realclimate.org has been revealed time and again to have zero bipartisan credibility on climate issues and is about as accurate a reference as wikipedia.

Sadly, amidst all the juvenile ad-hom attacks not one piece of credible evidence supporting the need for a CPRS was forthcoming.

Just lots and lots of recycled tired old cliches and the endless rehashing of factless and emotive talking points.

As expected no real ‘solutions’ though.

The conversational inbreeding is beginning to resemble an Alabama trailer park.

Sincerely,

Venise

Gen IV is the future of energy production offering clean baseload power without the emissions. Renewable energy is simply not going to provide the power we need to drive an economy like Australia’s - particularly if the forecasts of a doubling of the population by 2050 are correct.

Just for the record I am a Left leaning Libertarian - the old addage of left and right doesnt apply anymore. Do the test yourself http://www.politicalcompass.org to see where you lie.

My suspicion is it’s a good way for you to wedge the Left, but that’s just my suspicion.

“Her posting struck me as a somewhat ham-fisted” (I nearly said ‘and lazy’ as well) “attempt at engaging with the media, but that’s no reason for exclusion.” How’s that?

Yes, I did read your four points the first time round; copying and pasting them again doesn’t make them any stronger. My contention is with numbers 3 and 4. On 3: by these lights, every single comment made on this or any other blog site is a ‘bulk posting’. This criterion is inapplicable in this context.

On 4: No, it wasn’t indiscriminate. If the same post had appeared on every single Crikey comment thread, that would be indiscriminate. But clearly the post was targeted, that is to say, discriminated, at this particular piece, as you indicate yourself in points 1 and 2. Genuine engagement (now I’m using your word) is also demonstrated by Alana’s follow-up response to subsequent comment.

Maybe the fundamental problem is that, as I imply at (3), Stilgherrian’s spam clarifier needs a bit more clarification to indicate precisely what is meant in the case of blogs.

I would happily support a carbon tax that would:

a) see the hard earnt dollars of this and future generations stay in this country.
b) Build Gen VI nuclear power stations that would reduce the CO2 that you fear most.
c) allow Australia to opt out as soon as the science proves the planet is not warming.

- but that’s just not going to happen is it !

“I also note you don’t seem to have any problem with Tom McLoughlin’s verbatim posting of an entire Greens press release.”

Actually I do find it disturbing - this is what I mean by the thin end of the wedge that Alana drove in at the first posting - thereby opening the door to everybody to spam media releases in amongst legit debate.

“Her posting struck me as a somewhat ham-fisted attempt at media engagement, but that’s no reason for exclusion”

I don’t agree with you snipping out of the word ‘engagement’ from what I highlighted as key to what is indiscriminate and re-applying ‘somewhat ham-fisted attempt at media engagement’ to your view of Alana’s media brief posting. There was NO engagement with the content of the article.

These are the four points I made, again.

- Was it related to the article’s content? Yes the ETS. (First newsbot keyword)

- Did it talk about Tuckey? Yes, in saying that he is not the main worry for Turnbull. (Second newsbot keyword)

- Was it a bulk posting? Yes, all of the Crikey readership, Bernards fans and aggregated drop-ins from google etc.

- Did it engage with the content of the article? No, it was an indiscriminate posting and subsequently a hijack of Bernards article and the crikey agenda (by pasting a media release that didn’t address the question of the article).

Try debating without weasling the words up Mark.
Also
“Applying the spam criteria as you do to Alana Lacy would see a pretty large proportion of all Crikey comments excluded.”

This is a non seqetur. It does not follow, from the spam criteria, which I repeat, I am no expert in, but I have quoted from Cikey’s own clarifier about “what is spam?” that others who are debating the issues and are engaged in the topic of the article would see a large proportion of crikey’s comments excluded.
Your argumentation method is known as a ‘straw man’ trick where you have represented the issues in a much weaker form than they really are, because it is much easier to knock down the straw-man than the issues the way they have already been explained. Blog debaters need to be wary of this form of argumentation as there is tendency not to scroll back up to see if the original argument was stronger than the straw man represented by another point of view.

MMGWISBS

“Speaks volumes doesn’t it !”

No, as I said at the beginning I believe this posting of MP’s press releases is not on, but at least Tom started his piece with some level of engagement with the press release from Alana, but the well was poisoned by the first post because it was not on-topic (i.e. if not ETS then what?); as it was an indiscrimant posting of Tuckey’s latest blustering media attention grab.

