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hutch

A tax that will cut our emissions...

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oh and i think a whole lot of the scare in the general public is whipped by those magical 4 words tony abbot probably had made into a plaque now sitting in his office.

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Abandoned

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yep. i find it highly hypocritical that just a few months ago the gillard government cut funding to research cleaner cars. such hypocrisy, in my eyes, can only be rectified by putting any profits from a carbon tax into green energy. i also find it quite it quite funny that people will shit all over the mainstream press when there's a story against drugs or whatever, yet when those same mainstream rags present a story that supports their world view, all of a sudden they're a bastion of unbiased rational journalism. clearly the story in the original post is a biased and sensationalist as any thing else in those rags, i'm surprised you even considered that newsworthy.

 

The fact that no one can explain how a tax on carbon dioxide works, how much it will reduce the temp by and how much it will cost me is not news worthy...what a classic example of "blinded by the ideology"....your clutching there qualia....questions were asked...answers were not forthcoming...in my previous life I would have been sacked long before now if I was to go before my boss with a plan that badly thought out and implemented.... why not them....Least I knew my jobmad.gif

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Hutch said:

I remember very clearly global cooling....if you were 7 in 72 I would like to know how you managed to end up on the other end of that debate...you were way before your time. We were going to freeze...

I have previously indicated that the myth of imminent global cooling being promoted in the 70s has been soundly refuted. If you are disinclined to read over the post where I discussed this, perhaps you might for starters avail yourself of the facts

, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

I'm of a similar age to Torsten, and I can easily explain why it is that both he and I "managed to end up on the other end of that debate".

Quite simply (and if you are unable to follow the links in the previous paragraph) the 70s cooling meme consisted of a small handful of hyped-up media stories that misrepresented several distinct issues. The first was the orbital cycles that are responsible for the glacial periods of the last few hundred thousand years. Given the understanding of these cycles it was trivially evident that, without other forcings operating, the next glacial period would occur in the next ten to twenty thousand years... but those numbers were conveniently left out of the headlines of many articles. The second issue was the fact that sulphate aerosols have a strong cooling effect, and scientists were still trying to tease out the masking of warming by such aerosols, but recognised that emissions controls imposed at the time would soon reduce the amount of sulphate in the atmosphere, resulting in increasing warming.

Even as a science-nerdy boy I understood back then that the ice-age cooling claims were crap. It astonishes me that adults of today still don't understand the context of the fairly simple science that underpins the issues of cooling and warming, especially when the physics has been explained to them.

And on the matter of the tax that is the subject of this thread, it is important to note that it is a completely different matter to the physics of global warming. Physics and climatology simply tell us what will happen if 'greenhouse' gases are emitted, and why. Biology and ecology tell us what the consequences will be for species, ecosystems, crops and diseases. None of these scientific disciplines are involved with the human decisions that might arise with the understanding that results from the knowledge that they offer. That's the job of economists and of politicians, and if they can't get it right it's simply a reflection on economics and/or politics, rather than on physics, climatology, biology and/or ecology.

The bottom line is that if you emit 'greenhouse' gases, the planet will warm, eventually to the point where a lot of ecosystem functionality is lost. If humans can't structure a response that prevents this emission and subsequent warming, that's not a problem of the science, that's a problem of humans' response to the science.

It's like a doctor telling a morbidly obese patient that he will have a coronary if he doesn't stop eating so much junk. If the patient can't figure out how to lose weight, it's not the problem of the doctor, or of the science that he uses for his diagnosis. It's the patient's problem.

If we can't figure out how to stop emitting so much 'greenhouse' gas, that's our problem, not the science's.

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The fact that no one can explain how a tax on carbon dioxide works, how much it will reduce the temp by and how much it will cost me is not news worthy...what a classic example of "blinded by the ideology"....your clutching there qualia....questions were asked...answers were not forthcoming...in my previous life I would have been sacked long before now if I was to go before my boss with a plan that badly thought out and implemented.... why not them....Least I knew my jobmad.gif

 

lol. check again, i didn't actually state my position. maybe you should check yourself for this "blindness". fact is the original article you linked to is highly inflammatory and clearly biased toward no carbon tax, which it is clear that this is the position you hold (regardless of your passive-aggressive caveat).

