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No wonder we’re confused about climate change . . .

Leo Shanahan

by Leo Shanahan

09 Feb 12:01pm

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Filed under: Climate Change, Ets, Polls, Un

43 comments

The head of the UN’s climate change panel (the IPCC) Rajendra Pachauri has released a novel that combines lessons on climate change with sexy story lines.

The IPCC's Rajendra Pachauri, activist, writer, lover.

The protagonist in Pachauri’s book is eerily similar to Pachauri himself: an environmentalist and former engineer who inexplicably has a lot of sex with women (I can’t say whether the last part as any basis in reality). According to The Times the book: “mingles lectures on climate change with descriptions of Sanjay’s sexual encounters, including frequent references to “voluptuous breasts”.

Following last week’s visit from the Skeptic Dark Lord Mockton (who looks and sounds like an evil mastermind from a new climate themed Bond film) I can’t help but wonder if some of the increasing confusion about climate change stems from the eccentric oddballs who we’re told to believe.

Writing erotic mystery novels about being some kind of crime fighting climate activist should not preclude you from being taken seriously in your day job. I haven’t read Return to Almora, for all I know Pachauri might be the Ian Fleming of the climate activist genre.

But it’s worth pointing out that Ian Fleming wasn’t running MI6 when he was writing about James Bond. Being the head of the IPCC may be a pretty sexy profession, but Rajendra Pachauri is the boss right now and one would think should be dealing with the real job of convincing the entire world about this thing that they keep saying will kill us all.

This is the same bloke who recently faced calls for his resignation after it turned out IPCC claims that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 were ripped out of a magazine.

Proof that the self-preservation part of Pachauri’s brain is clearly missing is further evidenced by the fact he let India’s richest man, gas and oil mogul Mukesh Ambani, release the book. He then went on to accept cash from BP for the launch.

But the wackiness doesn’t stop at Monckton and Pachauri. Have a look at another two prominent climate types in Professor Ian Plimer and Guardian journalist George Monbiot.

Monbiot combines the boring righteousness of a hippy with the pomposity of the English aristocracy, lacking the fire twirling ability of the former and charm of the latter.

Meanwhile I’m half expecting Professor Ian Plimer to have his next television appearance interrupted by a flying Dolorean out of which will hop a flustered Marty McFly informing Plimer they must travel back to 1955 once more.

News Limited blogger and proud climate skeptic Tim Blair correctly pointed to the fallacy of using the claims of scientists as undeniable proof of the existence of man made climate change. Blair argued the mad scientist character cliché exists for a reason because scientists have been married to all sorts of theories that were a bit zany to say the least. True, but that argument runs both ways Tim, and Plimer’s manner suggests he’s a couple of months off constructing a tower that receives regular lightning strikes.

Of course confusion over climate change isn’t entirely the fault of odd-ball climate activists. After all it is a rather complicated issue, one that previous generations never really turned their minds to let a lone be asked to make a judgement upon.

Perhaps this is why we’re drawn to the loudest and wackiest in climate change debate, because considered and moderate explanation of a complex topic would be, well, quite boring. 

Anyone who says this is our problem and not the fault of the climate activists of either persuasion is wrong. Like it or not there is a debate about the reality of man made climate change going on and the side whose explanation is the most palatable to the public will win. There is a PR war on right now and both sides seem to have given the contract to the Addams Family. 

If you want evidence that the electorate is confused about the issue have a look at the poll put out by Fairfax yesterday. It’s instructive on a climate policy level, albeit one that accepts the need for Government action climate change.

While 56 per cent of people said they supported the Rudd Government’s emissions trading scheme. But when voters where presented with a choice between Tony Abbott’s emission’s funds and Kevin Rudd’s ETS more supported the non-ETS policy 45 to 39.

So people don’t quite know what they want. Given the wacky mob telling people what to think I can’t blame them.

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43 comments

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    • stephen says:

      11:57am | 09/02/10

      I read in the Australian today this man’s sponsor is BP.
      The US and OPEC (?) nations should demand his resignation now.

      Reply

    • Jeff from Meroo says:

      06:08pm | 09/02/10

      Wrong Stephen.  This man does more for their cause than anyone.  The more he is in the public’s eye the more the public will discount any opinion he had and BP, the US and OPEC all know this and are happy to give him enough rope to hang himself and his cause.

    • Adam MacLeod says:

      12:00pm | 09/02/10

      Remember “The Great Global Warming Swindle” by Martin Durkin?  That was his follow up to a documentary on the health benefits of breast implants!!

