Piers Akerman
THE former Soviet Union killed the Aral Sea, the fourth largest inland body of water.
The former Soviet Union killed the Aral Sea, the fourth largest inland body of water; Saddam Hussein destroyed the marshes at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates, the largest wetlands ecosystem in the Middle East - and the ALP soon may have to take ultimate responsibility for killing the Murray-Darling, Australia’s largest river system.
Each of these three environmental disasters was caused by humans and each could have been prevented.
The Soviets condemned the Aral Sea by diverting water in the 1930s to grow cotton as a much-needed cash crop.
The continuing toll from this ecological tragedy is incalculable.
Saddam destroyed marshes in his attempts to wipe out the Marsh Arabs who, with Kurds and other minorities, he saw as a threat. It is estimated by Human Rights Watch that, through draining the marshes, destroying villages and summary executions, Marsh Arab numbers have dwindled from more than 250,000 to as few as 40,000.
The ALP has destroyed the Murray-Darling for pure political gain. After years of neglect and squabbling between rival states, the Howard government’s first environment minister, Senator Robert Hill, began bringing competing interests to the table in a process that ended with former water minister Malcolm Turnbull’s $10 billion package last year that could have eased pressure on the river’s dwindling resources.
That package was stymied by then Victorian Labor premier Steve Bracks for no good reason other than to deny the Howard government a political victory in an election year.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd put up the same package at a COAG meeting earlier this year. After Victorian Premier John Brumby extorted an extra billion or so, it proceeded, but without the urgency the Howard government believed was essential.
Instead of tackling the plight of the Murray-Darling, a plight that could be remedied if the Rudd Government had the guts to take hard decisions to impose realistic solutions, the Government is mounting a massive campaign to impose a new economic regime on the nation in the name of global warming.
This will have absolutely no effect on the world but has the capacity to destroy the Australian economy.
Welcome to the ego-driven universe of the most arrogant and self-absorbed government this nation has ever suffered under. -It isn't that the truth is not being told. The problem is that their is obfuscation at many levels because the political left seem to feel that the issue is politically charged. So to get the truth told at Wikipedia becomes a problem where the junior editors write to each other claiming that it is impossible to claim that AGW is not occurring because the science research is not there, when it is, but they cherry pick what they want.
This makes it very confusing for a lay person. Like with scares of the recent past, children overboard, AWB (but not food for oil), Liberal leadership (not one Lib leader has jumped, but been dumped by the electorate, while so many ALP figures have never faced the electorate). - ed
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BETTER GIVE THEM BACK, THEN
Tim Blair
The Colombian military team responsible for the brilliant rescue earlier this month of 15 hostages (some of them held for years) is now accused of war crimes. I do not kid.
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The cool news is finally being reported in The Age
Andrew Bolt
Business commentator Malcolm Maiden becomes the first Age journalist to report soberly on the fact that the world hasn’t warmed since 1998, even though he underplays its significance. This is fast become the elephant in the Emissions Trading Scheme room.
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Moonbat alert
Andrew Bolt
Brendan O’Neill reviews global warming prophet George Monbiot’s latest book
How has this happened? How is it that Monbiot, who still writes the same old apocalyptic nonsense (think Book of Revelations but without the hot pokers or sex), can now pose – more than that, be hailed – as a scientific visionary? His metamorphosis from green-tinted despiser of all things modern to man with a dazzling command of science reveals a great deal about the politics of environmentalism, and how it has added a gloss of ‘scientific fact’ to long-standing middle-class prejudices against mass modern society.
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As I was saying on Insiders this morning…
Andrew Bolt
On Insiders this morning I was once more heckled by a fellow journalist who became seriously alarmed when I mentioned the unambiguous fact that the world hasn’t warmed in a decade. Annabel Crabb couldn’t actually dispute that fact, but seemed to think it was evil to even mention it.
Not being given the chance to present the evidence on Insiders without being interrupted by cries of outrage and catcalls, I promised viewers to present it here, so they could check it at their leisure. So here it is, viewers, a repeat of my column last week: the seven graphs that show global warming has paused, or even stopped.
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The future of Labor in her hands
Andrew Bolt
The ABC’s Q&A sold panelist Rose Jackson, daughter of ABC presenter Liz Jackson, as the face of Labor’s future:
At 23 years of age, Rose Jackson sits on the NSW Young Labor Executive. She has been a NSW ALP State Conference delegate, and was an Australian Young Labor delegate to the ALP National Conference in 2007. Rose currently works part-time for Verity Firth, NSW Minister for Environment and Climate Change, Women, Science and Medical Research, and Minister Assisting the Minister for Health (Cancer)… Rose is the first prioritised Labor Candidate for Lawson Ward in the up-coming Waverley Council elections in Sydney.
