Posts Tagged ‘Climate Change’
Newsletter from Australia
White House,
Washington DC.,
26th February 2010
Dear Mr President,
You are just not going to believe this. All four of those people who came to the Sarah Palin Roast and half-price beer night came back for our club meeting this week and are now paid up members. So that takes us to a total of twenty-two and there were actually twenty-three at the meeting because the cleaning lady stayed on.
Great excitement here this week over the government’s insulation scheme. It’s been a big shock to everyone and Peter Garrett’s in deep doodoo over it. Mind you it only goes to prove what I’ve always said. Greenies like Peter are great at stirring the possum but get them to organise something like batts in your belfry and they’re totally out of their environment.
You’re not going to believe this either. Tony Abbott’s given up sex for Lent. Neville said it was Mary MacKillop’s third miracle.
I saw Malcolm Turnbull on the telly last night and I can’t believe I’m saying this but he almost came across as likeable. You can’t help admiring him for supporting Kevin’s ETS although he probably hasn’t got the faintest idea what it’s all about just like the rest of us.
It doesn’t look like Malcolm will get a decent gig in the Coalition while the Mad Monk’s in charge so I hope Kevin finds a decent job for him. I wrote to him suggesting he should organise a new political party called the Don’t Knows. They’re already ahead of the Greens in the polls.
I had prepared to discuss some really profound international issues at the World Affairs Think Tank this week but all they wanted to talk about was the ETS and climate change. So I hastily changed the subject to ‘Climate Change, the ETS and ERF; are they all a con job?’
Cyril said he’d watched the weather forecast on Channel Nine News every day for over twenty years and there was no sign of the climate changing.
Marge said she hadn’t got a clue what the ETS is about. She couldn’t believe that the government wanted to charge everyone for smoke. She claimed her Alf blew smoke out of his backside at least twice a day and the ETS would make him unaffordable.
Our Mavis’ Bert said he had really tried hard to understand Tony Abbott’s ERF. He believed it was basically about persuading people to stay home in the dark, because electricity would be too expensive, and spend more time having sex as long as it wasn’t during Lent, with a catholic priest or with one of his daughters.
Mildred as usual was right on the money. She claimed that Copenhagen was a disaster because there’s no one size fit all climate change solution. Every country should decide what climate it wants and design an ETS or an ERF to make it happen. We should leave all the world stuff to Al Gore and also Kevin because obviously Australia doesn’t emit enough carbon to keep him fully interested.
I summed it all up by saying whatever our views we should all take part in Clean-up Australia this year. I couldn’t see what it’s got to do with climate change but I was sure there is a connection somewhere. What’s more this year there will be loads of waste batts to clean up.
Till next week,
Gaelene Woo
President
Tags: Al Gore, Clean-up Australia, Climate Change, Copenhagen, ETS, Greens, home insulation scheme, Insulation, Kevin Rudd, Malcolm Turnbull, Mary MacKillop, Peter Garrett, Sarah Palin, Tony Abbott
Posted in Obama Fan Club | No Comments »
Tony Jones’ interview with Penny Wong on the 4th February edition of Lateline was an absolute classic.
For the transcript, click here
Watch Penny Wong Interviewed on ABC's Lateline
For those of us craving a clear, concise and logical explanation of what on earth the ETS is all about the occasion was richly entertaining but not alas enlightening.
Despite being asked repeatedly about the ETS’ cost impact on families – working, non-working and bone idle – not a single figure passed Penny’s lips. She claimed that extensive modelling was released in 2008. That was apparently too long ago for her to remember the numbers it contained but for those who are still interested there is always the chance of coming across it in a library or a loo.
Tony’s questions about the ETS cost hikes to families in the event of an emissions reduction target higher than five percent were met buy a dogged refusal even to countenance such an abstruse notion.
The kindest possible assessment of Penny’s interview is that it added diddly squat to viewers’ storehouse of ETS knowledge and may even have eroded it slightly. But wait. On the subject of Tony Abbott’s Emissions Reduction Fund Penny demonstrated encyclopaedic knowledge. She came armed with sheafs of documents claimed to contain irrefutable evidence that Tony’s ERF was a non-starter and would cost squillions more than the ETS whatever that costs.
This was like a football coach explaining that his team’s tactics were based on a 2008 plan which he couldn’t remember but that doesn’t matter because the opposition are so hopeless.
Kevin has admitted that his government must improve their communications about the ETS. The question is did he forget to tell Penny, did she ignore him or was this, heaven help us, what she considered to be an improved communication.