      Reply

    • E says:

      12:13pm | 09/02/10

      I’m offended by being called ‘confused’ by the CPRS, its not complicated, its just completely ineffective.
      Its asks polluters to pay tp pollute, and they have to buy credits off the 3rd world, who will earn them by agreeing to not cut down trees.
      Thats the problem, that CO2 wont fall in Australia, and it wont fall in the 3rd world either, because they are being paid to keep the trees, not add new ones, so its essentailly pointless.
      Add to this the subsidisation of vast swathes of the electorate and industry, and you have to ask, where is the incentive to change our behavior?
      As Greg Combet said last night, even with the CPRS there is no guarantee that CO2 emissions in Australia will fall, but we all know that money out of our pockets is guaranteed.

      Reply

    • Fed Up says:

      12:22pm | 09/02/10

      And this is the heart of the problem.
      We need scientific debate between scientists. These mouthpieces have made lucrative careers out of CC.
      We need to have conclusions from both sides brought into a debate forum.
      Time limits on Q&A’s.
      There, they can present their facts and explain how they came to their conclusions. No armchair scientists, no politicians, no journalists on the panel. Just the science.

      Reply

    • stephen says:

      01:56pm | 09/02/10

      Scientists are trained in numbers, not words.
      So include good Journalists as mediators, and only those trained also in maths.

    • Castro says:

      12:22pm | 09/02/10

      Great article, Leo!

      Reply

    • biff says:

      12:24pm | 09/02/10

      Mr Rajendra Pachauri admits he delights in life’s carnal vices. That leaves us wondering just how many blind women Mr Pachauri knows.

      Reply

    • Mick says:

      01:48pm | 09/02/10

      Bwahahahahahaha

    • Julie Coker-Godson says:

      03:02pm | 09/02/10

      ROFL!

    • Fog Badger says:

      12:39pm | 09/02/10

      Climate change and the ETS are not so complex that they can’t be explained simply. I know of nothing that can’t be explained simply.

      In my experience, those who make something sound complicated are either embarrassed that what they do is actually quite easy and they feel the need to rap it up in jargon OR they don’t really know what they are talking about!

      As for the railway engineer - he must resign. He has conflicts of interests-galore and his attitude is, I believe, largely responsible for the climate change issue becoming so polarised (no pun intended!).

      Reply

    • exzilerate says:

      12:45pm | 09/02/10

      I think Mr Pachauri may spend time having sex with himself more than with others. He has a head like a smacked bum. Not a chick magnet at all.

      Reply

    • formersnag says:

      12:45pm | 09/02/10

      I’m not confused, it is all scam, 1, to create an enormous UN bureaucracy. 2, to restart wall street trading carbon default swaps, derivative forestry futures, shares in timbercorp, great southern, etc. 3, with everybody being forced to pay for it all, bonuses included.

      Reply

    • E says:

      12:53pm | 09/02/10

      Fog Badger, completely agree.
      Its my opinion that Pachuri oversaw the ‘sexing up’ of catastrophic AGW to line his own pockets. Several million in grants and counting to the ‘not for profit’ (chortle) foundation he owns.
      Also everyone should remember that the IPCC 2007 report Pachuri published isnt the one which was signed off on by scientists. The document was edited to remove any ‘moderate’ phrases casting doubt on catastrophic AGW and then released. So the IPCC2007 was not peer reviewed.

      Reply

    • WKH says:

      12:58pm | 09/02/10

      I am not 100% sure on AGW as most of us aren’t.  I like Abbotts scheme over Krudds because should this all turn out to be crap as Tony Abbott so elegantly put it then we can turn Abbotts scheme off. The Krudd scheme is for ever.
      Could some one please explain this to me.
      I am a polluting power station owner and Krudd is going to slug me for each ton of carbon I create over a set level. So I am going to pass on this cost of doing business back on to my customers. Now Krudd is going to give my customers some compensation so as they are not out of pocket.
      Who wins? Talk about a money go round!

      Reply

    • PatC says:

      01:37pm | 09/02/10

      @WKH I think also that Mr Krudd is going to give you (the polluting power station) some compensation as well which you don’t have to pass on to your consumers. No wonder you’re not yelling too loudly about the whole thing.

    • Chris says:

      12:13pm | 10/02/10

      If you had any economic understanding you would realise that market forces would likely stop most of the cost being passed on to the consumer. Price rises in manufacture more often than not are absorbed by the profit margin, as any good is only worth what the consumer is willing to pay. Therefore, by raising prices, they are crippling the potential market share. Better to have a small drop in profit, than a large drop to the installed userbase.

