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Australian Political Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has today stunned observers by reversing his position on a carbon tax – ruling out any future reinstatement of a carbon tax.According to The Sydney Morning Herald; “We will not have a carbon tax, the Australian people have spoken and Labor is not going to go back to that,” Mr Shorten told reporters in Sydney on Saturday. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/bill-shorten-says-labor-wants-to-tackle-carbon-pollution-but-rules-out-return-of-carbon-tax-20141011-114nmp.htmlDespite turning his back on a carbon tax, the Labor Opposition Leader continues to back the introduction of a “market based mechanism” for tackling “carbon pollution”.One of the core platforms of the current Abbott government, which helped...

You may notice something called a California Climate Credit on your electricity bill. This credit is your share of money from a state program that is fighting climate change. It happens automatically in April/May and October/November for most California homeowners and monthly for most California small businesses – and it’s yours to keep.

Abraham Maslow once suggested that if your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If a carbon tax isn't the only tool on Thomas Friedman's belt, it's perhaps the most prominent one. So sure enough, when Friedman, as per his New York Times column of yesterday, looks at the dual threat to the United States posed by ISIS and Putin, his solution is, you guessed it, a carbon tax, coupled with freeing up US oil exports. Joe Scarborough struggled to stay respectful, but wound up citing Zbigniew Brzezinski's response in a similar situation: "I remember a couple...

Democratic incumbent Sen. Mark Udall’s (Colo.) wife called for a carbon tax while appearing in a new anti-oil video produced by Leonardo DiCaprio. “People are ready for conversation,” says Maggie Fox, Udall’s wife and former president of Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project, in the Green World Rising video, entitled, “Carbon.” “They’re ready to understand that carbon pollution is causing this challenge and that there is a simple solution: put a price on carbon pollution,” she says. DiCaprio is releasing a series of environmentalist videos on climate change, the first focusing on gathering support for a cap and trade system. A...

The former Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin wrote in the Washington Post on July 27, 2014, “How ignoring climate change could sink the U.S. economy.” Not counting the non-enforced southern border and the hordes of new and lawless Democrat citizens who demand their fair share of the American dream now turned into a welfare nightmare, the national debt is most likely to sink the economy sooner than any other variable and that includes climate change that has been changing for millennia.

Gov. Jerry Brown was about to leave Mexico’s capital after four days of talks pressing on the environment, and he wasn’t sure, broadly speaking, how his diplomacy might add up. Meetings held out of public view – dinner with business magnate Carlos Slim and talks with the poet Homero Aridjis and Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano, a founder of Mexico’s Party of the Democratic Revolution, among others – were “more critical” on any number of issues, Brown said, than was on display at his official functions. “Some of the more private guys,” Brown said, were “not that optimistic” that people are interested...

I don’t think Gina McCarthy had thought this through. McCarthy to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee: “And the great thing about this proposal is it really is an investment opportunity. This is not about pollution control. It’s about increased efficiency at our plants…It’s about investments in renewables and clean energy. It’s about investments in people’s ability to lower their electricity bills by getting good, clean, efficient appliances, homes, rental units,” “This is an investment strategy that will really not just reduce carbon pollution but will position the United States to continue to grow economically in every state, based...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was asked Monday if Democrats will move a carbon tax bill after the midterm election. “I sure hope so,” he told a “clean energy” conference call. […] A carbon tax bill won’t advance unless Democrats retake the House and retain control of the Senate in November. With that goal in mind, President Obama was heading west on Tuesday to raise money for his party. …

← A flip-flop on Arctic permafrost thaws – actually a net cooling rather than a warming A conversation with Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. on the Kaya Identity → Hard times for Aussie Alarmists – Flannery begs in new video Posted on July 18, 2014 by Anthony Watts Story submitted by Eric WorrallTim Flannery, one time head of the government Climate Commission in Australia, until it was disbanded by the current government, has released a video begging for donations to “keep science in the news”. A year after raising a million dollars, he now needs more money. Flannery has an impressive track record...

As of today, Australia no longer has the most expensive “carbon” price in the world. The voters didn’t ask for a tax in 2010,  but it was forced on them in 2011. They rejected it wholeheartedly in 2013 but it still has taken months to start unwinding this completely pointless piece of symbolism which aimed to change the weather. The machinery of democracy may be slow, but this is a win for voters.11:15am EST today: The Australian Senate passes the carbon tax repeal bill.“Australia has become the first country in the world to abolish a price on carbon, with the Senate...

