Just when you thought climate change debate couldn’t get any more hysterical, polar bears start falling out of the sky into city streets. (Warning: this may upset you if you really love polar bears.)
In the ad by climate change campaign Plane Stupid, the message after dozens of polar bears plummet to violent deaths is: “an average European flight produces over 400kg of greenhouse gases per passenger ... that’s the weight of an adult polar bear”. So the logic seems to be: belch 400kg of gas, kill one 400kg animal. Simple.
Actually it’s nonsense of course, but this kind of non sequitur has come to typify both established orthodox sides of the climate change debate in leaked email exchanges and the climax of negotiations over critical environmental laws today in Canberra.
The swathe of leaked emails revealed this week (and rather brilliantly digested here by Andrew Bolt) showing some anti-sceptic sentiment and use of “tricks” among scientists becomes conclusive evidence that climate change is a global fraud by the science community. And today in the nation’s capital, federal politicians engage in the last negotiations on a scheme designed to cap Australia’s pollution levels and charge businesses for the right to emit carbon dioxide, then invest the money collected in projects designed to help the environment. Whether you support or oppose this appears to be based on whether you think people cause climate change.
Wait, what?
To me basing support for emissions trading on the basis of whether you believe climate change is caused by people is just as nonsensically extreme as saying 400kg animals will fall from the sky when you take a flight. It doesn’t matter whether people are causing it or even, frankly, if climate change turns out to be a giant conspiracy perpetrated on humanity by the scientific community.
I don’t care any more whether the climate is actually changing or if it’s caused by Australian cows or Chinese factories or American Hummers. In fact I’m sick of the tedious circular arguments that seem to erupt at the mere mention of the subject.
The deciding factor for me in this is there does seem to be enough evidence to suggest doing nothing about emissions will result in untold catastrophe for the global economy and the environment. In the do-something column of options, some way of capping emissions, on a nation-by-nation basis including here in Australia, is sensible leadership.
Besides, isn’t putting a cap on pollution probably a soundly agreeable proposition in the first place?
The Rudd Government has done an atrocious job of communicating how deeply the effects of the ETS legislation will be felt across the economy. It’s not unlike introducing a new tax and some Coalition figures like Barnaby Joyce appear to be primarily arguing this point.
But falling-polar-bear logic is what seems to be driving other Coalition figures like Liberal Senators Cory Bernardi and Nick Minchin to so vocally oppose the ETS legislation.
They don’t believe in anthropogenic global warming or AGW, the high-falutin’ term for climate change caused by people. (I believe it was developed by the people who engage in the endless circular arguments on the topic to avoid crashing the internet.) So they oppose measures to deal with it, period.
The falling-polar-bear logic was evident in Minchin’s now-infamous appearance on Four Corners this month. “For the extreme left it provides the opportunity to do what they’ve always wanted to do, to sort of de-industrialise the western world,” Minchin said. “You know the collapse of communism was a disaster for the left, and the, and really they embraced environmentalism as their new religion.”
Minchin’s position has emboldened other sceptics within the party to the bizarre extent that there could even be a leadership challenge in the partyroom over the emissions trading deal this morning. If it happens it’s highly unlikely to result in a change in a leadership but also won’t help the Coalition douse the perception that it’s too busy with its own fights to take the fight properly to the government.
Blind ideology when we are dealing with matters of science isn’t helpful to politics, science, the voting public or future generations who are relying on us to get this right. Can we lay off the Kool-Aid on both sides?
And watch out for those falling polar bears.
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