Terry McCrann, in today’s Herald Sun, has to spell out the blindingly obvious yet again (because no-one in government seems to get it, no matter how many times it is repeated). He describes the two delusions of Wong and Garnaut: first, that, despite the global economic crisis, nothing has changed in the climate change world (it certainly has, and the climate change agenda should change to match it), and second, that Australia should “go it alone”:

That was always a bad idea when the world economy was turning over in relatively good shape and China faced an endless boom that would pour money into Australia. We could afford to give up a little of our boundless prosperity for the good of the planet and to discharge our ‘moral duty’. However pointlessly.

Now it is quite simply both madness and irresponsible. Going it alone, to achieve precisely nothing, while putting the bulldozers through an already damaged economy.

Climate sense in a seriously deranged world. Read it all here.

Crikey, this kangaroo tastes bloody awful!

More on this post of yesterday, as the silliness spreads to the rest of Australia (bit like the weeds, really):

Scientists have warned that more government funding is needed to protect Australia against a climate-driven weed invasion.

And the following quote should go down in history as one of the funniest things EVER said about climate change:

“So it means that when members of the public say to the government ‘what are you doing about climate change? – the government should be saying ‘well look we’re investing in more weed control.'”

The Day of the Triffids is upon us.

Read it here (then hit self repeatedly over head with telephone directory until senses dulled)

Cognitive Dissonance: the uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously.

The BBC (Biased Broadcasting Corporation) is an expert at this, and trumpets “EU ‘resolute’ on climate targets” in its headline today (although now they’ve now modified it to read “EU ‘holds firm’ on climate goals“), when in fact nothing, and I mean nothing, could be further from the truth.

All of this is expertly deconstructed by Professor Philip Stott on Global Warming Politics. He juxtaposes the official statements with his imagined unofficial meanings, to hilarious effect:

Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi: “We don’t think this is the moment to push forward on our own like Don Quixote. Our businesses are in absolutely no position at the moment to absorb the costs of the regulations that have been proposed.”

Meaning: Pazzo! Mama Mia! There is more rubbish here than in Naples. Matto da legare! Morbo della mucca pazza has melted their brains. I’m not going to see our pasta industry go down the pan for this lot!

Enjoy – read it here.

P.S. Matto da legare is stark raving mad, and Morbo della mucca pazza is Mad Cow Disease, by the way!

The Age is really on fire this morning, with alarmist pieces literally falling over themselves. It thunders:

MORE than 700,000 Australian homes are vulnerable to rising sea levels, with up to $150 billion worth of homes, property and infrastructure at risk of seawater inundation, a parliamentary inquiry has heard.

Almost all Australians will be affected by rising sea levels, according to the Federal Government’s Department of Climate Change.

It then quotes Professor Will Steffen, director of the “Fenner School of Environment and Society” at ANU, who claims:

the science … has progressed significantly since the publication of the IPCC [report] last year.

True enough, but not in the way you think, mate. He then goes into full blown scaremonger mode:

“The concern is that a threshold may soon be passed beyond which we’ll be committed to losing most or all of the Greenland ice sheet,” said Professor Steffen. “This would lead to 6 metres of sea level rise (with enormous implications for Australia), although the time frame required to lose this amount of ice is highly uncertain, ranging from a century to a millennium or more.”

Wow, 6 metres, a figure like that will almost certainly get me some good publicity. Yes, it will, as long as we have newspapers like The Age that are dumb enough to print it.

Read it here.

“So Mr Garnaut, where’s the recipe for stewed kangaroo?”

This article in The Age is enough to make one lose one’s breakfast. Under a sycophantic photo of our deluded GG, Quentin Bryce, and Ross Garnaut, it croons:

Essential reading: Ross Garnaut discusses his book with Governor-General Quentin Bryce at the launch in Melbourne yesterday.

Essential for whom, exactly? Anyway, Garnaut then went on to spout his usual brand of alarmism and self-interest, hammering home his view that financial crises may come and go, but climate change won’t go away.

Read it here, if you dare.

Frank Devine, writing in The Australian, makes the point that human concerns are being obscured by the “evangelical fervour” of proponents of human error as the cause of climate change, and gives another example of how Hollywood is acting as a mouthpiece for environmental extremists:

For further evidence of this, see the animated movie WALL-E from the Pixar studios, which contributed Finding Nemo and The Incredibles to our enjoyment.

