If timing is everything in comedy, then Al Gore must surely be the greatest comic genius since Groucho Marx. Not only are Gore’s climate prediction pratfalls legendarily comical; the King of Environmentalist Slapstick has timed his latest taxpayer-funded, carbon-spewing international junket to Australia right on the heels of the election where voters overwhelmingly rejected his honking brand of climate change hysteria.
Even more hilariously, Gore parked his climate clownshoes right in the very state that just voted overwhelmingly in favour of coal mining.
According to the blurb, “Climate Week QLD 2019 will showcase how the state is transitioning to a low-carbon, clean-growth economy and building a community of action to address climate change.”
It would have been fun to be a fly on the wall when the planning for this gala week occurred. The expectation would have been that Labor would win the federal election, with the clear message that the public was demanding “real action on climate change” — so the motto goes. Reference would have been made to Bill Shorten’s plans to reduce emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 and for 50 per cent of electricity to be generated by renewable energy sources.
Gore proved his comedy skill by posing for huggy photos with beleaguered Queensland deputy premier and treasurer Jackie Trad, whose career is hanging on the slenderest of threads. Not content with presiding over a tanking job market (barely kept alive by a ballooning public sector), Trad has been a vocal opponent of the Adani coal mine. It’s widely suspected that premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is eying Trad as a sacrificial lamb.
No doubt ol’ Al could tell her all about being the bridesmaid and never the bride. Which is probably the only useful advice he’d give.
For the life of me, I can’t understand why anyone would give Gore the time of day. After all, he is not a trained scientist; he appears to make a living from concocting scary climate stories.
While he was in Queensland, he was offering up some more whoppers. Maybe he thought the appearance fee he received — estimated to be $320,000, paid for by Queensland taxpayers — necessitated the delivery of some sensational unsubstantiated claims.
To tell an audience that the choice is between Adani and the Great Barrier Reef is puerile and misinformed. To suggest that India is now sourcing 60 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources is just plain wrong — out by a factor of four to five. And these statements come on top of the many falsehoods Gore has peddled in the past.
Gore is also big on renewable energy money farms – well, anything that promises an endless siphon of taxpayer’s money. But the re-election of the Morrison government and especially energy minister Angus Taylor (despite a vicious campaign by GetUp) may well put the kybosh on that little money-spinner, too.
The renewable energy players will be forced to stand on their own two feet — for a change — and will need to adjust to the new reliability standards that come into play on July 1. Penalties are being imposed on far-flung installations and contributions are expected to fund the additional grid infrastructure required to hook up new wind and solar farms.
The salad days are over for the renewable energy industry, a situation ironically made worse in Queensland by the (temporarily stalled) requirement to use licensed electricians for the installations of large-scale solar farms.
theaustralian
Time for Al to park his clown shoes – the only ones big enough to fit his gargantuan carbon footprint – back in his Nashville mansion. After all, he’s probably left all the lights on, just like he does every Earth Hour.