Climate change opportunists aim to hijack Australia's bushfires crisis

In his 2012 book entitled "The Hockey Stick and Climate Wars" Mann attacked a Dr Tim Ball who opposes AGW by calling him "perhaps the most prominent climate change denier in Canada". In a 2011 interview, Ball jokingly quipped that Mann (a Prof at Penn State University) "should be in the State Pen, not Penn State". Not prudent or polite pun on words! Mann sued Ball and this case continued until November 2019, the court dismissed Mann's case due to his refusal to produce his detailed methods/datasets and awarded costs against Mann.

Mann's original "Hockey-Stick" workings remain undisclosed and remain contested. Historically, scientists disagree. These can be bitter and long-standing arguments that last lifetimes. In todays' litigious and media driven world, reputations are now tested in court, on the airways and in social media. Now some of you may think this article is aimed at discrediting Michael Mann. It is not. Every scientist's contribution to testing Plass's 1956 theory is welcome. But AGW is not about science and is all about politics, and Michael Mann chooses to be political. The pro-AGW media, commonly promote AGW experts like Mann, while equally qualified experts are labelled as luddites, deniers, dinosaurs!

Michael Mann is here on sabbatical and has already been weighing in on our bushfires. I suggest you take time to listen to his views in a US media blog to get a flavour of his views on our fires and Australian politics. Let's hope others with alternative views to his will not be bullied or sued into silence. Mann's first big-gig will be the National Climate Emergency Summit in February, where a 2-day love-in will develop a future action plan for Australia. Opening Speaker Mann will be supported by co-stars Peter Garett, Lenore Taylor, Clover Moore, Keryn Phelps, Adam Bandt to name but a few. Expect disruptions Melbourne!

AGW believers like Michael Mann, use litigation. In a recent global review by the Grantham Institute (UK), Australia is currently topic of the litigation table for using climate change, although thankfully most cases are dismissed. Litigation against those who question AGW is not a healthy development. As Art Spitzer, legal director of the ACLU said about one of Mann's recent lawsuits:

Today it's unacceptable to deny climate change, but yesterday it was unacceptable to deny that homosexuality was sinful, and tomorrow it may be unacceptable to deny that robots are better parents than humans. Society can't progress unless people are free to express and consider heretical ideas, because there's no way to predict which heretical ideas will be tomorrow's truths.

Another Royal Commission should be of value, but if it is highjacked by AGW believers, we are in big trouble. The inaction of a century of recommendations to address fuel loads is bad enough. The evangelical AGW movement may push to ignore fuel loads. If so, Groundhog Day bushfire "megafires" will return.