The Inconvenient Truths About “An Inconvenient Truth”

Hearty congratulations and support from Clameur de Haro to Deputy Phil Rondel, who in the States last Tuesday warned the increasingly supine Minister for Education Sport & Culture, James Reed, that “An Inconvenient Truth”, that provenly inaccurate, meretricious farrago of cod science produced by that execrable peddler of false green eco-wackery propaganda Al Gore, should not be shown in Jersey schools.

Mr Rondel’s reported comment about the judicial objections to its showing in UK schools, while correct, doesn’t go halfway towards describing the full extent of the criticism heaped on it from the Bench.

In 2007, Mr Justice Burton, sitting in the Administrative Division of the High Court, ruled that showing the film, without both correction of its errors and presentation of the alternative hypothesis, breached the 1996 Education Act and constituted political indoctrination. Not only did nine inaccuracies specifically have to be drawn to the attention of school audiences, but more importantly, not all of the film’s inaccuracies were considered, as Burton J requested only a sample for the purposes of considering the case.

Clameur de Haro’s readers can see here the summary of the judgement, and the links to the ancillary submissions. They really should be read, in full, to derive a complete picture of the extent of the errors and fallacies peddled as incontrovertible truth.

Since that time, even more, and serious, flaws, both scientific and in biased selectivity of data, have come to light. To recount just a few -

Mann’s infamous “hockey stick” temperature graph, on which Gore relied so much, was confirmed and subsequently accepted even by the IPCC as being a fraud: firstly omitting, then dramatically under-representing the Mediaeval Warming Period, and secondly being based on a computer algorithm which generated the desired headline-grabbing hockey stick result no matter what data was fed into the algorithm.

In claiming far more frequent use of the Thames Flood Barrier and increased flooding on the East Coast of England (due, naturally, to global warming [sic]), Gore presented flood instance statistics going back to 1930. Highly selective, and suspiciously so – had he gone back just two years earlier, to 1928, he would have had to include the worst Thames flood on record, which occurred during a period of cooling temperatures, and he neglected to mention that the East Coast of England has been geologically sinking at the rate of several inches a year, both from general slow subsidence and the extraction of water from naturally-formed underground reservoirs.

His apocalyptic predictions for the melting of the entire Antarctic ice sheet turned out to have been predicated only on data for the c.7% of the entire Antarctic land mass constituted by the Antarctic Peninsula, but which Gore then extrapolated to apply to the whole. The Antarctic Peninsula is now considered to merit a different climate classification from the rest of the continent under the Köppen climate classification system, due to the influence which the Antarctic Circumpolar Current has on it, while the main ice sheet of the entire Antarctic Continent, accounting for something in excess of 80% of all the world’s ice, is both thickening and cooling.

The best summary of all the main scientific errors and all the flawed conclusions can be found in this paper, entitled “35 Inconvenient Truths – The Errors in Al Gore’s Movie” prepared for the Science and Public Policy Institute. It too should also be read, in full, by anyone with even the remotest connection to the possibility that Gore’s discredited fallacy-fest should be foisted on to impressionable young minds as though it was established and undisputed fact, and without any qualification.

According to the Jersey Evening [sic] Post’s report, Mr Reed responded with nothing more than a typically weasel-worded reply to the effect that he would pass on Mr Rondel’s concerns to his department.

That is just not good enough. Mr Reed is, whether he likes it or not, the repository of both a statutory duty and a moral responsibility to deliver an education system to the Island’s children free from the blatantly biased and inaccurate propaganda of the type of which Gore’s film is such a baleful example. And with the scandal of Climategate and the revelations of data manipulation and concealment in the Climate Research Unit currently breaking all around us (has he not heard of this?), for him not to undertake to give it his urgent personal attention and ensure that the film is not shown in schools without further reference back, is little short of a grave dereliction of duty.

At one time Clameur de Haro was disposed to think quite favourably of Mr Reed, but no more. Recent events, in particular his reactions to the suspensions/discipline issue, his denial of falling primary school standards, and his falling in with the majority criminality-excusing view on the withdrawal of anonymity from young violent offenders, give the distinct impression of a minister who has gone native and become house-trained, and a minister who has quite visibly been captured by the triumvirate of producer interests which dominate the education industry – his department’s civil servants, the teaching unions, and the fashionable educational theorists - so his reaction is, regrettably, not surprising. He is beginning to look ineffective, and out of his depth.

So – once again – plaudits to Deputy Rondel for raising this issue: Clameur de Haro pleads with him not to let the matter rest.

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Question - Anthropogenic Global Warming: Myth or Reality? Answer - Myth

Clameur de Haro has been travelling extensively to both London and Brussels of late, but was fortunate on Thursday November 12 to attend the lecture and subsequent debate in Westminster organised by The Spectator entitled “Global Warming: Myth or Reality?”. The principal speaker was Professor Ian Plimer, Professor of Geology at the University of Adelaide and Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne, prominent anthropogenic climate change sceptic, and author of the recently-published book “Heaven and Earth”, which brilliantly contrasts the proven science on climatic and geological changes to the Earth throughout its existence with the current green politics of climate alarmism propaganda.

One notable absentee, though, was Guardianista eco-prophet and all-round militant enviro-Greenie, George (“the science is settled”) Monbiot, who, although invited, tellingly declined to come and engage in debate with a proper scientist.

In a masterful presentation, Prof. Plimer depicted the huge geological and climatic changes which have been a constant feature of up to 4½ billion years of Earth history. He explained how massive changes had taken place in the constituents of the atmosphere, driven by factors as diverse as: life itself, the introduction of oxygen to the atmosphere, the exchanges of gases between the atmosphere and the oceans, and tectonic plate movement causing massive changes in ocean currents (including the isolation of Antarctica, allowing for permanent glaciation on that continent), and how all these have changed climate throughout the Earth’s existence.

Emphasising that the Earth has in fact had prolonged periods when it was much, much colder than today, he described six major glaciations / Ice Ages, and pointed out that during no fewer than five of them, levels of atmospheric CO2, including during the cooling phases, were actually higher - as much as 10 times higher - than today, while at other times it was much warmer than today, with the whole Earth, poles as well, enjoying tropical conditions – not surprising, as the Earth is fundamentally a warm, wet, greenhouse, volcanic planet.

