For a bloke on a very large pension, former Prime Minister the not-so-honourable Tony Abbott is working very hard for the Institute of Public Affairs these days. His latest IPA speech in London was outrageously stupid, playing down the climate crisis even as his own country burns and the international numbers confirm the situation is more dire than ever.
Widely reported by Murdoch media, Mr Abbott was speaking at the launch of a document called Energy Security is National Security, as part of the ironically named Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in the UK last week.
‘The climate cult will inevitably be discredited,’ he said. ‘I just hope we don’t have to endure an energy catastrophe before that happens.’
Flying cheerfully in the face of the overwhelming majority of scientific expertise, Mr Abbott claimed warnings about the climate emergency were ‘ahistorical and utterly implausible’, citing as evidence previous climate variations which took place prior to the burning of fossil fuels, such as the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Climate Anomaly.
Unfortunately for Abbott’s thesis, and those of us hoping for a liveable future on this planet, research from NASA and others show that these events did not affect the whole globe at once, and were nowhere near as severe as what we’re facing now, with July probably being the hottest month our planet has seen in 100,000 years, and international scientists recently warning that Earth’s life systems were being pushed into ‘dangerous instability’ by human activity.
Cost of living or going extinct?
Ignoring all that, Tony Abbott said last week that he believed voters would continue prioritising cost of living and energy price issues over serious action on emissions reduction.
Forgetting that time in 2019 when he lost his blue ribbon seat of Warringah to an independent who campaigned heavily for urgent climate action, Abbott said ‘on every occasion in Australia where energy policy and climate policy has been a big election focus, it’s the people who have been on the sceptical end of the spectrum who have done well.’
The issue has certainly kept him in the public eye between media-friendly moments of budgie-smuggling and raw onion eating. In 2009, Tony Abbott described climate change as ‘absolute crap’ and in 2017 he said attempts to do something about emissions were akin to ‘primitive people once killing goats to appease the volcano gods’. The former trainee Jesuit priest remains completely out of step on the climate issue with his own supposed spiritual leader, Pope Francis.
By getting rid of Julia Gillard’s mis-named ‘carbon tax’ while in office, perhaps our last best hope as a nation to do something about the crisis, Mr Abbott set in motion a series of events which led to the current Labor government’s proposal for net zero emissions, now his public enemy number one as he campaigns for more dirty energy.
He described the Albanese plan to reach 82 per cent renewables by 2030 as utterly irrational and ‘impossible’, leading Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen in turn to accuse Abbott and his ilk for being responsible for ‘a decade of catastrophic climate policy’.
Nasty solar
As for the IPA report itself, the stupidity just keeps coming. ‘If wind and solar energy are cheap, then they are also nasty,’ claims the author, Professor Stephen Wilson, who is from the School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering at the University of Queensland. Fossil fuels and nuclear energy are so much nicer, apparently.
‘Contrary to public opinion, the more wind and solar power that is added to a system, the more expensive it becomes to deliver as a service.’ And so it continues.
Professor Wilson recently spoke at a forum organised by the Centre for Independent Studies, which is in turn affiliated with the US-based Atlas Network, an organisation with close ties to the tobacco industry, as well as coal and gas producers.
For Tony Abbott, up on the IPA podium, it was a case of back to the future, as he lamented Australia’s lost chance under Labor to be a coal, gas and uranium ‘superpower’, even as vast quantities of these substances continue to be dug up.
‘I suppose I’m one of the very few national leaders who have been elected to office promising to end the emissions obsession which has dominated energy policy for the last two decades,’ said Mr Abbott. At least he was honest about negativity being at the core of his political ambition.
Originally from Canberra, David Lowe is an award-winning film-maker, writer and photographer with particular interests in the environment and politics. He’s known for his campaigning work with Cloudcatcher Media.
Long ago, he did work experience in Parliament House with Mungo MacCallum.
Ex Prime Minister on a very large Pension david ?
Oh you mean the same very large pensions
all ex Prime Minister’s are receiving !
Climate change is big business….those renewable
Projects are costing Taxpayer’s how much david
In subsidies ? The Climate change Minister
What ever that means ..still suggests that renewable energies for this country are the
Cheapest options moving forward..how many
Hundreds of billions have been poured into
Renewable energy projects..yet still 95% of this
Countries energy needs come from hydrocarbon’s..
One of the richest resources nations On the planet
It is a travesty what this present government has planned for the countries energy needs moving forward.. nuclear power..zero emissions should
Have happened decades ago.. !
