An element of truth is creeping into the dialogue of the alarmist global warming camp.
Alarmingly for the government, these inconvenient truths have come from reigning alarmist of the year and palaeontologist Professor Tim Flannery.
Some months ago Professor Flannery told Tony Jones on Lateline that neither he nor any of his other warmist cabal could explain why global temperatures weren’t rising.
Despite this frank and interesting admission, which contradicted most of the government’s rhetoric over the past few years, the ABC’s warmist acolyte Jones didn’t pursue it, nor did many in the mainstream media.
So inconvenient was this fundamental truth that one may be excused for thinking that the actual video evidence was hurriedly buried in the concrete foundations of a new wind farm.
Since then, Flannery has nailed a job as “Australia’s Climate Commissioner”. For the princely sum of $720,000, Professor Flannery is chairing a panel of six people to advance awareness of the climate change issue in Australia.
At the time of the appointment I thought it was a clever ruse by the government to keep Flannery quiet so he wouldn’t criticise the Gillard carbon dioxide tax plan.
How wrong I was.
Perhaps the income security of a government contract has given Flannery a refreshing new frankness which bursts forth at inconvenient times – like during radio interviews.
When asked by Andrew Bolt how much the world’s temperature would be lowered if Australia cut our carbon dioxide emissions by five per cent by 2020, Flannery at first tried to brush it off. “…it will be a very, very small increment,” said Flannery.
When pushed by Bolt for a specific figure, Flannery confessed: “If the world as a whole cut all emissions tomorrow the average temperature of the planet is not going to drop in several hundred years, perhaps as much as 1000 years…”
That is simply astounding. According to the government’s Climate Commissioner, even if every carbon dioxide emitting industry on the planet were shut down tomorrow, there would be no real change in the temperature for a millennia.
Just when clear thinking people were starting to think Professor Flannery had undergone a road to Damascus conversion to common sense, alas we were let down again.
Realising that his decade of hard work fostering climate alarmism had been discredited in less than 30 seconds, Flannery wrote to The Australian newspaper to clear things up.
He claimed his 1000 year comment was in relation to returning the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to pre-industrial levels and actually had nothing to do with temperature.
He went on to write that:
“If all major emitters adopt a similar level of effort to our 5% reduction target in 2020 (or better) and continue to decarbonise thereafter, we’ll cap the temperature rise to no more than 2 degrees later this century and temperature will begin to drop at the end of this century.”
Firstly, there is no chance of all major emitters following Australia’s crazy path of destroying their economy and raising the cost of living for no apparent purpose.
Secondly, Flannery now claims that cooling will kick in after just 100 years with only a modest carbon dioxide abatement rather than 1000 years with a full shutdown!
Clearly, there is a credibility issue with Professor Flannery and his climate change rhetoric. To those of us who have followed his alarmist projections and disjointed claims over the past years, this is nothing new.
I just wonder why our government is unwilling to see that too. Perhaps Al Gore was right and that sometimes the truth really is inconvenient.
Cory Bernardi is the author of seven books and has been a member of the Australian rowing team, a publican, an investment portfolio manager and spent nearly 14 years as an Australian Senator.
