Saturday, August 02, 2025

In which nattering "Ned" and the Ughmann do climate science denialism all over again ...

 

The Zionist lobby were out in full force this weekend in the lizard Oz hive mind.

How to distract from the current disaster going down in Gaza? 

Why look, there, second from the top ...



First berate Jimbo and then drum up an EXCLUSIVE featuring persecution by the 'aim high' ABC ...

EXCLUSIVE
Jewish editor’s take on ABC bias
Elahn Zetlin was a Jewish employee at the ABC. But he says its coverage of the war in Gaza and a lack of support over anti-Semitism saw him walk away.
By Cameron Stewart

Then over on the extreme far right...



... throw in outrage at the suffering of a "national icon"

Making a national icon a symbol of anti-Semitism is a bridge way too far
The Palestine Action Group’s bid to march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge underscores the theme of the week: history, and the attempt to walk all over it.
By Julie Szego

... with the easy conflation of "protesting Gaza = anti-Semitism", and the job is done.

Meanwhile King Donald has fired the head of the Bureau of Labour Statistics for delivering a bad report, and he's roiled the markets with his tariff madness. 

But what does that count up against the reptiles delivering another EXCLUSIVE rant about Jimbo?

Even the rag where democracy died in a billionaire's purse - Jonathan Capehart is the latest to leave - the headlines take on a different hue ...



But the pond isn't able to look at any of that, because the reptiles are back in their familiar turf, navel gazing and fluff gathering about the joys of climate science denialism ...

Correction, in the case of nattering "Ned" it's a tedious ten minute climb through both siderisms and whataboutisms that manage to deflate and obscure any sense of the science and its implications. 

To achieve that goal, make it all a matter of politics ...



The header: Fasten your seat belts – the politics of climate are turning into a wild ride, Emissions policy has become a make or break issue for Labor and the Coalition.

The pond's suggestion? Fasten your seat belts, the planet is fully stuffed and yet the stuffing is going to get worse, so buckle up for a wild ride.

There was also a credit: Artwork: Frank Ling.

Oh Frank, really? Wouldn't it have been better to blame AI?

And let's not forget the mindless, meaningless mantra: This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there

Now on with "Ned", falling between two stools while attempting to straddle Barners' - Tamworth's undying shame - notion of a middle ...

The curse of climate change politics and policy will haunt the Albanese government’s second term – typified by the mounting obstacles to Labor’s expanding renewables ambition while a divided Coalition is tempted to an irresistible battle over climate policy.
This week, Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen offered a blue skies vision. He predicted this term will likely see renewables pass coal “as our biggest source of electricity and then surpass 50 per cent of our energy”. Bowen reflected back to the dinosaur days, just 20 years ago, when Barnaby Joyce claimed it was technically impossible for the grid to accommodate 5 per cent renewables.
“The Australian people gave us a clear instruction on May 3,” Bowen said. “Keep going. Keep the investment going, keep the transition going. And that’s what we intend to do.
“It remains the case that to rebuild Australia’s energy grid into the modern, reliable, fairer system, we need to get renewables and storage online, faster.”
Bowen’s plan is “to supercharge our transition”. He announced a significant 25 per cent expansion in Labor’s Capacity Investment Scheme – the policy designed to drive private investment into clean energy by offering revenue guarantees. Gas is excluded from the scheme.
The extra eight gigawatt boost will underwrite 40GW of solar, wind and storage to 2030 with benefits to nearly five million households.
These decisions came when analysts warned that renewable investment on existing trends could not meet Labor’s long-championed targets: a 43 per cent emissions reduction level and an 82 per cent renewables target in our energy by 2030.
Bowen remains optimistic, saying Australia is “by and large on track” to meet the 43 per cent and is “confident” of the 82 per cent.

The pond isn't that interested in the nuts and bolts as by the way "Ned" always manages to introduce a sense of saucy fear and doubt into the discussion, helped by reptile distractions, Energy Minister Chris Bowen responded to questions surrounding the government's commitment to meet their renewable energy target of 82 per cent by 2030. “I can absolutely confirm it is this government's intention to continue to work toward that target in 2030… we are making very good progress toward it,” Mr Bowen said during Question Time on Thursday. “This is good news, at least we think it is. “All this leads to an addition to the renewable energy pipeline for our country. We think it’s a good thing, they think it’s a bad thing.”




The trick is to give weight to denialist loons of the Barners kind, and see his form of patented loonery as a challenge to climate and economic credibility ...

