As always, a great read!

Interviewing geoscientist Michael Asten on Radio National’s Counterpoint, Paul Comrie-Thomson couldn’t resist plugging the ABC’s alarmist agenda by trying to smear Asten as being in the pay of “big oil”. I’m glad to report that he got it all back from Asten, with interest:

Paul Comrie-Thomson: Michael Asten, I’m going to ask you a question from left field; are geologists influenced in this debate by their connection to mining and petroleum industries?

Michael Asten: Oh yes, the bogey of being funded by big oil, Paul. The reality is that geologists are exposed from about their second week of first-year studies to the Earth’s history of climate change. Climate changes on a daily cycle and dozens of other cycles all the way through to some cosmic cycles a couple of hundred million years long. So geologists are not surprised that we’re seeing a change in climate.

Hey, do you think Al Gore may stand to benefit a teensy-weensy little bit from scaring people witless about climate change? No one ever mentions that, of course, but when a scientist gets some loose change from an oil company and it’s scandal, outrage, shock horror…

Read the transcript here (the whole thing is an interesting read).

On Tuesday it was the AFP in the dark on their climate enforcement role, now it’s handbags at ten paces between the federal and state governments regarding compensation for increased energy costs as a result of the ETS [Funny, you never hear about the increased energy costs to consumers from Penny Wong – Ed]. Anyway, Penny says no more money for states, but the Greens say that states should be compensated. And what is Greg Combet’s response?

Assistant Climate Change Minister Greg Combet says the states should try to be more energy efficient.

But he says where they do face higher costs they are expected to pass them on to householders who are receiving compensation.

So here’s a quick quiz, which do you think the states will do – spend gazillions on more energy efficiency, or just pass all the extra costs onto ratepayers?

Read it here.

It was always only a matter of time. Yesterday, I was blogging about the AFP’s new role as “carbon cops” and I wondered what the possible climate crimes might be. I guessed some kind of fraud or scamming. As if by magic, and right on cue, we have the perfect example from PNG:

The head of Papua New Guinea’s Office of Climate Change has reportedly been suspended amid allegations of improper deals involving carbon credits.

The national newspaper is reporting PNG’s cabinet has decided to suspend Dr Theo Yasause while dealings at the Office of Climate Change are investigated.

The investigation was launched after media reports said the office had been making million-dollar carbon trading deals with foreign companies before a policy and legislation were in place.

Read it here.

(h/t Climate Depot). Yet again we see alarmists fabricating scare stories, and providing misleading information which the global media unquestioningly accept and publish. Roger Pielke Sr takes the latest Real Climate “economies with the truth” apart:

Real Climate writes

“So what does it say? Our regular readers will hardly be surprised by the key findings from physical climate science, most of which we have already discussed here. Some aspects of climate change are progressing faster than was expected a few years ago – such as rising sea levels, the increase of heat stored in the ocean and the shrinking Arctic sea ice. “The updated estimates of the future global mean sea level rise are about double the IPCC projections from 2007″, says the new report. And it points out that any warming caused will be virtually irreversible for at least a thousand years – because of the long residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere.”

First, what is “physical climate science”? How is this different from “climate science”. In the past, this terminology has been used when authors ignore the biological components of the climate system.

More importantly, however, the author of the weblog makes the statement that the following climate metrics “are progressing faster than was expected a few years ago” ;

1. “rising sea levels”

NOT TRUE; e.g. see the University of Colorado at Boulder Sea Level Change analysis.

Sea level has actually flattened since 2006.

2. “the increase of heat stored in the ocean”

NOT TRUE; see

Update On A Comparison Of Upper Ocean Heat Content Changes With The GISS Model Predictions.

Their has been no statistically significant warming of the upper ocean since 2003.

3. “shrinking Arctic sea ice”

NOT TRUE; see the Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Anomaly from the University of Illinois Cyrosphere Today website. Since 2008, the anomalies have actually decreased.

These climate metrics might again start following the predictions of the models. However, until and unless they do, the authors of the Copenhagen Congress Synthesis Report and the author of the Real Climate weblog are erroneously communicating the reality of the how the climate system is actually behaving.

Media and policymakers who blindly accept these claims are either naive or are deliberately slanting the science to promote their particular advocacy position.

Read it here.

Oddly, they are going to spend their money on other things, like fighting poverty and boosting economic growth, rather than flushing it down the toilet on pointless “emissions reduction schemes” that will do nothing to change global climate.

India is one of the world’s biggest emitters alongside China, the US and Russia, and the second most populous nation.

But India’s per capita emissions lag far behind rich countries and it feels the developed world should take the lead on tackling climate change.

“India cannot and will not take emission reduction targets because poverty eradication and social and economic development are first and overriding priorities,” a statement on behalf of Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said.