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. People in australia will always struggle because we always want more than we can afford.

Be honest! .....that, and the fact we have all this coal and other assorted goodies in the ground has made us wealthy, and perhaps lazy..(different thread) it is the reason we are so prosperous...TRADE.....think about how a successful society works...buy buy buy...not saying it's right but you cant just pop back into your local village and hope....people need to survive...we are global..

The air is nobody's to own, but it is a collective resource and need to be managed.

how do you sack the managment team when the majority of those who breath it in and out daily are happy with it just the way it is?

It is obvious that a small country like australia will not make a huge difference to global warming. but if no one does it then where do we start? These things often have to start with the smaller guys by embarassing the bigger guys

Wreck our economy in the hopes of embarrassing others into action.....very dangerous indeed.....

I'd prefer to err on the side of caution.

You sure?..you want to tax us to death...

Whether a carbon price is the right way to go I am not sure.

Finally some honesty in this debate...I'm not sure....

 

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Woody said.....

I have previously indicated that the myth of imminent global cooling being promoted in the 70s has been soundly refuted. If you are disinclined to read over the post where I discussed this, perhaps you might for starters avail yourself of the facts

, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Coarse it has now.....giggle giggle...It's been global warming for awhile now...not saying global cooling was right, but it was the hot topic of the day...don't need your links to tell me that was wrong.

I'm of a similar age to Torsten, and I can easily explain why it is that both he and I "managed to end up on the other end of that debate".

And I'm older.....SO!

Quite simply (and if you are unable to follow the links in the previous paragraph) the 70s cooling meme consisted of a small handful of hyped-up media stories that misrepresented several distinct issues.

And what has really changed from today? more scientists making more money....

The first was the orbital cycles that are responsible for the glacial periods of the last few hundred thousand years. Given the understanding of these cycles it was trivially evident that, without other forcings operating, the next glacial period would occur in the next ten to twenty thousand years... but those numbers were conveniently left out of the headlines of many articles. The second issue was the fact that sulphate aerosols have a strong cooling effect, and scientists were still trying to tease out the masking of warming by such aerosols, but recognised that emissions controls imposed at the time would soon reduce the amount of sulphate in the atmosphere, resulting in increasing warming.

Even as a science-nerdy boy I understood back then that the ice-age cooling claims were crap. It astonishes me that adults of today still don't understand the context of the fairly simple science that underpins the issues of cooling and warming, especially when the physics has been explained to them.

I remember when I was your age playing "Lost in space" with my mates in the vacant block, making pipe bombs and underground cubby houses and running through the bush behind our housing estate...boy did your youth suck...

And on the matter of the tax that is the subject of this thread, it is important to note that it is a completely different matter to the physics of global warming. Physics and climatology simply tell us what will happen if 'greenhouse' gases are emitted, and why. Biology and ecology tell us what the consequences will be for species, ecosystems, crops and diseases. None of these scientific disciplines are involved with the human decisions that might arise with the understanding that results from the knowledge that they offer. That's the job of economists and of politicians, and if they can't get it right it's simply a reflection on economics and/or politics, rather than on physics, climatology, biology and/or ecology.

So will the tax work?

The bottom line is that if you emit 'greenhouse' gases, the planet will warm, eventually to the point where a lot of ecosystem functionality is lost. If humans can't structure a response that prevents this emission and subsequent warming, that's not a problem of the science, that's a problem of humans' response to the science.

Another thread...but your scared of it for some reason...

It's like a doctor telling a morbidly obese patient that he will have a coronary if he doesn't stop eating so much junk. If the patient can't figure out how to lose weight, it's not the problem of the doctor, or of the science that he uses for his diagnosis. It's the patient's problem.

You have used this one a few times now..time to rest it...here at least

If we can't figure out how to stop emitting so much 'greenhouse' gas, that's our problem, not the science's.