So your volunteering for an undeveloped modular reactor on your property sometime in the mythical future. You did realise the noalition was in government for almost a decade doing nothing but go in ever increasing circles of confusion producing no outcomes.
Do I get unlimited free power? If so, we wouldn’t be able to supply a reactor to everyone that would want that deal. I would like a Thorium-Salt reactor for my private needs.
Look unfortunately there are a lot of very gullible LNP/Hanson voters out there, still listening, but let’s get one thing straight. No one, I repeat, no one has any intension of introducing ridiculously expensive Nuclear power in Australia. Anyone pushing the Nuclear power barrow are nothing more than an IPA directed coal mining salesman. The strategy is simple, stop renewable energy development, babble endlessly about the ridiculously contrived benefits of what is actually “Extremely expensive Nuclear energy” forever, while coal continually remains being dug up by the multinational coal mining company paying the IPA and it’s spokespeople to talk about Nuclear energy? Like almost anyone depending on being preselected by the Liberal and National One Nation coal mining party’s. Got it?
Let’s face it, if anything these pro Nuclear energy LNP spokespeople said was true or factual, the LNP would have done it years ago. But like everything the LNP say, it needs to be taken with a grain of salt and best ignored, because around the corner, it’s always just another LNP economic catastrophe.
Of course we are trying to stop your unreliable electricity agenda. It’s not working. Western countries are currently being forced to stop before the grids fail. It does not work.
Another Gem David, You are so, so left mate. When was the last time over 50% of the nation voted for you?. All you are good for is delivering cheap shots with the benefit of hindsight. Mr Abbot happens to be a very well respected Aussie with a much broader understanding of this nation and it’s needs than you my unfriend will ever imagine. Go have a good look at yourself, at the lunatic greens and the current government, what do you see?. High inflation, high interest rates, high fuel prices, high food prices, high electricity costs in fact everything has gone out of control ever since Albo and his hopeless front bench took over. Where are your criticism’s of that lot David?, what is that I hear or read?. More silence. You really are a shallow opportunist with little to no depth, substance or credibility. Go get a real job. Echo, you can do better than that.
Yep that coalition were outstanding for the economy- what almost a trillion in debt and giving copious amounts of money to businesses that didn’t have to be repaid. Tony Abbott understood australia- embarrassed at the gay marriage plebiscite and was pm for what number of years before his colleagues chucked him? Can you give a name to one constructive policy to emerge from Tony?
Rod, you right.
Tonyboyo, his idea of constructive policy was to set about being a wrecking ball to destroy everything.
Health, Education, ABC, SBS, Indigenous programs, it was all Cut, Cut, Cut and keep on Cuuuuutting right to the bone.
But Tonyboyo even excelled himself with his single handed DESTRUCTION of the car manufacturing industry.
And we have people like our Gregrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr that applaud it all.
Barrow, “nuclear power..zero emissions should Have happened decades ago.. !”, well Barrow, the track record of your recent Liberal leaders isn’t great reading for you, is it; ex-PM Morrison did ZERO for nuclear; ex-PM Turnbull did Zero for nuclear, ex-PM Abbott did ZERO for nuclear; ex-PM Howard actually ZEROed the idea of nuclear!
As for the hapless Peter Dutton, what did he say or do in his time as a cabinet minister to get nuclear going…ZERO.
Dutton isn’t serous about nuclear, he knows it won’t ever happen in Australia, he can’t supply any costings, sites, timelines for building anything or how much $’sFederal Taxpayer will have to underwrite this nuclear wet dream of his.
Professors Blakers and Green – ‘Nuclear no match for cheap solar, experts say’, AFR 14/10/2023 – have belled Dutton’s nuclear hoax.
All that would have to happen is get rid of the laws against it. Private interests would build them.
Yes, just like your mates Nuscale in Utah…LOL!
Who will rid us of this meddlesome priest ?
Indeed!
I’m about to rid myself of him by way of the unsubscribe button.
Aren’t you quoting a call to murder someone?
Our climate weather wane Tony Abbott, does anyone take the dude seriously.
One just needs to delve into his differing and conflicting positions on climate over the years.
– he once supported a price on carbon emissions only to dump that when he had the chance to knife BIg Mal and take over as then Opposition Leader.
– he signed Australia up to the Paris Agreement only to later, as a wannabe Chief Scientist, claim carbon dioxide was a harmless, colourless, odourless, weightless gas.
Still waiting for my $550.00 ( cheque ? ) savings that Abbott promised us all when he repealed the ETS.
