Australian Climate Madness

Productivity Commission

UPDATE at 11.15 AEST: Professor Judith Sloan, former member of the Commission, said this morning that it had been hamstrung by the very narrow terms of reference, which it must follow, that she had “serious reservations” about the report, and noted that the list of countries considered included no “competitor countries, such as Brazil, Canada or South Africa”. More to follow

The Productivity Commission, or your own eyes and ears? In the strange ivory tower that the Productivity Commission appears to inhabit, the world is rushing towards putting a price on carbon and tackling climate change, and Australia is lagging behind. Tony Windsor, one of the independents whose vote will determine whether Australia gets a carbon tax, has fallen for it, hook, line and sinker:

The independent MP who might decide the fate of Labor’s carbon tax says the Productivity Commission report released Thursday proves the rest of the world is acting on climate change.

Tony Windsor is a key member of the Multi-Party Climate Committee and was the one who requested the Productivity Commission crunch the global figures.

The commission found support for the Government’s claims that other world economies are taking significant measures to combat climate change.

It says price-based mechanisms, such as the one planned for Australia, are the most effective and least-costly way to reduce carbon pollution.

Mr Windsor says the report answers the question of whether the rest of the world is doing something.

“That’s a yes,” he said. “Some of the schemes and policies aren’t terribly cost effective, but there is an attempt to reduce emissions in the study countries the Productivity Commission looked at. (source)

But it’s all totally meaningless. The fact that the nine countries in the study (China, Germany, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States) are allegedly taking steps to reduce “pollution” (by which they mean carbon dioxide) is totally irrelevant to Australia, since Australia’s share of emissions is still only just over 1%. China, for all the huff and puff and all the talk of a green revolution, will still increase its emissions significantly in absolute terms over the next decades, India likewise.

So you can either believe the PC, or your own senses, which tell you that the US is backing away from any action on climate, China and India are full steam ahead for economic growth and growth in emissions (despite token gestures towards greening up, to appease gullible fools like Windsor), New Zealand has strangled its economy with an ETS for no purpose whatsoever, the UK’s energy policy is in utter disarray (see here for an expose on that), and Germany has just signed its own energy death warrant by unilaterally abandoning the only reliable form of clean energy: nuclear).

So which would you believe?

P.S. The Productivity Commission is, of course, part of the Australian government. It’s supposed to be independent, but guess what, it supports the government’s line on carbon pricing, at odds with the reality outlined above. Coincidence? You decide. You can read the report here.

Lots of abuse

I may be being overly pernickety here, which as a lawyer I often am, but having seen extracts from the ANU emails (go here – warning, strong language), none of them come remotely close to a “death threat”. The vast majority of it is good old fashioned abuse (and we’ve all had our fair share of that – solution: you hit the delete button), but there are no death threats (original story on this here).

The worst are probably:

“Die you lying bastard”

“The quicker that C*nts like you and your kind Die the better”

Which is kind of like saying “F*** off and die” to someone – in other words, hoping that someone will die rather than a clear threat to kill. Just for the record, my interpretation of a “death threat” or a threat to kill would be something explicit, along the lines of: “Unless you stop your research, I will kill you.” Result: go directly to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

If it had been reported as mere abuse, the story wouldn’t have got any traction. But because of the “death threat” angle, a Google search brings up over 5,000 hits, and the story has now reached as far as the UK’s Guardian and Telegraph newspapers, both of which repeat the allegation of death threats:

A number of Australia’s leading climate scientists have been moved into safer accommodation after receiving death threats, in a further escalation of the country’s increasingly febrile carbon price debate.

The revelation of the death threats follows a week of bitter exchanges between the government and the opposition in the wake of a pro-carbon price TV advert featuring actor Cate Blanchett. (Guardian – source)

And the Telegraph:

Australia’s top climate scientists have been forced to move their offices to a secure location after they received death threats relating to their work on global warming.

As an intense debate over how to tackle climate change in the country becomes increasingly vicious, a team of high-profile researchers at the Australian National University in Canberra has been given increased security protection after a campaign of menacing and abusive emails and phone calls intensified in recent weeks.

The threats, which included sexual assault, sexual attacks on family members and public smear campaigns, were so serious and so explicit that the Australian Federal Police have been called in to investigate. (source)

That last bit is factually incorrect, since an email to the AFP media centre yesterday revealed that “no complaint had been received.” I guess that’s just the Chinese whispers of the media at work. Of course, the AFP and ACT police wouldn’t be interested in any of the stuff released above.

Obviously, such emails are wholly unacceptable from both sides, but the warmists haven’t exactly got clean hands. Let’s just remind ourselves of some of the hate and vitriol that anyone who dares question the consensus has been subjected to for years.

• Just on Saturday, Richard Glover in the Sydney Morning Herald wrote that climate change “deniers” should be “forcibly tattooed on their heads”.
• In 2009, a commenter wrote “At what point do we jail or execute global warming deniers?”
• James Hansen in 2008 called for trials of climate sceptics for “high crimes against humanity”
• Robert F Kennedy said sceptics should be “treated as traitors”
• Go here for a longer list

Arguably, these statement, whilst not containing the swear words and abuse, are far more concerning than anything in the ANU emails so far released. They are calls to treat an entire class of person, namely anyone who questions the alarmist consensus, as a criminal or traitor, and that class of person should therefore suffer the same punishments and restrictions on liberty as their genuine counterparts.

Obviously, if further evidence is forthcoming of genuine death threats, then such criminal action should, indeed must, be investigated, and if the perpetrators found guilty, punished with the full force of the law. But as it stands… hit delete.