Defeat for environmentalists in Alberta

Conservatives in western Canada have won a critical regional election, with voters rejecting the province of Alberta’s incumbent leftwing government and setting the stage for a fight with the federal government over environmental policy.

The bitter election was fought largely over the economy, pipelines and the environment. Running on a campaign slogan of “Alberta: Strong and Free”, winner Jason Kenney and his right-wing United Conservative party (UCP) pledged to revive the province’s troubled oil and gas sector, cut taxes and scale back environmental policies enacted by the previous government.

“Alberta is open for business,” Kenney told a raucous crowd, after pulling up to the stage of his victory celebration in his blue campaign pickup truck. “Help is on the way and hope is on the horizon.”

Premier Rachel Notley of the leftwing New Democratic party was vying for her second mandate in the province of Alberta, having previously shocked the country when she and her party stormed to victory in 2015. The historic win broke an unprecedented 44 years of conservative rule in the province and was heralded as a new age in Alberta politics.

But a second time around, her promises of a balance between environmental regulation and businesses growth appears to have been rejected by a majority of Albertans, with frustrated residents defecting to the the UCP. Despite her strong favourability ratings, Notley becomes the first premier in the province’s history to fail to secure a second term.

She was the last remaining female premier in the country, a dramatic shift from 2013, when six women held the job in five provinces and one territory. “I am enormously proud of our record – and you should be too,” she told supporters as she conceded the race to Kenney – adding that she would remain as opposition leader. “I wish him and his government well. We all do and we must because we all love Alberta.”

With Kenney’s legislative majority, the province appears set to return to the status quo of conservative government.

Loud cheers broke out in the Big Four Roadhouse, a venue in the Calgary Stampede grounds where UCP members had gathered. Provisional results at 11pm eastern (0400 GMT Wednesday), an hour after voting ended, showed the party had won 62 of the 87 seats in the provincial legislature.

“This means vindication of the very, very difficult defeat that we received in 2015. That was a protest vote, this is a positive vote,” said Marguerite Denis, who co-managed the campaign of one UCP candidate.

Much of the bitter campaign centred around pipelines, with both Notley and Kenney vowing to complete the Trans Mountain pipeline, a critical infrastructure project for the province that has languished in regulatory review since the summer. A prolonged energy crisis in the province – largely the result of overproduction of oil with no clear access to market – has forced energy companies to sell crude at deep discounts, costing thousands of jobs and billions in lost government tax revenues.

While the majority of voters expressed frustration over the economic crisis in the province, they remained skeptical of the socially conservative positions taken by the UCP. Throughout the election Kenney’s party was dogged by accusations of racism and homophobia, promoting candidate resignations and statements of contrition from others.

Premier-designate Kenney will have to deliver on promises he made to revitalise the region’s oil sands, something experts caution might be more difficult than anticipated given the high cost of production and a wariness of investing in capital-intensive projects.

His victory is the latest in a string of conservative wins at the provincial level since 2015 and spells trouble at the national level for Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government, which has recently fallen in the polls after a political scandal and is locked in multiple legal battles with provinces over the federal carbon tax.

Kenney has vowed to scale back the key aspects of the province’s environmental legislation. But any changes to environmental policy that fall below Trudeau’s emissions threshold will trigger the federal government imposition of a carbon tax on the province.

SOURCE 





Climate Change and the Ten Warning Signs for Cults

Have you thought to yourself that the Climate Change movement seems more and more like a religious movement?

I have, so I researched how to identify a religious cult. Rick Ross, an expert on cults and intervention specialist, developed a list of ten warning signs for unsafe groups, which is published by the Cult Education Institute. So let’s take a look at all ten signs and compare:

1. Absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability.

The leading advocates of the Climate Change movement are politicians, entertainers, and even children. Climate preachers such as Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio lack any formal scientific training whatsoever, and live personal lives of unparalleled luxury while prescribing carbon austerity for the masses. Yet no one is permitted to point out their scientific ignorance or call attention to their hypocritical lifestyles.

Child advocates such as Greta Thuneberg and the crudely indoctrinated children of the “Sunrise movement” are essentially sock puppets for their shameless activist handlers. Refuse to bend the knee to these tiny fascists, as Diane Feinstein most recently did, and the mainstream left will relentlessly attack you as an accessory to mass murder.

