Alan Jones turns up the heat on fracking
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Alan Jones’s ongoing campaign on coal seam gas — his Press Club speech yesterday was more or less a reheat of his extended railing on the issue on his radio program — has produced more than just the unusual sight of a Greens-Jones unity ticket. One suspects, though, the Greens would have found Jones’ complaint that fracking EISs lacked “peer review” ironic, since Jones generally prefers his climate science to have no peer review of any kind. Australia isn’t the only country where coal seam gas is causing deep disquiet, especially in rural communities. Far from it. It’s a huge issue in the US, where protests continue in several states and particularly in New York State. There, a bitter debate over lifting a state ban on fracking prompted several municipalities to impose their own bans, with some dragged into court by mining companies, many of whom have aggressively litigated against any local government that has tried to regulate or ban coal seam gas development. Just like in Australia, there’s deep anger and division about fracking in these communities (two weeks ago, I encountered a street corner fracking protest in a small upstate NY town, with “Honk if you hate fracking” placards drawing a merry cacophony of horns from the traffic). The issue is one of the many that are in the #Occupy Wall Street mix. The protest at which author Naomi Wolf was arrested this week was specifically targeted at New York governor Andrew Cuomo over his lifting of the fracking ban. Fracking is described on the New York protest’s blog as “the ultimate corporate usurpation of the rights of people, of communities, of nature.” The anti-fracking group Food and Water Watch has established a permanent representation at Zuccotti Park. None of this is any surprise, given the complementarity between much of the anti-corporate rhetoric of the #occupy movement and the concerns of fracking opponents. And strangely, Jones’s rhetoric is little different from that of the #occupy movement. The picture the hard-right broadcaster painted yesterday was of mainstream politicians captive to the interests of mining companies, addicted to the royalties provided by miners and incapable of saying no to them or of effectively representing the view of the communities affected by CSG developments. For Jones, governments have given up trying to regulate or constrain corporations because it’s not in their interests to do so — sentiments that would be perfectly at home in Zuccotti Park in New York or at any of the #occupy sites in Australia. For several years, coal seam gas has been an issue playing out in rural communities with little urban media profile. The Greens, particularly in NSW, spotted the potential of the issue early, understanding it was a way to make inroads in regional communities traditionally resistant to the party. But Jones has put a rocket under it not merely by constantly raising the issue but by the temperature of his rhetoric, which happily juggles references to foreign invasion, property rights, food security and health concerns, enough to catch out Tony Abbott when he ventured into the issue earlier in the year. The mining industry has been slow to react (too gorged on profits, perhaps?) and has done little to counter Jones’s and the Greens’s campaigns. This morning the PR company Media Manoeuvres used Jones’s Press Club address to tout for business with mining companies via email, referring to Jones’s “emotive attack on the Australian coal mining industry” that was “remarkable and damaging”:
But the company seems to have missed the point that this isn’t a media battle. This is an issue that has emerged from the ground up, in rural communities. And while energy prices remain high, the fundamental tension between mainly agricultural-based regional communities and mining companies will continue, regardless of how it is spun by PR experts. |
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143 Comments
Oddly enough I agree with Alan Jones on this subject only. Otherwise the talking parrot can go frack himself.
“The Greens, particularly in NSW, spotted the potential of the issue early, understanding it was a way to make inroads in regional communities traditionally resistant to the party.”
Perhaps they just thing fracking is a bad thing.
“The Greens, particularly in NSW, spotted the potential of the issue early, understanding it was a way to make inroads in regional communities traditionally resistant to the party.”
The greens ARE the party of the environment, sustainability and social issues. This is exactly the sort of issue we would expect them to involve themselves in whether it were happening in ST Kilda or Horsham.
Sorry Bernard, the suggestion that the Greens would back an issue purely on the sniff of a few rural votes (gay marriage anyone?) is beyond cynical, even for a Canberra stalwart like yourself.
“This is an issue that has emerged from the ground up…….” pun intendad, I presume. Did somebody say grass roots?
@CALYPTORHYNCHUS
This is the Bernard Keane we missed & love. The cynic, the shit stirrer, the one who cares not what the argument is so long as he can lambaste or blame someone.
Bet you he’s 5’3” and skinny as a runt!
MICHAEL: “Bet you he’s 5’3” and skinny as a runt!” Wrong, or so I’m told.
I agree with venise@1 and it makes me feel dirty.
CHRIS: I hope you don’t mean that you feel dirty for agreeing with me?
@CHRIS TALLIS
ROFLMAO !!!!!
At the National Press Club Luncheon yesterday Alan Jones spoke exclusively on the subject of coal seam gas exploration and - can’t believe I’m saying this - he was excellent. Assisted by sheafs of information, it was an eye-opening address, Jones was erudite as he aired the horrible truth, he’s telling Australia to wake up. The programme is repeated in the wee hours in the next few days, it’s worth setting the DVR.
Contrary to his usual form, Jones delivered facts not merely opinions. What a mega-power he could be if he stuck to that formula.
What an appalling article - not the slightest effort to put any science or engineering knowledge into the story. Just a blind acceptance that natural gas mining is bad. Fracking has been used in the Moomba gas fields for decades. There is no water table in St Peters Sydney that is used to supply drinking water to anyone. Gaslands was about Shale gas - which in one of the main east coast deposits is close to the surface but across most of the Marcellus shale bedrock - the deposit is very deep at 10000 feet.
The issue in America has tapped into the issue of poorly maintained infrastructure where many aging natural gas pipelines have been allowed to become dangerous in local urban areas.
In South Africa the issue is about shale gas most of which are also at 10000 feet down and if properly drilled would enable South Africa to be energy independent for decades. It is now becoming clear that similar vast shale gas deposits are under the UK and would enable the UK to transition to gas from coal at an affordable level.
In Australia there are coal seam gas deposits all along the eastern seaboard and would enable us to supply our heating, electricity and transport energy needs for many many decades.
Yes there are some issues with gas extraction - just as there is with nearly human resource activity. Just look at the fight going on in Bellingen over dairy farming.
Once upon a time it would have been an automatic red flag if Alan Jones and the Greens agreed on an issue. But now we live in an age where that’s automatically perceived to be a positive.
Until someone wants to start handing our short and long straws to the other 7 billion people on the planet it really is time that a lot of people took a long cold shower and realised that getting through the next 50 years is going to take compromise and cooperation and not just automatic fear and loathing of technology that 99% of those that paraded about last weekend haven’t a the slightest clue about. They just heard the word fracking and Halliburton and assumed they instantly knew all they needed to know about an issue and that it was all bad.
That BK continues to write about issues he has so little understanding about is the real worry hear. Instead of being a journal of note - Crikey has become a 2 dollar pamphlet for the idiot left and given how much effort goes into the Power Index - maybe its time the Crikey team took a good hard look at themselves and realised just how much power Crikey has within the Australia media and political world for setting the tone and agenda of critical debates.
Much of the time this has been a positive - but increasingly it has become a huge destructive negative that makes Crikey little better than the tabloid press of News Corp or the inane current affairs shows of commercial TV.
Time to lift your game Mr Beecher and Ms Black and stop pandering to the Green Left for page views.
Please hyperlink “too gorged on profits” a flattering photo of Clive, Gina, Nathan…
On Tuesday Keane complained that Abbott was stopping the task of decarbonising it economy. Now we learn he, Keane has been to upstate New York. As ever ,do as I say ,not as I do for our new hard green elite.
I neglected to add that Clive is no friend of CSG of course - which makes this issue even more unusual: climate change deniers and coal miners not fond of their gaseous industry associates.
SIMON M: “”Crikey has become a 2 dollar pamphlet for the idiot left.”“
Really; how would you classify the good farmers in Victoria who are facing a wipe-out of their land on a mining venture-fracking-from a WA consortium. They’ve had the nerve to stage a protest about this. For shame you rurals, you are nothing more than a communist front?
@ Simon Mansfield “…science or engineering knowledge….. 10000 feet”
10000 feet? doesn’t sound like the sort of measurement one would find in a reliable science or engineering journal…. hmmm?
Getting slapped by the greens is like getting slapped with a wet piece of lettuce…
Getting the Alan Jones Slap= being slapped with the force of 1000 thousand suns, secretly there will be some greens who will be mad that Jones has, with 1 press club appearance, done what they have not been able to do and that is get this issue on the national radar.
@ mattsui - what do you think they use in the US - inches, feet, pounds, tons, fahrenheit.
Gee, speaking of fracking and such “shake-downs”, I remember when Alan was just as “vehemently anti-Telstra” (or was it “anti-Qantas”, or was it “anti-banks”, or a couple of other companies) then they cut him in, on a “see change (of mind)”?
@ Venise Alstergren - given the current state of so much of rural Australia - I’d hardly be embracing the farmers as the guardians of our rural land. Land Care has come to a few areas - but there is a very long way to go before you would start holding up the average Australian farm as a virtue to good land management standards.
Most farmers are just pissed off they are not getting a bigger slice of the profits. But given that most of them have voted for the LNP their whole adult life I find it all very hard to feel that concerned about their sudden concern for profit sharing. How many of them backed Rudd last year over the mining tax. How many of them support the carbon tax or ETS. How many of them want to do anything substantial about water allocations.
