We have only 20 years before doom, no wait 5 years, NO! only 50 days!

Hmmm, even the insufferably politically correct Canadians are starting to go cool on global warming?

Tim Blair reports:

ENTIRE FUTURE IN JEOPARDY, AS USUAL 

Tim Blair

Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 12:58pm

Canada’s Margaret Wente deals with an Antipodean interloper:

Tim Flannery, the well-known Australian environmentalist, was on CBC Radio the other day to issue more alarms about global warming. He was more pessimistic than ever. “It’s now or never,” he said. “We have about 20 years to address climate change or else our entire future is in jeopardy.”

 

We’ve got 20 whole years? How come the World Wildlife Foundation is telling us we’ve got just five? And Gordon Brown says we have just 50 days? What we need around here is some kind of consensus.

He painted an apocalyptic picture of drought, flooding, famine and war.

 

Yeah, he’ll do that. The war stuff is relatively recent, and is possibly brought on by pre-Copenhagen panic. But as Wente reports, for all of Flannery’s morbid predictions, people are returning to reason:

A poll of urban Canadians conducted by Ipsos Reid last month found global warming is far down the list of people’s concerns, somewhere below crime, health care, taxes, municipal spending, transportation and the economy. Not only that, but 41 per cent of respondents said the threat of global warming has been “overblown and exaggerated.”

 

Similar results are noted in Australia and elsewhere. In fact, the trend is global:

An international survey of 11 nations, co-sponsored by environmental groups, found that fewer than half of those surveyed (47 per cent) were prepared to make personal lifestyle changes to reduce carbon emissions, down from 58 per cent before the crash. Most people said their governments should be doing more, but only 27 per cent wanted them to participate in Kyoto-style international agreements. Only one in five said they were willing to spend extra money to fight global warming.

 

Concludes Wente:

Why are people cooling on warming? One reason is surely the apocalyptic language of Mr. Flannery and others.

When he talks about drought, he brings rain. When he talks about warming, he brings doubt. Speak on, Mr Flannery. Speak on.

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