Are GE (owns NBC) quietly pulling out of the Wind Turbine business?

Also here – - Bishop Hill blog – Happer on CNBC - http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/5/17/happer-on-cnbc.html

The Aussie conservatives look set to romp it in in the September Election and their draft Environment plan is very interesting.

They will abolish the Climate Change Department – good.

They will face down the Opposition with a double dissolution on the Carbon Tax if alarmists still control the Senate – good.

They will water down their ridiculous “Direct Action (carbon) Plan” by calling for submissions, discussions, etc, etc, and eventually try to bring it in a year into their 3 year term , maybe – good.

They will try to head off the very real threat to the Queensland Mining and Agricultural industries by the EU greenies at the UN with a G.B.Reef “protection strategy” – good.

They will create a “Green Army” and “Landcare Recovery” projects so happy little greenies can run around savin-da-planet without doing to much harm to the Country’s economy – good.

They will negotiate with the States to consolidate “green tape” and streamline environment protection measures – good.

All good – BUT

WHAT ABOUT THE RET?! (Renewable Energy Target)
It was the mandatory RET which caused our power bills to double almost overnight.
It was the RET which gave the power generators and distributors a licence to print money.
It was the RET which made Aussie Industry uncompetitive.
It was the RET which waste(s) billions on “alternatives” which simply do not work.
It is the RET which continues to pour our money into sterile unproductive industries which need a miracle to succeed.
It was the most stupid mistake made by the AUS parliament and it was made almost unanimously, by both sides of politics.

Liberals’ plan to dismantle carbon laws
by: GRAHAM LLOYD, ENVIRONMENT EDITOR
May 18, 2013 12:00AM
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/liberals-plan-to-dismantle-carbon-laws/story-fn59niix-1226645695162 (paywalled)
also here
http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&sqi=2&ved=0CDIQqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Fnational-affairs%2Fliberals-plan-to-dismantle-carbon-laws%2Fstory-fn59niix-1226645695162&ei=x9-XUeayJOO1iAeProGYAQ&usg=AFQjCNF4wMgafZ1fgOgvn4dlZCrolEWM9A&sig2=WthuQmzU0QkQvEYYUyCT-w

” …The timetable outlines how the Coalition’s environment plans would be implemented. The federal environment department would be instructed on day one of an Abbott government to prepare legislation to scrap the carbon tax. The legislation would be introduced to parliament on day 30 and preparations would be made for a double-dissolution election after five months if parliament did not agree to repeal the carbon tax.

A call for submissions on the direct action plan to replace the carbon tax would be made on day 30 of an Abbott government and a white paper prepared the following month.

The white paper would be released on day 105 with a two-month consultation period before legislation was introduced on the six-month anniversary of a Coalition government. Implementation would take place after 10 months.

Discussions would begin with state governments to hand over environmental decision-making powers after one month, with a preliminary agreement in place at the end of month two.

The blueprint suggests a series of one-stop shop agreements would be reached with states over several months and amendments to the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act after eight months. The document aims to have all agreements in place on the first anniversary of a Coalition government…. “

 The Climate Change revolutionaries behind the UNIPCC never stood a chance in the U S of A, but they almost succeeded in destroying Europe so it could be remade as a Green Socialist Utopia.
Their attempts at a Green Economy were fatally flawed and are now proving politically untenable.

WSJ
BRUSSELS BEAT
May 16, 2013, 3:01 p.m. ET.
Europe’s Manufacturers Feel Squeezed As Officials Talk of Rebuilding Industry, Business Leaders See the Real Challenge as Just Holding On
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323398204578486910790220942.html

Meanwhile in the USA, A fracking boom sneaked in under the Obama/Greenie regulation radar, which was focused on Climate Change, and now it is too late to stop it.

I note “The Left Coast” is unsurprisingly failing there.

