Craig Kelly created such a moment this week, spouting idiotic nonsense on British morning TV.

Kelly is the MP for Hughes, at the southern end of Sydney’s metropolitan area, which he won in 2010, succeeding well respected liberal  Dana Vale when she retired.  The electorate includes a lot of bushland, some of it national park. As such, it is bushfire country.

 Kelly has been a continuing goose, making statements that range from dumb and ill informed, to just plain stupid for the whole time he has been an MP.   Despite this, Scomo intervened to save his pre selection prior to the last election when he was almost certain to lose it to a more moderate candidate who seems to accept that facts do have a place in public debate.  

I am no scientist, but after Kelly’s interview, thought I would relate a few facts about climate change undisputed by the vast majority of scientists around the world. The exceptions being only those who know the holocaust is a figment of Zionist propaganda.   It is however realistic to acknowledge the contradictions and paradoxes littering the climate change landscape (pardon the poor pun) that can be grabbed selectively to make a contrary case, should you be so stupid as to do so.

Hello Craig!

• The human impact on the environment is increasing: there are simply more of us, consuming increasing amounts of finite resources every day, and producing accelerating amounts of waste.
• A key waste is CO2, which has the effect  of warming the earths atmosphere. Scientists used  basic physics to work that out in the mid 1800’s, it is not new information. CO2 in the atmosphere is transparent to the radiation from the sun, so it lets it through, warming the earths surface, but unfortunately, when the warming earth radiates the energy back, the wavelength is different, and the atmospheric CO2 does not allow it to pass through. Therefore, it bounces back, further warming the earth. Anyone who has stood in a glasshouse understands the impact, it is exactly the same, hence the term, ‘greenhouse gas’
• While every one of that increasing population exhales CO2, as do the animals we grow to feed us, the effect we have had is dwarfed by the impact of the burning of fossil fuels. Starting with the coal that powered the industrial revolution, and progressing to oil, and gas, we are now pumping billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. 
• Some of the CO2 produced gets captured by the earths oceans, stored as carbonic acid. This increasing acidity of the seas has the impact of dissolving coral, which acts as the nursery for sea life, the main source of protein for much of the worlds population, as well as protecting low lying tropical and sub tropical areas from the impact of cyclones.
• The warming of the atmosphere tends to suggest, even should I say, to Craig, that this leads to an increased ‘dryness’ of the earth, sometimes called drought. Could this increased dryness  lead to fires? Perhaps even Craig can catch the logic of that one. It also, logically, leads to ice melting. take some cubes out of the freezer Craig, and see what happens. It is unarguable that the ice at both poles, and on mountain ranges is melting. Given the amount of fresh water tied up in ice across the planet, the progressive melting  has a range of nasty consequences. For example, there will be new locations for seaside resorts created, although the price will be paid by some places from small islands around the world, to mainland locations from the Bay of Bengal to Florida, for which snorkels and fins will be required to get to the front fence. This should cause a few very emotional arguments in parts of the world not renowned as friendly, accommodating negotiators.
• While the average temperature of the planet is unarguably warming, averages do tend to be misleading. The incidence of extreme weather is increasing, at both ends. Extreme heat, and extreme cold, and the time between these extremes is decreasing. The locations of these extremes are also scattered, impacted by the melting ice affecting the weather patterns so dependent on sea temperatures, and more specifically, the temperature of the major currents that flow around the world. 
• The sad fact is that the lag between cause and effect is long. Were we to totally stop emitting CO2 today, it would be years before there was any measurable impact on the climate. This is like the dilemma faced by obese people. It is really easy to keep doing what you are doing, and getting fatter, very hard to change habits sufficiently to stop the increasing weight, and even harder again to reverse the trend, and it takes time for the impact to be seen. However, the longer you leave it, the harder it gets.

Enough of this, point made.

However, it is also a good place to point out, if you have read this far, that politicians whine that we, the great unwashed who vote, do  not trust them any more. Even ambulance chasing lawyers rate higher on the popularity scale, as Scomo found out trying to find a hand to shake amongst the ruins of Cobargo last week.

Climate change is not Scomo’s fault. However, his failure, and that of his predecessors to reconstruct the broken processes that catapult an idiot like Kelly into a position to make me feel embarrassed to be an Aussie, is his fault.

My thanks to David Rowe for the header, who as usual, manages to draw the most disturbing cartoons that make a statement.