I know... lets tax people to death....

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lol. check again, i didn't actually state my position.

 

Grow some balls and do so...oh let me guess...you favor a tax...der...

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[quote name='Torsten' timestamp='1300091474' post='294742'

As for moved threads, I noticed that the news section was getting more and more chatty, so I moved a few threads to chill. This included a few global warming threads. So as not to be biased I moved an equal number of pro and contra threads.

 

I saved you the trouble and put mine there to start with......it is in the news every day but hey...this is your place and if it should be buried in "chill space" who are we to complain....glad we can be sure your not biased.....

I reckon that sucked to be honest.. I had to go looking for one of the biggest threads on this site. boy have my eyes been opened lately...

cyber-logo.jpg

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it's hard on have an opinion on something that doesn't properly exist yet.

i do know one thing, cost of living will continue to soar regardless. agl profits 2010 $428.9 million, up 13% from prior year, maximum 46 percent increase in electricity in NSW over the next 3 years. regardless of a carbon tax in place you'll continue to pay ever more exorbitant prices for living. if the carbon tax come in, prices will go up, everyone will blame the government, liberals will get in power for the next 4 years. if tony abbot is true to his word the carbon tax will be abolished, prices will continue to soar, opposition (will gillard survive that?) will blame the reversal of the carbon tax. the cycle will continue. nothing will change except the passage of time, time which quickly depletes any chance of us experiencing cheap energy again. the only way, i repeat the only way, to stop this cycle is to invest substantially in clean, renewable and cheap energy (i'm positive it can be done). this will of course require invetment from the governmnet as well, in the for of research grants to universities as well as grants/subsidies to business, as well as consumers. thats my opinion.

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working class is not a relevant temr in this context. I was referring to anything above the lower class, which also includes much of the working class.

So the Working Class is Middle Class then? How paradoxical...

This is a concept that simply does not make sense. How does a government profit? It can't. All money collected is spent. It's not like the owners of a company that spend money on themselves. Giovernment spends the money on the people. Whether it does not well is a different argument, but to say that a government profits is just silly.

:blink: I'll wait until I recover from shock to answer that one.

another myth. Despite the whining of the politicians for their own gains, Australia is one of the lowest taxed developed countries. Given that australia has a higher than average infrastructure cost burden in comparison to other countries we are even more disproportionately untaxed. This sort of tax whining that's going on in australia is laughed about in europe.

 

Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!

I was speaking more about the number of taxes we have, but whatever... Australia: the Fine* Country - How about that?

* Parking fines, etc.

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I think that Qualia has it figured.

 

Thats not up to your usual self....

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How can Andrew Bolt expect ANYBODY to come up with entirely accurate figures on something like this?

Australia is not the entire world. No one country or continent should be responsible in trying to fix humankind's fuckups; BUT we should definitely do what we can!

I agree that there should be laws stopping the full passing of taxing onto individual consumers; industry should be made to pay their part. I was disappointed when the mining tax didn't pass.

Perhaps after a time period, a Carbon tax could be reduced once we've started the technology of renewable energy replacing coal from the initial tax fund. Just like when a brand new technology ie plasma television (when it first came out) they're expensive as hell, so only those who could afford bought them. Once the technology started paying for itself, the price came down and more people could afford. For a forced payment like tax it's obviously a bit different since everybody will have to pay, but we're certainly in a far better position to do this unlike the vast majority of other countries. Even with a new tax, we're still infinitely better off in terms of both economy and individual incomes. We all use fuel from the Earth; we should all have to pay/work to lessen our impact.

Possibilities:

1. AGW is real, we do nothing.

2. AGW is real, we try something.

3. AGW is not real, we do nothing.

4. AGW is not real, we try something.

Possible outcomes:

1. We're screwed, and end up paying much more.

2. We're probably at least a little screwed still, but have some viable options for reducing impact and destruction of environment/life.

3. We're not screwed, but by continuing current practices still destroy our environment which at an unimpeded rate will still end up with a major environmental problem.

