The Katherine Times reports on one of the first convoys to hit the road:

http://www.katherinetimes.com.au/news/local/news/rural/convoy-rolls-through-on-way-to-canberra/2262617.aspx

Convoy rolls through on way to Canberra

ANNIE HESSE

18 Aug, 2011 09:17 AM

A Convoy of more than 100 vehicles – including road trains, campervans and utes – rolled into Katherine last night to show their support for the Convoy of no Confidence, a convoy heading to Canberra to raise a voice against recent government decisions.

Rashida Khan, who led a trail of vehicles from Darwin to Katherine yesterday, said she was on her way to Canberra to speak up for “some of the toughest people” she knows, who “have been pushed to the edge by the decision to ban live export”.

The 23-year-old animal nutritionist, who comes from a background of cattle and land management, said she was “stunned” by the support the Convoy of no Confidence had received along the way from Darwin to Katherine.”Eight road trains followed us out of Noonamah, we had a chopper in the air, freightliners on the road and lots of cars.

“We had grey nomads and people in cars and vans join us along the way, giving us the thumbs up, honk their horns, wave and cheer.

“And we were absolutely overwhelmed to see so many cars and followers turn out in Katherine, with their utes decorated.”

More at the above link.

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We are emerging from the Coldest Period of the last 10,000 years – thank goodness for the modern warming era.

“We live in the coldest period of the last 10.000 years”, says glaciologist, Jørgen Peder Steffensen who takes us back in time to the Greenland ice cores and reveals the secrets from the past. See a short video:

http://vimeo.com/14366077

Print ready version: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/welcome-the-convoys.pdf [PDF, 109 KB]

By Viv Forbes September 2012

“To be truly ‘sustainable’, a farm must recycle everything – otherwise it is depleting its soil minerals. Therefore it cannot sell any of its produce. This means it cannot buy items from the outside world, such as machinery, to make labour less arduous, and to produce more food. It is thus an impossible dream.” – Bob Long

The man-made global warming crisis has gone cold, the “man-made extreme weather” scares are wearing thin, and people are waking up to the “tax war on carbon”, so a new theme is needed for handing control of our lives, businesses and property to the world bureaucracy. The theme for the next green alarm is “sustainability” and a favourite target is “sustainable farming”.

We need to recognise some realities. Modern cities are not sustainable without farms, and modern farms are not sustainable without modern machinery, mineral fertilisers and affordable energy. City people should thank the lord for the machinery and cheap energy that produce the surplus food and all the trucks, road trains, refrigerated vans and milk tankers that bring it to their supermarkets every day. The last thing they should advocate is “sustainable farming”.

Unlike most armchair experts on sustainable farming, my early life was spent on an almost-sustainable farm. The memorable lessons we learned are described below.

Cows were milked by hand, ploughing and planting was done with a team of draft horses. Here is how green power works:

Ploughing using Hay-burners
Photo Credit: (c) Kapai / http://www.fotosearch.com

Lucerne was cut using a horse-drawn mower and rake. Haymaking on our “almost sustainable” farm was when everyone got a job with a pitchfork – mine had a special short handle. I still have it. Here is how it was done:

Making Bio-fuel for Hay Burners
Photo credit: http://thekinnickproject.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/75-years-ago-eileens-diary-july-9-1937.html

For more descriptions on how a sustainable farm really works you can quickly download the full article in print-ready PDF at:

http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/sustainable-farming.pdf [PDF, 132KB]

A long-forgotten scientific paper on temperature trends in New Zealand may be the smoking gun on temperature manipulation worldwide.

Since Climategate first broke, we’ve seen scandal over temperature adjustments by NZ’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric research, NIWA, which in turn prompted a fresh look at raw temperature data from Darwin and elsewhere.

Now, a study published in the NZ Journal of Science back in 1980 reveals weather stations at the heart of NIWA’s claims of massive warming were shown to be unreliable and untrustworthy by a senior Met Office climate scientist 30 years ago, long before global warming became a politically charged issue.

The story is published in tonight’s TGIF Edition [PDF, 3.9MB, or just the relevant first page: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/tgif-20091218-p1.pdf PDF, 294 KB], and has international ramifications.

To follow the full story by Ian Wishart go to: http://briefingroom.typepad.com/the_briefing_room/2009/12/nz-study-may-hold-key-to-faulty-world-temp-data.html

“The individual sea level records obtained from the SEAFRAME study on 12 Pacific Islands have all been assessed by the anonymous authors of the official reports as indicating positive trends in sea level over all 12 Pacific Islands involved since the study began in 1993. This assessment studies individual records and finds that all of them show no change of sea level in almost all of the records following the 1998 cyclones. It is considered that cyclones and tsunamis not only induce false readings which should be ignored when calculating a trend, but they also disrupt the leveling of the equipment so that previous years’ figures should also not form part of a trend.”

See the full article South Pacific Sea Level: A Reassessment by Vincent R Gray:
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/sea-levels-gray.pdf [PDF, 1.1 MB]

In addition, Cliff Ollier reports:

“Graphs of sea level for twelve locations in the southwest Pacific show stable sea level for about ten years over the region. The data are compared with results from elsewhere, all of which suggest that any rise of global sea level is negligible. The Darwin theory of coral formation, and subsidence ideas for guyots would suggest that we should see more land subsidence, and apparent sea level rise, than is actually occurring. Sea level studies have not been carried out for very long, but they can indicate major tectonic components such as isostatic rebound in Scandinavia. Attempts to manipulate the data by modelling to show alarming rates of sea level rise (associated with alleged global warming) are not supported by primary regional or global data. Even those places frequently said to be in grave danger of drowning, such as the Maldives, Tuvalu and Holland, appear to be safe.”

