FORMER Prime Minister Tony Abbott has refused to backtrack from one of his lightning rod positions – boldly repeating that climate science was far from settled.
“How can it be settled when the scientists are still arguing about it,” Mr Abbott said.
In 2009, the future PM became a target of Green rage when, as a shadow minister, he described claims that climate science was settled as “absolute crap”.
Mr Abbott re-asserted his unchanged position during a three-part interview with the Institute of Public Affairs which wrapped up today. [see interview 2 below]
SCIENCE
“The science is not settled on climate change – it’s absolutely not settled,” he told IPA Executive Director John Roskam.
“My view is that the best science is that carbon dioxide is just one of a range of factors influencing climate and that what man does is just one of many things impacting on climate.
“In any event, as a matter of prudential judgement, I would say you do not want to reduce carbon dioxide with such single-minded ferocity that it damages numerous other important objectives such as greater prosperity, jobs and the economic development of the country.”
Mr Abbott said centre-right politicians were overly polite and reluctant to take a stand against climate extremism.
“I was told time and time again that you can’t argue the science – well, um, the scientists argue the science,” he said.
“So why can’t we say ‘sure we support the science but the science is far from settled’?”
Mr Abbott said people of the centre-right had a reluctance towards offending others.
“We have a natural aversion of saying things that we know others will take great offence to,” he said.
CANCEL
“We are a bit conflict averse. That’s not a bad thing – but only up to a point.
“Some conflicts can not be avoided, some fights have to be had.”
Mr Abbott also spoke of his disgust at the current “cancel culture” protests and riots sweeping Australia and the wider world.
“It’s almost like what we are seeing now is a cry of rage against everything,” he said.
“This idea that there is something fundamentally wrong, something fundamentally illegitimate, something fundamentally racist about Australia in particular, but Western culture in general, it just does not stand up to serious scrutiny,” he said.
TRUTH
“I say to anyone who is unhappy with Australia ‘what country would you rather live in?’.
“Anyone who thinks that we are in some way racist, sexist, whatever – what country is better? And the truth is it is almost impossible to identify one.
“So I say to those people, let’s work to make good better, let’s not try to destroy the good in the search for a mythical perfection.
“Especially when the perfection they aspire to is, I think, fundamentally misconceived.” PC
Bonnie Whistler-Smith is deeply offended by Tony Abbott but offers no explanation or debate of what she or her acquaintances find so awful. Is she suggesting that people who do not share her (private or secret) views should keep quiet lest they cause her offence?
The Emperor has no clothes perhaps!
Since temperatures reached their peak during the days of the Pharaohs they have been falling and rising, so that we have the Roman warm, the Medieval warm and the current warm, with cool periods in between – eg the “Little Ice Age” in the 1700s. To this extent ‘warmists’ are correct in saying that ‘global temperatures are rising’.
But the alarmists declare that the current warm is ‘unprecedented’ and is due to the rapid increase in Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere since about 1950, or sometimes 1850, take your pick. All persons arguing from past climate records should remember “Correlation does not mean Causation”. However, a lack of correlation means that there can be no causation!
What we do see is that the planet appears to be greening – this from NASA satellite photos. As a result (possibly) crop yields are increasing. I remember hearing in the 1960s/early 70s Australia had record wheat harvests with about 16 million tonnes being harvested in a year. Now I gather that Australia harvests around 25 million tonnes of wheat (these figures are from the best of my remembrance, so please check carefully before quoting me!). Similar increases are recorded around the world, admittedly better farming practices, more use of fertilizer, irrigation may have something to do with it, BUT …
So all is not doom and gloom. Warming may be good for us, and just remember the ‘excess winter deaths’ recorded by population statistics in the UK and Europe, and Australia. If the ‘excess winter deaths are reduced by warming, without a counterbalancing increase in summer deaths, it is good.
Absolutely right, it is a disappointment the Liberal Party do not have the intestinal fortitude to say the same thing. Bad day when we lost Tony.
Well done Tony Abbott for articulating what many of us feel about this utter nonsense of man made climate change, I tell my now adult children that it’s the p… take of the century!
