Climate Conversation Group

Wind power is not free. All natural energy resources such as coal, wind and sun appear “free” — no one has to incur costs to create them. But turning a “free” resource into usable electricity costs money for collecting, generating and distributing that energy. To consumers and tax payers, the real cost of wind power is very high, no matter how well it is hidden by politicians.

Wind power is not reliable. No one can make the wind blow when the energy is needed Read more… »

The Antithesis of Earth Hour

A Reality Game for those Concerned about the Future for their Families

The Carbon Sense Coalition today called on electricity consumers to boycott Earth Hour grandstanding by pampered people too silly to recognise the realities and benefits of reliable electricity.

The Chairman of Carbon Sense, Mr Viv Forbes, is supporting an alternative proposal that “Earth Hour” be replaced by “Energy Roulette Week”. Read more… »

It has been discovered that Australian coal has a magical property – it is one of a small group of coals which produce an invisible gas with supernatural properties.

This magic gas, carbon dioxide, first became famous for its claimed ability to warm the whole world, thus removing the threat of a new ice age. The British academic who reported this magic power claimed that winter snow would become “a very rare and exciting event.”

Then an Australian guru predicted that just a tiny addition of magic gas to the atmosphere would abolish floods, and billions of dollars were spent constructing water desalination plants to combat his forecast of never-ending droughts. Read more… »

Taxing mothers’ milk and our daily bread

To the Editor
Climate Conversation

13th September 2012

Two lies are used to promote the world’s highest carbon tax – the lie that carbon dioxide is “pollution” and the lie claiming that Australians are “the world’s biggest carbon polluters”.

Calling carbon dioxide “pollution” makes no more sense than calling mothers’ milk “poison”. Yet Australia’s Climate Commissioners continue to propagate this outrageous lie.

Carbon dioxide is “mothers’ milk” to all plants, and plants are “the daily bread” to all animals. Life is a carbon cycle. No life could exist on Earth without adequate carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Current levels are well below those optimal for life, and below levels which have prevailed for most of Earth’s history. If there is a crisis regarding CO2, it is the question: “where has it all gone?”

And to say that Australians are the world’s biggest carbon polluters (per capita) is lying with statistics. Read more… »

Climatists not Fair Dinkum?

To the Editor
Climate Conversation

27th August 2012

A “greenhouse gas” is one capable of absorbing infra-red (IR) radiation.

The most common atmospheric gases with such properties are water vapour and carbon dioxide (CO2). Water vapour is far more abundant with an average of 20,000 parts-per-million (ppm) in the atmosphere compared to just 395 ppm of CO2. Moreover water vapour is more effective as a greenhouse gas because it can absorb IR radiation over far more bands of the IR spectrum.

Therefore, if man-made CO2 causes dangerous global warming, (a dubious proposition anyway), then man-made water vapour is far more dangerous. Read more… »

Viv Forbes sent me this a few weeks ago and it got buried under my to-do pile. I don’t know how NZ coal compares with the Australian version he mentions, but there are several coal specialists who visit here – perhaps one of them might enlighten us. – Richard Treadgold

We are winning the war on man-made global warming.

But about half of the population still think that the carbon tax will do some good. Why? Because they think it is all about cleaning up “dirty coal”.

The seeds of public concern were sewn with Penny Wong’s Machiavellian linking of “carbon” and “pollution”. She was assisted by the gross stupidity of the coal industry leadership in promoting nonsense like carbon sequestration as a “clean coal” option. The public naturally assumed “if they need to spend billions to produce clean coal, obviously we are now using dirty coal. Read more… »

Greens rediscover hydrogen car

To the Editor
Climate Conversation

19th August 2012

I saw my first and only hydrogen car in Brisbane City Square in the 1960′s. No one saw it work, but now, fifty years later, the “hydrogen economy” has become green gospel.

Hydrogen combines readily with oxygen to produce energy via combustion engines, gas welders or fuel cells – there is nothing new about this process. And the sole exhaust product is pure water, another greenhouse gas.

Hydrogen is an abundant element. However, pure hydrogen gas is very rare on earth – it is almost always combined with other elements, commonly oxygen or carbon.

Hydrogen is not a primary source of energy. Read more… »

Why Bury the Essentials of Life
in Carbon Cemeteries?

To the Editor
Climate Conversation

3rd August 2012

We are told that carbon dioxide is such a dangerous gas that we must capture and “bury it deep down below”.