The authority of Climate Change leaders is entirely unmerited and absolute, yet no one is permitted to hold them accountable for their ignorance, inexperience, or brazen lies. Thus, the Climate Change movement clearly meets the first warning sign for unsafe groups.

2. No tolerance for questions or critical inquiry.

The conclusions of the Climate Change movement may not be challenged or questioned under any circumstances. Those who dare scrutinize the conclusions, methodology, or prescriptions of “climate scientists” are categorically dismissed as a “Climate Denier”, an excommunicated untouchable whose opinion is no longer valid on any subject.

Questions and critical inquiry aren’t merely dismissed or refuted. The unfortunate heretic immediately experiences a relentless ad hominem onslaught of scorn and hatred from the political and media left, and is often subjected to accusations of outright murder. Simply question the effectiveness of a “carbon tax” and you may find yourself tied to a stake.

There is no tolerance for questioning the Climate Change movement, and thus it clearly meets the second warning sign for unsafe groups.

3. No meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget, expenses such as an independently audited financial statement.

Hardly anyone knows just how much money is spent on “Climate research” every year. The cost is spread out among laughably useless study grants, wind and solar farm subsidies, carbon offset credits, “green” building code evaluation and enforcement, salaries for bureaucrats solely dedicated to “climate concerns”……you get the idea, it’s a lot of hazy money.

The abhorrent practice of “sue and settle” was a flat out money laundering scheme that allowed sympathetic government officials to transfer millions of tax dollars to radical leftist environmental groups. The practice only ended when the Trump administration used executive power to clamp down on it.

The total amount of yearly financial expenditure on the Climate Change movement is vague, difficult to track, and often carried out in unethical manners. Thus, the Climate Change movement exhibits the third warning sign for unsafe groups.

4. Unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies and persecutions.

This one is pretty obvious. The Climate Change movement always shouts out revised and updated apocalypse predictions, eerily reminiscent of the stereotypical bum on the sidewalk with that “The End Is Near” sign. “The world will end in X years if we don’t do X” is the constant refrain. The years always pass, and the apocalypse never happens. Interestingly, this is a characteristic of multiple religious cults (such as the Seekers of Chicago, and the Order of the Solar Temple). At the moment, we apparently have 12 years to nationalize the entire economy and phase out fossil fuels before we all die a fiery death.

There’s also no shortage of conspiracy theories about who they consider to be Earth’s greatest saboteurs. They have an enemies list. The fossil fuel industry is at the top of it, with widespread tinfoil hat theories about oil companies burying patents for efficient renewable fuel recipes to keep us all guzzling gasoline.

The “repent or burn” doomsday preaching is the most well-known staple of the Climate Change movement, and quite clearly exemplifies the fourth warning sign for unsafe groups.

5. There is no legitimate reason to leave, former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even evil.

Climate alarmists who leave, step back from, or even lightly criticize the movement are immediately subjected to vicious smear campaigns. Dutch professor Richard Tol experienced this phenomenon firsthand when he removed his name from an IPCC climate report and criticized the reports excessively apocalyptic predictions.

The smear campaign was led by Bob Ward, director of policy at the London School of Economics’ Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change ‘This has all the characteristics of a smear campaign”, Tol said. “It’s all about taking away my credibility as an expert.”

The treatment of Professor Tol is not uncommon, and clearly demonstrates that the Climate Change movement exhibits the fifth warning sign for unsafe groups.

6. Former members often relate the same stories of abuse and reflect a similar pattern of grievances.

Professor Tol is not an anomaly. Dr. Richard Lindzen of MIT, Dr. Nils-Axel Mörner, and countless other former IPCC in-crowd climate experts were subjected to smear campaigns from their colleagues and the news media for the crime of throwing cold water on the outlandish predictions of the Climate Change movement.

This pattern is all too familiar to anyone who has studied what happens to individuals who leave the Church of Scientology, and clearly meets the sixth warning sign for unsafe groups.

7. There are records, books, news articles, or television programs that document the abuses of the group/leader.

The abuses of the Climate Change movement are loud and proud. They vociferously attack their perceived enemies for public consumption, and are cheered on by fellow travelers in the journalism class. Most recently they brainwashed a bunch of kids and marched them into an octogenarian Democrat Senator’s office to beg not to be murdered by a ‘No’ vote on impossible legislation. Have you seen those kids in Diane Feinstein’s office? You should, it’s creepy, here they are:

https://twitter.com/_waleedshahid/status/1099076130089459712

These tantrums and protests aren’t only meant to rally supporters of the Climate Change movement. They are a form of intimidation, a tactic used to silence those who question the gospel. There is ample evidence that the Climate Change movement meets the seventh warning sign of an unsafe group.

