The Old Men And The CPAC: A Parade Of Hacks, Has-Been Oz Politicians And Tired Climate Lies

[hatrack]

Climate science is a fraud, according to one speaker; renewable energy has pushed up electricity prices for Australians and the case that carbon dioxide drives global warming is unproven, according to others. Those were just some of the themes at last weekend’s annual conference in Sydney of the Conservative Political Action (CPAC) network – billed as the “largest and most prominent conference for conservatives and liberty lovers in Australia”.

Several Coalition figures were in attendance, including the former prime minister Tony Abbott, alongside conservative activists, Sky News presenters and imports such as Brexiteer Nigel Farage. The New South Wales premier, Dominic Perrottet, sent in a video welcome, congratulating the attendees for being “part of a conservative movement that’s driven by big ideas and bold action”. Except that when it came to the climate crisis, the theme – almost without exception – was one of derisive animosity to any action.

EDIT

Another keynote handpicked to preach before the CPAC crowd was the veteran climate science denier Prof Ian Plimer, a geologist and mining industry figure. Plimer claimed global temperature records had been tampered with to make modern-day warming seem worse than it was. “We are dealing with a fraud. A scientific fraud from day one,” he said.

EDIT

Plimer’s claims are “wrong and wrong”, says Prof David Karoly, a veteran climate scientist at the University of Melbourne. Aside from the basic physics of carbon dioxide causing warming, Karoly pointed to a 2001 UN climate report as one of the earliest to show that CO2 was driving warming. When climate models were run parallel to each other – some with human-caused CO2 added and some without – the “increase in observed global average temperature is only possible with observed increase in CO2 concentrations due to human activity”. Karoly told Temperature Check: “Plimer is not a climate scientist so this is just the same echo chamber that the likes of Donald Trump listen to. Their evidence is based on non-experts where they only listen to views that reinforce their existing perspective.”

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/06/the-old-men-and-the-cpac-conservatives-regaled-with-tired-tales-of-climate-misinformation

[calimary]

1. They'll say anything to make you believe anything.

No matter how stinky the bullshit is.

[paleotn]

2. Nuts are everywhere

We in the US can take some solace in that. Makes you want to drag them to Ft Myers and rub their noses in Ian’s handy work. Then again, aussies have their own climate disasters. Bunch of nuts.

[LT Barclay]

3. After the devastating fires down there, you'd think they'd know enough to STFU.

I'm surprised that the Aussies didn't show up in force to put them in their place.

[Brenda]

5. Liberty Lovers?

Just like the Tea Partiers and other nutjobs...abusing the word liberty. What they really are is whiny, bratty, selfish children who want the freedom to rape and pillage not only their fellow citizens but the entire Earth.

They love liberty to pollute, kill, maim, destroy, smash into oblivion via extinction because Hey, I'm a free man and I can!

Where's a liberty lover virus when you need one?