Probably as a result of urgings by the spin doctors to soften her image Penny has developed a sudden synthetic smile for television interviews. When Tony asked questions she considered tiresome, embarrassing or downright dangerous she flashed on the smile to mask a face almost certainly contorted with rage and betraying an irresistible urge to choke the living shit out of him. Luckily he was in a studio hundreds of kilometres away.
The interview raised the issue of who can we possibly believe on matters of climate change.
Polar bears are the living proof we can’t trust Al Gore. Penny is about as helpful as a call centre operator in Bangalore and Kevin’s still got a Copenhagen complex. Climate change scientists have slipped up on the Himalayan glaciers and following his recent conversion it is too soon to expect anything sensible from Tony Abbott.
No wonder Lord Monckton is commanding so much attention. His is the only clear message on climate change; lie back for ten years, let it happen and then take stock. Even if he isn’t right its refreshing to hear a convenient truth amongst the deluge of inconvenient, incomprehensible and disingenuous approximations.
With all due respect to Kevin, climate change is not the greatest moral challenge of our generation. It is rather persuading politicians, scientists and opinion leaders to come clean about it.
Tags: Al Gore, Climate Change, Copenhagen, emission trading, ETS, Kevin Rudd, Lateline, Lord Monckton, Penny Wong, Tony Abbott, Tony Jones
Posted in Weekly Mash | 1 Comment »
Researchers have recently reached a definitive finding on whether sex leaves a carbon footprint. They concluded it only happened when practised by miners in certain positions.
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Tiger Woods is reportedly undergoing treatment at a sex addiction clinic. This raises a number of vital questions.
- Shouldn’t he be in a sex abstinence clinic?
- Wouldn’t it help his treatment if all the hostesses and cocktail waitresses of his acquaintance were also treated there?
- It obviously won’t help him win the Mistresses but will it give him a better chance of winning the Masters?
- If as a result of the treatment he gives up sex entirely will this help or hinder reconciliation prospects with his wife?
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Strong retaliatory measures are being considered following the news that Russian ice-dancers are wearing aboriginal gear. These are likely to include a ban on the export of witchetty grubs to Russia and also a ban on the Russian winter Olympics Team competing in the Northern Territory.
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Experts have been warning for some time that Australia can expect a flood of climate change refugees. In view of the appalling weather conditions in the UK it seems certain that the first wave will be Poms.
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The Iraq Inquiry has all the elements of a UK Labor Party trainwreck. It will be fascinating to find out who the Inquiry believes was driving it and which MPs were fellow travellers. Unfortunately Saddam Hussein couldn’t accept the Inquiry’s invitation to appear but he is undoubtedly there in spirit.
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A recent visit to the House of Lords at Westminster confirmed that members are still in the habit of taking a nap during debates. If only certain members of the Senate in Canberra could follow suit the place would become far more productive.
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Kevin is planning to spend so much time overseas this year that by carefully co-ordinating your own programme of international travel it should be possible to miss him for the whole year.
Tags: Climate Change, House of Lords, Kevin Rudd, Russian Winter Olympics team, Saddam Hussein, Senators, The Iraq Inquiry, Tiger Woods, UK Labor Party
Posted in Carbon Emissions | No Comments »
Since she’s become NSW Premier Kristina Keneally has toured the major disaster zones in the state such as drought-stricken areas, fire-ravaged areas and the NSW Labor Party.
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The whaling protesters’ boat the Sea Shepherd is registered in NZ. Its normal job is rounding up sheep that have gone swimming in Auckland Harbour.
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The terminology of climate change is becoming clearer. The high temperatures in Melbourne and Adelaide are signs of global warming but the arctic weather right across the Northern Hemisphere is an extreme weather condition.
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Jennifer Hawkins the Australian supermodel took her gear off to prove that her body wasn’t perfect. Most men however remained unconvinced.
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Local authorities are currently considering whether the housing shortages around London can be eased through igloo developments.
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There are moves afoot to establish a body charged with monitoring the outcomes of promises made by politicians during election campaigns. Some people still get taken in by them and even expect them to be honoured.
Incredibly there were people who actually believed Kevin when he promised to monitor petrol and grocery prices and others believed Obama when he promised healthcare bill negotiations would be seen on C-Span.
The sad truth is that politicians’ promises are like returning officers, they only count at elections.
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Gordon Brown says he is confident his personal qualities will see him re-elected as the UKs Prime Minister. He must be planning some sort of transplant operation.