8. Followers feel they can never be “good enough”.

The atonement process for Climate warriors always demands more. It started with using a recycling bin and grocery bags. Now, in 2019, being a good follower means imposing veganism on the masses and issuing fatwahs against innocuous objects such as plastic straws and grocery bags. Despite all the efforts of the faithful, Climate minions maintain a constant state of dread and despair, knowing they can never truly do enough to stop the coming doom.

Clearly, the eighth warning sign for unsafe groups applies to the Climate Change movement.

9. The group/leader is always right.

When have the climate leaders been called wrong for their failed predictions? Regardless of the weather, they are always intrinsically correct.

Flood? Climate Change. Drought? Climate Change.

No Snow? Climate Change. Too much snow? Climate Change.

Tornado? Climate Change. Hurricane? Climate Change. Lack of hurricanes? Climate Change.

See how this works?

One of the best aspects of the movement is “weather is climate until it isn’t”. The acolytes of Climate Change will point out the window in a heat wave and say, “See? We’re right!”

If a skeptic points out the window during a blizzard, the same acolytes will simply cry “Weather isn’t climate!” It’s a game they can never lose, one in which they are never wrong and always right.

Thus, the ninth warning sign for unsafe groups clearly applies.

10. The group/leader is the exclusive means of knowing “truth” or receiving validation, no other process of discovery is really acceptable or credible.

The path to discovery for the Climate Change movement is an intentionally vague discipline referred to as “climate science”.

Did you carry out a study on gender and glaciers? Climate Science.

Did you think up the worst possible scenarios that have no actual chance of happening (actual portion of latest National Climate Assessment)? Climate Science.

https://twitter.com/Oil_Guns_Merica/status/1066697180428279809

Any “science” that confirms the tenets of the Climate Change movement is deemed “climate science”, while actual scientific research that disputes their conclusions is derided as “denialism”.

The tenth warning sign for unsafe groups is clearly met.

The Verdict: It’s a cult
According to the established, scientific guidelines developed by cult experts, the Climate Change movement fits the bill for a potentially unsafe group.

When I looked up these established warning signs, I honestly expected Climate Changeists to meet two or three of them, NOT TEN! The disturbingly religious nature of this supposedly “scientific” movement should alarm any thinking human being, especially since the movement now openly seeks to nationalize the entire economy.

It’s time for conservatives to realize what they are dealing with, and act accordingly. Rather than debating Climate Change activists, it may be time to start staging interventions.

If someone you know is a member of the Climate Change Movement, and you are interested in intervention strategies, please visit https://culteducation.com/prep_faq.html.

SOURCE 





Bipartisan Support for Electric Vehicle Handouts Betrays Taxpayers
   
Excessive partisanship and endless acrimony are common complaints lodged against the political class. There’s a lot to be said in favor of this narrative, but bipartisanship isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be, either. As evidence, consider the latest attempt to extend corporate handouts for electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers.

The Driving America Forward Act was recently introduced to extend the existing EV tax credit well beyond its current limits. Unsurprisingly, its sponsors include both Michigan Senators, Democrats Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters, as well as Republican Senators Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Susan Collins of Maine. A companion version was introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Dan Kildee, also a Democrat from a district in Michigan.

Under current law, a federal tax credit of up to $7,500 is available to consumers of the first 200,000 vehicles sold by each manufacturer, after which the credit is phased out. Both Tesla and General Motors have exceeded the cap, a fact that has driven a lobbying frenzy to extend the benefit. This wouldn’t be the first time the credit was expanded, as the original incarnation of the credit applied only to the first 250,000 electric vehicles sold across all manufacturers.

This new legislation will allow for the purchase of an additional 400,000 vehicles to be eligible for a $7,000 credit, but it might as well be permanent. If Congress passes the bill and it’s signed into law, Washington will be sending a clear signal to manufacturers that the gravy train may never end. All the EV makers must then do is flood Washington with lobbying and campaign donations once the next deadline approaches and the cycle could no doubt continue.

