As Andrew Bolt reports:

Days after being challenged here to come out of the closet, Craig Emerson peeks out:

FEDERAL Small Business Minister Craig Emerson has split from Kevin Rudd and ministerial colleagues by declaring science is undecided on key aspects of the global warming debate.

Dr Emerson yesterday became the first minister in the Rudd Government to cast doubt on the assertion that scientific evidence was conclusive for a catastrophic meltdown of the polar icecaps if global warming was not curtailed.

He said he would like to see scientists settle the question of what would happen to sea-level rises and the polar icecaps as a result of climate change.

Sadly, Emerson embarrasses himself – and will once day blush at his timidity – by still hiding behind this deceitful evasion:

“The science is in that we are experiencing climate change and we need to act to deal with it,” Dr Emerson told The Australian.

Give it time. Being sceptical will soon be the new cool.

Read it here.

Weatherzone reports that Charlotte Pass in NSW recorded the lowest ever April temperature:

This is the lowest temperature recorded anywhere in Australia in April and is 13 below the average. Nearby at Perisher it dipped to minus 11 degrees and at the top of Thredbo it dipped to minus 10.

Across the border, on the Victorian Alps April records were broken at Mt Hotham where it chilled to minus eight degrees and Mt Buller and Falls Creek where it got as low as minus seven.

Global warming sure is a bitch.

Read it here.

In the same story in The Australian, it transpires that a photo of the Wilkins Ice Shelf, taken 13 months ago and used widely to spread alarm about climate change, has been used again last month to, er…, spread alarm about climate change.

British newspaper The Observer this month published prominently a story with a photograph of breaks in the Wilkins shelf.

“A huge ice shelf in the Antarctic is in the last stages of collapse and could break up within days in the latest sign of how global warming is thought to be changing the face of the planet,” the story began.

In March last year, US news agency msn published the same photograph with a similar story that began: “A vast ice shelf hanging on by a thin strip looks to be the next chunk to break off from the Antarctic Peninsula, the latest sign of global warming’s impact on Earth’s southernmost continent.” The photograph was published by numerous other outlets, including The Australian.

A spokeswoman for the British Antarctic Survey said the photograph in both stories was taken in March last year.

Nationals Senate leader and climate hero Barnaby Joyce is rightly hopping mad:

Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce said the misuse of the photograph and the similar story lines 13 months apart reflected how the Wilkins ice shelf break-up was being recycled annually to fuel global warming concerns.

Senator Joyce said Mr Garrett’s entry into the debate demonstrated how it was being hijacked by misinformation.

“We are on the edge of a possible pandemic that could cause untold misery and people are running around tilting at windmills,” he said.

Read it here.

The government, increasingly desperate to keep the ETS going, has launched an attack on the Greens for adopting an “unrealistic” emissions stance, and at the same time, Penny Wong and Peter Garrett are squaring up for handbags at ten paces about sea level rises.

To the Greens first, who have been spanked down by Greg Combet for their emissions reduction proposals:

“The Greens currently are arguing for a 40 per cent cut in emissions by 2020,” he said.

“That’s like taking the back of the axe to the economy potential in the absence of a wider international agreement. [Economy potential?? – Ed]

“They need to get towards a far more realistic position.”

But on the other hand, the government’s proposal, assuming CO2 were involved in climate change (which it isn’t), would make not a kangaroo’s fart of difference, Australia contributing only 1.5% to global emissions. The line they are treading here is about a micron thick…

On to Wong and Garrett, who are slugging it out about sea level rises due to melting of the Antarctic (last time I checked, Antarctic ice was way above average, but I’m splitting hairs…):

Federal government sources said Climate Change Minister Penny Wong was disappointed with the way her ministerial colleague, Peter Garrett, weighed into the debate about global warming [surely “climate change” – Ed], claiming sea levels could rise by 6m as a result of melting in Antarctica. Senator Wong yesterday pointedly refused to indicate whether she supported Mr Garrett’s view.

“The impacts of climate change are being seen in many ways, from sea level rise through to extreme weather events,” Senator Wong said yesterday. [Wrong on both counts, Penny – Ed]

“Climate change is a clear and present danger to our world that demands immediate attention.” [Adaptation, maybe. Attention? No – Ed]

Senator Wong declined to nominate potential levels to which seas could rise.