      That said, I understand that electricity isn’t something that can be so easily applied to market forces. We have few options for providers and we pretty much need electricity to live in modern society. However, the government has some control over the pricing structures of public service providers. You are also looking at this in a very narrow viewpoint. Most of the companies affected by this would not be providers of necessary public works. They would be producers of consumer goods, which brings me back to my first point: the cost will be absorbed by the profit margin because nobody wants to price themselves out of long term market share.

    • Jeff says:

      01:28pm | 09/02/10

      Reasonable steps that won’t cripple our economy and is in proportion with the pollution we emit. Tony Abbott’s policy just makes sense.

      Reply

    • steve says:

      04:39pm | 09/02/10

      And it is already being applied.
      To suggest that these are new measures is just sleight of hand.
      Greening Australia under Hawke planted over 400 million trees.
      Farmers are already whinging about foregoing land for trees. As for farmland and biosequestration. What they have found is that if it rains or if the farmer disturbs the soil by way of tilling etc… the carbon is released back into the atmosphere.
      This is an exercise in direct action in politics not the environment.

    • Evan Findlay says:

      07:24pm | 09/02/10

      Tony Abbott’s policy is just a monumental waste of taxpayers money so that polluters can conyinue on their merry way. “Business as usual”, to quote Tony. If he was to win office I would hope that his climate change policy would be a non core promise and he saves the money for infrastructure, health or education. Problem is conservative governments see these as non core promises too. Oh well more baby bonuses.

    • David C says:

      01:41pm | 09/02/10

      With all the claims and counterclaims by various scientitsts and pressure groups etc it was proclaimed that we could all use the IPPC as an “independent” body that would review the peer reviewed science for us all and ensure that we all had a an unbiased reference for evidence based policy making.
      All the new revelations of “climategate” use of non-peer reviewed science and false representations of the facts have understandably led to the scepticism of the public. Until the system is shown to be fixed we are a long way off from resolving this problem either way
      I suggest the removal of the current head would be a great first step.

      Reply

    • Robert Smissen says:

      01:45pm | 09/02/10

      Scam, scam, scam, if global warming was fact how come all states in Oz & many other countries are encouraging building on the seafront.

      Reply

    • bluey says:

      03:12pm | 09/02/10

      I dont think that the sates/local govt in Aust. are encouraging domestic residential seafront development and they havent havent for some time. In fact Byron council has a controlled retreat policy on beachfront properties that are eroding into the sea rather than attempt to stop this erosion with seawalls etc due to their potential environmental dammage.
      The reason people continue to build and invest in beachfront proprties could be contained within our species amazing ability to deny plain evidence and delude ourselves..
      Which could be a large part of the bigger issue.
      I didnt see Mockton live but saw a couple of stories on him, the man is nothing but an entertianer, cashing in on a controversial story and stirring up the combatants for the amusement of himself mainly.
      If we dont do something about pollution, consumpttion and population very soon, nature will do it for us and that wont be pleasant.

    • Randal says:

      11:27am | 10/02/10

      Well bluey, if that’s the case the greatest alarmist of them all, Al Gore, must be the most delusional, as whilst he lectures the rest of us with imminent threat of rising oceans he sets off buys himself a nice seafront condo.

      Seems to me Robert has hit this one right on the head SCAM…SCAM… SCAM.

    • Darryl Price says:

      01:53pm | 09/02/10

      Haven’t the proponents of AGW been in enough trouble already for sexing up the story?

      Reply

    • cats says:

      02:44pm | 09/02/10

      haha i heard about this book yesterday morning on triple j breakfast. epic lulz all round.

      Reply

    • Grant says:

      02:47pm | 09/02/10

      Apparently he has released a novel that cobines? 

      What’s a cobine?

      Reply

    • Carl Palmer says:

      03:27pm | 09/02/10

      This is a strange article… “Of course confusion over climate change isn’t entirely the fault of odd-ball climate activists. After all it is a rather complicated issue….”

      Nobel Peace Prize Al Gore made it very simple indeed and hooked line and sinkered millions of folks around the globe with his “Inconvenient Truth”. For a long time there, Armageddon was coming our way. Life was so simple then and so crystal clear.

      The pro AGW militia were in full force belting anyone who dared stand in their way. Gee even you guys bowed to their supreme intellect - though I would have expected otherwise.  Even the BBC this morning admitted as much and governments were elected on this issue.