See the full article Sea Level in the Southwest Pacific is Stable by Cliff Ollier:
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/sea-levels-ollier.pdf [PDF, 881 KB]

Here is a the very latest sea Level data from “The South Pacific Sea Level and Climate Monitoring Project” produced by the Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology with technical support from the National Tidal centre and funded by the Australian Agency for International Development. There is no evidence of any dramatic increases in sea levels.

(From http://www.bom.gov.au/oceanography/projects/spslcmp/reports.shtml Nov, 2009)

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
Of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot–
And whether pigs have wings.”

The Walrus and The Carpenter, Lewis Carroll, from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872

Once upon a time there was a land where cabbages were very popular. People used them for all sorts of things. There were central farms where they were grown, and distributed to supermarkets from where people bought them. The subjects in this land could buy the cabbages for about 17 cents each.

One day the King decided that it was a bad thing for the cabbages to be produced by these large farms. He said it hurt the environment to have them transported all the way to the supermarkets. He also said too much water was used on those farms.
(more…)

The Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition, Mr Viv Forbes, today claimed that the plan by Australian PM Rudd to cull one million camels may have unexpected carbon tax consequences.

Forbes explains:
“PM Rudd proposes to spend $19 million shooting one million wild camels.

“A big camel probably weighs about a tonne, so Mr Rudd is going to let a million tonnes of valuable meat rot under the Centralian sun.

“Each camel probably has about 190 kg of carbon sequestered in its body. As it rots and absorbs oxygen, this carbon will increase into about 700 kg of carbon dioxide which will then dissipate into the atmosphere.

“If the Australian Senate is silly enough to pass the Wong carbon dioxide Ration-n-Tax Scheme this shootout will thus trigger a huge carbon tax liability.

“At a carbon emission price of say $40 per tonne of carbon dioxide, the carbon tax on one million rotting camels would be about $28 million.

“If we add to that the actual cull costs of about $19 million and the carbon tax due on helicopter emissions and other activities, the total cost of the cull is about $50 million.

“This illustrates the dangers of costly unexpected consequences resulting from complex poorly designed bills being rushed through both Australian and US Legislatures by Mr Rudd and his buddy Mr Obama. Luckily Senators in both countries will probably reject this nonsense.
(more…)

Terry Cardwell has run coal fired power stations. He knows about the costs, efficiency and emissions from modern power stations. And he is frustrated at the lies, distortions and myths being spread about power generation. Being retired, he has no axe to grind, no master to serve and no agenda to push except concern for our future.

“We are all greenies in one form or another and care very much about our planet. The difference is most of us are realistic. Not in some idyllic utopia where everything can be made perfect by standing around holding a banner, chanting a slogan and being a general pain in the backside.”

For some plain truths from Terry on power and pollution see:http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/coal-power-realities.pdf [PDF. 29 KB]

Update: here is an interview by Michael Smith from Brisbane radio station 4BC with Terry Cardwell, 11 Jan 2010: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/terry-cardwell-4bc-20100111.mp3 [MP3, 993 KB; 8:28 min]

The President of the Lavoisier Group, Hugh Morgan AC,

invites you to the launching of

Back to the 19th Century

by Ray Evans, Tom Quirk, & Alan Moran

with a foreword by Peter Walsh AO and an afterword by Ian Callinan AC QC.

Senator Barnaby Joyce, Leader of the National Party in the Senate,

will launch this new tract on Wednesday, 4 November 2009,

at 401 Collins Street, Melbourne,

beginning at 12 noon.

After the launch soft drinks and refreshments will be served.

For catering purposes attendees should register at booklaunch@lavoisier.com.au

An entrance charge of $20 can be paid on arrival.

More information: http://www.lavoisier.com.au/index.php

Climate Change Policy
What It Means For You and Your Family

Keynote Address: A Tax on CO2 – Is it the Answer?
Professor Bob Carter, James Cook University, The Australian Climate Science Coalition

Monday 26 October 2009
Bunbury
7:00 p.m.
The Italian Club, 13 White Street
Hosted by Red Meat Action Group
Contact Gary 0419 958 579 or buller@activ8.net.au

Wednesday 28 October 2009
Albany
7:15 for 7:30 to 9:00 a.m.
Motel Le Grande, 479 Albany Highway
Hosted by Albany Chamber of Commerce & Industry
Contact Graham 9842 2577 or events@albanycci.com.au

Thursday 29 October 2009
Kalgoorlie
6:30 for 7:00 p.m.
Western Mining Conference Centre, 44 MacDonald Street
Hosted by Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy
Contact Graeme 0428 925 946 or 9021 4613 or gckal@bigpond.net.au

Friday 30 October 2009
Narrogin
2:00 to 5:00 p.m.
Narrogin Leisure Centre, Clayton Road
Hosted by Coalition for Agricultural Productivity
Contact Janet 0417 815 595 or mmattjanet@westnet.com.au

Predicting the weather — especially a decade or more in advance — is unbelievably challenging. What’s the track record of those most worried about global warming? Decades ago, what did prominent scientists think the environment would be like in 2010? FoxNews.com has compiled eight of the most egregiously mistaken predictions, and asked the predictors to reflect on what really happened.

Read Eight Botched Environmental Forecasts at FoxNews:

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/12/30/botched-environmental-forecasts/