Marc Morano
Climate Depot
Nov 9th, 2009
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd spewed out a rhetorical barrage on climate skeptics worldwide. See: Australian PM warns skeptics ‘are too ‘dangerous to ignore’ and are ‘holding the world to ransom’ – November 6, 2009. Also see: here and here for more coverage of Rudd’s speech.
Climate Depot has undertaken a point by point rebuttal to Rudd’s claims. The full text of Rudd’s speech is available here.
Rudd Claim: Skeptics are “powerful enough to threaten a deal on global climate change both in Copenhagen and beyond.”
Climate Depot Response: Yes, skepticism, the foundation of science, is and always has been strong enough to derail lavishly funded and politically motivated science based on wildly speculative climate model “predictions” and distortions of past climate records. A “scientifically meaningless” domestic carbon trading or international treaties will not impact global climate in any detectable ways, but will have huge human impacts.
Rudd Claim: Skeptics “constitute a powerful global force for inaction.”
Climate Depot Response: On the contrary, skeptics constitute a powerful force for scientific truth and morality based vibrant energy expansion to the developing world’s poor. To the extent that we can prevent “scientifically meaningless” climate treaties and regulations from passing, then yes, we plead guilty to promoting “inaction.” As former Thatcher science advisor Lord Christopher Monckton has said: “Climate change is a non-problem. The right answer to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing.”
Rudd Claim: “Climate skeptics are quite literally holding the world to ransom.”
Climate Depot Response: Reality check Mr. Rudd. Science, economics and reality are holding man-made global warming fear promoters like Rudd to ransom. It must be frustrating Mr. Rudd to have once believed you could hoodwink the people of your nation and the world to believe in climate fears and your purely symbolic “solutions.” Polling data from the U.S., the UK, Canada and your Australia show the public growing more skeptical. (See: Polls: ‘More Americans believe in haunted houses than man-made global warming’ – 37% vs. 36% ) The only “ransom” involved in this debate is the financial demands placed on countries to redistribute money based on collapsing climate fears. See: Reparations: Africa seeks climate change cash…demands billions in compensation for ‘damage caused by global warming’ & Global Carbon Tax Urged at UN Climate Conference & ‘Controlling climate? More like controlling humans’: Beware of ‘unprecedented transfer of wealth, power and control to domestic and global governance’
Rudd Claim: Our “children’s fate – and our grandchildren’s fate – will lie entirely with [skeptics' opposition].
Climate Depot Response: Nice maudlin touch, Mr. Rudd. The fact is children are probably the only ones left that you and your climate fear promoting friends can convince that a climate catastrophe is just around the corner and you and your colleagues are their saviors. You are in luck, Mr. Rudd. Climate Depot takes full responsibility for the fate of your children and grandchildren from any future man-made climate catastrophe. Climate Depot can and will gladly take public responsibility for the children and future grandchildren of our planet for “doing nothing” about climate. So there, problem solved.
Rudd Claim: “The legion of climate change skeptics are active across the world…”
Climate Depot Response: Yes, you are very correct on this point Mr. Rudd. Scientists dissenting from silly and baseless man-made global warming fears are literally standing up around the world – from New Zealand to Canada to Brazil to Mexico to Sweden to South Africa to Japan to Portugal and everywhere in between. See: 2009 U.S. Senate Report: 700 Plus Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Warming Claims and see: ‘Series of inconvenient developments for promoters of man-made global warming fears continue unabated’
The shock to you Mr. Rudd is that even the mainstream media is not abandoning man-made climate fears. See: Losing Their Religion: 2009 officially declared year the media lost their faith in man-made global warming fears
Rudd Claim: “The clock is ticking for the planet, but the climate change skeptics simply do not care.
Climate Depot Response: What clock is “ticking?” The one the UN warned of a ten year tipping point in 1989? See: U.N. Warning of 10-Year ‘Climate Tipping Point’ Began in 1989
In addition, NASA’s James Hansen and former Vice President Al Gore started their comical “tipping point” clocks a few years ago, while Prince Charles claimed a 96-month tipping point in July 2009! Even more absurd, the UN chief further shortened the “tipping point,” warning of ‘incalculable’ suffering without climate deal in December 2009! The question looms: Would you buy a used car from a salesman using such low-brow tactics, let alone, buy into man-made climate fear claims? Mr. Rudd, you must believe the public to be nothing more than a bunch of rubes if you want them to believe your climate tripe. See: MIT Climate Scientist Richard Lindzen: ‘Ordinary people see through man-made climate fears — but educated people are very vulnerable’ – July 6, 2009
Rudd Claim: “The vested interests at work are simply too great.”