Carbon is the building block for every bit of organic matter on earth – bread, butter and bitumen; coal, cauliflowers and cows; men, microbes and mulberries.

When oxidised by combustion in fires and engines, or digested in stomachs, or decayed in soil or compost, every bit of organic matter is recycled into the harmless natural atmospheric gas, carbon dioxide. Plants extract this plant food from the atmosphere, reuse the carbon, and recycle the oxygen for use by all forms of animal life.

Every tonne of coal burnt produces about three tonnes of carbon dioxide containing over two tonnes of oxygen and under one tonne of carbon. Thus with every tonne of carbon buried, more than twice as much life-sustaining oxygen must also be sacrificed. Read more… »

Taxing Termites, Wetlands, Volcanoes and Sacred Cows

To the Editor
Climate Conversation

9th July 2012

Australia’s tax on carbon dioxide now applies to big power stations, rubbish tips, steel works, cement plants, refineries and coal mines. But many of them have been given exemptions or compensation packages. Naturally they will pass all net costs onto consumers, but our government says that most voters will be compensated and will feel no pain. So it all looks like achieving a net nothing. Read more… »

The Soda Water scare

To the Editor
Climate Conversation

22nd May 2012

The climatists have a new alarm – the soda water scare.

We are told that the oceans, which weigh 300 times more than all the gases in the atmosphere, are being turned acidic by the 0.0012% (12 parts per million) of man-made additions to the carbon dioxide (CO2) in Earth’s atmosphere.

CO2 is a natural gas that dissolves in water. The amount absorbed depends upon how much CO2 there is in the air, and the temperature of the water. CO2 dissolves best in cold water and is expelled as the water warms. And far more would be absorbed if there was 100% CO2 in the atmosphere above.

When concentrated CO2 gas is bubbled under high pressure into ice-cold water much CO2 dissolves, producing acidic soda water whose pH (acidity) could be as low as 4. This is 1,000 times more acidic than pure water whose pH is a neutral 7.

But oceans are much warmer than that and atmospheric CO2 is at much lower pressure. Therefore in the open ocean, pH seldom gets below 8, ten times more alkaline than pure water.

This weak soda water could only be described as “acidic” by someone pushing an alarmist agenda. Read more… »

This African village shows the relationship between habitation and fuel, when wood is the only choice. The few nearby trees are being left for some other purpose and the only ones available for burning are already about a kilometre away. Whatever your fuel, you need it every day and, when it’s wood, every day you must travel a little further to get more. Auckland is clothed with a verdant blanket of trees; in places you can scarcely see the houses, but only because we’ve arranged an efficient alternative source of energy. Coal and oil preserve trees. Our continued use of hydrocarbons is nothing like an “addiction”, as misguided activists like to claim. Rather, hydrocarbons are economical, healthful and, used in modern, non-polluting engines and devices, sit more comfortably in the environment than the burning of our forests. They are more deserving of applause than condemnation.

The Carbon Sense Coalition today proposed that coal, not candles, should be the symbol of Earth Hour.

It was coal that produced clean electric power which cleared the smog produced by dirty combustion and open fires in big cities like London and Pittsburgh. Much of the third world still suffers choking fumes and smog because they do not have clean electric power and burn wood, cardboard, unwashed coal and cow dung for home heat.

It was coal that saved the forests being felled to fuel the first steam engines and produce charcoal for the first iron smelters.

It was coal that powered the light bulbs and saved the whales being slaughtered for whale oil lamps. Read more… »

Carbon lies

To the Editor
Climate Conversation

11th March 2012

The Australian government’s plan to sell their un-saleable carbon tax has hit a snag – their pollsters have discovered that the word ”carbon” provokes anger in the electorate.

This is no surprise. Most decent people hate liars and the carbon tax campaign has been mired in lies from the start. Read more… »

This appalling outrage is not going away. Much has been written already (but nothing by me) and it seems much is to come. Here is a place to contain it so you can stop adding to “I’ve been busy” — as though that’s an important theme.

I hasten to say I’m still busy, and would that I were not!

Will Tony Abbott leave Australia Legless
and Powerless in the Global Storms?

To the Editor
Climate Conversation

22nd December 2011

Some at the big end of town are worried that Mr Abbott may keep his promise to repeal the carbon tax. No doubt they and their smart lawyers fear losing the clever green schemes that rely on ripping off tax payers, consumers and other businesses.