For the farmers it’s mostly about the money and for the greens it’s mostly about finding another issue to bang on about now we have moved on from nuclear and climate change.
One of the great ironies of CSG is that a good portion of it is renewable as a function of biogenic processes. So the next time someone bangs on about renewables - remind them how about coal seam gas - which in many cases is from active biogenic processes. However these are usually nearer surface deposits and best left alone - whereas the deeper ones are thermogenic and if properly extracted pose minimal risk to near surface water tables.
It’s amazing - Alan Jones sprouts so called science about global warming and the Greens call it crap - but no sprouts junk science about coal seam gas and the Greens think he’s on the money.
Most peer reviewed science and engineering reports on this conclude that CSG and Shale Gas mining are quite safe if done properly and follow standard risk management protocols. The same as driving a car or walking down the street - two perfectly safe activities if done properly. But when done poorly without due care then clearly very dangerous. That’s called life.
I am opposed to fracking — but now that The Parrot is onto the job, I suppose I’ll have to reconsider my position.
The idea of Alan Jones pitching for something worthy seems downright perverse. Perhaps he is hoping to be bought off by a CSG promoter.
10000 feet doesn’t sound very scientific to me, is all.
More like something from a Jules Verne novella……. or a pro mining industry rap-sheet.
If you want scientific content in Crikey’s articles, why not show some in your comments?
@ Mattsui - I spend all day reporting on science from the US - it’s 75% written in imperial measurements - The Brits have mostly stopped - but the Yanks like it that way and will be dragged kicking and screaming to change. US engineering reports are filled with imperial measurements - NASA has begun a painful change to metric after the screw up with MCO in 1999 - but mostly uses both in its contracts.
You really should get out a bit more into the real world. But then again I always find it funny when I read a US blog that uses a (sic) comment as a put down when someone writes harbour, labour or the like.
Maybe you are just young and did not grow up with the imperial measurements - I’m of an age where both sound fine - and 10000 feet is a bloody big number - one third of the way to the top of Mt Everest - which for us oldies just doesn’t sound that tall at 8848 metres - whereas 29029 +/- 3 feet sounds much more awe inspiring.
But if it makes you feel better how does 3048 metres down sound - rather than 10000 feet - that’s over 3 kilometres for the averege shale gas deposit - with drinkable water down to about 200 metres at best - but mostly at about a 30-50 metres limit before natural containments make it unusable for human consumption. Of course, CSG deposits are no where near that deep down - and occur mostly between 200-1000 metres down. (is that better now)
But if getting hung up over feet or metres is all you have to contribute then I guess you are up there with the grammar squad who patrol the Internet or worse yet the Daters - who get wound up over the way the date is written in a dateline - Oct 20, 2011 - being very very wrong and only 20 Oct, 2011 being acceptable. Seriously, Mattsui contribute in substance otherwise stick to your soy latte.
So just for the record Fran - you support nuclear but oppose coal seam gas. That’s correct right?
I hate to admit it but Simon Mansfield has a point. I no more accept Jones’ shrill screeching on CSG than I do his ignorant rantings on AGM. Once again he is doing a disservice to the public. This needs to be an evidence-based decision, not just he who shouts loudest or can intimidate politicians on his fave hot button issue of the day.
But I part company with SM on the evidence. There appears to be enough warning signs about risks of irretrievable consequences of fracking that there is little assurance from the industry and its supporters to defuse that worry. The point is that some effects are forever — effects on the water table being the main one, but leakage of those fracking chemicals being another, and serious long-term plans to deal with the millions of tonnes of salt and salty water by-product. The once-only use, and loss forever, of vast amounts of water from the driest continent on the planet is not trivial. (And of course, as with all complex land-use issues some of the whinging from farmers is self-serving and a distraction.)
So, no Simon, just because CSG may be a more convenient energy source for whomever, is not sufficient reason to wave ones arms to dismiss the concerns. I have read the NYT’s exhaustive analysis of the US EPA’s report on fracking and none of it is encouraging. But it is also clear no one knows enough of what the long term consequences — in different geologies, different methods etc — will be.
Indeed the Green position (which I would support) is correct, that widespread availability of CSG will only discourage investment and takeup of low-carbon renewables, and lock us into fossil fuels for another 30 or 50 years.
Between them farmers and miner have rooted this country. Now they want to root each other for profits.
What a place, no thought, no imagination beyond digging it up or chopping it down.
Let us not forget it was farmers who turned the country into a giant desert.
SIMON M: I don’t recall holding up the rural brigade as “the guardians of our rural land.” In fact I have little sympathy for the oafs who protest about the MDB taking away their jobs, or the ones voting for Barnaby Joyce, or Peter Ryan. Nor do I like their repetitive screams for governments to treat them differently to the rest of us.
In case you are hard of hearing/seeing I’ll reiterate my position. 1) The mining industry gets far too easy a canter in this country (not specified in my post-never-the-less available to anyone reading Crikey and/or my posts) 2) Your continual accusations that anyone not agreeing with you is a left wing, or a communist sympathiser-throughout all of your comments. 3) your apparent desire to misread anyone who ventures an opposite opinion. 4) To suggest-even indirectly- that the poor old rurals should forfeit their land to yet another mining conglomerate
sucks. 5)For people like you to infer the Victorian farmer is basically another communist is hilarious.
SIMON M: There you go again-rubishing MATTUSI-for having an opinion. There was a program on Channel two this year about fracking. The depths to which they go down would be much closer to his/her estimate in feet than your estimate.
MARILYN: You take three separate statements and make one very sweeping conclusion. You should stick to refugees.
What I can’t understand is why mining companies have the right to enter someone elses land and effectively do whatever they want. Billionaire Clive Palmer wants to mine coal from the Bimblebox Nature Refuge which has a legally binding conservation covenant. Binding that is unless your a miner. Then you can trash the lot, no problem.
Why the double standard?
If it helps Venise I often find myself agreeing with you with no adverse effects whatsoever.
CHRIS: Thank you. Cheers V
@Simon Mansfield @Mattsui
It is true that I do not read engineering journals but I do know that all the scientific journals I do read — including the physical science ones (as part of general topic journals, Nature and “Nature X”, Science, PNAS etc.) are all 100% metric. Naturally because the actual research done by everyone including Americans (& Brits) is done in metric (or SI units; those NASA guys did all the calcs in metric but for some things it is then converted to imperial).
And have you noticed that even prime-time tv shows, like NCIS, CSI, in fact most of the “policier” series liberally employ metric. It is even surprising because it is often in contexts that do not intuitively seem to make full sense (and conversions for the audience not always being done). I get the feeling the educated sector of the non-metric Anglosphere would be relieved if their countries went fully metric. When I first lived in the UK (3 decades ago) they were in the middle of an apparently serious path towards metric. All price tags and supermarket tags for weights & measures had to show both. But sure enough a very long rule by conservatives (by a trained chemist not least! Maggie) allowed it to slip. First it became non-mandatory and today it seems to have pretty much comprehensively reverted to imperial. On UK tv fiction and news it is all miles and feet etc. Truly pathetic, but a pretty good indicator of where both the two main culprits lie on the scale of modernity/advanced nation status!
Meanwhile my comment/response to SM on fracking is stuck in moderation:
Stuck inside Moderation …..with the Memphis blues again.
Or is it, Stuck inside Crikey with the Moderation blues again?
And rude juveniles like “Michael” can post their toxic blather with no problem!
MICROSERIS: If you could apply to the relevant government department and get a map of Oz with all of the mining leases written on it you would have a cardiac arrest.
(Or Google it)
@ Venise Alstergren - get with it - the refrain - agrarian socialists is as old the country party - along socialise the losses - privatise the profits. Both are core values to the rural lobby.
What I said regarding depth was very clear - 10000 feet (3000 metres) is the depth of most shale gas deposits. Coal Seam Gas depths are 200 - 1000 metres - with the average being 400-600 metres.
It’s at the shallower levels of 200 metres where there is a greater chance for the drinkable water table to interact with the upper level of coal seams that there is a problem.
The classic water tap on fire scene from Gaslands is a very old problem that has been occurring for yonks wherever a water well is sunk through a coal seam.
According to the Wiki page on Gaslands every single instance shown in Gaslands of water taps on fire was attributable to the water well being sunk through an upper level coal seam.
As to the term communist - I was not aware that I had used such - please point to one single usage. As a card carry member of the Labor party and the leftie side - I’m well versed in what the dumb ass left think in this country. That most of the Balmain Basket Weavers Collective have left Labor to join the Greens is a good thing. But alas large slabs of the paelo Left do remain in the likes of Martin Ferguson and Albo et al. So don’t worry Venise us lefties will be fighting among ourselves in Labor for a long time to come yet.
Simon Mansfield asked:
Almost correct. I support nuclear power for consideration in the mix, but want a moratorium on coal seam gas where it can only be had through the fracking process or where water tables are put at risk by the attempt to extract the gas.
That all said, since the ecological feasibility of each attempt to extract coal seam gas is very much site dependent, I’d prefer decisions to be made after rigorous and independent study of the likely consequences of each coal seam gas proposal. Rather than a blanket ban, we need more robust and independent information on each project and its likely impacts on local biomes and of course its potential to contribute to less CO2 intensive energy supply. That would imply careful examination of EROEI, LCA CO2e etc …
In the longer run of course, the ideal would be to get fossil HC fuels totally out of the energy mix and make the old pist and wells secure.