So Labor should worry about this Pavlova Moment:
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Swindle film did not mislead
Andrew Bolt
So there is a Great Global Warming Swindle, even if you hurt people in saying so
But it is believed that Channel 4 will still claim victory because the ultimate verdict on a separate complaint about accuracy, which contained 131 specific points and ran to 270 pages, will find that it did not breach the regulator’s broadcasting code and did not materially mislead viewers.
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And eye of newt is better than eye of frog
Andrew Bolt
Jon Wardle, naturopath and Queensland University researcher, complains in a report to the Rudd Government that patients are being ripped off:
Naturopaths know that Namibian devil’s claw, used to treat arthritis, rheumatism and other conditions, is far more effective than the cheaper Angolan variety, yet the Angolan blend accounts for almost half of all Australian imports.
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Milne just loves a planet-saver
Andrew Bolt
It makes you seriously doubt Glenn Milne’s judgement:
All of which suggests Wong is wasted in the Senate. So here’s a thought for the Labor Party: why not parachute Wong into Belinda Neal’s seat of Robertson at the next election?
It raises two options: you get rid of Neal and you promote a possible future leader.
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Don’t ask Jesus, but Al instead
Andrew Bolt
Spotted in a San Franciso Bay shop - and for serious:
The answer, of course, is that Gore would build a huge mansion, power it with more electricity in a month than an average family would use in the year. He’d drive everywhere in convoys, fly in private planes, make a fortune flogging “green” investments and give $250,000 speeches suggesting other people live more simply.
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The new colonisers of Africa
Andrew Bolt
Behold the rising new empire, and its friends:
The result of China’s demand for raw materials and its sales of products to Africa is that turnover in trade between Africa and China has risen from £5million annually a decade ago to £6billion today.
However, there is a lethal price to pay. There is a sinister aspect to this invasion. Chinese-made war planes roar through the African sky, bombing opponents…
Take, for example, Zimbabwe. Recently, a giant container ship from China was due to deliver its cargo of three million rounds of AK-47 ammunition, 3,000 rocket-propelled grenades and 1,500 mortars to President Robert Mugabe’s regime.
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The issue seems dirty cash, not dirty priests
Andrew Bolt
Stripped down to demands for yet more money, this campaign looks much more tawdry and a lot less moral than the ABC and the Fairfax press have presented it:
ONLY hours after Pope Benedict XVI apologised to victims of abuse at the hands of Catholic clergy, calls for compensation have begun.
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OBAMA MOVES IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS
Tim Blair
Barack Obama debates himself on Iraq.
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LIGHTS OFF, FLIGHTS ON
Tim Blair
Belated congratulations to Sydney ad men Adrian McNamara, Lucas Dorrell, Iggy Rodriguez, Tim Cairns, Thorsten Hayer and Justin Carew, whose Earth Hour ads—encouraging people to “turn their lights off for one hour, helping reduce carbon emissions”—were judged Australia’s best.
The six concerned anti-carbonites all won flights to Cannes.
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WARM TURKEY
Tim Blair
Leading plasticologist Alan Ramsey directs his powerful mind to the matter of global warming:
[David] Attenborough tells us there is now more carbon dioxide in our atmosphere than at any time “in the last 650,000 years”. He rivets our attention even more by saying that we’re adding “125 billion tonnes of it every year”.
This is the global warming George Bush and John Howard kept telling us wasn’t happening.
It isn’t happening, Al.
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DOUBLECROSSED ON MOUNT DIABLO
Tim Blair
Australian filmmakers are always searching for new ideas. But they never find any, so instead they make films about sad heroin addicts who feel marginalised because society is wrong or something.
(Noni Hazelhurst played the girlfriend of a heroin addict in 1982’s Monkey Grip and 23 years later turned up as the mother of a heroin addict in Little Fish. Ten years from now she’ll play a junkie’s grandmother in Duckling Shop. Our movie people can’t resist animal-titled heroin films.)
Anyway, since their imaginations are so weak, perhaps the Cinema-Australian community should turn to real events for inspiration. Earlier this month, for example, a wonderful series of events just perfect for movie treatment took place in a Colombian jungle.
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