So, what can we do about it?
Respected climate change communicators have suggested that, in the face of the rigid ideological intransigence of this government, that Canberra based lobbying for incremental change – the default position of several of the larger environmental groups – is a waste of time.

The only valid strategy, according to this line of thinking, are direct co-ordinated community based campaigns of opposition with as models the 'Lock the Gate' anti-coal seam gas campaign, the Greens' Federal lower house election campaign in the seat of Melbourne and newly elected independent Cathy McGowan's campaign in the seat of Indi. It has been argued that the key to winning this battle is re-framing the debate.

Both of these positions are laudable and no doubt true as far as they go but I can't help thinking the authors of these pieces are dancing around the elephant in the room.

Abbott has declared war on the environment, and his government's every climate- and energy related move reveals its profound indifference to our future environmental well-being. To these clowns, climate change is just another skirmish in the eternal culture war that is the sum total of their understanding of the world.

As David Spratt puts it:
The Abbott government will not be persuaded by reason and is not interested in compromise because this is a battle to be won, and compromise and negotiation are signs of weakness. For this government, fighting enemies is more important than reality-based policy-making. This is about the politics of resentment, fear and revenge, about winning, and about debilitating the enemy. Culture wars are not primarily about policy detail, but about building legitimacy, isolating the enemy and establishing dominance.http://www.independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/climate-change-countdown-part-two-time-to-stand-up-and-be-counted,5831

http://www.independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/ignore-silly-old-men-un-says-climate-gap-is-getting-wider,5869

Politicians will say and do a lot of things they don’t really believe in order to get elected.

Take John Howard. In late 2006, trailing in the polls, and with community concern about climate change high, he reversed his government’s long-standing sceptical stance about action on global warming and announced a taskforce to look at how Australia could implement an emissions trading scheme.

“I think it is important to keep the challenge of climate change in perspective,” he said at the time. “…although I have been accused and continue to be accused of being somewhat of sceptic on the issue, the truth is I’m not that sceptical, I think the weight of scientific evidence suggests that there are significant and damaging growths in the levels of greenhouse gas emissions and that unless we lay the foundation over the years immediately ahead of us to deal with the problem, future generations will face significant penalties and will have cause to criticise our failure to do something substantial in response.”

And in June 2007, announcing the details of the scheme he intended to introduce by 2011 if re-elected, he said: "Being among the first movers on carbon trading in this region will present new opportunities for Australia. And we intend to grasp them."

But in a speech in London on Tuesday night Howard made it clear he actually didn’t think there was anything really “significant” or “damaging” about greenhouse emissions and that his last-minute policy had been mainly about grasping the tide of public opinion, rather than any opportunities from emissions trading.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/06/election-ploy-john-howard-climate

Australia will have no government minister at the main United Nations climate negotiations next week, for the first time since the Kyoto accord in 1997.

Diplomat Justin Lee, Australia’s ambassador for climate change, will represent the country at international talks in Poland, which are seen as vital to laying the groundwork for a global agreement to cut carbon emissions.

A spokesman for the environment minister, Greg Hunt, told Guardian Australia he would be “honouring the election promise of introducing the carbon tax repeal as the first item of legislative business” when parliament resumes next week.

Government ministers typically attend the final days of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change annual meetings. But it is understood neither Hunt, foreign minister Julie Bishop nor their parliamentary secretaries will travel to the Warsaw talks, which conclude on 22 November.

Hunt’s spokesman said the climate talks were under the remit of the Department of Foreign Affairs, which would represent a break from the usual practice of environment ministers attending the summits. Bishop’s spokeswoman said Lee would represent Australia for the entire trip, due to the foreign minister’s commitments at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/07/climate-change-talks-no-minister-represent-australia

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Climate change is crap... Give Abbott some suntan lotion so he can slip, slap, slop and melt....

Better give moneys to the rich and suck it from the poor (and the middle class)... Give treasury a golden straw to place up in their proverbial...

The rich are "aspirational" while the poor are lazy... give the poor nothing (thank god!)... and a one way ticket to the south pole to the rich.

The economy is of course running so well since Hockey took over he can afford to dig much deeper holes in the deficit... Give him a shovel to dig his own grave so he can lie in it...

