Posts

How the West was Lost

On the one hand, Australia bans the use of its own natural gas, while on the other hand plans huge gas processing and export expansion for international bidders.

We’re sending our natural resources overseas to power the economic prosperity of China, India and other nations. Then we’re buying back unreliable wind and solar manufactured with our gas and coal.

Maybe the Greens will appreciate the irony when they’re sitting in the dark without cooking and heating. Gas should be our back-up to the energy shortfalls, not the bad guy.

This war on gas is a heist under the banner of UN ‘net-zero’. The only winners are the billionaires involved with the corrupt UN-WEF “sustainability” agenda.

Transcript

As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, I thank Senator Pocock for his motion. I question why we need a dedicated export facility for the Beetaloo Basin’s natural gas. Australia has 10 natural gas export terminals—two in Darwin. Beetaloo output is expected to be huge, and much of it should be used here in Australia, not exported.

Australia’s parasitic mal-investments in wind and solar are destroying our energy generation capacity. Gas generation is essential to keeping the lights on, while commercial gas hot water and cooking are likewise essential. Everyday Australians will never accept the insane idea that Australia should stop using gas. This is despite the advertising spent on climate campaigns designed to do one thing—line the pockets of climate carpetbaggers, like those funding teal senator David Pocock’s campaign. Gas connections are being banned in new builds and existing lines will be ripped out because, at some point, we will need to recycle that copper, since world production will never be able to supply the copper needed for UN net zero.

My own building that I rent in Campbell, in Canberra, sent out a note to owners this week saying that the body corporate had been told they will need to remove the gas hot water system, rip out the pipes and remove all gas appliances by 2035. Homeowners will have to pay the bill—likely, over a million dollars all up. This is a brand-new building! What a waste.

On one hand, the green ideologues will require owners to spend tens of thousands of dollars per unit to pull out near-new hot water heating, gas lines and equipment and replace them with less efficient solutions. Then the ideologues will complain, ‘Rents have gone up!’ Of course rents are going up. Green ideology is forcing rents up by forcing landlords’ costs up. How are the climate lobby not connecting the dots here? How much more productive capacity are we going to rip out, to replace it with shiny new electric capacity that doesn’t do the job as well as gas? Never mind the environmental waste of tossing millions of stoves into landfill where they can rot beside broken and toxic solar panels and wind-turbine blades! And these people were worried about plastic straws! Please!

One gas provider proudly claims on their website that they’re banning gas to ‘save the planet’. No, you are depriving Australians of our own gas so you can sell it for a larger profit into an energy starved world market, a situation the government’s price cap on gas made worse because it made exports more profitable than domestic sales in a disrupted supply market.

Meanwhile, another energy retailer is advertising on their website—listen to this—that:

We all like to do our bit for the planet, so you’ll be happy to know you can reduce your household carbon emissions by switching from appliances running on grid electricity to natural gas.

It goes on to say that ‘gas is the perfect partner for solar’ and by connecting your home to natural gas you ‘can lower your carbon emissions by up to 77 per cent in Victoria compared to electric cooking and hot water appliances.’ Which is it? Is gas a perfect partner to solar or is it environmental vandalism?

Another energy provider’s website has a spiel about renewable gas, which turns out to be hydrogen. Hydrogen is not even a viable fuel yet as it takes huge amounts of energy to make it out of water and yet they have rebranded it already. That must be some sort of record! What a mess climate carpetbaggers have created through their green and teal shills in the Senate. What I have not heard in the gas debate at all is a major reason gas is better than electricity, and that is transmission loss. Electricity suffers transmission loss getting from the point of generation miles out in the countryside to homes in the city. Gas does not suffer a transmission loss. Factor that into energy calculations and electrification becomes an even worse idea.

We’re banning Australians from accessing our own natural resources while allowing our gas to be flogged off to international bidders at a premium just as our coal is shipped to China where it powers the solar panel and wind turbine export industry that the Greens and teal Senator David Pocock worship with no hint of irony. Meanwhile, a rapidly increasing global energy market values and prefers hydrocarbon fuels, coal, oil and gas. The West is deindustrialising while the rest of the world, including China, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, are industrialising using our gas and coal. The war on gas is a heist of our nation’s natural resources. We’re sacrificing economic prosperity and the opportunity for advancement for all the Australians in the name of a corrupt United Nations sustainability agenda that sustains nobody except the billionaires behind it all. It is wealth transfer from we the people to global billionaire elites and global predators like BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street.