Labor’s climate and economic credibility is at stake. This is accentuated by its looming decisions on targets for 2035 where the advisory body, the Climate Change Authority, has previously floated targets in the 65-75 per cent zone, a hefty leap from the 43 per cent that Labor struggles to achieve. Immense political pressure seems to be forming around a 65-75 new-type flexible target.
Bowen told journalist Michelle Grattan the final CCA recommendation will be made public, so “if we haven’t accepted it” that will be transparent. He also warned any target must be achievable: “It’s all very well saying you want 80 or 90 per cent emissions reduction, well, you show me what levers you would pull to get that done.”
He said too high a target would damage economic productivity, a singular point.
That Anthony Albanese re-­appointed Bowen to the climate portfolio is revealing of the PM’s second-term priorities. While much of Labor’s agenda is mired in uncertainties, there is a guarantee – the government, its backers and the entire progressive movement wants a faster, higher, more urgent energy transformation. Renewables are a Labor faith.
But this challenge is something else – it is a massive experiment. Renewables are about building a new energy system, making it reliable along with huge transmission lines. This is one of the greatest economic experiments Labor has embarked upon in its history. It reveals Labor’s modern identity as a progressive party. But this provokes a question: is it still a genuine Labor Party? That means delivering an agenda that works in terms of prices, jobs, budgets and productivity for people, households and industry – not just honouring the climate science.

It also helps if you can bring in a Garnaut to garnish the offering, but not before a snap of the chief villain, That Anthony Albanese re-­appointed Chris Bowen to the climate portfolio is revealing of the PM’s second-term priorities.. Picture: NewsWire/Martin Ollman




"Ned" is grave and solemn when confronted by Garnaut ...

Grave doubts on this task were raised this week by an economic and climate guru, Professor Ross Garnaut, who repudiated the optimism of Albanese and Bowen.
Garnaut was a formative influence on Rudd/Gillard climate policies and is a strong advocate of Australia as a renewable energy superpower. Asked if there was any hope of Labor policy achieving its climate goals, Garnaut told Inquirer: “No, there’s not. We are heading for a climate and energy policy crisis within a few years. These goals can only be achieved with significant policy changes by the government.”

The reptiles even offered a snap, Ross Garnaut. Picture: Liam Kidston




And yet only yesterday the pond featured Killer of the IPA ravaging Garnaut ...

Hours later, climate change economics guru Ross Garnaut said the government would fall short of its existing emission and intermittent energy targets “by a big margin” – let alone the more ambitious targets Chris Bowen is poised to announce. I wouldn’t start stocking up on vitamin C.
The diminishing returns to hysteria and fearmongering isn’t the only problem facing the emissions reduction juggernaut. The rationale for replacing fossil fuels with wind and solar power are crumbling too, as Garnaut’s history of failed predictions and mistaken analyses makes clear.
Launching his 2019 book, Superpower, Garnaut declared he had “no doubt that intermittent renewables could meet 100 per cent of Australia’s electricity requirements by the 2030s, with high degrees of security and reliability, and at wholesale prices much lower than experienced in Australia over the past half dozen years”.
Six years later that’s become a fanciful scenario: wholesale electricity prices have roughly tripled from a decade ago, and reliability has tanked. Australian Energy Market Operator chief Daniel Westerman this week revealed the number of interventions to stave off blackouts had exploded from six in 2016 to 1800 last year.
“Since the summer of 2016-17, the Tesla big battery, other batteries, the government’s gas turbines, and more attentive regulatory agencies have made South Australia possibly the most secure region within the National Energy Market,” he said.
It’s a combination that has also given the state – which turned off its last coal power station in 2016 – the most expensive power in the country. In January SA sought to switch on two diesel generators as it scrambled to upgrade interconnector cables to NSW and Victoria to maintain grid stability.
Still, it’s especially puzzling that Professor Garnaut is still worshipped as some sort of energy policy oracle after championing the idea “green hydrogen” – the alleged underpinning of our future “renewable superpower” status – could be anything other than a trendy boondoggle borne of scientific illiteracy.

And so on, and\ yet here Garnaut is rehabilitated by "Ned", so that "Ned" can just ask questions, express concerns, confound the puzzled Killer even more by taking him as some sort of oracle ... or at least as a way to muddy the waters, introduce murk in the fog of the climate wars ...

When doing FUD, always seek out those who can produce saucy doubts ...

Yet there is virtually no prospect of such changes, as Bowen has made clear. Unsurprisingly, Bowen disagrees with Garnaut. But if Garnaut is right, the Albanese government is heading for a political and policy train wreck – with enormous consequences.
Garnaut is far from alone. While the Coalition disagrees with his solution – a bold carbon price – it agrees with his critique of Labor’s climate policy. On that score a conga line of industry leaders has warned Labor in the past week, with outgoing Rio Tinto boss, Jakob Stausholm, saying our energy prices are incompatible with local manufacturing; EnergyAustralia chief Mark Collette called for a single planning approach across all states to accelerate renewables investment; and Origin Energy CEO Frank Calabria said while big investments were under way, the risks lay in losing public support for the transition along with the rising impact on consumer bills.
The message overall is things are about to get harder.

That's passing true, it's going to get harder and harder to make it to the end, especially with all the interrupting snaps, EnergyAustralia chief Mark Collette. Picture: Jason Edwards, Origin CEO Frank Calabria. Picture: John Feder




It gets even better, as "Ned" yet again pretends that he's not in the land of right-wing populists ...

