Tuesday, March 29, 2011

No doubt about it

The reaction by AGW inactionists to Tim Flannery's comments about the Earth not cooling for hundreds of years even if all CO2 production stopped tomorrow shows absolutely, positively, without any doubt at all, that they are contemptibly thoughtless on the topic and doggedly dishonest.

This includes Tony Abbott, quoted in the press as saying in Parliament yesterday:
"It will not make a difference for 1000 years," the Opposition Leader told parliament. "So this is a government which is proposing to put at risk our manufacturing industry, to penalise struggling families, to make a tough situation worse for millions of households right around Australia. And for what? To make not a scrap of difference to the environment any time in the next 1000 years."
If anyone is in any doubt at all how this is a clear misrepresentation of Flannery's words, have a read of the quote from the scientifically ignorant, routinely offensive, misrepresenting and absurd commenter CL* at the blog the "centre right" has when it doesn't want to be taken seriously. He thought the quote supported his earlier claim that Flannery was saying that nothing humans did would influence the temperature at all for 1,000 years. (I give credit to Ken n and Jarrah for attempting to correct him, but really, this thread is like the rolled gold proof that it is entirely useless to engage at that blog in any debate at on climate change.)

Malcolm Turnbull and his supporters must really be grinding their teeth at Abbott's buying into populist misrepresentation.

* I suppose, however, I have to give him credit on another thread for arguing against the death penalty in Australia. I hate it when commentators who are wrong most of the time are right about something!

5 comments:

GlibGlob said...

How did Abbott misrepresent Flannery in any non-trivial way?

Surely Flannery's best defence is that he is prone to hysterical exaggeration.

Steve said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Steve said...

Must I spell it out?

Because Flannery was talking about there being no drop in temperature for centuries, as current levels of CO2 and its warming effect would take that long to decrease naturally.

But the issue about reducing CO2 production, as everyone knows, is to do with keeping further rises in temperature within a lower range.

Thus, it is obviously misleading to say that Flannery's point (which is true) means that reduction of CO2 production "will not make a difference for 1000 years".

Less production of CO2 (at global levels) is expected to "make a difference" - by reducing the risk of high increases in temperature.

Steve said...

(I've edited my own comment from yesterday to make it clearer - hence the deleted comment).

Anonymous said...

You are such an idiot.