Professor Plimer went on to show that, despite the fact that the extent of cooling experienced since just 1998 has significantly negated the rise in temperatures over the previous 30 years (with the fall from January 2007 to January 2008 being the steepest one-year fall since 1880), despite the fact that present temperatures are 7°C below most of the last 500 million years, and despite the fact that atmospheric CO2 is only one ten-thousandth more than it was in 1750, the IPCC tells us that an increase of merely 2°C would be disastrous, leading to a runaway greenhouse effect, ocean acidification, the dissolution of all crustacea in the oceans, and the death of coral – and all because of man-made CO2.

As he stated, what the militant enviro-Greenie / warmist-alarmist religion cannot explain is why none of these disasters seems to have occurred at earlier periods of Earth history when the Earth was much warmer, and the atmosphere was much, much richer in CO2. As Professor Plimer pointed out, far from being a pollutant, CO2 is an entirely natural trace gas in the atmosphere, which is essential to life, and to plant growth: today’s atmosphere is in fact relatively impoverished in CO2 compared to most of the Earth’s history. Higher levels of CO2 would increase both rates of biomass generation and crop yields, and as Professor Plimer also pointed out, throughout human history, warming periods have coincided with increasing food production, life expectancy and prosperity, while cold periods have produced conflict-causing population migrations, poverty and famine.

Professor Plimer admitted that the causes of climate change over geological history are not entirely well understood, but that the main factors appear to be solar irradiance and variations or oscillations in the Earth’s orbit leading to long-term climate cycles, other astronomical factors including gas and dust in space, super-volcanic activity, changes in cloud cover and cloud formation possibly linked to cosmic ray activity, and tectonic plate movement leading to major changes in ocean currents. In the face of all these factors, he said, the idea of fixating on one single trace gas in the atmosphere essential for life, then accusing it and finding it guilty of total responsibility for climate change, is an absurdity bordering on madness.

On one point though, Clameur de Haro disagreed with Professor Plimer. The latter urged the audience to eschew the linguistic tactics so enthusiastically espoused by the militant enviro-Greenie / warmist-alarmist religion who talk about “fighting climate change” or “the war on CO2 emissions”; in his view the language of war has in his view no place in science, because science is simply a process of discovery, with one hypothesis being replaced by another as refuting evidence becomes incontrovertible.

Clameur de Haro would agree with this if science was the only, or even the main factor in the climate change debate as put forward by the warmist enviro-doomsters. But it isn’t. The debate from their side is much more about the opportunity to impose collectivist politics, socialist economics and the inherently flawed Greenist religion which the affectations of concerned environmentalism conveniently conceal.

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More Selectively Alarmist Statistics About Climate Change

According to the latest report from Save The Children, up to 250,000 children “could” die in the next year from the effects of climate change: so of course its Policy Director has predictably called for stringent measures to “tackle climate change” at the upcoming Copenhagen GreenMarxFest Conference. It sounds (and it would be) a horrifying number, but, as so often in the smoke and mirrors world of climate alarmism, all is not necessarily as it seems.

Note, first of all the use of that word “could”, which usually, in the context of climate change statistics, means that the quoted figure is actually (1) the most extreme extrapolation of (2) the largest value in (3) the highest range of all possible outcomes. M’Noble Lord Stern of course is the supreme exponent of this statistical technique scare tactic and led the way with it in 2006.

Sadly, between 10 and 11 million child deaths occur annually. Research by both The Lancet and the World Health Organisation, shows that more than 70% of those, that’s 7 million at least, come from just six causes: pneumonia, diarrhoea, malaria, neo-natal sepsis, premature delivery or asphyxia at birth. UNICEF has calculated that malaria alone kills about 3000 per day just in sub-Saharan Africa, which adds up to approximately 1 million each year.

It’s been demonstrated time and time again that we could all but eliminate malaria and deliver clean water for drinking and cooking to every single person on this planet: and that we could do it for a tiny fraction of the trillions that the Green Religionists demand Western liberal democracies allocate to hobbling their free-market, enterprise economies and imposing state-authoritarian restrictions on freedom, all in a paroxysm of guilt and in the name of “fighting climate change”.

No doubt the 2 million or so children who will die from malaria and diarrhoea in 2010 will do so comforted by the knowledge that 20,000 assorted charlatans, dupes, freeloaders and hangers-on spent much of December 2009 expending much hot air in diligently considering their plight.

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What That Climate Change Advert Really Meant To Say………..

Like multitudes of his acquaintance, Clameur de Haro has been utterly disgusted by the selective, one-sided, criminally inaccurate, and blatantly scaremongering “bedtime story” advert now being shown on television. It’s nothing else but pernicious, crude propaganda of which Dr Goebbels himself would have been proud – although emanating as it does from the minions of the shifty, snivelling Ed Marxiband Milliband, one should not be remotely surprised.

Considering the eagerness with which the Militant Green-Left denounce sceptics of the Great Anthropogenic Climate Change Scam as deniers or worse, their silence so far on this classic example of the techniques of totalitarianism has been deafening – and because of that, so unequivocally revealing of their true agenda.

As a critique of the advert, this piece from Janet Daley says it all -

The government is trying to terrify you. That is the only possible interpretation of its latest television advertising campaign on the supposed dangers of global warming. Whether or not you accept the scientific premises behind the “bedtime story” advert which is now to be investigated by the Advertising Standards Authority after attracting over 350 complaints from the public, there is no question that it is propaganda in the strict technical sense of the word.

That is to say, it is an attempt by the state to manipulate opinion and evoke emotional reactions without offering argument or evidence for its case. It accepts uncritically the most extreme rendition of the anthropogenic global warming narrative as if it were entirely uncontentious and presents it in the most sentimentally evocative possible way (ie as a threat to one’s own children and to defenceless creatures generally). It uses the techniques once associated with totalitarian societies not to persuade (which is what advertising properly does) but to coerce: to create fear and guilt.

And to what purpose? Without offering constructive argument or serious explanation of the options, we can only assume that this is a campaign designed to browbeat the public into accepting any new restrictions or “green” taxes which government may choose to impose.

Fortunately, it seems that ordinary people still have the independence of mind to know when they are being bullied.

Indeed they do: and moreover an accurate translation of the Green-Left’s propaganda, and an explanation of its true agenda and motivation, is available. It’s here -

Warning – contains strong language which may offend.