As some conservatives celebrate the repeal of Australia's carbon tax, a dose of caution is warranted: Australia still has carbon taxation on its agenda. This repealed legislation is apparently going to be replaced by the multi-billion dollar "Direct Action" climate change policy that Prime Minister Tony Abbott has long been promoting. Thus, one form of carbon pricing gets replaced by another form of carbon pricing, neither of which is acceptable. Many critical thinkers about climate science got excited over Abbott's public statement that the "science behind climate change was 'crap'"? A little -- more accurately, a lot -- premature that...

Noah Rothman wrote up Quinnipiac’s gubernatorial poll yesterday, prompting me to wonder over at Townhall whether the polling outfit was holding back its Senate numbers for separate release. We now have our answer. A virtual deadlock, and advantage Gardner: The closely-watched U.S. Senate race is tied with 44 percent for U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner, the Republican challenger, and 42 percent for Sen. Mark Udall, the Democratic incumbent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Another 10 percent are undecided. This compares to the results of an April 24 survey by the independent Quinnipiac University showing Sen. Udall at...

SYDNEY (AP) — Australia's government repealed a much-maligned carbon tax on the nation's worst greenhouse gas polluters on Thursday, ending years of contention over a measure that became political poison for the lawmakers who imposed it. The Senate voted 39 to 32 to axe the 24.15 Australian dollar ($22.60) tax per metric ton of carbon dioxide that was introduced by the center-left Labor government in July 2012. Conservative lawmakers burst into applause as the final tally was announced. Prime Minister Tony Abbott's conservative coalition government rose to power last year on the promise of getting rid of the tax, assuring...

Penguins are on the front line of climate change, as rising global temperatures melt the ice the iconic and lovable creatures call home. Scientists who count the birds are finding that penguins are beginning to feel major impacts from the drastic changes to their habitat. But, perhaps surprisingly, the breeding populations of three brush-tailed species of penguins inhabiting the Western Antarctic Peninsula, where the temperatures are warmest, are not all falling as the ice is quickly melting.

… Opponents of the carbon tax implemented in 2012 had the media largely on their side. Electricity prices soared—not mainly because of the tax, but because power companies were spending billions on infrastructure. Most electricity users were compensated for the added cost of the tax, but many of them didn’t know that. And rising gas prices fed the fury—even though the tax didn’t apply to gasoline. Australia’s experience illustrates how easy it is to scuttle complicated environmental laws, and serves as a warning to President Barack Obama, whose recent proposal to force a 30 percent cut in power plants’ carbon...

Hank Paulson (ya know: the guy that “managed” the financial crises in 2008) had a recent op-ed in the New York Times warning America of the next great crises. According to George W Bush’s former Treasury Secretary, climate change is the next sub-prime mortgage disaster. Or something. Writing in the New York Times, Paulson lays out his case:Looking back at the dark days of the financial crisis in 2008, it is easy to see the similarities between the financial crisis and the climate challenge we now face. We are building up excesses (debt in 2008, greenhouse gas emissions that are...

Prime Minister Tony Abbott reintroduced legislation to the Australian Parliament on Monday that would repeal a carbon tax that the nation’s worst greenhouse gas polluters have to pay. The opposition center-left Labor Party and minor Greens party used their Senate majority in March to block the bills that would remove the 24.15 Australian dollar ($22.79) tax per metric ton of carbon dioxide that was introduced by a Labor government in July 2012. The bills were defeated 33 votes to 29. …

This is how stupid we've become: Does Obama do one stupid thing to cover for the other stupid thing? Does he do the stupid prisoner exchange to make up for the stupid carbon plan? Or is all the stupidity organic? Getting past the fact that none of this makes anybody in United States look very good, I think these are legitimate questions. Because it seems to me that Obama has waved the red meat, and the conservative lions have attacked. The red meat in this case being the exchange of prisoner Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five Taliban terrorists. CNN...

During a recent visit to Daemen College, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, was asked what was needed to break the gridlock in Congress when it comes to fighting Climate Change. Her answer: Elect fewer members of the Tea Party (00:00-00:14) Video below: Reporter: ‘What can we do to get the Congress unstuck and stop denying science?” Wasserman Schultz: “Elect fewer members of the Tea Party. That’s the political answer.” Congresswoman Schultz then proceeded to mock Marco Rubio’s belief that man made Climate Change doesn’t exist and she continued to spread the myth that 97% of scientists believe in...

.................Premier Li Keqiang last week declared war on pollution, which is expected to speed up the process of turning China's limited environmental levy into a full-blown tax targeting the nation's major polluters. But the all-out efforts to combat China's disastrous pollution levels might get in the way of plans to tax carbon dioxide emissions in a bid to stunt the rapid growth of greenhouse gas emissions, Zhu Guangyao, the vice environment minister, said...... A carbon tax is increasingly controversial among lawmakers, said Zhu, adding that an environment tax would be easier to push through without carbon in the mix. The...