Garnaut’s judgment may prove more significant for the Coalition than for Labor. It plays directly into the agonising debate the divided Liberals and Nationals are having about whether to ditch their support for net zero at 2050, the policy taken to the past two elections under Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton.
The logic is simple. Indeed, it would seem irrefutable. If Garnaut is right and Labor is heading into climate convulsions, the Liberals have a golden opportunity – let it happen. Ensure Labor is held responsible for its policies.
It’s a tactical approach that says: don’t make yourself the issue, don’t think your job is to appease the populist right, don’t embrace the mad option of winding back the clock and ditching net zero.
That gifts Albanese his dream – making the Liberals the issue, running a scare campaign at which Labor excels. Imagine how powerful it would be: depicting the ­Coalition as regressing to become climate deniers. That’s exactly how it would be cast by Labor, the teals, the Greens and the progressive media.
Middle Australia is not asking for this reversal. Moreover, support for net zero had nothing to do with the Liberals almost being eliminated in urban Australia at the last election. Any problem was the opposite: not being seen to be credible on climate action. Net zero is a benchmark 25 years away. It’s the obsession of right-wing ­populists, but not the public.
The new Liberal leader, Sussan Ley, is a moderate who knows the party must retain credibility on climate policy. The task for the Liberals is to focus on Labor’s policies now, out to 2030 and 2035, given the multiple problems arising from system reliability, more price ­escalation, the construction task, threats to industry competitiveness, more government spending on subsidies and consumer price compensation, and a social licence crisis over wind farms.

Poor Sussssan, Sussan Ley is a moderate who knows the party must retain credibility on climate policy. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman




How does "Ned" help?

Why by making life hard for her by proposing Garnaut as a solution, only for "Ned" to immediately advise that his solution isn't actually a solution...

The near universal sentiment among Liberals is to savage Labor policy and prosecute its political accountability. The decisive question is: how should this be done?
For the Liberals, this decision is bigger than climate – it is about the their future identity and meaning as a party. Do they still aspire to be a governing party for all Australians or will they retreat to becoming an echo chamber for the populist right, pretending climate change is either a hoax or not a priority, posing as ideological heroes but turning their backs on Middle Australia? That is the road to extinction as a governing party.
Consider the campaigning reality. Who on earth in today’s Liberal Party could spearhead an anti-net zero campaign against the whole weight of progressive power? Ley would have no interest in such a role. In fact, there is ­nobody. It would require an even greater performance than Tony Abbott delivered as leader when he turned sentiment against carbon pricing and the Gillard government scheme. And Abbott is no longer in politics.
Running against net zero is a stance the Liberals would be utterly unable to prosecute with ­success.
The party should listen to Garnaut’s analysis in his speech to the Clean Energy Summit. He began by saying the renewable energy transition was “sick”.
Garnaut said: “Australia is currently on a trajectory to miss its renewable targets because of low investment and output in grid-scale solar and wind. Not by a little, but by a big margin. Progress on Australia becoming the world’s main exporter of zero-carbon energy-intensive goods is being blocked by renewable energy supply in the grid. There is now almost no new private grid-scale investment in solar and wind generation that is not underwritten by the CIS and by government through other mechanisms. We run the risk of spending a national budgetary fortune to buy failure.”
The Liberals won’t accept Garnaut’s solution – resort to a carbon price – and neither will Labor. But there is much in his analysis for the Coalition.
Every sign, reinforced by the global trend, is that this energy transition is getting far harder for Australia – despite the capital being amassed for investment.
Outside Bowen, who has the toughest job in the government? Try the Minister for Industry and Innovation, Tim Ayres, who faces multiple problems from uncompetitive metals smelters around Australia’s regions via a mix of high costs and China’s pricing tactics.

Cue another snap, Outside Chris Bowen, who has the toughest job in the government? Try the Minister for Industry and Innovation, Tim Ayres. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman




Remember the aim is FUD, so just keep on asking questions ...

This goes to copper, aluminium and lead and raises profound questions for Labor: what does its Future Made in Australia policy actually mean?
Patronising lectures to Australia about its so-called climate obligations are totally counter-productive, witness this week’s visit from UN climate change executive secretary Simon Stiell who said weak targets would damage our living standards. Warning that mega-droughts would make “fresh fruit and veg a once-a-year treat”, Stiell gets paid to say this stuff around the world. It doesn’t help.

Then comes the giveaway, the thing that undoes all "Ned's" feeble attempt at "balance":

The populist right has every justification for mocking the self-serving hysteria from professional climate advocates. 

Well no, there's no taint in being a professional scientist, nor in being a professional observer of the science, and if that leads to advocacy, why should it be tarnished with the verbiage of "self-serving hysteria"?

"Ned" realises this is going a tad far, so he tries a billy goat butt for balance ...

Yet the populist right is no slouch at fabricating its own fantasies – that China isn’t serious about renewables, that because emission reduction targets are tough they should be abandoned, even that the entire project of promoting renewables over fossil fuels is a flawed endeavour.

And then the true sign of a verbal fraud practising verbal gymnastics? Introduce talk of "the reality" ... (not the reality of climate science and its current findings) ...

The reality is that Australian government financing of new coal-fired stations won’t happen and that recycling the policy of public ownership of new nuclear plants – rejected at the last election – isn’t worth a re-run in those terms.
Liberal frontbencher Dan Tehan heads the net zero review across the Coalition parties, a daunting endeavour given strong Nationals sentiment against net zero and Ley’s desire to have a united Coalition position.