Climate Depot Response: What “vested interests?” You are not claiming that skeptics have some sort of funding that is in any way comparable to the tens of billions spent promoting climate fears, are you? See: Gore’s path to become the first ‘Carbon Billionaire’ and see: The Global Warming Science Machine: $79 Billion and Counting
Rudd Claim: Skeptics “are a political attempt to subvert what is now a longstanding scientific consensus…”
Climate Depot Response: “Longstanding scientific consensus?” Surely you jest. Man-made global warming fears did not come in widespread vogue until the late 1980’s. In case you missed it, many of today’s warmers were promoting global cooling as late as 1970’s. See: Climate Depot’s Factsheet on 1970s Coming ‘Ice Age’ Claims: ‘Fears of a coming ice age, showed up in peer-reviewed literature, at scientific conferences, by prominent scientists and throughout the media’ The man-made global warming hypothesis is now failing in the scientific community. See: UK Astrophysicist: ‘The notion that CO2 warms world has come to a dead end’: They are trying to ‘prop up a ’scientific theory’ that has run out of so called facts’ and see: UN IPCC Scientist Declares ‘A Death Spiral for Climate Alarmism’ and see: New Report: UN Scientists Speak Out On Global Warming — As Skeptics!
South African UN Scientist Dr. Will Alexander wrote in March 2009, “’The whole climate change issue is about to fall apart…Heads will roll!” UK scientist Dr. David Bellamy once believed man-made climate fears, but has since reversed his views and become a skeptic. “The science has, quite simply, gone awry. In fact, it’s not even science any more, it’s anti-science, Bellamy said in November 2008.
The news is so grim for man-made climate fear activists that they are already looking for the next environmental scare to hype! See: AGW RIP? Is It Time for Next Eco-Scare Already? Gore’s producer Laure David touts plastic crisis: ‘Plastic waste is in some ways more alarming for us humans than global warming’ – July 31, 2009 & UK Green Party: ‘There exists a more serious crisis than the ‘CO2 crisis’: the oxygen levels are dropping and the human activity has decreased them by 1/3 or ½’
Rudd Claim: The consensus is supported by “4000 scientists appointed by governments from virtually every country in the world.”
Climate Depot Response: Why not make up higher numbers? Why not just claim 50,000 UN scientists support the “consensus?” What silliness.
Reality Check: 2009 U.S. Senate Minority Report of dissenting scientists has pushed the total to over 700 skeptical international scientists – a dramatic increase from the original 650 scientists featured in the initial December 11, 2008 release. The 59 additional scientists added to the 255-page Senate Minority report since the initial release 13 ½ weeks ago represents an average of over four skeptical scientists a week. The over 700 dissenting scientists are now more than 13 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media-hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers. Update: Numbers Racket: Rudd blunders in claiming ‘4000′ UN scientists: Reality Check: Only 60 UN experts ‘explicitly supported the claim made by the IPCC that global warming represents a threat to the planet’ – Nov. 6, 2009
See: Team of Scientists’ Open Letter To U.S. Senators: ‘Claim of consensus is fake’
Plus UN scientists speak out – against the climate fear claims! New Report: UN Scientists Speak Out On Global Warming — As Skeptics!
Here is a very small sampling of what current and former UN scientists have to say about the UN and its scientific methods.
Warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the history…When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.” – UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.
“The IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it doesn’t listen to others. It doesn’t have open minds… I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not geologists.” – Indian geologist Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia at Punjab University and a board member of the UN-supported International Year of the Planet.
“Temperature measurements show that the [climate model-predicted mid-troposphere] hot zone is non-existent. This is more than sufficient to invalidate global climate models and projections made with them!”- UN IPCC Scientist Dr. Steven M. Japar, a PhD atmospheric chemist who was part of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Second (1995) and Third (2001) Assessment Reports, and has authored 83 peer-reviewed publications and in the areas of climate change, atmospheric chemistry, air pollutions and vehicle emissions.
“I was at the table with three Europeans, and we were having lunch. And they were talking about their role as lead authors. And they were talking about how they were trying to make the report so dramatic that the United States would just have to sign that Kyoto Protocol,” Christy told CNN on May 2, 2007. – Alabama State Climatologist Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, served as a UN IPCC lead author in 2001 for the 3rd assessment report and detailed how he personally witnessed UN scientists attempting to distort the science for political purposes.
“Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp…Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate changes after the fact.” – Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief in man-made warming to become a skeptic, is a former member of the Dutch UN IPCC committee.
“The quantity of CO2 we produce is insignificant in terms of the natural circulation between air, water and soil… I am doing a detailed assessment of the UN IPCC reports and the Summaries for Policy Makers, identifying the way in which the Summaries have distorted the science.” – South African Nuclear Physicist and Chemical Engineer Dr. Philip Lloyd, a UN IPCC co-coordinating lead author who has authored over 150 refereed publications.
“After reading [UN IPCC chairman] Pachauri’s asinine comment [comparing skeptics to] Flat Earthers, it’s hard to remain quiet.” – Climate statistician Dr. William M. Briggs, who specializes in the statistics of forecast evaluation, serves on the American Meteorological Society’s Probability and Statistics Committee and is an Associate Editor of Monthly Weather Review.
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Rudd Claim: Skeptic “attempt to twist the agreed science in the direction of a predetermined political agenda to kill climate change action.”
Climate Depot Response: Very interesting choice of words – “agreed science” The “science” of man-made global warming fears is literally the best science politics can manufacture. See New Report: UN Scientists Speak Out On Global Warming — As Skeptics! The problem, Mr. Rudd, is that your view of “agreed science” is collapsing in real world data, peer-reviewed studies and a growing number of dissenting scientists. See: ‘Series of inconvenient developments for promoters of man-made global warming fears continue unabated’
Rudd Claim: “It reminds me of the efforts of the smoking lobby decades ago as they tried for years to politically subvert by so-called scientific means that there was any link between smoking and lung cancer.”
Climate Depot Response: Great analogy Mr. Rudd! Climate Depot agrees, the smoking analogy is very apt. But alas, it is the promoters of man-made climate fears that are mimicking the tobacco lobbyists actions. See: Climate Fear Promoters mimic tobacco industry tactics Excerpt: This [current climate fear promoting] strategy provides a positive “pro-science” public stance that masks the ignominious activity of institutional and professional persecution of numerous scientists whose honest work casts legitimate doubt upon the more alarmist projections of the supposed “consensus.” Like the tobacco industry, this campaign has: “Manufactured uncertainty and fear by stridently proclaiming certainty and consensus based on dubious and uncertain modeled results predicting disastrous consequences of a warmer climate.”
Rudd Claim: “What absolute political cowardice” [on the part of skeptics].
Climate Depot Response: Cowardice? Scientists have literally risked their careers to go against today’s politically motivated “consensus.” On the contrary, skeptics are courageous to wage a battle against the “agree science” you take as a matter of faith. See: EPA further muzzles global warming skeptic Dr. Alan Carlin – August 25, 2009 & Other climate fear promoters are using threats and intimidation to silence the climate debate. See: ‘Execute’ Skeptics! Shock Call To Action: ‘At what point do we jail or execute global warming deniers’ — ‘Shouldn’t we start punishing them now?’ – June 3, 2009
Rudd Claim: “What an absolute failure of logic [by skeptics].”
Climate Depot Response: Logic? Let’s review Mr. Rudd. You are lamenting the fact that skeptics are opposed to a “scientifically meaningless” climate “solution” process that could condemn the estimated 1.6 billion energy impoverished people in the developing world to a continued nasty brutish and short existence based on collapsing scientific claims. See: India: ‘It is morally wrong for us to reduce emissions when 40% of Indians do not have access to electricity’ Skeptics promote a vibrant energy policy that promotes development and expands energy around the globe. The sooner we can eliminate the UN from climate and energy policy, the better off energy distribution and the developing world’s poor will become. The world needs energy initiatives, not anti-energy initiatives, and as we go forward, the less the United Nations has to do with climate and energy, the better. The only people “pitching a do-nothing approach to climate change” are the UN and the U.S. Congress. Why else would the Kyoto Protocol not even have a measurable impact on global temps (assuming they were correct on the science ) and it was fully enacted?
