Using soft toilet paper "worse than driving a Hummer"

No, this isn't satire, really it isn't. In the post-global warming world, we'll all have to remember which hand is for eating and which hand is for, well, something else, if the warming Nazis have their way:

“No forest of any kind should be used to make toilet paper,” Dr. Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist and waste expert with the Natural Resource Defence Council told the New York Times.

“This is a product that we use for less than three seconds and the ecological consequences of manufacturing it from trees is enormous,” Hershkowitz told the Guardian newspaper.

“Future generations are going to look at the way we make toilet paper as one of the greatest excesses of our age," Hershkowitz said.

"Making toilet paper from virgin wood is a lot worse than driving Hummers in terms of global warming pollution.”

You really, really can't make this stuff up. So, here's a step by step guide for using "reusable" toilet wipes (source):

• Step 1. "Shake, scrape, swish, or squirt off anything you don't want in your laundry, and then toss the wipe into the pail or container." [Sounds delightful - Ed]
  
• Step 2: Store the used wipes in a wet bag or a diaper pail. "Some families find it easiest to put a small wet bag in their bathroom - either just laying on the floor near the toilet, or hanging from a nearby doorknob, cabinet knob, or hook." [Sounds even more delightful - Ed]
  
• Step 3: Wash with the diapers if you have a baby in the house. Otherwise, for neophytes in laundering poop-stained cloth, an important tip: Wash them separately from other laundry.
  

Never would'a guessed that one...

• [continued] "Wash in hot, dry in the dryer. You may add whatever laundry additives you desire - chlorine bleach, oxygen bleach, tea tree oil, lavender oil, stain remover, whatever."

Gee, that'll really catch on.

Read it here.

Nothing will stop the ETS

Except perhaps the Senate, but certainly not the ever-increasing numbers of business groups who are warning Krudd & Co that the ETS will damage Australia's already weakened economy. Rudd and Penny Wong are utterly deaf to their complaints, and will carry on regardless with introducing the ETS in 2010, a completely artificial deadline.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong rejected yesterday calls from the Australian Industry Group to delay the beginning of the scheme until 2012, saying the Government still intended for it to begin next year.

"The longer we delay in making this economic transformation, the higher the costs."

This is a government that doesn't give two hoots about the economy, and therefore the standard of living of millions of Australians, and slavishly follows the policitised and deeply flawed pronouncements of the IPCC.

Climate madness.

Read it here.

Polar warming "greater than thought"

Gee, who'd have thunk it? The Sydney Moonbat Herald is on top alarmist form today, as it reports on the findings of International Polar Year:

Dr Ian Allison, of the Australian Antarctic Division, who co-chaired the project told the Herald the effect of global warming in Greenland was clear. [Despite there being no global warming for nearly a decade - Ed]

"In Greenland the rate of ice loss is getting greater over the last 10 years and the surface [ice] melt is definitely related to the warming," Dr Allison said.

The project's scientists summed up their findings, saying: "It now appears certain that both the Greenland and the Antarctic ice sheets are losing mass and thus raising sea level, and that the rate of ice loss from Greenland is growing." [Show me the sea level rises please - Ed]

They also warned "the potential for these ice sheets to undergo further rapid ice discharge remains the largest unknown in projections of the rate of sea-level rise by the [United Nations] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change".

The reality is that there has been no measurable change in the rate of sea level rise, which has remained virtually constant for centuries. The Herald signs off with its usual catch-all clause:

Since the findings by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007, it has been widely accepted that the planet's warming is almost certainly due to greenhouse gases being released from the burning of fossil fuels, land clearing and cement manufacturing.

Not by me, mate.

Read it here.

The Daily Bayonet - GW Hoax Weekly Roundup

As always, a great read.

This is the last weekly roundup from The Daily Bayonet for a few weeks - it's author is going to be laid up in hospital for a while - let's wish him all the best and a speedy recovery.

Australian Industry Group dumps support for ETS

It just goes from bad to worse for the Government's ETS, as the Ai Group calls for the scheme to be delayed until 2012:

Industry groups, farmers and green groups are all ramping up their opposition to the scheme.

In parliament, the opposition and the Greens have sharpened their criticism of the scheme, raising the possibility it won't get through the Senate.

The Ai Group's policy change is significant because it had previously been quite supportive of the government's plans.

The Opposition, rightly, are having a field day:

The opposition's emissions trading spokesman, Andrew Robb, said Ai Group's call for a delay was another blow to the scheme.

"The concerns of the Ai Group reflect the views of many businesses that I am meeting and what the coalition has been saying ever since Mr Rudd picked a politically-inspired, artificial start date of 2010," Mr Robb said.

"The government's scheme is going to cost jobs, it's going to kill investment and it's not going to see any reduction in carbon dioxide of any consequence.

"They've failed on all fronts. Penny Wong calls that balance; I call that total failure."

Read it here.

Survey: CO2 reduction - too high a price to pay

You won't read this in the major media outlets - it's left to the Stock Journal to report the results of a survey undertaken by researchers at the Australian National University, which reveals that whilst Australians are willing to pay to "tackle climate change", it's nowhere near what the "carbon pollution reduction scheme" (CPRS) will cost.

The pair [of researchers] surveyed 600 Sydney residents to find out their willingness to pay the extra household costs.

The study results show, yes, Australians are concerned about climate change and they are willing to pay for action.

But those levels of concern and willingness to pay are significantly less than the expected costs in Treasury modelling of the CPRS.

“The survey respondents were willing to pay an extra $135 per household each month towards the CPRS,” Professor Bennett said. “But when aggregated across the nation, this represents $8.46 billion a year – significantly less than the Treasury estimated cost of $14.7 billion a year.
...
Professor Bennett said that debates about the relative merits of an emission trading scheme, such as the CPRS, and a tax on carbon emissions are misplaced.

Both would leave the country poorer, he said.
...
"Rather, the debate should focus on the prospects for adapting to the negative impacts of climate change should they arise.

"That debate should similarly focus on the relative costs and benefits of adaptive strategies,” he said.

Right on the money (and in the Fairfax media as well!). A cost/benefit analysis of an ETS is always going to be tricky, since the benefit is exactly zero.

Climate sense, for once.

Read it here.