One Nation rejects the electrification of Australia’s gas supply and questions the Middle Arm project. Natural gas must stay as a choice for all— (Time expired)

/18 Comments/by

Confronting Extinction Rebellion Protestors – Paul Murray Live

Extinction Rebellion protestors blocked off roads to Parliament House yesterday by chaining themselves to trucks to call for action on the “Climate Emergency”. We all know the “climate emergency” is hogwash, but I rarely see climate alarmists held accountable for their false claims.

So I decided I better go down to their protest and have a ‘friendly’ chat. Paul Murray had me on his program last night to discuss.

/by

Grilling Climate Change at Senate Estimates

, ,

Senate Estimates is a great chance for me to grill these climate agencies and get very specific about the evidence that they base their policies on.

This year, we saw yet again that they love to duck and weave, but won’t actually provide me with the evidence. I talked about this on Marcus Paul last week.

Senate Estimates Sessions: https://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/category/senate-estimates/march-2021/

Transcript

[Announcer] Now on “Marcus Paul in the Morning” Senator Malcolm Roberts.

[Marcus] All right, 17 minutes away from eight o’clock. Good day, Malcolm. How are you, mate?

[Malcolm] I’m very well, thanks, Marcus. How are you?

[Marcus] Good, good, good. Now I see, you’ve got the Bureau of Meteorology, and also Malcolm Turnbull, and also the CSIRO in your sights this morning. Who do you want to pick on first?

[Malcolm] Let’s go with the CSIRO.

[Marcus] All right. What do you have to say about them? Of course, this argument about renewables costing us, what, 13 billion bucks a year or $1,300 per household.

[Malcolm] That’s in addition to the electricity bill, that’s the additional cost per household, $1,300. Marcus, there’s some really simple figures to understand. The median income in Australia is $49,000, so after tax, what’s that, 30 something?

[Marcus] Yeah.

[Malcolm] The chief executive of the CSIRO is paid a total per year, every year of $1,049,000.

[Marcus] Not bad.

[Malcolm] The group executive in charge of overseeing the climate area, the climate research, is on $613,000, more than the Prime Minister of Australia.

[Marcus] Yeah, not bad.

[Malcolm] I put to them very basic questions about their so-called science, they refused to answer. These were the first time that I had asked questions about these pieces of information that they gave to me last Senate estimates. I’ve never had an opportunity to ask them questions before about this. This is the first time. They refused to answer. The basic things were that they gave me five new references, in senate estimates in October, I asked them questions about this.

They refused to answer. They refused to answer a representative of the people. And the papers that they provided to me, Kaufman 2020, for example, this is the sort of crap that CSIRO dishes up, when the authors of that paper input their data on climate into their calculations, they omitted the first data point and put it in in reverse order, complete false. The second reference they gave me directly contradicts the claims that the CSIRO says that it’s supposed to be supporting.

The third reference said they made conclusions on one data point, and they took it out of context and went against the CSIRO’s own advice to me last October. So what I’m saying to you is we are paying someone $1,049,000 a year, we’re paying someone else $613,000 a year, people in Australia cannot afford this nonsense, and now we’ve got no evidence whatsoever.

The CSIRO has admitted that they have never said to any politician that carbon dioxide from human activity is a danger to our planet. That’s what politicians are saying. Why is this, Marcus, people are paying dearly for destroying manufacturing all because of this rubbish?

[Marcus] All right, now tell me about the Bureau of Meteorology.

[Malcolm] Well, here we go again, another government bureaucracy that’s claiming about climate. When they measure data, temperature, rainfall, et cetera, at a weather station, they also have metadata about the weather station that tells you, for example, how many times a station has been moved, because when it moves, it can have an effect on temperature and other recording devices. Townsville has been moved eight times.

The Bureau of Meteorology’s metadata says it’s been moved once. Metadata as well at Rockhampton moved four times, the Bureau says it’s been moved once. Cairns moved six times, the Bureau says it’s been moved twice. Charleville been moved four times, the Bureau says twice. The Bureau of Meteorology and its own peer reviewers fail to detect and discuss these glaring inaccuracies.