As for Abbott’s $100.00 roasts, the Whyalla wipeout, the decimation of manufacturing, none of it happened.
OH, wait, the Car Manufacturing Industry was decimated by Abbott himself – dead, buried and cremated – onya Tonyboyo!
Yes, Barrow they are all on a larger pension than the average retiree.
Fossil fuel extraction is a BIG BUSINESS, too; it just so happens that the production and use of same is having a negative effect on the planet.
Renewables( sun and wind ) have been proven beyond any doubt to be the cheapest way to replace fossil fuels. Nuclear power has three major drawbacks: excepionally high cost, long lead-in time before it can be used and disposal of waste. Of course, no locality has shown any enthusiasm for a ‘nuclear trial run’ either. Would it suit the Gold Coast or Byron Bay?
Sheriff … everyone that includes the very individual’s who have the very hide to
Do the complete opposite when it comes to
Minimising one’s carbon footprint…!
And no better hypocrisy from the Greens ..
at least i purchased a electric vehicle
Although in the manufacturing of such
planet saving transportation needs
It infact polluted the planet 20 times more
From one electric ..than what a fuel vehicle
Dos in 20 years ..yes Sheriff climate change
Is big business….now as for Nuclear as a cost
Effective alternative to hydrocarbon’s it is..
And renewable energy as cost effective ?
Sorry the fact is ..it’s not ! Trillions
Invested and the reliance from hydrocarbon’s
Has decreased from 86% to 83 percent in 25 year’s..
“voters would continue prioritising cost of living and energy price issues over serious action on emissions reduction”
Not a fan of Tony but if you don’t understand how relevant that quote is for the majority David, you might need to get out of your bubble and perhaps listen to average Australians a little more.
It appears obvious, that there are even greater idiots out there than Mr Abbott, and plentiful numbers of them too.
This would explain how Abbott got a political existence at all, but amazing that he reached PM, to do so much mindless damage in the face of scientific facts.
Is Bob Hawke to blame, encouraging Australians to believe we’re a “clever country” ?!
Vast swathes of careless idiots are revealing themselves recently, to the horror of the rest of us.
Poor democracy’s honeymoon looks to be approaching the abyss, powered by wanton lustful ignorance.
Yet another product of Jesuit indoctrination. Abbott and his ilk have contributed far too much to Australia’s decline in industry, employment, environment, etc.
We really don’t get value for money from the LNP, or it’s retirees.
Paul Keating did a lot more in that direction.
All the lefty green radical nonsense ideology being spewed out of your mouths, wake up from your green dreams and take a look around, I hate to rain on your dope patch but you are the overwhelming MINORITY. Only in the Byron Shire, a nest of misfits looking for a cause, a religion you can grasp and worship while disrupting normal people’s lives. You are all the unusual, the misunderstood, the rainbow hair coloured climate crusaders that really don’t know much at all. How’s about you all go have a bath, get a haircut and get a real job. The world doesn’t need your crazy activism.
Hi Greg,
from your comment it appears you haven’t ever visited Byron. Rest assured, in reality it’s nothing like your nightmare stereotype of the northern rivers, but a vibrant place full of young backpackers, holidaying families, mega wealthy tourists & innovative sustainability business leaders, all propping up our national economy.
You’re probably thinking of Nimnin 90km away.I think that’s changed a bit since your last visit too
What does Byron produce?
In terms of the national economy, LOTS of land tax and lots of GST. There is a reason that tourism is regarded as an industry.
Vacuous instagrammers, wellness lifestyle bloggers, thousands of dogs, lip-filler & botox clinics, skin cancer, opinionated righteous entitlement & anti-vaxxers
Yes all of that gives me the 💩s to N.See – except the dogs! 🦮
Tony Abbott is a frustrated Boxer and it shows.
To obtain relevance he will spruik any cause that offers media splash. Here is man that was Minister for First Nation peoples and he joins the NO Right Wing Think Tanks ….. think about it. Riding high on this relevance he then claims to be Minister for Women…..GET A LIFE TONY …He doesn’t even like women. Think about the dude folks…what a total waste of Public money. Tony represents Tony.
Hi Jo.
The Tony, as ‘Minister for First Nations’ slashed $’s534millions from 150 Indigenous programs.
The Tony, as ‘Minister for Women’ came out with gems; about women doing the ironing; about a woman’s virginity as the greatest gift she could give someone.
The Tony, the dude is a Rhodes Scholar 1980. Surely someone was having a lend of us all.
What does a scholarship to study at Oxford University have to do anything? Are you a conspiracy theorist?