It is the U.S. Congress and the “scientifically meaningless” Waxman-Markey bill that even Obama’s EPA admits will not have a measurable impact on global Co2 levels, let alone any measurable or detectable impact on global temperatures. The man-made climate fear promoters have been “pitching a do-nothing approach to climate change…” since the movement’s launch in 1988 by consistently promoting purely symbolic “solutions” to global warming. Mr. Rudd, you claim that carbon trading and UN treaties are some sort of an “insurance” policy against global warming. But a simple question to ask is: Would you purchase fire insurance on your home that had a huge up front premium for virtually no payout if you home burned down? If you answered YES to such an “insurance” policy, then Congress and the UN has a deal for you with their cap-and-trade and climate legislation.
If we did actually face a man-made climate catastrophe and the “solutions” of the UN and Congress were our only hope, we would all be DOOMED!
Rudd Claim: Skeptics “are too dangerous to be ignored”
Climate Depot Response: Fully agree with you Mr. Rudd. Scientific truth, reality based economics are always “dangerous” to climate charlatans peddling their wares of a coming climate catastrophe. It used to be those who stood on street corners warning of the end times were thought of as nutcases, now those same views are held by world leaders. It is sad to see “climate astrology” replace actual science. See: Obama’s ‘Climate Astrologer’: Energy Sec. Chu claims he knows ‘what the future will be 100 years from now’: ‘Shouldn’t Chu be touting these scary predictions of the year 2100 on a boardwalk with a full deck of Tarot Cards? Sadly Mr. Rudd, it is you and your fellow climate alarm promoters that are touting faith based science.
Rudd Claim: “The danger skeptics pose is this – by collapsing political momentum towards national and global action on climate change, they collapse global political will to act at all. They are the stick that gets stuck in the wheel, that despite its size may yet bring the train to a complete stop.”
Climate Depot Response: We plead guilty Mr. Rudd! Our goal is simple: To bring the train to a complete stop. You did figure us out correctly on that point.
Rudd Claim: “Skeptics are well resourced and well represented by political conservatives in many, many countries.”
Climate Depot Response: Wrong again, Mr. Rudd. Politically left scientists and environmental activists are now dissenting from climate fears in growing numbers. See: Politically Left Scientists Now Rejecting Climate Fears – Jan. 2009
Rudd Claim: “This brigade of do-nothing climate change skeptics are dangerous because if they succeed, then it is all of us who will suffer.”
Climate Depot Response: Yes, scientific truth, economic reality and political realism are always “dangerous” to politically and ideologically motivated climate fear promoters. As for “suffering” from failure to “act”, please explain how UN treaties and carbon trading “save the planet?” Even the Washington Post understands climate reality. See: Wash. Post’s Moment of Clarity: ‘Carbon emissions will not be reduced by international bureaucrats sitting in a room and signing a piece of paper’ – July 14, 2009
Rudd Claim: “Their aim is not to convince every person on earth of the follies of acting on climate change. Their aim is to erode just enough of the political will that action becomes impossible.”
Climate Depot Response: Actually Mr. Rudd, the more messrs Gore, Kerry, Brown, Obama, and yourself speak, the more the public grows skeptical. So you and your colleagues have been a huge help in helping to spread skepticism and expand opposition to silly and economically destructive global climate treaties.
Rudd Claim: “If Copenhagen does not deliver the outcome we so urgently need, no individual climate change skeptic will be responsible, but each of them will have played their part.”
Climate Depot Response: Goody! Let us hope Copenhagen does not deliver! For the sake of the planet and its inhabitants. Skeptics will proudly celebrate the collapse of Copenhagen and do so knowing our children and grandchildren will be better off. Yes, our children and grandchildren will be much better off without a UN body that uses used-car salesman tactics dictating meaningless climate “action.”
Rudd Claim: “In this debate the climate change skeptics have erected an intellectual house of cards based on one simple premise: that the cost of not acting is nothing.”