How can we rely on the Bureau of Meteorology which says temperatures are increasing, but they haven’t increased since 1995 globally, which is about almost 30 years, and our temperatures today are lower than in the 1880s and 1890s in Australia. I mean, we’re being fed this nonsense, people are paying for it, it’s destroying our manufacturing capacity all because of atrocious governments and people won’t hold these people accountable.

[Marcus] Well, there are some grave consequences, as you say, for these glaring errors and policies devised on numbers that are given by the Bureau of Meteorology, along with the CSIRO. So there we go, I’m glad we got you there asking these hard questions, Malcolm, but you don’t seem to get much support from those that are in power.

[Malcolm] That’s a really good point.

[Marcus] Why don’t you?

[Malcolm] Angus Taylor is the Minister for Energy.

[Marcus] Yes.

[Malcolm] He admits now, two or three weeks ago he admitted that he is afraid, he’s scared of what’s happening, with our reliability of power supply, security of power supply, the cost of power. He’s admitted all this. I know for a fact, in conversations with Angus Taylor, that he’s a sceptic about us affecting the climate, but he is peddling this nonsense.

Mark Butler, the former spokesman from the Labour Party, I’ve challenged him to a debate, ran away from me. I challenged The Greens 10 and a half years ago, and every day since I’ve been in the Senate, sorry, almost weekly since I’ve been in the Senate this time they’ve failed to provide the evidence.

There’s just a whole lot of groupthink. I wrote to about 20 MPS in senior positions, Labour, Liberal, National, and Greens, not one of them was able to provide me with any evidence that we have to have these policies, not one.

[Marcus] Now let’s move to Malcolm Turnbull. Hang on, there, Malcolm Turnbull, of course, former Prime Minister of Australia, claims that the demand for coal is declining, but no one has told Africa they’re building 1,250 more coal plants by the year 2030. Mines are devastating the landscape in the Hunter Valley. Well, is that true?

Reportedly more about his opposition perhaps to the Mount Pleasant coal mine and the extension plan for it which happens to be near Malcolm Turnbull’s own interest including a grazing property. The mining industry is shortening lives by reducing air quality, and taxpayers, of course, you say are left with huge environmental remediation bills covered by mining bonds. Now last week, I don’t know what was going on in the New South Wales government with the Liberals and Nationals appointing Malcolm Turnbull to this role.

You know, zero net emissions by 2050, we had Matt Kean at the centre of it all, and for some reason, somehow both John Barilaro and the Premier of New South Wales went along with this. There were a couple of dissenting voices, but Malcolm was apparently tipped to take this job. Then there was a massive back flip whether it came from pressure from the media or from One Nation’s Mark Latham. I’m not sure. I think it’s a mix of all of those.

[Malcolm] I think you’re right. Malcolm Turnbull has a lot of personal interests, of benefit to him and his family, from pushing their renewables bandwagon. He’s got no evidence, never has had any evidence for pushing their renewables. He’s got no evidence for having to shut down coal mines. And he himself attributed the dumping of his new job to Mark Latham and the right-wing media, but you know, that’s typical Malcolm Turnbull. He can’t look at his own policy and he can’t look at himself, and he’s become a pariah.

[Marcus] Yeah, look, I understand what you’re saying, I get that, but let’s be honest, he’s half right.

[Malcolm] In what way?

[Marcus] Well, of course, he’s right.

[Malcolm] In what way?

[Marcus] Well, until people down the road from us 2GB and the Telegraph and a few others started jumping up and down about it this was gonna go through. I mean, I would tend to think that unless there was a by-election just around the corner in the upper Hunter, perhaps this bloke, Malcolm Turnbull, might’ve gone on.

[Malcolm] Well, I’m not gonna argue with that, I think that you’re making some pretty good comments, but Malcolm Turnbull himself blamed Mark Latham for standing up and speaking the truth. That’s the pressure that Mark brings. Mark’s a very good speaker, he gets his facts and he went straight into bat. Barilaro and Berejiklian are the ones. How could they possibly sign off on this man, Turnbull, being put in this position? But think about this, Marcus.

[Marcus] Yeah.

[Malcolm] Australia’s total electricity coal-fired power station capacity in this country was 25.2 gigawatts in 2017. So it’s less than that now with the closure of a couple of coal-fired power stations in Victoria, it’s less than that. China alone opened 38.4 gigawatts of new coal-fired plants last year alone, so almost double what our total capacity is. The world has opened up 50.3 gigawatts of new coal-fired capacity last year alone. India is opening up on average around 17 gigawatts. India itself and China are opening up combined about three times our total capacity of coal-fired power stations.

