"Lord" Stern - more climate madness

Arse-over-Apex Logic Alert: Screaming Lord Stern (formerly plain old Sir Nicholas) is peddling his own particular brand of logic when he claims that the global economy will face a more severe downturn that the current crisis if it fails to "halt climate change". Halting climate change is like holding back the tide - it can't be done - climate has changed since the dawn of time and will continue to do so until the sun reaches the end of its life and swallows the earth whole (actually, Al Gore's made a movie about that too... see here).

"One thing we should have learned from this experience of the financial crisis is if we ignore risk building in the system, that risk will get much more difficult to manage than if we recognise it and tackle it early," the British economist said.

Yeah, that's right, we've gotta do it NOW! Science, Schmience - who cares? It's gotta be now, I tell you, NOW! Give me your money, sign on the dotted line (credit cards accepted).

He added that failure to act could lead to a temperature rise that would have severe consequences for global stability.

"These kinds of changes will transform the physical geography of the planet. They will transform where people will live," he said at an event for HSBC, a bank where he is a part-time policy adviser.

"You will see movements of billions of people, (and) the result of that will probably be extreme conflict."

That would be like the "temperature rise" we've seen in the last 8 years, would it? Like, Hello! And the most important word in that last sentence: "probably", i.e. based on flawed models with flawed data, and a bit of reckless imagination.

Read it here.

P.S. I'm thinking of appointing Stern UK patron of the ACM blog, as he sums up everything this blog is campaigning against. Climate Penny would be his Australian equivalent, or Ross Garnaut, or Kevin Rudd, or Peter Garrett or Bob Brown or... too much choice.