4. We're not screwed, but have some measures in place to ensure it won't happen.

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Hutch

are you familiar with the term negative externality?

http://economics.fundamentalfinance.com/negative-externality.php

basically, every time a tree is cut down

some petrol is burnt

a useless plastic toy is manufactured

a river is dammed

or a mine is constructed

the GDP goes up. and so does the share price of the companies actually carrying out those activities.

some of those things have genuine social benefits

some do not

but regardless, they all have considerable environmental consequences which are not accounted for

what's good for the economy may not be good for the environment.

that's why they are referred to as 'externalities'. the atmosphere or the oceans are polluted or biodiversity is reduced, and the cost of that is paid for by no one. that's what Torsten means when he says it's like a mortgage. someone is going to have to pay for that damage, and it's going to be our kids and grandkids.

and to continue the mortgage analogy, the thing about environmental debt is that the interest is VERY high.

in environmental economics the idea of a carbon tax is to 'internalise' those externalities, so to flatten out the difference between what's good for the economy and the environment. a tax is the best way to do this; although there are different types of carbon tax, and I don't know if the one that Gillard is pushing is the best for us.

I don't know the figures (and Gillard hasn't released enough information for us to judge) but I'm confident that this tax will have a small effect on our national emissions. however, what's more important than that is that it sets our economy up to transition to a low carbon system.

The next stage is the ETS: there is a thing called the tragedy of the commons, where shared resources are not looked after properly because they are not owned by anyone in particular. humans are just a bit too short sighted to be able to see damage to a shared resource until the resource is severely degraded. they tend to look a bit more carefully when the resource is actually owned by someone. free market environmentalism is a school of thought where ownership of environmental resources creates a tendency towards more efficient use. ownership can be traded and the market will determine the best use of the resource. this is the principle behind the emissions trading scheme.

Personally I suspect that the ETS is a bit of a scam, particularly as it is being pushed by financial service providers as they will make a lot of money trading carbon credits. however if done properly and based around the right model of carbon production/consmuption (and the major carbon producers are not compensated too much) I think it could be a useful mechanism.

4254681996_27b1ed7ff0.jpg

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i remember seeing a doco awhile ago about new forms of scalable energy being developed,

they mentioned some new fusion power which was beong looked at,

i think this was it: https://lasers.llnl.gov/programs/ife/

wont be for a hundred years or so but i can definitely imagine a time when massive underground

fusion reactors are set up able to power entire countries,,

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This 5 minute video highlights once again the fraud that is being perpetrated by those of the IPCC....

Could you look at this please Woody...Its by Richard A. Muller, professor of physics at Berkeley and i think it is damning...Or is this professor the fraud? If so why this time?

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/just_why_climategate_was_such_a_scandal/

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Ten dishonest slogans about global warming

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CONTROL THE LANGUAGE, AND YOU CONTROL THEOUTCOME OF ANY DEBATE

 

 

Each of thefollowing ten numbered statements reproduces verbatim, or almost verbatim,statements made recently by Australian government leaders, and repeated by theirmedia and other supporters. The persons making these arguments might be termed (kindly)climate-concerned citizens or (less kindly, but accurately) as global warmingalarmists.

Despairing of everhearing sense from such people, some of whom have already attributed the causeof the devastating Japanese earthquake to global warming, a writer from thewell regarded American Thinker has today badged them as “idiot global warming fanatics”.

Be that as it may,most of the statements below, self-evidently, were crafted as slogans, and allconform with the obnoxious and dishonest practice of political spin – in which,of course, the citizens of Australia have been awash for many years. Thestatements also depend heavily upon corrupt wordsmithing with propagandaintent, a technique that international Green lobbyists are both brilliant atand relentless in practising.

The ten statements belowcomprise the main arguments that are made in public in justification for thegovernment’s intended new tax on carbon dioxide. Individually and severallythese arguments are without merit. That they are intellectually pathetic too isapparent from my brief commentary on each.

