In an article entitled When recression knocks, forget about saving the globe, Alan Wood exposes the gaping cracks in the Treasury’s modelling for the ETS, and criticises the governments “press on at all costs approach”:

Whatever the difficulties of forecasting the short-term behaviour of the Australian economy, they pale beside the task of forecasting the economic impacts of the Government’s climate-change policies and the future path and consequences of global warming.

Which raises a very important question: Should the Rudd Government be pushing ahead with the early introduction of an emissions trading scheme to limit carbon emissions in the middle of global and possibly local recession?

When asked about this on Wednesday, Swan not only reaffirmed the Government’s intention to introduce the scheme in 2010, as has Rudd. He added the extraordinary claim that “It’s all about strengthening our economy.” If the Treasurer is relying on his department’s modelling of the economic costs of cutting carbon emissions for this claim, then he is like the pig that built its house of straw. For a start, the modelling tells us nothing about the short-term costs of adjustment.

And its suggestion that the longer-term economic costs will be as low as 0.1 per cent of gross domestic product a year defies common sense and depends on impossibly optimistic assumptions about the progress of global agreement on carbon reductions and improbably optimistic ones on the emergence and costs of newtechnologies.

The most sensible approach is to defer introduction of any scheme until the recession has passed and we know the outcome of international negotiations on a post-Kyoto scheme. Action is pointless without commitments to carbon-reduction targets by China, India and the US.

Read it here.

Ian Plimer, professor of mining geology and Adelaide University, has criticised the government’s plans for an ETS during a speech at a Sydney Mining Club lunch, saying:

If you thought Y2K was a scam, you wait for this one.

And he correctly points out that scientific research generally follows government policy:

“Scientists play politics the same as everyone else,” he said in his speech, entitled Human induced climate change – a load of hot air.”

“I think we’ve got people playing games in politics.”

“If you want the research funding and if you want the money then … follow the money, follow the pocket of paradise, but it could actually send us broke.”

Read it here.

As always, a great read.

David Bellamy (or is it Lenny Henry…?)
Image © Daily Mail

Thanks to Tom Nelson. We all know that, despite protestations to the contrary, the BBC has made up its mind on climate change, having said in a report (note long PDF):

The BBC has held a high-level seminar with some of the best scientific experts, and has come to the view that the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus.

So it is sadly little surprise that David Bellamy, one of the most recognisable naturalists and botanists in the UK, and whom I used to watch without fail on TV when I was a kid, has been shunned for over 10 years by the BBC because of his views on climate change, as the UK Daily Mail reports:

People such as former American Vice-President Al Gore say that millions of us will die because of global warming – which I think is a pretty stupid thing to say if you’ve got no proof.

And my opinion is that there is absolutely no proof that carbon dioxide is anything to do with any impending catastrophe. The science has, quite simply, gone awry. In fact, it’s not even science any more, it’s anti-science.

There’s no proof, it’s just projections and if you look at the models people such as Gore use, you can see they cherry pick the ones that support their beliefs.

To date, the way the so-called Greens and the BBC, the Royal Society and even our political parties have handled this smacks of McCarthyism at its worst.

Global warming is part of a natural cycle and there’s nothing we can actually do to stop these cycles. The world is now facing spending a vast amount of money in tax to try to solve a problem that doesn’t actually exist.

Right on the money. Read it here.

From Andrew Bolt:

John McCain is beaten, and this is what I haven’t yet seen or heard:

• Screams that the vote was rigged.
• Lawyers taking the result to court.
• The loser blaming anyone but himself.
• Angry celebrities vowing to move overseas.
• Stickers claiming the winner stole the election.
• Furious reporters denouncing ads by the losers’ critics.
• Furious reporters blaming the winner’s evil genius.
• The bitter losers warning the country “is more divided than ever”.

Graceful losers in a democracy need to be acknowledged just as much as graceful winners, if not more. At the very least, it may help to ensure the example catches on.

Too true.

Once famous for their numbers, Norwegian lemmings are disappearing, say scientists, who point an accusing finger at global warming.
…
Global warming has shortened the period in which the lemmings can hole up in their wintry haven.
…
“This research provides a striking example of how climate change can modify the working of the natural world – raising the question of what the consequences such change might have for us.”

Yet another “global warming” alert, when global temperatures are heading down and records for cold are being broken left, right and center. And how long will it be before we read that it wasn’t actually “global warming”, but something else? It’s odd, but stories like that never seem to get published… I wonder why?

Read it here.

The Herald reports that Yvo do Boer, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, is very encouraged by Barack Obama’s stance on global warming (shurely “climate change”? Ed).

“I am very encouraged by the stated commitment of Senator Obama to the issue of climate change, and I really hope that he or his representatives can come to the climate change conference in Poznan (in western Poland) and speak to his vision of the way forward,” he said.

Obama has set his sights on crippling the US economy with emissions reductions much as Rudd’s ETS will in Australia, by setting a targets of 80% by 2050. Let’s see how far that gets.

Read it here.

Watts Up With That:

Obama’s energy plan: bankrupt coal power plants, skyrocketing electricity rates

More doom and gloom from the Herald, which wallows in spreading bad news. A new report, launched by our own “Climate Penny”, is full of scaremongering nonsense:

All forms of infrastructure in Australia including electricity, dams, roads and even footpaths will be severely affected by climate change, a new report has found.

What climate change do they mean? The gentle cooling that has taken place over the last decade, perhaps? The authors of this report must live in an impermeable bubble somewhere, but that doesn’t stop them spreading climate hysteria to an unsuspecting public:

Drought would slash hydroelectric generation, while hot temperatures interfered with power plants and increased demand for electricity.

More frequent bushfires would interrupt supply.

Water infrastructure would also suffer because of more droughts across southern Australia.
…
“The consequences of the impact of climate change … may range from discomfort, inconvenience, economic loss caused by interruption of services, property damage, threats to heath, to injury and death,” the report found.

Ludicrous. Read it here.

The Treasury’s modelling on the ETS was hopelessly optimistic yesterday, but now looks even more shaky as Kevin Rudd has to admit that keeping the budget in surplus will become harder.

Today the Government released its revised economic forecasts, which slashed around $15 billion from the Budget surplus due to a predicted loss of around $40 billion of revenue over four years.

Speaking in Tasmania, Mr Rudd said the Government will do everything possible to maintain a “reasonable” Budget surplus.

“But the global financial crisis represents a real threat and if the global financial crisis continues to deepen these challenges for Australia will become tougher and tougher and tougher,” he said.

“That’s just the reality.”

The reality, of course, is that the tighter the budget becomes, the harder it will be to justify a pointless emissions trading scheme.

Westpac chief economist Bill Evans says it is likely the Budget will slide into deficit in 2009-10 because of the need for more economic stimulus next year.

And when is the ETS due to be introduced? 2010. Labor has a record for economic mismanagement even at the best of times, and it is inevitable that Krudd & Co will be no different. Add to that the significant effect of an ETS, despite what the Treasury says, and you have a recipe for economic disaster.

I look forward to the “revised” Treasury modelling for the ETS – how long do you think I’ll have to wait?

Read it here.