And so to the real purpose of "Ned's" mission. Bring in the loons...

Barnaby Joyce has read the mood of the Nationals’ constituency and promotes his bill to eliminate the net zero commitment. But this achieves nothing, only making Tehan’s job more difficult.

There's even a snap, Barnaby Joyce. Picture: NewsWire/Martin Ollman




Why is the pond always reminded of the infallible Pope?




Has Barners really read the mood of the Nationals constituency? 

Sure there are a lot of Nimbys doing the rounds when it comes to renewables, but the farmers the pond has talked to understand that climate science explains a lot, and that adaptation is necessary... and not in the future, but now.

"Ned" is mainly interested in the larrikins and the ratbags and the price loons because of the wild ride that will excite the lizard Oz hive mind ...

Obviously, the Liberals cannot afford any perception the Nationals are dictating the Coalition’s climate policy. That would be the ultimate folly. The solution surely lies in avoiding a binary approach. That means starting with a new framing of the goal, perhaps along the lines: “An Australian Way to Achieve Net Zero.”
But fasten your seat belts. The politics of climate are turning into a mad, wild ride.
Consider the extremes: Greens leader Larissa Waters calls for net zero to be achieved at 2035 with bans on new coal and gas mines – typical of gesture politics from the Greens with complete disregard of the damage being done.
At the other end of extremism, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson moved in the Senate this week that as a matter of “urgency” net zero be scrapped as an emissions target. She warned Australia faced a dismal future where the rich would be “controlling the plebs” and people would be told “what they eat, where they move, what cars they drive and how far they go” – basic freedoms would be extinguished. This is the coming populism on steroids.
In a deluded but ominous claim, Hanson compared herself with the leader of Reform UK, Nigel Farage, who has eaten into both Labour and Tory votes in Britain. Signalling she will recruit rejection of net zero as a One Nation cause, Hanson is already targeting the centrism of Sussan Ley.
“If she (Ley) wants to move further to the centre, to the left, to appease those moderates in the party, I’m quite happy to scoop up those votes,” Hanson said. “Everything that Nigel Farage stands for, I’ve been talking about for years.”

And once he's enjoyed the ride? An attempt at tamping down, a hint of moderation ...

Here’s a big message: the Coalition risks a voting fracture on the right over net zero. The most recent Newspoll had Hanson’s primary vote at 8 per cent – even higher than her election result – with the Coalition on 29 per cent. Labor won’t worry about the Greens, knowing it will command 85-plus per cent of their preferences. But that doesn’t happen with Hanson’s vote: the more it rises, the weaker the Coalition becomes.
Here is the daunting task for Tehan and the Liberals: it is neither a political nor policy option for the Liberals to abandon net zero at 2050 – yet the party needs a branding and a formula that is cognisant of the risk of voter fragmentation on the right.
The Liberals need to keep the public’s focus on the cost of Labor’s agenda. But they should be fully aware of the paradox of climate politics in Australia, as revealed again in a SECNewgate Energy Edition. The survey showed a majority “see the energy transition as positive and want it to go faster”, despite energy costs being the biggest concern. Some 60 per cent of people felt positive about the move to renewables, with 55 per cent saying the transition was too slow against only 17 per cent saying it was too fast.
Albanese and Bowen have a foundation on which to build; the Coalition should heed the warning – it needs to be prudent and avoid grand gestures that won’t fly with Middle Australia.

The pond was reminded of this in Crikey (sorry, paywall)... with the knowledge that whatever "Ned" says, this is what will drive the lizard Oz onwards ...



That's where both siderism gets you ... with the loudest loon cries the ones that are heard, fudging and distorting and misreading and misrepresenting ...

On the other hand, the Ughmann is never up for anything but blather with an Xian theological egde, as you might expect from an unreformed former seminarian.

That way the Ughmann reduces science to talk of the "faithful", and the result is even more unendurable, at a bare 6 minutes, than keeping "Ned" company for his ten minute ramble...



The header: Dilemma for Coalition as economic reality bites the net-zero faithful, The Coalition is trapped between physics, economics and geopolitics, which expose the net zero by 2050 target as a fantasy, and the iron law of political numbers, which shows abandoning this empty pledge risks electoral damnation.

The caption: National Party MPs and senators, including Matt Canavan and Barnaby Joyce, have been vocal above the Coalition’s net-zero target. Picture: Martin Ollman

The endless mantra: This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there

The pond has been here many times before with the Ughmann, and no doubt will be here again in the future, and the best that can be said, in a Freudian way, is that the poor thing is always in the grip of projection, which is why he attributes to others the quality of "faithful", as he pursues his own version of the faith in a faithful way ...