Clameur de Haro would undoubtedly have preferred that the little girl’s comment at the end had been expressed in rather less robust terms – but both the message conveyed by her father and the essential meaning of her own response, are infinitely closer to the truth than the original.

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Mr Rogers Has Ideas Above His Station

Clameur de Haro was, to say the least, unimpressed by the both astonishing and disturbing exhibition of presumption, going beyond the remit of one’s office, and straying into the political arena by a supposedly impartial public servant, provided recently by Mr John Rogers, the Acting Head of TTS.

According to this report from BBC Radio Jersey (not always, it has to be said, the most accurate of media outlets), Mr Rogers has taken it upon himself to pronounce it “essential” that an environmental tax is introduced, and has also proposed the levying of taxes on fuel or (did he mean “and”? wonders CdeH) vehicle emissions.

Mr Rogers is clearly a devoted adherent to the Green Religion and its CO2 articles of faith, at one philosophically with the enviro-authoritarians who wish to either police us or tax us into behaving as they think we should, rather than persuading us.

He should perhaps be reminded that a unified set of policy prescriptions stemming from all-pervading Greenism have not been explicitly approved by either the States or the general public, and that candidates who have stood for election on an overtly Greenist platform have been roundly rejected by the electorate.

Were he, moreover, to pause for a few moments’ reflection in his crusade to direct us all how to live our lives, two things might just occur to him. Firstly, that adding further costs to travel and distribution in a island with poor public transport is both ineffective, inflationary, and fiscally regressive: and secondly, that positive, market-driven incentives to recycle are much more desirable socially, and much more likely to succeed practically, than illiberal coercion. A system of tax relief vouchers for regular recycling, for example, might well be far more effective, and should not cost upwards of the quoted £0.5m (plus no doubt an additional clerical “resource”) to administer.

In recent exchanges with Clameur de Haro, one senior States’ Member has unequivocally asserted to him that, contrary to popular opinion and concern, public policy in these challenging times is not made by unelected and unaccountable civil servants, but is exclusively the preserve of ministers and politicians answerable to the electorate at the ballot-box. That this should be axiomatic especially in the case of new taxes, should go without saying.

Mr Rogers however appears not have heard this, or to have unilaterally decided that this need not and does not apply to him. Perhaps his political masters can enlighten him – and ensure that his Acting status remains precisely that, and that only.

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Climate Change Nonsense No 129 – Eat Your Cats And Dogs To Save The Planet!

Yes, it's true - they're just as bad for the planet as driving 4x4s.

In his book “Time to Eat the Dog – The Real Guide to Sustainable Living”, Robert Vale claims that you should think seriously about either doing without, downsizing, or even eating your pet, because the carbon footprint of domestic animals is out of all proportion to the size of their paws – so much so that a medium-sized dog has an identical climate impact to a Toyota Landcruiser doing 6,000 miles a year. Your average collie, he says, gets though 164kg of meat and 95kg of cereals a year, giving it a high impact on the planet.

And worse still, a pair of hamsters does the same amount of damage as running a plasma TV! Bad news there for all the Greenists who were hoping, come the apocalypse, to salvage precious Gaia by using hamster-treadmill power to light their crofts and power their looms.

But all is not lost: rabbits and chickens are eco-friendly, apparently, because they provide meat for their owners – and a pair of rabbits can produce 36 young annually, which provides 72kg of meat and helps decrease the owner’s carbon footprint. Shame if it’s specifically your Greenism which has led you to be a veggie, but there you go……

Given the alacrity with which some of the questionable science crucial to the perpetuation of the Great Anthropogenic Climate Change Scam is so readily swallowed (oh dear, perhaps not the most appropriate turn of phrase in this context………) by the Enviro-Greenists, Clameur de Haro suspects that, were he a mutt or a moggie in one of our local Greenist ménages this weekend, he might find it prudent to go AWOL when the Sunday roast is about to be carved…..

And the hound in the picture? Why, none other than that belonging to The Sainted One, Our Blessed Barack Obamarama. Given his susceptibility to the tenets of the GACCS, Clameur de Haro wouldn’t bet too much on the pooch making it through till 2012 either….

H/T – Daily Referendum

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One (Authoritarian Socialist) World Government with the Copenhagen Climate Treaty

Clameur de Haro finds it utterly chilling to contemplate the all-pervading, cross-border, national sovereignty-disregarding, worldwide socialist regime that is going to be imposed on us, irrespective of whether we want it or not, and before we are very much older, if the treaty being hawked around for the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen is actually signed.

A world government, massive redistribution of wealth, and supra-national enforcement regime are all openly and expressedly envisaged as the first three purposes of the draft treaty -

a) The government will be ruled by the COP with the support of a new subsidiary body on adaptation, and of an Executive Board responsible for the management of the new funds and the related facilitative processes and bodies. The current Convention secretariat will operate as such, as appropriate.

b) The Convention’s financial mechanism will include a multilateral climate change fund including five windows: (a) an Adaptation window, (b) a Compensation window, to address loss and damage from climate change, including insurance, rehabilitation and compensatory components, (c) a Technology window; (d) a Mitigation window; and (e) a REDD window, to support a multi-phases process for positive forest incentives relating to REDD actions

c) The Convention’s facilitative mechanism will include: (a) work programmes for adaptation and mitigation; (b) a long-term REDD process; (c) a short-term technology action plan; (d) an expert group on adaptation established by the subsidiary body on adaptation, and expert groups on mitigation, technologies and on monitoring, reporting and verification; and (e) an international registry for the monitoring, reporting and verification of compliance of emission reduction commitments, and the transfer of technical and financial resources from developed countries to developing countries. The secretariat will provide technical and administrative support, including a new centre for information exchange

You can read the entire draft treaty here.

This became horrifyingly and undeniably clear in the presentation given last week to the Free Market Institute of Minnesota by Lord Christopher Moncton. In the 1990s, Monckton was one of the principal scientific advisers to the British Government, and he is acknowledged as a true scientific expert on the entire subject of so-called global warming and anthropogenic climate change – so much so that the high priests of the Green Religion, from that inveterate junk science peddlar Al Gore downwards, refuse to engage in debate with him. His presentation, amplified by a multitude of peer-reviewed data, charts, facts and figures, comprehensively demolished the warmist-alarmist case, but it’s the end of his presentation on the political run-up to Copenhagen which should shock anybody.