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Climate change sceptics are waiting with bated breath for Peter Garrett’s take on the arctic weather conditions in the Northern Hemisphere. He could claim its because of global warming, despite global warming, global warming is in recession or it is now temporarily concentrated around Melbourne and Adelaide.
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Tags: Auckland, Barack Obama, Climate Change, drought, Gordon Brown, Japanese whaling, Jennifer Hawkins, Kevin Rudd, Kristina Keneally, NSW Labor Party, Obama Healthcare, Obamacare, Peter Garrett, Sea Shepherd
Posted in Carbon Emissions | No Comments »
Guy the Friday Mash Superfly brings you all the latest buzz on the powerful and the pathetic from his unique vantage point high up on the walls of their offices.
Kevin convened a meeting with Julia, Wayne and Penny to discuss tactics for a third go at getting the ETS legislation passed.
‘Fair suck of the sauce bottle’ said Kevin ‘Penny spends ages locked away with that MacFarlane guy, we get Malcolm in our pocket and then the Coalition go fxxking feral and we’re up against a climate change cretin like the Mad Monk. He’s your mate Julia, can’t you do some budgie smuggling with him?’
‘Now Kevin let’s be absolutely clear about this’ said Julia ‘I went off him after he called you a toxic bore, an egregious egotist, a prissy, preening little nerd and a …’
‘Alright, alright’ said Kevin ‘now here’s the plan. We’ll have to explain the ETS a bit more like coming clean about what its actually going to cost people’
‘Good heavens’ said Penny, visibly shaken ‘you can’t to that. You can’t trust people to put the fate of the world and this government before their own greedy self-interest.’
‘All we have to say’ said Kevin ‘is that everyone’s getting an ETS rebate. We don’t have to reveal that for half the population it’s hopelessly inadequate. And Penny I want you to lead an ETS charm offensive. Have your face permanently botoxed into a smile and stop referring to Tony Abbott as a Neanderthal sub-human sceptic’
‘I’d rather spend another week at the Copenhagen Conference’ said Penny
‘I think we should review whether the ETS is the best way to reduce carbon emissions’ said Wayne
Kevin recoiled in horror like someone had just served him a beef sandwich.
‘What the fxxk are you talking about Wayne’ he roared ‘of course it’s the fxxking best way’
‘Shouldn’t we set up a parliamentary committee to investigate it?’ asked Wayne bravely ‘I mean it’s a huge economic pain in the ass and the Northern Hemisphere’s just entered a new ice age’
‘I’ve already got five committees investigating it’ said Kevin ‘and there’s another committee analysing whether we should have another committee’
The intercom buzzed ‘Excuse me prime minister, John Grant’s on the phone asking whether you’ll need to borrow a ute for the next election’
‘Tell him I’ll need two’ said Kevin ‘there isn’t room for my hair dryer if I only use one’
‘Well I’d bring in another stimulus package’ said Wayne ‘to pay everybody’s electricity bills’.
‘That’s a fxxking stupid idea’ said Kevin ‘I’m spending all my time trying to stop Julia wasting stimulus money on senseless school halls’
‘I know’ said Julia ‘we should give everybody work choices. They can either install their own solar heating or spend their weekends at power stations cleaning coal’
‘Brilliant’ said Kevin ‘I’ve always liked the idea of work choices’
Tags: Climate Change, Coalition, Copenhagen Conference, ETS, Fly on the Wall, Ian MacFarlane, John Grant, Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd, Malcolm Turnbull, Penny Wong, stimulus package, Tony Abbott, Utes, Wayne Swan, Work Choices
Posted in Fly on the Wall | No Comments »
Newsletter from Australia
White House,
Washington DC.,
15th January 2010
Dear Mr President,
I can’t tell you how excited we all are. We’ve just heard that Hillary is coming to Australia next week and would you believe Prince William is coming at the same time. It’s a good job she’s not a republican.
We obviously couldn’t invite both of them to address the Obama Fan Club during the same week, so we held an emergency meeting of the management committee and chose Hillary because she’s such a wonderful woman and so close to you.
I hope you don’t mind but we’ve sent her a direct message inviting her to our meeting on the nineteenth. She gets booked up so early and I dare say your ambassador Jeff Bleach has already booked her in for a nosh or two with Kevin.
We also told her to bring Bill along too if he’s coming with her. You may recall I told you that Mildred met Bill when she was a pole dancer in Vegas. If we can find a pole I’m sure he’d recognise her.
The Japanese are furious with Julia over whales. She’s doing the PM’s job while Kevin is away writing children’s books.