Australia’s wealth and jobs have always rested on three legs – mining and farming, making and processing things, and rich foreigners; in short, resources, manufacturing and money from tourists and investors.

The Gillard carbon tax will white-ant all three legs. Read more… »

Carbon Tax – still a Foolish Thing

To the Editor
Climate Conversation

14th October 2011

Even if 74 prominent people in Parliament say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.

Viv Forbes

Carbon Tax Mk IV flimsy, cancerous

To the Editor
Climate Conversation
10th July 2011

Carbon Tax Mark 4 is flimsy but dangerous.

Because of public opposition to a new tax on everything, the tax has been gutted. The PM hopes to buy public support by giving exemptions to almost everyone and offering widespread bribes to voters. It is now feeble and ineffective.

But the Green-Gillard coalition is desperate and such people cannot be trusted. They will say or promise anything in order to get this new tax introduced.

Once on the law books, the exemptions will be whittled away, the tax rate will increase and the tax bribes will disappear. It is a stealthy cancer in the gut of the Australian economy.

The cost of electricity, food, fuel and travel will increase, but few people will recognise the root cause. Politicians will blame “Woolworths, power suppliers and Big Oil” for the pain.

This new stealth tax is the thin edge of the wedge.

It will have no effect on the climate, but is a fiscal weapon too dangerous to be left in the hands of green extremists.

Letting Bob Brown loose with the vast powers of a carbon tax is like leaving the grandkids alone in the hayshed with a box of matches.

“Abolish the Stealth Tax” will be the next election slogan.

Viv Forbes

Proof please, not propaganda

To the Editor
Climate Conversation

9th May 2011

We need proof that carbon dioxide is a pollutant in the atmosphere. There is none – only political propaganda.

We need proof that global temperatures are controlled by man-made carbon dioxide. There is none – only computer models which are fiddled to fit the past but unable to predict the future.

We need proof on how the emissions targets will be achieved, especially if the big emitters are exempted and consumers are compensated. How many power stations, steel furnaces and cement plants will need to close, what will replace them and when?

We need proof that a tax on carbon dioxide will produce net benefits for the climate or the environment. There is none – just scare stories, misleading pictures and green fairy tales.

We need an independent audit into the mishmash of mandates and subsidies promoting the ethanol, solar, wind, carbon forest and carbon trading industries. There is none – only government spruikers and lobbyists for vested interests.

On the other hand there is voluminous evidence that carbon dioxide is a beneficial plant food not a pollutant, that global temperatures are set by natural cycles and processes, that a tax on carbon dioxide will increase living costs and close Australian industries and that the climate agenda has more to do with wealth redistribution than with climate or the environment.

Viv Forbes
Chairman
Carbon Sense Coalition

To the Editor
Climate Conversation

14th April 2011

If the Combet carbon tax can make millions of Australians richer, why not double the tax and make us all rich?

We are not fooled by official offers of bribery. The money we get from Canberra is the money we sent to Canberra, less freight charges both ways.

Viv Forbes

To the Editor
Climate Conversation

13th February 2011

Why are governments still mollycoddling wind power?

There is no proof that wind farms reduce carbon dioxide emissions and it is ludicrous to believe that a few windmills in Australia are going to improve global climate.

Such wondrous expressions of green faith put our politicians on par with those who believe in the tooth fairy.

Tax payers funding this largess and consumers paying the escalating power bills are entitled to demand proof.

Not only is there no climate justification for wind farms, but they are also incapable of supplying reliable or economical power.

It is also surprising those who claim to be defenders of the environment can support this monstrous desecration of the environment.

Wind power is so dilute that to collect a significant quantity of wind energy will always require thousands of gigantic towers each with a massive concrete base and a network of interconnecting heavy duty roads and transmission lines. Then when they go into production, they slice up bats and eagles, disturb neighbours, reduce property values and start bushfires.

Finally, to cover the total loss of power when the wind drops or blows too hard, every wind farm needs a conventional back-up power station (commonly gas-fired) with capacity at least twice the design capacity of the wind farm to even out the sudden fluctuations in the electricity grid.

Why bother with the wind farm – just build the backup?

There is no justification for the continuation of mandates, subsidies or tax breaks favouring wind power over reliable and cheaper electricity generation options.

Wind power should compete on an equal basis with all other electricity options.

Viv Forbes

The above statements

are supported and expanded in a recent submission to the Australian Senate entitled: “Why Wind Won’t Work – It’s as Weak as Water.”

