COOL RECEPTION FOR AUSTRALIA'S CLIMATE TAX

Australia's new carbon tax received a cool reception in a poll Monday, showing Prime Minister Julia Gillard's mechanism to tackle climate change is unpopular and her government on track to lose office.

CARBON TAX HOAX BEGINS

The most useless and expensive public policy introduced since Federation, the Carbon Tax, became operational on July 1st after its predecessor the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme introduced by then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was defeated in the Australian Senate three times before being abandoned.

The Australian Climate Science Coalition, the Institute of Public Affairs, the Australian Environment Foundation and others fought against the original emissions trading scheme [ETS] since its announcement in 2008.

Over time, after hosting many public events denouncing the ETS and the science underpinning its assumptions, public opinion changed from around 80% support for an ETS in 2008 to the present 62% opposition to the now introduced Carbon Tax.

The science on which this policy is based has never been so uncertain, nor the consensus for immediate and costly emissions reduction measures so weak as at present.

As community dissatisfaction grows with this hoax tax all eyes turn towards the Oppositon and their pledge to repeal the legislation.

Canada came to its senses over climate issues, let's hope Australia can do the same.

MORE BOM TEMPERATURE 'TWEAKING'

Since the mid 1990′s the BoM has produced several adjusted versions of Australian temperature history – these add more warming trend than the raw data show and many climate sceptics have been rightly critical of these BoM “high quality” (HQ) versions – what could be termed “stroked and tweaked” data according to Ed Thurstan and Warwick Hughes.

ANTARCTIC ICE SHELVES NOT MELTING AT ALL

Twenty-year-old models which have suggested serious ice loss in the eastern Antarctic have been compared with reality for the first time – and found to be wrong, so much so that it now appears that no ice is being lost at all according to a statement from the American Geophysical Union last week.

SCIENCE HELD HOSTAGE IN CLIMATE DEBATE

Emeritus Professor Garth Paltridge, author of The Climate Capers in this article in The Financial Review looks at where we went off the rails in the climate debate.

"The broad theory of man-made global warming is acceptable in the purely qualitative sense. If humans continue to fill the atmosphere with carbon dioxide, there can be little doubt that the average temperature of the world will increase above what it would have been otherwise. The argument about the science is, and always has been, whether the increase would be big enough to be noticed among all the other natural variations of climate. The economic and social argument is whether the increase, even if it were noticeable, would change the overall welfare of mankind for the worse."

RIO+20: 50,000 FLOCK TO A FLOP

Joanne Nova reviews the show that was Rio+20.

"According to Greenpeace its an “epic fail”. WWF says its a “colossal failure”, and it’s so bad, Oxfam want to start all over again. That news may sound good to the free citizens of the West, but that’s only because we aim so low.

They may not get as much as they aim for, but they will still get what they came for.

Rio 2012: How big is this junket?"