Those voices opposing change – or trying to delay it – are ignoring the expense of inaction. What is the cost of roads washed away, schools closed, homes inundated, and cities the size of Grafton and Lismore evacuated in the worst floods in 20 years in northern NSW? Insurance companies know, and you can bet premiums will rise. As an analyst from the global insurance giant Munich Re said last week, extreme weather disasters are on the rise while earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are not. How many glaciers need to melt, with potentially catastrophic consequences, before common sense prevails?

Beyond parody.

Read it here.

UPDATE: Even more idiotic comment from The Canberra Times:

A deal like this [between the US and China] will not end the climate crisis, even if all the other big emitters accept similar terms. Past emissions have already committed us to so much warming that there will be famines, waves of refugees and wars in some of the worst-hit regions no matter what we do now.

Beyond belief.

Read it here.

Looks like someone has been using second hand IPCC climate models to do some financial predictions – another perfect example of “garbage in, garbage out”.

THE Rudd Government’s emissions trading scheme could deliver a massive investment surge that would add more than $6 billion a year to the economy, according to secret economic modelling work produced as Parliament considers the fate of controversial climate-change laws.

An internal report by National Australia Bank seen by The Sun-Herald suggests the emissions trading debate in Australia has been dominated by claims about the short-term costs, and scant attention has been paid to new investment opportunities.

Believe this at your peril. Common sense dictates that taxing energy will stifle economies not boost them, but common sense is something modellers seem to have very little of. The only thing it confirms is that you can model something to give whatever result you want. Bear that in mind next time you hear an outrageous climate scare.

Read it here.

But for completely opposite reasons! The Greens want the legislation delayed so that when the negotiations in Copenhagen result in a tough, binding, global agreement (including the US, China and India) to cut emissions by 50% by 2020, Australia can sign up to it.

And now back to the real world, the Coalition want to delay it so that when Copenhagen goes off like a damp squib, as climate gab-fests tend to do (see here and here), they can argue for reduced emissions cuts.

Opposition emissions trading spokesman Andrew Robb said yesterday: “It would be irresponsible to rush this deeply flawed scheme through parliament by the end of June. We can have the debate after the Copenhagen meeting at the end of the year, with all the information on the table, without affecting Mr Rudd’s new start date.”

Malcolm Turnbull has said his climate change plan, which could be discussed by shadow cabinet on Monday, will advocate targets at least as ambitious as those proposed by the Government. [WTF? – Ed]

The Government had assumed it could force the Coalition to vote on the legislation in June, but now the Greens, Family First senator Steve Fielding and independent senator Nick Xenophon are saying they would consider a delay.

What game is Turnbull playing here? Trying to out-green Rudd? Forget it.

Read it here.

Now why would they do that, I wonder, unless it was through fear of seeing their baby exposed as the pointless exercise we all know it to be? Climate hero Barnaby Joyce is again the one asking the tough questions:

Senator Joyce says the Government is trying to make sure the inquiry favours its Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

“This is the same Labor Party that talked about the Howard government taking the Senate for granted as a rubber stamp,” he said.

“Now we find that once the pressure is on them, the first thing they do is start scripting so the Australian people can only hear one point of view.”

Can hardly expect the Kruddites to play fair, can you?

Read it here.

That’s the bleak outlook for mining in Australia, with three times that many jobs to go by 2030, thanks to the Rudd government’s pointless emissions trading scheme:

[Minerals] Council chief executive Mitchell Hooke says this showed the government’s proposed carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS) was out of step with global efforts to reduce emissions, with other international trading schemes and with the development of the low emissions technologies needed to reduce emissions.

“It will impose the highest carbon costs in the world on Australia’s mineral exporters,” he said in a statement.

“We share the government’s commitment to reducing emissions [why? – Ed] but this modelling shows the CPRS is fundamentally flawed. By imposing the highest carbon costs in the world on Australia’s mineral exporters, it will eliminate jobs while failing to materially reduce global greenhouse gas levels.”

That last sentence is certainly true – and it won’t do zip for the climate.

Read it here.

As always, a great read!

Pity the poor residents of Queensland. Their mornings go something like this: First you open your morning copy of The Brisbane Times (or any other of the Fairytale-fax press), and you get your first shot of climate change hysteria before you’ve even brushed your teeth. Then you get into your car to drive to the station, tune in to ABC, and you get your second dose (in case the first shot has worn off). And then, you get on a Queensland Rail train, and get subjected to a showing of the doom-mongering BBC documentary Planet Earth, which has been described thus:

This is an activist piece, even by the greener-than-thou standards of previous BBC productions, seeking to appeal to the audience that turned out to see Al Gore’s slice of climate change alarmism, An Inconvenient Truth. There’s even a website, LoveEarth.com, for those who want to find out more about how we can save the world. And it’s a moral film, firmly directed at children. (source)

Fortunately, at least one QR commuter was incensed enough to complain:

The BBC-produced Planet Earth was shown on a trip from Miriam Vale to Brisbane on May 1, and upset passenger John McMahon.

Mr McMahon wrote to Transport Minister Rachel Nolan expressing his disgust that passengers would be subjected to such “entertainment”.

“I find it disgraceful that a state government can inflict this mindless, apocalyptic, fear-mongering propaganda on to a ‘captured’ audience without providing a disclaimer that this is only one side of the debate,” Mr McMahon said.

I encourage everyone to follow Mr McMahon’s lead.

Read it here.

Appearing to “do something” about climate change trumps everything, of course – the economy, standards of living, auto manufacturers… Now Krudd & Co are proposing to impose mandatory limits on emissions for new cars in Australia, in a typical ill-considered “Kruddish” response to the holy words of the Obamessiah:

Transport and environment ministers will tomorrow consider options to improve energy-efficiency standards, including a recommendation for a mandatory standard to lower carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles.

A mandatory standard would be likely to provoke a backlash from car makers, who have campaigned for years to keep their system of pollution reduction a voluntary scheme.

Last night, the car industry warned the Government to think carefully about imposing a mandatory standard.”We would be concerned to ensure there is not a knee-jerk response to events in the US,” the chief executive of the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries Andrew McKellar said. [Er, that’s exactly what it is – Ed]

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday backed the US move, saying it was pleasing that America was adopting climate change measures.

No surprise there. Industry can go hang, where “tackling climate change” is concerned.

Read it here.

In pursuit of pointless “emissions reductions” to “tackle climate change” of course. So an industry which is teetering on the brink of collapse anyway will be forced to meet stricter emissions limits, which in turn, will put up prices for consumers. I’m all in favour of economical use of a limited resource, but given the fact that fuel efficiency has improved so much over the past decades anyway, this is madness.

The deal was forged in secret talks over the past few weeks between the car companies, environmentalists, unions and Mr Obama.

“For the first time in history we have set in motion a national policy aimed at both increasing gas mileage and decreasing greenhouse gas pollution for all new trucks and cars sold in the United States of America,” Mr Obama said.

Under the new rules, American cars and trucks will have to get 15 kilometres per litre by 2016. At the moment they average 10 kilometres per litre.

Good luck with that.

Read it here.