Like it or not, Fairfax is splurging big on the pointless gesture that is Earth Hour (because it is a sponsor along with the enviro-headbangers at WWF), so here are the latest Fairfax Fantasy articles:

• Ice caps in trouble (yawn)
• Copenhagen or bust (double yawn)
• More Earth Hour tedium (too late, zzz…)

From today onwards, ACM is an “Earth Hour Free Zone”, and will be switching lights on for Earth Hour.

We all knew this anyway, but now an independent report, commissioned by the NSW government, has confirmed it:

The report by Frontier Economics shows the scheme will cost the national economy $2 trillion over the next 40 years, with the worst effects to be felt in regional Australia.

“The poorly designed Rudd Government emissions trading scheme will do very little for the environment, but do enormous damage to jobs – particularly in regional Australia,” [Malcolm Turnbull] said.

“It will result in us exporting thousands of jobs and exporting the emissions as well.”

“This report should set the alarm bells ringing at the highest levels in Government,” Independent Senator Nick Xenophon said.

But guess what is the predictable government response? It’s out of date, so chuck it in the nearest dumpster. Sort of like we should do with the Treasury modelling, I suppose?

Read it here.

Port Phillip Council, which houses the Melbourne Grand Prix track have had a sense of humour failure about the event, claiming:

it is “an outrage” that the race is held in Victoria while the state is “buffeted by climate change, dwindling oil reserves, water shortages and the global financial crisis”.
…
“After 14 years residents have had more than enough,” Cr Klepner said.

“Why should they have to suffer all that for a car race whose public price tag blew out to $41.3 million last year?”

Great – we’ll have it in Sydney, then. Sign here.

Read it here.

An Inconvenient Truth was far closer to fiction than fact (or so the UK High Court thought and there are 35 fundamental errors listed here), so you can bet the next one will be as well. That, however, will not prevent Gore from pocketing a substantial amount of money for writing this trash:

Nobel Peace Prize winner and former United States vice-president Al Gore will publish a follow-up to his global warming awareness bestseller An Inconvenient Truth in November. [Can hardly wait – Ed]

The book will be called Our Choice and will describe solutions to global warming, the environmental crusader and US publisher Rodale said in a statement. [I guess that would be the “global warming” that stopped in 2001, right? – Ed]

“An Inconvenient Truth reached millions of people with the message that the climate crisis is threatening the future of human civilisation and that it must and can be solved,” Mr Gore said.

Yawn. Next.

Read it here.

The Australian Workers Union lays into the ETS and Ross Garnaut, after Garnaut’s speech to the Greenhouse 2009 conference, in which he said the Government should scrap the compensation scheme for industry:

Workers union national secretary Paul Howes said Professor Garnaut was “bashing” emissions-intensive, trade-exposed industries that needed help to change to the new international carbon trading system.

“The professor’s speech to the Greenhouse 2009 conference in Perth is an example of an ego gone mad,” Mr Howes said.

“His new stance might make him a hero to certain inner-city Green elements, but … is an attack on regional Australia.”

And to demonstrate just how out of touch with reality Garnaut is:

Professor Garnaut said he expected the local economy to be in recovery by the time an emissions trading scheme began in July next year.

How convenient. Another computer model told him that, perhaps, or just wishful thinking?

Read it here.

This article, reprinted in The Australian, is full of half-baked theories presented as indisputable facts – disappointing for what was once one of the world’s great newspapers:

• “shed light on how global warming will change the world”
• “how much of the ice sheet will melt”
• “temperatures forecast to rise 7 degrees C in the next 100 years”
• “temperatures resembled those that could be expected if greenhouse emissions are not controlled“
• “If the ice sheet melts entirely in the decades ahead, the seas would be expected to rise by 7m”
• “in a world of man-made climate change.”

Why does The Australian print such unadulterated rubbish?

Read it here (if you dare).

A warm welcome back to the blogosphere for The Daily Bayonet, and an excellent article describing the path to skepticism, which will resonate with many, and which warmists themselves would do well to consider:

AGW is nothing but junk science supported by flimsy computer models designed and operated by alchemists. That Al Gore, a lifelong failure in every academic endeavor he ever undertook, leads this movement is the icing on the cake.
…
Why am I a skeptic? Because the first time I heard about the issue of AGW, it was Al Gore and David Suzuki telling me that the science was settled and the debate was over. Really? Science is settled? Show me anyone making that claim and I will show you someone unworthy of the respect due a scientist. The arrogance of the claim raised a red flag in my enquiring mind, and when I started to investigate, the hubris and dishonesty of the AGW proponents became immediately apparent, and this blog was born.

Read it here.

Journalism in a bubble, unrelated to what’s happening in the real world, you know, temperatures falling, sea levels falling, cyclone energy at lowest for 30 years etc etc…

THE top government scientist advising on how to adapt the nation to climate change warns that Australia will be forced to abandon some coastal communities in a “planned retreat” because of rising sea levels caused by global warming.

Andrew Ash, who leads the CSIRO’s Climate Adaptation Flagship program, told the Herald that while some vulnerable coastal places could be protected by sea walls and levees, “there are going to be areas where that is not physically possible or it’s not cost-effective to introduce any engineering solution and planned retreat becomes the only option”.

Warning that climate change was accelerating much more quickly than predicted, Dr Ash said state and local governments needed urgently to identify coastal land unsuitable for new residential development because rising sea levels and more frequent big storms would flood them with seawater.

Now back to the real world…

Read it here.

Earth Hour is being criticised from all sides – the Greenies think it’s a pointless political gesture, and the sceptics think it’s, er, a pointless political gesture. Given the choice, The Age will only focus on the first of these, of course:

As the organisers prepare for the switch-off at 8.30pm next Saturday, the event, in its third year and rapidly expanding internationally, is being criticised from both the left and the right.

Clive Hamilton, climate campaigner and author of Scorcher: The Dirty Politics of Climate Change, says that “we are well past the time for feel-good exercises aimed at raising awareness … it’s like the band playing on as the Titanic sinks”. There is a real danger that Earth Hour convinces people that we are making progress on climate change when we are not. And it lets business and government off the hook,” he says.
…
An analysis of the key sponsors of Earth Hour (among them Fairfax Media, owner of The Sunday Age) reveals that most have reported increased emissions in their most recent figures.

That’s because the reality of cutting emissions is nothing like the fairy-tale computer modelling carried out at the Treasury – it costs money and jobs… However, that doesn’t stop WWF from claiming some authority from the participation in Earth Hour:

WWF plans to interpret a huge switch-off as a global poll on climate change, a demand from 1 billion people that politicians take “strong action” at the international forums including the Copenhagen climate-change conference in December.

Read it here.

Another demonstration goes pear-shaped as the port of Newcastle gets one step ahead of the demonstrators (which, to be honest, ain’t that difficult) and cancels all shipping for the day. So the protestors end up blockading, er, nothing.