4 July 2008

Reaction in Australia

Garnaut Report Ignored Three Key Questions

"Will the world follow our brave example or will Australia and New Zealand be left hanging like dead dingos on a barbed wire fence?"

An Australian group of global warming skeptics has claimed that the Garnaut Report had totally ignored the three key questions in the debate.

The chairman of The Carbon Sense Coalition, Viv Forbes, said that the major question is a scientific one: “Have man’s emissions of CO2 caused unusual global warming or done harm to the world environment?” An increasing number of scientists all over the world are very clear on this and their answer is a resounding “NO”.

For starters see the Oregon Petition:
http://www.petitionproject.org/

And the Manhattan Declaration:
http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=63&Itemid=1

“It is irresponsible for the government to get this far without having an independent enquiry on the science, a fundamental first step in a rational due diligence of this massive economic intervention, said Mr Forbes.

(See: Call for an Australian New Zealand Royal Commission: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/royal-commission-jan08.pdf

“The second question not considered by the Garnaut Report is ‘What are the full costs and benefits likely to accrue to Australians if we embark on this course?’ This major question is avoided by explanations of ‘no data’ or ‘the modelling is not completed’.

“Already we are seeing the costs associated with misguided policies designed to reduce global warming: a world shortage of food cause by diversion of land from food production to ethanol; power shortages and blackouts as power station construction is deferred; soaring prices for gas as people are coerced to convert from one carbon fuel to another; shortages of refined diesel and petrol as refinery construction is delayed; and instability and losses in financial markets concerned about the future cost of travel, transport, energy and food.”

“But nowhere have we seen estimates of the total cost of all the taxes, disruptions, shortages, cost increases and unnecessary investments associated with all the emission permits, ration coupons, energy mandates, trading schemes, quotas, bureaucracy and approvals.

“The third key question not considered by Professor Garnaut, is ‘Is it politically likely that rest of the world will adopt these draconian mitigation policies, or will Australia and New Zealand be left hanging like dead dingos on a barbed wire fence?’

“No democracy will accept the costs and disruptions envisaged to achieve the fairy-land goals for cuts in carbon emissions. Therefore this whole mitigation scheme must fail and will eventually be abandoned, but only after causing huge costs,” Mr Forbes continued.

“The rejection of green taxes in recent UK by-elections, the defeat of emissions trading legislative proposals by the US Senate, the revolt about electricity prices among German politicians, the worldwide food riots and the truckie blockades all over Europe should surely warn our worldly-wise PM that this decision is just too hard, even for him.”

“Even if we faced more global warming, which is the better way to go – prepare to adapt, or try to change the world and its climate? Is adaptation or mitigation the sensible policy?

“The climate is always changing and will continue to do so no matter what Professor Garnaut and Minister Wong say or do about it. Our ancestors have survived massive climate change - floods of Biblical dimensions, storms more violent than Katrina, volcanism to dwarf Krakatoa, Saharan droughts, seas that evaporated and then flooded back and flourishing greenhouse forests followed by glacial ages of ice.

“Many species and individuals died in the periodic ages of chaos but our ancestors adapted and survived. They went on to thrive in the occasional warm, moist, calm periods like today. (Incidentally, polar bears also managed to adapt and survive periods warmer and colder than today.) The best we can do today is to make sure we have the financial and industrial resources to cope with whatever the climate has in store for us.”

“And if Mother Nature has another Little Ice Age in store, that will cause more damage than any one of the 23 different computer generated global warming predictions from the mis-fortune tellers at the IPCC,” Mr Forbes concluded.

ENDS

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