The current credit is expected to cost $7.5 billion in federal revenue from last year through 2022, according to the Congressional Research Service and the Joint Committee on Taxation. The costs of the newly expanded credit are not yet available but would be considerably higher.

Almost 80% of those utilizing the EV tax credit have incomes over $100,000, making it not just a corporate handout but also a transfer from all workers to wealthier Americans. And despite its advocates’ claims, the EV tax credit fails to reduce the alleged threat of climate change.

Because all personal vehicles in the United States account for only a small fraction of global greenhouse gas emissions, even an unrealistic influx of electric vehicles would prove to be negligible. Besides, standard internal combustion engines emit far less pollution today than they have in the past. Simply replacing older cars can do as much or more to benefit the environment than even entirely switching over to electric vehicles.

This is at least the third major push to extend EV tax credits over the last year. The persistence of the issue is indicative of a political reality less obvious than the typical Republican versus Democrat framework. In economic parlance, it’s called concentrated benefits and diffuse costs. The benefits are conveyed to EV manufacturers and those few consumers (most of whom make over $100,000), but the costs are spread out across the larger population.

While the manufacturers and relatively wealthier consumers of electric vehicles have a strong incentive to support the tax credits, the average cost per taxpayer is low and thus of little political concern. Yet, when all the crony handouts that come about because of this same dynamic are added up, it represents a more significant sum and is a more obvious problem. But translating that burden into a political force that’s capable of resisting the well-funded pleading of special interests is extremely difficult.

In this case, the fact that the handouts are already set to end if Congress just does nothing should benefit the taxpayers. That’s often not the case, and it explains why the special interests have failed several times already in their attempts to preserve their benefit. Unfortunately, it’s readily apparent that they’re going to keep trying again and again to enrich themselves at the expense of the taxpaying public.

SOURCE 






Time Traveler Ocasio Cortez Brings A Message From The Future: The Magical Green New Deal Has Saved The Planet

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez thinks she is the master of everything and now she is adding time traveler to her resume.

Now she has narrated a new video from the future when her magical Green New Deal has saved planet Earth from Republicans, Fox News reported.

The Federalist Papers Reports:

In a video released on Wednesday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., told a “story from the future” in which her “Green New Deal” transformed the American economy and rescued the United States from the dire threat of climate change.

The freshman congresswoman predicted that Democrats would take both chambers of Congress and the White House by 2020 — ushering in a “decade of the Green New Deal” that prompted the “social and ecological transformation to save the planet.”

“Lots of people gave up, they said we were doomed,” she said in the video in which she blamed fossil fuel companies for the damage.

“But some of us remembered that as a nation, we’d been in peril before — the Great Depression, WWII — we knew from our history how to pull together to overcome impossible odds,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

Championed by Ocasio-Cortez, the “Green New Deal,” has been criticized as unrealistic and too expensive. According to a conservative think tank’s estimate, the plan could cost upwards of $93 trillion, more than four times the national debt as of April 15, 2019.

But in the video, published by the climate-oriented Sunrise Movement, Ocasio-Cortez described Green New Deal legislation as “the kind of swing-for-the-fence ambition we needed.”

“Finally, we were entertaining solutions on the scale of the crises we faced without leaving anyone behind,” she said.

Her plan included public works projects, a “federal jobs guarantee,” and Medicare-for-all, which she predicted would become “the most popular social program in American history.”

SOURCE 






Climate claim of the Australian Left dismissed

The Labor Party is caught with the arrogance of being the election favourite for too long. The economist whose research Labor belatedly invoked this week has dismissed Bill Shorten’s assertion that Labor and Coalition climate change policies “cost the same”.

Interviewed by The Weekend Australian, internationally recognised economist Warwick McKibbin criticises both sides for inadequate emissions reduction policies — but he says the Opposition Leader’s pledge to use international carbon permits to ensure there is no economic cost differential with the government is “completely uncertain” as a proposition. This knocks out the core justification used by Shorten this week to defend the economic cost of his climate change policies.

Labor has not done the analysis or the modelling of the economic impact of its 45 per cent 2030 emissions reduction target, announced three years ago.

The upshot is that it has relied on the 2015 McKibbin analysis commissioned by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, with the economist telling The Weekend Australian he is “surprised” Labor has not spoken to him despite relying on his work, now four years old and subject to substantial price changes in the marketplace since then.