I’m opposed to CSG but am not against nuclear…I think my head is going to explode.
SIMON MANSFIELD
I will admit to being a tad uninformed on coal seam gas but do I really need to be? To me it is yet another potentially polluting and ground water destroying fossil fuel industry. Extracting this stuff and burning it adds to the greenhouse effect so, regardless of the effects of its extraction on farmers, I deplore its extraction anyway. To me supporting this industry is like supporting someone who wants to profit from devastating the quality of life for my kids. Something that I think you would admit would be insane for anyone to support.
For the record (a), I wasn’t hung up on the archaic measurement, per se. Rather Mr Mansfield’s claim that it was somehow scientific - as compared to the content of Keane’s article. Thanks MR James for backing the notion that peeer reveiwed journals would be unlikely to publish such a number.
FTR(b), I never put milk in my coffee (or tea for tat matter), it riuns the flavour of the single origin, organically grown, fair trade beans.
SIMON M: If you don’t understand your own inferences how would you expect other people to? You did smear - indirectly- the rurals but I’ll leave the joy of double checking your comments to you.
@ Michael R James - the screw up on MCO in 1999 was that Lockheed Martin was doing the calcs in imperial and NASA was doing them in metric. NASA has since then mandated the use of metric - but back in the engineering fabs at Lockheed, Boeing etc they convert these back to imperial and use both to make sure they are getting it right. The NASA engineering design reviews probably do checks in both measurement systems just to make sure.
Japan still uses a number of older counting systems that are neither metric nor imperial and look how far they got with their S&T in the 20th century.
To define the progress of US science and technology as being backward as they still use imperial measurements is just daft with a capital D.
If Australia had just one institution of the level of Stanford, MIT or Berkerely let alone a Brockhaven National Lab or Goddard Space Flight Center then we would have something to skite about.
But we can’t even have an agriculture science station at the CSIRO operate without a bunch of nutters from Greenpeace destroying it and then have Bernard Keane and the Crikey peanut gallery condone it as a good day for science.
MRJ
“Or is it, Stuck inside Crikey with the Moderation blues again?”
Did your ‘stuck’ post contain hyperlinks?
I’ve noticed my posts disappearing where I’ve used pasted, full hyperlinks. I note others seem to accomplish it but I’ve started dropping all before the www and using parenthesis.
Incidentally, I can confirm your point about US science being published in Metric. It rather points to the fact that Simon is getting his data from engineering sources which would not be peer reviewed and likely supportive of industry.
SIMON M: WTF does ‘skite’ mean?
Ok I promise never to use an imperial measurement ever again in a Crikey post.
Every day I process dozens of Eurekalert press releases from the American Academy of Sciences. They use a mix of metric and imperial depending on the source. Many are converted to both measurements.
However the mining industry stills uses imperial measurements - especially the US mining industry. The description 10000 feet is used regularly when describing the depth of most shale deposits.
As to peer review for Shale and Coal Seam Gas most are supportive of the processes when done properly. And of course leading mining engineering institutions like the Colorado School of Mines that are actively involved in the peer review process still use imperial measurements.
Meanwhile, I happily remain 5 foot 8 and would not have a clue what that was in metric. Call it a trait of an aging Gen Xer - whereas you Gen Y purists are obviously so much smarter with your metric hang ups.
@ Venise Alstergren - SIMON M: WTF does ‘skite’ mean?
google “skite about it”
oxforddictionaries com / definition / skite
in short - to boast about it
@ SIMON MANSFIELD Posted Thursday, 20 October 2011 at 4:35 pm | Permalink
I didn’t do anything of the kind. I said/implied and certainly believe that the resistance to metric in the UK and USA (the latter is the only advanced industrial country that has such an official position, notwithstanding any quirkiness of the Japanese who of course industrialized on the back of the British) reflects on their country’s society and state of general education and backwardness. Of all my American scientific colleagues only one (a rather famous but controversial statistical geneticist) supported his country’s regressive tendencies — but purely on political grounds (a rather contorted argument which could not employ the usual anti-English rhetoric but had to use anti-Napoleonic rhetoric, what we/they might call “freedom rhetoric”.). It was mildly amusing if it were not so tragic.
Your argument is trying to say that because one thing (their science & engineering, standards office) is good, all is good? And who knows, maybe it partly explains Boeing’s long standing operational and financial problems? As to Lockheed, well they and most defense contractors get away with the most outrageously inefficient practices because they are fed intravenously on fat defense contracts. No doubt Halliburton does everything in imperial (or the American version of imperial which is just slightly different so as to spice things up) and this might explain why all the hospitals and other infrastructure they were paid to rebuild doesn’t work?
……….
Venise, “skite” is old Oz for boast.
David Allen, no. My posts get regularly stuck in Moderation because they get a bit too long or use words the auto-moderator cannot figure out. (It’s probably American!)
Mattsui. Milk is poison to any coffee whether or not of the knitted organic variety! (I’ll possibly get moderated for that comment since it is so un-orstralian. Lattes, flat-white, yeck. Should be a law against it, it being a crime against good taste.
All this metric vs imperial malarkey reminds me of the first time I took Mrs Twistie over to the UK for a holiday. She made the mistake of asking the Barrow Boy near Euston Station for a “half a kilo of grapes”. “Sorry luv”, he replied. “We’ve got apples, pears, bananas, plums and oranges, but we’re right out of ‘kilos’”. She now knows to ask for a pound. And I’m pretty sure the Barrow Boy was not peer-reviewed either…
@SIMON MANSFIELD Posted Thursday, 20 October 2011 at 4:50 pm
I think that is because they are “press” releases. So that the great unwashed ignorant American masses (this encompasses most of their Liberal-Arts grads, ie. journos too) can understand the scientific advances, it has to be regressed to measurements the rest of the advanced world, including all the scientists in their own American labs, gave up about 60 years ago or almost 2 centuries ago in many cases. I seriously doubt that even the pure engineering papers were done presented in imperial; and I KNOW that the others (biological, medical, physics, chemistry etc) were all published using SI units EXCLUSIVELY.
The fact that geology and mining still use imperial (if you say so) only confirms everything I think about those professions (to grossly generalize, just look at Plimer, Carter, Kinnimoth et al.). I even wrote a note about it in Crikey yonks ago (“In defense of engineers” I think. Certainly I wrote about the unifying profile of the likes of the anti-AGW geology brigade — they are all old men with grumpy entitlements to “their” piece of science or knowledge or whatever.). Even poor old (or young, I dunno) Mark Duffett (geophysicist) seems to fall into that over-simplistic but not devoid of truth generalization.
Simon M.
As a boomer I won’t yield to anyone in my ability to gratuitously insult genXYZ.
I am guessing you may be a pommy git who immigrated here well after 1966 (the year we went metric, a minor miracle given several decades of fusty conservative rule; if it was Abbott back then we would still be imperial of course.).
Still in moderation limbo, here is the first para:
Fracking is safe as long as you use the right fracking chemicals, the right fracking technique and don’t completely frack the fracking ground water.
Okay I’ll admit I don’t know anything about the topic I just like the word.
MICHAEL J: Thank you for enlightening me.
@STEVO THE WORKING TWISTIE Posted Thursday, 20 October 2011 at 5:16 pm |
There’s your first mistake right there!
The words/notions “UK” and “holiday” are mutually exclusive IMO. If only that were a joke instead of a sad fact of the modern world. And, by the way, an obvious explanation as to why Qantas’ olde-world strategy of relying entirely on London-Heathrow for their “European” strategy is causing big problems (ie. declining traffic and incidentally doing nothing for our inbound tourist industry).
I’m pretty sure the only way Guy Rundle survives over there is by keeping his visits intermittent and spending most of the time….err, how to put this, let’s say, in the pub.
Finally, after everyone has moved on, my post is out of moderation. But curious to note that the original post time-stamp has changed from 3.44 pm to:
MICHAEL R JAMES Posted Thursday, 20 October 2011 at 4:06 pm
I don’t know if you big city folks get the same - but every night here on the news I get this grazier fella telling me how nice Santos are as houseguests, how you’d barely know they were there.
I was listening to a similar cattle fella the other day. He was explaining how after the droughts, the offer of $20,000 a day rent from the CSG mob was too good to miss. That’s right folks - $20,000 a day!!! For doing precisely nothing - other than risking your neighbours’ water supply.
If Jonesie wants to get between a farmer and that sort of cashflow he’s a much braver parrot than I have given him credit for.
Before anyone can make an true evaluation, the composition of the chemical that is used for Coal Seam Gas should be published. Currently, it’s a “trade secret”. Furthermore, the scientific studies which says CSG is ‘completely safe’ totally ignored the incident where Queensland Gas Company ‘fracked’ and leaked unknown chemicals into the Great Artesian Basin in Queensland. Contaminate the Great Artesian Basin, and it’ll destroy agriculture in a large part of Australia forever.
How can this be worth the risk?
@ michael r james - you are totally and utterly wrong. I was born in Fairfield hospital in the western suburbs of Sydney in 1964 - the first Mansfield that I am descended from migrated to Australia in 1842.
In 1966 Australia switched to decimal currency.
