Agmates

Agmates Editor Steve Truman writes:

The hypocrisies of the Australian media making us all feel guilty for destroying the Australian environment is mind numbing. The media reporting on ratbag radical greens illegal activities over the weekend is outrageous.

The weekend just gone we saw Greenpeace activist taking illegal radical action. In QLD 9 activists broke into Swanbank power station just west of Brisbane demanding it be shut down during the Rudd governments current term of office. In Newcastle almost 30 activists chained themselves to a coal conveyor at a Lake Macquarie power station.

Greenpeace activist Simon Roz was reported as saying:

“We make no apology at all for the fact that our action is highlighting the urgent need to address greenhouse pollution.

Coal is responsible for a third of our national emissions and we simply must replace coal with renewable energy if we’re to have any hope of averting dangerous climate change.”

Why as a nation do we let the media condition us that we should feel guilty because we are a resource rich nation? It has got to the incredibly mad state that in 18 months time Australia must wear the carbon tax ‘green hair shirt’ to pay for our wicked ways.

And pay for our sins we will thanks to the Rudd governments world leading emissions trading scheme.

This is how ridiculous it is in a world context. Lets look at The United Arab Emerates. A stretch of desert that just happens to also resource rick, not in coal - just oil. See my google map of its location

Photo #1: Dubai in 1990 prior to the oil boom. A hot dry desolate place.

Photo #2: The same street in 2003 just 17 years later. All this tremendous wealth from Oil.

Photo #3: The same street in 2007.

Photo #4: Dubai In the midst of an unbelievable building boom. Dubai is said to currently have 15-25% of all the world’s cranes.

Photo #5: The Dubai Waterfront. When completed it will become the largest waterfront development in the world. Click here to see Wikipedia’s description of the water front development.

Photo #6: Most of this was built in the last 5 years, including the man made island that looks like a palm tree. All from money from oil.

Photo #7: The Palm Islands in Dubai. New Dutch dredging technology was used to create these massive man made islands. They are the largest artificial islands in the world and can be seen from space. Three of these Palms will be built with the last one being the largest of them all.

Upon completion, the resort will have 2,000 villas, 40 luxury hotels, shopping centers, movie theaters, and many other facilities. It is expected to support a population of approximately 500,000 people. It is advertised as being visible from the moon.

Photo #8: The Burj al-Arab hotel in Dubai. Currently the worlds tallest hotel. Considered the only ‘7 star’ hotel and the most luxurious hotel in the world. It stands on an artificial island in the sea.

Photo #9: Hydropolis will be the world’s first underwater hotel and is being entirely built in Germany and then assembled in Dubai. It is scheduled to be completed by 2009.

Photo #10: This is what downtown Dubai will look like around 2008-2009. The building in the Centre is the Burg Dubai which began construction in 2005 and is expected to be completed this year. At an estimated height of over 800 meters, it will easily be world’s tallest building when finished. It will be almost 40% taller than the the current tallest building, the Yaipei 101.

Photo #11; But it won’t be the tallest building for long. Below is an artist impression of the The Al Burj. This will be the centerpiece of the Dubai Waterfront. Once completed it will take over the title of the tallest structure in the world from the Burj Dubai. The final height of this tower will is expected to be 1200 meters. That would make it more than 30% taller than the Burj Dubai and three times as tall as the Empire State Building.

Photo #12: Currently being built - Dubailand Amusement park which will be twice the size of Walt Disney Land in Orlando Florida. Currently, the walt Disney World resort is the largest amusement park collection in the world and also the largest single-site employer in the United states with 58,000 employees.

Walt Disney World Resort is the #1 tourist destination in the world. Once fully completed, Dubailand will easily take over that title since it is expected to attract 200,000 visitors daily.

Photo #13: The Dubai Marina is an entirely man made development that will contain over 200 highrise buildings when finished. It will be home to some of the tallest residential structures in the world. The completed first phase of the project is shown. Most of the other high rise buildings will be finished by 2009-2010. The Dubai Mall will be the largest shopping mall in the world with over 9 million square feet of shopping and around 1000 stores. It will should be completed in this year.

Some of the tallest buildings in the world, such as Ocean Heights and The Princess Tower, which will be the largest residential building in the world at over a 100 stories, will line the DubaiMarina.

The Dubai Metro system, once completed, will become the largest fully automated rail system in the world.

The Dubai World Central International Airport will become the largest airport in size when it is completed. It will also eventually become the busiest airport in the world, based on passenger volume.

Why don’t we see Greenpeace activists chaining themselves to oil wells in The United Arab Emerates.

The answer is because the Arabs would never put up with them. They would be considered for just what they are - environmental terrorist and be shot on the spot.