A rather anachronistic view of Byron Bay, Greg and large parts of the Byron Shire. It’s now hipster and influencer ville rather than hippy ville. Same goes for Greens voters. Have you noticed that most of the seats they hold are in inner urban affluent electorates.
You should be grateful that this crazy Labor Government is greatly expanding renewable energy production. Something is going to have to replace the fossil fuel power stations that are due to imminently close down. Private companies can see the writing on the wall, even if most of their once champions are taking longer to catch on.
It’s going to be candles.
Really surprised Abbott’s monarch, King Charles the 3rd, an extremely concerned environmentalist and global warming hasn’t commanded his loyal British born subject Anthony Abbott to immediately STF up and stop so blatantly lying to all and sundry, on behalf of his extremely suspect secretive and very shadowy employers at the IPA and News Corpse?
Because he would lose his kingship. Chuck rides the line as it is.
Like Charles 1? Who would lead the insurrection?
The High Court of the United Kingdom.
The sooner big donations to political parties from multinationals and anyone for that matter are stopped the better off we will all be.
The reason the coalition didn’t achieve any advances in the commencement of nuclear energy is the lunatic greens and labor. Nuclear power production in Australia is currently not permitted under two pieces of Commonwealth legislation. Imagine trying to amend this legislation in parliament at that time, what do you think the greens and labor would have done?, the coalition had their hands tied. Now the population is slowly favoring nuclear as they can see renewables are not only too expensive but horribly unreliable and destructive to the environment. After the next federal election when the coalition is returned to power everyone will see swift advancements toward the beginning of cheap sustainable base load nuclear power plants.
Gregrrrrrrrr, the eternal optimist now.
You can thank your hero ‘Honest John’ for outlawing nuclear, one of the few good things he did.
It has already been explained by Professors Blakers and Green that nuclear can’t compete with solar, so your ‘cheap’ nuclear is just another nuclear myth.
Assuming that Dutton somehow rustles up a majority on the floor of the HoR come Election 25, there is that other matter of the Senate and that is the end of yours / Dutton’s nuclear wetdream, again.
Really, Governments shouldn’t operate on the assumption that they won’t achieve their agenda. They should advocate like hell and convince us why it’s a good idea. There were no moves ever proposed to repeal the ban nor any serious attempt to prosecute a case for nuclear power plants. This latest stuff is a diversion to keep delaying renewable energy development.
Just like the second referendum proposed by Dutton, there will be reasons found to abandon the whole idea.
Greg, it would take 20 to 30 years before nuclear power – the most expensive form of energy, would be operational in Australia.
It’s not even an option, just another attempted distraction. You’ve been conned.
Again.
No it’s not. Not even close.
Lizardbreath, where do you think a large chunk of the Byron Bay community that voted for a yes majority originated from over the last twenty years?, now could they have arrived from affluent inner city electorates?, and bought their misguided ways with them. How do you like Ford USA’S decision to cease production of their F150 lightning electric pick-up?, it didn’t work out. All of you Tesla billycart owners out there prepare yourselves for huge insurance shocks, they spontaneously combust and burn many cars around them, they explode in homes while being charged and are being banned from some multi-storey car parks. Insurance company’s have rightly observed this huge problem and are adjusting premiums accordingly, they may in future refuse to insure them at all. Good luck with your cheap renewable energy vehicles suckers.
Wherever they come from – and a lot have moved in – they’re not smelly hippies any more. Mores the pity, I liked it better then – though they can have a tendency to be tossers ( and I don’t mean litterbugs).
I was actually discussion power plants not electric vehicles but I’m sure any early teething problems will be sorted. Any technology has its issues
It’s the physics that is the problem.
20-30 yrs for nuclear my fat aunt. You are really so blinded by the lefty BS N. See, small modular reactors can be imported and commissioned in a matter of a few years. Only a small number of these would be required to take the pressure off the hugely unreliable renewable expensive failures the Albo government is hellbent on inflicting upon us. Only the lefty lying rhetoric is the greatest distraction to reliable nuclear energy. Only the lefty’s and parrot head Bowen believe their renewable ideology.
Dear Greg,
Evidence-based & science are nothing to do with lefty politics. Though I am heartened by your apparent admission that we need an alternative energy source urgently. Finally admitting past errors of judgement eh?
No-one with any credibility or understanding is advocating nuclear as a viable alternative precisely due to the multi-decades timeframe & exorbitant costs of establishment…. yet the very same comparatively miniscule costs of establishment for renewables you’re constantly ranting about & objecting to. Bizarre, double-standards & hypocritical might begin to describe such a stance. Unplug your fakebook & sky cable to real information.