Listen To Us Petition against the ETS

A petition has been launched to oppose the Governments ETS (or its two-errors-in-four-words alternative, the "Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme"), sponsored by Dr Dennis Jensen, Liberal Member for Tangney in Western Australia. Dr Jensen will present the petition to the House of Representatitves. The petition's web site states:

This petition of certain citizens of Australia draws to the attention of the House the fact that:

• We live on a dynamic planet; natural climate change occurs all the time.
• As a nation we need appropriate infrastructure and planning to protect against climate change including long-term warming or cooling and severe weather related events such as cyclones, droughts and bushfires.
• Global temperature increased slightly in the late 20th century and has been decreasing since 1998. Neither the warming nor the cooling is of an unusual rate or magnitude.Cutting carbon dioxide emissions in Australia will result in no measurable change in future climate. Australia contributes less than 1.5% of global emissions.
• The introduction of a Carbon Trading Scheme represents a major economic intervention that will drive Australian industries and jobs overseas.
  

Petitioners therefore ask the House to ensure that the Government:

• Invest appropriately in measures to ensure that Australia is well prepared for climate change and severe weather events including drought and floods.
• Not attempt to stop global climate change by introducing a Carbon Trading Scheme.

I encourage all ACM readers to sign the petition here.

William Kininmonth on the Victorian Bushfires

A thorough meteorological analysis of the events surrounding Black Saturday, well worth the read. And this:

It is fashionable to promote climate change as being a contributor to changing fire frequency and intensity. The pattern of rainfall over the past century does not point to a trend of reduction in rainfall. Nor has any link been offered between global temperature trends and the meteorology of Victorian heatwaves. Extreme bushfire events are rare events and must be analysed according to the statistics relating to rare events; the breaking of a previous temperature record established 70 years earlier does not establish an underlying trend.

Read it here (in The Age amazingly - thanks to Andrew Bolt)

Farmers to suffer as cattle targeted

As the government begins regulating and interfering in more and more aspects of our everyday lives, using the excuse of "climate change", farmers will bear the increased costs of a scheme to reduce emissions from cattle and sheep.

"Some of this goes to breeding options, some of it goes to better feed options, some of it goes to dealing with the bacteria in the stomach of the animal to try to reduce the amount of methane that then comes out of the mouth," [Agriculture Minister Tony] Burke said on ABC television.

He conceded the farming sector would need to bear increased transport and fertiliser costs, but said the alternative would cost Australia far more.

That's right, we can do precisely what we like, because as we all know, "climate change" trumps everything.

Read it here.

The debate is over

An Australian opinion piece this morning is entitled "The debate on how to reduce greenhouse emissions isn't over", but I'm afraid it is:

This is a complex issue that we cannot afford to rush, despite Senator Wong's determination to push her plan through parliament by mid-year. Moving early on carbon reduction plays to the deep-green gallery that warns that the world is doomed without immediate action.

But there is no guarantee other countries will follow Australia's lead. US Energy Secretary Steven Chu has floated a carbon tax and if the Americans took this path, Australia would be stuck with an immediately obsolete model. A fixed carbon price would leave us exposed to fluctuating demand. The price of carbon in Europe has dropped from €30 a tonne to €10 over the past month.

Greens leader Bob Brown suggests the Government and Opposition can't make up their minds on targets or what the best system is. He has a point. Until both convincingly explain their schemes, and until we know how they will fit with what the rest of the world will do, it is folly to enact legislation.

Whilst this is all true, we are having the wrong debate. We shouldn't be tinkering with the niceties of whether a cap-and-trade system or a carbon tax is the better approach to "tackling climate change", or reducing "carbon pollution" as Penny Wong would say. We should be debating whether any such scheme is necessary at all. However, that debate appears to be over. The Government, the Opposition, the media - in fact virtually everybody - have been misled by the dire warnings of the hopelessly politicised IPCC, that without drastic CO2 reductions, the planet is headed for dangerous climate change. Only a few are now brave enough to stand up in the face of vicious ad hominem attacks of "denier", "flat earther", "climate criminal" etc. - Barnaby Joyce of the Nationals being one.

Australia, like the US and Europe will dive head first into an emissions reduction scheme which will make zero difference to the climate, but will do enormous damage to our economy and standard of living.

This is true Climate Madness.

Read it here.

Fate deals cruel blow to NASA CO2 satellite

That's a nice way of putting it. The module carrying the satellite failed to separate from the rocket after launch, which probably means it ended up in the sea. I wonder if it was unintentionally exposed to James Hansen before launch and it blew a fuse? Just for good measure, The West Australian throws in the usual climate BS:

It is NASA's first spacecraft dedicated to studying carbon dioxide. In January, Japan launched a satellite on a similar mission.

Carbon dioxide is the leading greenhouse gas driving climate change.

I wonder if they'll have a chance to build another one before the whole AGW hoax is revealed? Maybe Hansen could contribute a few bucks from his enormous GISS budget?

Read it here.

The BBC's gushing article about the satellite (plus a lot of climate BS as well) back in December is here.

Idiotic Comment of the Day - Steve Fielding

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!

ETS in crisis

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.

New Poll

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 nails its colours to the mast

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.

Malcolm Turnbull - heading in completely the wrong direction

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.

Reducing "carbon footprint" a waste of time

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.

Idiotic Comment of the Day - John Connor

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.

UPDATED: ETS parliamentary review "scrapped"

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.

The Daily Bayonet - GW Hoax Weekly Roundup

As always, a great read.

New political party launched in Australia: The Climate Sceptics

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 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!

Plants "on death row"

Thousands of species of plants, despite having survived hundreds of other climate minima, optima and goodness knows what else over the last few million years, are suddenly going to disappear thanks to our capitalist SUVs spouting "carbon pollution" (© Penny Wong) into the atmosphere:

"We were struck by the conservatism of plants - how rarely they were able to adapt and flourish outside of their ancestral environments," said Dr Weston, of the Botanic Gardens Trust.

This made it likely that many species would have trouble surviving if their current habitats shrank as a result of climate change, he said. [Climate is always changing ... if you can't adapt, you won't survive - that's evolution - Ed]

Those least likely to go extinct were plants with short life cycles and that spread easily - both characteristics of weeds.

"Weeds will be the beneficiaries of climate change," Dr Weston said.

Check out Invasion of the Killer Weeds (© ACM)

Read it here.

Hysterical hyperbole from The Canberra Times

We knew the alarmism would get worse, but really - who comes up with this stuff? Is there some kind of "alarmism generator" buried in Microsoft Word somewhere that churns out paragraph after paragraph of climate BS?