“Speaks volumes doesn’t it !”

So, no it doesn’t but this does …
“Evan Beaver the hard data is showing cooling air and sea temperatures. The models are clearly wrong and it’s time to take a step back and remodel.”

That’s your view of taking a responsible role for the future generations, deny, lie, and bury your head in the sand. So may I presume, like the Nationals, we can’t count on you for any ideas about alternatives for the ETS then? Is it because we don’t need to reduce emmissions or is it because “she’ll be right” and you won’t be around much past 2050 anyway?

I don’t pay for my subscription so I have no idea what EVIDENTLY is on about. I took part in your survey and would like to see the results - you can even post them here

Mark Duffett,

“I also note you don’t seem to have any problem with Tom McLoughlin’s verbatim posting of an entire Greens press release.”

Speaks volumes doesn’t it !

I also note you don’t seem to have any problem with Tom McLoughlin’s verbatim posting of an entire Greens press release.

“What is spam and where does it come from?
by Stilgherrian

If you think spam is about selling the products being advertised, in most cases you’d be wrong. The real spam business is very different.

By definition, spam is any unsolicited or indiscriminate bulk message sent electronically. That covers email advertising, yes, but also messages sent by SMS or instant messaging, or posted in blog comments. It also covers non-commercial content such as political or religious messages, or attempts to defraud you or others, or to infect your computer. Those last few are where the real money lives.”

The amusing clarifier goes on to give you the the detail of incredibly small amounts of real money raised from millions of pieces of spam.

The Alana Lacy media release is not one of “Those last few …where the real money lives.”

The key thing for me it is an indiscriminate political message.

Was it related to the article’s content? Yes the ETS. (First newsbot keyword)

Did it talk about Tuckey? Yes, in saying that he is not the main worry for Turnbull. (Second newsbot keyword)

Was it a bulk posting? Yes, all of the Crikey readership, Bernards fans and aggregated drop-ins from google etc.

Did it engage with the content of the article? No, it was an indiscriminate posting and subsequently a hijack of Bernards article and the crikey agenda (by pasting a media release that didn’t address the question of the article). If Tuckey himself had replied to Bernard he would have been engaged with content, and therefore he would not be posting indiscriminately, but of course he couldn’t, because as he even admits, that they don’t yet have an alternative worked out yet. Tuckey is quoted in the media release above…

“All that is required is for the Coalition to oppose Rudd’s ETS, provide alternative solutions to the public’s concerns over climate change and let them make a choice with their vote”.

In other words, oppose first, then promise the public “she’ll be right mate, the coalition has lots of ETS alternatives (but no commitment to any of them in 14 years)”, and then woohoo!, bag the government all the way to the election for comitting to a compromised solution.

this is what I meant by the thin edge of the wedge, to not complain now means we may see all sorts of indiscriminate stuff on crikey.

Cheers V.

The point is I don’t want to know about your 2 page survey nor the research question it is supposed to provide data for. Crikey is a subscriber pays news blog and your harvesting of subscribers from an article is Spam. I come to crikey to get away from spam.
If indeed it is true that”that believe you are right, …” then just back off without resorting to further ill-mannered name-calling, otherwise your head of research (and your supervisor’s boss) will be getting a signed letter of complaint from at least one crikey subscriber.

Aa a crikey journalist put it…
“By definition, spam is any unsolicited or indiscriminate bulk message sent electronically. That covers email advertising, yes, but also messages sent by SMS or instant messaging, or posted in blog comments”

For further definition and clarification, you must realise when you post a link to a survey to a subscriber news blog like crikey, you have literally harvested the subscriber base of that news blog, do you not?

By the way, I don’t see any reference to your ethical clearance number in your survey as required by Australian University ethics committees so that I can ascertain specifically what research you have been approved to perform. You have further omitted your full name, school and/or faculty details. Information that should be provided every time you conduct research through a tertiary education institution. If you have indeed gone through the ethical approval process at RMIT, I am certain the committee would have not approved your research project.

Cheers V.

Besides, academics should not use survey monkey as it contravenes another ethical concern that the data is not securely housed in the university “commons”. Despite survey monkey’s claims that it will not use the data under any circumstance, you have no way of knowing for sure as the property rights have not been tested internationally in court let alone what happens if the owner (finley) sells on to say, yahoo or google.

don’t do the monkey again.

