools. She hasn't said the same about other churches and other schools. She's also an anti-vaxxer and stands up for men who want to get out of paying child support. Malcolm Roberts is an anti-semitic conspiracy theorist. Graham Readfearn reported Australian journalist Ben Cubby writing about Malcolm Roberts:

In considering your request that I identify errors in the report you sent to me – CSIROh! Climate of Deception? Or First Step to Freedom? – I find myself confronting an unusual problem: how does one critically analyse a pile of horse shit?

Australian Federal Elections - too close to call yet?

Australia has just held a double dissolution election, meaning people are voting for all the Senate positions as well as all the lower house positions (House of Representatives). Usually we vote for all the lower house but only half the upper house. It was a freezing cold day in this part of Australia, but voting is compulsory so that wouldn't have affected the turnout much. In any case, lots of people would have voted before today (by post).

The election is said to be too close to call. Malcolm Turnbull, the Prime Minister (to the political right) is on the left, and the left (Labor leader) Bill Shorten is on the right in the photo below:D

Election too close to call as voters walk away from Malcolm Turnbull https://t.co/eqmw1v7tNr #ausvotes pic.twitter.com/mW9OGRhrEQ

— smh.com.au (@smh) July 2, 2016

However, at the close of counting this morning, the results for the 150 seats in the House of Representatives on the AEC website are as follows:

• Australian Labor Party (Bill Shorten leader) 72 seats
• Liberal/National Coalition (Malcolm Turnbull Prime Minister) 66
• Independent 2
• Other minor parties 3
• Not yet determined 7.

I'll let you do the arithmetic but be aware, the numbers are not final and can change.

A science denying fan of Monckton as Science Minister?

There is talk that Dennis Jensen is putting up his hand for the Science portfolio in the new Abbott government.  They say that people get the government they deserve but I really don't know what appalling sins the Australian people could have committed that would make them deserve such a thing.

Dennis Jensen denies science

Dennis Jensen in the Australian Federal Parliament 20 September 2011 couldn't be more clear:

I do not accept the premise of anthropogenic climate change, I do not accept that we are causing significant global warming and I reject the findings of the IPCC and its local scientific affiliates.

Dennis Jensen instead espouses the "teachings" of an eccentric entertainer

Dennis Jensen rejects science and follows the ramblings of an eccentric (being kind) entertainer from England, Monckton:

"Most of the stuff [Lord Monckton] says is entirely reasonable," Dr Jensen said.

Wow!  Just wow.  Here is a HotWhopper list of articles on Monckton's idiocy.  And click here for many more examples from Barry Bickmore.  And of course, SkepticalScience has been pointing out his silliness for years now.  Monckton even went too far for right wing blogger Andrew Bolt, in line with the Laws of Monckton.

Dennis Jensen demonstrates his ignorance of climate science

These tweets from Jensen are more examples of his ignorance.  In this first one Jensen demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the field, his notion about "models" is back to front.  The science isn't based on the models, it's the models that are based on the physics.  Science describes global warming without the need for models - including the physics of greenhouse gases and paleoclimatology.  The models are built to explore the complexities and to better explain what the long term future will bring under different scenarios.

@josh1782 @razhorses Only argument for AGW is models, nd they have not predicted stasis in last decade. So models falsified
— Dennis Jensen MP (@DennisJensenMP) June 14, 2013

Would Dennis Jensen MP really appoint James Delingpole, interpreter of interpretations to a climate hatchet job?

Jensen is a run-of-the-mill average ordinary science denier of the "climate has always changed" flavour.

Lots more here and here.

Dennis Jensen is an engineer not a climate scientist

Dennis has a PhD in materials engineering on ceramics, Going by the above tweet, Dennis hasn't heard of paleoclimatology, nor about the greenhouse effect.  Back to school for you, Dennis!  Although evidence suggests that if he's a dyed in the wool engineering denier there's not much hope for him as far as scientific understanding goes.  If he's both an engineering denier and an ideological science denier, then there's even less hope.

Dennis Jensen rejects the physics of the greenhouse effect

@GregRudd1 @OakeyMP Not at all. However, some theories have more rigorous supporting evidence than others. AGW models not supported by data
— Dennis Jensen MP (@DennisJensenMP) June 3, 2013

Oh no?  More evidence that Dennis denies the science.  All the evidence supports the fact that it is the increase in greenhouse gases that is causing global warming.

Dennis Jensen campaigns with conspiracy theorists

Dennis Jensen is an avowed "skeptic" and spoke at a fake sceptic event organised by conspiracy theorist "JoanneNova", which was also attended by Monckton - archived here from the JoanneNova website.

"JoNova" and her partner David Evans are conspiracy theorists of the one world government, fiat currency, Agenda21 type - along with "organisations" like Malcolm Roberts' Galileo Movement (which even Andrew Bolt disavows).  Western Australia has more than its fair share of cranks.  These people are every bit as nutty as Christopher Monckton.

Dennis Jensen proudly denies science on facebook

If you want to see just how ignorant Jensen is about climate science, have a gander at his new "update" on his facebook page.  Hopefully it's enough to put an end to any hopes he might have had for the science portfolio.  On the other hand, the LNP had, of all people, anti-science Sophie Mirabella as its shadow Minister for Science!  So you never know.

Will the Australian "government" become the laughing stock of the world?

Dennis Jensen comes across as just another nutter.  If he is ever appointed to the Science portfolio you can guarantee that if it wasn't already (given the election of Tony "climate change is crap" Abbott), Australia will be the laughing stock of the world.