In 1970 the Metric Conversion Act was passed by the Parliament of Australia creating the Metric Conversion Board to facilitate the conversion of measurements from imperial to metric.
A timeline of major developments in this conversion process is as follows:
1971 – the Australian wool industry converted to the metric system.
1972 – primary schools began teaching the metric system. Horse racing converted in August 1972 and air temperatures were converted in September 1972.
1973 – secondary schools used the metric system.
1974 – large scale conversion across industries. Most beverages, aside from spirits, also converted to metric units by the end of 74. The conversion of road signs took place in July 1974. There was a publicity campaign to prepare the public.
1977 – all packaged goods were labelled in metric units, and the air transport, food, energy, machine tool, electronic, electrical engineering and appliance manufacturing industries converted.
My first school text books in metric were in 1974 at Park Orchards Primary School in outer Melbourne. And I remember clearly the day they changed the road signs in 1974 as I looked out the car window all the way down Mt Hotham to see if they had changed the sign at the bottom of the mountain before you reach Harrietville - and by George they had. I thought how modern.
For many people of my age and older the everday terms “miles to go”, “six foot under”, “10000 feet down”, “flying at 30,000 feet” “six foot 2” - “five foot 8” - will always remains common figures of speech to descibe things in easy to express modes of size and distance.
To get hung up about the use of the term 10000 feet in a forum discussion clearly shows that you have no interest in the actual debate and are just like the trolls that infect so many BBs looking out for typos, grammar mistakes and the like - to show how smart you are. Totally boring.
Simon Mansfield “Until someone wants to start handing our short and long straws to the other 7 billion people on the planet it really is time that a lot of people took a long cold shower and realised that getting through the next 50 years is going to take compromise and cooperation”
The phrase “uncontrolled greenhouse warming” springs to mind.
@ michael r james - after reading your post-moderation comment at 4.06 - I retract my description of your comments as troll like. Clearly you are engaging in a reasoed debate.
@Policeman and @Ronin
Your general points may be in the right direction but: $20k per day, I don’t think so. That would be $7.3M per year. The gas companies are not that generous. I’m sure it is all “commercial in confidence” so we may never know but it doesn’t have to be very much before the phenomenon you mention kicks in.
Re those fracking chemicals, the US now enforces the companies to reveal the composition but, typically, not Australia. Reminds me of olive oil imports: EU has strict regulation of the market but not Australia, so no surprise that when analysed it turns out most 100% virgin olive oil imported from Italy (which exports much more Made in Italy olive oil than they grow!) is a mixture of cheaper oils diluting the olive part. It is not illegal in Australia!
So the only reason the chemical mix might become less toxic is because it is simply easier to use the same stuff the American parent company is using. (Though of course the American company could continue to ship all their leftover stocks of old mix to you know who.)
@ calyptorhynchus - don’t quite understand your point. We are having a small amount of Co2 warming - nothing like what has happened in the past - and upon reading this month’s National Geographic’s article on the world before the ice - mammals have a lot to be thankful for when it comes to pumping up the C02 levels of atmosphere to 1500 ppm.
The NG article is otherwise very PC and says all the right things about the world having to stop pumping out C02s - but we are a very long way from disaster level - and despite the fear and loathing that so many have for the future - I have much confidence that US science and technology will have the energy problem largely if not totally solved in a few decades.
Even the CSIRO reckons that we can scrub much of the Co2 out of the atmosphere with large scale tree planting and soil sequestration - a position that NASA’s James Hansen is in full agreement with.
It might get a little too warm for the Aussie ski season, but compared to a full blown ice age - with a mile (sorry 1.6 kilometers) of ice over London - it’s not going to be the end of the world. And it’s quite possible that the extra carbon might just come along at just the right time in human history to give us another boost to agriculture and help feed 10 billion of us before we reach Peak Human later this century.
I only had the TV on for a bit in the background as I was heading out for the Doctor but did I hear him have a go at the Coal Mine that’s being proposed in Bacchus Marsh In Victoria as well??
In Ted’s Liberal Victoria? Where you can have a coal mine next door but not a wind-farm?
The Irony of the whole thing is that Alan Jones and the rest of Australia is in such shock at discovering what Aboriginal Australians have been aware of for years - that you only own your land until somebody discovers something more valuable underneath it.
I would hope also that farmers will not be subject to the same vilification in the media as aboriginal people when they claim to be fourth or fifth generation - “Really!! Your Mother’s side of the Family managed the post office in Toowoomba!!!”, ” Your Grand Father was a Butcher from Germany and married the farmers daughter”, “Not really pure bred farming stock are you!!”
By the way - here’s a take by a US comic on the continuing use of imperial over there:
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/senior_year
(and some other things.. enjoy)
Simon, I was just being droll (or trying) in calling you a pommy git. Turns out you must just be an old git
(Oh no, reading on, it seems I must be older than you. Well it just goes to show….something.) And, um, it wasn’t me who got hung up or initiated anyway, on your use of thousands of feet. I merely find it quaint.
But I stand corrected. It seems I was already at university when most of the metric stuff came in, so I suppose since I was doing everything in metric already, it did not register much what was happening “outside”? Dunno, I do not really remember. But, just thinking about it, one wonders how one does calculations in imperial? In about 1973/4 I purchased the first “pocket” scientific calculator (HP35). It must be a nightmare — and horribly error prone — to try to do imperial calculations?
Perhaps my “metric” mind is a result of non-stop use in my profession, because I do not tend to do as you say, revert to imperial. Maybe I was still young enough when at uni I was forced into metric everything?
……………..
Correction to earlier: oops, I must be an old git, because I got the wrong post. (too many posts), the original moderated post was finally released with the original time stamp. (3.44 pm).
Groan, in moderation blues again. Here is part of the post:
Sheesh, attempt #3.
MICHAEL R JAMES
Posted Thursday, 20 October 2011 at 7:01 pm | Permalink
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
Groan, in moderation blues again. Here is part of the post:
Jones’ Press Club speech was a 50min version of his radio show - including telling the convenor that “I’m not finished yet” hence we ABC1 viewers only got 7 mins of questions but he’s not so ranting raving without his call screeners & kill button is he? he was positively Uriah Heep to the first question on ”halting the trucks at the ACT border” (where that?) because the journo. kept correcting him. the lese majeste! his complexion went from ruddy to vermillion.
To quote R.Zimmerman, “I was praying the pieces, would fall out on me!”.
On 7.30 he was almost human, mild &, comparatively, sane which just shows to go ya that an idea can’t be responsible for the people that hold it. Has anyone watched the digi thingy that had the full half hour?
There are multiple things wrong with this statement. Even if “large scale tree planting” was the main thing (most global CO2 sequestration is via marine organisms) do you see any such action anywhere in the world today? (Well, actually lots of tree planting in China, mostly in desperate attempts to stabilize hillside land against erosion.) And do you see any realistic likelihood of any in the near future? Clearing of tropical forests to create farming land seems inexorable. And these tropical rain forests are a complex ecosystem that cannot just be regenerated at will. It could take hundreds of years to re-establish them.
So, Hansen may simply be lamenting forest clearance but I doubt he would be optimistic that massive tree planting is either going to happen or would be sufficient to pull down enough CO2, quickly enough to really change things.
Soil sequestration is still a very theoretical thing. It came to notice from discoveries in the Amazon where ancient soils in cultivated regions showed the phenomenon — presumed to enrich otherwise nutrient-poor forest soil. But no one is quite sure how the natives did it, and the real significance of it. You’ve got to understand that this is not something each individual farmer can just decide to do on his farm — it requires anaerobic “combustion” of organic matter, which is being proposed in kilns. So, an industrial process and neither easy or without cost. It might eventually play a role but it is not clear when or how significant it will ultimately be. And let’s face it, the only reason the LibNats are embracing it is because it is seen as a boondoggle for the farmers.
I agree with Jones - for once.
I live in the Hunter, mining licenses abound. A pipeline has been approved. The people do NOT want this, with the exception of a few who will make a dollar out of it. Yet the NSW Labor govt let it proliferate and the current Liberal/Nat govt is yet to take a position.
Just last night a professional ‘Focus Group’ company from Sydney and hired by AGL conducted a meeting with a small number of locals look at the issues. Pleeeaaassseee. This company is engaged and paid by AGL - no doubt the ‘report’ will provide options for dealing with disgruntled people. But it will not change AGL’s ambition.
What the CSG ads on TV dont tell you is this gas is only for export to China. We dont need or use it here. So there is no urgency for expansion without proper consideration.
The truck movements this industry generates are extroadinary. The destruction of prime farmland horrendous and the arrogant way mining companies have wielded power over property owners has been a disgrace.
Please do not underestimate the land destruction and aquifer pollution this industry spins and glosses over.
There are no positives about this industry for ordinary folk, just wealth generation for a few at the expense of many.
Michael - large slabs of the US construction and manufacturing industry (and for some reason the stock market) still use fractions - for them it’s the opposite and they think that using metric is much harder than fractions and imperial measurements. Besides SI is not strictly metric and uses a variety of measuring systems to create a standardized international system of counting and measuring.