      From my point of view Monckton, Plimer weren’t household names and I can’t comment on Monbiot. Back then they were not shouting their opposition to the tsunami of irrefutable science whose consensus was universally accepted by scientists around the world. What these sceptics started only recently was a debate about this whole thing which up until now was squashed. If the debate has confused you, then I’m sorry. It clearly seems to have gone some way in clarifying the matter in many people minds. Even my 90 YO golfing mother in law said to me last night that she thought that it was all “crap”.

      As for Rajendra, he had the IPCC which he could hide behind. The IPCC was the UN’s mouthpiece the undisputed supremo of AGW, CC, GW etc etc. advising all nations that the world would end. There was certainty!

      Sure not everyone understands the ETS / CPRS / AGW, CC and on and on but we are certainly in a far better position today than we were 12 – 18 months ago because as they say – and the Govt is now paying the price - you can’t fool all of the people all of the time but you can fool some of the people some of the time.

      Oh BTW, how apt that Rajendra should look like Fagan from Oliver Twist. Even Charlie Bates wouldn’t trust him with a mouldy sausage

      Reply

    • rohan says:

      04:22pm | 09/02/10

      “he let India’s richest man, gas and oil mogul Mukesh Ambani, release the book. He then went on to accept cash from BP for the launch.”

      So? Did you hear Kevin Rudd asking BHP and Rio Tinto to stop shipping coal to China? “He then went on to accept cash from BP for the launch.” - I take it that you dont have any reservations about the jobs and revenue contribution from the mining companies? So why the double standard? Since when is an oil company solely responsible for “climate impact”. Are you driving a hydrogen fusion car by any chance?

      How does Rajendra asking a prominent industrial figure to release a book which is not related to IPCC be an issue?

      If you are saying that popular proponents of the issue must publicly demonstrate their affinity - then I have not seen any such calls from the Australian public about government spending on expenses, travel nor public policy. Nor have I seen any indication that the private lives of the celebrities are any “greener”....

      If, as the title suggests, the release of a book by India’s richest confuse you on whether climate change is real or not, you are in real difficulty.

      Reply

    • Fog Badger says:

      07:47pm | 09/02/10

      But, rohan. He’s up to his neck with conflicts of interest and this certainly doesn’t help.

    • rohan says:

      06:35am | 10/02/10

      Fog,

      I disagree..You might expect that there would be an impact on oil consumption but unfortunately, even major schemes like ETS are only expected to compensate for carbon emissions. So I dont think oil producers have anything to worry about.

      Apart from that,  you would expect that IPCC findings would make very little changes in a country poised for growth in manufacturing and many other areas.

      If this is a conflict of interest, then there are much stronger cases of conflicts of interest closer to home as i pointed out in my original post.

    • Fog Badger says:

      07:46am | 10/02/10

      Rohan, I get your point, though I still think this man’s judgment is poor and I’m sure I wouldn’t be alone in thinking this doesn’t look good. I think he’s a pr disaster. That’s the problem as I see it.

    • Shane From Melbourne says:

      04:46pm | 09/02/10

      Your comment:Seems rather silly for Labor and Liberals to commit themselves to cut carbon emissions by 5% or so but allow 60 Billion dollars worth of coal to be sold to China.

      Reply

    • eye4aneye says:

      07:00pm | 09/02/10

      It’s wrong to simplify such a big and complex issue but - would you trust this man? looks like a lunatic, sounds like a lunatic….probably is a lunatic if i saw him on a newsflash wanted for some heinous crime I wouldn’t be surprised.

      BTW I’m a climate sceptic and will remain so until someone convinces me with evidence that:
      climate change is the armagedon the greens beat it up to be

      I would also like it to be proven to be an ongoing man made problem and not a natural cycle.

      Should this be proven however I will happily shrug of my sceptic robes - my next question would be what can we do about it? please provide evidence that a poxy ETS scheme or the like would work (doubt it growing poulation means even if we all go on “rations” we’re still going to run out of food).

      Instead look at technological options to cool the climate etc.

      If all else fails we can build a giant airconditioner and vent the co2 it produces into space (sarcasm….or is it?)

      Reply

    • RJB says:

      07:02pm | 09/02/10

      All this scare mongering from the global warming bed wetters,has got little Grace shaking like a dog shit’n razor blades.