Here’s a wicked political dilemma: When faced with the choice, do you tell a hard truth and risk losing votes, or mouth a popular mantra and lose your soul?
The Coalition now finds itself trapped between physics, economics and geopolitics, which expose the net zero by 2050 target as a fantasy, and the iron law of political numbers, which shows abandoning this empty pledge risks electoral damnation. Mishandle this moment and things could get worse, particularly for the Liberals.
So, once again, the remnant opposition finds itself headlining the energy debate, while the real story is that the Albanese government’s energy transition is falling apart. The government will not meet its 2030 targets, and trying to hit them will waste billions, weaken our electricity grid, destroy businesses and beggar the already poor. Benefits, such as grants for batteries and rooftop solar, will flow to the rich. Despite this, some time soon, even less credible targets will be set as the government rebrands a fool’s errand as progress. To argue net zero cannot and will not be achieved is not to deny climate change, but it does defy a powerful orthodoxy. And history has not been kind to heretics.
But how do you ignore glaring, inconvenient facts? After more than a quarter of a century of global pledges to cut fossil fuel use, last year the world burned more coal, oil and gas than in any other year in human history. Global carbon emissions rose again, as they do every year there isn’t a financial crash or a pandemic. Trillions have been spent, trillions more will be demanded, and the one metric that matters keeps pointing to abject failure. That’s not an opinion. That’s the record. To say nations are not serious about net zero is not a conservative talking point, it simply describes the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.

As always in these exercises, the notorious war criminal and man in grip of greed for oil and gas money is enjoined in the cause, Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair called out climate policies as “unrealistic and therefore unworkable”. Picture: AFP




Called out? So at first glance it seems ...

Former British Labour prime minister Tony Blair was accused of heresy when he called out climate policies as “unrealistic and therefore unworkable”.
“Too often, political leaders fear saying what many know to be true: the current approach isn’t working,” Blair wrote in the foreword to a paper from his institute calling for a reset in climate policy.

Why is it that the servile lickspittle's retreat is never mentioned? 

It's easy enough to find, as in The Independent ...



Dear sweet long absent lord how that war criminal's face immediately causes the pond to retch ...

Okay, so he's a fair weather friend, fickle and veering as the need and the wind takes him ... and if he's an argument, bring on the next needless war.

Now here's where the Ughmann really shows his cloth (you might throw in a dog collar just for fun)...

Dr Varun Sivaram, an American physicist who was managing director for clean-energy innovation in the Biden-Kerry climate team, has described the global target of net-zero emissions by 2050 as “utterly implausible”. He now heads the Council on Foreign Relations’ Climate Realism Initiative.
Both men believe burning fossil fuels is driving climate change. Both also recognise target-driven policy has failed, because the world’s energy systems are run on the rules of physics, not politics.
But facts don’t matter, because the climate change debate runs on faith, not reason. Net zero is now a central part of the liturgy, a climate communion wafer transubstantiated into salvation through a process no one can explain. Recite the climate creed and anything you say after that, no matter how mad, will be met with cries of amen.

That blather about transubstantiation would once have caused the pond to utter an oath, but perhaps that would upset the Google bot.

The pond will settle for "projection", and pause to wonder if the delusional Ughmann still thinks he's eating human flesh and swallowing human blood on a Sunday? 

Has he ever wondered about the science of that, or why coeliacs are cast into eternal hell and damnation because the wafers contain gluten?

Never mind, enough with such scientific questions, cue a snap of Twiggy, Dr Andrew Forrest has warned “the propagation of oil and gas is hurting every person on this planet”. Picture: Martin Ollman




Apart from giving the pond a chance to joke about Catholicism and have Fellini-esque memories of nuns, what else?

Well there's the usual assembly of useless data, and never mind the cost of what climate change is doing, and will do, to the planet ...

This week, Australian billionaire iron ore magnate and green energy evangelist Andrew Forrest declared in these pages: “The propagation of oil and gas is hurting every person on this planet.”
Except that coal, oil and gas delivered a civilisational leap in human prosperity. For nearly two millennia, global economic growth was glacial. According to economic historian Angus Maddison, world GDP in the year 1AD was about $182bn (in 1990 international dollars). By 1800, it had risen to $695bn, a fourfold increase over 1800 years. Then came coal, which fuelled the Industrial Revolution. Between 1800 and 1900, world GDP nearly tripled to $1.9 trillion. In the 20th century, oil and gas supercharged the transformation, with GDP surging to $41 trillion, a 21-fold rise in just 100 years.
Rich nations are energy rich. Your standard of living is directly linked to the amount of heat you get to waste, whether you see it or not. The average Australian has around 63,000 kilowatt-hours of energy at their disposal each year.
In the 20th century, life expectancy in Australia rose from about 55 to 77 for men, and 59 to 82 for women, because wealth improves health. But the role of oil and gas in human wellbeing runs deeper still. These fuels provide the petrochemical building blocks used to make almost all of our essential drugs.

Desperate stuff, and so it's time to introduce a handy straw dog, one who got the hive mind into an uproar this week, UN climate chief Simon Stiell argues that fruit and vegetables could become a once-a-year treat.




Really reptiles? That's the best you could do by way of illustration?

Never mind, it sent the Ughmann off ... and yes, there was yet more talk of divine intervention, great theologians and God's will ...

