WhatFinger


Viv Forbes

Viv Forbes, Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition, has spent his life working in exploration, mining, farming, infrastructure, financial analysis and political commentary. He has worked for government departments, private companies and now works as a private contractor and farmer.

Viv has also been a guest writer for the Asian Wall Street Journal, Business Queensland and mining newspapers. He was awarded the “Australian Adam Smith Award for Services to the Free Society” in 1988, and has written widely on political, technical and economic subjects.

Most Recent Articles by Viv Forbes:

All Trees, Grass and Cows are Green

All Trees, Grass and Cows are GreenGrowing trees need three essentials – radiant energy from the sun, CO2 and rain from the atmosphere, including nutrients and minerals from the soil. Climate alarmists correctly claim that burning forest products in thermal power stations is "net-zero emissions" because burning the wood just puts the same CO2 back into the atmosphere.  Identical reasoning applies to grazing cattle. 
- Friday, September 3, 2021

Real Meat is Green - it Eats Grass

Ancient Auroch CattleThe Green Wreckers who destroyed Australia's cheap reliable electricity are now targeting our cattle industry. They use fake science and false advertising to threaten our right to produce and consume real meat. This stupidity relies on a totally false argument that grazing animals cause global warming by releasing carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere.
- Tuesday, August 17, 2021

Forests need Foresters

Forests need ForestersGreen extremists plan to convert Australia into “tree heaven”. They will bully this through, no matter what the cost. Huge areas of forest are already converted to “locked-up-land” – national parks, world heritage areas, Kyoto protected trees, remnant vegetation, aboriginal reserves, wildlife habitat and corridors etc. Many lock-ups are so large and so poorly managed that they have become extreme bushfire hazards and a refuge for wild dogs, cats, goats, camels, pigs, lantana, groundsel and other weeds and pests. Now Australia faces a shortage of timber for farms, industry, homes and furniture. While our vast forests lie idle or burnt, we import timber.
- Thursday, July 15, 2021

Hydrogen Hype and Hurdles

Hydrogen Hype and HurdlesGreen Hydrogen is the latest “energy” fad from the global warming warriors. It is mainly hot air. Hydrogen will NEVER be a source of energy. Unlike coal, oil or natural gas, hydrogen rarely occurs naturally – it must be manufactured, and that process consumes far more energy than the hydrogen “fuel” can recover. And the heat content of natural gas is over three times that of hydrogen.
- Friday, July 9, 2021

The Blackout Agenda

Solar power fails every day from sunset to sunrise as well as during rain, hail, snow or dust storms. No matter how much land we smother in subsidised solar panels, they will still fail. Wind power fails often and unpredictably, sometimes for days, especially in quiet cold winter weather. It also shuts down during cyclones, heavy winds or icy conditions. No matter how many hills we uglify with their subsidised roads, transmission lines and bird-slicers, they will still fail.
- Wednesday, June 16, 2021

The Green Virus is Spreading - Lock it Down

The Green Virus is Spreading - Lock it DownThe Biden-Boris green virus which infects most of the west has become a danger to Australia. PM Scott Morrison has promised one billion dollars for “hydrogen, CCUS (carbon capture usage or storage), batteries and critical minerals-- all to achieve “net zero”. NOT ONE of these green dreams will produce one light-bulb of new energy – all will consume massive amounts of energy and money.
- Sunday, April 25, 2021

Flood Plains are for Floods

Flood Plains are for FloodsNatural flood plains form where floods spread silt and mud in river valleys. Being flat, fertile, picturesque and usually supplied with surface and underground water, they attract farms, orchards and gardens. These are inevitably followed by roads, houses and businesses. Despite all the planners with their rules, the pressure of people plus a bit of corruption has always resulted in population clustering on fertile flood plains and deltas beside scenic rivers. There is no point trying to stop or reverse this tide of history but those who choose to build on flood plains must bear the costs of the occasional flood.
- Wednesday, March 24, 2021

The Brick Battery

Wasting Green Energy - Lifting Bricks, The Brick BatteryThe Australian Snowy 2 hydro scheme plans to use electricity to pump water up hill to get some of that energy back by running the water downhill again. All to make intermittent green energy look sensible. Some green-tinged Australian mining companies are planning a dry version of Snowy 2 - a huge brick-powered battery using the force of gravity to drive a generator when solar and wind energy are on strike. Each unit of this brick-powered battery would comprise a 30 storey tower enclosing a 35 tonne brick which is hauled up using surplus renewable energy (around noon on any clear windy day) and then released to turn generators when there is no renewable energy being produced (every still night or calm cloudy day).
- Saturday, March 6, 2021

Zero Emissions A Baite Hook

Zero Emissions A Baite Hook“Zero emissions” requires no diesel, petrol or gas-fuelled cars, trucks, tractors or dozers and no burning of coal or gas for electricity generation. But without nuclear power or a massive increase in hydro-electricity, green energy will not support metal refining or manufacturing, and domestic electricity usage will be rationed. “Zero emissions” will also force closure of most cement plants, mechanised farms and feed lots and will demand nuclear or wind-powered submarines, destroyers and bulk carriers. In the Zero Emissions world there can be no diesel buses, oil-powered cruise liners or jet aircraft (except fleets of climate comrades attending endless UNIPCC conferences). Moreover, 7.8 billion humans continuously emit a lot of carbon dioxide – maybe they plan to make the Covid masks air tight?
- Sunday, February 7, 2021

