More news on this. Don’t know why, but the movie world seems to generate more than its fair share of people who feel themselves qualified to comment on environmental matters, so it comes as little surprise that Sydney’s own Cate Blanchett has agreed to open this CFGF (I’m getting a little tired of typing “carbon-fuelled gab-fest” every other post):

Metropolis Association president Jean-Paul Huchon said the global financial meltdown would dominate talks.

“The message is don’t stop thinking about climate change, don’t stop thinking about sustainable development, but give the cities the means and the money to fund their… investments,” Mr Huchon said.

Wild horses wouldn’t keep me away…

Read it here.

We would expect nothing less, of course, but he’s really on top form with a string of alarmist comments with no basis in fact which he will inflict on the poor, unsuspecting people of Lismore on 1 November:

Our climate is changing faster than most scientists had predicted and greenhouse emissions are increasing faster than the International Panel on Climate Change’s worst scenarios.
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If the globe warms more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels, the impacts will be too severe and the risks of runaway climate change too great.
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We only have a few years to turn around global emissions or 2°C warming will be locked in.

The more evidence that comes to light that “global warming” (which stopped in 2001) has nothing to do with CO2 emissions, the more desperate the alarmists get.

Read it here.

See what I mean (see last post)? In Sydney this time – the World Congress of Metropolis (reported here), at which delegates from 100 global cities will enjoy free hospitality at their respective taxpayers’ expense for doing very little for three days. Given the carbon footprint will be about the size of Botany Bay, let’s hope they’re not discussing climate change, because that would be rank hypocrisy… oops, they are:

It will address issues facing cities around the world including climate change, financing public infrastructure, urban renewal, and social sustainability.

In fact, none other than Dr Rajendra Pachauri himself, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, will be here – I sure hope he’s paid for his carbon offsets. What do you think?

Read it here.

95% of the world’s carbon emissions could be cut at a stroke if politicians could resist the temptation to fly all over the globe to attend pointless “climate talks”. The latest one is being held in Tokyo, where mayors or senior officials from the world’s largest 36 cities were gathering for two days of talks. First question – what on earth can “mayors” do to address climate change? Second question – who are these mysterious “senior officials”? Sounds like a first rate jolly to me (if you like sashimi, of course).

Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara (a “celebrated novelist”) used characteristically poetic language to condemn Russia and the US for disputing rights to the North Pole, noting (incorrectly, as we now know) that the polar ice cap was melting at a record pace (who on earth briefs these people?):

“Such is the ego of human beings. It’s such a foolish tale,” Ishihara said.

Commenting on climate change, he said:

“It’s easy to share a sense of crisis, but if you can’t come up with specific measures to deal with this, then the crisis will only get worse,” Ishihara said.

It turns out that the meeting of the C40 climate initiative was started by none other than dear old “Red” Ken Livingstone, erstwhile Mayor of London and full-time Communist. Suddenly it all makes sense. It is typical of our Ken to devise as many pointless opportunities to spend taxpayers’ money whilst at the same time enjoying all-expenses-paid overseas trips to attend utterly pointless conferences. It’s just surprising that so many other apparently sane civic leaders went along with it.

Read it here.

Another great read from Andrew Bolt, who turns the tables on the AGW alarmists’ cries that we should “look at the arctic”, where ice is up over 30% compared to the same time last year. He also discusses the Canadian election:

Voters last week gave the Left-wing Liberal Party its worst hiding in a century, returning the Conservative Party of Stephen Harper.

What hurt the Liberals was their promise of a Green Shift – a global warming tax on carbon dioxide emitters, with compensation to the poor for the higher power bills.
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Canada’s Prime Minister denounced the Green Shift as a job-killing disaster: forget useless gestures to “save” the planet; save your jobs.

Read it here.

It turns out that the lead author of this letter is a certain Barrie Pittock, who was a contributor to the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report. So we know his agenda…

Former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser is weighing in on the climate debate by supporting a recent letter from 40 scientists (reported here) which urges the Government to blunder on with an ETS regardless of the effects to the economy. Fraser, like most pollies, has no clue about the realities of climate or an ETS, and compares it, like so many others, to an insurance policy:

“Are you going to stop insuring your house against fire because of economic problems?” he asked.

No, because if your house burns down, the insurance will (should) pay up to enable you to build a new one. On the other hand, let’s just remind ourselves, if Australia cuts its emissions to zero tomorrow, it will have zero effect on the climate, even if CO2 drives temperature. It will, however, have a catastrophic effect on our economy and our standards of living.

Politicians, even those with as much experience as Malcolm Fraser, can be unbelievably naïve sometimes.

Read it here.

Climate Penny has admitted that taxpayers are paying $146,000 a day for adverts peddling warnings about climate change. Senator Eric Abetz has been doing a great job of exposing the Environment Department’s outrageous spending on climate change matters.

“No wonder Climate Change Minister Wong refused to reveal the cost of this advertising when the campaign was launched in July,” Senator Abetz said.

“This is an astonishing amount of money to be spent given that the Government legislation has not yet been drafted, let alone gone anywhere near enactment.”

Wong then went into Pavlov’s-Dog mode, and accused Abetz of being a “sceptic”. How predictable. It just goes to show how much money is required to sell the lie of climate change to an increasingly suspicious Australian public.

Read it here.

More on this story. Climate Penny has put the frighteners on the solar industry by spectacularly failing to guarantee the solar rebate will continue, after it proved financially crippling.

Senator Wong repeatedly batted away questions about how long the rebate would continue for.

She would not guarantee the rebate would still be in place in January, or for the full financial year.

And even The Age concedes:

The average solar panel installation cost $14,600, not including the rebate, and is a relatively small 1.22 kilowatt system.

In other words, it’s a huge outlay for a Climate Token Gesture. Read it here.

Whenever these desperate climate bores think their precious agenda is losing public interest, they band together and write a letter. Blatant Self-Interest Alert:

More than 40 of Australia’s top scientists are urging the Federal Government not to let the world financial crisis stop urgent action on climate change.
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Professor Barry Brook from Adelaide University says scientists are concerned that global warming seems to be slipping off the global agenda.

“So I think it’s disappointing in the sense that right now the interest is not in solving the climate problem in a serious way,” he said.

Prof Brook is head of “climate change studies”, and his career, along with 99.9% of the other signatories to this letter, is on the line if AGW turns out to be a complete hoax.

Read it here.