Watch it, and weep for our freedoms which the international Green-Left alliance are going to sign away.

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Glass Houses and Stones…..?

The militant Enviro-Greenists, and not least Jersey’s home-grown communicants to that cult, are fond of portraying those, like Clameur de Haro, who are sceptical about the Great Anthropogenic Climate Change Scam as rabid, swivel-eyed deniers who, if not actually insane, spend their days plotting how to ravage fruitful, bounteous, Mother Earth, in between eating their own first-born. Altogether not the kind of monsters, therefore, who deserve any kind of hearing whatsoever.

Whereas the Enviro-Greenists themselves of course are all, without exception, calm, sensible and rational people, studiously, unemotionally, and dispassionately evaluating the scientific evidence and coming measuredly to the only possible, and naturally the "correct", conclusions.

So here’s an example of the latter, so that Clameur de Haro’s readers can see for themselves how absolutely spot on accurate the Greenists’ portrayals of themselves are.

'Nuff said.

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Into The Lion’s Den With Daniel

Reluctant though Clameur de Haro is to compete with Daniel in the confines of the Lion’s Den, on examining more closely Mr Wimberley’s comments on some of the Greenism issues aired in CdeH’s recent post On Epithets, Labels, Beliefs, and Definitions ………, it does strike CdeH that Mr Wimberley’s response is, interestingly, equally significant for what he doesn’t say, rather than what he does.

Looking at some of these in more detail (with the original post in blue and Mr Wimberley’s comments in green) -

"The Godfather of the global warming scare industry, James Hansen" –

which uses exactly the same techniques as he accuses Nick Palmer of using.

"scare" –

errr well no, actually thousands of peer-reviewed articles written by scientists who are each of them would just love, wouldn't they, to become famous by DISPROVING or throwing at least a little spanner in the theory of anthropogenic global warming

"industry" –

Oh, since when were Exxon paying Hansen et al to do their work? On no, sorry, silly me, "industry" refers to the support given by those industrialists who cannot put the common interest above their own narrowly defined interest, to people who can be paid to spread doubt, the key weapon, (exactly as was done by the tobacco giants, which is why I am justified in talking about "industry" and about "weapon")

"Godfather" –

well we know who that was. . .

These are eminently fair points in response to normal journalistic knockabout, but Mr Wimberley did not attempt any rebuttal of CdeH’s salient point, which was the castigation of Hansen’s demand that any who merely question the claims of catastrophic warming should be put on trial.

Mr Wimberley did not rebut CdeH’s condemnation of the 2006 proposal of David Marxiband Millband that we should all be forced to carry a personal carbon footprint use swipe card.

He did not deny the proliferating use of CCTV surveillance cameras, originally justified and installed for counter-terrorism purposes, to spy on householders’ recycling habits.

He did not question, or attempt to justify, the use of children by local councils for enviro-enforcement espionage.

He did not actually deny or rebut the similarities between current Greenist policy prescriptions and those of the 1970s hard-left marxists.

"authoritarian restriction on private behaviour "

= green taxation or taxes on carbon or a carbon rationing system. Perhaps Clameur thinks it is more rational to tax labour when what we have is a surplus of people needing things to do which are paid, and what we do not need is to consume more. I rather think that ANY tax is seen as some kind of restriction by CdeH

Indeed - but only “Up to a point, Lord Copper”. Any kind of tax, being the state’s self-legitimated appropriation to itself of a private citizen’s legally-acquired wealth, is by definition a restriction on the citizen’s freedom to dispose his wealth as he sees fit. But that does not mean that CdeH advocates no taxation – on the contrary, he readily acknowledges that there are economic goods and public services needed by some or all of the population which only the state can or will fund, and that taxation is both an acceptable and the most practical way of raising the revenue needed.

The problems arise, and CdeH’s objections kick in, when states over-reach their remit or fail to control adequately their own spending, and use increased taxation as a prop – or when taxes are cloaked in a supposedly more acceptable colour conveniently to conceal their underlying purpose.

Mr Wimberley did not however deny the co-incidence of the impetus in vehement environmentalism with the collapse of communism.

He did not attempt to refute the explicit support of hard-left marxist Socialist Unity offshoot Green Left for an electoral pact with the Green Party.

"Derek Wall, former Male Spokesman (yes, I know – no laughing at the back of the class, please) of the Green Party," –

well no actually, there is no such thing. Poor old Clameur, it never does to check your facts, might get in the way of a nice sneer. The Green Party has a male speaker and a female speaker - or did until they voted recently to go for a single party leader, like the other parties, not sure what they have decided to call this person.

Again a fair point about the precise designation of Mr Wall – but what Mr Wimberley does not rebut is the more serious point about Mr Walls’ enthusiastic advocacy of growing collaboration between hard-left socialism and the Green movement, in the interests of both.

Smoke and mirrors, smoke and mirrors.

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A Comment From Daniel Wimberley

Possibly due to an undetected last ditch reaguard action on the part of the gremlins which have recently aflicted Clameur de Haro's comment moderation facility, a comment from Daniel Wimberley on his post "On Epithets, Labels, Beliefs and Definitions.........." was not highlighted for moderation.

CdeH therefore presents it as a separate post below -

Begins:

"The Godfather of the global warming scare industry, James Hansen" –

which uses exactly the same techniques as he accuses Nick Palmer of using.

"scare" –

errr well no, actually thousands of peer-reviewed articles written by scientists who are each of them would just love, wouldn't they, to become famous by DISPROVING or throwing at least a little spanner in the theory of anthropogenic global warming

"industry" –

oh since when were Exxon paying Hansen et al to do their work? On no, sorry, silly me, "industry" refers to the support given by those industrialists who cannot put the common interest above their own narrowly defined interest, to people who can be paid to spread doubt, the key weapon, (exactly as was done by the tobacco giants, which is why I am justified in talking about "industry" and about "weapon")

"Godfather" –

well we know who that was. . .

