I am charged with treason against the planet. Sweet!

Honest though Guv', I didn't know I's was working for them dirty Martians! Honest!

 

The Bolter takes up my defence:

 

Again, I ask: if the evidence for catastrophic man-made global warming is so clear, why the exaggerations, lies and absurd abuse?

 

That abuse grows even wilder as the alarmists’ case crumbles. Take Nobel [economics] laureate Paul Krugman:

And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet.

We now owe allegiance to the planet?  And can commit treason against Mother Earth? Wow.

 

So what’s Krugman’s evidence for catastrophic temperature rises?

The fact is that the planet is changing faster than even pessimists expected: ice caps are shrinking, arid zones spreading, at a terrifying rate.

But as Thomas Fuller points out:

If these are the reasons he cries treason, he should perhaps reconsider. One ice cap shrunk, as it has before, but is recovering, as it has before. The other ice cap is growing at the rate of 10,000 square kilometers per year. As for deserts, both in China and Africa deserts are actually shrinking.

 

[And tropical rain forests are increasing, as this article from The New York Times reports.]

Then there’s the alarming reports from a conference in Copenhagen of alarmist scientists (who want us to use less of the gases they just blew out the back of their jets to get to yet another warming jamboree):

The world faces a growing risk of “abrupt and irreversible climatic shifts” as fallout from global warming hits faster than expected, according to research by international scientists released Thursday. Global surface and ocean temperatures, sea levels, extreme climate events, and the retreat of Arctic sea ice have all significantly picked up more pace than experts predicted only a couple of years ago, they said.

In fact, says distinguished climatologist Professor Roger Pielke Sr, none of that seems true.

 

 

Niche modeller David Stockwell and Lucia both note tricks with graphs that fed the Copenhagen claim that the world was heating as fast as ever.

 

UPDATE

David Evans describes the meeting in which Climate Change Minister Penny Wong tried to answer Steve Fielding’s three questions. It’s scary to think the Rudd Government believes so much in a theory it’s had so much trouble defending, or even understanding.

 

UPDATE 2

One of the world’s biggest emitters won’t be following Kevin Rudd’s lead and killing jobs to “save” the planet:

“India cannot and will not take emission reduction targets because poverty eradication and social and economic development are first and overriding priorities,” a statement on behalf of Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said.

The world’s biggest emitter, China, will not cut its own gases, either. So exactly who will our useless sacrifice inspire? And to what puny effect?

 

Posted via email from Garth's posterous