Why Vote?

In a long life of observing and participating in many election campaigns, I have never before seen anything approaching the ferocity and stupidity of the “war on carbon”. Are we fighting –

• “Carbon” which is the essential element at the centre of every molecule of life on earth?… OR
• “Carbon Dioxide” which is the natural atmospheric gas-of-life that feeds all plants?… OR
• “Carbon Fuels” such as oil, gas and coal which are natural hydrocarbons which store ancient solar and hydro-thermal energy and which provide most of the electrical and motive power that supports and feeds every society on Earth?
• The Answer? Judging from their statements and sloppy language, the alarmists and green zealots are fighting all three. They aim to make “carbon” a dirty word and to deny all humanity the great benefits of hydro-carbon energy.

Like all futile wars, this one will eventually collapse. But it has already done tremendous damage to the global economy and financial stability.

Ominously, Malcolm Turnbull signed Australia onto the Paris Climate Agreement. This appalling document should be forever draped around his neck like a dead albatross. We need our own CLEXIT – climate exit from the climate Czars of Europe. Julie Bishop and Greg Hunt supported him and were collaborators in wasting or committing over one billion dollars on climate nonsense. Please put these three and their supporters last in their electorates.
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[A journalist (“Louise”) asked recently who funds the Carbon Sense Coalition.]

I and a few friends around Australia and overseas founded the Coalition. I have paid for the business registrations, web servers and all such related matters. No one has reimbursed me. A computer friend built the web site and has not sent a bill. He maintains our web site and has not sent a bill.

Other members have helped with research, editing and writing, and none have been paid for it.
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Complex computer models are continually being used to generate incessant alarms about the future for our environment and resources – climate, weather, minerals, oil, food, water, pollution and the oceans.

Every year the computers get more expensive, and the models more complex, but their doomsday forecasts still fail.
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The proceedings of the second International Conference on Climate Change in New York will become available here: http://www.heartland.org/events/NewYork09/proceedings.html.

Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus’ speech is on-line here:
http://www.klaus.cz/klaus2/asp/clanek.asp?id=oWwyM2CjH0OG

A PDF version is here. [101 KB].

Several people have reports on the event:

Maggie Thauerskold: http://www.theclimatescam.com

Bob Carter: http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2009/03/bob-carter-at-heartland-2

Jennifer Marohasy: http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/

Every living thing needs access to energy – food, light and warmth.

But the UN is plotting to limit our access to energy.

This cartoon may be used freely providing the author’s name is retained and the source is acknowledged: www.carbon-sense.com

A study of human history shows what a grave threat this poses to all of us.

Our distant ancestors were hunter-gatherers. They killed and ate wild animals, which provided much of their energy needs. Solar energy warmed their days, and gave life to the herbs, roots and fruits they gathered and to the grasses and shrubs that sustained their prey. Sunlight reflected from the moon allowed them to hunt and fish during moon-lit nights. The sun and moon dominated their world, so naturally many of them worshipped these heavenly bodies.

The invention of stone and wooden weapons and tools increased their access to energy – hunting and gathering was more efficient with tools.

The discovery of how to control fire multiplied man’s access to energy. Fire provided heat and light and could be used to clear vegetation, fight enemies and trap wild animals.

Hunter-gatherers need access to land, preferably free from competitors. This led to the development of territory with defined and defended property boundaries. Property rights are thus an essential ingredient to provide guaranteed access to food and energy.
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6th November 2010

The Carbon Sense Coalition today accused western politicians of creating a food crisis with foolish food policies.

The Chairman of “Carbon Sense”, Mr Viv Forbes, said that climate alarmism and green extremism was being used to remove farmland from food production and deny fishermen access to oceans.
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Cosmic Cycles, not Carbon Dioxide, Control Climate

This cartoon may be used freely providing the author, Steve Hunter, and the source is acknowledged: www.carbon-sense.com

Those who think the political war on carbon will lower Earth’s temperature or keep climate stable need to study climate history.

Temperatures on Earth dance to a cyclic rhythm every hour, every day, every month, every season, every year, and to every beat of the sun-spot and glacial cycles.

The daily solar cycle causes continual changes in temperature for every spot on Earth. It produces the frosts at dawn, the mid-day heat and the cooling at sunset. It is regulated by rotation of the Earth.

Superimposed on the daily solar cycle is the monthly lunar cycle, driven by the orbit of the Moon around the Earth. These two cycles interact to produce variations in atmospheric pressure and tides, and currents in the oceans and the atmosphere. These are the daily weather makers.
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Peter Spencer and his family have been farming in Australia for 180 years but their land and livelihood have been sacrificed on the Kyoto altar. Peter has been prevented from clearing vegetation or controlling woody weeds on his land, and his farm is no longer viable. Unable to get compensation in the courts, Peter is now into day 40 of a hunger strike. And unable to pay his mortgage, he is also about to lose his property. He needs the help of all fair minded Australians.