Venise well done for you critique of yoko ono (a most peculiar mama)

Don’t worry, the sample for this particular research is not meant to be representative of the Australian public or random. I have been posting the link on pro- and anti-environmental (whatever that means) sites in equal measure, as well as some seemingly neutral sites discussing climate change and emissions trading (25% of the sample). Have had some very interesting results! Thanks again for your participation – I really appreciate it.

I am more than happy to do your survey, but I worry about you being grilled over selection bias by your examiners.

I am a student at RMIT University and I am currently researching public opinion on emissions trading in Australia. Would you or your readers be interested in participating in the following online survey?

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=DmDHuHfJYvHNuM76TPOEXg_3d_3d

It is completely anonymous and takes approximately 5 minutes to complete. Results will not be published outside RMIT, however participants are welcome to contact me if they would like these forwarded upon completion in November. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any queries – details are included at the beginning of survey.

Many thanks in advance, Rose

Bernard: Allocations to trade exposed industry, compo for generators, assistance for households and even the (extremely silly) fuel excise reduction: none of these things prevents the CPRS cap from being met (and on current settings, only the last one significantly increases the cost of meeting the cap - the others may or may not be a waste of public money, but that’s a distribution issue more than an economic cost issue).

The logical criticisms of the cap are that it’s too weak, and/or that the import of international permits and offsets undermines it. I said above that these criticisms should be the basis of future pressure to amend the CPRS, not reason to pursue wholly different alternatives. But I also disagree with the criticisms:

5% below 2000 levels by 2020 (the Government’s “nobody but us does anything” minimum commitment) is obviously not an environmentally sound medium term target. It’s not meant to be. It’s a treading-water cut for the possibility that no international agreement is in place when the scheme begins - one that lets us get the mechanics of emissions trading in place and significantly alter our emissions trajectory without inflicting such competitive harm that the scheme becomes politically unsustainable. 5% below 2000 is not enough (by a long way), but it’s not chopped liver either - as Penny Wong keeps saying, its a looong way below where we would otherwise be in 2020.

The 15% option is pretty close to the probable US target (Waxman-Markey and Boxer-Kerry set 2020 goals of 20% below 2005 levels; that translates to about 14-15% below 2000). My guess is that we’re pretty likely to settle on 15% for the time being. The 25% conditions are hard to meet, sure, but they have to be met anyway if international climate policy is to succeed. All of these targets may be too low to your taste, but they’re not nothing. And people who want more will just have to argue for it - there’s no policies that will deliver the necessary cuts at lower absolute cost, and no hope of simply concealing costs of this magnitude. Public investment in generation infrastructure would have to be so colossal as to make Nation Building 1&2 look like a trip to the milk bar.

As for imports: international trade in permits is sound and sensible so long as the purchased instruments are themselves sound - that is, when the permits we buy come from well-run emissions trading schemes, and the offsets we buy are trustworthy and represent genuinely additional abatement. Offsets are the most likely source of trouble, given the inherent problems of additionality and the potential for (indeed, reality of) corruption in the offset-generating countries. But offsets also have tremendous potential (already realised in part) to draw developing countries into taking real action. Close scrutiny is warranted, but the CPRS will not result in a flood of cheap “hot air” permits (purchase of Assigned Amount Units like those held in regrettable plenty by Russia and Ukraine will not be allowed, for instance).

In short, the cap will stand, and will ensure that Australia’s emissions trajectory alters substantially, and that significant reductions to global emissions are achieved (or significant compared to Australia’s share of global emissions, anyway).

Mama, go and have a read of what REAL scientists have to say in Daniel’s link above about your Siberian storm in a tea cup. Just as I had said yesterday, one set of data manipulated by a contrarian is not going to bring down a scientific edifice. You’ll have to try harder than that. You make yourself look like a bit of a numpty when you cry that the “hoax” has been revealed when in fact you’ve been led astray by people who manipulate things to suit their own desired outcomes.

Mama, have you actually ever bothered to read realclimate.org? Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre may seem smart to you because they re-inforce your pre-conceptions but they’re really not in the same league as the real scientists out there who are warning us that we’re messing with our futures.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/09/hey-ya-mal/#more-1184