Why Worry about Warming? Cold is the Killer

Why Worry about Warming? Cold is the KillerGreen alarmists are fanning a firestorm of fear about man-made global warming. Earth always cycles between warmth and cold. Every recent warm period (Medieval Warming, Roman Warming etc) was a time of plenty for all life on Earth, whilst cold periods like the Little Ice Age saw crop failures, famine, migrations, invasions, disease and death.
- Saturday, November 14, 2020

Nothing That Works

Green zealots infest all parties, the media, academia, education and the business vested interests. They consistently oppose what works and promote what won’t. Greens demand “Zero Emissions”. Nuclear and hydro power are the only practical “zero carbon” electricity options for Australia. Greens oppose both.
- Thursday, October 8, 2020

Energy Roadmap to Oblivion

The new Australian Government energy roadmap asks us to bet on “clean hydrogen, energy storage, green steel and aluminium, carbon capture and storage, and soil carbon”. Like the worst spec-stock spruiker they promise to streamline regulations and legislation to encourage these mal-investments. NOT ONE of these items will generate reliable low-cost 24/7 electricity. EVERY ONE will risk huge capital expenditure chasing green rainbows. NOT ONE will improve the climate. ALL obey foreign/UN agendas. If this is the best the LNP can offer we may as well vote Green/ALP to precipitate the inevitable energy crisis. When that real emergency comes, voters will punish this bi-partisan Parliament of Fools.
- Thursday, September 24, 2020

Green Energy is Not Green

Solar energy is very dilute, so solar collectors usually cover huge areas of flat arable land, stealing farmland, starving wild herbs and grasses of life-giving sunlight thus creating “Solar Deserts”.
- Sunday, September 13, 2020

The Green Road to Blackouts

California leads the way to electricity blackouts, closely followed by South Australia. They both created this problem by taxing, banning, delaying or demolishing reliable coal, nuclear, gas or hydro generators while subsidising and promoting unreliable electricity from the sickly green twins - solar and wind. All supposed to solve a global warming crisis that exists only in academic computer models.
- Thursday, September 3, 2020

Pure and Sterile

Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef is once again the excuse for extending Green control of all land and waters. Their current scare concerns the quality of water draining into the Coral Sea. Their hidden agenda is to eliminate coastal agriculture, mining and commercial fishing. They would surrender the land to kangaroos, cassowaries, lantana, cane toads, wild cats and feral pigs and the seas to marauding sharks, cruising whales and aboriginal fishermen.
- Saturday, August 8, 2020

Cold Comfort

Needs Some Warming here too (Canada)Before sunrise yesterday, the grass temperature in Washpool, "Sunny Queensland" was minus 1.7 deg. There was no wind or sunshine. Wind turbines were becalmed and not even moonbeams energised our solar panels. In that still, frosty darkness, green energy failed again. Not a watt came from becalmed wind "farms" or from subsidized solar panels cluttering many roofs (including ours). But we didn't need our diesel in the shed - we were saved by trusty Old King Coal, with maybe a dash of gas or hydro. Reliable 24/7 generators provided pre-dawn power-by-wire for lights, heaters and coffee before we checked the frosty flats for new-born lambs.
- Tuesday, July 7, 2020

More Useless Energy Policies

The Australian Minister for Promoting Useless Energy thinks that hydrogen fuel, carbon capture and storage, soil carbon and biofuels are priorities for energy policy and greenhouse gas reduction.
- Tuesday, May 26, 2020

Re-build Muscle not Flab

Re-build Muscle not FlabIn order to kill Corona-wasps in the ceiling, politicians have knocked our economic house down. Now they dream of rebuilding the house by driving at full speed into the borrow-and-spend swamp. National Cabinet will soon find that Australia-after-Corona can’t afford a bloated public service, an overmanned and overpaid academia, throngs of able-bodied people on long-term welfare, too many tax-exempt foundations, endless donations to worthless UN fiefdoms and talk-fests, and a huge import bill to pay for all the things we once made here. Nor can we afford all the resources being wasted on dysfunctional submarines designed in Canberra, power systems mandated by the UN, Snowy 2 Green elephants, climate alarmism, emissions targets and green energy molly-coddling. We must re-build economic muscle not flab.
- Thursday, April 23, 2020

Bushfires in Australia – Two Choices

Bushfires in Australia – Two ChoicesThe Landscape and wildlife of Australia was shaped and then maintained by frequent mild burning for at least 40,000 years. This reality must be recognised and it dictates that there are only two futures for Australia:
  1. A healthy safe landscape that maintains sustainable vegetation, wildlife and people. This requires that we re-establish the successful fire regimes of the past.
OR:
  1. A dangerous and destructive landscape with too many people cowering in suburban and rural enclaves surrounded by a tinderbox of pest-ridden weeds, scrub and litter – a threat to trees, wildlife and property. This is today’s fire regime in Eastern Australia.
- Monday, April 6, 2020

The Virus Slowdown was Successful--but the Depressed Patient Died in Poverty

In their frantic attempts to delay the spread of the Wuhan virus, governments are sowing the seeds of economic depression and currency destruction, which will blight Australian lives for a generation. They are adding financial stress to the medical stress. The ordinary flu virus kills many people every winter despite vaccines. And both viruses are more lethal for the old and the sick. We do not close the whole country every flu season but this year’s crisis is being exploited by scare mongers, centralists and globalists whose slogan is “never let a decent crisis go to waste”.
- Friday, March 27, 2020

Sponsored