In my vain attempts to retain a semblance of fitness I walk a 3.2km repetitive route march around our immediate neighborhood each morning.I occupy the mind listening to podcasts mainly from that left wing Radio National station of the ABC.
A year or more ago I was listening to what Gerard Henderson says is the only token right wing ABC programme "Counterpoint" hosted by former Senator, Amanda Vanstone. She was interviewing a man I had never heard of, Michael Fullilove, about his recently released book "Rendezvous With Destiny". This book tells the story of the five emissaries Franklin Roosevelt sent to Europe (sequentially) to report directly back to him on the situation prior to America's entry into the Second World War. He didn't trust US Ambassador Kennedy and had little respect for the US State Department. Amanda was positively effusive about the book and I decided I'd better read it and did so, online.
It is an excellent book. So much so I attended two functions at which Fullilove spoke in promoting the book and bought the hard copy as I wanted to have it in my library.
Tomorrow Fullilove delivers the last of his series of four Boyer Lectures, a series he has dubbed "A Larger Australia". This morning my podcast was his third Boyer lecture. I find myself very much in agreement with what he says with the notable exception of his views on Global Warming, where he seems to have swallowed the beaten up "alarmist" position.
I find it extraordinary that such an intelligent man can do so. It seems very clear to me that the whole thing is based on a false premise, a view held by such notables as Freeman Dyson, Vaclav Klaus, Matt Ridley, Nigel Lawson, Don Aitken and many others. The premise is that human caused emissions of carbon dioxide are causing alarming warming levels that threaten future generations. In true scientific method the hypothesis continues to be tested against actual observations and is clearly failing the test.This, despite some national meteorologist organisations searching for and declaring individual and/or sequential recordings as "record". And in more than one case being caught adjusting historical records so as to ensure a warming trend.
The promoters maintain their position in spite of the fact that virtually all of the computer models on which the hypothesis is based have been demonstrated to be grossly exaggerated compared with actual observations, emissions have been
understated yet the most accurate form of temperature measurements (satellite) have shown no significant warming for the last 18 years. The alarmists now use the term "climate change" instead of "global warming" and seem to accept the lack of temperature increases and readily refer to what they term "the pause". The "Climategate" email scandal demonstrated the extent to which some scientists, the recipients of Government grants, are prepared to go to to ensure support of the hypothesis.
What we are dealing with appears to be more a belief system rather than science. It seems to be very appealing to those of a negative "leftish" mindset, who are opposed to the progress mankind has made, particularly with the use of cheap energy sources, and are attracted by the thought of an elitist World Government where control rests with a politically correct elite, rather than democracy where power rests with the great "unwashed". Something very undemocratic about that! As Vaclav Klaus has argued, extreme environmentalism is the greatest threat to the free world since the defeat of communism. I am inclined to agree.
