Into the Deep Green Yonder: A Response to the Green Paper on Climate Change

Viv Forbes
BrookesNews.Com
Monday 21 July 2008

The Climate will fluctuate. It always has, it always will. Get used to it.

The Australian Government Green Paper completely ignores the main question — should Canberra try to control the weather, or is it better to foster a strong Australia able to cope with whatever climate change brings us? The Government also justifies the need for action on completely worthless long term forecasts of Australia’s weather.

Not even the IPCC claims an ability to forecast the weather beyond a few days, but the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has sullied its reputation by pretending they can project temperature and rainfall 30 years into the future. Why have they not revealed the calculations for these predictions? In the corporate world, anyone making such wild unsubstantiated claims would be quickly disciplined by the regulators. Public figures who repeat and embellish these scaremongering prophecies lack common sense and should also be called to account.

The only credible weather forecast for such a long period is "It will Fluctuate". Minister Wong — Climate Change Minister (sic) — obviously believes that if we give her enough powers to tax and regulate, she can change the world’s weather. This belief is as silly as the CSIRO weather forecasts out to 2040. Man has never been able to control the weather and there is no credible evidence that his activities have caused unusual weather.

In fact, despite all the hot air about carbon emissions, the world has not warmed since 1998 and has been cooling for the last 6 years. Moreover, we have had extreme droughts, floods, ice ages and global warming long before man started using coal and oil. Minister Wong should make sure Australia has the industrial ability and economic strength to cope with any adverse weather that occurs, be it floods, fires, droughts, snow, heat, cyclones or tsunamis.

Poor people cannot cope with Climate Change and the Rudd/Garnaut/Wong carbon taxes will make every Australian poorer. This Deep Green Paper should be recycled and replaced by an enlightened White Paper outlining how to make Australia strong and prosperous. This will provide the best insurance for our children against any climate change.