Junk Climate Science and the Law By James Reed

Letters from Australia substack details the Australian laws that are being changed to meet the climate change alarmist agenda. I am no legal expert, and indeed, am expert at nothing, but I am appalled, shocked etc., by the silent developments the political class are undertaking, all with no public debate, which is just how things are done now in a so-called "democracy."

By way of summary, without going into the specific details, which appear in the extract below, there are two prongs to the present environmentalist Left legal reforms. First, their aim is to reform all existing legislation on the environment to include climate change, within a climate change alarmist framework. There will be created a statutory mandatory duty to consider climate change in all decision making by administrators. Everything.

Second, there are new laws, with some Bills already read before parliament, that will legally enforce the zero net regime, for zero net carbon emissions by 2050. This will justify all measures need to ensure this. The consequences are enormous and have not been addressed by our side of politics. We will see the same sorts of policies to eliminate fossil fuels as in Canada, with the phasing out of vehicles powered by fossil fuels for electric vehicles (covered in an article at the blog today), as well as a relentless attack upon farming, and all aspects of Australian life.

All this is being set up right now, and will slot in perfectly with the New World Order legislation that is well advanced, such as the Digital ID, and the elimination of cash, and Central Bank Digital Currency. Australia is a test run for all of this. Before our very eyes, each day the globalist elites move forward, taking away past freedoms.

Only a mass revolt by the presently sleeping public may halt this total elimination of the freedom and liberties that the West gave, and which now threatens to be lost. Sleepers, awake!

https://lettersfromaustralia.substack.com/p/junk-science-activists-mangle-laws

"Science is done by evidence, not consensus.

It is humble. It questions assumptions and corrects them so future work isn't built on mistakes.

Yet here we are.

Burning fossil fuels doesn't cause climate change, because carbon dioxide doesn't cause climate change.

It's not an agreed fact. It was only ever a disputed claim.

It was amplified by the media which is always hungry for clickbait that comes with a great free photo, supplied by activists.

Martin Durkin's excellent new documentary, Climate: The Movie features evidence that it isn't true.

But Australia's climate empire of politicians, academics, activists and "green" industries all have jobs and status that depend on this claim.

As with covid, they ignored and silenced the dissidents and moved on with diverting bulk tax dollars to projects that will not help, because the premise is wrong.

They are now coming at the statute books: changing our laws in serious ways, based on an assumption they never questioned.

Federal Member for Wentworth Allegra Spender (Teal) is hosting March Net Zero Month with the three councils that control Sydney's influential east: Waverley, Woollahra and Randwick.

On March 17 she hosted a panel at Bondi Pavilion with Environmental Defenders Office Head of Policy and Law Reform Rachel Walmsley and Australia's own Greta Thunberg, 19-year-old law student Anjali Sharma.

Here are some of the laws they're ruining Federal Government

1.The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act).

Australia's national environmental law is more than 1000 pages of complex legislation plus 400 pages of regulations that forces developments to be ecologically sustainable. The key decision maker is the Federal Environment Minister, who is answerable to us voters.

"In 1000 pages guess how many times it mentions climate change? Zero," Ms Walmsley told the panel.

"It's under review and we have a wonderful opportunity to reform it, hopefully this year."

Ms Walmsley wants laws changed at national, state and territory levels to make climate change a mandatory consideration for decision-makers. So they can't refuse.

She wants an independent Environmental Protection Agency to be the key decision maker, instead of the minister. She calls this "nature positive legislation", but it means sidelining democracy as regulatory bodies are not answerable to voters the way ministers are.

Ms Walmsley calls the 20-year-old law "out of date" as though lawmakers had never heard of global boiling in 2000.

It's not new. The Kyoto Protocol was in 1997. Thousands of respected scientists signed a petition against it at that time, saying there is no evidence that carbon dioxide would disrupt Earth's climate.

2.The Climate Change Amendment (Duty of Care and Intergenerational Climate Equity) Bill 2023 - (Duty of Care Bill)

This Bill alters the Climate Change Act 2022, to prevent decision-makers from making significant decisions involving the exploration or extraction of coal, oil or gas where "greenhouse gas emissions" are likely to pose a material risk of harm to "the health and wellbeing of current and future Australian children".

