Denier Alert: Garnaut brands Nationals "sharks"

Poor old Ross Garnaut. He just cannot believe that anyone could possibly not agree with his position on climate and as usual, resorts to the typical ad hominem. It's all so predictable:

Australia's top climate change expert [Er, I don't think so, he's an economist - Ed] has likened global warming sceptics in rural areas to sharks.

Ross Garnaut's comments come as a Newspoll shows the Rudd government losing support in regional Australia, with the Nationals benefiting from opposition to an emissions trading scheme (ETS).

Without mentioning the Nationals by name, Prof Garnaut said climate change sceptics in rural areas were exploiting the ignorant.

'That's a sad thing,' he told ABC television on Monday night from Beijing. 'There, you have climate sharks preying on the vulnerability of people who aren't in a position to be well informed themselves.'

I sincerely hope you are not suggesting that rural people are somehow less capable of understanding the issues than the urban liberal intelligentsia like you, because that really would be patronising and offensive.

Asked who the climate sharks were, Prof Garnaut said it was anyone who played on the human instinct to deny bad news.

And now the inevitable D-word Alert:

'It's the sort of denial we see going on with a lot of tragic circumstances, but you never make a problem easier to handle by pretending it doesn't exist,' he said.

Unbelievable climate nonsense from a man in an ivory tower.

Read it here.