Industry Blitz

February 12, 2001
By John L Daly

In what has been a clearly orchestrated campaign over the last few weeks, the media has been reporting one scary greenhouse story after another. No less than three international climate conferences at Shanghai, Nairobi, and Hobart, have made the headlines, predicting doom and disaster on the basis of failed `models', failed theories, and a lot of wishful thinking.

The Shanghai meet made a great display of their 40-odd future scenarios, only one of which was talked about - the most extreme one of course. The Nairobi meeting recycled the same predictions from Shanghai, while the Hobart conference on the oceans made the usual noises about rising sea levels. The Hobart sea levels conference was convened only 50 miles from the 1841 sea level benchmark on the `Isle of the dead', but mentioning that unmentionable subject in Hobart would have been like waving a sun-lit cross at a gathering of vampires. They simply do not want to know, and worse still, would prevent the rest of us from knowing if they had their way.

What was clearly evident at all three conferences was that no new evidence was presented. Physical evidence in particular was lacking, most of the scenarios being based on model studies.

One of the favourite spending items of the financially bloated greenhouse industry is international conferences. You can attend one every week if you want to. They are lavish, always held in exotic locations (never in Manchester or Pittsburg), cost millions to stage, and the combined emission of greenhouse gases by all the limousines, air travel for the participants, and conference venues, would match the annual emissions of many substantial towns. In Australia alone, the combined expenditure of the greenhouse industry exceeds A$300 million. (or equivalent to US$175m). Other, larger, western countries spend in the billions. And for what? Predictions? - none of which have ever come true. Computers? - just how many models does it take? Conferences? - pass the champagne.

The greenhouse gravy train is so lavish that scientific standards have been the first casualty. Science in this industry is geared solely to the survival and growth of that industry, requiring the continual ranting to the public about climate disasters to come. Scepticism or questions about the evidence are never addressed, but result in collective hostility toward the sceptic or questioner, the triumph of an insidious political correctness over reason.

Why is the industry so hysterical of late? Three reasons suggest themselves. Firstly, the Kyoto Protocol has collapsed, but the industry cannot face the reality of their own increasing irrelevance. Secondly, there has been a sea change in Washington with a new administration bent on tax cuts for the public (possibly at the industry's expense), and who is more sceptical of the industry's claims and even its raison d'etre. Thirdly, the vicious winter all across the northern hemisphere was a severe blow to the warming scenario, requiring a desperate campaign to reinforce a waning public belief in global warming.