In defending his strategy for fighting climate change, Oliver Tickell abandons his entire argument

Oliver Tickell defends against my critique his visions of 4C leading to a catastrophic future. Two casual observations lend themselves readily. First, Tickell has entirely abstained from defending his claim for human extinction from 4C. Thanks. Second, I was clearly wrong when I said that Tickell's claim for 70-80 metres of sea level rise had maxed out campaigners' scare potential because that means all ice is melted. Showing an amazing ability to raise the stakes none the less, Tickell now talks about sea level going 100m higher.

The UN climate panel (IPCC) says that 4C will lead to a rise a hundredth of that figure; but Tickell simply claims such moderate projections are "dangerously misplaced". All I can see is that such facts are terribly inconvenient.

I doubt any shire in Australia has tried as hard as Mornington Peninsula’s to terrify ratepayers about global warming.  The shire has even sent all residents a booklet, Climate change: What we are doing about it (no link), that warns that many of them could die from global warming over the next few decades:

Average annual temperature will rise by up to 3.5 degrees by 2070, placing greater stress on elderly residents and those living in older homes with inadequate insulation… The increased incidence of exteme heat days and heat waves, in conjuction with a growing and ageing population in the peninsula, has the potential to contribute to significant mortality in future decades...Potential imparts: Ability to affect entire population, especially elderly and infants; 27,000 elderly, 8000 infants and young people; Increased mortality and morbidity in vulnerable groups.

You don’t often come across scaremongering so brazen - or so wildly and irresponsibily exaggerated. Let me try to reassure the poor residents. Let’s note, for a start, that that global temperatures haven’t actually risen over the past decade. Let’s note also that by 2070, we’ll be so much richer that we can afford at the very minimum air-conditioners for everyone to save them from this allegedly apocalyptic heat.

People ask me, “How do you find something to write about every day?” And I tell them that I merely wait for some liberal politician and/or environmental freakazoid to announce their latest loony plan to “save the planet.”

So, thank you, Mayor Michael Bloomberg for announcing your “windmill power plan” that would put wind turbines on every building, city bridges, and everywhere else throughout New York for the purpose of “producing ten percent of the city’s electricity in ten years.”

Anyone who has to live near wind turbines will tell you that they are not just noisy neighbors, but their incessant noise can make you crazy. There are reports of medical conditions being attributed to being around wind turbines day-in and day-out.

The problem is exacerbated by the need to keep the turbines turning even when there is no wind; otherwise mechanical problems can occur. So wind turbines are hooked up to a source of reliable energy like that from a coal-fired plant to keep the blades moving.

If, I hear you saying, you have to hook up the turbines to electricity from a coal-fired, natural gas or nuclear plant, why do you need them in the first place? Good question!

Excerpt:

Let's get back to another one of my favorite subjects - global climate change. We have been listening to the prophets of doom for a number of years. Our school children have been inundated with liberal propaganda from their liberally trained teachers who tell them our use of fossil fuels will eventually doom us all.

I witnessed a commercial done by Noah Wylie who was soliciting contributions to save the polar bears. It was a direct parallel of the one Sally Struthers used to do. Noah promised regular donors a photo of a polar bear. I was waiting for the promise of the monthly letter from the bear, but that was never mentioned. I was disappointed.

Chinks are developing in the global climate change armor. Scientists who were proponents of CO2 as the catalyst to global climate change, and even those who were neutral, are starting to question the conclusions and the proposed draconian measures that may well prove ineffectual.

What gives Washington even bigger hives than global climate-change accords? International criminal courts.

So why not bring the two ideas together, in a proposal seemingly designed to strike exactly the wrong chord with both the U.S. and China?

That’s the idea floated by Stephen Hockman, a British lawyer and part of ClientEarth, a U.K.-based environmental legal advocacy group:

The time is ripe for a serious consideration of an international court for the environment. Such a court was mooted in Washington in 1999, but sank without trace. Today, however, we cannot afford to drop the ball. Ideally, such a court would be compulsory…