"authoritarian restriction on private behaviour "

= green taxation or taxes on carbon or a carbon rationing system. Perhaps Clameur thinks it is more rational to tax labour when what we have is a surplus of people needing things to do which are paid, and what we do not need is to consume more. I rather think that ANY tax is seen as some kind of restriction by CdeH

"Derek Wall, former Male Spokesman (yes, I know – no laughing at the back of the class, please) of the Green Party," –

well no actually, there is no such thing. Poor old Clameur, it never does to check your facts, might get in the way of a nice sneer. The Green Party has a male speaker and a female speaker - or did until they voted recently to go for a single party leader, like the other parties, not sure what they have decided to call this person.

Ends

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Greenist Tolerance of Dissenting Opinion #39

From Toby Harnden, US editor of the BarclayTorygraph, comes this piece (written in September, hence the reference to “next month”) about the reaction of militant environmentalists to the next project of two Irish filmmakers –

Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, whose film Not Evil Just Wrong is due to premiere next month, have been subjected to a slew of death threats and instances of disgusting abuse from the environmental Left. One commenter branded them “Hitler’s Henchmen”.

Their crime? Their film dares to challenge the conventional wisdom about global warming – they prefer to call it “global warming hysteria” – and take on Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.

Rather than try to rebut the arguments of the couple, it seems, their opponents want to shut down any debate.

One environmentalist sent McAleer and McElhinney an e-mail describing them as “stinking, selfish, sociopathic fascists” and expressed a desire for them to be executed. “It is one of my fondest hopes that whatever remnants of human civilization exists at the end of this catastrophe is able to put people like you on trial for crimes against humanity and give you the same treatment Hitler’s henchmen got at Nurnberg a long drop at the end of a short rope,” the email stated.

A commenter on YouTube wished that McAleer and McElhinney’s children be born handicapped because they were not campaigning against “pollution”. The most vitriolic comments have been deleted by YouTube.

McAleer said he was disappointed by the taking down of the comments. “We wanted to keep the comments so that people could see for themselves the hate being directed at those who dare to ask questions about liberal orthodoxy.”

The couple have been called “hillbillies,” “rednecks,” “zombies,” “dimwits,” “brainwashed idiots,” “muppets” and “slaves to greedy elitists”.

One commenter suggested a tactic for discrediting the couple, writing: “Slander them as tools of big oil/coal. Insinuate they’re on a par with Holocaust deniers.”

Remind you of any comments you’ve seen about Clameur de Haro’s blogposts on green issues?

The film premieres on 18 October.

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On Epithets, Labels, Beliefs, and Definitions ………

Clameur de Haro is prompted by recent comments on his posts to muse at length on the potential for confusion stemming from the epithets and labels applied to beliefs, and the benefits of more precise definitions.

Mr Frank Binney (a new commenter, and most welcome) raises the issue of how accurate, or otherwise, it is to apply the “left” or “right” label to the Greenists? Tony The Prof, in his courteous and erudite way as always, highlights the undesirability of debating climate issues with ad hominem arguments. Both comments, and the reasoned, courteous tone of them, merit a full response.

CdeH subscribes to the view of The Political Compass that the traditional “left” and “right” label is no longer sufficiently adequate to describe positions on the political playing field, because the continuum is one-dimensional, and predominantly an indicator of economic position – ranging from communism or overwhelmingly statist collectivism (on the left), to unfettered, unregulated, laissez-faire capitalism (on the right). And that a more sophisticated and illuminating definition of politico-economic philosophy can be made by complementing location on the economic dimension with a statement of position on the social, authoritarian-to-libertarian continuum, ranging from ultimate authoritarian (fascism, in fact) to ultimate libertarian (virtually anarchy).

It should come as no surprise to Clameur de Haro’s more careful and perceptive readers that CdeH finds himself in the area of the 4-o’clock position in the bottom right-hand quadrant of Libertarian Right – being unequivocally in favour of small government, free trade, free markets, low taxes, but light-touch regulation on the economic continuum, and with a moderate libertarian slant on the social scale, believing as he does that the state aggregates too much power to itself and then often proceeds to exercise it illiberally, and has no business, for example, interfering in willingly-undertaken social transactions between competent, consenting adults, provided that others are not harmed thereby.

Not a million miles from the Hayekian and Friedmanite positions, it would appear, which probably accounts for CdeH’s intuitive listing of Friedman’s “Free to Choose” and “Capitalism and Freedom” as among the most influential formatives of his political / economic thinking.

CdeH frequently has the label “right-wing” hurled at him as an insult. On The Political Compass’ economic continuum, of course, this is, as far as it goes, a more correct than incorrect identification of his economic and fiscal philosophy (although quite why the belief that government is not per se automatically efficient and that taxpayers should be entitled to keep more of their own money, should be a cause for insult, is mystifying).

But on the social policy scale, and when hurled at a commentator who -

(1) naturally inclines to concern at the accretion and abuse of power by the authoritarian state and its agents;

(2) has been appalled at the implications for our liberty as citizens of Labour’s 12-year attack on habeas corpus, the right to jury trial, the right to silence, and the presumption of innocence, all on spurious grounds; and

(3) would choose La Moye rather than be forced to carry a show-on-demand ID card or render up his DNA without just cause, believing that it is his property and not that of the state,

the epithet “right-wing” as an insult is hilarious in its inaccuracy (as Clameur de Haro’s friends who know his views on privacy and personal freedom issues tell him), and betrays rather more about the insulter that it does about the criticised.

Where does this take us on the subject of applying labels in that area where politics and Greenism meet?

CdeH has good friends, occupying varying locations on the left-right economic-fiscal spectrum, who are very environmentally-minded but who equally accept that scepticism on green issues is valid, healthy, and should in a free society be widely aired, and that this is all very much a matter of private, personal choice, not public coercion. In no way could they be described as fundamentalist Greenists. On this specific point of socio-political philosophy, we would have to place them in the libertarian half on the authoritarian–libertarian scale.

