Climate change sceptics 'as bad as Fritzl'

AN English bishop has compared climate change doubters to the Austrian child abuser Josef Fritzl (pictured).

The Church of English Bishop of Stafford, the Right Reverend Gordon Mursell, said it was hard to imagine a more disgusting crime than Fritzl's, who sealed his daughter in a cellar for 24 years, The Daily Mail reported.

"You could argue that, by our refusal to face the truth about climate change, we are as guilty as he is," Dr Mursell said.

"We are in effect locking our children and grandchildren into a world with no future and throwing away the key."

Authorities say Fritzl confessed to locking up his daughter Elisabeth for 24 years in the cellar below his home in Amstetten, Austria, repeatedly raping her and fathering seven children with her.

Investigators say he told them three of the children were raised in the cellar, three others were brought up above ground and one died in infancy.

DNA tests have confirmed Fritzl is the biological father of the six surviving children.

Dr Mursell, 59, a suffragan or junior bishop, tried to distance himself from the  comments on  BBC Radio 4's Today program.

"I don't wish to shock people unnecessarily and I am in no way trying to imply that people who ignore climate change are child abusers - of course not," he said.

"I am simply trying to use an analogy to get people to wake up to the consequences of what we are failing to do, because if we don't there won't be a future for our children either."