[Marcus] And the argument, of course, is, Malcolm, I do need to go, the argument, of course, is that if they don’t get our coal, they’ll get it from elsewhere.

[Malcolm] Correct.

[Marcus] Yeah, all right, mate, thank you for coming on. I appreciate it.

[Malcolm] Okay, mate, you’re welcome.

[Marcus] Talk soon.

[Malcolm] See you, Marcus.

[Marcus] See you, mate. Bye-bye. There he is, One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts. Of course, David Lazell…

/by

Questioning the Bureau of Meteorology at Senate Estimates

, ,

I’m down in Canberra at Senate Estimates this week. Over many years now I have consistently grilled the Bureau of Meteorology at Estimates over their methodology in ‘homogenising’ or changing raw temperature data. These changes include adjustments to make the recorded temperatures colder in earlier years and warmer in more recent years, making the supposed warming trend seem worse.

Transcript

Thanks Senator Green, Senator Roberts.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Thank you Chair. Thank you all for attending today. You got my questions in writing, Dr. Johnson?

[Johnson]

I did Sir.

[Malcolm Roberts]

The first question was please confirm whether you agree that any data adjustments need to be rigorous, independently replicable, and accurately supported with metadata.

[Johnson]

Senator, I might just ask my colleague Dr. Stone to take those questions. Thank you.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Sure.

[Dr Stone]

Yeah, thanks Senator.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Nice to see you again.

[Dr Stone]

Yeah, likewise The Bureau does agree that homogenization adjustments need to be rigorous and homogenization needs to be independently replicable using agreed peer reviewed methods, but it doesn’t actually need, it’s not a requirement that it’s supported by metadata as you’ve suggested. The purpose of the homogenization is to adjust for discontinuities where they’re detected, as I was describing earlier, in comparison with nearest neighbours. Metadata such as documentary evidence of a site move tells you that you might like to check for discontinuity, but it doesn’t tell you to make the adjustments themselves. So adjustment occurs only where a discontinuity in observations crosses what I referred to earlier as a threshold of significance. So it’s possible for homogenization to occur without metadata. And it’s also possible that metadata can describe a situation where there has been a change in observation practise, but homogenization isn’t required because that change doesn’t result in a discontinuity in observation. So it’s actually the discontinuity in observation that’s critical in the determinant of whether or not a homogenization occurs and the scale and direction of the change.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Okay, thank you. Moving on to some we’ve got data on many more which are similar, but the Townsville Weather Station according to the BOM’s metadata said it’s had one move. Whereas in fact, it’s had eight. The Rockhampton Weather Station has had according to BOM, one move. Whereas in fact, it’s had four. The Cairns Weather Station has had according to BOM. two moves the fact that it’s moved six times and the Chaliver Weather Station, BOM says it’s moved twice and it’s at four moves. Why did BOM and the various peer reviewers fail to detect and discuss these inaccuracies?

[Dr Stone]

Sorry, I missed the last part.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Why did the Bureau of Meteorology and the various peer reviewers fail to detect and discuss these inaccuracies in the metadata?

[Dr Stone]

Yeah, no, thank you. They’re not inaccuracies in metadata. So the metadata that either exists or it doesn’t, and in the cases you’ve described, there is instances where a shift in the med station has occurred and there’s not metadata that describes that. So it’s not actually in an inaccuracy in the metadata. And third of what I was saying too earlier, whether or not there’s metadata doesn’t impact on the integrity of their marginalisation process because it’s actually looking for that discontinuity in observations that determines whether or not there is a marginalisation that occurs.

[Malcolm Roberts]

That surely if there’s data about the movement of stations and that data is inaccurate, then the metadata is wrong.

[Dr Stone]

Now, in this case that the metadata is not present. It would be wrong if it said that there was a shift and there wasn’t one. What you’re describing is where a change hasn’t been recorded. So there’s not metadata that relates to it.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Right.

[Dr Stone]

There’s a difference.

[Malcolm Roberts]

So the BOM’s claim that has moved once in Townsville where the station moved once is not accurate because there’s no metadata on them?

[Dr Stone]

Sorry, we don’t claim it’s been moved once but we have metadata that shows that it was moved once.