We don’t see the Arabs implementing carbon emission trading schemes that will harm their economies. We don’t see them willing to kill off the ‘goose that lays the golden egg’ to pander to the international whip of human induced global warming.

Australia and New Zealand are bit players in the world economy. Yet Labor governments in both countries are determined to lead the world into a low carbon future. They are willing to risk crippling their economies and cause immense financial suffering to their citizens to lead the world.

They would like us to believe they they can influence the Arabs, the Chinese, the USA and the Russians into following their lead.

If we as a nation are gullible enough to believe that spin - God help us.

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John Mikkelsen (pictured) Columnist and former editor of the Gladstone Observer writes:

Thought you might be interested, (my column in today’s Gladstone Observer).

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THERE’s an email joke going the rounds, which would be pretty funny if the topic wasn’t so serious.
It comes complete with a cartoon of Garfield the feline philosopher in a sour mood, muttering,

“A lot of people can’t understand why Australia is running short of oil.
“There’s a very simple answer, nobody bothered to check the levels.
“Our oil supplies are located in Bass Strait, the East Queensland shale fields, the Canning Basin and the North West Continental Shelf.
“Our dipsticks are located in Canberra… Any Questions?
“I didn’t think so.”

Garfield certainly knows a thing or two, and there’s nothing wrong with his logic.

But while we are certainly paying for fuel as if it is running out fast, that’s not about to happen any time soon. I don’t pretend to understand the politics behind world oil crises but I’ve been around long enough to know they seem to be cyclical.

Back in the late 1970’s we were also told oil was running low, prices rose sharply (although compared to today’s levels, fuel was still very cheap), and surprise surprise, people even started downsizing their cars.

Sound familiar? It was all so serious that Ford, the father of V8 family cars, ceased producing V8’s in Australia for several years, and if you owned a V8 of that era you had to practically give it away to get rid of it.

Now days some of the most powerful and thirsty are fetching huge prices as collector items (think over $700,000 for a 1971 Phase 3 Falcon and you’re in the ball park. One was advertised several months back for a cool million).

But suddenly the oil started flowing again, former State Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen forgot his dream turned nightmare of providing Queenslanders with a hydrogen powered car and life returned to normal.

Around the same time, some climate scientists were predicting we were on the verge of another ice age and one eminent Norwegian expert even suggested the world needed to produce more carbon dioxide to offset this.

Fast forward to the present enlightened century.

Climate change is the new religion but the cry is now global warming, with oil and other fossil fuels the bad guys. But don’t worry, supplies are running low so huge prices are justified and if fuel excise plus GST aren’t enough to rake in billions, er, sorry, save the planet, let’s add a carbon tax to really make Aussies change their driving habits.

Sorry if I sound a little cynical but the plot seems as synthetic as some of the new green energy ideas being promoted.

And while I’m on the topic, guess which car was recently voted “Green Car of the Year” by major motoring group, Carsguide. No, it wasn’t a hybrid of the type which the Federal Government plans to subsidise, it was the diesel Hyundai i30 CRDi, with a rated fuel economy of just 4.7l/ 100km, combined with very low emissions.

Hang on, don’t the government, the ACCC and the new fuel commissioner apparently think it’s okay for the oil companies to charge a premium of about 25 cents a litre on distillate compared to unleaded?

Shouldn’t they be encouraging its greater use as a more economical, greener fuel by lowering its price and helping reduce food prices, as well as saving our farmers, fishing and transport industries at the same time?

If you find this all a bit confusing, I think Garfield has the answer.

National Transport Shutdown

Meanwhile, while the pollies and bureaucrats twiddle their thumbs, there is a nationwide transport shutdown looming, which could rival or surpass anything seen in Europe in recent months.

In case you haven’t heard, a north Queensland road transport operator, Mick Pattel (pictured below), is organising a meeting to discuss a national shutdown starting on July 28. He claims Federal Transport Minister Anthony Albanese is doing nothing to prevent this happening.

“When there is no food in the shops and fuel in the servos, the Minister will have to answer to the Australian public, not transport operators,” Pattel is quoted as saying in the latest edition of on-line rural newsletter, Agmates News.

“I’ve tried to speak to the minister but can’t get past his bureaucrats who told us he will never speak to me,” the truckie says.

He claims the minister’s view is that rising operating costs should be passed on, but when customers were farmers who were also going broke, this was not possible.

Farmers have also claimed they are unable to recoup rising costs from the major supermarkets, which increasingly favour cheap overseas produce.

Expect to see less “Australian product”, more ” contains Australian and overseas product” and even more ” product of China (or Malaysia)” on the food shelves, Garfield….

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