Sink the boats of the illegals... Give Morisson a whale gun to shoot himself in the foot...

IDIOTS... Idiots PLUS...

The storm made landfall on the Philippines shortly before dawn on Friday, bringing gusts that reached 379 km/h (235 mph), with waves as high as 15m (45ft), bringing up to 400mm (15.75 inches) of rain in places.

Meteorologists had earlier warned that the storm could be as devastating as Typhoon Bopha in 2012, which ravaged parts of the southern Philippines and left at least 1,000 people dead.

Schools and offices were closed, while ferry services and local flights were suspended. Hospitals and soldiers were on stand-by for rescue and relief operations.

Power and communication lines were also cut to some areas.

Haiyan raged across Leyte and Samar, turning roads into rivers, and battered Cebu city, the country's second largest with a population of 2.5 million.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24878801

And now the typhoon is about to hit Vietnam... For anyone intersted in charts and things, this was recorded not even a couple of weeks ago when another typhoon hit India —while another was hitting the Philippines... At the same time, the next typhoon (Halyan) was already on the prowl further east. Two typhoons on the same map is long odds. Three on the same map? That's global warming...

Each destructive typhoon season costs us 2% of our GDP, and the reconstruction costs a further 2%, which means we lose nearly 5% of our economy every year to storms. We have received no climate finance to adapt or to prepare ourselves for typhoons and other extreme weather we are now experiencing. We have not seen any money from the rich countries to help us to adapt ... We cannot go on like this. It cannot be a way of life that we end up running always from storms," he said. He later told the assembly: "Climate change negotiations cannot be based on the way we currently measure progress. It is a clear sign of planetary and economic and environmental dysfunction ... The whole world, especially developing countries struggling to address poverty and achieve social and human development, confronts these same realities.

"I speak on behalf of 100 million Filipinos, not as a leader of my delegation, but as a Filipino …" At this point he broke down.

Saño was uncontactable today, because phone lines to Manila were down, but he was thought to be on his way to Warsaw for the UN talks, which resume on Monday. This time, with uncanny timing, his country has been battered by the even stronger super-typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful ever recorded anywhere – 25 miles (40km) wide and reaching astonishing speeds of possibly 200mph (322km/h).

We don't yet know the death toll or damage done, but we do know that the strength of tropical storms such as Haiyan or Bopha is linked to sea temperature. As the oceans warm with climate change, there is extra energy in the system. Storms may not be increasing in frequency but Pacific ocean waters are warming faster than expected, and there is a broad scientific consensus that typhoons are now increasing in strength.

Typhoon Haiyan, like Bopha, will be seen widely in developing countries as a taste of what is to come, along with rising sea levels and water shortages. But what alarms the governments of vulnerable countries the most is that they believe rich countries have lost the political will to address climate change at the speed needed to avoid catastrophic change in years to come...

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/08/typhoon-haiyan-rich-ignore-climate-change

Former prime minister Julia Gillard has used a speech in Melbourne to urge Parliament to keep the price on carbon.

The Government says it will introduce legislation to repeal the carbon tax when Parliament resumes this week.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott says he is confident that Australia's greenhouse gas emissions can be cut by 5 per cent by 2020 - in line with the target set by Labor - with his direct action plan.

Ms Gillard, who introduced the price on carbon in 2010 after backflipping on a pre-election promise, says she wants to see evidence.

"If it is to be replaced by any other system then it is incumbent on those advocating the new approach to show it will cut emissions by at least 5 per cent by 2020 and it will do so by a lesser cost per tonne of carbon abated," she said.

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If anyone remembers the proper truth about this, it's not the ABC... Gillard said she would not introduce a carbon tax — correct. But she always had said she would try to introduce either an ETS or a CARBON PRICING... What is the difference between a carbon tax and a carbon PRICE?... A CARBON TAX IS APPLIED ACROSS THE BOARD, including car fuels... A carbon pricing is targeted to make power suppliers more efficient and reduce their emissions of CO2 — and use the proceeds to help the renewable energy providers... Most of the carbon pricing cost is borne by people earning more than $150,000 while those earning less get a government rebate... When Greg Hunt says that your electricity bill will reduce by $500, he lies.  It will reduce, depending on your consumption of electricity by an average of about $320 should you earn more (declared) than $150,000. Should you earn less, it WON'T MAKE any difference as your cost is offset by the rebate — itself paid by the carbon pricing.