Without urgent action [of course] to reduce global greenhouse emissions, the landscapes of south-eastern Australia will become drier and hotter and more prone to catastrophic fires. Systems such as the Murray-Darling will continue to slowly degrade, and agricultural production will begin to collapse. Untold damage will afflict the psyche of all Australians as the sunburnt country is scorched. [Yeah, my psyche's really afflicted... by all this BS - Ed]

The year 2009 has just begun and both ends of the continent are experiencing dramatic climate extremes. Current global climate trends are exceeding the worst-case scenarios of the UN's Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (the IPCC). The projected precipitation changes from the IPCC and CSIRO show a consistent decrease in rainfall in southern Australian during recent winters. Droughts are getting hotter and persisting longer, further reducing run-off into our river systems. The Government's current policy response to climate change needs to do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Enough! I'll tell you anything! Just stop it, please!

Read it here.

Krudd's ETS - on again, off again, on again

Despite the whole two-errors-in-four-words "carbon pollution reduction scheme" being subjected to a parliamentary enquiry to consider its effectiveness (see here), Penny Wong is clearly pretty sure of the outcome of that enquiry as she continues to march the country headlong into economic oblivion for the sake of a pointless political gesture:

The federal government has released details of how it expects high-polluting industries to meet new requirements under its carbon pollution reduction scheme.

A guidance paper, released on Wednesday, outlines the assessment process for those in emissions-intensive trade-exposed (EITE) industries and provides guidance on how they are required to meet targets.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said the process would assist the government's decision on which activities would be eligible to receive EITE assistance.

Sorry, but why is the government wasting yet more taxpayers' money on the ETS if the enquiry hasn't even reported yet? Or maybe, the reality is that the government doesn't give a flying carbon-credit about what the enquiry will say? That's more like it.

Read it here.

World Bank joins ever lengthening list of alarmists

Yes, the World Bank, that centre for excellence in climate research, has weighed in on the debate, claiming in a report that Andean glaciers will disappear in 20 years thanks to "global warming" (which hasn't happened for the best part of a decade...):

According to the report, in the last 35 years Peru's glaciers have shrunk by 22 percent, leading to a 12 percent loss in the amount of fresh water reaching the coast -- home to most of the country's citizens. [But I guess the report also considered in equal depth the multitude of other factors that could lead to such shrinking, such as deforestation, particulate pollution etc... no? It didn't? There's a surprise - Ed]

"It is highly probable that the earth's surface will undergo an unprecedented temperature increase of nearly two degrees centigrade (four Fahrenheit) by 2050 and up to four degrees (eight Fahrenheit) by the end of the century," said Pablo Fajnzylber, a senior World Bank economist.

Sounds worryingly like an economist spouting IPCC-speak.

Read it here.

Andrew Bolt - Stridently Dark Green

In his usual eloquent fashion, Andrew sums up the climate hysteria surrounding the bushfires in the Melbourne Herald Sun:

Global warming, right?

Wrong.

First, Melbourne did in fact have a hotter day before, four years before the Bureau of Meteorology started officially recording temperatures.

As the Argus newspaper reported at the time, the temperature on February 6, 1851, soared to 47.2C, helping to superheat the fires that then roared across 10 times more land than was burned last week.

AND despite claims that global warming is now heating this land like never before, Victoria's highest recorded temperature is still the 50.7C measured in Mildura 103 years ago.

South Australia's is also 50.7C, recorded 49 years ago. NSW's is the 50C of 70 years ago. Queensland's is the 49.5C of 37 years ago. Not much recent warming obvious there.

That's the problem with this cherrypicking of one day of weather in one place. It proves nothing except the desperation of the preachers who try to fool you.

Read it here.

UPDATE: ABC web poll

I have been promised a response from the ABC about what they meant when they said the poll had been "hijacked" (see original story here). I will post about it if and when received.

On another matter, a few sites have claimed that Gore Lied and ACM faked the image of the poll result. One example of the accusation can be found here. Later posts however concede that the poll was indeed genuine. More to follow.

[Post edited by ACM]

Nonsensical flannel from Flannery

It was only a matter of time before our own Aussie James Hansen, Tim Flannery, put pen to paper to blame the bush fires on "global warming", and he goes to town in the Sydney Morning Herald today:

Climate modelling suggests the decline of southern Australia's winter rainfall is caused by a build-up of greenhouse gas, much of it from coal burning. Victoria has the most polluting coal power plant on earth, and another plant was threatened by the fire.
...
Australia is in shock at the loss of so many lives. But inevitably we will look for lessons. The first, I fear, is that we must anticipate more such terrible blazes, for the world's addiction to burning fossil fuels goes on unabated. And there is now no doubt that emissions pollution is laying the conditions necessary for more such fires.

When he ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, described climate change as the greatest threat facing humanity. Shaken, and clearly having seen things none of us should see, he has now witnessed proof of his words. We can only hope Australia's climate policy, which is weak, is now significantly strengthened.

Rudd has said the arsonists suspected of lighting some fires are guilty of mass murder, and the police are pursuing the malefactors. But there's an old saying among Australian firefighters: "Whoever owns the fuel owns the fire".

Let's hope Australians ponder the deeper causes of this horrible event, and change their polluting ways before it's too late.

Flannery disingenuously links increasing levels of CO2 to changes in climate, without the intervening step of increasing temperature. Maybe that's because there has been no global warming since 2001, despite rising CO2 levels. And even if temperatures were rising, there is still no confirmed link to CO2 levels (despite $50bn in research), and there are many other possible causes the IPCC won't tell you about, like er... the sun?

And, by the way, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant - it is plant food, without which no life on earth would exist. But hey, Flannery's only a professor, a mammalogist and palaeontologist, so how could he be expected to know that?

Climate nonsense.

Read it here.

Hysterical alarmism from Chris Field

This guy is getting way too much coverage. ACM has already blogged this yesterday (see Sunday Alarmism), but not to be outdone The Sydney Moonbat Herald parrots the whole damn thing (without any thought), and, under the doom-laden headline "'Feedback' could amplify climate change peril", goes into full-speed carbon-fuelled alarmism:

New studies have warned of triggers in the natural environment, including a greenhouse-gas timebomb in Siberia and Canada, that could viciously amplify global warming.

Thawing subarctic tundra could unleash billions of tonnes of gases that have been safely stored in frosty soil, while oceans and forests are becoming less able to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, according to papers presented this weekend.

These phenomena mean more heat-trapping gases will enter the atmosphere, which in turn will stoke global warming, thrusting the machinery of climate change into higher gear.

Hilarious - "thrusting the machinery of climate change" - you couldn't make this stuff up if you tried! And at the bottom of it all is our friend Chris Field.