See a summary of the submission.

See the full report with pictures and all the gory and depressing details.

To the Editor
Climate Conversation

12th December 2010

It’s time to end the mollycoddling of wind and solar energy toys before this stupidity does irreversible damage to Australia’s electricity supply and costs.

The mindless green dream of producing serious base load power from whimsical breezes and intermittent sunbeams has caused a halt to new low-cost coal power, a boom in expensive gas power, a national debate about nuclear power and no effect at all on global climate.

The frivolous wind and solar generators already installed have caused a surge in electricity prices, a bonanza for Chinese manufacturers and well founded doubts about our future ability to keep the lights on.

Provision of cheap reliable energy is a basic requirement for modern civilisation and is the engine that lifts people from poverty. It is far too important to be left to green dreamers, anti-industrial zealots, vote seeking politicians, engineering illiterates and guilt-ridden millionaires.

It is already obvious from Denmark, Spain, California and Germany that subsidising green power creates very little power but much red ink in the accounts. It always causes massive burdens for tax payers, electricity consumers and industry. Tax payers and investors will rue the day they allowed politicians to waste their savings on chimeras.

Get rid of all the mandated markets, subsidies and tax breaks for all energy generators, and leave power engineers and business managers to work out how best to supply our future energy needs in a free competitive market.

Subsidised power must collapse under its own dead weight. But every day’s delay increases the eventual cost.

Viv Forbes

To the Editor
Climate Conversation

1st January 2011

Queensland has wasted millions on the global warming industry. Residents would be better off had they spent it on water storage, flood gauges and flood-proofing of highways, railways and airports.

Europe and USA have wasted billions on the global warming industry. Residents would be better off had they spent it on reliable power stations and snow-proofing of highways, railways and airports.

Climate change and extreme weather have endangered every generation of humans. But this is the first generation that has sacrificed its savings on the altars of the climate gods instead of preparing for whatever weather shocks we may encounter.

“We can forecast and control the weather” has always been the false promise of fakirs and shamans.

Sensible people make sure they have the equipment to cope with extreme weather events.

It’s time to ignore climate fakirs and shamans, and cease paying tributes to them.

Viv Forbes

We all know that the becalmed wind turbines produced a derisory trickle of power during this wicked northern winter.

But who is climbing up to clean the snow off the solar panels so they can collect another derisory trickle of energy, around midday only, from the pale winter sun?

Meanwhile, quietly, efficiently and unseen by the green dreamers, King Coal and Mighty Nuclear are keeping the lights on and the heaters glowing.

Viv Forbes

To the Editor
Climate Conversation

27th December 2010

If global warming is so bad, why do people try to escape winter in cold places like Aberdeen, Boston, Tokyo and Moscow by flocking to warm places like Acapulco, Bali, the Black Sea and the Greek Islands?

Maybe a bit of global warming may be welcome in some places right now?

Viv Forbes

An ancient pyramid makes you think.

by Viv Forbes

20th December 2010

One of the fastest growing industries in the world is based on a pyramid of frauds and its inevitable collapse will be worse than the sub-prime crash.

The Global Warming Industry is now fed by billions of dollars from western taxpayers and consumers. It is based on the unproven and now discredited claim that man’s production of carbon dioxide causes dangerous global warming.

The basic fraud is this:

There is no evidence that carbon dioxide controls world temperature – just a theory and the manipulated results from a handful of giant computer models that very few people have checked or understand. But there is clear evidence from historical records of atmospheric carbon dioxide and temperature that carbon dioxide does not control temperature. Rather the reverse – as solar or volcanic heat warms the oceans, the waters expel carbon dioxide. Global warming causes an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, not the reverse. Read more… »

To the Editor
Climate Conversation

14th November 2010

When the Australian PM says “we need a price on carbon”, she is just sprouting another misleading Wongism like “we must reduce carbon pollution”.

Most forms of carbon already have a price – coal, oil, gas, petrol, diesel, beef, bread, butter, diamonds and whisky all have a price (which usually includes a few taxes).

What Ms Gillard wants, but dares not say, is another tax on our usage of many carbon products.

But who wants a tax on carbon?

The Greens do. They hate humans and their farm animals, crops, coal, oil, cars, power generators and heavy industry. They would like to see the end of most mining, farming, fishing and forestry. A carbon tax will hit all of these people so the Greens support it. Read more… »

Guest post by Viv Forbes, Chairman, Carbon Sense Coalition.