Yeah. So we wouldn’t claim that there have I haven’t been shifted. We don’t have that data.

[Malcolm Roberts]

So you’ve got metadata for only one move. Whereas in fact, we know it’s been eight moves.

[Dr Stone]

We have metadata for Townsville. I’m sorry, I can’t tell you how many of those that we have metadata for but the principle remains the same. There are instances in the historical record where there’ve been changes made and they weren’t recorded at the time.

[Malcolm Roberts]

So what are the consequences of these areas specifically in terms of recording weather, data such as temperature?

[Dr Stone]

Yeah. I know there is. I just want to be clear about that. So the presence or absence of metadata, doesn’t imply an error.

[Malcolm Roberts]

If the station’s been moved and it hasn’t been noted in the metadata, then it’s not even recognised.

[Dr Stone]

Correct. But if we’re talking about the impact of that on the homogenization process, it doesn’t result in an error because the homogenization only occurs where there’s a statistical discontinuity in the data detected. So you can have moves that don’t result in homogenization being triggered, whether or not there’s metadata and vice versa. So it doesn’t be, I can be crystal clear. It doesn’t result in inaccuracies in the estimation of climate trends. If there’s metadata or not.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Has or not. Has BOM done any analysis to quantify the effects of the station moves especially the ones that it didn’t know about?

[Dr Stone]

No, absolutely. So, as I say, the process of homogenization actually looks back through the records for a given station, looks for discontinuity and measurements compared with nearest neighbours. So it steps through. And does that, so a high proportion of the homogenization changes that are made aren’t triggered by metadata they’re triggered by, as I mentioned, a discontinuity in the observations. And that’s determined by comparing with a large number of nearest neighbours, which we can do with temperature because temperature is reasonably conservative across geographic space. And it’s why, for example, you can’t really homogenize for rainfall because it’s much more spatially viable.

[Chair]

So do you have anymore questions Senator Roberts.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Yes. I’ve got a couple of more questions, Chair. You said you’ve been able to analyse these past records. Could you please provide for each of the four sites that I’ve mentioned that’s Townsville, Rockhampton, Cairns, and Charleville the quantified analysis that Bureau of Meteorology has done and document the independent peer review process used just on notice, please.

[Dr Stone]

That’s all on the website. Yep, no problem.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Thank you. Last pair of questions, Chair. What are the specific quantified consequences of BOM’s inaccuracies on CSIROs use of BOM data? I’m particularly interested because CSIRO has admitted to me that it does no due diligence of its own on temperature data that it merely accepts from the Bureau of Meteorology.

[Dr Stone]

Yeah. Thanks for the question. As I described, the presence or absence of metadata doesn’t result in inaccuracies in the homogenization process. So inaccuracies have not been passed on to CSIRO or any other user because of concerns about metadata. It’s fundamentally a statistical process.

[Malcolm Roberts]

What are the consequences on the government policy and the general assumption that Australia temperatures are increasing?

[Dr Stone]

Yeah. As I said, so if the question is about the accuracy or otherwise of the estimates, presence or absence of metadata isn’t material. And, you know, I can confirm the global trend for warming is around 1.1 degrees Celsius since the pre-industrial period.

[Malcolm Roberts]

And when you say pre-industrial, what year?

[Dr Stone]

1850.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Thank you.

[Dr Stone]

And–

[Malcolm Roberts]

It’s just at the end of the little ice age.

[Dr Stone]

What I’m seeking to do is describe the difference between the global trend, the homogenized trend and the raw observation trends. So the global trend is around 1.1, the unadjusted trend is 0.95 Degrees Celsius plus or minus 0.24 over the same period. And the homogenized trend is 1.44 plus or minus .24 So neither the raw nor the homogenized trend differ from the, significantly from the estimate of the global trend.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Okay, thank you. Are you aware just by coincidence that CSIRO has admitted to me that today’s temperatures are not unprecedented? And then after it admitted that it said that what is unprecedented is the, they claimed is the rate of recent rates of temperature rise. Yet the papers they gave us, not one of them shows that. And two of the papers show that past temperature rise, rate of past temperature rise has been warmer than the recent temperature rise which ended about 1995.

[Dr Stone]

Yeah. Thank you. I haven’t seen the CSRO papers or–

[Malcolm Roberts]

We’ll have to have a chat.

Thank you.

/by