Wednesday 18 March 2009

Holocaust future denier, here in NZ?

by Auckland union activist 18 March 2009 The NZ Herald (17 March) published an opinion piece by Bryan Leyland, who is a Power Industry consultant and Secretary of the International Climate Science Coalition. (See Bryan Leyland: Climate adaption a safer option.) Leyland criticises the obvious short-comings of carbon trading, but then goes on to attack all efforts to stop carbon pollution. Leyland writes: "There is a large body of evidence - some of it very recent - telling us that climate change is natural." He argues, that because global warming is "natural", we should do nothing that might risk big business profits. Leyland: "If man-made global warming is a myth, then many investments are at risk. Last year, $125 billion was invested worldwide in carbon trading and $160 billion in heavily subsidised renewable energy schemes such as wind farms. If climate change is natural, these investments will crash.” “Under stock exchange rules, anyone who issues a prospectus is obliged to set out all the risks. I searched the internet and failed to find any evidence that anyone warned investors and others that they value of man-made global warming-driven investments would be at risk. If they crash, the promoters could be sued, many wind farms would lose their subsidies and wind turbines that break down could be abandoned." Leyland says that we should "adapt" to global warming and argues against cutting CO2 pollution: "All it will do is damage our economy and make it even more difficult to adapt. And humankind will adapt - as it has done through past ice ages and warmer periods." What would adapt to climate change mean? Leading climate scientists at NASA have looked into the pit of a warmer world and have determined that though the global north will get off lightly, there’s a possibility that up to 4 billion people, mostly in the equatorial regions, will face famine, drought, combined with flooding of the fertile coastal plains, where most agriculture is carried out in this part of the world. According to Brian Leyland, to protect the profits of his paymasters in the energy industry, we shouldn't try to avoid this future holocaust.

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