MOST OF THE EXTRA COSTS TO THE ELECTRICITY BILLS  were added on by electricity providers who had bought the government infrastructure and changed a public ownership into a private concern. While in the past governments used to amortise costs to change poles and wires over 20 years, the new private companies have devised a plan to recoup such costs over TWO YEARS OR BARELY MORE. This is where the cost of electricity has gone up through the roof...

If your electricity bills is less, it would be because the electricity providers have recouped their moneys and can afford to charge less, NOT BECAUSE OF THE CARBON PRICING BEING REMOVED. 

Tony Abbott's direct action is a botch job that is designed to pay polluters to"pollute less" whatever this means or whatever this is calculated. As Malcolm Turnbull exposed, this is open to abuse and rorts... But welcome to the champion rorters of Australia — the Abbott government.

Based on sage advice from his expert gut, former Prime Minister John Howard believes scientists who use empirical evidence to establish humans are causing climate change are religious zealots. To get to the bottom of this, Dr John Cook from Skeptical Science probes Howard's gut.

LAST WEEK, former Australian Prime Minister John Howard gave a speech on climate change for the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a conservative think-tank opposed to policies that mitigate climate change. Howard characterised scientists who accept the evidence that humans are disrupting climate as religious zealots. Consequently, he is not so convinced of the scientific evidence.

On what does he base his views?

Howard states that

Howard is guided by gut feeling rather than empirical evidence and physics. At the same time, he accuses scientists, who arrived at their position through methodical consideration of the full body of evidence, of ideological bias. How does one make sense of this? An appropriate starting place is the scientific research into the biasing influence of ideology.

There are many factors that influence our climate change knowledge and attitudes, including education, scientific literacy and personal experience. Political ideology has a significant influence on climate change beliefs. A striking demonstration of the powerful effect of ideology is the finding that as education levels increased, Democrats became more concerned about climate change while Republicans became less concerned. Ideology rather than education is the hand at the wheel driving climate attitudes.

Does this mean ideological bias is symmetrical, with liberals exaggerating the effects ofclimate change while conservatives downplay climate impacts? Again, we can consult empirical research for the answer.

Scientific consensus is a good place to start. Over the years, a number of studies have found that among publishing climate scientists, 97% agree that humans are causing global warming. I was part of a team that performed the most comprehensive analysis of global warming research to date, examining 21 years worth of peer-reviewed papers studying climate change. We found that among papers stating a position on human-caused global warming, 97.1% endorsed the consensus on human-caused global warming.

Given the robust evidence for overwhelming scientific agreement, you might find public perception of consensus a little surprising.

A 2012 Pew survey of Americans found that only 58% of Democrats believe scientists agree on global warming, while even fewer Republicans (30%) think there’s scientific agreement. Among Democrats, whom John Howard believes are biased towards climate alarmism, there’s a significant gap between public perception and the 97% consensus. However, the result that jumps out from this research is one simple fact. The more politically conservative a group is, the further its perception of consensus diverges from reality.

The human contribution to global warming is a key climate metric. The latest IPCC report estimated that of the 0.6°C of global warming since 1950, the best estimate for the human contribution is approximately 100%. If anything, it’s likely to be slightly over 100% with natural influences such as internal variability or the cooling sun offsetting some of our greenhouse warming.

What do the general public think on this key question? In a survey of representative Americans conducted earlier this year, I asked participants to estimate the human contribution to global warming. People on the left side of politics estimated the human contribution at 56% while those on the conservative right thought humans only contributed 32%. This further demonstrates that liberals are underestimating the human influence on global warming. Moreover, when it comes to climate science, conservative ideology is associated with greater departure from reality.

Australia’s current Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, continues to display the same evidence-free, gut-feeling bias against climate science as his predecessor. He dismisses the disruptive effects of carbon dioxide because it’s an invisible gas. The irony of this position is that carbon dioxide’s invisibility is a key feature of the greenhouse effect. He also dismisses the link between climate change and bushfires, arguing that bushfires have happened throughout Australia’s past. This logical fallacy is equivalent to arguing that smoking doesn’t cause cancer because people contracted cancer before cigarettes were invented.