The Rudd Resource tax is just another in a long line of taxes helping to depopulate rural Australia.

That depopulation of the outback started with the fringe benefits tax and the removal of accelerated depreciation, both of which penalise companies who provide housing for employees.

Every government since then has accelerated the drift to the coastal and capital cities.

The heavy burdens of excessive fuel taxes, coal royalties, rail freights and infrastructure bottlenecks have for years restricted the development of the outback resource industry. Only deposits that are rich or close to the coast can pay their way, which is why the Galilee Basin has been undeveloped for so long.

The vegetation control bans, water mismanagement and growth of carbon credit forests are depressing agriculture and will depopulate rural towns. Read more… »

Guess which Korea is free and which is a communist dictatorship?
Guess which Korea eats and which one starves?
Electricity sets us free. Choose freedom. Build more power plants.

(thanks to the Competitive Enterprise Institute)

Viv Hughes, chairman of the Australia-based Carbon Sense Coalition, frequently talks sense about the carbon dioxide “demon”. Today he takes aim at the guilt-easing, yet nonsensical, notion of “Earth Hour”, an increasingly popular expression of opposition to so-called “climate change”. His focus is of course Australia, but that’s not so far from us, is it? Note that we get 70% of our electricity from hydro power, not oil, and, for Penny Wong and rationing, read John Key and the ETS, which will have largely the same effect. I want to say more about the folly of Earth Hour, but first read Viv’s no-nonsense dose of cold reason for these hot, fanciful fears of man-made disaster.

Earth Hour or Blackout Night?

A statement by Viv Hughes, Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition.

27 March 2010

Visit the Carbon Sense web site to download a pdf of this statement – spread it around.

Earth Hour should be renamed “Blackout Night” and be held outdoors, for the whole night, in mid-winter, on the shortest and coldest day of the year – 22 June in the Southern Hemisphere.

All supporters of alternative energy should spend just one night in the cold and the dark, emitting no carbon dioxide from coal, oil, gas, petrol or diesel for lights, TV, hot coffee, barbecues or cars. This will be good practice for the blackouts and shortages to come if Penny Wong’s rationing of carbon products and carbon energy is attempted. Read more… »

Newsletter

8th February 2010

Understanding the Ruddy ETS

The Emissions Trading Scheme proposed for Australia and now before the Australian Parliament is far more than “A Great Big New Tax”.

PM Rudd’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme combines a Big New Tax with a War-Time Rationing scheme and an Income redistributing compensation scheme, all to be run by a regulatory army probably bigger than our real army.

Let’s try to understand this Ruddy ETS. To simplify things, let’s look at just the electricity industry. Read more… »

Guest post by Viv Forbes, Chairman, Carbon Sense Coalition.

The Carbon Sense Coalition today called for an end to the practice of governments trying to buy support for their failing Ration-N-Tax Scheme using tax money raised in an underhand fashion from the same people.

The Chairman of Carbon Sense, Mr Viv Forbes, said that since the “Climate Scare-a-Day” campaign of 2009 has failed to spook the people, the New Year will see acceleration of the next ploy: “carbon bribery and corruption”. Read more… »

We Kiwis should stay in touch with Australian developments, so here’s another in a continuing collaboration with the friendly dingos across the ditch. Download the original pdf (153KB) from Carbon Sense.

Guest post by Viv Forbes, Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition, Australia.

The Carbon Sense Coalition today called on the Australian Parliament to repudiate the
Copenhagen giveaways promised by PM Rudd to the failed states of Africa and the welfare
beggars of the islands.

The Chairman of “Carbon Sense”, Mr Viv Forbes, said that the three Climate Crusaders,
Obama, Brown and Rudd, had been comprehensively conned in Copenhagen by African
mendicants and fakers from the islands.

“They have agreed to hand over mega-bucks of our money (anywhere from $5 billion to
$100 billion) as compensation for alleged damage caused by our production of carbon
dioxide – the Africans citing climate damage and the islanders claiming rising sea levels.

“Even a cursory examination of the facts would prove that both of these claims are
fraudulent.

“There is no evidence that carbon dioxide has caused global warming, or causes damage to
any aspect of life on earth. The vast majority of earth’s warming originates from the sun, and fluctuations there are the major cause of climate changes.

“In addition, careful recent surveys show no unusual rising of sea levels. Read more… »