Why so coy, Penny? Debate’s over – science is settled. Let’s have the figure please.

Read it here and here.

Just as King Canute tried to stop the tide coming in (and failed miserably), so the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton will try to “tackle climate change”, and likewise, they will fail miserably. The only difference being that this time, it will cost billions of people trillions of dollars, and probably cost millions of lives in developing countries.

”Climate change is a clear and present danger to our world that demands immediate attention,” she said.

”It is a threat that is global in scope but local and national in impact.

”We know climate change threatens lives and livelihoods. Desertification and rising sea levels generate increased competition for food, water and resources. [Show me the rising sea levels and desertification, please – Ed]

”But we also have seen the dangers that these trends pose to the stability of societies and governments. We see how this can breed conflict, unrest and forced migration.

”So no issue we face today has broader, long-term consequences, or greater potential, to alter the world for future generations.”

Climate changes, that’s what it does. Trying to stop it is nonsensical. Adaptation is the key. But you can’t expect governments to pass up the opportunity to tax people out of existence, can you?

Read it here.

Because some people are now, finally, beginning to realise that humanity cannot control nature, and it cannot “tackle climate change”, I thought you would enjoy this famous routine by comedian George Carlin, which sums up the whole conceit brilliantly. Warning: contains strong language.

Enjoy!

This disaster of a President goes from bad to worse, as evidenced by this unintended hilarious utterance on climate change, said without any hint of irony:

“We have watched as scientific integrity has been undermined and scientific research politicised in an effort to advance predetermined ideological agendas,” Obama said.

Er, how about the IPCC for starters? Obama’s intellect is so dull he probably won’t get the joke…

Read it here.

This is excellent news. The Australian has always shown itself to be the only newspaper with a balanced approach to the issue of climate change, but in an editorial today it goes several steps further, by harshly criticising Robert Manne’s hysterical diatribe in response to Ian Plimer’s book:

Surely a measure of scepticism is healthy for a scientist. Professor Manne’s dogmatic approach is questionable in light of the complexities surrounding climate change. Much of Antarctica is cooling, for instance, and ice is expanding in much of the region. Contrary to popular belief, extensive Antarctic melting would be required to raise sea levels substantially. Not that the trend is new. As long ago as 1995, this newspaper reported that the sheet of snow and ice covering Antarctica was growing. Scientists speculated it was an early indicator of global warming, and that the extra ice would increase sea levels when it eventually melted over 10,000 years.

Such a scenario does not support Professor Manne’s belief that “humanity is at present marching, with eyes wide open, towards disaster”. It lends greater credence to Danish economist Bjorn Lomborg’s view that the immense cost of cutting greenhouse emissions in nations such as Australia would be better spent redressing malnutrition and preventable disease.
…
That the climate is changing is undisputed – it has done so for millions of years, notably before the Industrial Revolution. Given that the levels of carbon emissions have been measured only relatively recently, it remains to be be proved that their rise is the major driver of global warming. In the meantime, The Australian accepts the IPCC finding that the evidence of climate change calls for global intervention [This sentence is the only black mark. No-one should accept anything the IPCC says, but at least we’re moving in the right direction – Ed]. A pragmatic approach, including investment in carbon sinks, renewable energy and clean coal research, is prudent. And nuclear power cannot be discounted forever in Australia. Professor Plimer’s sceptical eye on climate science is not to be dismissed as the “zealotry” of a “pseudo-sceptical scientist”.

And in a separate article, another convert (apparently as a result of Plimer’s book) writes about the “hubris” of believing that humanity can affect climate:

According to this scenario, human beings are the most important players in the history of the planet; they are the lords and masters who can destroy things as well as set them right. This belief in the capacity of humans to control the environment is very old. In some ancient civilisations the ruler was supposed to have the power to create a beneficial climate. If there were a prolonged drought, then the ruler sometimes was expected to make the ultimate sacrifice to propitiate the gods. During the depths of the Little Ice Age in Europe, some communities asked God for forgiveness of their sins so that a better climate might return.
…
Yet, reading Ian Plimer’s excellent Heaven and Earth, what impresses one about his extraordinary account of the Earth’s history and its climate is the many forces of nature that are beyond human control. These range from cosmic radiation to the movement of continents and the force of volcanoes. In so many ways we are just spectators, pilgrims who spend a short time on Earth.