McKibbin, who is based at the Australian National University, calls out the pathetic nature of Australia’s flawed climate change response. He brands Labor’s recently released policy using the current safeguard mechanism to cut pollution as “a third-best response but better than nothing”. He says the Morrison government’s hasty revamp of the Abbott government’s Emissions Reduc­tion Fund is “not very effective” and while “it will have an impact at the margins, if you are looking at long-term cuts in emissions then it becomes very expensive”.

Asked this week how he could justify his claim that Labor and Coalition climate change policies will cost the same — given Labor’s target is a 45 per cent reduction as opposed to the government’s 26 per cent — Shorten said: “Because we are costing our 45 per cent reduction with international offsets, so in fact it does cost the same.” The international permits become the vital factor in Shorten’s policy. In releasing his mechanism on April 1, Shorten said Labor would “open up access to international carbon markets that allow businesses to trade in those markets” — a policy widely welcomed by the business sector.

Questioned about this and the rising cost of international permits since his 2015 analysis, McKibbin says it is “extremely difficult” to estimate the future cost of buying permits. “This depends upon the relative cost of abatement in the future; that is, the domestic cost versus the cost of international permits. And this is completely uncertain,” he says.

Shorten’s claim was based on the modelling assumptions, McKibbin adds. His problem, however, is “if the price of international credits (is) higher than the abatement costs in Australia then there will be no international credits available because they will be too expensive.”

Slight problem? No, major problem. Hence, Shorten’s assertion about the “same” climate change cost is “completely uncertain”. The moral here is that if you are invoking the work of a prominent economist to justify a central election claim — because you have no other evidence — then it helps to have spoken to him.

Labor’s arrogance as an election frontrunner is extraordinary. Shorten’s initial denial on superannuation taxes was more such evidence. Shorten presumably thinks the government cannot touch him on the costs of respective climate change policies. Yet he sounded rattled replying to journalists during his main doorstop on Thursday.

“You keep going on cost,” he said. “I want to say to you, let’s get this straight. What is the cost of taking no action? … You know, these News Corp climate change deniers and, of course, their ally, the Prime Minister, a coal-wielding, climate-denying, cave-dweller on this issue. They all say ‘look at the cost’. Well, they never mention the cost of extreme weather events, do they?”

McKibbin, significantly, holds no brief for the government. Asked which side has the more credible policies, he says: “I would say it is a line ball. It really depends upon the policies implemented. Having said that, Labor appears to be more committed and more ambitious to deal with the climate issue, and that is an important part of the policy design.”

McKibbin warns it is “enormously important (to have) a bipartisan and flexible policy in order to generate fresh investment and benefit from new technology”. Yet this campaign reveals no end to the domestic culture war over climate change, with the grief this will bring to households and business.

It is noteworthy the Greens say they will oppose having international permits in any Labor scheme, with spokesman Adam Bandt saying the ALP must “give up” on such permits — suggesting more trouble in the Senate if Shorten forms a government.

Scott Morrison’s campaign argument is that Labor’s targets will damage the economy, thereby reinforcing the Prime Minister’s overarching attack on Shorten’s tax, economic, spending and industrial relations policies. But Shorten has a powerful pitch — he campaigns as the only major party leader prepared to take decisive action on climate change.

The McKibbin 2015 analysis came in two reports — the first on international action and the second on Australian action under different scenarios. Labor has a problem but it can also take heart from the conclusion: its higher targets have a higher economic cost but the difference is manageable.

McKibbin modelled four scenarios with emissions reduction targets by 2030 of 13, 26, 35 and 45 per cent. The report says: “A post-2020 target will cause a small slowing of economic growth. By 2030, all impacts are no more than 1 per cent of GDP.”

He found that under all four scenarios average annual GDP growth would be above 2 per cent.

The conclusion was that the government’s 26 per cent target saw the cost to GDP of 0.58 per cent by 2030, compared with a 1 per cent GDP cost under the 45 per cent Labor target.

“The difference in GDP between the 1 per cent and 0.6 per cent is about $60 billion,” McKibbin says. “And that $60bn figure is not a major impost on a $2 trillion economy.” It is not a major impost, but it is an impost.

The point is that the cost difference between the Coalition and Labor targets is material and is upwards of twice as large under Labor. Having endorsed the McKibbin model, Shorten has to live with the consequences. Did he know what he was doing? Surely not.