It is a blight onAustralian society that an incumbent government, and the great majority ofmedia reporters and commentators, continue to propagate these scientific andsocial inanities.

Bob Carter

1.We must address carbon (sic) pollution (sic) by introducing a carbon (sic) tax.

Theargument is not about carbon or a carbon tax, but rather about carbon dioxideemissions and a carbon dioxidetax, to be levied on the fuel andenergy sources that power the Australian economy.

Carbondioxide is a natural and vital trace gas in Earth’s atmosphere, an environmentalbenefit without which our planetary ecosystems could not survive. Increasingcarbon dioxide makes many plants grow faster and better, and helps to green theplanet.

To call atmospheric carbon dioxide a pollutant is anabuse of language, logic and science.

2. We need to link much more closely with the climateemergency.

Thereis no “climate emergency”; the term is a deliberate lie. Global averagetemperature at the end of the 20th century fell well within thebounds of natural climate variation, and was in no way unusually warm, or cold,in geological terms.

Earth’s temperature is currently cooling slightly.

3.Putting a price on carbon (sic) will punish the big polluters (sic).

Aprice on carbon dioxide will impose a deliberate financial penalty on allenergy users, but especially energy-intensive industries. These imaginary “bigpolluters” are part of the bedrock of the Australian economy. Any cost impost onthem will be passed straight down to consumers.

It is consumers of all products who will ultimately pay,not the industrialists or their shareholders.

4.Putting a price on carbon (sic) is the right thing to do; it’s in our nation’sinterest.

Thegreatest competitive advantage of the Australian economy is cheap energygenerated by coal-fired power stations.

To levy an unnecessary tax on this energy source iseconomic vandalism that will destroy jobs and reduce living standards for allAustralians.

5.Putting a price on carbon (sic) will result in lower carbon dioxide emissions.

Economistsknow well that an increase in price of some essential things causes littlereduction in usage. This is true for both energy (power) and petrol, twocommodities that will be particularly hit by a tax on carbon dioxide emissions.

Norwayhas had an effective tax on carbon dioxide since the early 1990s, and theresult has been a 15% INCREASE in emissions.

At any reasonable level ($20-50/t), a carbon dioxidetax will result in no reduction in emissions.

6.We must catch up with the rest of the world, who are already taxing carbondioxide emissions.

They are not. All hope ofa global agreement on emissions reduction has collapsed with the failure of theCopenhagen and Cancun climate meetings. The world’s largest emitters (USA andChina) have made it crystal clear that they will not introduce carbon dioxide taxor emissions trading.

The Chicago carbon (sic)exchange has collapsed, chaos and deep corruption currently manifests theEuropean exchange and some US states are withdrawing from anti-carbon dioxideschemes.

Playing “follow the leader” is not a good idea whenthe main leader (the EU) has a sclerotic economy characterised by lack ofemployment and the flight of manufacturers overseas.

7.Australia should show leadership, by setting an example that other countrieswill follow.

Self-delusion doesn’t comeany stronger than this.

For Australia to introduce a carbon dioxide taxahead of the large emitting nations is to render our whole economy tocompetitive and economic disadvantage for no gain whatsoever.

8.We must act, and the earlier we act on climate change the less painful it willbe.

Theissue at hand is global warming, not the catch-all, deliberately ambiguous termclimate change.

Trying to prevent hypothetical “dangerous” warming bytaxing carbon dioxide emissions will be ineffectual, and is all pain for nogain.

9.The cost of action on carbon (sic) pollution (sic) is less than the cost ofinaction.

Thisstatement is fraudulent. Implementing a carbon dioxidetax willcarry large costs for workers and consumers, but bring no measurable cooling(or other change) for future climate.

For Australia, the total cost for a family of four ofimplanting a carbon dioxide tax will exceed $2,500/yr* – whereas even eliminatingall of Australia’s emissions might prevent planetary warming of 0.01 deg. C by2100**.

10.There is no do-nothing option in tackling climate change.

Indeed.

