Andrew Bolt: Dud climate claims hit jobs, credibility

Spare me Labor’s tears as another refinery bites the dust and workers lose jobs. This is exactly what’s meant to happen with our global warming policies but the stupidity is making us a second-rate country.

The prime minister should be thrilled. Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen should be doing cartwheels.

Yes, because 1000 Australians were told on Tuesday they’re out of a job.

No pity, please. These are workers and contractors at Alcoa Kwinana alumina refinery in Western Australia, a huge user of the gas and coal-fired electricity that’s boiling the planet, we’re told. Even causing this week’s flood in Victoria, if you believe Labor ministers.

Sure, the Labor premier of WA, Roger Cook, is putting on his sad face, being the local member and all. “This is disappointing,” he groaned.

In truth, though, this is exactly what Labor has been pushing for. Labor governments everywhere claim global warming is such a threat that tiny Australia should slash its emissions to net zero by 2050 in a futile gesture to stop it.

And as Labor has been warned for more than a decade, this means the aluminium industry will be among the first to go because it uses so much electricity, which global warming policies are helping to make hideously expensive.

Who will gain from all this? China, of course.

Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen should be doing cartwheels after 1000 Australians were told on Tuesday they’re out of a job. Picture: Gaye Gerard

It’s not cutting its own emissions, because that’s just for us suckers in the West. It’s the world’s biggest supplier of alumina, and set new production records last year for making the aluminium we need for the 10,000km of transmission wires the Albanese government needs to hook up all its planned green energy generators.

We’re cutting our own throats. Australia has so much coal, gas, oil and bauxite – all the ingredients for making this stuff – that we should be cruising, especially with higher-than-average prices for aluminium, but our politicians and activists now make life too hard for this refinery to stay in business.

Just two months ago, Tim Flannery, the professional global warming alarmist, and other environmentalists demanded Alcoa stop digging out cheap bauxite near the Serpentine dam.

Also last year, Rio Tinto had to write off more than $1bn from the value of its own alumina refineries because the Albanese government dreamt up yet another green scheme, forcing them to slash its emissions at huge cost.

1000 workers and contractors at Alcoa Kwinana alumina refinery in Western Australia are losing their jobs.

So spare me Labor’s tears as this refinery bites the dust and workers lose their jobs. This is exactly what’s meant to happen with our global warming policies.

Dear God, what’s the Left doing to this country? Where has reason gone?

Here’s another example from Tuesday.

Victoria has been hit with floods, which should tell us the Bureau of Meteorology doesn’t understand the climate well enough to preach so militantly about global warming.

Don’t forget that in 2007 its top global warming expert said warming actually meant less water, writing: “Climate change here is now running so rampant that we don’t need meteorological data to see it. Almost every one of our cities is on the verge of running out of water and our largest irrigation system – the Murray Darling Basin- is on the verge of collapse.”

That prediction was a total flop, yet last September the Bureau embarrassed itself again, predicting a big dry: “The long-range forecast for Australia indicates warmer and drier than average conditions are likely across most of southern and eastern Australia from October to December.’’

Just two months ago, Tim Flannery, the professional global warming alarmist, demanded Alcoa stop digging out cheap bauxite near the Serpentine dam. Picture: AAP

Farmers panicked, selling off stock for next to nothing for fear of running out of feed. But look now: we instead got above-average rain in Victoria, southern NSW and huge parts of Queensland.

Yet Victoria’s emergency services minister, Jaclyn Symes, was still babbling about global warming on Tuesday as she toured the floods, saying “there’s no doubt that we need to be responding to climate change”.

Same old story. It’s dry; blame global warming. It’s wet; blame global warming.

So shut another refinery.

In fact, even the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which writes the bible on global warming, said in its latest report there was “low confidence in the emergence of heavy precipitation and pluvial and river flood frequency”, and Bureau of Meteorology records show Victoria is still behind the rainfall totals it got mid last century.

But what’s this minister actually saying? We must fight global warming because it brings more rain?

That’s insane. If global warming really did mean more rain, isn’t that a fantastic thing for this dry continent? We sure need more rain to water and feed the massive numbers of immigrants our politicians are letting in.

Australia is becoming a second-rate country because of stupidity like this. Pray we wise up before this country gets even poorer.