knockoff nige

I wonder when he's talking about direct action and MH17 to the next hospital he visits will he realise then he got his speeches mixed up. Or does he actually believe that the G20 leaders are just a bunch of old biddies who flew to Brisbane for gossip.

Amazulu

The fact that Germany is held up as beacon for renewable energy is ridiculous

Yeah, they're doing it but at what cost to their taxpayers/electricity consumers (same thing to the left)? Their subsidies are off the scale, so much so that it could derail their economy

And as for China......

chris955

Abbott with a couple of fingers in those elephant ears of his denying the obvious.

GarryP

Remember, this isn't the first time he's stuck a partisan, local consumption message into the wrong circumstance:

Tony Abbott raises eyebrows after linking WWII D-Day memorial with policies on mining and carbon taxes

Don't think he really understands what is appropriate, plowing on with what's on his mind, rather than taking account of others PoV. Look that one up in your psychology text books.

I seriously don't think the unsubtle message he was being given actually went in. Some statesmen read the subtle nuance in the body language of others to understand and optimise interaction with peers. And then there's abbott ...

paulry

Speaking of elephants. Most of the G20 ponce around and congratulate eachother about carbon emissions but we don't hear any of them talking about the real elephant in the room: the population explosion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_overpopulation

chris955

Now that was a subtle segue.

Amazulu

And what's the 'obvious'?

Toe Dipper

Now my take on the G20 is that I was heartily disappointed.

I went into the CBD on the Saturday, against all the advice. Parked in a central car park and spent my time looking for action. I wanted to see mounted cops charging teaming protesters, whilst they bayed for capitalist blood. Kettling protesters in the heat would take on a greater significance - just how hot would the kettle go? How many shopfronts would still be intact in the Queen Street mall?

As far as spectacle and bystander entertainment is concerned, there was more action in a wriggling goldfish gasping for air. The height of reaction - burning a flag

London puts on a far greater spectacle when it comes to riots.

TD

knockoff nige

Why do anything if it's all irrelevant? What Australia is doing now is more costly to the tax payer than the Carbon tax. And I'm talking money, not even cost to our environment.

But if we do anything about climate change, we accept it as an issue. Why only partially address the issue (at a higher financial cost) instead of being smart and making polluters responsible for their actions.

chris955

Exactly, deny anything is happening and there is no need to justify doing nothing.

Amazulu

Then why don't you answer the question in post #37 instead of hiding behind other people's posts?

paulry

It seemed like a suitable time to trumpet about the greater challenges our planet faces

chris955

Trumpet, I see what you did there.

Amazulu

I kind of agree. MMGW is not happening so we should be doing nothing. The carbon tax was stupid and needed to be got rid of but direct action is not much better. Thing is, all governments are caught up in the bullshit - herd mentality. At least Australia and Canada are not doing much - which is a bonus

Companies and organisations should be allowed to develop power systems as they see fit and can make a profit - as long as the taxpayer and consumer are not subsidising them. Australia has so much natural gas that it's not funny. If the government truly believes that we need to reduce CO2 then we should be building gas plants on an epic scale yet very little is being done. Instead of wasting money on DA or the CT, spend it on building some solar collectors instead. We need to avoid wind turbines as the are stupidly inefficient and ineffective

And what about the elephant in the room, nuclear? We should be going down the nuke path but it will never happen as the debate has effectively been hijacked by the Australia-hating greens/left, and governments are too timid to pursue it. Give the UK their due, they are restarting a nuke path (albeit built by the French government and financed by the Chinese government) to ensure their energy security - hats off to them

The whole debate is riddled with hypocrisy, lies, smoke and mirrors and plain old bullshit. We get told to look at countries like Germany, Denmark, Scanditopia etc as perfect examples of how to do renewables, when the reality is somewhat different. And now we are told China and the US are taking 'action' - what a load of bollocks. Unfortunately, the herd often gets its way

knockoff nige

Well actually, the Coalition is not doing as little as possible like you suggest. They are doing nothing but happy to be seen to be doing something. What they really wanted out of this is tax payers money going to the private sector. These companies will find ways to get that money without doing anything for it. At least with the carbon tax they were paying something towards the destruction they are causing.

Thank heavens we haven't had nuclear power discussions. We don't have a responsible government to have such an energy option, let alone build it.