As to Jones and his sudden lets-be-nice-to-Julia routine. The end objective is obvious. He’s clearly been told to tone it down by the farmers lobby ie the NFF and others - as they are hoping the Feds intervene on the issue and over rules the state governments to bring in a whole raft of federal regulations that stops the CSG industry dead in its tracks.
While that might be the game plan - it would normally have Buckley’s chance of happening as there are no votes in RARA land or St Peters for a Labor government. However, given Elvis has long left the building on this issue it really is anyone’s guess as to where this will end up.
But clearly opposing CSG is the new black for the Greens and as one leading opponent of the US Shale Gas industry says - who cares about the science - yer BK is right it’s now all about the politics.
@ michael r james re trees and soil -
please read James Hansen’s latest papers on this. He clearly states that the only feasible way to reduce Co2 levels to 360 ppm is via tree planting and soils through less tillage . But it has to start now.
I’m only quoting one of the god’s of climate change who’s peer reviewed paper lays it out very clearly - and was yet again another first class demonstration that BK should stick to writing about politics and leave the science to just straight reportage and not commentary.
A welcome change from Alan Jones even if one cannot help wondering if his support would be as overwhelming if it was purely a Green initiative and not one that has mobilised support from farmers and environmentalists alike. Still never look a gift horse in the mouth. The implications of fraccing are mind boggling. The short-term gains of living off the back of mining royalites is not worth the long term risks from both an environmental and food security perspective.
BHP, Xstrata, Rio and the other big coalminers must be absolutely laughing their heads off at the *informed* populace, convinced that putting a couple of coal seam gas wells in a hectare of land would have greater impact on groundwater/drinking water resources than open-cut mining the entire site.
At the risk of sounding all Frank Campbell, the anti-CSG crowd are dropping the ball in a big way here and providing the coal industry - increasingly subject to scrutiny over their continuing rapid expansion in NSW and QLD - with a massive free-kick.
@SIMON MANSFIELD Posted Thursday, 20 October 2011 at 8:35 pm
I thought the reference was to char-in-soil (requiring anerobic combustion). But ok less tillage, which means no burn-offs that happen all over the world. That will not sequester carbon much because a lot eventually decomposes and gives off methane etc. (The point of char is that it is geologically stable locked-up carbon.)
And just because one particular scientist says it does not mean it is gospel (even if non-scientists come to that conclusion). But he is a real scientist and if it is in his peer-reviewed publications (as compared to review papers which allow more “opinion” or interpretation, or other less rigorous publication, eg. books, newspaper articles etc) then he has either studied it appropriately or has a co-author expert. However it does seem a stretch to say it is “the only feasible way”.
And of course if it is true (as it probably is) that “it has to start now”, we all know it is not going to start now. Which is why most believe more drastic action will be required. As I summarized a while back:
Incidentally, a significant factor in my support of a moratorium on fracking for CSG, if not scientific, is that France put a total moratorium on it nationwide some time ago. Now there could be some political non-scientific reasons for this — for example I do not know if they actually have much CSG potential (so it could be largely a symbolic gesture). Also due to their nuclear investment they have not encouraged gas heating so most homes built/renovated in the last 30 years have electric heating.
On the other hand having lived there for ten years and been visiting for >30 years, I have developed a lot of respect for French long-term guardianship of their country — as compared to the anglosphere, or many others. They especially carefully tend their natural physical assets (it is not by accident that it has the most glorious countryside including much of the farmed areas, and for example Europe’s longest ‘natural’ river — the Loire, without any dams, diversions or other interferences). Even though France has more land than any other European country they do not take it for granted. It is what is meant by “la France Profonde”, a true reverance.
And French political decision making is much more evidence-based and expert-oriented than the anglosphere where business and short-term profit rules. (Most of their senior politicians are graduates of the elite grand ecoles; professionals in engineering, finance, administration, science etc). I do not know how they managed it but it is true that French people are “citizens not subjects” (as Simon Schama wrote). (Is there a single Australian reading this that truly thinks the same of our relationship to the state?)(It would be a cheap shot to add, at this time as our Queen, our head of state, visits and we pay the customary obeisance.)
Can any Australians honestly believe that our politicians or our experts have come to “their decision” to allow CSG on such a large scale via a careful process of evidence and independent experts? No, they have been seduced by the money and the relief it will bring to stressed budgets. And they have been bought or persuaded by big business.
If Alan Jones is against it, then on general principles, I declare my self for it- whatever it is.
Alan Jones has got shingles “Influence For Sale”.
I couldn’t be more excited that Alan Jones is on board. Whatever his motives, he speaks to a lot of ignorant folks… and he might get a few of them considering the environment and the future of fossil fuels.
I have no idea what Alan’s audience believes at this present minute, but I’ll make an educated guess that there are: some who, contrary to eveidence and logic, still believe mining, drilling, clearing and pollution will do more good than harm… and some who are more easily able to ignore the compounding damage… and some others who are well aware that those practices are both damaging and unsustainable, but are addicted to the status quo… those are the saddest facts of all. If Alan Jones can get even one of them to change, yippee.
@ Milan Ovich: ‘Whatever his motives…’
One suspects that Jones’s motives are clean on this one. He was born on the Darling Downs in SE Queensland and spent his formative years in that idyllic rural environment. No doubt he still has contacts with old family friends (or perhaps relatives) on the land and this gives him special insight into how CSG exploration is affecting the community. It’s human nature not to want the landscape of one’s youth to be despoiled by industry and greed.
I’m grateful Jones is on board, too. And it’s a novelty to write something positive about him.
I have much confidence that US science and technology
I believe in magic too and unicorns and santa and and …
Zut…
Alan Jones… human nature … hmmmm?
I’m against CSG mining. There should be a moratorium until there’s been a far reaching investigation into it, particularly the dangers etc. I find it amazing that farmers have so little right to say what happens on their properties. There are people who were conned in the early stages and who now realise, that there is no way they could sell their farms in the future - perhaps this was going to be their equivalent to superannuation. It’s amazing that only the top 30 centimeters is theirs - below that belongs to the govt.
Of course, as usual, the State govts can’t look beyond the monies coming their way. A recent article in the SMH stated that pipelines are going to be built near Warragamba Dam and other vital places - how damned stupid is that? No investigations, nothing?
We don’t need the stuff. We can gradually change over to renewable energy sources, but no, all that is important at this time is MONEY!
As to the trees question? It takes 5 years for them to have any effect on Co2 - and of course, we’re still cutting down trees at a great rate - how stupid is that?
@CHRIS TALLIS - Have you watched Gasland? The last US Administration got rid of all the vital Laws that would’ve protected people - even prevented CSG mining taking place? Thanks to Cheney, Bush and others - tore them up!
I don’t have any faith in any changes - unless the people force Govts to stop this madness! That’s the only way it will happen! Like you I believe in unicorns, santa and - the fairies that live at the bottom of my garden?
Seems some people are perplexed by the parrot’s damascus road conversion to green politics… must have been on the trip back from the Convoy of Inconsequence.
Actually, seen in context, there’s nothing surprising in Jones’ attacks on CSG. His views have always been subjective and idiosyncratic (and for sale of course). His roots are in the black soil of the Darling Downs (cottaging aside) and he would see no inconsistency between his vociferous opposition to CSG and his enthusiasm for logging anything remotely millable, burning anything flammable and attacking environmentalists and anyone else who dares question the path of “progress”.
It’s not about what it is - it’s about where it is. It is the parrot’s adaption of NIMBYism - not in the backyard of my boyhood. But your place is fine.
Not what I’d call evidence of a broadening of environmentalist support into the pink rinse set, I’m afraid. Even pussy cats don’t change their spots - and Alan’s covered in them.
@ microseris 20 October 2011 at 3:58 pm
As Venise mentions go have a look at the number of coal/ oil/ gas leases around the place - it will really open your eyes as to who runs what. Despite lands being tied up for different purposes (leasehold, freehold, farming, conservation covenants, whatever) no-one “owns” the air above the land nor anything below a certain depth (can’t remember what the cut-off is, and it may well vary between jurisdictions). Granting of exploration licences means resource extraction companies came go onto whatever land they want and all they owe is some compensation to the landholder for the inconvenience and for any moneys lost through them not being able to use that land in the normal course of their business.
This is partly what’s pissing off a lot of farmers at the moment, and waht has pissed off those of us who have been interested in conservation for many years before. Insight (SBS) had something on this a month or two back.
@FRACTIOUS - I believe it’s below 30 centimetres - that’s all the farmers have control over! the rest ‘belongs’ to the govt it would seem?
@PETER ORMONDE - Couldn’t have put it better myself! That just about sums up Jones? I didn’t know he was the guest at the National Press Club this week. I wouldn’t have bothered watching anyway. one hour of Jones is just too much for my stomach to cope with!
That Jones is against CSG is like saying, Hitler was a christian too! One redeeming feature or ????
And that is exactly how it should be. Why would we want farmers getting huge windfall profits from mining? If those sub-surface assets are worth anything at all, they should belong to the public at large., for which the government is the representative.
Ah Ms Fran,
Sadly some farmers and graziers are tapping into the rich profits flowing out of their paddocks… as I point out above, in one case that I know of to the tune of $20,000 rent PER DAY!!!!
True they get very little for the inconvenience of initial exploration and test drilling, but once a viable site is identified, and the company is looking to rent a couple of hectares for well heads, pipelines and access roads, my g*d how the money rolls in.