McKibbin says: “If you use international permits then it is possible to reduce the cost by 50 per cent” — the proposition Shorten has seized upon. But the McKibbin qualification — and it is a big qualification — comes at this point: “That depends upon the price of such permits” — and McKibbin warns that enters the zone of never-never-land uncertainty, to borrow a Labor phrase.

There are three other fundamental features that arise from the McKibbin analysis. First, McKibbin found what most other studies have also concluded, namely that “Australia and Canada face larger economic impacts than other developed economies, including the US and EU, in achieving similar emissions reductions relative to a historical base year”.

That is, climate change action has a greater cost for Australia, which, by implication, raises the question: what is the justification for those politicians in demanding high Australian targets or asking the Australian people to carry a greater burden than people in most other developed nations?

Second, McKibbin says the economic harm to Australia arises mainly from what the rest of the world does — not what Australia does. He said in 2015: “The impact on Australia from the Paris Agreement largely depends on the actions of the rest of the world in reducing their demand for our fossil fuels and our carbon-intensive exports. Around 80 per cent of the loss in GDP in Australia is caused by the policies of other countries.”

This assessment comes in McKibbon’s first 2015 report on the international system, and this finding of the GDP damage to Australia is separate from his second report, which looks at the GDP damage arising solely from various scenarios that Australia adopts.

In a recent opinion piece McKibbin warns that the GDP damage from global restructuring could be significant for Australia. He suggests a reduction in real wages relative to trend of about 2-3 per cent by 2030. He says GDP by 2030 is estimated “to be 2 per cent lower than otherwise, of which 0.4 per cent of that is due to Australia’s policy”. In short, the climate change impact on this country from the rest of world will be serious. Our economy is exposed because of its fossil fuel nature.

Third, McKibbin says, looking at Australian decision-making, that policies are probably more important than the targets. “What matters are the policies that both parties use to reach their targets,” he says.

By implication, this is a critique of the Coalition for the past five years, given its chronic inability to agree on policy.

Morrison, who has campaigned strongly during the past week, tried to make a virtue of such chaos. Campaigning in Tasmania, he said: “See, we’re not going to have an emissions intensity scheme. We’re not going to have a carbon tax. We’re not going to have a carbon price. That’s not what we’re proposing.”

The government is left with its re-funded and renamed Emissions Reduction Fund with its $3.5bn budget to purchase emissions reductions with taxpayer funds. Labor, with its range of policies, looks far better equipped to deal with climate change but that’s essential given its higher 45 per cent target.

Whenever possible the government refers to the climate change report from BAEconomics led by Brian Fisher, former head of the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, whose recent analysis contrasted the government and Labor targets.

The report found the government’s 26-28 per cent target would result in the economy growing at 2.8 per cent a year over the decade, compared with the trend of 2.9 per cent. It found cumulative GDP losses at $69bn, with the average real yearly income for a full-time worker to be about $2000 lower than trend and about 78,000 fewer jobs.

By contrast, it found under Labor’s 45 per cent target that the economy would grow at 2.3 per cent over the decade compared with the 2.9 per cent trend. This meant cumulative GDP losses of $472bn, and a fall in real annual wages of about $9000 a year by 2030, with job losses at 336,000.

Morrison rejected the report’s findings for the government but accepted them for Labor. He said the Fisher report was based on an economy-wide carbon price and this was not government policy.

Given the discrepancies between the McKibbin and Fisher results, it is timely to take heed of McKibbin’s warning: “There needs to be a healthy debate on the economics of climate policy and not an attack on the credibility of any model builder. Yes, the models will disagree — but a bad model with transparent assumptions is better than arbitrary analysis based on wishful thinking.”

Shorten was right when he said the climate change debate in Australia over the decade “has been dysfunctional and dishonest and divisive”. Labor has had the courage to run on ambitious targets but it has an obligation to put the economic consequences of its policies to the public.

The Opposition Leader said that “in climate change there will never be enough figures to satisfy the climate sceptics”. Forget the sceptics. This election is not about the sceptics. Labor proposes a radical policy change certain to have a far-reaching impact. It needs to satisfy the public. Voters are entitled to know the economic impact of Labor’s policies, and to not be treated as fools.

The government has done an impressive job treating them as fools with its own policy gyrations during the past four years.

“I don’t think either side of politics has the necessary
long-term policy to effectively make deeper cuts beyond 2030, if this is what is required,” McKibbin says.

SOURCE 

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