When the New York Times climate blog is saying this, you’re in real trouble. Meanwhile, check this out: Heartland Memo Looking Faker By The Minute.

UPDATE: Reader Kevin Coenen writes:

The most laughable line in Gleick’s confession is that he did it as a result of his “frustration with the ongoing efforts — often anonymous, well-funded, and coordinated — to attack climate science and scientists and prevent this debate, . . .” Revkin’s commentary follows on with his lament that this will “greatly set back any prospects of the country having the “rational public debate” that he wrote — correctly — is so desperately needed.” Debate? Huh? They now are talking about a needed debate on climate change. Al Gore, the UN climate panel and all “rational” scientists have been telling us for what now seems like a decade that the science is settled, there is a scientific consensus, that there can be no debate. Now they write as if all they ever wanted was a debate on the merits.

“Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive.” They cannot stop themselves. Good grief.

Indeed.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Much more, from Charlie Martin.“

Previously: Blogger burns…

Yosemite’s Alpine Chipmunks Take Genetic Hit from Climate Change

ScienceDaily (Feb. 19, 2012) — Global warming has forced alpine chipmunks in Yosemite to higher ground, prompting a startling decline in the species’ genetic diversity, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.

Yosemite’s alpine chipmunks take genetic hit

Those silly chipmunks. Someone forgot to tell them that temperatures in Yosemite have dropped five degrees since the 1920s.

broker (1201×601)

Labor can’t be trusted on anything, let alone the economy, which the Prime Minister this week singled out as the issue she wants to focus on for the year.

Last year, she said, was all about ‘jobs, jobs and jobs’. Labor promised to create 500,000 new jobs. In fact, in 2011 Australia recorded its worse jobs result in two decades, with zero jobs growth.

Labor is more focussed on their own jobs than the thousands of Australians losing theirs.

Julia Gillard’s bid to portray her government as good economic managers shows just how out of touch with reality she is, let alone with the real day-today issues affecting Australian families.

Labor’s economic record goes from disastrous to worse in 2012 as detention centre costs quadruple to $1 billion. 4,000 Australian jobs lost since New Year’s Day and Alcoa flagging another 600 jobs could go at its Geelong aluminum plant.

It’s just more evidence that you can’t trust Labor – especially not with money.

Labor’s waste and incompetence has turned $70 billion in the bank into $133 billion of debt and growing, while unemployment is tipped to top 5.5% by mid-2012.

And that’s before the looming carbon tax makes our industries less competitive and lumbers business with higher costs and more job losses. With the carbon tax increasing each year, those higher costs and unemployment pressures keep building.

And, as we know, with manufacturing, mining and agricultural production copping the carbon tax, it is regional Australians who will feel it hardest.

I don’t think there was much love at the Prime Minister’s love-in last Sunday. The butcher’s paper was out and so were the butcher’s knives. They were sharpening them up and there is no doubt at all it is the Prime Minister’s leadership that is on the chopping block.

Already this year we have heard of Westpac retrenching 400 people; the Bank of Scotland, 200 jobs gone; the ANZ, 130 jobs gone, with another 700 yet to go; Holden, 100 jobs gone; Toyota, 350 jobs gone; BHP, 155 jobs gone; Reckitt Benckiser, 190 jobs gone; Manildra, 70 jobs gone; the Hydro Aluminium plant near Newcastle, 150 jobs gone; Tomago Aluminium, 100 jobs gone; Thales, 50 jobs gone; Don Smallgoods, 31 jobs gone; Heinz, 146 jobs gone; and this week at Macquarie Bank, 1,000 jobs gone.

This is only a small glimpse of what’s happening at the jobs coalface. Almost every small business, especially in manufacturing, is laying people off.

Labor’s shameful record in the manufacturing sector – the people it purports to represent and understand – has seen 130,000 jobs lost since Rudd/Gillard came to power. At this rate, will we have any manufacturing industry left at all?

Often people gloss over the numbers. They are too big to fully fathom. But each job lost is a worker, a family without a bread winner left in the lurch due to this government’s waste and incompetence.

While the Treasurer bleats about banks and interest rates, he is borrowing money at the rate of $100 million every day, putting even more pressure on the credit squeeze.

From July 1 everything is going to have to carry the extra burden of the carbon tax, adding to the cost of everything we do, adding to the cost of living, adding to the cost of manufacturing and making our economy less competitive.

The best way to protect Australian jobs is to scrap the carbon tax.

The sooner we go to an election, the better.

Kind regards,

Warren Truss
Leader of The Nationals

As said in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory “for some moments in life there are no words”. Ms Gillard should have pondered this in a far more deliberate manner before staff members started putting words to paper justifying her impending assassination of the PM whilst she was emphatically denying any knowledge of such.

It was the latest farce in a retinue of quite unbelievable and contradictory statements to add to the ever expanding list of unbelievable and contradictory statements given in her time as Prime Minister of Australia.

It is all over for Julia, it is merely a political sleepwalk to the inevitable cliff. If you have a mortgage and it is based on a politician’s wage and you have a politician’s temperament then you are going to cover your bets and Julia Gillard is full weight on a very slow horse on a very heavy track. Only a fool backs a circus pony on a fine day at Randwick.