However,it is also the case that there is no demonstrated problem of “dangerous” globalwarming. Instead, Australia continues to face many self-evident problems of naturalclimate change and hazardous natural climate events. A national climate policyis clearly needed to address these issues.

Theappropriate, cost-effective policy to deal with Victorian bushfires, Queenslandfloods, droughts, northern Australian cyclones and long-term cooling or warmingtrends is the same.

Itis to prepare carefully for, and efficaciously deal with and adapt to, all suchevents and trends whether natural or human-caused, as and when they happen. Spending billions of dollars on expensiveand ineffectual carbon dioxide taxes serves only to reduce wealth and ourcapacity to address these only too real world problems.

Preparation for, and adaptation to, all climate hazardis the key to formulation of a sound national climate policy.

------------------------------------------------------------------

*Assuming a tax rate of$25/tonne of CO2, and Australia’s emissions being 550 milliontonnes, indicates a total cost of $13.8 billion. Spread across a population of22 million persons, that equates with $627/person/year.

** http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/impacts_of_climate_mitigation_measures_in_australia.html

------------------------------------------------------------------

For more information:

Australian Climate Science Coalition - http://www.auscsc.org.au/

The Carbon Sense Coalition - http://carbon-sense.com/

Institute of Public Affairs - http://climatechange.ipa.org.au/

Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) - http://www.nipccreport.org/

Joanne Nova - http://joannenova.com.au/

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Its by Richard A. Muller, professor of physics at Berkeley and i think it is damning...Or is this professor the fraud?

You work it out hutch.

Unfortunately I know from bitter experience in trying to educate you, that you do not know how to find (or even to read) material that gives the background to the ideology behind the nutjobs who reinforce your own subjective beliefs. I also know that you are resistant to following links that are provided for you so that you do not have to find them yourself. So I've made it easy for you - take just one tour and visit Joe Romm, who has a PhD in physics himself, and who has a reasonable summary of Muller's derailment on this subject.

I suspect that you won't make it to the end. And I suspect that if by some miracle you did, you'd not be able to sort the wheat from the chaff. Your style is to shoot from the hip first (and stuff asking the questions later) at anything in a fluoro jacket, because dammit it's a duck and if it's not who gives a fuck?

That strategy might help with your swagger, but it does nothing for your understanding of supportable fact.

But whilst we're talking about fact, let's have look at the fact of the "hide the decline" meme, which was the subject of Muller's high dudgeon. The short of it is that Muller misrepresents the facts behind the matter. If you read through these links (which I'm sure that I've posted before...), you'll discover that the reasons for the tree-ring divergence, and the very fact of separating it out of the graph and superimposing the instrumental record, are actually explicitly given in the paper. Contrary to what Muller says, this is peer-reviewed, and scientifically justifiable because the methodology is explicitly provided. Further, the divergence that causes the post 1960s discrepancy is confined only to some tree-ring proxies, and to none of the non-tree-ring, independent proxies, of which there are many, by the way...

This has a number of profound implications, but I will leave it to you to tell us what they might be - I'm curious to see if you can apply logic to the situation.

The whole trouble with this subject is that no denialist seems to read the actual paper (or the many subsequent papers that corroborate it) and to cotton on to the underlying fact that there is no scandal. Muller, in his display of petulant umbrage, is obviously counting on this to be the case.

If the previous link has too many other linkies for you, perhaps you can settle for a single page that outlines the background.

I suspect, hutch, that if the solution to global warming involved having more sex, you'd have a very different ideological response to the science. Your current response seems to involve confabulating the science with the solutions, and as I have said repeatedly the science simply says what the problem is, and not what choice humans should make to address the problem. If the solutions were those that you liked it would probably be a very different story, and you'd probably be much happier in separating the actual data from the disinformation...

And seriously, you need to do better than to use Andrew Bolt as your source of science. Bolt's latest effort is to claim that radiation is good for you; that it will reduce cancer risk.

:blink:

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What's to explain? You just linked to a Google account login page:

rw7uxf.jpg

Or do you really need that explained to you?

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Abandoned

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Abandoned

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