So fed up with climate change botherers!
We are told that sea levels are rising, and that armageddon will soon be upon us, but the problem is that the Fort Denison tide readings have been constant since 1880. The south pacific nations aren’t stupid, and can spot a greenie mug from a mile away. They tell us that Australia’s emissions are responsible for them losing their homes, due to rising sea levels, therefore we must compensate them. The problem with that theory is that satellite photos taken in 1979 and now show those islands allegedly at risk, such as the Tokelau Islands, Kiribati and Funafatu, have not experienced land mass loss during the past 41 years.
A few Bureau of Meteorology employees have allegedly altered the data from the hottest days of past decades to show an upward warming bias, but the taxpayer really deserves better, and were criminal charges to be laid against the same, a general message would be sent to the likes of these fraudsters. We have always experienced climate change, since when the Romans were able to grow grapes in the north of Britain.
The nonsense propogated about climate change detracts from the serious problem of pollution, plastic filling our oceans, land degradation, and loss of species, upon which we should concentrate our energies. Often the best environmentalists are farmers, who love their land, and happen to be better informed about related matters than Paddington, Newtown or Mosman greenies, who as a group constitute a public menace, and perpetrate the propogation of dreadful public policy.
The average bloke is really not that stupid, and wants to be able to feed his family and pay his electricity bill, not to be priced out of his job by rising electricity costs sending his employer broke, and costing him his job. That’s why Labor lost the last election, after the Liberals decided not to suicide, ousted Turnbull, and elected a functional leader.
Modern nuclear energy is cheap and very safe, as the Chernobyl days are gone, and France has uneventfully powered that nation with nuclear power for many years. The alternate use of thorium, of which Australia has much, leaves a very small waste problem to bury, and would cheaply provide base load power to Australia, together with solar for some domestic use, accompanied by storage batteries, as the same become cheaper, and coal, as the new modern coal power stations are really quite clean, thence being built all over the world. Hydrogen is yet another new power source to come.
The form of energy that we use is best left to the market to determine, so that we can be prosperous, as opposed to being sent broke by the market intervention of economically illiterate greenies from both major parties, who couldn’t care less about poor people, and the latter not being able to afford to turn on their heating in winter, or what happens to the working man’s job. These wankers collective stupidity has gutted our manufacturing sector, and left us so exposed to misadventure in that regard, as evidenced by our dealings with China during the covid crisis and accompanying supply chain problems experienced.
And the lowest lying Island nation in the world, the Maldives, is seemingly unaffected by sea level rise…. go figure??
Also Palm Beach in Sydney is also unaffected by sea level rise…. ahhh its just an abnormality
Sea level rise at Palm Beach is not permitted, there are too many Labor former and serving MPs with holiday homes there.
/sarc.
He is so right, the Climate Change people cannot show any, that is “any” real evidence of climate change, no waters rising, no temperatures rising – yes they find evidence of humans doing deforestation, littering, wastage, polluting waterways and the ocean.
Especially the silly attack on Carbon and carbon Dioxide which the plants and trees love
My argument, which is similar to that of Bjorn Lomborg, is that the science is correct, but the likely impacts are often (sometimes vastly) overstated by environmentalists. That is a debate worth having.
It does not mean we should not care for the environment, but the scare on climate has been going on for 30 years and needs to be called out. Thank you.
I’m deeply, deeply offended by Mr Abbott as is everyone I know. A school child appears to know more on this topic – he really should just keep quiet. He obviously needs less bible and more facts. Try watching a little more ABC, maybe.
I have to assume Bonnie Whistler-Smith is trying to outdo Q and A for (devil’s advocate ?) hilarity !
Keep it up Bonnie, you might get a gig on Media Watch !
Bonnie Whistler Smith & (everyone she knows) must be a miserable lot that’s all I can say if they are so obsessed with CC. I would take a bet that Tony Abbott would play her off a break with facts!!!
ABC isn’t the answer and you disgrace yourself by bringing the Bible into the conversation, inferring he is a fundermentist, shows how bigoted and ignorant you are.