When it comes to whales there’s a huge cultural difference between the Aussies and the Japs. They believe they should be harpooned and eaten while we see them as cuddly creatures who deserve a better fate than being served as sashimi.
Julia’s thrown one of her headmistress wobblers telling the Japs to stop sinking the protesters’ boats which are trying to sink their whaling ships and suggesting more controversial places to stick their harpoons.
Meanwhile the Japs have told her in no uncertain terms to keep her nose out of it and you can understand why. It’s very large and pointed and would be a very effective substitute for a harpoon.
This week the Club’s World Affairs Think-tank debated whether the Copenhagen Conference had been any use at all.
Hilda said it was inspiring that delegates could still get their knickers in a knot about global warming when they were suffering from frostbite.
Gladys who’s never said anything before made a very critical contribution. She reckoned the Conference would have been a huge success if the other forty thousand delegates had just turned up for the last day like you. It was the previous ten days that caused all the problems.
Neville thought the conference in Mexico might go better because the climate will allow the delegates to demonstrate solar power and not just their wind power.
Mildred made a very astute observation. She reckoned there were too many people there. China and the US got distracted. All you need is a conference where those two agree to a reasonable reduction in emissions and the rest of us can carry on as usual.
I summed up the meeting by blaming Tony Abbott for the mess in Copenhagen. It was his fault the rest of the world didn’t get the chance to adopt Kevin and Penny’s ETS. Though perhaps they were not so inclined to be Penny foolish as pound wise.
Till next week,
Gaelene Woo
President
Tags: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, China, Climate Change, Copenhagen Conference, ETS, global warming, Hillary Clinton, Japanese whaling, Jeff Bleach, Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd, Obama, Obama Fan Club, Penny Wong, Prince William, Solar Power, Tony Abbott, Wind power
Posted in Obama Fan Club | 1 Comment »
Whales have started to protest over the Japanese treatment of the Ady Gill crew. So far this season the Japanese have scored more crew members than whales.
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There are reports that international airlines were studying a number of suggestions that there should be fireworks displays on planes at midnight on New Year’s Eve. There have been discontinued following the discovery that they all came from Al Qaeda.
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According to leaked emails climate scientists are now convinced that the arctic weather right across the Northern Hemisphere is caused by carbon emissions. Apparently they form a greenhouse effect which traps cold air close to the earth’s surface.
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Security personnel doing pre-flight passenger checks at airports confirm that while nudists make their job a whole lot easier even in those cases there is no absolute guarantee of a safe passage.
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NSW Labor MPs are all getting more pay for going on parliamentary committees. This is taxpayer funds well spent. It’s when they’re let loose on their own that they become dangerous.
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There’s been a coup in the UK Labor Party to try to get Gordon Brown thrown out of No.10 before the next election. Fortunately this selfish initiative did not succeed. It would have deprived voters the ultimate democratic satisfaction of throwing him out themselves.
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January in Australia demonstrates once again that considerably less disasters happen when politicians are away on overseas study tours. They’re also such a worthwhile way to spend taxpayer funds.
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What’s more the one and a half million dollars it cost to send the Australian climate change delegation to the Copenhagen Conference was money well spent. It allowed us a blessed respite to consider rationally whether the ETS is a bigger threat than global warming.
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Tags: Ady Gill, airport security, Al Qaeda, Climate Change, Copenhagen, ETS, Gordon Brown, Japanese whaling, NSW Labor Government, UK Labor Party
Posted in Carbon Emissions | No Comments »
Cruise ships have started calling at Christmas Island. This provides an exciting opportunity for real progress on the asylum seeker issue. People smugglers are already reported to be in negotiation with a cruise ship company with a view to delivering two thousand asylum seekers at a time.
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Gitmo detainees are shortly to fly to new digs in Illinois. Hopefully pre-flight security screening will be more thorough than for Northwest flights out of Amsterdam.
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Climate change scientists briefing politicians in China, Brazil, India, Russia and South Africa obviously have a different perspective on global warming than the ones briefing Kevin, Obama and Al Gore. It must be nice to get a convenient truth for a change.
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President Zuma has just married a third wife and has a fourth in his sights. There is no information on how many husbands they have.
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The UK parliamentary expenses scandal will result in a record number of new MPs being elected there in March. Commentators are confident that expenses rorts will not recur for at least six years because that’s how long on average it takes an MP to learn to do them properly.
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The local drug barons will be invited to attend the next Climate Change Conference in Mexico City. They will deliver a paper on how their products cause people round the world to stop emiting carbon altogether.
