Professor Little Chicken

Lance Royce is a climate change skeptic.

That's okay. He won't be around for the next Ice Age. Nor will I.

In his latest outburst on his new Blog, which I welcome to the stable of local debate, he attacks Professor Garnaut's report to the Government, and calls it The Sky is Falling Report.Royce sides with 'scientists' that think the whole climate debate is a have, and that the planet is actually cooling. It's not flat as well, is it Lance?

Royce, and his former Liberal mate Byrne, are both in denial about the impact of human activity on global warming and climate change.  The former, and the new Cairns Council, continues to approve buildings that are not designed for the tropics. Just last month every Councillor, bar Pyne and Cooper, voted for the 520 4 story-high GlenCorp units on one block of land at Woree. Is this "sustainably development" Val, that you so vigorously campaigned for just weeks ago?

These buildings depend on electricity for their ventilation rather than embrace the natural elements. I was a guest at a planing and infrastructure luncheon organised by Engineers Australia, back in the run up to the March local body election.

I recall Channel 7's Andrew Arthur spent the entire debate glued to his mobile, obliterating the speakers being heard by some, however he manged to put his report to air that evening. He noted that there was little difference between the mayoral candidate's views. If you followed the election as closely as I did, they were miles apart.  However, the voting in the new Council post the election, would ring true to Andrew's claim. Maybe he had a crystal ball?

The engineers and architects gathered for the Colonial Club debate, asked what Val and Kev's plans were to prepare for rising sea levels.Then Mayor Byrne (now Kev the Property Developer Extraordinaire) said that sea levels are actually falling.

"There is evidence to show that seas levels around Cairns is actually falling," he told the stunned audience.

Of course there's plenty of documented evidence that this is rubbish. What was odd about this proclamation, is that just days before in the Cairns Post, Byrne was saying he wanted help from the State and Federal governments to prepare for the opposite. It's hard to work out his inconsistent approach to strategic planning for environmental impact and how development can plan a role in mitigating effects of the climate. Never mind, he's manging flood-prove development land these days.

This is what concerns me about the Libs approach to the environment. Howard didn't think there was a problem. It's not as if other governments around the world have ignored this issue. It's high on the agenda of almost every country, bar India and China. That's of course where the problem lies.Along with the USA, they're the biggest polluters in the world, and with emerging industrial economies, it posses a real problem.

Whilst I welcome two sides to debate this mammoth issue, this type of head in the sand attitude leads people to believe that we ort (is that how you spell it?) to treat our environment with little respect.

I see people in my street use their garden hose with the thought that there's plenty there for everyone. They water down their driveways to make it look pretty. Then there's the dickheads that use those annoying noisy petrol-driven leaf blowers. What the heck is all that about? We used to use a broom or a rake. By the time he's got back out to his truck, the leafs are back where the were five minutes ago!

I've said this before, but over the last couple of years, ever since this whole climate debate has gained our attention, the amount of commercial supermarket packaging has increased substantially. It's even used in advertising as a reason to buy their product. Some milk companies have added a "freshness seal" under the lid. What? They don't get my custom.  All this additional packaging, which I've harped on about before, wastes resources unnecessarily.

Sure Lance, question the rhetoric, but we all live on the same planet and it's time we started to treat our resources with a bit more respect. We've designed our cities, lifestyles and work around a fuel-dependant society, and we're now realising that the price will hit two bucks a litre before much longer.

Lance Royce says he sees a 'bright fantastic, exciting and wonderful future' for the world. "The Loony Left sees a bleak dark apocalyptic future for mankind."

Just over the weekend, CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology released a substantial report into the link between drought and climate change, and will trigger a major review of drought policy. It warns that extreme conditions previously thought to occur once in every 20 to 25 years, may well be as frequent as every one or two years.

We'll see who's right in a 100 years I dare say. Maybe a lot less.