But others – indeed, many others - appear, regrettably, to be much less tolerant. Consider just the following examples –

The Godfather of the global warming scare industry, James Hansen, being on record as averring that anyone who even questions the postulate of catastrophic warming should be put on trial. Not positively counter-argues it – merely questions it;

The proposal of David Marxiband Milliband, when UK Energy Secretary in 2006, to force the entire population of the UK to carry a swipe card to be presented on every transaction, with every single person in the land being expected to render account for their carbon footprint and being allocated a personal annual carbon allowance – enthusiastically endorsed by the then environment correspondent of The Guardian (now there’s a surprise) in the following terms –

“The move marks the first serious step towards state-enforced limits on the carbon use of individuals……….extends the principle of carbon to consumers, with heavy carbon users forced to buy unused allowances from people with greener lifestyles” ;

The proliferating use of CTV surveillance cameras, originally justified and installed for counter-terrorism purposes, to spy on householders’ recycling habits;

The admission of Ealing Council in West London that “hundreds of Junior Streetwatchers, aged eight to 10, [have been] trained to identify and report enviro-crime issues” and that of Harlow Council in Essex which has said it has “25 ‘Street Scene Champions’, all aged between 11 and 14, who are encouraged to email or telephone the council if they suspect that an ‘enviro-crime’ has been committed” ;

The examples of prominent EU Greenists with hard-left, marxist, pasts: those of us of a certain age, (pace Tony The Prof) remember, for example, Joschka Fischer and Daniel Cohn-Bendit propagating in the 1970s, revolutionary socialist prescriptions eerily precursory of much of both the authoritarian restriction on private behaviour and freedom, and the “for-the-sake-of-the-environment-and-the-planet” taxation that the Greenists espouse today. Is it really just a coincidence that aggressive environmentalism really started to take off in the early 1990s when communism was finally consigned to the scrapheap?

The rallying call of Green Left - an offshoot of hard-left marxist Socialist Unity - for an electoral pact in Birmingham with the Green Party “……….to give a progressive and environmentally aware candidate the chance of taking the seat, and a victory for all those opposing the policies of privatisation, war, greed, racism and environmental destruction. We are firmly of the belief that this will benefit both the Green and progressive movements in this country……….” ;

The author of this, intriguingly enough, is one Derek Wall, former Male Spokesman (yes, I know – no laughing at the back of the class, please) of the Green Party, who in another incarnation also comes up with this explicit summary of the advantages from the growing collaboration between hard-left socialism and the Green movement -

“The creation of an Eco-socialist International network seems a good institutional basis for making European Green Parties more radical and I would like to see EU Greens working with the Nordic Green Left. I hope that it builds an eco-socialist network that links activists in every single state on this planet and, as we agreed in Paris, to work to make greens redder and reds greener.”

This, and plenty more of the same, can be viewed at http://www.climateandcapitalism.com/.

All of which suggests to Clameur de Haro that, far from the idea of Greenist Fundamentalism being an exaggeration, when taken overall, ample justification exists for that upper left Authoritarian Socialist quadrant of The Political Compass being the correct location for the activist, militant Greenism most often propounded by the save-the-planet-warriors. This is what he refers to when he speaks of Green Fundamentalists. As we can see, there’s a lot of it about.

And yet CdeH is mocked by a commenter for displaying a “Green is the New Red” logo on his sidebar?

Which brings us inevitably on to Mr Nick Palmer, Clameur de Haro’s most frequent commenter, and serial ritual abuser. Mr Palmer is fond of labelling CdeH as a recidivist perpetrator of what seems in his lexicon to be that most heinous of all crimes, far, far worse than mass-murderer, or child-abductor, or financial swindler, or…………………well, worse than anything at all really, namely being a “global warming denier”.

It sheds, firstly, an interesting perspective on the more strident advocates of radical environmentalism that mere scepticism, inherently just a manifestation of thought or opinion, rather than any illegal actions or criminal deed, should be judged so deserving of such calumny. But given on the one hand the inclination so prevalent in Gramscian cultural marxism (to give the colloquial, more familiar, label of political correctness its ideological origin) to establish, define, and prosecute crimes of thought and opinion, and on the other hand the correlation between Gramscian thought and militant Greenism, CdeH is relatively unsurprised by this.

The attaching to sceptics of the term “denier” in this context is quite deliberate, and no mere accidental or careless use of language. Its users are employing one of the classic tactics of cultural marxism – closing down the argument and thereby circumventing debate. It’s exactly the same technique which accuses someone of racism if they attempt to discuss whether current levels of immigration are sustainable, or of elitism if they suggest that a few more grammar schools with scholarships might actually benefit bright children from modest backgrounds, or of xenophobia if they suggest that handing over sovereignty to an unelected and unaccountable supranational authority might not be a terribly good thing for democracy. By seeking to equate enquiring scepticism about anthropogenic climate change with something as repellent as (primarily) Holocaust denial, they try to convey the idea that their target is so irretrievably and unspeakably vile that anything they say should not even be given a hearing, never mind taken seriously.

For the record, Clameur de Haro does accept that there has been an upward movement in average global temperatures over significant periods of the past century-and-a-half or so, but equally is persuaded that this has not been the case since 1998. As indeed, even the warmists – from the IPCC, who acknowledged that its first apocalyptic predictions omitted the Medieval Warming entirely, through Mann, who eventually conceded the fundamental flaws in the algorithms which generated his infamous hockey-stick, to the Biased BBC, which has just reported that for the last 11 years no increase in global temperatures has been observed and that there could be 30 years of cooling due to falling ocean temperatures - have had to admit.

Noticeable, isn’t it, how in the last few years, it’s all become “catastrophic climate change” rather than “catastrophic global warming”?

He has yet to be convinced, also, by the entire man-made / CO2 argument, having seen too many graphs of data sets showing non-correlation between temperature and CO2 output, temperature cooling during periods of rising CO2 output irrespective of whichever time lag is attempted, and studies suggesting that CO2 levels may be the consequence, not the cause, of temperature movements.

And he feels unable to ignore the peer-reviewed evidence that the Earth’s climate has changed throughout its history (and that a mere 30 years ago, some of today’s warmists were ardently warning of catastrophic global cooling and the strong danger of a new ice age). Climate change isn’t unlikely – it’s guaranteed, as it has been for the last x million years, mankind or no mankind, and CdeH is presently unconvinced that human influence on it, while possible, is nevertheless other than peripheral. The notion of “combating climate change” CdeH suspects, is about as feasible as combating tomorrow morning’s sunrise or combating the advent of next Christmas.

So, the correct term for Clameur de Haro is actually “anthropogenic climate change sceptic”. But then that’s so much less emotive as a term of derision than “global warming denier”, isn’t it? Perhaps those who inadvertently - or more likely deliberately - conflate the two need to put “dictionary” at the top of their Christmas List.