No one cares that she is ambitious as all politicians are. They care that on repeated issues she has been shown as not putting any worth in her own word. The PM’s office comes with a great and honourable creed answerable to 22.5 million people and the lives of many more who have passed but whose legacy underpins all we have. Public policy is public business and the higher the office the more esteemed your warrant should be held.

In the opposition of late we are starved of attention as blanket media coverage deals with the issue of not whether but when the inevitable will happen and PM Gillard like a Roman Emperor is assassinated for an heir.

So where does Labor go? Kevin Rudd has burnt too many bridges and poisoned too many water holes. He is the bad boyfriend knocking at the door with a fresh bunch of flowers but the same old lines and the same old habits. Kevin Rudd would have to hit the polls before the flowers fade or all would remember why they broke up with him in the first place.

If as a party you are seen as erratic then you have to look boring and Stephen Smith has boring writ large all over him. Bill Shorten has not proved himself away from promoting himself, he was quite obviously a Bill for Bill man and, in politics, we pick that flaw long before any others do because we all have a little bit of that flaw in us.

The storm cloud that hangs over all Labor pretenders and contenders is the carbon tax and how much sway does Dr Bob Brown have in the lives of the nine out of ten that did not vote for him.

Parliament has a very bad habit of a fascination in the noble irrelevant cause and the just plain irrelevant. Sometimes an issue carries a fervour that is intense like a bolt of lightning but merely metres away it is no more than light and noise and over the hill it is a distant rumble.

Gay marriage is an issue that is big on “The Drum” and in the inner suburbs. Away from the lifestyle hub, it is an issue but not a top issue of concern and as a priority is only a fraction of the concern associated with security in a job or the cost of living. Regional Australia and the outer suburbs are thinking about other things, especially lately if they work for a bank or an aluminium smelter.

Let us be honest how long into the initial conversation of your courtship did you ask “what do you do for a job” and how long would you of kept the account open if the reply was “I am on the dole”. All, like politicians, are ambitious for the higher things, such as wages. Ask any union rep if this is not the case.

The romantic recluse from the reality of the world is great company for that bohemian escapade somewhere between the age of 18 and 24 but then they go quickly out of style with tattoos, cars that don’t start and tacky flats in dodgy suburbs.

The dilemma, have a heart or have a head; which will Labor choose?

Barnaby Joyce is the Nationals’ Senate Leader.

• James Paterson, Liberal labour reform – Think and Grow Rich
• Chris Berg, Behavioural economics: an excuse to tax and regulate - The Drum
• Chris Berg, Internet laws a sledgehammer approach to privacy – The Sunday Age
• Alan Moran, It’s time to bring back the thrift – The Herald Sun
• Sinclair Davidson, We’ll huff, we’ll puff, we’ll blow the budget into surplus – The Drum

The DAP spent a considerable amount of time considering the conditions that will apply to the development approval.  A number of environmental matters were considered  including  protection of vegetation, management of water run off, dust abatement, weeds.

The conditions put in place include the requirement to have an Environmental Management Plan approved by DEC and the Shire of Broome before work on the site commences.  

Access was also discussed.  Access to the work site will only be allowed from Manari Road until a new road from the Cape Levique road is built.    Exit/entrance roads must be at 90 degrees.

Monitoring of adherence to the conditions of the various plans (eg EMP, Weeds, Dust abatement) was discussed.  The conditions in the development approval include the requirement for Woodside to conduct an independent audit of their adherence to EMP and other plan conditions on a quarterly basis,   and  to provide that  report to the Broome Shire for display on the Shire website. 

Graeme and Jenny also advised that the passing last night of the Shire’s compliance policy also gave them protocols to monitor compliance with.

There were a number of conditions that relate to waste water management, building codes, mosquito control, waste disposal etc .  don’t think there were any surprises.

Woodside will continue to be responsible for the cost of maintaining the Manari Road.

The period of the approval was amended to include a subject to a renewal of the Section 91 permit.

There were a number of conditions relating to site remediation.

After their conditions the development approval contains a number of advices.  They include the requirement to adhere to the provisions of the Aboriginal heritage Act etc.

They also say that a clearing permit will be required to work west of Manari Road,  and that clearing of monsoon vine thickets will require referral to the EPBC Act. 

Thanks to interjections from the gallery by Jan, Keels and others the following conditions were included:

No work can commence without the Shire and DEC approving an environmental management plan and other plans eg weeds

Quarterly independent monitoring /audit reports to be provided to the Shire for placement on the Shire website

A clearing permit must be obtained for any work west of Manari Road. 

–
Broome Community No Gas Campaign

Well, the DeSmog Blog “coup” is going down, oh the humanity.

There’s a scathing second writeup at The Atlantic by Megan McArdle (as if the first wasn’t enough) that takes the DeSmoggers to task. Note to Hoggan and crew – when you can’t even get a left leaning news outlet to back you up, even in the slightest, you’ve lost the battle.

This is a must read: Heartland Memo Looking Faker By the Minute

I appreciate this quote from her article:

The high probability that the memo is fake makes this response from Desmogblog, one of the first places to post the memos, all the more disappointing: Continue reading →

 Tim Blair – Sunday, February 19, 12 (03:41 am)

Video at link