@FRAN - What it means is they have no rights to say no? I don’t think that’s fair or just. For something that could poison the water supply - for good and ruin their livlihood? How can that be right. I also understand, that in some cases the monies the CSG companies pay them is a pittance. If it all goes to s**t, they have no recourse? I don’t believe that’s fair or just either. To maybe have to take your kids from their home to someplace else? that’s not polluted? How can that be right? I suggest you read the article in the SMH Good Weekend of August 13 byDavid Leser. It covered several pages and sets out the many sites that are planned for NSW alone. There was much in the article that I didn’t realise. JUst one example - the family involved(they farm sheep) have had to sell lambs as they were falling into open trenches after the company removed fences? The young couple(family farm for generations) have very young children and the young husband also has two forms of cancer?Originally, they were in favour of CSG mining - that’s all changed now!
The companies are separating people - ringing them early in the morning, or just fronting up at unreasonable times. The first time a farmer is taken to court for not allowing them on his/her land, the CSG companies will lose all credibility(if they haven’t already?). I’ll go and stand beside those farmers and their families - and get arrested if need be. I’ve seen enough, read enough and listened to enough people, together with the reality of too many others to know, that this stuff is just too dangerous to mess with; too dangerous to take the risks on your land or near water supplies - any of them!
We’re fighting on the NSW south coast in order to stop mining on land that is a vital catchment area for our drinking water. There’s Cordeau, Cataract and Appin dams along the escarpment? We don’t want the risk! BHP Billiton has shown its attitude to us, by refusing to answer any questions at public meetings? They refuse to allow certain people at their so-called ‘public meetings’ and then insult our intelligence by their arrogance and platitudes! We’re treated as though the real crime is asking questions, and expecting adults to answer them!
Prior to the NSW State Election, the now Govt assured the people of Newcastle that there wouldn’t be any CSG mining in areas that grow food etc. Now, they’ve changed their stance altogether! With the Govt and Orica’s attitude re emissions lately - why would we have any faith in our lives/livlihoods being protected? We don’t! I certainly don’t! The Hunter Region has already experienced the effects of open cut coal mining. People are getting sick. Asthmatics health have deteriorated and there’s a strong suggestion of a link between mining and cancers springing up in the area. They don’t want any more garbage in the environment - certainly not gas coming out on their land and near/in vital aquifers!
We had a big rally last weekend - the Sea Cliff Bridge was closed for the about 3,000 protesters. I was with them in spirit! My back has croaked on me???
Now if the crusading sapphire-rumped parrot could just wing its way o’er the oceans and squawk about the 85,000 contaminated mine sites in WA……………?
Contact details: Colin Baddafi - Chief Galah - Parliament House WA
No harm in askin’ is there?
LIZ: Thank your lucky stars that you don’t live in Vic. We now have a, wait for it, Liberal Party in power and the Premier-Ted Baillieu is no Einstein-dutifully delivers whatever his deputy-Peter Ryan, Victorian National Country Party, wants. Environmental laws are being repealed and CSG encouraged. The previous incumbent, John Brumby, was bad but Baillieu is a hell of a lot worse.
BTW, I think FRAN was agreeing with you. Cheers
@ Flower, there’s plenty of uranium under WA’s wheatbelt. I wonder if said Parrot would consider coming out against mining that?
Likely not eh? I thought Parrots were only good for stopping wind farms;)
Either way the next state election should be a cracker, with parliament already hung and nukes in the mix, I reckon the Nationals will be well and truly wedged.
Indeed Mattsui. Then there’s the shenanigans of the frackers’ victims - influential farmers’ groups (from east to west) who’ve gone to great lengths to promote national tours of climate sceptics – not least charlatan Monckton, described by the parrot as “the world’s most eminent climatologist.”
Farmers’ groups are responsible for sabotaging action on climate change and peddling for polluters. Queensland’s Agmates “the neutral forum” is but one example but never mind about the pesticide pollution in rivers all around the nation and the GBR – a mere peccadillo though the perpetrators advise that marine pollution can cease if the price is right.
So what goes around comes around. Alas, those fracking bullies have invaded Farmer Brown’s territory so now, aided and abetted by an unlikely assortment of “strange” bedfellows (i.e. us) they demand that polluters peddle off and pollute elsewhere. Oh that we “warmies” could have such influence.
I think I’ll grow my own veggies. There’s plenty of bullcrap going for free on the web.
All the same FLOWER, I don’t think we can afford to do without Jones-now that he’s joined. I can’t stand the man; but why not use him and dismiss him when he’s back on his usual tack?
What a good idea Venise. I promise I’ll be nice to the parrot. I can you know. Perhaps I could pose as a horned parakeet to make a good impression?
Venise….
I know it’s difficult to throw away someone as influential as Alan Jones when he slithers up offering support but that’s EXACTLY what I’d be advocating.
This bloke is a venomous reptile - he is not “on your side” on this or any other issue. He doesn’t like CSG in the pastures of his bucolic childhood - that’s all. Once that’s sorted he’ll have another conversion and be lining up with the forces of darkness or whoever’s got the fattest wallet, as usual. And he will be attacking you as a “former supporter” who was welcomed and feted by the greenies and other “dopes, dills, morons and idiots”.
Some help ain’t worth getting. We need principles not pragmatics. He has nothing to offer. And he will taint our movement. Throw him back.
PS… Would you let Pauline Hanson speak at your rallies? Or that silly bug-eyed “Lord”… course you wouldn’t. Think about it.
PO - you took the words off my keyboard. Shun the Caterwauling Catamite, he’ll betray any principle at the whiff of a chequebook.
Someone mentioned recently that he lives in the Toaster on the Quay. He railed against its construction for months until offered the penthouse for a, heavily discounted, price.
PETER O: FLOWER; AR: Rest assured good friends, my loathing for Alan Jones is profound and complete. We are bitterly aware the man (?) catamite, sodomite, whatever, would sell his mum-if the price was right. But even someone like him has one or two corners of their - I hesitate to use the word heart - mind which remembers something of their childhood and he does come from a rural background.
He speaks to the same people who love the queen, hold rural values, worship Australian rules footy, and speak as if their lips were sewn together. However, in the words of Shakespeare’s Mark Antony “I come to bury Jonsey, not to praise him”. Perhaps we should look at the problem another way. We want the ears of the citizens to whom he speaks; so we bury the man but keep his audience. A temporary arrangement. Principles are all very well, but you can’t eat them…if that’s what it takes, etc, etc.
PETER O: Wash your mouth out with soap honey, that red headed female dog I could/would not use, ever. Pardon me while I give way to noisy sobs; sob, sob. How could you think I’d be that low??? Drags out tissue to dab at my eyes……
Venise,
Can’t see much difference between them myself … Jones is probably more toxic actually … and THAT is saying something…. no matter what he’s mouthing this week. He believes in nothing - nothing at all.
@OERMONDO
Far too much hatred from a little man. Insipid little fellows like you always speak from the same soap box under cover of a distant, untracked screen. Put you in a proper face to face debate & you’re the first to show a wet patch on your Bermuda shorts.
My question to Crikey is “looking at the posts on this thread how do you not get your arse sued ?”
“Michael”… and the moderator
I was thinking of letting your recent string of defamatory posts just drop off the radar.
You have just rekindled my enthusiasm for seeking some action from Crikey regarding their pages being used for defamation of named individuals - ie myself.
Crikey’s attention is drawn to earlier posts on other threads over the last week in which I took both Michael and your good selves to task for allowing Crikey’s comments pages to include Michael’s libel that I was a “pederast”. As a publicly identifiable individual that is, using my real name, this constitutes a clear defamation.
I asked for an apology. None was forthcoming. What do you intend to do?
I have attached a weblink to ensure that your moderation system picks it up and that this post is read by the staff member responsible for moderation decisions and content on these pages.
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/da200599/
I look forward to your immediate reply.
I quite agree Peter Ormonde. Let us keep Alan Jones at arms length out of a sense of basic hygeine.
Once upon a time, the US backed the Afghan mujihadeen against the Soviets, ignoring their utterly reactionary character. They backed the Pakistaini regime with billions to make the Russians bleed.
It worked, but not as the Americans expected. The Russians were defeated, but Al Qaeda was born and they knew how to wage asymmetrical warfare. The possibility of a stable and accountable regime in Pakistan was lost, and yet they hold nuclear weapons.
Siding with criminals out of momentary convenience usually ends in tears.
The last thing we would want is to accept responsibility for anything Jones might say or do. If he wants to tell his bands of wailing harpies that CSG is bad, that’s a matter for him, but it has nothing to do with what rational folk endorse.
I’m not going down without a fight…….AJ knows reams of pollies….I don’t!
All around us the big mining companies- and the rural brigade as a rule- wield their power with the morals of a Liverpudlian whore. Why should our side be incorruptible? We haven’t got anything remotely like the money, or the clout necessary, so why can’t we fight dirty as well? It will only be the one issue.
FRAN: The Americans and the Russians made a vital error-and America has learned nothing of her continuing mistakes. In this period of world history the big countries nearly always go into a fight on the side of the overdogs. THEY SHOULDN’T, because these days wars are usually won by the underdogs. If America learned that little lesson she really would be a terrifying opponent.