Renewables are being lead by consumers, not the government. The government are followers trying to catch up.
Lots of love, yours N.See
You can order them from China pre-fabed. They arrive on container ships.
Greggggggrrrrrr, please tell us where these not existing commercially operating SMR’s are that can be ” imported and commissioned in a matter of a few years”. C’mon Greggggrrrr, just tell us.
In breaking news from the U.S of the A in today’s (10/11/23 ) AFR Newspaper, Nuscale’s planned 462MW SMR project in Utah has collapsed and $US600millions of taxpayer hard earned sunk with it….”as costs scared off potential customers”.
SMR’s the solution..ROTFL!
Thanks for a few well-informed facts Joachim.
And an easily checkable source, unlike most of the angry fiction posted.
$600 million for ONE small modular reactor.
That’s more than the cost of re-building most of our key networks in all of Victoria to access the rapidly expanding renewable sources.
Joachim, you might be able to advise… do you know if nuclear power addiction affects mathematics ability or logic?
N.See, in answer to your question, in Gregrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr’s case, a definite Y E S.
$600 mil wouldn’t even cover the transmission lines for Snowy 2. Try watching some Senate estimates occasional.
Joachim, get your head out of your ****end and do some research maaatteee, you know it’s what normal people do that don’t make a full time job of activism and alarmist.
People, I don’t know why your even bothering to argue with righty, dinosaurs like old mate Greg, haven’t you got better things to do?
Indeed!
The CSIRO quoted in excess of one trillion dollars for transmission lines and environment destroying solar and wind, it is called renewable as it has to be renewed every decade or less. Lefty green economics and reality just do not cut it. Nuclear will cost nowhere near the price of pretendy renewable energy.
Gregrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, “…it is called renewable as it has to be renewed every decade or less.”, no proof provided, just more of gregrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr’s bollocks.
Wind Turbines and Solar Panels will last for at least 20 years, but facts never stop gregrrrrrrrrr scribbling his brown right bollocks.
Gregrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, “Nuclear will cost nowhere near the price of pretendy renewable energy.” – no costings provided. Lol!
You lefty green lot took the bait didn’t you, certainly got you thinking and your fingers moving very quickly on those keyboards. I was raising awareness to the future for Small Modular Nuclear Reactors. According to the World Nuclear Association 60 nuclear reactors are under construction in 17 countries. 25 in China, 8 in India are under construction and a further 110 planned mostly in Asia including a further 43 planned for China and 154 proposed. A further 12 planned for India and 28 proposed. Now all of you fiscal and nuclear expert Einstein’s out there, is the rest of the world WRONG?. Are you lot the only one’s in the world that are right?. Many overseas countries and company’s are developing SMNR’s rapidly including Rolls Royce, NuScale, TerraPower, Westinghouse, BWXT Technologies to name a few. It is inevitable SMNR’s will be available for Australia in the not too distant future.
Ah Gregrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, when in the hole, it best to stop the digging, yeah.
Your backsliding is a special gift that keeps on giving.
From, Gregrrrrrrr November 9, 2023 At 4:29 pm, “small modular reactors can be imported and commissioned in a matter of a few years.”
To, Gregrrrrrrr November 14, 2023 At 10:42 am,”It is inevitable SMNR’s will be available for Australia in the not too distant future.”
“Inevitable”, “not too distant future”, please do tell us more when this time is actually going to be; when Australia has banned nuclear power stations and NO ONE, not even your man Dutton has put up a proposal to repeal that ban on nuclear power stations; when SMR’s aren’t commercially operating anywhere in the world to, in your words – “be imported and commissioned in a matter of years”; when Nuscale pulled the pin in Utah despite all those $’sUS600millions US Federal Govt subsidy; when Rolls Royce have been talking SMR’s for years and still haven’t got anything built, with maybe /possibly/sometime…in the 2030’s they might just land… one SMR; when Professors Blakers and Green recently explained – AFR 14/10/23 – nuclear won’t be happening in Australia, it can’t ever compete with solar on $’s.
So Gregrrrrrrrrr, your nuclear is a dead end but please keep coming back with your free entertainment scribbles, we enjoy the laughs…
Joachim, I have replied to your obnoxious lefty nothing comments only to be censored so please don’t think you have quietened me. Only the lefty narrative is published by the small minded in the cosy little lefty shire of byron.
Moderators, you are showing your true colours, green, green green.