The Never Never of Climate Change

The Yallourn coal-fired power station in Latrobe Valley, Victoria, Australia, on Oct. 9, 2002. (AAP Image/Julian Smith)

Commentary

On Sept. 8, the Australian Parliament passed legislation to cut carbon emissions by 43 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, and to achieve net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. The legislation, adopted with the support of the Greens and “Teal” independents, is one of the signature laws of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

“The passage of the climate change legislation sends a message to the world that Australia is serious about driving down emissions, and serious about reaping the economic opportunities from affordable renewable energy,” Energy Minister Chris Bowen said.

The legislation effectively continues the demonisation of coal-fired power stations in Australia and reveals the zealous belief of its proponents in the power of renewables. Yet, coal has been responsible for making the lives of Australians liveable since the beginning of the 19th century.

This is beautifully illustrated in Jeannie Gunn’s classic novel “We of the Never Never,” published in 1908. It is a story of the Australian outback in tough pioneering times. It described the hand-to-mouth existence before coal-fired power stations delivered the cheap and abundant energy that has since enriched the lives of people in both the city and outback.

The claim that global surface temperatures can be maintained to within a few degrees of pre-industrial times by the year 2100 by abandoning the utilisation of fossil fuels and decarbonising is enthusiastically supported by climate activists.

Their constant demand to phase out coal-fired power stations is overshadowing the need to ascertain the real reasons for the warming of the planet and has resulted in the unshakable but misconceived belief that this trend can be reversed.

This belief, codified in the new legislation, not only defies common sense but also represents a grave threat to Australia’s economy and the future well-being of its citizens.

Access to the coal-fired energy that powers our current state of well-being is now under threat by legislative reductions in carbon dioxide emissions and the harvesting of dilute and intermittent wind and solar energy.

While these developments may be fine in theory, in reality, they will hit home with every blackout, and every skyrocketing power bill as the heavy-lifting energy suppliers and coal-fired power stations are closed down.

Coal is unloaded onto large piles at the Ulan Coal mines near the central New South Wales rural town of Mudgee, in Australia, on March 8, 2018. (David Gray/Reuters)

Is There Really Overwhelming Consensus for Climate Change?

“The science is settled” mantra, so assiduously promoted by climate change activists, disputes a more plausible explanation for global warming.

Planet Earth commenced as a slowly expanding, exothermic gyroscope that, as it cooled, slowly grew in size. A thin gaseous atmosphere increases with each volcanic belch also formed from matter expelled from the interior, containing carbon compounds that are fundamental to life on Earth. These carbon compounds continue to form from within the core of the planet in nuclear reactions contained by enormous gravitational pressure.

In his book, “The Deep, Hot Biosphere: The Myth of Fossil Fuels,” astrophysicist Thomas Gold describes how hydrocarbons are continually being generated in the interior of the Earth.

Vast amounts of coal, oil, and gas beneath our feet afforded mankind a power source to secure its survival.

Cyclical torsional (precessional) stresses cause cracks in a solidified crust that averages 35 kilometres (22 miles) thick under land and five kilometres under the oceans. When fissures open in volcanoes on the surface of the Earth, the results are visible and spectacular, but there are hundreds of thousands of unseen sub-sea fissures and volcanic vents continually pouring waste into the oceans and air.

Before so-called greenhouse gases formed, the sun did not fry the Earth; slow global cooling continued as the continental crust solidified, and today we are here enjoying the benefits while each volcanic burp makes a mockery of emissions targets and fanciful net-zero aspirations.

For example, the recent Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption illustrates the devastating power of volcanic activity.

The eruption of underwater volcano Tonga, triggered a tsunami warning for several South Pacific island nations, and is seen in an image from the NOAA GOES-West satellite taken at 05:00 GMT, on Jan. 15, 2022. (CIRA/NOAA/Reuters)

Man Cannot Control the Climate

As this piece is written, reports are coming in of another major earthquake—another full moon event, this time in Papua New Guinea.

At the time of a full moon, king tides are at their peak, causing high, cyclical, gravitational stresses on the Earth’s crust. The following lists just some other coincidental full moon major seismic events: an earthquake shook Newcastle in 1989; a tsunami hit Sumatra in 2004, following a massive sub-sea quake; an undersea volcano near Japan popped its cork and sent a plume of stuff through the water and 16 kilometres into the air in August 2021, followed in September by a Canary Islands volcano that poured out hot, molten matter into the ocean and atmosphere for months.

None of these events could have been averted or mitigated by closing down our coal mines or power stations. Even King Canute, King of England from 1016 to 1031, knew that time and tide wait for no man.

The climate cannot be legislated into submission by taxing a trace atmospheric gas nor by fanciful “Carbon Capture and Storage” (CCS) schemes, and duplicitously named “renewables” installations that enrich the promoters and impoverish the populace.

Yet, we continue to pay lip service to the belief that mankind can control the climate with emissions targets and costly talkfests.

Funds wasted on search-and-destroy missions for a life-essential atmospheric trace gas would be far better spent on researching and building defences against the gravitational and electromagnetic forces that dictate the climate on our wonderful planet, which we have yet to understand.

Australian Coal Fortune

Sedimentary coal seams also underlie approximately one-third of the Australian continent in deposits as deep as five kilometres. The utilisation of a small amount of these vast reserves of fossil fuels has enabled Australia to punch well above its weight in world affairs to provide the power needed to survive on the surface of Earth.

Scores of scientists have signed the World Climate Declaration, which unequivocally states that “Natural, as well as anthropogenic factors, cause warming.”

The Declaration also states (pdf):

“Climate models have many shortcomings and are not remotely plausible as policy tools. They do not only exaggerate the effect of greenhouse gases, they also ignore the fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO2 is beneficial. CO2 is plant food, the basis of all life on Earth. CO2 is not a pollutant. It is essential to all life on Earth. More CO2 is favourable for nature, greening our planet. Additional CO2 in the air has promoted growth in global plant biomass.”

So, Australia’s recently adopted climate change legislation is based on myopic and distorted views of climate change.

Despite remarkable progress since the publication of “We of the Never Never,” Australian politicians and policymakers have come to rely slavishly on untested but popular claims and have made promises they can never ever deliver.

Perhaps, it is time to reread it?

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.