Institute of Public Affairs research fellow Saxon Davidson wrote that it would soon force electricity users onto boutique, intermittent, solar and wind.

"This would effectively ban the future use of three major sources of baseload power," he wrote in Submission 89.

It would also open the door to weaponised court action.

"Requiring ministers or regulators to consider the indirect results of their decision on the health and wellbeing of future children is an exceptionally vague duty that would invite endless litigation, give green groups expanded opportunities to engage in lawfare, and put more major projects at risk of delay and cancellation."

This Bill comes from teen activist Anjali Sharma's failed class action lawsuit. As a schoolgirl, Anjali tried to prevent a coal mine expansion by alleging the Federal Environment Minister owed a duty of care to Australian children to avoid causing personal injury or death arising from the emissions of carbon dioxide into the Earth's atmosphere.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a poison. You breathe it out, plants breathe it in. It's essential to life. Anjali has been misinformed.

CO2 was 412 parts per million (ppm) in 2019 according to NASA. At 150ppm plants die from CO2 starvation. The optimum level for plants to thrive is 1000ppm. That is why governments recommend commercial growers pump CO2 into their greenhouses.

Five hundred million years ago life flourished on Earth, when estimates of CO2 levels range from 9000ppm to 2000ppm. So we're not going to drop dead if it increases, nor will the planet boil.

It is understood the courts did not question the claim that atmospheric carbon dioxide "may cause injury or death". The case foundered on legalities around "duty of care", which is why this Bill is now before Parliament.

Interestingly, QUT Law School associate professor Lucy Cradduck wrote in Submission 77 that the Bill as drafted does not actually create any duty of care, and that failure to comply with the obligations wouldn't support an action against the Commonwealth, either.

The committee looking at the Duty of Care Bill is due to report back on March 27 (Wednesday). The Bill has already had its first reading in Parliament.

Submissions, now closed, are exactly as you'd expect. A raft of supporting environmental and activist groups, and this:

"Today in The Guardian there is an article: EARTH'S VITAL SIGNS WORSE THAN AT ANY TIME IN HUMAN HISTORY, SCIENTISTS WARN. Read this article please. This is the scientific truth, we are in danger of making the planet uninhabitable for ourselves, our children and all of life," - retired physicist Dr James Butler, Submission 160.

As Ms Sharma herself wrote in The Guardian: "We're children who have read the news".

Indeed, you have.

3.Climate Change Act 2022, introduced with the Climate Change (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2022

These laws attempt to force Australia to reduce "greenhouse gas emissions" by 43 percent from 2005 levels by 2030 and achieve "net zero" by 2050.

The minister must prepare and table an annual climate change statement and take advice from the new Climate Change Authority.

Rachel Walmsley loves this bill.

"It sets up a climate authority, it has climate statements, and Allegra was fantastic in getting that Bill strengthened and it went through Parliament," she told the panel.

Scientists looking at carbon dioxide levels over the last 500 million years ascribe its fluctuations to weathering and volcanic activity, and have found no correlation with the geologic record of climate variations.

There is literally no point to these carbon cuts, it will not affect the climate.

NSW Government:

Climate Change (Net Zero Future) Bill 2023

This Bill became law in December.

It establishes yet another climate authority, the Net Zero Commission which is not subject to Ministerial control, and thus doesn't have to care about the will of the voters. This body will monitor, review and report on "progress" towards the new carbon-cutting targets.

The new targets cut "greenhouse gas emissions" in NSW by 50 percent from net 2005 emissions by 2030, 70 percent by 2035 and net zero by 2050.

They want to take your gas cooktop away

For good measure, Allegra Spender also wants to take away your cheap, reliable gas hot water, cooktop and stove as well.

Spender wants to subsidise electric appliances with tax money, while encouraging the councils to ban gas connections in new builds. She calls it "electrification" like you live in Tanzania and burn charcoal to cook. She's bringing electricity!"