Research presented on Saturday at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago suggested the frozen soil of the tundra stored far more greenhouse gas that previously thought.
...
Scientist Sergei Zimov has studied climate change in Russia's Arctic for almost 30 years. He believes that as organic matter becomes exposed to the air it will accelerate global warming faster than even some of the most pessimistic forecasts.

Funny, ain't it? It's never less that previously though - always more.

"Melting permafrost is poised to be a strong foot on the accelerator pedal of atmospheric carbon dioxide," said Chris Field, a professor at Stanford and a top scientist on the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change.

Top scientist? Newsbusters puts it like this:

Chris Field is not a "top climate scientist." In fact, he isn't even a climate scientist at all. Just a wee bit of googling on the part of [Reuters reporter Julie] Steenhuysen would have revealed that Chris Field is a professor of biological sciences whose shtick is pushing something called "global ecology." Field has no more expertise in predicting future climate patterns than, say, a proctologist performing brain surgery.

Now that's an image I'm going to have trouble erasing from my imagination...

Read it here.

The Age - "2008 coolest since 2000"

Surely not a climate realist article in The Age? No way. After that vaguely encouraging headline, the rest of the article is typical alarmism. Every mention of cooling is always refuted by a scary mention of warming:

[Global climate research data] shows that even a cool year for the noughties was a hot one by historical standards. Average temperatures across the world last year were 0.325 degrees warmer than the average between 1961 and 1990, which meteorologists use as a benchmark period.

Last year was 0.69 degrees hotter than the average temperatures around the world in the 75 years from 1850 to 1924, before global temperatures really began to rise. [As you'd expect since the globe is recovering from the Little Ice Age ... whoops, three dirty little words - Ed]

Temperatures in Australia are rising even faster. The Bureau of Meteorology reports that the average temperature last year across the continent was 0.41 degrees hotter than in the benchmark period. It was the coolest year since 2001, yet our 14th hottest year in 99 years of monitoring. [99 years is like a a blink of an eye in climate terms - Ed]

Just to give you an idea of the balanced nature of The Age's reporting, the article uses the word "warmer" just once, "cool", "cooling" or "coolest" four times, and the words "hot", "hotter" and "hottest" no less than 12 times! And this is supposed to be an article about the coolest year since 2000!

You really have to laugh, or else you'd go mad.

Read it here.

CFLs do more harm than good

Having insisted that in order to "save the planet" from "catastrophic climate change" we all throw away our evil capitalist incandescent bulbs/globes and replace them with CFLs (compact fluorescent lights), the UN is now wringing its hands about all the mercury floating around, much of which comes from the "improper" disposal of ... CFLs.

And by the way, don't ask me what "proper" disposal is, since Governments haven't bothered to think of that, despite passing laws banning incandescents. In Australia, each council has its own rules, very few have specialised CFL disposal arrangements (and those that do will charge you for it), and the general advice is chuck 'em in the garbage... forward thinking by Krudd & Co as always (see here).

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) on Sunday urged environment ministers meeting this week in Nairobi to adopt a strategy to curb the use of the highly toxic metal mercury.

"The world's environment ministers meeting in Nairobi, Kenya this week can take a landmark decision to lift a global health threat from the lives of hundreds of millions of people," UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said in a statement.

Not only that, here at ACM we detest the light from CFLs, which take an age to warm up, are hopelessly dull, and often flicker annoyingly. Long live the filament bulb.

And The Age can't help throwing in a "climate change" message, just for good luck:

As climate change melts the Arctic, mercury trapped in the ice and sediments is being re-released back into the oceans and into the food chain, UNEP said.

Read it here.

UPDATED: UK engineering body sells out to climate alarmism

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers, that austere body founded in 1847 by railway pioneer George Stephenson, and whose other famous presidents included Robert Stephenson, Joseph Whitworth and Robert Napier, has sold out to climate alarmism, reports the UK Financial Times.

Tim Fox, head of environment and climate change at the IMechE, said: “Yes, we need to mitigate [greenhouse gas emissions], but the evidence shows this isn’t working alone.”
...
The IMechE identified sea level rises, and an increase in droughts, floods and storms as the main worries arising from global warming. Various measures can be put in place to counteract these effects, ranging from seawalls in some areas to abandoning tracts of land to the sea, and designing transport networks to be more resilient.

Another previously impartial scientific organisation bites the dust.

Read it here.

UPDATE: Piers Corbyn slams the report, calling it "alarmist, self-serving nonsense". See here.

Sunday alarmism

A crop of alarmist reports in The Age, The Herald Sun and The Sydney Morning Herald today, just to brighten up your Sunday morning. Starting with The Herald Sun which runs the clichéd old headline "Climate change could be even worse than predicted, expert warns" - yawn.

Without decisive action to slow global warming, higher temperatures could ignite tropical forests and thaw the Arctic tundra, potentially releasing billions of tons of carbon dioxide that has been stored for thousands of years. [Funny how higher temperatures in previous eras never did this - Ed]

That could raise temperatures even more and create "a vicious cycle that could spiral out of control by the end of the century". [Ditto]

"We don't want to cross a critical threshold where this massive release of carbon starts to run on autopilot," said Field, a professor of biology and of environmental earth system science at Stanford University.
...
Mr Field is co-chair of the group charged with assessing the impacts of climate change on social, economic and natural systems for the IPCC's fifth assessment due in 2014. [Great! Another report we won't have to bother reading - Ed]

No such critical threshold has ever been demonstrated to exist. And Professor Field doesn't seem to know much about English, either:

"Tropical forests are essentially inflammable," Mr Field said. "You couldn't get a fire to burn there if you tried."

I think you mean "non-flammable", but hey, it's an easy mistake, even for a professor...

Moving on to The Moonbat Herald, under the headline "It will only get worse as climate changes":

Research by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO has found that bushfire seasons will start earlier, end slightly later and become more intense in coming decades.
...
An author of the report, Kevin Hennessy from the CSIRO, told the Herald yesterday: "There does seem to be a human element to bushfire risk. In terms of human contribution it is clear that most of the global warming since about 1950 is likely due to increases in greenhouse gases. Higher temperatures clearly increase the risk of bushfires."

"Clear" that something is "likely"? Don't forget, there has been no global warming since 2001, and more warming in the first half of the 20th century than in the second.

Professor Mark Adams, dean of the faculty of agriculture at the University of Sydney, said higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere had increased the risk of bushfires and added to the likelihood that their intensity would also increase.

Simple as that - it's all too easy. The article then quotes Bob Brown, which I won't repeat here, as it is likely to put readers off their breakfasts... The Age next, in an editorial:

We have long known that the Victorian bush is prone to fire, but the latest event raises the question about what can be done to prevent deaths in an era of drought and climate change.