Climate Depot Response: Actually, you have your logic reversed Mr. Rudd. The cost of doing “something” as defined by the U.S. Congress and the UN achieves “nothing” in results. It is all economic pain for no climate gain. At best under UN climate treaties, the world accomplishes “nothing” as far as climate goes, but we risk a neo-colonialism of Western nations imposing regulations on impoverished developing nations that can only be called immoral. See: Flashback 2002: U.S. Environmentalist Laments Introduction of Electricity in Africa; Flashback 2002: Jerry Brown says ‘it’s not viable’ for poverty stricken developing world to emulate prosperity of U.S.‘ Ugandan Activist: ‘African life span is lower than it was in U.S. and Europe 100 years ago. But Africans told we shouldn’t develop’ because wealthy Western nations are ‘worried about global warming’: Excerpt: ‘Telling Africans they can’t have electricity and economic development – is immoral’; Flashback 2003: S. African Activist: Poor countries should just say: ‘Go to hell’ to Wealthy Western Nations: ‘If you don’t want us to fill in our wetlands, then you bomb your big cities like Washington, a third of Holland and Rotterdam and so on, and restore them to being swamps’; Flashback 2002: UN Earth Summit’s Failure Called ‘Good Thing’ For Poor Nations: Excerpt: The first world became rich without the IMFs and World Banks, and the less of them that are around, the more likely the Third World is to do the same.”; It is a moral issue! – ‘People cannot cook’…Chad’s Global Warming Inspired Ban on Charcoal leads to ‘Desperate’ Families! – January 16, 2009
Poor Kenyans rebel as UK grocery store’s “carbon friendly” policies may stop food exports; India: ‘It is morally wrong for us to reduce emissions when 40% of Indians do not have access to electricity’
Report: ‘Green, UN, rich nation and African elites impose deadly anti-development colonialism’ – June 8, 2009; Greenpeace Leader: There is urgent need for the suppression of economic growth in U.S…’Lifestyle of the rich in the world is not a sustainable model’ – August 20, 2009; Flashback 2002: Average American Lifestyle Called “Total Bull—t” by Environmentalist – Excerpt: ‘If anyone in a developing country looks to the U.S. and wants a lifestyle like the average American–it’s total bull—t!’; Flashback 2000: Actor Chevy Chase Says ‘Socialism Works’ — ‘Cuba might prove that’; Black clergymen protest Robert Redford ‘link his environmentalism to racism’; Obama Advisor Warren Buffett ‘repeats criticism of cap and trade, saying it would be a huge, regressive tax’
Rudd Claim: “Skeptics claim that the cost of not acting is nothing.”
Climate Depot Response: Wrong again. Skeptics claim that RESULT of “acting” is nothing in terms of climate results.
Rudd Claim: “Their skepticism is in fact radical in its riskiness and recklessness. By deliberately undermining and eroding the capacity to achieve both domestic and international action on climate change the skeptics are attempting to force the world to take the single most reckless bet in our long history.”
Climate Depot Response: Mr. Rudd, you repeat yourself ad nauseum. There is no “reckless” bet. The way forward is already happening. Improving technologies, expanding energy and growing economies in the developing world will improve the global environment more than any UN treaty or domestic carbon trading ever conceivably could.
Rudd Claim: “Skeptics are doing so in the total absence of any genuine body of evidence.”
Climate Depot Response: Oh please Mr. Rudd. Here is but a sampling of the latest scientific studies and real world data that are challenging your politically motivated science views. See: ‘Series of inconvenient developments for promoters of man-made global warming fears continue unabated’
Rudd Claim: “The logic of these skeptics belongs in a casino, not a science lab, and not in the ranks of any responsible government…their prescription for inaction has all the legitimacy of a roulette wheel.”
Climate Depot Response: The casino analogy is apt. People are being told that we must enact a new UN climate treaty or face certain doom. The problem is the casino is run by the UN and it is loaded with corruption. (See: Internal Report Says U.N. Climate Agency Rife With Bad Practices – Fox News – December 4, 2008 )The UN casino pit bosses are offering a sucker bet. Put all your money on a “climate treaty” or “carbon trading” and you will be allowed to live. Don’t do it and you will face bodily harm and loss of property. It’s an offer you can’t refuse. See: La Cosa Climate: Commerce Sec. Warns: Americans Need ‘To Pay’ Or Face Mother Nature’s Wrath — Pay up or face ‘floods, droughts and rising sea levels’: An offer you can’t refuse — Pay up or world faces a ‘catastrophe’
What UN casino is not telling patrons is that the “climate treaty” bet is nothing more than pure symbolism that could harm the poorest of residents. People are wising up, gambling with the UN is not a winning bet.
Rudd Claim: “You are betting our jobs, our houses, our farms, our reefs, our economy and our future on an intuition – on a gut feeling; on a political prejudice you have about science…You’ve got to know when to fold ‘em – and for the skeptics, that time has come.
Climate Depot Response: Aha, yes, the time to fold has arrived. Here is a very small sampling of the current reality you want to deny Mr. Rudd: See: ‘Series of inconvenient developments for promoters of man-made global warming fears continue unabated’ and ‘Dramatic acceleration of developments against the claims of a so-called ‘consensus.’