A legally binding emission reduction target endangers India’s energy conservation, food security and transport, he said.

At least one country has its priorities right.

Read it here.

Too many cats, or too few? You’ve gotta love “climate change” – it’s so versatile!

(h/t Andrew Bolt)

“I’m greener than you!”
“No you ain’t!”
“Yes I am!”
“No you ain’t!”

Fight, fight, fight! I love it when the warm-mongers start beating the sh*t out of each other – saves us realists the bother!

Greenpeace has taken aim at leading climate scientist Tim Flannery, saying his backing of the government’s planned emissions trading scheme is unhelpful.

Professor Flannery told ABC television on Monday the Australian Greens should vote for the scheme because “a first step is better than nothing”.

Greenpeace spokesman Steve Campbell says that view is disappointing and unhelpful.

“Doing something in this case is worse than doing nothing,” he said.

Read it here.

One of the pernicious things about the ETS is the sticky tentacles it will extend into every area of life, even those areas over which no influence was ever intended. Take the role of the AFP for example. As we reported here (“Forget the Keystone Cops, here come the Carbon Cops”), the ETS bill will include an enforcement role for the AFP in relation to “climate crimes” – your guess is as good as mine as to what these would be, but given that there are huge amounts of money involved, you can bet that the whole scheme will be ripe for scamming and fraud.

And Penny Wong is being uncharactaristically reticent about revealing the AFP’s role in all of this (and, more importantly, whether resources will be increased to cover the additional workload):

Australian Federal Police Association chief executive Jim Torr says companies who fail to comply with the ETS would be committing a crime against the Commonwealth and it would fall to the AFP to investigate.

“Someone who cheats on the scheme will gain the competitive advantage against the majority of organisations, and I’m particularly talking about larger carbon emitters where the scale of the crime would make it profitable,” he said.

Mr Torr says they have approached Minister for Climate Change Penny Wong but her office will not release the details of any enforcement mechanisms in the legislation.

“This is going to become a bigger issue as the years go by, it could become the AFP’s number one crime type as years go by that we investigate,” he said.

He says more resources would be needed to carry out the investigations.

Can you believe it? Climate crime becoming the number one crime type? All because we introduce a totally pointless piece of legislation that will have repercussions well beyond what the government could ever imagine. Just one of thousands of reasons (apart from the main one, of course – it won’t work) why the ETS is simply bad law.

Read it here.

As you would expect, Tim “Flannel” Flannery is given a really rough ride on ABC’s Lateline by fellow alarmist Tony Jones, but old Flannelly does manage to give us a good laugh or two – and reveals a few unpleasant truths as well. Here are a few quotes:

TONY JONES: It’s not only industry, it’s certain key politicians. Senator Steve Fielding had a very important potential vote in the Senate, is now being described by the ‘Wall Street Journal’ as something like a prophet, which is quite unusual to see, and beyond that, there’s a view that Australia is emerging as a sort of epicentre of the new scientific scepticism.

TIM FLANNERY: Australia’s climate dinosaurs are a lot bigger and uglier than the climate dinosaurs elsewhere, that’s for sure. And it is depressing, because it’s just so counter-productive. And, you know, the amount of time industry will waste disputing the science and not getting on with the job of adjusting to the future and a new energy economy in this country is just dismaying.

The usual story – mind closed to any possibility of the science not being 100% correct. And then this, which is nothing short of astonishing:

TONY JONES: Let me ask you on another issue altogether. New laws are now being used to penalise protesters who stop or impede production at coal-fired power plants and smelters and so on. Do you think those protesters should be protected in some way? [Protected in some way? Why on earth would a presenter at ABC suggest that those committing criminal acts should somehow be immune from prosecution? – Ed]

TIM FLANNERY: Absolutely. I find this completely outrageous to see state governments who are doing next to nothing to secure the future of younger people in Australia, penalising those who care with absolutely punitive measures now, making them pay for their protests. It is just extraordinary and I find it just utterly immoral and despicable.

So we can add Flannery to the ever growing list of hysterics who think that the rule of law doesn’t apply to those trying to “save the planet”. And then it just gets worse:

TONY JONES: We’ve just seen NASA scientist Jim Hanson, I think you know him pretty well, arrested along with an actress outside a coal-fired power station in Virginia, something he describes as a “death factory”. Have you considered yourself that kind of direction action?

TIM FLANNERY: Look, I have. I think we’ve all got a job to do, and my job has over the last couple of years has been working with business and the more progressive end of the business spectrum. I have considered those sort of actions, but there’s probably a lot of young people who’ve got a lot more at stake than I have who are gonna get angrier over time and who are gonna demand action, and they’re probably the ones who are gonna carry the day in that area.

Just read that last sentence again, and think what it means – sounds almost like encouragement. Flannery is a disgrace – and so is Tony Jones and the ABC.

Read it here.