Here let’s bring in UN climate chief Simon Stiell, who, true to his agency’s hysterical form, wound the dial to catastrophe this week as he warned that without stronger climate action, fruit and vegetables could become a once-a-year treat. It is interesting to note that the data behind this dire fortune-telling does not come from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, which do not forecast megadroughts or food scarcity for Australia. Stiell mixed the most extreme scenarios he could muster into a B-grade schlock-horror script designed to terrify the kiddies into submission. And the evidence shows fossil fuels don’t starve the planet, they feed it.
Global food production exploded in the 20th century, driven by a surge in yields. Between 1960 and 1997, cropland increased by less than 10 per cent, yet food production nearly tripled thanks to synthetic fertilisers, mechanised farming and oil-powered transport. At the core of the Green Revolution was the Haber-Bosch process, which uses natural gas to pull nitrogen from the atmosphere to make fertiliser. Without gas, half the world’s population would starve.
Before moving on, it’s worth noting Forrest’s condemnation of gas jars with the fact he owns Squadron Energy, the company building a liquefied natural gas import terminal in NSW. The unkind, but not unreasonable, might call this rank hypocrisy. This column will simply observe that the Lord works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform.
When it comes to divine intervention, the Coalition could use some. One of Australia’s greatest theologians once wisely observed that God’s will is what you make it, so the first step might be to stop making yourself the target. Why not declare a 12-month truce on fighting with each other over targets and direct all that energy outward by spending every waking moment pointing to the high cost, multiple failures and profound risks of the system under construction? Nail down the numbers on every subsidy, expose the massive green grift, point to the deeds of the rest of the world. Pray that the government gets its wish of having tens of thousands descend on Adelaide in 2026 for the global UN climate jamboree and highlight the rank hypocrisy of the most carbon-intensive show on Earth.

At this point it's important to throw in a "process" in order to sound science wise, The Haber-Bosch process, which uses natural gas to pull nitrogen from the atmosphere to make fertiliser, has been at the core of the Green Revolution.



Really reptiles? That's the best you could do by way of illustration? Though to be fair, that does evoke the depth of the Ughmann's insights ... the sort of snap you might expect in Country Life...

And so to a final scheming for the stuffing of the planet...

Abandoning net zero might well be the goal, but in order to win a war you need to raise an army, and the population is a long way from being recruited to that cause. But the same polls that show a majority wanting action on climate change also show that people aren’t prepared to pay a high price for it, particularly when advocates promised them it would be cheap. If people start making the connection between soaring power bills and the true cost of overbuilding a grid with weather-dependent generation, their view on the transition will sour.
Educate the public. Most people have no idea where their power, food or wealth comes from, and they need to make the connection between their lifestyle and what fuels it. Champion getting new gas projects going in NSW and Victoria, which the Greens, the teals and most of Labor will find hard to do because their base has been conditioned to hating all fossil fuel. Champion carbon capture and storage. And stay the course on nuclear energy, which the rest of the world is embracing. The argument should simply be “lift the ban, have the debate”.
Read the reports of the IPCC and point to the large gaps between what they say about climate change and extreme weather and how they are portrayed by politicians. Climate change is a problem, but it is not an existential threat. Net zero is a slogan, not a solution. If the world is not acting in unison, then nothing Australia does will make a jot’s worth of difference. We can spend trillions on abatement and then have to spend trillions on adaptation. What sense is there in that? Australia needs to stay wealthy and spend its limited resources where they can do most good. With enough work, what sounds like heresy today may one day look like wisdom.

Say what? Climate change is a problem? 

Who'd have guessed? 

Shouldn't we just hunker down, say a few prayers, eat a little human flesh, drink a little human blood, and wait for the rapture?

And now to close by celebrating freedumb, the freedumb to endure "Ned" and the Ughmann and gaily laugh as we wander down the road to extinction ...




15 comments:

  1. "Trump’s Bid To Fire BLS Commissioner ‘Preposterously Stupid And Deeply Dangerous’

    "There is absolutely no chance that the BLS commissioner manipulated the jobs and unemployment data to hurt Donald Trump," a former labor official says.
    ...
    "The agency reported Friday that the economy only added adisappointing 73,000 jobs in June, which was less than expected, and revised the counts from two previous reports downward by a combined 258,000 jobs.
    ...
    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-firing-bls-commissioner-stupid_n_688d2290e4b022644fdf3079

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    1. The God-Emperor will determine reality from now on, fellow Anon.

      Delete
  2. “Abbott is no longer in politics”, states Ned. “Could have fooled me”, replies pretty much anyone who pays the slightest attention to political debate , not to mention intro-party machinations, in this country.

    Of course Ned means that the Onion Muncher is no longer a Federal MP, but it indicates that the panicky old dodderer may have spent a few too many decades focussing on Parliament. He’s certainly lost touch with reality if he believes that Barnaby is a genuine representative of the views of the rural sector as a whole (the views of a few slurred voices in the front bar of the Kootingal Hotel at closing time, perhaps….).

    It may be true that Parliament is the means by which issues are finally dealt with through legislation, but it’s hardly the sole mechanism through which those issues are debated and policies determined. Believe it or not, Neddy, there’s even a role for “the self-serving hysteria from professional climate advocates”.