FORBES
America Works
5/15/2013 @ 10:30AM |5,973 views
America’s New Manufacturing Boomtowns
Joel Kotkin, Contributor
http://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2013/05/15/americas-manufacturing-boomtowns/

” …With the exception of oil-rich Bakersfield, no California metro area approaches the top rungs of our manufacturing list. Most worrisome is the poor performance of Los Angeles-Long Beach, which ranked 46th out of 66 large metro areas. Still the nation’s largest manufacturing region, L.A. has lost some 4.7% of its industrial jobs since 2010, declining as the nation’s factory economy surged forward. Doing even worse is neighboring San Bernardino-Riverside, traditionally where L.A. firms expand, ranking a dismal 64th. But not all the bad news is in California. The most poorly performing manufacturing metro areas include such old industrial hubs as Camden-Union, rock bottom at No. 66, which has lost 7% of its manufacturing jobs since 2009 and a remarkable 23% since 2007. Both No. 62 Newark-Union, N.J., and No. 56 Rochester, N.Y., are also rapidly becoming industrial has-beens. Clearly America’s nascent industrial revival still has not reached many parts of the country. But given the evident relationship between growing economies generally and a vibrant manufacturing sector, perhaps more regions will place greater emphasis on industrial employment as they seek to recover from the Great Recession.”

Full List: The Big Cities Leading The U.S. Manufacturing Revival - http://www.forbes.com/pictures/edgl45femh/methodology-16/

The hapless Obama tried to fight Climate Change by regulation, only to have it blow up in his face. OOPSIE

WASHINGTON EXAMINER
EPA inspector general investigating claims agency used fees to block FOIA requests WashingtonExaminer.com
http://washingtonexaminer.com/epa-inspector-general-investigating-claims-agency-used-fees-to-block-foia-requests/article/2529867

 

 

 

 

 

 

WSJ
Political Diary From the IRS to the EPA – WSJ.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324767004578485020262618766.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

A nice acerbic little piece from the American media which is functioning well, unlike the Aussie Media which has been largely beaten into politically correct submission.

PENNSYLVANIA TRIBUNE
An inconvenient truth: The CO2 scare
By Tribune-Review
Published: Thursday, May 16, 2013, 8:55 p.m. Updated 17 hours ago
http://triblive.com/opinion/editorials/4024980-74/levels-ppm-climate#axzz2TZnCpko0

As atmospheric carbon-dioxide levels verge on 400 parts per million (ppm), climate cluckers are aflutter over what Chicken-Little-in-chief Al Gore has called “A sad milestone. A call to action.” But this alarm is as baseless as any sounded by the blame-mankind crowd.

Countering their politically driven alarmism with cold, hard scientific facts that show why CO2 at 400 ppm is a nonissue is ClimateDepot.com ‘s Marc Morano. He notes that:

• CO2 is just one of hundreds of factors governing temperature and climate.

• From geology’s long-view perspective, current CO2 levels are remarkably low.

• Peer-reviewed studies have shown that ice ages occurred when CO2 levels ranged from 2,000 ppm all the way up to 8,000 ppm; that temperatures comparable to today’s prevailed even with CO2 levels 20 times higher; and that CO2 rose as high as 425 ppm nearly 13,000 years ago — when humanity couldn’t  possibly  have influenced climate.

• Ice-core data show temperatures rise hundreds or thousands of years  before CO2 levels rise.

• And there’s considerable evidence that climate drives CO2 levels, not the other way around.

That the Chicken Littles cluck so loudly over 400-ppm CO2 levels despite such damning evidence against their case reveals them for the science-twisting, anti-growth political opportunists they are. Experts at doctoring evidence to fit their preordained conclusions, they’re now simply ignoring the inconvenient scientific truth about CO2.

Sea World on Australia’s Gold Coast.

Q. What happens when you place a Polar Bear in a sub-tropical climate, albeit with a cooling system?

A. Not much – it just turns back into a Brown Bear!

Read the detailed expose’ here – PDF
http://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2013/03/Crockford-Polar-Bears-3.pdf

It is a fundamental flaw in Green philosophy that Earth is perfect and unchanging and must be preserved as it is in time. Here on the Gold Coast we see a species adapt and prosper to a radical change in its environment right before our eyes. It had to be forced to breed, but that’s only to be expected, it is in a cage.