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And The Greenists Still Deny That Theirs Is A Religion??

Anyone still harbouring any lingering doubts that activist Greenism is more fundamentalist religion than measured, reasoned, environmental concern should have had the scales irrevocably lifted from their eyes this morning by this revelation from the Oxford Mail brought to Clameur de Haro’s attention.

H/Ts - The All-Seeing Eye and An Englishman’s Castle

Tim Nicholson, the former Head of Sustainability (pass CdeH the sick bag, please, and quickly) at Grainger plc, claims that he was unfairly dismissed because of his philosophical views on climate change. At a preliminary hearing in March, he was granted leave to take his claim to an Employment Tribunal, but this ruling is currently being challenged by his former employers on the grounds that greenist views should not be accorded equivalent status to religious or philosophical beliefs in law, so cannot therefore serve as either protection from unfair dismissal, or reason to claim unfair dismissal.

Mr John Bowers QC, representing Grainger, said: "A philosophical belief must be one based on a philosophy of life: not a scientific belief, not a political belief or opinion, not a lifestyle choice, not an environmental belief and not an assertion of disputed facts". The firm claims that whereas philosophy seeks to answer the fundamental questions of human experience, environmental concerns are rooted in scientific data (however selectively they are misinterpreted, thinks CdeH).

Mr Nicholson, characteristically, is protesting this, arguing that his greenist views should be acknowledged as possessing equivalence in law to profoundly-held religious belief. He refuses to travel by air (at all), claims that his views on climate change affect his whole lifestyle, and says “I have a strongly held philosophical belief about climate change and the environment. I believe we must urgently avoid catastrophic climate change. This affects how I live my life ... I fear for the future of the human race." He admitted that his constant proselytising of his strong green religiosity caused clashes with senior colleagues.

Like other commentators, Clameur de Haro suspects that Mr Nicholson was (rightly) given the elbow because he was actually a first-class internal rectal affliction of regal proportions, who felt it his sacred mission to spend his time attempting to convert all the heretics rather than do the job he was paid to do.

But isn’t this case instructive as a means of highlighting the multiplicity of similarities between Greenism and fundamentalist religion?

The investing of the planet with all the faculties and emotions of a deity, the sins committed against whom must be expunged by sacrificial atonement.

The unshakeable, dogmatic belief, despite all the questionable evidence, and whatever the arguments to the contrary.

The assumption of a divine mission to indoctrinate the pagan masses.

The warnings of imminent apocalypse unless all the tenets of the religion are forcibly imposed.

The refusal to consider alternative explanations for the phenomena which form the basis of the creed.

The fanatical and vituperative disparagement of unbelievers or sceptics as evil deniers, malevolent heretics, and moral reprobates.

The suggestion that sceptics should either be put on trial or locked up as insane.

So many structural similarities to the fundamental theistic religions, and of course also to marxism, that other secular religion. Coincidence? Not a chance.

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A Greenist’s Dilemma!!

What a truly exquisite dilemma is posed for the doom-mongering proselytizers of the Green Religion by the revelation that, if Arctic ice sheets really were in the cataclysmic permanent decline which they claim, one of the consequences would be to open up access to substantial reserves of currently untapped oil and gas – as much as 13% of the world’s previously undiscovered oil and no less than 30% of its previously undiscovered natural gas.

Not that it’s going to happen any time soon, of course.

The latest data and models from the University of Colorado’s National Snow and Ice Data Centre show that, even though the rate of seasonal summer ice-melt is up (although it’s lower this year than in 2007 and 2008), the rate of over-winter recovery is such that total ice coverage has only decreased at the rate of 2.6% per decade (yes, that’s right – about a quarter of one per cent per year) over the last 30 years – hardly the cataclysmic decline that the alarmists postulate.

What’s more, polar explorers have been observing fluctuations in Arctic ice coverage and temperatures for 200 years. The data readings entered in the 1818 ship’s log of the HMS Isabella, recently released from the records of the National Archives as part of the UK Colonial Registers and Royal Navy Logbooks Project, suggest that there has been minimal or even no significant change in sea temperatures in large parts of the Arctic. The ship’s log of the HMS Dorothea from its 1818 expedition to the Norwegian Arctic show that the summer weather of 1818 in the high northern latitudes was not significantly cooler than that of the last 30 years.

However, Clameur de Haro must acknowledge that there is a contrary view, for he is aware of the alternative report submitted to the Admiralty which contained the following –

“A considerable change of climate, inexplicable at present to us, must have taken place, by which the severity of the cold that has, for centuries past, enclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice has been, during the last two years, greatly abated. This affords ample proof that new sources of warmth have been opened.”

The date of this? November 1817. That’s right, 1817. It seemed to be getting warmer and ice coverage seemed to be decreasing. Must have been the carbon footprint of all those Laplanders and Inuit importing their polenta from Tuscany and their winter strawberries from Kenya, and driving their 4x4s to Starbucks on their way to their EasyJet holiday flights.

And even the Hadley Centre, in its latest report bout of scaremongering, can do no more than confine itself to warning that the Greenland ice sheet could recover to only (yes, only) 80% of its current size were it decrease through ice-melt by 15% over the next 300 years – and it could even disappear entirely over several thousand years.

Clameur de Haro couldn’t hope to top the erudition of the scorn rightly poured on this by Tim Worstall here, so a grateful H/T to Tim for this one.

But - oh dear, oh dear, whatever will the Peak Oil doomsters do now? If the “Greenland Ice Melt Through Catastrophic Man-Made Climate Change” part of their faith comes to pass, that blows an even bigger hole than the one that exists already in their Peak Oil belief, because substantial additional reserves become economically extractable. But if they want to continue to adhere to their Peak Oil credo, those additional reserves have to remain discounted from their calculation of remaining finite resources - which requires them to admit, ahem, that the Arctic ice sheets won’t actually be melting to the degree predicted.

Not that Clameur de Haro thinks that any of this will deter the Greenists of course - after all, mustn’t let the Inconvenient Truths of science and reason get in the way of the true religion…..

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Climate Change Nonsense No 117 – No More Olympics!!

Clameur de Haro shared in the ill-concealed schadenfreude of many observers and commentators at the International Olympic Committee’s decision to ignore the sermons of the Obamessiah and award the 2016 Olympics to Rio rather than Chicago, while rejecting also the bids from Tokyo and Madrid.

