The evaporating global warming “consensus”

I read an article in the Wall Street Journal several weeks ago explaining that the Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, decided to postpone pursuing his Cap and Trade legislation until 2011.  He, much like President Obama, was elected with promises to do something about global warming, or climate change, or whatever the current phrase du jour happens to be.  His reasons were economic.

Mr. Rudd’s March proposal would have imposed total carbon permit costs (taxes) of 11.5 billion Australian dollars (US$8.5 billion) in the first two years, starting in 2010. This would have increased consumer prices by about 1.1% and shaved 0.1% off annual GDP growth until at least 2050…

But an article in today’s Wall Street Journal is even more enlightening, and, perhaps, freightening in light of the Democrats relentless push to pass Cap and Trade “yesterday”.  And, this article will also show you the lengths to which one public servant will go to investigate the facts before casting a vote.

It seems that the “scientific consensus” linking carbon emissions to global warming is, well, melting.  This has been brought about, in part, by those “pesky” facts.  The reality is that in spite of ever increasing carbon emissions since 2001, the earth’s temperatures haven’t increased at all, they have remained constant.

This reality, among other things, has led Poland, the Czech Republic, France, and New Zealand to question,  or repudiate carbon caused climate change.  But, it doesn’t stop there.

The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. — 13 times the number who authored the U.N.’s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world’s first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak “frankly” of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming “the worst scientific scandal in history.” Norway’s Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the “new religion.” A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton’s Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled…

And, it now appears that Australia will join the above countries in putting a stop to any Cap and Trade legislation, due, in large part, to the efforts of Senator Steve Fielding of Australia.

Mr. Fielding, a crucial vote on the bill, was so alarmed by the renewed science debate that he made a fact-finding trip to the U.S., attending the Heartland Institute’s annual conference for climate skeptics. He also visited with Joseph Aldy, Mr. Obama’s special assistant on energy and the environment, where he challenged the Obama team to address his doubts. They apparently didn’t.

This week Mr. Fielding issued a statement: He would not be voting for the bill. He would not risk job losses on “unconvincing green science.”

Imagine that, an elected official who actually does his home work, and, I assume, reads the legislation on which he is being asked to vote.

So, while the rest of the world is seriously questioning the validity of carbon induced climate change, our government demands that Cap and Trade be passed immediately.  Humm…could it be that they, too, know it’s a bunch of hooey, and are only interested in the resulting taxes?