The Family First Senator wins his first ACM ICOTD Gong for this beauty:

DIVORCE adds to the impact of global warming as couples switch to wasteful single lifestyles, Family First senator Steve Fielding says.

He told a Senate hearing on today that divorce led to a “resource-inefficient lifestyle” and it would be better for the planet if couples stayed married.

When couples separate, they need more rooms, more electricity and more water, which increases their carbon footprint.

“We understand that there is a social problem (with divorce), but now we’re seeing there is also environmental impact as well on the footprint,” Senator Fielding said.

Bravo – a worthy winner.

Read it here.

UPDATE: Check out Steve Fielding’s new position on AGW here – it’s quite a reversal!

Unable to do any detailed posts today due to other commitments, but the media is full of the woes of the ETS. Whatever happens, at least people are thinking about it carefully now, and Penny Wong won’t get an easy ride…

See here, here and here, for example.

Hopefully back to normal blogging later.

The first ACM poll is up and running. Given the Coalition’s announcement today that it is heading further green than the Government, what do you think their policy on “climate change” should be?

The poll closes in two weeks.

Fairfax Media has joined forces with the Marxist environmental group WWF, to organise this year’s “Earth Hour”:

This year it is aiming for a billion people. WWF Australia, which is organising the event with Fairfax Media, publisher of the Herald, and the advertising agency Leo Burnett, hopes support on that scale will push the world’s politicians to reach agreement on climate change in Copenhagen in December.

Given Fairfax’s climate alarmist editorial agenda, it should come as no surprise.

Read it here.

Despair. Instead of Malcolm Turnbull calling Rudd’s bluff on the fallacy of human-induced climate change and the pointlessness of an economy-damaging ETS, as he should rightly be doing, he has taken the opposite path and is advocating even tougher emissions reductions in a desperate attempt to appear “greener than green”. But at least he’s pushing for an enquiry, which can’t be a bad thing:

“We will move as soon as possible to hold the inquiry Labor is too frightened to have,” Mr Turnbull told The Australian.

“We are committed to a more ambitious target and a more effective climate change policy. Labor’s current model appears too costly, too complex, and it is ineffectual in terms of cutting emissions.”

It is believed the Coalition will advocate a 2020 reduction target far higher than Labor’s proposed upper limit of 15 per cent, either by expanding the boundaries of the ETS to include emission-reducing activities currently excluded, such as biosequestration and revegetation, or by finding some other way to claim credit for reductions from those activities.

But Malcolm Turnbull appears to be trying to achieve the impossible – tougher emissions reductions but at lesser cost to business. It can’t happen.

Where are you, Barnaby Joyce?

Read it here.

One of the consequences of Penny Wong’s two-errors-in-four-words Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is that energy conservation by households will be a total waste of money.

“Individual efforts to reduce energy use will have absolutely no effect on the level of Australia’s emissions,” he said. “The least understood feature of the ETS is that the more effort households put into reducing their energy use, the more spare permits they are freeing up for the big polluters [it’s not pollution – Ed]. It is a zero-sum game.”

A spokeswoman for Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said every Australian should help reduce carbon pollution [again, it’s not pollution – Ed] and contribute to meeting Australia’s emissions reduction target.

“Improving energy efficiency in our homes will position Australia to set even more ambitious carbon pollution [yet again, it’s not pollution – Ed] reduction targets in the future,” she said.

But Mr Denniss dismissed these claims: “If Minister Wong is genuinely proud of her system, she should honestly and simply explain to the public that for the next 12 years at least, nothing they do to reduce their emissions will have any impact.”

I really worry about Penny Wong. I can only assume from the way she speaks that she hasn’t got the first clue about what her ETS is supposed to be reducing. If it’s pollution, it should be sold to the electorate as such. If it is carbon dioxide (and I’m tired of saying this) it’s NOT pollution!!

Read it here.

UPDATE: My fuse finally blew this morning – I wrote to Penny Wong asking her to justify her use of the term “carbon pollution” in relation to carbon dioxide. I will let you know if I get a response.

John Connor, CEO of the Climate Institute, is the winner of the ACM ICOTD Gong (for the second time, I might add – congratulations, John!) for the following remark in an interview with Stateline NSW, reported on the ABC website:

“Climate change is not just about warmer weather. It’s about wilder weather. Climate change costs … climate change kills.”

Read it here.

Precisely what planet are this Government on? Exactly one week after announcing a parliamentary review of the effectiveness of an ETS (see here), news reaches ACM that Treasurer Wayne Swann has told them “not to bother”.

[The] inquiry had become controversial today after comments by committee chairman Craig Thompson which threw the timetable of the ETS into confusion.

It appeared that the Government’s timetable for reporting later this year would prevent it getting its legislation through by July.

The committee has since clarified that by agreeing to issue an interim report.

But Treasurer Wayne Swan has asked the committee not to proceed.

He says the inquiry’s terms of reference had become politicised and distorted.

Entirely predictable. As I previously mentioned, Penny Wong’s comments during the past week demonstrate that the Government was not going to take any notice of the report anyway, so now it has taken the logical next step and said “Why bother with the report in the first place?”

This is truly unbelievable conduct by this morally bankrupt Government. They don’t even have the guts to subject their ETS to scrutiny for fear of it being exposed for the pointless political gesture that we all know it is.

Read it here.

UPDATE: The Liberals and the Greens are forming an unlikely alliance against all this government sleaze. Kevin Andrews, Liberal deputy chair of the enquiry, is hopping mad, saying the government is in disarray and running away from proper scrutiny (great minds etc…!):

“It deserves to have a proper airing in front of a parliamentary committee, and for the Government to be running away from it is quite extraordinary,” he said.

Mr Andrews says the move to cancel the inquiry could be unprecedented.

“I’m not aware of it in my years in Parliament of this occuring, but there’s been a whole mystery around this inquiry in the first place,” he said.

Greens Senator Christine Milne says the Government is playing games over the issue.

“When you treat climate change as a political opportunity rather than an a serious issue this is the kind of mess that you get into,” she said.

Ms Milne says the Senate will hold an inquiry into the scheme instead.

Let’s hope they do.

Read it here.

As always, a great read.

It would be fantastic to get some openly sceptical members into the Australian parliament, and now there is a party to go with it, The Climate Sceptics (www.climatesceptics.com.au) (thanks to CO2 Sceptics):

Dear fellow Australians

As President of the world`s first up front political party representing climate sceptics I am asking like minded friends and contacts across Australia to do two things to help us.

1) Pass this email onto your contacts and
2) Check our web site http://www.climatesceptics.com.au and consider becoming a member.

We want to get the news of our existence to every climate sceptic in the country and we need your help to do that.

Very best of luck to them!