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Posted on 10/14/2014 4:55:17 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
According to the Guardian, Australia is almost a Climate Pariah TM, and owes the world an apology for voting to repeal the Carbon Tax.
What chilling effect, I wondered, did being a pariah have on international tourists?
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in July 2014 as the Carbon Tax was finally removed, tourists voted with their feet … and flocked to come. A record 573,100 visitors arrived in Australia from all over the world. Year on year tourism from May 2013 – May 2014 grew by 8%.
Pariah status it appears, may count for Guardian and NY Times columnists, but not so much for the rest of the world.
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“This is how the New York Times responded to the scrapping of the carbon price scheme:
At a time when president Obama is seeking emissions limits on new and existing power plants, and when many scientists are arguing for major reductions in fossil-fuel use by 2050 to keep global warming within manageable limits, Australia – among the world’s highest emitters per capita of carbon dioxide – has chosen to become an outlier.
“Slate went further, condemning the “rapacious policies of the current government”. In an article headed The Saudi Arabia of the South Pacific, it told its readers how Australia became the dirtiest polluter in the developed world. Strictly speaking, both publications are wrong. Australia is not alone; it constitutes one half of the Canada-Australia axis of carbon.
The “rapacious policies of the current government” are evidently not too much of a turn off. For short term visits, the top ten groups of citizens came from New Zealand, the UK, Malaysia, Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Korea, India, USA, and “other”.
Similarly international student enrolments grew 10%. Chinese, Indian and Vietnamese parents were keen to pay big dollars for their offspring to learn in a pariah nation.
Even Bornstein admits skeptics are having fun:
Prime minister Abbott once famously described climate science as “crap”; he typifies a discernible demographic trend in his country. For white men aged 50 and over, climate change skepticism seems to be our new national sport, perhaps even more popular than golf.
Jealous Josh? Join us, it sure beats propping up a dying religion and defending a tax that was supposed to change the weather.
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Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics 3401.0 – Overseas Arrivals and Departures, Australia, Jul 2014
Australia has lots of mineral extraction and processing. Those activities take lots of energy. Lots of the production is exported, so it’s rather unfair to just look at energy consumption to population ratios. Lots of people around the world are beneficiaries of Australia’s industrial output. If you look at personal consumption, you would have to allocate much of Australia’s energy consumption to consumers in other countries.
Any government or administration that is vilified by The NYT, the Grauniad and Slate has a 97% chance of being absolutely correct in what it is doing.
Brilliant analysis.
Coal and iron ore are big Down Under.
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