The Carteret Islands are sinking due to their nature as an unstable atoll and the tectonic influences near the junction of the Australasian and Indian plates, but that doesn’t stop the ABC from branding the inhabitants “climate change refugees” – since when has climate change affected the movement of the earth’s crust?

Rising sea levels [falling land levels] means the atolls which make up the Carteret Island group are regularly affected by saltwater flooding, which is destroying fresh water reserves and food gardens, which sustain an estimated 1400 people. But by the end of the year many of them are likely to be amongst the world’s first climate refugees [actually, just “refugees”], as the autonomous Bougainville government wants to begin resettling them on mainland Bougainville.

But if it had been a simple case of a sinking island, it wouldn’t be newsworthy, would it?

Climate nonsense.

Read it here.

Just for interest…

Compare with 7 February…

(Images from the Bureau of Meteorology)

Anyone is entitled to plug the alarmist agenda in The Age, even war historians. When reading this, keep in mind that there has been no global warming since 2001:

ONE of the hardest things for Victorians to accept, is that these bushfires have signalled a new world order. Black Saturday confirmed the planet has now entered a new stage of its existence — the post global-warming period. If we are to survive as a species we need to use this benchmark to make essential changes.
…
Once [politicians] accept global warming is here, they can pioneer strategies banning forest settlements, enforcing clearing around houses and perfecting early warning systems and mandatory evacuation plans. It may be hard to accept very much reality but it would be irresponsible for our leaders not to redesign our future in light of global warming. Such vision would not only help residents but would honour those killed in action in these fires.

Historian Jonathan King’s most recent book was The Western Front Diaries, commemorating the 90th anniversary of the end of WWI.

Even assuming that “global warming” is taking place, I agree with one thing – adaptation is the key, not pointless emissions trading schemes.

Read it here.

Interviewing Chris Darwin, the great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin, Martin Flanagan of The Age shoots the paper’s own alarmist editorial agenda in the foot:

I ask him what he thinks about last weekend’s bushfires. “I would have got toasted,” he says. “I would have stayed with my house.” Does he equate the fires with climate change? “It’s hard to tell from a single traumatic incident,” he says. “But interpreting a single event as a global phenomenon can be a big mistake.” It is not, he assures me, what Charles Darwin would have done.

That’s because Charles Darwin was a proper sceptical scientist, not like most of the “scientists” today, riding on a bandwagon of trillions of dollars of “climate change” research funding.

Better luck next time.

Read it here.

Remember Kevin Rudd, jetting off to Bali in the first blush of his term of office, to ratify the Kyoto Protocol? Remember that Howard was the great climate change denier who, like George W Bush, had refused to ratify it? Remember how the liberal media raved about the decision?

Well, far from being just a pointless political gesture (which it still is), it is also potentially a huge burden on Australia’s weakened economy. The Australian reports that the UN has imposed a new target on cutting greenhouse emissions – and if Australia fails to meet it, could cost the Government $870 million in carbon credits.

But putting aside the detailed forecasts, calculations and estimates, which will be disputed right through until the end of 2012, two indisputable facts emerge: there is a huge potential cost to business and taxpayers through the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol and the global financial crisis has created uncertainty, even chaos, for emissions trading schemes and carbon markets across the world.

The global recession is changing all the estimates for economic growth, and therefore greenhouse gas emissions, for the short and medium terms.

In the face of all this change the Rudd Government, through the Climate Change Minister, is framing an emissions trading scheme that requires big investment to establish a workable price that will offset carbon emissions and eventually force them down.

Climate Madness in Kruddistan.

Read it here.

It certainly looks that way. One minute it’s a new enquiry, and the next it’s full steam ahead as planned. If it’s the latter, what’s the point of the former?

The Opposition, which has yet to finalise a position on the ETS, said the Government appeared confused about its own policies.

“They are either in complete disarray or they are trying to back out of it,” Opposition emissions trading spokesman Andrew Robb said.

“They have told us for three years an ETS is the central arm of their policy. Now we are having an inquiry into whether it still should be the central arm, and that inquiry is scheduled to report after we are supposed to have already legislated an ETS.”

