Piers Akerman: Australian Government ignoring rational nuclear case

Last week, more than a dozen of the nation’s top scientists and engineers descended upon Canberra to present the clear case for modern nuclear power generation. The government didn’t want to know, writes Piers Akerman.

Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris “Bonehead” Bowen doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.

That’s why he ignores the solid evidence provided by slews of Australian energy experts to jump on the UN’s gravy train and swallow the serially inaccurate forecasts of doom concocted through the manipulation of dodgy modelling.

Incomprehensibly, Bowen delivered an address at the COP27 soiree held in Egypt’s glamour Sharm el-Sheikh beach resort in a Torres Strait language spoken by fewer than 5000 people or .0000625 per cent of the global population.

This was virtue-signalling at the mega-Teal/Green/radical left level, understood by none of the 45,000 attendees except the token handful of Islanders rubbing shoulders with the lobbyists and politicians ferried into the desert on a fleet of 400 private aircraft.

Known for its diving, shark attacks and Islamist terrorist attacks, Sharm el-Sheikh played host to ecoterrorists this time around and they successfully held the developed world hostage with guilt-ridden Westerners, including NSW’s own dark-green Treasurer Matt Kean, agreeing to pay compensation to Third World developing nations for climate change loss and damage they claim – without any scientific evidence – caused by humans since the industrial revolution.

Nuclear power is a potential solution to Australia’s energy problems but the government is refusing to consider it.

This open-ended commitment, with details to be hashed out at more gabfests in coming years, was more than “blah, blah, blah” as Greta Thunberg (who didn’t bother attending the retreat) might say.

The West is up for trillions — yes, trillions — to nations which bizarrely include China, India and Pakistan, all of which find the cash to support their huge military forces and all of which have managed to fund the research to develop nuclear weapons.

Only a Green, a Teal or a bona fide bonehead like Bowen could possibly think this is a good thing.

Australian taxpayers are already paying through their noses for their energy, even though we have abundant coal, gas and uranium reserves for which the rest of the world is prepared to pay more and more as the realisation that renewables cannot sustain reliable and dispatchable power grids sinks in.

First, there is zero evidence that the demonised carbon dioxide emissions produced by human activity are responsible for changes to the climate. The climate has been changing for millennia and sometimes as swiftly as it is now.

The Earth was warmer when the Romans were making wine in what is now Britain and when Christ was preaching to fishermen on the Sea of Galilee, and it was colder during what is called the Little Ice Age, around 1300.

Hysterical ABC commentators have claimed that the recent flooding of Pakistan inundated a third of that nation. It didn’t.

According to the UN’s Satellite Centre (UNOSAT) of about 793,000 sqkm of Pakistan analysed in August, around 75,000 sqkm appeared affected. Researcher Tony Thomas calculated that to be between 8.5 and 9.5 per cent of the country.

But too much exaggeration is never enough for the climate warriors.

The real, evident improvements to the quality of life of millions since the Industrial Revolution through the use of fertilisers derived from fossil fuels are ignored by the catastrophists but the principal beneficiaries in the so-called developing world aren’t being asked to pay their share. Why should the West?

The Wall Street Journal’s Gerard Baker noted last week that the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disaster at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, has reported that “weather-related death rates fell dramatically during the past 100 years” and are “about 80 times less frequent today than they were a century ago”.

Gutless politicians from both sides of politics have ignored factual science to avoid the necessary debate about weather.

The pronouncements from the true believers in global warming are Manichean, they are like religious edicts specifying just one virtuous path. Those who refuse to tread as directed are not just wrong but evil and must be cancelled whether they’re within a university, the media or just members of the public.

Their protests are disruptive because, as Roger Hallam, a co-founder of the Extinction Rebellion tribe, said: “The essential element here is disruption. Without disruption, no one is going to give you their eyeballs.”

Hallam has said: “Letters, emailing, marches don’t work. You need about 400 people to go to prison. About 2000-3000 people to be arrested.”

Unfortunately, our weak-kneed representatives are too lily-livered to lock them up.

Late last week, more than a dozen of the nation’s top scientists and engineers descended upon Canberra to present the clear and rational case for modern nuclear power generation in Australia.
The government didn’t want to know, according to one of the organisers of the two-day seminar.

According to most polls, the No. 1 issue with voters is the cost of living, not the price of electric vehicles.

As summer advances and punters are told to cut power usage to prevent the inevitable blackouts, the Labor Party may find their Green ideology has killed their electoral chances.