2007 : SYDNEY, Australia — Average temperatures in Sydney will rise by about 9 degrees during the next 65 years, with devastating consequences including 1,300 more heat-related deaths per year, according to a government study released Wednesday.
With Australia gripped by its worst drought on record, the issue of climate changehas emerged as a battleground in this year’s national elections.
Prime Minister John Howard has come under renewed criticism for not ratifying the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, making Australia the only major industrial nation other than the U.S. to reject the treaty that mandates lower emissions of global-warming greenhouse gases.
Howard did not comment on the study, which was commissioned by New South Wales, the state that includes Sydney, Australia’s largest city.
But New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma called the report “frightening reading” and said the federal government “can no longer put its head in the sand on this issue.”
Iemma is a member of the Labor Party, which is hoping to oust Howard’s conservative coalition in elections later this year.
Look how well they did!
OT-kinda. Reminds me of my ex-liberal wife who kept complaining of my entry level pay at a company (she never heard of raises, promotions, hard work to get ahead?), thinking, as many do, that all things in life are either static or bound to get worse. Now, I’ve tripled my initial income, all without any government mandates, and conditions in Australia have also gotten better, depending on your point of view. The older I get the more credit I put in the “glass is half empty or half full” type of person-seems to account for a lot.
As Nature refuses to cooperate, the level of shrillness and desperation increases super-exponentially on the alarmist side.
Mr Iemma lasted another 20 months before being turfed out by his own party while still in office as Premier (eg. think of the Democratic Party sacking Mr Obama in mid-Presidency and installing Nancy Pelosi by fiat). The scandal causing it, power industry privatisation was intimately linked to the whole CAGW fiasco, since Mr Iemma didn’t dare to build needed dirty coal fired power stations, but couldn’t not build them because forced brownouts were looming. This festered even more, directly leading to his party being blown away in our state election last month – the worse electoral wipeout in Aussie history.
Serves them right. We vote politicians in to keep the lights on.
On the history, Mr Howard’s call – not ratifying Kyoto – is looking better and better.
So far at my count one sitting Prime Minister, four state Premier’s and two federal Opposition leaders have lost their jobs because of nutty climate related policies. I hope they are all starting to notice what one of our journo’s last year called the Typhoid Mary policy.
Yes, but Bruce, if it is anything like U.S. politics, getting sacked only means opportunity for more money. Al Gore, while losing his presidential bid, has made a fortune globe trotting exclaiming the end of the world. Until our nations start to actually scorn these people there will be a never ending line of people willing to sell their integrity for a bit of cash. I believe your current prime minister has done just that, but I don’t follow as close as many others. She’ll be able to write her own checks(cheques?) after her bit is done in office. Obama will do the same.