Abstract

Article

The plethora of grossly misleading arguments advanced, mostly against the warnings on climate change, are very disturbing.  They are so bad and so prolific that there must be a strong inference that they are being manufactured by someone, possibly so-called 'think tanks', with the deliberate iintent to deceive the public.

A notable one, which has sunk into obscurity, was Mr Abbott's proposition that there have always been droughts,  bushfires and cyclones, which is true but irrelevant and misleading since the issue is and always has been whether they have been moe frequent and intense.  Note that prt of the scientific view, which is very widely held by scientists, is that cyclones are more frequent and more intense, meaning that they produce catastrophic rainfall where and when they strike.  Nrthern Australia suffers most from this, but drought and bushfires afflict much of the rest of the continent which does not enjoy what benefits come from the water from cyclones.

The latest abomination of logic comes from Craig Kelly, whose intellect is such that he may be thought not to know better if his disposition were not taken into account.  He said in a BBC interview thatthere was no water problem for the rainfall 'in Australia'in the first twenty years of the century exceeded that of the equivalent period of the last century.  To speak of Australia as a whole in this way is nasty reasoning. It amounts to saying that if 20% of the coountry suffered catastrophic cyclone flooding while the rest perished from drought, all is well because the country as a whole is enjoying sufficient rainfall. One can say only,"Goodness gracious me!!"

Another, a Mr Plimer, a geologist, it is said, claimed that there iss no increase in carbon in the atmosphere because carbon is black, and if there were more of it, the air would be blacker.  A diamond is pure carbon.  More importantly, as carbon dioxide, itis colourless, odourless and tasteless (like some of the arguments). Common salt consists of a combination of sodium and chlorine, both deadly in quick time to humans, and of course, chlrine is green.  Fancy a geologist's not knowingg that.

In the name of intellectual decency, please let us have any controversy that maybe possible on honest and resonable terms.  Any departure from that must go to the motives and integrity of those who do not conform.