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China has officially blamed global warming for the heavy snowfalls around Beijing. It’s only a matter of time before the record lows across the Northern Hemisphere are also blamed on global warming and climate scientists discover that the polar ice-caps are responsible for soaring temperatures in Madagascar.
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Two questions on climate change policy for Kevin and Penny.
If people on low incomes get refunds well in excess of their increased energy charges caused by the ETS wont this encourage them to use more electricity rather than less?
Why is Australia contributing billions of dollars to help small developing countries reduce their carbon emissions when according to UN data they are only emitting a piddling percentage of the world’s total output?
Tags: Al Gore, Amsterdam, asylum seekers, Barack Obama, carbon emissions trading, Christmas Island, Climate Change, ETS, global warming, Kevin Rudd, Obama, Penny Wong, people smugglers, President Zuma
Posted in Carbon Emissions | No Comments »
It’s such a busy time of year and not surprising that so many forget about New Year’s Resolutions. Here’s a few gentle reminders to those sorely in need.
Hostesses and
cocktail waitresses - ban dates with Tiger
Obama - change into something we can really believe in
President Hu - develop an image as Old King Coal
Tony Abbott - take the painful step up to ferret smugglers
Malcolm Turnbull - reduce greenhouse gas emissions by becoming less of an old fart
Gordon Brown - take constipation tablets regularly
Berlusconi - stay out of crowds unless they’re young girls
Penny Wong - tattoo ‘ETS’ on her backside so she can sit on it for a while
Father Christmas - abandon plans to extend his franchise into Afghanistan
Julie Bishop - pick up a few tips from Deputy Dawg
Bill Clinton - don’t become jealous of Tiger
Robert Mugabe - spend Zimbabwe’s climate change grant from the UN on a luxury ski lodge in St Moritz
Julia Gillard - stop talking like an education revolution headmistress
Joe Tripodi - reduce carbon emissions by becoming a solar power broker
Al Gore - stop emiting anything. We’ve got the message
The Mayor of Copenhagen - clean up after the cyclones, earthquakes and bushfires caused by the Climate Change Conference
Sarah Palin - make an unpresidented impact
Joe Hockey - reduce waist in the Liberal Party
Kevin - achieve a further reduction in greenhouse emissions by extending the ETS to cover baked beans and artichokes
Tiger - become President of US Adulterers Anonymous and recruit Bill Clinton, Eliot Spitzer and Mark Sanford as foundation members
Wayne Swan - needs to take at least a couple of stimulus packages a day
Tags: Afghanistan, Al Gore, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Climate Change, ETS, Gordon Brown, Joe Hockey, Joe Tripodi, Julia Gillard, Julie Bishop, Kevin Rudd, Liberal Party, Malcolm Turnbull, President Hu, Robert Mugabe, Santa, Sarah Palin, Silvio Berlusconi, Tiger Woods, Tony Abbott, Wayne Swan
Posted in Business, International Affairs, Politics, Weekly Mash | No Comments »
NSW Labor parliamentarians have been planning a Christmas pantomime starring Kristina Keneally as the principal boy and Frank Sartor as the dame but decided they couldn’t compete with the one they’d been staging all year.
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With all the talent at their disposal Westpac are being encouraged to stage a production of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.
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Insiders confirm that Obama is on track in his quest to convert the US into the healthiest and most carbon free bankrupt in the world.
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The Copenhagen Conference totally failed to appreciate that temperatures and rising sea levels provide exciting new potential for solar energy and desalinated water. And countries which become submarine states will have unprecedented access to wave power.
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Experts are just beginning to realise that Australia’s asylum seeker crisis is a symptom of Sri Lanka’s strategy to reduce carbon emissions through population reduction.
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Surely Kevin must realise that the sensible way forward for the ETS is to test it in Tasmania first.
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In six days God made heaven and earth. In twelve days the Copenhagen Conference failed to save the earth from the greenhouse effect in heaven. Surely the next Climate Change Conference should be between the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury to check whether God has a day or two to spare for a bit of maintenance work or whether the Blessed Mary MacKillop can come off the bench to work a third miracle.
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Friday Mash’s New Year Resolution is to have a lot of fun in 2010 and we trust you have resolved to do likewise. Happy New Year.
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Tags: Archbishop of Canterbury, asylum seekers, Barack Obama, Climate Change, Copenhagen, ETS, God, greenhouse effect, Kevin Rudd, New Years Resolution, population reduction, President of USA, Sri Lanka, Tasmania, The Pope, wave power
Posted in Carbon Emissions | No Comments »
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