Think about it, please.
Sorry for going off-topic.
Yes Venise, the parrot knows lots of politicians - those he doesn’t like he abuses and spits his venom, those he likes he pets and pampers. Jones frightens them - friends and enemies alike. God knows why.
As the recent Convoy of No Confidence amply demonstrated - Jones is pretty unhinged … a self-styled “maverick” - ready to jump at the hint of a conspiracy, ready at a whiff of smoke to turn on those around him. In the absence of facts - or the presence of facts he doesn’t like - he makes up his own. Picture Troofie in a radio studio.
Our side should be incorruptible because we are better than that- we try and rely on argument and reason and facts. The presence of the parrot on your platform reduces those arguments, reasons and facts to the level of another of his hysterical tirades.
Why are you (rightly) repelled by the notion of Hanson, yet would consider hopping into the cot with the parrot?
You’ll feel cheap and used in the morning, Venise. And you will have been.
@FRAN BAILEY
You speak with such venom & bile you must surely leave skid marks on your panties after each Crikey session.
Venise
“…with the morals of a Liverpudlian whore.”
Can you please provide a reference supporting your implication that the morals of Liverpool working girls are any less than those of other girls of similar occupation.
Peter
“You’ll feel cheap and used in the morning, Venise. And you will have been.”
From what I hear, she’ll be pretty safe.
Dave…
Yes, your right of course. But I was referring more to the credibility of her cause, than to Venise’s undoubted virtue.
As AR points out above, Alan has made quite a nice living - a cottage industry if you like - from strident campaigning on this or that development or issue until his opinion is suddenly shifted with the arrival of a contract or a better offer, whereupon he blithely hops the fence and takes up the cudgels on behalf of his new friends.
But I agree with you on the Liverpudlians… moral to the core the lot of them, in my limited experience.
Michael … It’s curious that despite this being a text-based medium, you confuse me with a retired coalition pollie from Victoria.
I’m unsure which of us should be more amused.
Since I’m bothering to reply, neither venom nor bile is correlated with ‘skid marks’. #analogyfail
Peter,
“But I agree with you on the Liverpudlians… moral to the core the lot of them, in my limited experience.”
Oh, I dunno Peter, I married a Liverpool girl; it was the swingin’ sixties (44 years next week). Just looking for evidence on what I missed out on.
Dave …
44 years … that’s lovely, must be a nice thing to have such a mate through one’s life.
But you are a brave - perhaps even foolhardy fellow - to go searching out evidence of the missed opportunities of your youth at this sadly late stage of the game. The thought is father to the deed and there are some things - perhaps many things - that one is better not knowing or even thinking of at our stage of creeping decrepitude.
The 44 year itch perhaps? Not likely.
DAVID ALLEN: Would you rather I’d said a Docklands whore? A Southbank one or a Vaucluse one?
PETER ORMONDE: You astonish me with your innocence. The reason I differentiate between Alan Jones and Pauline Hanson, in your own words “”Jones is pretty unhinged “”. Which is partly true. It’s the audience each one draws. Jones’ ravenings get through to little old ladies; and gossip mongers. Essentially no one listens to little old ladies who will vote the way their husbands told them to all those many moons ago. If big corporations are silly enough to fork out big money for the joy of getting hitched to AJ so be it.
Pauline Hanson drew/draws racism out of EXISTING voters - probably mainly National Country Party ones. This is evil and evil spreads. Of course, the woman herself was not the brains behind the movement-merely the mouthpiece but one has to assume she was passing on her own feelings.
So deluded Alan Jones versus evil Pauline Hanson. I hope this helps to clarify my position?
VENISE:
Yes I am just a wide-eyed pollyanna down deep where it counts.
The very image of you clarifying your position with the parrot fills me with a strangely heated melancholy.
As the victim of far too many cab drivers whose racism and embers of whining self-interest were fanned by Jones each day, I find that clarifying one’s position with either would see me losing all enthusiasm for the task to hand. A most unsavoury prospect in either instance.
Jones does not change opinion. He confirms it. He consolidates and legitimises hatred, anger, suspicion and hostility in exactly the same way that the flame-headed harpy did. His listenership figures would confirm this. Have a google at Clive Hamilton - Alan Jones for an interesting analysis of his audience. He polarises opinion, but does not change it. The only opinions that change are his. And the corporations buy him off.
But look, if you want your CSG actions looking and sounding like the Convoy of No Confidence/No Consequence then that would be up to you. All I can say is that I, in all conscience could not attend. And I suspect many others would feel similarly.
Jones already has a platform to reach his pink rinsed audience. I wouldn’t let him near my audience. Now matter what contrived positions we could imagine. Erk.
Peter
Thanks for the nice words. And foolhardy is right. Not to mention a lack of continence, err, I mean competence:-)
Venise
Sorry you missed my sad attempt at humour.
DAVID: I too was attempting to be humorous. I was!
PETER O: Ye gad, I think you’ve missed my point. Namely, Alan Jones doesn’t stand to be elected; Hanson did/does.
Perhaps we could both agree that neither of us will be asking either of them to come to dinner chez nous at Vue de Monde. Hell I wouldn’t take either of them to the nearest greasy spoon.
And if perchance, I found myself in a ‘greasy spoon’ where one of them were present, I’d leave them with a firm impression of my view of their conduct, before vacating to more pleasant climes …
FRAN: So would I.
VA why can’t we fight dirty as well? It will only be the one issue.
Unfortunately it rarely stops at a single gutter dwelling. We can’t fight dirty because it soils a good cause. And, if on one issue why not another and another…?
Tempting as it seems, I would prefer principle to pragmatism. It is that failing that lost the Labor party its soul.
@AR
Well you can and you have for 4 years.
It’s just that your idea of fighting dirty is a “scorched earth” policy.
The next 20 yrs are ours.
We Tories will be far more benevolent.
As for you Mad Men, I’m afraid you will have to once again learn how to live under a rock!
AR: “”We can’t fight dirty because it soils a good cause.”“. True, but 90% of Oz politicians went into parliament with just this high-principled stance. Once in they now believe the electorate will actually miss them if they lose the next election.
Why should our side have to establish the high moral ground when the other side wouldn’t know the terrain if they stumbled on it? Hell they may think it is fear, rather than principle which motivates us.
As one who is familiar with the peer-reviewed geophysical literature emanating from the US, I can confirm that Simon Mansfield is absolutely correct in stating that the employment of imperial units in such papers says exactly nothing about the quality of the science (deplorable though the failure of the US to go metric is). American journals at the more scientific (as opposed to engineering) end of the spectrum are moving in the right direction, but I suspect American engineers and above all drillers will be working on an imperial footing (sorry, couldn’t resist) for quite some time yet.
@MRJ “geology and mining still use imperial”, I emphasise that this state of affairs is largely unique to the US (not sure about the UK, disappointing if they have relapsed); certainly the industry in Australia has been metric for decades.
As for
, wtf? This is not merely a gross generalisation, but yet another misrepresentation (cf. your recent comments on BNC’s ‘position’). Not only am I very much not ‘anti-AGW’, but if you were at uni ‘when most of the metric stuff came in’, you’re a good deal older than me. I don’t even remember back that far.
Imperial or metric measurements – what does it matter when there is a paucity of data on the long-term implications of CSG mining including the potential mining of fossil water that may be thousands or million of years old. Old or fossil water should be considered a “non renewable” resource once removed from the underground.
CSG operators under DERM Queensland regulation are permitted to reinject “treated” water into the groundwater. Fracturing fluids contain various chemicals, the identities of which are not generally a reporting requirement for operators. And I like the side-shoe shuffle from the fracking industry when challenged on the types of chemicals used in CSG operations. I shall take the assurance that one can use these chemicals in one’s salad dressing, with a grain of salt. Speaking of salt…………?
Fracturing has the potential to mobilize metals that were once inert in the underground ecology. Adding insult to injury, in-situ leach uranium mining in Australia involves pumping an acid solution (or an alkaline solution in some cases) into an aquifer. This dissolves the uranium ore and other heavy metals and the solution is then pumped back to the surface. The small amount of uranium is separated at the surface. The liquid radioactive waste - containing radioactive particles, heavy metals and acid - is simply dumped in the groundwater. From being inert and immobile in the ore body, the contamination is now bioavailable and mobile in the aquifer. And it’s legal!
A study by hydrogeologist John Hillier found Queensland’s largest freshwater aquifer is at serious risk of being drained as a direct result of coal seam gas extraction.
The Condamine Alluvium, which extends 3,600 sq. km from Ellangowan to Macalister, north of Dalby, is the main source of fresh water for Dalby, Pittsworth, Millmerran and Macalister and the surrounding farming region. Hillier said the aquifer was hydraulically connected to the Walloon coal measures, which the Queensland government is allowing to be dewatered for coal seam gas production.
Already the pastoral industry’s impacts have been drastically amplified during the last 25 -40 years by the mining, oil and gas production industries that have become significant users of the GAB groundwater. Excessively large amounts of artesian groundwater are already brought to the surface in the oil and gas fields region of northeastern South Australia and in southwest and southeast Queensland within the Basin area. This water contaminates and salinises land surfaces.
