The link between climate change and our bushfire holocaust

On December 10, an Liberal MP bucked a trend: he put climate change and the eastern Australian bushfire crisis in the same sentence.

Scourged by the fury of the flames, vast tracts
 have burnt - and lives and homes with them. 

“These bushfires have been caused by extreme weather events … the exact type of events scientists have been warning us about for decades that would be caused by climate change,” said NSW Environment Minister Matt Kean at the Smart Energy Summit in Sydney, where he pushed for the nation to be more reliant on renewable energy.

“We cannot allow ideology and politics to get in the way of … the health of our planet for generations of Australians.”

Climatologists worldwide agree that the perilous journey of climate change is underway, unfolding in Australia as hotter summers, bleached tropical reefs and, according to some, the bushfires still raging in NSW and Queensland.

Read the story from The New Daily by Michael Crooks - “The link between climate change and our bushfire holocaust.”

Is the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu growing, and not sinking, as Craig Kelly says?

Liberal MP and climate sceptic Craig Kelly made headlines in November when he was caught on tape mocking "lefties" for exaggerating the effects of climate change.

Coalition backbencher, Craig Kelly, says Pacific
island nations are growing rather than shrinking,

Speaking at a local party event, audio of which was leaked to the Guardian, Mr Kelly set out to debunk several justifications for climate change action, including the argument that Tuvalu, the Pacific island nation, was slipping beneath the sea.

Read the ABC News factcheck story - “Is the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu growing, and not sinking, as Craig Kelly says?”

Turnbull government MPs ridicule claims of 'looming backbench revolt' over electric cars

A Liberal MP purportedly leading the charge against increased taxpayer support for electric cars says there is no looming backbench revolt, as other Liberals dismissed divisions over the issue as “nonsense".

Liberal MP Craig Kelly at Parliament House in Canberra.

Craig Kelly, the chair of the Coalition's energy and environment committee, played down ructions despite having warned that electric vehicles have a bigger carbon footprint than conventional cars - a view that has since been rubbished by the expert who created the website upon which the assertion was based.

Read the story by Nicole Hasham and Mark Kenny in today’s Melbourne Age - “Turnbull government MPs ridicule claims of 'looming backbench revolt' over electric cars.”

(It has been argued that only a child sees a project half completed and that is what has happened in the electric car debate - Craig Kelly argues that an electric car using power generated by a fossil-fuelled power station is more carbon intensive than existing traditional, existing cars, ignoring the fact that power drawn from solar plants would significantly reduce that carbon footprint. The electric car must be paired with solar or wind power - Robert McLean)