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    Replies
    1. Blair is no longer in politics.
      Yet politics is blaring loud and clear from Blair.

      Delete
  3. Dorothy - thank you for churning through the utter dross of the last few days, that we did not have to do so. I was thinking the same for the morning of this day, when I came to Ned's "But this challenge is something else – it is a massive experiment. "

    That can apply so well in the context that we humans are continuing with the massive experiment of cranking up the temperature of this planet. It is not a well-designed experiment because we do not have another, similar, planet, for comparison - one where we do not fiddle with the composition of the atmosphere. And, as Ned's rambles remind us - it is not truly a controlled experiment, because there is no agreed arrangement for turning off the supply of carbon dioxide, and other greenhouse gases, as the experiment progresses.

    In a strictly epistemological discussion (which none of the reptile riters 'do') the essential hypothesis on global warming from greenhouse gases may not be considered as proven; but that same discussion would require those claiming to be uconvinced to advance alternate hypotheses on why the climate is showing such strong indications of warming, when the known longer-term cycles should have the planet going into a cooling phase now. It is not an 'alternate hypothesis' to say 'do nothing to examine this phenomenon'.

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  4. Meanwhile, the ‘Nine Papers’ might, might, be easing away from the ‘Newscorplite’ style that marked Stutchbury’s term in the swivel chair. ‘Rear Window’ in the ‘FIn’ for Friday First included an amusing account of John Anderson (the one who was, for a while, deputy prime minister) and Rowan Dean (happily, there is but one known Rowan) speaking to a Liberal branch meeting in Roseville, Sydney. The revelations that particularly appealed to the viewers through the ‘Rear Window’, came from Anderson responding to a question on voters in former strong Liberal seats voting Teals into parliament.

    Anderson turned to the writings of Iain McGilchrist, on ‘left brain, right brain’, apparently with emphasis on ‘luxury belief’ leading a fanciful ‘Chloe, 41, of Lindfield, with three children, driving BYD’ not liking Peter Dutton. As Anderson put it, Chloe’s ‘luxury beliefs’ meant that she would not recognise that her interest in nett-zero would ‘undo everything that lets us have those luxury beliefs’.

    Presumably someone at the meeting recorded the speakers, because the article quotes Anderson being ‘really blunt’, with ‘There is absolutely no bloody excuse for educated Australians to be so pig ignorant about their children and their grandchildren’s future.’

    As the watchers through the Window remark, a National, addressing Liberal members in the electorate of Bradfield (who won that one?) as bird brains (part of McGilchrist’s thesis) and pig ignorant, should help win back those female voters. Perhaps Freya Leach can take it up in the Sky, with diamonds.

    For those interested in McGilchrist’s work (from 15 years back) - A C Grayling made some telling points in

    Grayling AC Literary Review, In two minds. http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/grayling_12_09.html

    - alas, it is now paywalled, but the elements are available in other citations.

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    1. Thanks Chadwick.
      "alas, it is now paywalled, but the elements are available in other citations".

      Whoa! Grayling has so many papers and citations.

      I've tried searching both Grayling site... blog and academic for "elements are available in other citations"... bit came up short.

      Any titles, links per chance?

      Delete
    2. Anonymous - this is part of a review -

      A tale of two hemispheres
      James Willis
      British Journal of General Practice 2010; 60 (572): 226-227. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp10X483779

      - which conveniently identifies Grayling's main points. Willis, in turn, takes issue with what he claims is Grayling seeing it as 'eithor/or', where McGilchrist did write about the two 'sides' needing to be balanced to reach effective conclusions.

      Of course, I warmed to Willis when he cited Paul Dirac.


      "AC Grayling, writing in the Literary Review2 challenges McGilchrist's thesis on two fronts: First he says that McGilchrist builds too much upon what is in fact a ‘slender state of [neurophysiological] knowledge’. I do not agree — I find the evidence cited in such detail extremely convincing. But it wouldn't really matter if it wasn't; McGilchrist makes it clear he is content for his thesis to be seen as a metaphor (see opposite). And in that case it is emphatically a metaphor which works. It underpins, validates, explains a whole slew of intuitions about general practice and life which I have felt and tried to express in (inevitably) inadequate words and which I know are widely shared. It is also a metaphor which fits in the most beautiful way to clarify our entire cultural history. It was the great physicist Paul Dirac who saw beauty as a hallmark of truth in science.

      AC Grayling's second criticism concerns the section towards the end of the book (pages 428–434) which describes what a society which embodied the left hemisphere world view would tend to look like. It is a chilling catalogue of the things that most worry so many of us about the world today. But Grayling complains that this picture is not matched in the book by a description of what a right hemisphere world would look like — with its equally troubling superstition, arbitrary authority, religiosity, and so on. "

      Delete
    3. Ta.
      "A tale of two hemispheres
      James Willis
      British Journal of General Practice 2010
      ...
      McGilchrist; "What all these point to is the fundamentally divided nature of mental experience. When one puts that together with the fact that the brain is divided into two relatively independent chunks which just happen to mirror the very dichotomies that are being pointed to — alienation versus engagement, abstraction versus incarnation, the categorical versus the unique, the general versus the particular, the part versus the whole, and so on — it seems like a metaphor that might have some literal truth. But if it turns out to be ‘just’ a metaphor, I will be content. I have a high regard for metaphor. It is how we come to understand the world."