That so many people need climate change in the face of the immense forces of nature can be put down to human hubris. They want the illusion of control, and the tool that they use to further that illusion is no longer religion but the state.

Bravo, The Australian!

Read it here and here.

An article in The Guardian this morning (reprinted in The Sydney Morning Herald), in which the current solar inactivity is dismissed as irrelevant in the whole “climate change” debate, made my hackles rise:

[Professor Nigel Weiss of Cambridge University] said there was even a chance that Earth might be heading for a low as deep as the historic lows of the 17th century, known as the Maunder minimum. Either side of that trough, Europe shivered through the Little Ice Age, when frost fairs were held on the Thames. [At least The Guardian acknowledges the existence of the LIA, unlike most of the IPCC – Ed]

Should we expect another freeze? Those who claim the rise in temperatures we have seen over the past century are predominantly the result of intense solar activity might argue that we should, but they are in the minority. [Science isn’t about consensus, or who has the greater numbers – Ed]

Most scientists believe humans are the main culprit when it comes to global warming, and Professor Weiss is no exception. [Note the use of “no execption” i.e to the rule – Ed]

Even if we had another, similar low, he said, it would probably only cause temperatures on Earth to drop by the order of a tenth of a degree – peanuts compared to recent rise. So do not pack the sunscreen away just yet.

So a previous solar minimum was enough to cause a mini-Ice Age, but this one will only drop temperatures a tenth of a degree? The logic is baffling.

The Left-wing elite, and their attendant media, have such a high opinion of themselves, and the powers of the human race, that they genuinely believe that they can have an effect on the climate of this planet. They never look beyond their lattés at the reality of earth and its environment within the solar system and the universe. The universe is a hostile and violent place, and earth has, for much of its existence, been far from benign. We are fortunate that we live in an era of relative stability on earth, but as Ian Plimer demonstrates in his book, Heaven and Earth, the planet has gone through some unimaginable times – extinctions, Ice Ages, massive volcanic eruptions, cosmic ray bursts from nearby supernovae – all of which humans have no control over.

And anyway, what’s so special about humanity anyway? We are little more than a scum on the surface – a product of evolution in very fortunate circumstances – and we have no special place in the universe, certainly not one powerful enough to affect a climate controlled by a raging thermonuclear reaction which has been burning on our doorstep for 4.5 billion years. The forces at work in the universe, and the scales involved, are immense, far beyond comprehension even for cosmologists, so it’s hardly surprising that politicians and journalists do not have an inkling.

“Look at the IPCC models,” they cry. The IPCC models hardly take any notice of solar effects, water vapour, cloud etc. They are all too hard, so they’re left out. And the result is that the earth has cooled since 2001, and not a single model predicted it correctly. And then you look at the history of climate change over the past billion years, as recorded in ice cores and other proxies, and there are clear correlations with the activity of the sun, the orbital position of the earth, and even the position of the solar system in the galaxy.

I hope that solar inactivity continues, and that cooling continues. Something like a repeat of the Maunder Minimum might just be enough to shock the liberal elite out of their cosy belief that the earth and its surroundings are benign and pure, and have been defiled only by the evils of humanity.

Where will it end? I’ll be out of a job in a minute! Bring back the climate madness! In two more excellent articles, The Australian brushes up its sceptic credentials, firstly on the science:

The science of climate change continues to evolve and regardless of the outcome of the climate debate, observational data suggests that we may be served well by basing our climate agenda, scientifically and economically, on a broader perspective than that in the IPCC outlined scenarios. Our pollution abatement and energy diversification goals could then be formulated, and likely implemented, with less pain.

And secondly, on the propaganda machine:

Popular acceptance of the widely contested theory that climate catastrophe threatens us because of our clogging the atmosphere with carbon dioxide emissions gains ground with even the most frivolous and deceptive claims for its validity.

Attempts made to attribute the Victorian bushfires to climate change did not take root. But claims that climate change caused the collapse of an Antarctic ice bridge received worldwide and largely uncritical attention. Collapsing is what ice bridges do and have done for countless millennia.

All good stuff! Read them here and here.