Letter from Australia:
Bush Fires and other things

A recent discussion of bush fires in Australia prompted a description of the Natural Disaster Minister, David Littleproud, as "...a puppet.... has to follow the party line. If he admits that climate change is man-made, he is then forced to do something about it & that would upset the puppeteers ie the coal industry."

The previous paragraph contains so many mistakes that it's difficult to know where to start. In the wake of the propaganda campaign by the eco-extremist group Extinction Rebellion, alleged man-made global warming by CO2 is being blamed in Australia for bush fires and a lot of other things. Michael Darby sets the record straight

Sir,
    Minister Littleproud is not a puppet of the coal industry. The Nationals in Canberra have a much better record on energy than their Coalition Partners. Some Liberals act as puppets of the Phaction which includes those who profiteer from subsidies to unreliable energy.

You disgrace yourself by falsely describing the coal industry as puppeteers. The coal industry has made possible modern civilisation, modern medicine, clean water, sewerage, pharmaceuticals, fertiliser, pesticides, mechanical farming, industrial metallurgy, powered shipping, rail transport, motor vehicles, comfortable housing, hospitals,aircraft, telephones, radio, television. the list is endless.

The coal industry has been and continues to be a wonderful contributor to good health by slashing the pollution caused by burning timber, peat and dung. The coal industry has added around 30 years of life expectancy to every community with easy access to coal.

The enemies of coal are the enemies of humanity and are especially hostile to the poor and disadvantaged millions who crave the immense benefits of coal. Yes, the enemies of coal are viciously racist because their principal victims are overwhelmingly residents of Asia, the sub-Continent and Africa.

Australians have taken the benefits of coal for granted for more than a century, and now the global warming cultists are implementing their plan to terminate those benefits. This involves deliberately making coal fired power stations unprofitable by forcing energy distributors to buy unreliable energy when it is randomly available. Coal fired power stations are designed to provide steady, continuous reliable power, and are not designed to be ramped up and down to fill in gaps for virtue-signalling wasteful and environmentally damaging unreliable energy.

Minister Littleproud should be saying:

1. Bush fires and droughts are part of Australia.
2. The current drought is severe but not exceptional.
3. The most significant component of bushfire threat is fuel load and the greatest contribution to minimising the bushfire threat is relentless reduction of fuel load through cool burning.
4. Climate change has been happening forever.
5. Changes in carbon dioxide levels have no impact on temperature.
6. Carbon dioxide is wonderful and we should welcome increases in CO2 levels, with 800ppm highly desirable.
7. Whatever happens to the climate, humanity needs reliable energy to deal with whatever problems arise.
8. The two most reliable forms of energy are coal and nuclear.
9. Nuclear is even safer than coal and coal is even cheaper than nuclear.
10. Every addition of unreliable energy to a grid automatically increases the retail cost of electricity.
11. All subsidies to unreliable energy must cease immediately.


Michael Darby, published by permission / habitat21

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