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Wake Up Australia to Climate Change Scam!
Mar. 4th, 2009 08:59 pmA problem with freedom of the press is that, if you happen to own a press, you're free to say whatever bullshit you please. Case in point: the editor of a local Sydney rag, The Weekly Times, John F. Booth, who regularly rants about the "Climate Change Scam" on his own front page:
John quotes Sydney's Catholic Archbishop, Cardinal George Pell, who as of April last year continues to maintain that global warming is merely a "bandwagon" and that climate change is over. His reference? An article in New Statesman - subsequently debunked in New Statesman (and for more debunkage, check out New Scientist).
It's pretty clear neither of these gentlemen have bothered to do any research into the subject. Instead, they rely on half-understood soundbites from "climate sceptics", aka the fossil fuel industry. Given their power to sway public opinion, this is unforgiveable.
"[Australia's state and federal governments] are teaching our children utter lies about the danger of CO2 which the Australian Oxford Dictionary tells us is 'a colourless odourless gas occuring naturally in the atmosphere and formed by respiration'.Indeed, CO2 is quite harmless... in the right amounts. (Like that other familiar compound, H2O.) But John, just you try breathing them. Seriously, mate. Seriously.
"Yet they continue to show scary pictures of power stations supposedly spewing out dangerous CO2 into the atmosphere when the 'smoke' is really clean steam dissipating in the air."Never mind the confusion between government and media; at this point I fear we cross from mere nonsense into either wilful ignorance or deliberate deceit. Anyone with access to Google can quickly discover that the 'smoke' is a mixture of carbon dioxide, water vapour, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur dioxide. After (effectively inert) nitrogen gas, CO2 is the largest component of the emissions, hardly surprising given that 99% of the carbon in coal is converted to CO2. (You've got to wonder: what the hell does John think coal is made of?)
John quotes Sydney's Catholic Archbishop, Cardinal George Pell, who as of April last year continues to maintain that global warming is merely a "bandwagon" and that climate change is over. His reference? An article in New Statesman - subsequently debunked in New Statesman (and for more debunkage, check out New Scientist).
It's pretty clear neither of these gentlemen have bothered to do any research into the subject. Instead, they rely on half-understood soundbites from "climate sceptics", aka the fossil fuel industry. Given their power to sway public opinion, this is unforgiveable.