Technically dazzling and dramatically engrossing, WALL-E is also pernicious and propagandistic.

It portrays an Earth 700 years hence so ruined by human depredation that humans have been driven from it. They float in space in giant cruise ships, grotesquely obese, almost too sluggish to think, served by robots as they consume, consume, consume.

It’s easy to imagine the reaction of children seeing WALL-E: “Poor Earth! Bad people!”

The article concludes with a quote from former Czech president Vaclav Klaus:

Today’s debate about global warming is essentially a debate about freedom. The environmentalists would like to mastermind each and every possible (and impossible) aspect of our lives.

Indeed so. Read it here.

A great piece by Thomas Richard, over at Climate Change Fraud, about the striking differences between the scientific investigation of HIV/AIDS, and that of climate change:

It doesn’t take much hindsight to see what would have happened if HIV research had become a politicized organism. As it stands, every time research sheds new light on HIV, scientists around the world cheer on their colleagues. When new medication becomes available based on how the virus mutates, the media showers praise on this great accomplishment.
…
Like a roiling teakettle, those invested in the current CO2 theory don’t praise, support, or congratulate their fellow colleagues. They don’t bother to review the work or check the data. The new study and its author are attacked with screeching vehemence. Oddly and often enough, the attacks are non-specific and predominantly based on the study’s ‘abstract,’ which is nothing more than a snapshot of what’s inside.

Read it here.

A great read, as always!

Tom Switzer, former advisor to ex-Liberal leader Brendan Nelson, writes a timely and perceptive article in The Spectator about the position of the Coalition in the climate change debate. I encourage you to read it all. Here are a few key quotes:

Amid economic uncertainty, the new Liberal leader insists that ‘whatever Australia does will be ineffective unless it is part of a global solution’; and yet he also remains committed to a 2011 or 2012 start date for the implementation of an ETS regardless of the outcome of the Copenhagen global conference in December 2009.

Which raises the obvious point: why even make plans to implement an ETS now? If the world’s major emitters such as China, India and the US — which together will account for more than 50 per cent of global emissions by 2030 — won’t participate in any serious carbon reduction plans, why should Australia — which will account for only 1 per cent of global emissions — slash emissions to 60 per cent of 2000 levels in the next 40 years?

Absolutely – why are politicians incapable of grasping this blindingly obvious point?

In the midst of a global financial crisis, moreover, it is surely Pollyanna-ish to think the world will somehow reach a consensus on climate change. The Chinese government is not only refusing to cut its emissions; it is building a new coal-fired plant nearly every week. The Indian government is not only rejecting Rudd-style cuts; it is unashamedly saying poverty poses a greater threat to its people than climate change.

Spot on again.

In any case, conservatives won’t be able to attack effectively the government’s global warming scheme if they remain carbon copies of Labor. When all is said and done, Turnbull and his shadow environment minister Greg Hunt agree with virtually everything that Rudd and his climate change minister Penny Wong say about taxing industry and redistributing the proceeds at potentially huge cost to the economy.

The only point of difference is the start date: the government supports a deadline of 2010; the opposition says no later than 2012 — no matter what the rest of the world does. But by putting forward a simple, sharp critique of this costly and risky scheme at a time of global economic turmoil and when no global consensus exists, the Coalition would be better able to feel the pain of battlers who will suffer most from higher energy prices as companies pass on costs.

It is nothing short of brilliant. READ IT ALL!

Why would she do that, unless she had no idea whatsoever of the role she has accepted? She’s the Queen’s representative in Australia, and therefore above politics, but here she is, helping none other than Ross Garnaut, launch the book version of his report – a highly political document prepared for the Labor Government.

Recently appointed governor-general Quentin Bryce, who introduced Professor Garnaut at the launch, called on all Australians to get involved in the issue.

“I invite all Australians to be a part of the most important conversation we will ever have,” the governor-general said.

We’re always happy to have a conversation, it’s the alarmists that say the debate is over.

“We have an obligation as a public officer to endeavour to understand the human face of hardship and suffering, the private dimension to widespread crisis.”

“We have an obligation as a public officer” – is that the royal “we” in use there? I think she’s getting a bit above herself… Read the rule book again, please Ms Bryce.

Read it here.