      Reply

    • Chris says:

      08:38pm | 09/02/10

      My view on this now is that: we need to reduce carbon emissions, hell, ALL emissions, simply to reduce pollution in the world. If we stop the oceans from rising, well, that will be a happy extra, but it should not be the main concern. Even the most vehement denier of climate change would probably admit that we pollute the planet far too much, and in far too many ways.
      As such, down-to-earth practical matters such as Abbott has proposed might go some way toward dealing with pollution in general. An ETS hands over the reins to the free market, and given the volatility of all markets at more or less regular intervals, this could be marginally effective at best, disastrous at worst (just my opinion.)
      Many people are now seeing the stupidity and futility of the ETS compensation: make people pay more and then compensate most of them fully. If they are compensated, what incentive is there for them to change their behaviour (and emit less carbon?). It’s beyond stupid: it’s positively insulting to the intelligence.

      Reply

    • Carl Palmer says:

      10:58am | 10/02/10

      Chris, Spot on!!! The stupidity is that they will tax you via the ETS for those products e.g. Plasma TV’s which are high energy guzzlers.  Don’t forget that the Govt allowed and in all probability encouraged you to purchase these products because of the GFC!! Furthermore, they received their kickback via the GST and now they want to slug you for another kickback called an ETS.

      The interesting thing is this – in NSW there was / is a water shortage and the Govt when on a campaign to inform the public that we as a community needed to do something about it. We needed to tighten our belts and to conservative its use. The installation of water tanks were subsidised and restriction set on watering, washing cars etc etc and guess what, the use of water fell as people started to do the right thing.

      No hefty tax was needed only sensible strategies to incentivise people and where necessary to mitigate the situation via the building of a desalination plant. Keep it simple stupid.

      The same approach can be adopted with this stupid AGW nonsense and the Abbott strategy seems to follow the same logic without the need for an ETS.

    • ~Bedazzled~ says:

      08:05am | 10/02/10

      Aaagghh! From a womens point of view, this man is definately a two paper bag job with tickets on himself.
      Could he be Bob Geldorfs long lost brother?

      Reply

    • Bill says:

      10:05am | 10/02/10

      I made mention when one of the writers here called Michelle Obama attractive, that I couldn’t see it.  I was of course bagged by Kelly (another blogger) presumably upset on behalf of all woman-kind.  I can’t wait for Kelly to criticise you Bedazzled for commenting on how a person looks.  The comment will come in the interests of equality, no doubt, so don’t take it personally when it does smile

    • ~Bedazzled~ says:

      11:27am | 10/02/10

      Bill@11.05 thank you for the warning.  However, when one makes known his conquests and is a bragard, we are quite entitled to judge his appearance as to whether he is “a good sort” or not visually.
      He may have “hidden” credentials but as I said, a two bag job.
      Don’t tell me blokes don’t say the same thing if they see an unattractive woman extolling her virtues in a book.

      Reply

    • Mr Subramanian says:

      12:17pm | 10/02/10

      “Perhaps this is why we’re drawn to the loudest and wackiest in climate change debate, because considered and moderate explanation of a complex topic would be, well, quite boring.”

      Well, duh! Although “we” is perhaps just slightly more applicable to the journalists and media type folks amongst “us”...

      Reply

    • KD says:

      03:53pm | 13/02/10

      Seriously, its not a hard choice! All I need to decide on is 2 things about Global Warming
      1.  Is there enough evidence that GW is real?
          *For me…Most of the science says yes.
      2.  Who’s going to pay for it ? 
      Both have the same 5% target. Both have been estimated. Rudd’s meets the meager target, has a higher cost but is funded by the polluters . Abbott’s increases emissions by 13% but has less cost, but funded by the taxpayer.  My vote decides - either:
            *Kevin’s scheme - Tax the over-polluters via Carbon credits (CPRS) and uses all the money collected to (a) try and offset GW progressively so as to give businesses time to adjust so they don’t pass on massive costs, and (b) give rebates to to the lowest 90+% of taxpayers to offset any flow on costs of he CPRS Scheme so they do not end up worse off.
        OR   *  Tony’s scheme - Tell the polluters to not get any worse than they are now (‘business as usual’ in his words), but give businesses incentives to reduce their emissions if they feel inclined and penalties if their emissions get worse, and do some minor green friendly work (small amount of tree planting, find 15,000 taxpayers to volunteer their services to do ‘green’ work and (b) pay for the incentives to the business polluters by either increasing our taxes or reducing government services spending in other (unknown in Barnaby’s words) areas.
      For my personal opinion, well, I’m not paying the polluters incentives to fix their own mistake. The polluters need to pay, and the fact that the government is going to provide rebates to offset the polluters passing on their new costs to us, well that’s a great idea.  Abbott’s ‘Business as usual’  says there is no problem e.g. Climate change is crap. Sorry Tony, your lower cost plan is dearer to the taxpayer (me) and cheaper for the polluter (big business), and that’s not right…or logical !

      Reply
 
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