Nationals leader Warren Truss said “the terms of reference released today for a new parliamentary inquiry into the economic impact of its ETS are a welcome sign that the Government is beginning to appreciate that its ETS is not likely to be effective and has huge economic ramifications for our country“.

Read it here.

As usual a great read.

[ACM blog owner falls off chair in shock at reading this article]. The Daily Telegraph is reporting that the Government’s emissions trading scheme has been put on hold and might not be introduced on schedule in 2010:

A parliamentary committee has been asked to inquire into the effectiveness of emissions trading as a means to reduce carbon pollution. [I can answer that: zero – Ed]

The inquiry committee will report “in the second half of 2009”.

Legislation for the Government’s already-announced carbon reduction scheme was expected about July.

However, this inquiry might put it off for another 12 months, depending on its outcome.

Emissions trading is the core mechanism of the proposed scheme, and it would increase costs to business and households.

“Maybe the Government has decided there is no appetite for the cost of an emissions trading scheme when the economy is in trouble,” a Liberal source said.

I’ll believe it when I see it.

Read it here.

UPDATE: The Sydney Morning Herald reports:

Plans for emissions trading appear to be up in the air after the federal government called a fresh inquiry into the scheme. The surprise move has sparked speculation the government could delay, overhaul or ditch its main plan to tackle climate change.

Labor has promised to start emissions trading next year and has finished an intensive process to design the scheme.

Now it’s back to the drawing board.

Treasurer Wayne Swan has asked a parliamentary committee to investigate whether emissions trading is the best option for Australia after all. [It isn’t – Ed]

All we can hope is that they don’t come up with something worse.

But Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull said the government was having second thoughts.

“You can see the government is getting ready to abandon the emissions trading scheme,” Mr Turnbull told parliament.

“What’s going to happen if the house economics committee concludes that the emissions trading scheme is not an appropriate response, and it’s already been legislated for?”

The opposition’s spokesman on emissions trading, Andrew Robb, said the government appeared to be backing off on the emissions trading scheme.

“It seems to be they’re running around like headless chooks on this,” Mr Robb said.

Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce said Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had experienced an epiphany and realised emissions trading would force people out of work.

Read it here.

A couple of articles that actually address the real problem, rather than the knee-jerk, Pavlov’s Dog response of the environmentalists: “climate change.” And guess who is at the root of the problem, none other than the greenies themselves, for opposing hazard reduction burns.

From The Australian today:

THE green movement was yesterday blamed for the severity of the Victorian fires that cost so many lives and ruined so much property.

David Packham, a former supervising meteorologist for fire weather nationwide at the Bureau of Meteorology, said environmentalists’ politically successful campaign to stop controlled vegetation burning off allowed the Black Saturday fires to rage uncontrollably. “The green movement is directly responsible for the severity of these fires through their opposition to prescribed burning,” Mr Packham said.

“Elements of the movement are behaving like eco-terrorists waging jihad against prescribed burning and fuel management. They believe fundamentally that if we keep all fire out of Australia’s forests, the trees will grow, the canopies will close up, the ground will become moist and there will be no fires. This is absolute and total nonsense.“

Read it here.

UPDATED: And Miranda Devine in The Sydney Morning Herald makes the same point:

Governments appeasing the green beast have ignored numerous state and federal bushfire inquiries over the past decade, almost all of which have recommended increasing the practice of “prescribed burning”. Also known as “hazard reduction”, it is a methodical regime of burning off flammable ground cover in cooler months, in a controlled fashion, so it does not fuel the inevitable summer bushfires.
…
Teary politicians might pepper their talking points with opportunistic intimations of “climate change” and “unprecedented” weather, but they are only diverting the blame. With yes-minister fudging and craven inclusion of green lobbyists in decision-making, they have greatly exacerbated this tragedy.

Read it here.

The ABC are being rather coy about explaining quite what “hijacked” meant (see here for the original story). I have sent two emails and called the News Radio office, and I am still waiting for an explanation…

Why the reticence, I wonder? I’ll keep you posted.