To read more on the Peter Spencer story by John Ibbotson see this PDF:
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/peter-spencer-story.pdf [PDF, 14 KB]

Please publicise his plight.

Viv Forbes

Additional information:

Article by Justin Jefferson on Quadrant Online:
http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2009/12/peter-spencer

Background information from ABC’s Counterpoint (you will need to click the “Show Transcript” icon):

Great White Land Grab 24 January 2005
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2005/1284009.htm

The City-country Divide 16 February 2009
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2009/2492429.htm

Peter Spencer Protests 7 December 2009
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2009/2764313.htm

[An excerpt from the newsletter: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/farmer-fred.pdf (PDF, 269KB)]

Yesterday morning, before the frost had left the grass, I was sitting quietly beside my fashionably-green wood-burning heater reading the latest explanation in “The Green Gospel” on why the Arctic ice had not yet melted.

Suddenly Flora burst into the room like an Arctic Blizzard with a look on her face that said I was in big trouble.

“Did you tell that awful Professor Percival he could cut holes in Maria’s belly and leave her with a bum bag and a rubber sausage strapped to her back?”

Can’t believe this is happening? See the sheep torture paddock:
http://www.scienceimage.csiro.au/tag/sheep/i/1898/testing-sheep-for-methane-production/10

And see here where a whole team of apprentice professors are also torturing cows:
http://www.smh.com.au/victoria/diet-change-cuts-methane-emissions-in-cow-burps-20150804-girf6l.html

“It’s all right dear” I explained patiently, “The Prof has a new job researching how to stop sheep from adding carbon compounds to the atmosphere.” (Which means, translated crudely – “how to stop sheep from burping and farting”.)

“Well tell him to torture that awful Dorper ram that butts me, not my darling Maria. Where are those animal cruelty people when I need them”?

The Prof had coached me on the settled-science story which I now relayed confidently to Flora: “Sheep and cows release lots of carbon-rich gases from both ends. The science says this will affect the atmosphere, heat up the globe, melt the ice caps and we will all drown.”

“He is being paid big bucks to postpone that watery judgement day.”
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OPEN LETTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER, AND TO THE LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION.

We are a group of retired scientists and engineers in Queensland, and we are alarmed at the direction our country is being taken through your respective policies, which are virtually identical, on renewable energy. Our names are listed here. We have studied this issue for years now, and we have here outlined the serious defects in your energy policy, and asked some questions which have thus far remained unanswered.

Energy Policy. By far the greatest risk to Australia’s electricity supply is the false belief that renewables (wind and solar) can be a like-for-like replacement for dispatchable fossil fuelled generators. They are not, and can never be. A one-MW wind or solar plant does not replace a one-MW coal plant. Not even close. Solar plants will produce electricity on average at 20% of their installed capacity. They produce power for little more than eight hours per day and none at all at night or on rainy days. Wind plants can be expected to produce electricity on average 25% to 30% of installed capacity, but output can be as little as 2% or as much as 70% with little warning.

Media reports in June this year referred to a “wind drought” across Southern Australia resulting in wind production being “40% below the previous corresponding period”. This is a problem but masks an even more intractable false belief; that an energy grid can run on averages. It can’t, because energy consumed has to be generated in real time. Just one example of that wind drought: at 2.20 PM on 5 th May this year, all the wind farms in Australia (4400 MW installed capacity in WA, SA, Vic, Tas and NSW) were producing just 121MW. (That’s 4400 MW capacity generating only 121MW). In fact for May and June this year this was not uncommon. Large high pressure systems over southern Australia meant little or no wind for weeks at a time.

The grid has to meet demand every minute of every day. AEMO can and does order fossil fuelled plants to produce electricity. Clearly it cannot do so for wind or solar. Just imagine Australia with a largely renewable energy system — it is night time so no solar power is being generated, and the whole of Southern Australia is dominated by high pressure systems (this is not unusual) and wind is producing at only 2% of installed capacity! To date dispatchable fossil fuelled generators have been able to shoulder the load but as dispatchable capacity is retired this may no longer be possible, with disastrous consequences.

On the face of it the answer is storage, either battery, pumped hydro or molten salt. This brings us to the next false belief; that storage is some sort of magic pudding. The capacity of current storage technologies is miniscule compared with daily demand. Australian grid demand varies between 18,000 MW minimum and 30,000 MW maximum. Over 24 hours this works out to about 600,000 MWh per day. The Tesla battery being installed in South Australia is said to be the world’s largest and to hold 129 MWh fully charged. This may be enough to support the local grid for a short time until dispatchable capacity can be started, but an unimaginable number of Tesla batteries would be necessary to maintain grid supply for a day or a week, or even longer in the worst case.
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