Studies in Australia reveals significant groundwater plumes of industrial hazardous waste. Documentary evidence reveals that Australia’s regulatory agencies can’t ( won’t) even enforce limits on industry’s emissions of lead, mercury, dioxins, pesticides, radionuclides or hydrocarbons. Added to the toxic load are the dodgy NATA accredited analysing labs fudging stack emissions.
Peer review shows that CSG and Shale gas mining is quite safe claims Simon mansfield?:
http:// www.
bucknell.edu/script/environmentalcenter/marcellus/default.aspx?articleid=WDUMCZEGP5HNBYJYC7KFUC0XD
http:// www.
propublica.org/documents/item/methane-contamination-of-drinking-water-accompanying-gas-well-drilling
Written testimony of Theo Colborn, PhD:
http://
s3.amazonaws.com/propublica/assets/natural_gas/colburn_testimony_071025.pdf
http:// www.
sustainablefuture.cornell.edu/news/attachments/Howarth-EtAl-2011.pdf
So how long will it take for the propaganda machine to concoct some reason to slander the integrity and competence of the authors of these studies?
Flower …
Metrification! What does it matter???? Good god blossom - open your eyes!!!
Obviously a young person… too young to remember when our petrol came in large gurgling gallons and was bought with crisp and clinking coin of the realm - pounds, shillings and pence! Too young to remember how much we could get for so little. When a cream bun cost threepence and you’d get change out of a shilling for an icecream.
Too young to remember when milk came in decent imperial god-fearing pints and we never seemed to run out. Too young to remember when rain came in deep drenching inches and temperatures were doled out in balmy Fahrenheits.
Haven’t you noticed how little rain falls in these piddling millimeters? How far it is to the local shop to get that litre of milk now that it’s stepped out in the accursed kilometer? How short we’ve all become in millimeters and how large our trousers have got when calibrated in the creeping centimeter? How global warming only started with the retrograde regime of the centigrade ?
It’s all very well for the Alans and the Moncktons to decry the UN global climate conspiracy … but the subversive forces behind global metrification predate the UN by yards nay even leagues! The International Bureau of Weights and Measures -or to give it is proper title - the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM) is a Jacobean conspiracy with its roots going back all the way to the days of Robespierre and the French Terror. They can’t even spell in the Queen’s English!
A quick scan of their website gives some idea of their ambitions …. metric time, metric years…. a vast network of decimalism slowly eroding the natural order of things and our faith in god-given institutions like Lords and Monarchs.
And none of this with a vote - not a word of going to the people on these life altering measures!
Slithering in under the smokescreen of science, these wicked little units ply their sinister ends, demeaning our currency, shrinking our consumables and grossly inflating our girths.
Enough we say. Take these insidious increments before the people! We demand a popular verdict on volumetrics!!! You know I’m right. The proof is all around us, if you only open your eyes.
Goodness Peter Ormonde – thems words of conviction to which I’ve never given a thought. I know not of this conspiracy – these worldly matters on “metrification.” Could I have been born into an era of innocence where young ladies were kept ignorant of such political bastardry by the opposite sex?
Nevertheless I trump the lot of you since I bought my first frozen banana for a penny in 1944. The penny was meant for the begging bowl down at the God botherers so how many centimetres is a 24 inch strap these days? The vial of gold I discovered around the dryblowers in 1947 was worth two shillings - sold to the first bidder - Broody the wino, kept hydrated on fourpenny darkies for a whole year, thanks to my brilliant entrepreneurial skills.
Ah thems were the days thems were – now you’ve made me all nostalgic for the pounds, shillings, pence days Mr Ormonde. So when’s the referendum?
And der’s feckin’ dayloight saving too. We banned dat and now have much more toim for snugglin’ with tha missus. We refuse ta’ join in wiff metrics cause oi refuse ta talk about The Truncheon in anythin’ but Imperial Measures. Dats just who oi am.
Oi Maccruiskeen Esquire - I overheard the sippers down at the local agreeing that a 15.2 centimetre truncheon sounds more impressive than a six inch one.
FLOWER: Excellent post.
I’ve come in late to this discussion - but, Alan Jones? Heard his response when he’s challenged re the bile and hatred he speaks - while at the same time has a go at real journalists like the bloke on Media Watch etc? He’s not a ‘journalist’ he’s a ‘presenter’ or some such?
I sat through his recent interview by Leigh Sales on 7.30 - it was almost too much for me to cope with. He’s a hateful, spiteful little man with a hateful brain to match. He judges others while he spews forth hatred and incitement himself? Did anyone hear of his incitement to violence during the Cronulla riots? Not one word of reproach by the police/politicians/msm etc - not one! Disgusting little person!
When the crunch comes - bet he doesn’t take a stand against the NSW govt, who incidentally are paddling like mad to make them sound different to the previous Labor Govt? I’m on the side of those who are protesting today.
I don’t think they’re making much money Peter? Have you read the article I mentioned in the SMH Good Weekend a few weeks ago? I highlighted some of the really ‘important bits’ but found myself almost highlighting the lot? It’s worth a read!
It’s not an exaggeration to state, that there are literally thousands of ‘wells’ in the pipeline(sorry for the pun). The plan is to have a pipeline near the Warragamba Dam for god’s sake? And as I’ve stated before, there’s plans to drill in catchment areas?
I plan to buy my anti CSG T-shirt as soon as I can! It’s criminal madness!
@CRIKEY
Just read @LIZ’s little number above. Put aside the fact that she clearly has dementure, how does an Alan Jones not sue your arse off?
“Dementure” …. just wonderful .
What an excellent class of dolt they’re attracting to Cr*key lately.
Indeed Mr Ormonde - Sum peoples is not brung up proper like arse they?
@FLOWER
Ok, that’s funny.
How about an academic study on the IQ of coalition voters compared to Labor and Green. Has any work been done?
Anything is the States?
Actually, a quick glance at Andrew Bolt’s blog may negate the need. (Take care to take mind numbing medication before venturing there though.)
David,,,
Don’t know about the IQ business but their spelling and grammar is pretty neanderthal if the sludge pumped onto Cr*key here is anything to go by.
Whoa MICHAEL: WTF did you learn to spell? Correction-you obviously didn’t.
DAVID: They don’t call them red necks living in the rust-bucket states (in the USA) for nothing.
@MICHAEL - For the same reason I haven’t sued your arse off?
You can find what he said about the Cronulla riots if you exert yourself enough to do the research? The bloke on Media Watch played the most offensive one not that long ago? You can find what he said about Julia Gillard/Bob Brown etc also? If you take the trouble to research for facts instead of bs!
But, as usual, when would you let the facts get in the way of your trolling? Not one intelligent thing to respond with! Why aren’t I suprised?
Most of my injuries are as a result of crimes of violence? What’s your excuse? A-Hole?
Of course you don’t have a mother do you - she’d probably welcome dementia? You were spawned in the sun - up against a brick wall probably!
Liz…
Not worth getting upset over this nasty little piece of work.
He called me a pederast the other day. I don’t think he knows what that means.
Just sounds naughty. I suspect he has some serious problems.
Bit annoyed though that Cr*key’s censorship program just lets defamatory stuff like that slither onto the screen - while if I call someone a funny old b*stard, the holy sisters of moderation swoop down with their blue pencils. It’s an American program I suspect… they think that b*stard is a deeply offensive term.
But now they’ve started deleting posts critical of Cr*key journalists… not abusive, not offensive. Very sensitive to criticism your modern journo graduate epsecially after lunch.
I’m tempted to go anonymous actually so I can really cut loose on a few of ‘em. So much for “robust debate”.
But we know you don’t have “dementure” . And we know he’s just a silly little boy wot carnt spell or nuffink.
LIZ, PETER O: He called someone else a lush and warned that any comment written after 12:00pm would be unbelievable for that reason. Perhaps MICHAEL himself only gets to come out of the home for mentally handicapped persons between the hours of 2pm-4pm?
Venise …
Yes that was me as well…wrong actually since I don’t actually like alcohol at all… I think he was saying nasty things in response to my revelations about the global metrification conspiracy … Can’t spell, can’t argue and has no sense of fun. Reminds me of Troofie actually.
Best not to name names I think Peter. Gives them an sense that they are worthy of conversation.
I have borborygmic murmurings that make more sense than some of these people.
David,
I had to look that up … excellent word. I shall remember to throw it around next time I venture into the Woolibuddha RSL where there are plenty of them about.
PETER O: Ouch!
PETER O: (8:09pm yesterday) V similar syntax.
Thanks Pete/Venise/David! I should treat that unmentionable with the contempt he deserves - nothingness! All I’ve said about A Jones is on the public record, but with his pea sized brain it probably doesn’t stretch to 5 minutes of research?
Of course, the ‘dementia’ word also shows his schoolboy mentality - the sort of comment Christopher Pyne would make? I know at least three women who had early onset of a type of dementia due to some a**e hole belting them around the head? In fact I’m an advocate for a woman who is a walking example of just that sort of abuse - I get pretty fired up over this sort of misogynistic crap like M uses! catholic school boy type of intellect (I hurriedly apologise to all 5 yr old boys who go to catholic schools)? No wonder he supports the Abbotts of this world! Attracts him like a magnet - two of a kind!
As for the moderator? When I read of the sorts of things peoples’ posts are not posted, it seems a contradiction to allow people like M to get away with his abusive language?