Every era is an era of climate change - climate changes, that's what it does. Get used to it and adapt.

There is speculation that the conditions of Black Saturday will occur more frequently in the future — that we have had a taste of what climate change will bring — which means that we need a tough reassessment of how to live safely and responsibly in Victoria.

And finally, a "pick a loved icon and put a gun to its head" item:

Penguins nesting off Argentina's coast are starving because changing ocean patterns have forced their mates to swim 40 kilometres further than they did a decade ago to find food, researchers said on Thursday.
...
Overfishing, pollution and climate change have contributed to the loss of fish stocks near the Punta Tombo animal preserve about 1600 kilometres south of Buenos Aires, Boersma said.

I'd guess (overfishing + pollution) = 99%, climate change = 1%, but it's just a guess...

Read it here, here, here and here.

"Climate change refugees" from a sinking atoll

The Carteret Islands are sinking due to their nature as an unstable atoll and the tectonic influences near the junction of the Australasian and Indian plates, but that doesn't stop the ABC from branding the inhabitants "climate change refugees" - since when has climate change affected the movement of the earth's crust?

Rising sea levels [falling land levels] means the atolls which make up the Carteret Island group are regularly affected by saltwater flooding, which is destroying fresh water reserves and food gardens, which sustain an estimated 1400 people. But by the end of the year many of them are likely to be amongst the world's first climate refugees [actually, just "refugees"], as the autonomous Bougainville government wants to begin resettling them on mainland Bougainville.

But if it had been a simple case of a sinking island, it wouldn't be newsworthy, would it?

Climate nonsense.

Read it here.

Maximum temperature anomaly map for 12 February

Just for interest...



Compare with 7 February...



(Images from the Bureau of Meteorology)

Climate nonsense from The Age

Anyone is entitled to plug the alarmist agenda in The Age, even war historians. When reading this, keep in mind that there has been no global warming since 2001:

ONE of the hardest things for Victorians to accept, is that these bushfires have signalled a new world order. Black Saturday confirmed the planet has now entered a new stage of its existence — the post global-warming period. If we are to survive as a species we need to use this benchmark to make essential changes.
...
Once [politicians] accept global warming is here, they can pioneer strategies banning forest settlements, enforcing clearing around houses and perfecting early warning systems and mandatory evacuation plans. It may be hard to accept very much reality but it would be irresponsible for our leaders not to redesign our future in light of global warming. Such vision would not only help residents but would honour those killed in action in these fires.

Historian Jonathan King's most recent book was The Western Front Diaries, commemorating the 90th anniversary of the end of WWI.

Even assuming that "global warming" is taking place, I agree with one thing - adaptation is the key, not pointless emissions trading schemes.

Read it here.

The Age asks a question . . . but gets the wrong answer

Interviewing Chris Darwin, the great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin, Martin Flanagan of The Age shoots the paper's own alarmist editorial agenda in the foot:

I ask him what he thinks about last weekend's bushfires. "I would have got toasted," he says. "I would have stayed with my house." Does he equate the fires with climate change? "It's hard to tell from a single traumatic incident," he says. "But interpreting a single event as a global phenomenon can be a big mistake." It is not, he assures me, what Charles Darwin would have done.

That's because Charles Darwin was a proper sceptical scientist, not like most of the "scientists" today, riding on a bandwagon of trillions of dollars of "climate change" research funding.

Better luck next time.

Read it here.

The true price of Kyoto

Remember Kevin Rudd, jetting off to Bali in the first blush of his term of office, to ratify the Kyoto Protocol? Remember that Howard was the great climate change denier who, like George W Bush, had refused to ratify it? Remember how the liberal media raved about the decision?

Well, far from being just a pointless political gesture (which it still is), it is also potentially a huge burden on Australia's weakened economy. The Australian reports that the UN has imposed a new target on cutting greenhouse emissions - and if Australia fails to meet it, could cost the Government $870 million in carbon credits.

But putting aside the detailed forecasts, calculations and estimates, which will be disputed right through until the end of 2012, two indisputable facts emerge: there is a huge potential cost to business and taxpayers through the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol and the global financial crisis has created uncertainty, even chaos, for emissions trading schemes and carbon markets across the world.

The global recession is changing all the estimates for economic growth, and therefore greenhouse gas emissions, for the short and medium terms.

In the face of all this change the Rudd Government, through the Climate Change Minister, is framing an emissions trading scheme that requires big investment to establish a workable price that will offset carbon emissions and eventually force them down.

Climate Madness in Kruddistan.

Read it here.

OT: RIP free speech in the UK

From Atlas Shrugs:

Bye bye England -- they are done. They should be kissing his ring for his bravery and courage in doing what they don't have the spine to do.

The Home Secretary Jacqui Smith who barred Wilders entry (see letter) has renamed Islamic terrorism 'anti-Islamic activity,' and has welcomed the most violent Islamic radicals while simultaneously banned Jews. (Video of Jacqui Smith)

What is even more hypocritical is that we watched in horror as hordes of Muslims and leftists rallied in the streets of London calling for Jewish genocide, calling for the destruction of Israel, and that was OK. Scenes depicting a Jewish blood libel of Jews eating babies. That was ok. The Brit police actually escorted the would be annihilationists to the Israel embassy while being assaulted, insulted and under seige.

The plea of a free man:

"Threat to society? I'm an elected member of Parliament; I have done nothing wrong," "I'm a normal, law-abiding democrat. You might agree or disagree with my political point of view, but I'm no threat to anyone."

One of my comments on FB, "Britannia has sunk beneath the waves of history. Nelson, Benbow, Churchill must all be spinning in their graves. The great in Great Britain is no more."

Churchill is weeping ............ as the UK limps to extinction.

Wilders calls Gordon Brown the number one coward in Europe.

This is a fatal blow to free speech.

Unbelievable that we are reading this...

Krudd & Co "in disarray" on ETS

It certainly looks that way. One minute it's a new enquiry, and the next it's full steam ahead as planned. If it's the latter, what's the point of the former?

The Opposition, which has yet to finalise a position on the ETS, said the Government appeared confused about its own policies.

"They are either in complete disarray or they are trying to back out of it," Opposition emissions trading spokesman Andrew Robb said.

"They have told us for three years an ETS is the central arm of their policy. Now we are having an inquiry into whether it still should be the central arm, and that inquiry is scheduled to report after we are supposed to have already legislated an ETS."