What caught CdeH’s eye however, was this oh-so-typically green apocalyptic prediction of doom from Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, who warned that global warming was such an immediate threat to all mankind that the 2016 Games could be the last ever staged.

“Global warming is getting worse. We have to come up with measures, without which the Olympic Games could not last long. Scientists have said we have passed the point of no return,” intoned Mr Ishihara solemnly.

Well, yes. Setting aside for a moment the Inconvenient Truth that an increasing number of reputable and respected climate scientists vigorously disassociate themselves from the shrill orthodoxies of the Green Religion, one can see just how the warmist-alarmist predictions - that unless we implement authoritarian economy-wrecking and liberty-destroying policies immediately, we may have a small rise in temperatures in 2050 rather than 2060 - might indeed spell the end of the Olympics.

Or, considering that they have been successfully held in climate environments as diverse as Helsinki and Mexico City, possibly not.

No doubt Tokyo will not be bidding to host future Olympiads on the grounds that they will never happen. Presumably Japan will not be encouraging its future athletes either. H/T – Mr Eugenides

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With Friends Like These..............

Isn't it revealing to see the extent to which the views of the apocalypse-predicting green eco-authoritarians of Jersey's own J-CAN are echoed in the wider national political scene?

Perusing certain UK political party websites today in the furtherance of wider research, Clameur de Haro came across this little gem which should bring a warm glow to the likes of Messrs Palmer, Wimberley, Forskitt et al -

"Peak oil spells the end of cheap oil and gas. It will be seen as the heralding of a new age when we learn to live with the resources of the planet."

But with, of course, the most drastic restrictions on individual liberty, economic freedom, and human advancement, all in the name of allegedly saving the planet (although, strangely, it doesn't mention that).

And this one -

"Develop renewable energy sources such as off-shore wind farms, wave, tidal and solar energy"

Even though wind power has been proved not to provide anything like the power-generating capacity that is claimed for it, or a fraction of the power-generating capacity it is supposed to replace (although equally strangely, that isn't mentioned either).

And where, precisely, apart from in the prescriptions of J-CAN and its fellow-travellers, does one find such enlightened opinions articulated? Why, in none other than the policies of the intolerant, racist and bigoted British National Party. It's all spelt out on the odious BNP's website.

Judge ye a man by the company he keeps, counselled Clameur de Haro's spiritual advisers, all those years ago. Sound advice, maybe.

An unduly harsh judgement? Perhaps. But perhaps not when levelled at those whose habitual mode of debate is to disparage honest sceptics as "deniers" rather than engage with their arguments.

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Climate Change Nonsense No 106 – Birmingham To Boil This Century

Clameur de Haro notes that, according to the latest press release put out by the departmental acolytes of the eco-mental UK Minister for Energy and Climate Change [sic], the distinctly shifty and snivelling Ed Miliband, busily applying as much as possible of the cultural marxism learned at the knee of his marxist-historian father, the unfortunate inhabitants of the West Midlands are going to have rather a torrid time of it in the coming decades.

For Milipede’s minions predict that by 2080, the temperature for the hottest day of the year could increase by 100°C. And no, you didn’t misread that - 100°C – it says so here. It sure is going to be hot over there in Birmingham, England.

Yes, of course it's a typo. But considering the ridicule justifiably heaped on the UK Met Office for its predictions of a “barbecue summer” (according to the National Environment Research Council, July was (1) “distinctly autumnal”, (2) the third wet July in succession, and (3) the wettest since 1888), and the opprobrium rightly poured on the Hadley Centre for attempting to keep its climate record data (inconveniently verifying general cooling since 1998) secret, CdeH would have thought that the useless DECC might have hesitated just a little before predicting a rise of even 10°C.

It’s enough to make your blood boil – which, apparently, it will……

Still, the eco-fascists can’t let science get in the way of propagating the Green religion, can they? That would never do.

Hat Tip - Dizzy

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The Curious Inconsistency of Pink and Green?

Clameur de Haro was, like very many people, horrified this week to read the details of the appalling murders committed by a schizophrenic psychopath, the last after having been released – as a result of a long litany of failings by psychiatric and social services – to live in the community as an outpatient, despite previous convictions for murder.

It’s noticeable from this and other cases - nearly 30 in the 10 years to 2007 - of convicted killers released from jail who have then gone on to kill again, that a significant factor in the eagerness to release was the intolerable violation of the human rights of one person judged to be perpetrated by keeping him incarcerated, just to protect the public from the mere off-chance that he might kill again. A classic world-view, in fact, of the Gramscian cultural left.

Yet many of that self-same Gramscian cultural left are among the most ardent proselytizers of the fundamentally illiberal, authoritarian socialism-by-another-name, policy prescriptions of the Green religion, who harbour no qualms at all about imposing, on billions of people, the most drastic restrictions and penalties on individual freedom, economic liberty, and human advancement, ever seen, just to protect the planet from the mere off-chance that their increasingly discredited and desperate predictions of impending climate apocalypse might turn out to be one-percent true.

A curious inconsistency indeed……or, given that both policies necessitate the subjection of the majority to the views of the unrepresentative minority, possibly not………

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Bravo!! for 42 Members of the Australian Senate

Clameur de Haro salutes the 42 members of the Australian Senate who yesterday brought some much-needed legislative sanity to the Great Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change Scam by voting to reject the leftist Rudd Government's potentially ambitious tax-hiking (in the midst of a recession), economy-damaging, and over-regulating Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

And Chapeau! especially to Sen. Steve Fielding, who rather than just succumbing to the Green alarmists’ propaganda and all the usual hysterical “denier” / “you are killing our children” / “you must be in the pay of big mineral” insults from the shrills, actually talked to as many scientists as possible, came to the realisation that the science is very far from settled and there is very much not total consensus, and then presented impeccable, scientific, peer-reviewed evidence to the effect that man-made CO2 emissions are small compared with natural ones, and The Inconvenient Truth that despite rising CO2 levels, global temperatures have not in fact risen for more than a decade.

And what a delightful irony that 5 Green Party senators, furious that the Scheme didn’t go far enough for their tastes in the direction of hobbling business and the economy in the name of saving the planet, voted against it and thereby helped to bring it down. The words “hoist” and “petard” come unaccountably to mind.

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