      I want to hear Karl Fristin's review. Sadly...

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    4. Or we could try to rewire...
      "When belief systems interact, the real contest isn’t just about exchanging arguments—it’s about trying to reshape each other’s underlying structures. Each side looks for ways to weaken, sever, or absorb the connections that make the other system stable. Sometimes this means targeting a core idea, sometimes it means undermining the links between concepts, and sometimes it means co-opting a rival’s most appealing elements. The result isn’t just a clash of opinions, but a series of moves and countermoves that can change the very architecture of what people believe."
      https://vasily.cc/blog/facts-dont-change-minds/

      Delete
    5. And we are different...
      "Together, these findings provide novel evidence that individual differences in callosal organization are related to the extent of nondominant cortical activity during performance during a lateralized task, and further, that this relationship has consequences on behavior."
      https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6670679/

      Most of these studies relate to motor skills it seems, less re decision, novelty.

      Delete
  5. "Apart from giving the pond a chance to joke about Catholicism and have Fellini-esque memories of nuns, what else?"

    3 triggers in one... and what becomes of Star Trek under PSKY, as Cobert anchored skydance's ticker to yellow liquid.

    "Progressive Pop Culture in the Age of Authoritarian Corporate Mergers"
    JUL 31, 2025 by Mindy Clegg
    ...
    "Totalitarians regimes on the 20s and 30s embraced mass media to further the cult of personality. Since then, modern autocrats (of whatever strip) tend to embrace a similar strategy of employing the media as a face of autocratic state, right down to the embrace of autocratic kitsch. The Trump administration is pursuing a very similar strategy via their demands on mass media companies and support of allies taking over mass media companies.

    "So, what could that mean for some of the dramatic programming produced by Paramount? South Park just declared their defiance to Trump in their recent episode that dropped right after they cut a deal with Paramount for the new season, working in a mocking “pro-Trump” commercial at the end. It tracks with Parker’s and Stone’s history of mocking those they deem cultural elites from whatever political orientation. Their politics tends towards cynical libertarianism, a typical Gen X pose. It remains to be seen if Trump will demand retaliation against the show. What about another tent pole property on Paramount, Star Trek? If the South Park guys are able to skate by on their sardonic irony, Star Trek’s appeal rests in an idealistic, earnest authenticity. It’s worth visiting a recent video by youtuber Damien Walter, where he called Star Trek “liberal propaganda.” He’s not wrong on that, although I think we could explore the idea a bit more. So I want to engage in a bit of criticism to explore what precisely this means. Lots of culture and communication can be characterized as propaganda, after all.

    https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2025/07/progressive-pop-culture-in-the-age-of-authoritarian-corporate-mergers.html#more-284308

    "Stiell mixed the most extreme scenarios he could muster into a B-grade schlock-horror script designed to terrify the kiddies into submission" which may be Psky's playbook it seems.

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    1. PSKY's bladder is also all in the family. Whoda thunk it!

      'Oracle is currently in discussions with Skydance Media to reach a major software deal following the closing of the latter’s pending $8 billion merger with Paramount Global, according to Bloomberg.

      "The outlet reported that the agreement, which would be worth roughly $100 million per year, would see Paramount and its subsidiaries, such as CBS and MTV, use Oracle’s cloud software. It added that the details of the agreement are subject to change.

      "Skydance is founded by David Ellison, the son of the software giant’s chairman Larry Ellison. News of the talks with Oracle come after the younger Ellison recently met with FCC chairman Brendan Carr as he looks to secure regulatory approval of the merger with Paramount. The elder Ellison is notably providing $6 billion in financing for the deal."

      https://www.thewrap.com/oracle-paramount-skydance-cloud-software-deal-talks/

      Delete

  6. Search for "alternatives to Haber-Bosch" and you find many articles, including
    "A shocking new way to make ammonia, no fossil fuels needed." Science Daily, 5 July 2025. .
    On this one story there are four related stories on how to make ammonia, no fossil fuels needed.
    But you can't expect the Ughmann to look for alternatives, he has his faith, fossil fuels good, renewables bad. To mangle the old adage, there's no fool like an oil fool.

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  7. I was intrigued by the Ughmann’s “God’s will is what you make it” line; who was the supposedly prominent Australian theologian being quoted. To my surprise, a quick Google search turned up only two citations; one was of course today’s sermon. The other was a Sydney Morning Herald article from 12April 2022 which used the phrase, but as a part of the article’s regular text - not as a quotation. A quick perusal of the article - an opinion piece on the then-current 2022 election campaign - revealed its author to be one Chris Uhlmann.

    A kind interpretation would be that the Ughmann is enjoying a little in-joke and doesn’t seriously consider himself to be a major theologian. The extent to which both the 2022 piece and today’s rant are awash with religious imagery does make me wonder, though.

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