Nationals leader Warren Truss said "the terms of reference released today for a new parliamentary inquiry into the economic impact of its ETS are a welcome sign that the Government is beginning to appreciate that its ETS is not likely to be effective and has huge economic ramifications for our country".

Read it here.

The Daily Bayonet - GW Hoax Weekly Roundup

As usual a great read.

UPDATED: Rudd's ETS "on hold" (possibly)

[ACM blog owner falls off chair in shock at reading this article]. The Daily Telegraph is reporting that the Government's emissions trading scheme has been put on hold and might not be introduced on schedule in 2010:

A parliamentary committee has been asked to inquire into the effectiveness of emissions trading as a means to reduce carbon pollution. [I can answer that: zero - Ed]

The inquiry committee will report "in the second half of 2009".

Legislation for the Government’s already-announced carbon reduction scheme was expected about July.

However, this inquiry might put it off for another 12 months, depending on its outcome.

Emissions trading is the core mechanism of the proposed scheme, and it would increase costs to business and households.

"Maybe the Government has decided there is no appetite for the cost of an emissions trading scheme when the economy is in trouble," a Liberal source said.

I'll believe it when I see it.

Read it here.

UPDATE: The Sydney Morning Herald reports:

Plans for emissions trading appear to be up in the air after the federal government called a fresh inquiry into the scheme. The surprise move has sparked speculation the government could delay, overhaul or ditch its main plan to tackle climate change.

Labor has promised to start emissions trading next year and has finished an intensive process to design the scheme.

Now it's back to the drawing board.

Treasurer Wayne Swan has asked a parliamentary committee to investigate whether emissions trading is the best option for Australia after all. [It isn't - Ed]

All we can hope is that they don't come up with something worse.

But Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull said the government was having second thoughts.

"You can see the government is getting ready to abandon the emissions trading scheme," Mr Turnbull told parliament.

"What's going to happen if the house economics committee concludes that the emissions trading scheme is not an appropriate response, and it's already been legislated for?"

The opposition's spokesman on emissions trading, Andrew Robb, said the government appeared to be backing off on the emissions trading scheme.

"It seems to be they're running around like headless chooks on this," Mr Robb said.

Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce said Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had experienced an epiphany and realised emissions trading would force people out of work.

Read it here.

UPDATED: "Greenies" blamed for bushfire scale

A couple of articles that actually address the real problem, rather than the knee-jerk, Pavlov's Dog response of the environmentalists: "climate change." And guess who is at the root of the problem, none other than the greenies themselves, for opposing hazard reduction burns.

From The Australian today:

THE green movement was yesterday blamed for the severity of the Victorian fires that cost so many lives and ruined so much property.

David Packham, a former supervising meteorologist for fire weather nationwide at the Bureau of Meteorology, said environmentalists' politically successful campaign to stop controlled vegetation burning off allowed the Black Saturday fires to rage uncontrollably. "The green movement is directly responsible for the severity of these fires through their opposition to prescribed burning," Mr Packham said.

"Elements of the movement are behaving like eco-terrorists waging jihad against prescribed burning and fuel management. They believe fundamentally that if we keep all fire out of Australia's forests, the trees will grow, the canopies will close up, the ground will become moist and there will be no fires. This is absolute and total nonsense."

Read it here.

UPDATED: And Miranda Devine in The Sydney Morning Herald makes the same point:

Governments appeasing the green beast have ignored numerous state and federal bushfire inquiries over the past decade, almost all of which have recommended increasing the practice of "prescribed burning". Also known as "hazard reduction", it is a methodical regime of burning off flammable ground cover in cooler months, in a controlled fashion, so it does not fuel the inevitable summer bushfires.
...
Teary politicians might pepper their talking points with opportunistic intimations of "climate change" and "unprecedented" weather, but they are only diverting the blame. With yes-minister fudging and craven inclusion of green lobbyists in decision-making, they have greatly exacerbated this tragedy.

Read it here.

ABC Poll missing in action - no explanation given

The ABC are being rather coy about explaining quite what "hijacked" meant (see here for the original story). I have sent two emails and called the News Radio office, and I am still waiting for an explanation...

Why the reticence, I wonder? I'll keep you posted.

Climate sense from The Australian

The media is full of enviro-fundamentalists all to eager to blame the deaths in Victoria on our evil use of fossil fuels, but The Australian, in an editorial today, is measured:

To put climate change at the centre of any argument about the fires is an affront to the tens of thousands of Australians who are suffering. Climate change activists warn we have brought drought, and thus fire, on ourselves by using too much fossil fuel. But even if this is so, acknowledging the problem would not have stopped these fires. If there are any Australians responsible this catastrophe, it is the arsonists who appear to have lit some of them.

The article also exposes the usual hysterical bias at the ABC, especially Tony Jones, who has graced these pages many times (see here, here, and here):

Not that Tony Jones, host of ABC TV's Lateline, would necessarily agree. On Monday night, he interviewed climate scientists about the fires. Certainly he asked whether they were part of a long-term cycle, but much of what he said was less interview than interrogation. "And do you feel, do you believe that it is beyond doubt that what we're seeing in Victoria, these horrific fire storms, are directly related to climate change and global warming?", Jones said in a statement cursorily couched as a question. In contrast, the scientists spoke in measured tones, one saying evidence on the impact of climate change was not all in, another pointing out that while people living in areas exposed to fire were part of the problem, many died because they left it too late to evacuate. The scientists were sensible. The debate we need is how we can stop another catastrophe of this kind, rather than how many windmills can meet a fraction of our power needs.

Read it here.

Bushfire sense from Frank Campbell

A voice of sanity amongst the ever more shrill cries of "It's climate change", Frank Campbell puts the record straight:

But contrary to current hyperbole, Black Saturday was not the worst fire day ever. Ash Wednesday's wind speeds ranged from 70 to 120 km/h. A savage south-west front led to most of the deaths and property loss, whereas Saturday had a modest wind change.

Nor was the area burned in the latest fires exceptional. About 300,000 hectares is the likely total, compared with 1.5 million on Black Friday 1939, several million on Black Thursday 1851, 260,000 on Red Tuesday 1898 and 230,000 on Ash Wednesday. Note that the days of the week have mostly been used up already. Every 10 or 20 years there is a bushfire disaster. This isn't going to change.

Read it here (in The Age of all places - how long before they pull it down? - Ed)

Burn and Bury? The Stupidities of Carbon Geo-sequestration

From the Carbon Sense Coalition:

The Carbon Sense Coalition today accused coal companies, power companies and governments of gross negligence for wasting resources from shareholders, electricity consumers and taxpayers on quixotic dreams to capture and bury carbon dioxide from power stations.

The Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition, Mr Viv Forbes, said that there were five main objections to Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS):

• Firstly, there are no possible climate benefits because carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does not control climate and the tiny effect of man’s emissions is wholly beneficial. There has been no open scientific enquiry into the justification for demonising carbon dioxide, and a large and growing scientific opposition to the whole global warming hysteria.
• Secondly, there is no public health justification for CCS because carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It is a colourless, non-toxic gas and in fact a valuable plant food. A warm climate with abundant carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will be beneficial for all life.
• Thirdly, CCS can never be “economic” because there are huge costs and zero benefits.
• Fourthly, CCS will divert a vast amount of community savings into stupid investments which will be abandoned in a more enlightened future time.
• And finally, neither taxpayers nor shareholders have seen a full cost benefit analysis of the CCS proposals by independent experts. They have no idea of the guaranteed huge cost and the illusory benefits.

Read it here.

Climate Sense from Germaine Greer

Writing in the UK Times:

Fire is an essential element in the life cycle of Australian forests. Season by season sclerophyll or “hard-leaved” woodlands build up huge amounts of detritus, shed leaves, bark and twiggery, which must burn if there is to be new growth. Many Australian species, including most of the eucalypts, need fire if they are to complete their reproductive cycle. Seeds encased in woody receptacles need their capsules to be split by fire before they can be released to germinate.
...
The cause of these disasters is not global warming; still less is it arson. It is the failure to recognise that fire is an intrinsic feature of eucalypt bushland. It cannot be prevented but it can and should be managed. Unless there is a fundamental change of policy across all levels of government in Australia, there will be more and worse fires and more deaths.

Read it here. (h/t Andrew Bolt)

Sydney Morning Herald - climate change to blame for increased bushfire risk

Of course it is, you denier you...

"We observed a large increase in fire-weather risk from about the year 2000. So part of this increase in risk has begun and has been observed," said Kevin Hennessey, who was attending the 9th International Conference on Southern Hemisphere Meteorology and Oceanography in Melbourne yesterday.

"The extreme dryness over the last 12 years may be due to natural variability but it may also be partly due to an increase in greenhouse gases; it's too early to tell."

It's not too early for the Herald though, who have had their minds made up and their eyes closed to any contrary evidence for years... Apologies for stating the obvious (yet again), but there has been no global warming since 2001:


(Image from www.drroyspencer.com)

A lead author with the United Nations scientific body, Kevin Trenberth, also attending the conference, said the drying of southern Australia was consistent with global warming. "One of the things with global warming is that you have this increase in greenhouse gases and they provide a blanketing effect so there is more heat available. The heat has to go somewhere. Some of the heat goes into evaporation, into the drying of the land. Where it's not raining, things dry out quicker, droughts set in a little quicker and become more intense."

But alternatively:

"A warmer atmosphere contains larger amounts of moisture which boosts the intensity of heavy downpours," said Dr Brian Soden, at the University of Miami.

Changes in heavy rainfall seem to keep pace with atmospheric moisture which rises by around 7 per cent for each ºC of warming. Based on computer models, this could mean an increase in the intensity of heavy rainfall of around 10 per cent by 2050.

However, the observed increase in extreme downpours appears to be larger than the increases predicted by current computer simulations, suggesting that predicted changes in rainfall due to global warming may be underestimated, either because of flawed measurements or because computer models lack some key understanding, for instance of the action of aerosol particles in the atmosphere. (source)

Gee, the science is really settled, ain't it?

Read it here.

UPDATED: ABC web poll - 4% think current heatwave is due to "global warming"

UPDATE 2: ABC have responded stating that the poll was "hijacked" (how would that be possible?), but without giving any further details. I have asked for clarification and will post it here if received.

UPDATED: The ABC web site has moved on to a new poll and has mysteriously "removed" the results from the list of past polls. Surely not more censorship? I have sent an e-mail to News Radio to find out why it was removed. I will let you know the result...


Now you see it... now you, er, don't...

Thanks to Gore Lied. I'm sure the ABC will issue a correction, but as it stands, here is the poll result:



90% think global warming is a myth - wow! Go the deniers!

Read it here.

UPDATE: As of Sunday 8 Feb, it's now 94.3%!!

Sydney Morning Herald links bushfires to "climate change"

Any chance to push the scaremongering alarmist agenda, no matter how insensitive, is gleefully accepted by the Moonbat Herald, just as it was yesterday by Bob Brown.

Research by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO has found that bushfire seasons will start earlier, end slightly later and become more intense in coming decades.

A climate study of south-east Australia by the agencies in 2007 found the number of days with "very high" or "extreme" fire danger ratings would increase significantly. The worst changes were predicted for northern NSW.

By 2020, days of extreme fire danger are forecast to increase by 5 to 25 per cent if climate change is low and by 15 to 65 per cent if it is high.

An author of the report, Kevin Hennessy from the CSIRO, told the Herald yesterday: "There does seem to be a human element to bushfire risk. In terms of human contribution it is clear that most of the global warming since about 1950 is likely due to increases in greenhouse gases [No it isn't - Ed]. Higher temperatures clearly increase the risk of bushfires."

And then quotes yet more of Brown (which we can all do without reading again).

Oh, yes, and 108 people lost their lives as well...

Read it here.

Melanie Phillips - two great reads

Melanie Phillips writes an excellent column for the UK Spectator magazine, and her latest two are both great reads.

• "That Famous Consensus"
• "America - What have you done?" (OT, but who cares!)

Enjoy!

Bob Brown shamelessly uses bushfires to push "climate change" agenda

No gutter is too low for Bob Brown. Whilst families are grieving for their loved ones who have perished in bush fires in Victoria, the callous Greens senator is using the tragedy to score cheap political points.

Senator Brown said the "dreadful inferno" was a terrible reminder of what climate change could mean for Australians.

"Global warming is predicted to make this sort of event happen 25 per cent, 50 per cent more," he told Sky News.

"It's a sobering reminder of the need for this nation and the whole world to act and put at a priority our need to tackle climate change."

Disgusting.

Read it here.

Antarctic sea ice up 35% on 1979 levels

It must be all that warming going on down there... As Global Warming Hoax points out:

So where is the news media on this? Antarctica sea ice extent is up 34% over 1979, imagine if this was a decrease in ice rather than an increase. If this keeps up the penguins will be able to walk to Brazil!

