A Place to Stand

Via WattsUpWithThat is the news of cracks in the political wall. The Australian opposition Liberal Party is fracturing on the issue of global warming.

The Liberal Party is in turmoil with the resignations of five frontbenchers from their portfolios this afternoon in protest against the emissions trading scheme.

Tony Abbott, Sophie Mirabella, Tony Smith and Senators Nick Minchin and Eric Abetz have all quit their portfolios because they cannot vote for the legislation.

Senate whip Stephen Parry has also relinquished his position...

The resignations began this afternoon after Mr Abbott and Senator Minchin confronted Mr Turnbull,leader urging him to put off a vote on the scheme until February.

Mr Turnbull refused so Mr Abbott handed in his resignation.

"This is a very difficult decision for me. I've always regarded myself as a very loyal party man," he said...

Mr Abbott says he urged Mr Turnbull to reconsider his position after being inundated with calls and emails from voters.

"The phone lines have been in meltdown with people saying that the Liberal Party would not be doing its job as an Opposition simply to pass this thing without the scrutiny that people calling my office think it demands," he said.

After Mr Abbott announced his resignation, news that the other four had also quit quickly followed.

The party's emissions trading spokesman, Ian Macfarlane, is now in Mr Turnbull's office.

As the revolt unfolds in Parliament House sources say the Government has offered to gag debate on the ETS legislation, which is now underway, in order to bring on a vote.

It is understood that the offer is being considered but it is thought such a move would be unlikely to succeed.


Special meeting

The Senate is due to sit until Monday to vote on the scheme and Senators Minchin, Abetz and Parry say they will stay in their positions until then.

A special meeting of Liberal senators is now under way.

The Opposition's spokeswoman for early childhood and women, Ms Mirabella, says she also cannot support the scheme.

She says she decided to resign after the party room meeting on the ETS legislation "left a bitter taste in my mouth".

"It's not a decision that you take lightly," she told Sky News...."It's not a matter of desertion. It's a matter of not being able to vote for bills that are so bad under any measurement," she said.

And she conceded she has never witnessed such extraordinary scenes during her time in Parliament.

"Quite frankly I hope not to experience another week like this," she said.

Yesterday Senators Mitch Fifield, Mathias Cormann and Brett Mason also offered to resign from their frontbench positions.

This is actually rather creditable since resigning is what one is supposed to do when one seriously disagrees. In Britain ministers just leak that it wasn't their fault. This remark from Mr Turnball also suggests that he is acting ethically, from a different point & that this breach is indeed purely because it has only recently become obvious that warming catastrophism is a fraud.

'This has now become a question not simply of the environmental responsibility of the Liberal Party but its integrity,' Turnbull said amidst the turmoil. 'We agreed with the government on this deal. We must retain our credibility of taking action on climate change.'

He is actively not saying that he now believes in alarmism but that previous promises must be kept. If the promises were obtained through fraudulent claims, as they were, & if they will produce unjustified costs to the people they represent, I don't think they should be binding.

Would that some British politicians were willing to say the same in the Commons.

Also from WattsUp it turns out that the New Zealanders were also fixing their own warming figures even before the CRU got hold of it & refusing to make data available for verification. Exactly the same tactics & they remain completely incompatible with real science.

What did we find? First, the station histories are unremarkable. There are no reasons for any large corrections. But we were astonished to find that strong adjustments have indeed been made.

About half the adjustments actually created a warming trend where none existed; the other half greatly exaggerated existing warming. All the adjustments increased or even created a warming trend, with only one (Dunedin) going the other way and slightly reducing the original trend.

The shocking truth is that the oldest readings have been cranked way down and later readings artificially lifted to give a false impression of warming, as documented below. There is nothing in the station histories to warrant these adjustments and to date Dr Salinger and NIWA have not revealed why they did this.

In a related matter I asked this question

Can anybody name 2 scientists who aren't paid directly or indirectly by government (that includes Friends of the Earth) or charities/foundations specifically committed to alarmism who have said catastrophic warming is real. That excludes statements along the lines of "most of the 20thC warming (0.6C) may be anthropogenic" but genuine catastrophism.

on 3 catastrophic warming sites & one sceptical one. The results are:

Realclimate post 137 - one answer asking me to define catastrophic which I did & then no answer.

Brave New Climate - question censored

Deltoid - question censored Deltoid comments are worth reading simply because they are an example of directed mob behaviour - that by starting with people with an agenda, many of whom are genuinely prominent "climate scientists" & censoring serious comments on alternative sides, people can work themselves into persuading themselves of the most obvious lies eg "If there were any damning info, as is being alleged, it would come out in the peer review process."

And on the other side WattsUpWithThat again where the question stood but nobody came up with any names.

So nobody anywhere is able to name 2, or apparently even 1 prominent scientist, anywhere in the world, who openly supports the catastrophic warming claims who is independent of funding by government or committed alarmists. 'Nuff said.

Labels: eco-fascism, global warming, Science/technology