WALL STREET JOURNAL OPINION
May 8, 2013, 6:37 p.m. ET.
Harrison H. Schmitt and William Happer: In Defense of Carbon Dioxide
The demonized chemical compound is a boon to plant life and has little correlation with global temperature.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323528404578452483656067190.html

“ …The current levels of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere, approaching 400 parts per million, are low by the standards of geological and plant evolutionary history. Levels were 3,000 ppm, or more, until the Paleogene period (beginning about 65 million years ago). For most plants, and for the animals and humans that use them, more carbon dioxide, far from being a “pollutant” in need of reduction, would be a benefit. This is already widely recognized by operators of commercial greenhouses, who artificially increase the carbon dioxide levels to 1,000 ppm or more to improve the growth and quality of their plants.

Using energy from sunlight—together with the catalytic action of an ancient enzyme called rubisco, the most abundant protein on earth—plants convert carbon dioxide from the air into carbohydrates and other useful molecules. Rubisco catalyzes the attachment of a carbon-dioxide molecule to another five-carbon molecule to make two three-carbon molecules, which are subsequently converted into carbohydrates. (Since the useful product from the carbon dioxide capture consists of three-carbon molecules, plants that use this simple process are called C3 plants.) C3 plants, such as wheat, rice, soybeans, cotton and many forage crops, evolved when there was much more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than today. So these agricultural staples are actually undernourished in carbon dioxide relative to their original design…. “

Mr. Schmitt, an adjunct professor of engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was an Apollo 17 astronaut and a former U.S. senator from New Mexico. Mr. Happer is a professor of physics at Princeton University and a former director of the office of energy research at the U.S. Department of Energy.

Royalty are supposed to have “good causes” – land mines etc., etc. – but they are also supposed to stay out of politics.

Now the fact that both sides of politics officially support “Climate Change” to a greater or lessor extent does not make it any the less highly political.

Charles, the heir to the throne, has been sucked into the Climate Change cult, listens only to a few snivelling sycophants from the cult, and is too stupid to realise the damage he is causing.

People are dying.

Prince Charles criticizes ‘corporate lobbyists’ and climate change skeptics for turning Earth into a ‘dying patient’  The Raw Story
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/09/prince-charles-criticizes-corporate-lobbyists-and-climate-change-skeptics-for-turning-earth-into-a-dying-patient/

Meanwhile, back in the real world….

If you get hungry enough, you turn the heating off so you can eat and hope that Global Warming kicks in in time to save you from freezing to death! It is not a painful way to go and you fade away knowing that the astronomical energy bills that killed you are savin’-da-planet like HRH wants you to.
Rule Britannia!
Britannia rule the waves
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.
Fade to black.

5,000 lives believed to have been lost due to bitter March  Metro News
http://metro.co.uk/2013/04/04/5000-lives-believed-to-have-been-lost-due-to-bitter-march-3584311/

UKs-coldest-spring-1963-claims-5-000-lives-Pensioners-worst-affected–experts-say-final-toll-horrendous
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2298246/UKs-coldest-spring-1963-claims-5-000-lives-Pensioners-worst-affected–experts-say-final-toll-horrendous.html

1M-Brits-dead-in-winter-scandal
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view/301641/1M-Brits-dead-in-winter-scandal/
” …Five thousand people die every winter as they face paying more than 10% of their income on energy bills, Government fuel poverty review chief Professor John Hills said.
Department of Health chief medical  officer Professor Dame Sally Davies wrote in the Health Protection Agency’s cold weather report: “Mortality rises 19% in winter months in  England.
“These are not people who would have died anyhow at the time. Very severe weather can substantially add to this death toll.”
National Pensioners Convention spokesman Neil Duncan-Jordan said: “Britain’s high winter death rate is a national scandal.
“The causes are poor housing, low pensioner incomes and high energy prices. The Government is complacent and must do more to help.”…”

He should try turning the heating off in The Palace next winter to save-da-planet and see how his elderly mother likes that idea!

POSTSCRIPT
These reports are now regular in the UK media.
Energy price rises prompting larger-than-average cutbacks in Wales – Wales Online
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/energy-price-rises-prompting-larger-than-average-3814370

Europe Sinks Its Flagship Carbon Trading Scheme  Renewable Energy News Article – http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2013/05/europe-sinks-its-flagship-carbon-trading-scheme