Read it here. (Thanks to Tom Nelson)

Sweden, staunch opponent of nuclear power, finally relents

You can't have it both ways. If you believe that anthropogenic CO2 is causing dangerous climate change, it is crazy then to spurn nuclear power as an alternative to coal. However, that is what most Western governments are doing, including Australia's.

But now Sweden, one of the foremost opponents of nuclear power, has conceded that nuclear power must play a role if there is to be a "low-carbon" economy.

In a drive to increase energy security and combat global warming, ministers said they would present a bill next month that would allow the building of nuclear reactors on existing sites and introduce a new carbon tax as part of a program to cut carbon emissions by 40 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020.

The decision is significant because Sweden was at the forefront of anti-nuclear sentiment after the accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979. It voted in a referendum a year later to phase out its plants.

The Swedish Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, said he did not feel bound by the referendum because it did not specify how nuclear power should be replaced. But the Government must still convince Parliament before it becomes law.

Australia should be doing the same.

Read it here.

Antarctic shelf collapse could tilt Earth's axis: researchers

The alarmism is getting even more desperate.

Geophysicists at the University of Toronto looked at the possible effects on the earth if sea levels rise because of a collapse of the west Antarctic ice shelf.

The Toronto researchers say the melting of the ice sheet will actually cause the earth's rotation to shift dramatically - about 500 metres from its current position if the entire ice sheet melts - and that would result in much higher sea levels in some areas than previously expected.

The researchers say the melting would change the balance of the globe in much the same way that tsunamis move huge amounts of water from one area to another.

Is there anything that "global warming" can't achieve?

Read it here.

Andrew Bolt - Saving the planet may deny heat, cooling for the frail

University of London researchers calculated in the Southern Medical Journal that in Britain, at least, a big warming over the next 50 years "would increase heat-related deaths in Britain by about 2000 but reduce cold-related deaths by about 20,000".

So let's agree on the evidence: cold is the real killer, and airconditioning saves us in summer, just as central heating can save the frail in winter.

So how mad are our governments?

The Rudd Government will next year impose an emissions trading scheme that will "save" the planet by making power for your heaters and coolers more expensive. Victoria is even trialling a smart-meter so it can cut power use on hot days by making your electricity so expensive that you'd have to pay $170 a day to run ducted airconditioning.

And all this to "save" a planet from a warming that could save hundreds of thousands of lives.

Barking madness.

Read it here.

The Daily Bayonet - GW Hoax Weekly Roundup

As always, a great read.

Courier Mail - 4 months late with story!

Weird one this. The Courier Mail breaks the shocking news that Ross Garnaut imported $18,000 worth of Italian paper for the printing of his tedious report (see here).

The odd thing is, however, that the story broke on 18 October 2008... in the Courier Mail (see here) and ACM posted about it here.

Who cares? It's a thoroughly embarrassing story for Wong and Garnaut, so as far as I'm concerned they can print it every four months for ever if they want to!

UPDATE: The Australian has fallen for it as well! See here.

Token Gesture Alert - free insulation to tackle "climate change"

It will do no such thing, of course, but it makes the Government feel like they're doing something. You will recall that Krudd & Co announced it will fund insulation for 2 million homes, reducing carbon [shurely "dioxide" - Ed] emissions by 49 million tonnes. The Australia Institute sees straight through the paper thin flannel:

The Australia Institute's executive director Richard Denniss says the Government's carbon pollution reduction scheme will just reallocate those emissions.

"The way the Emissions Trading Scheme is designed, every kilogram of emissions saved by a household frees up an extra permit for a big polluter," he said.

"So while it's true this scheme will help reduce households' use of energy, it won't reduce Australia's emissions at all.

"What they do is take those permits freed up by what the individuals have done and sell those permits to the aluminium industry or the steel industry or anyone else who wants them.

"So effectively the carbon pollution reduction scheme is really just a carbon pollution reallocation scheme."

Read it here.

The Age links Australian drought to climate change

Of course it's climate change, you denier you. The Age subtly links the Australian drought to "global warming":

While drought in Australia has traditionally been linked to El Nino events in the Pacific Ocean, researchers from the universities of NSW and Tasmania and the CSIRO have found that it is the Indian Ocean's cycle of warming and cooling that is to blame.

The water cycles of the Indian Ocean, which is experiencing unprecedented warming 2000 kilometres away, dictates the strength of the moisture-bearing winds that travel to Australia.

Business as usual at The Age.

Read it here.

Pick a loved icon and put a gun to its head

ACM's favourite journalist, Rosslyn Beeby, tugs at the heartstrings, as "climate change" is set to wipe out another cute creature:

Nemo the clownfish will lose the ability to smell the way home, as climate change makes the world's oceans more acidic, new research says.

A team of scientists from Australia, Russia and Norway have discovered that as seawater becomes more acidic, baby clownfish the stars of the Disney cartoon Finding Nemo lose the scent cues that guide them home from the open ocean to the coastal reefs where they were born.

''This is a disturbing finding, with potentially devastating consequences for marine life. It could lead to a decline in coastal reef species,'' James Cook University marine biologist Philip Munday said.

In fact, the article uses the name "Nemo" no less than 5 times (including in the headline), just to ram home the point. And, of course, it's all our fault:

"At least 30 per cent of the human-generated carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere in the past 200 years has been absorbed by the oceans,'' the paper says.

This has caused the ocean to acidify at a rate about 100 times faster than at any time in the past 650,000 years.

Read it here.

SMH publishes fawning profile of Bob Brown

The Sydney Morning Herald (or as it now should properly be known, "Green Left Weekly In Drag") fawns over Greens Senator Bob Brown (you know, the one who thinks CO2 emissions should be reduced to zero by 2050):

More than 1 million people voted for the Greens in the 2007 election and Brown scored more than 17 per cent of the Senate vote in Tasmania, where he has lived since 1972.

Before that, he grew up in rural NSW, a shy, dreamy child from a politically conservative family of police officers. He studied medicine at Sydney University and worked as a GP in Sydney, Canberra and London all the while battling bouts of depression as he came to terms with his homosexuality.

When he moved to Tasmania, he immediately felt at home among its wild landscape and old-growth forests. But it was a rafting trip down the Franklin River in Tasmania's south-west wilderness in 1976 - and the subsequent seven-year anti-dams campaign - that was the making of Bob Brown.

And gives him a platform for the usual Green alarmism that we're all familiar with:

"The world is in a pre-catastrophe situation with climate change and the destruction of a variety of life on the planet. In those circumstances, my work becomes all the more important. I've never been happier or more content," he says.

Bizarre juxtaposition of ideas there...

Read it here.