Tony Abbott bet me $100 the climate will not change in 10 years

Tony Abbott has bet me $100 that in 10 years’ time the climate will not have changed.

When I found myself in a Manly coffee shop last week being offered the bet, I was incredulous.

A protester dressed as Tony Abbott joins the 2019
Australian federal election campaign. 

 Abbott was smiling, charmingly dismissive. This person with the power to help steer the world away from anthropogenic disaster wasn’t having a bar of my concerns about climate change. He wasn’t going to help; he was going to wield his status and wealth to show how confident he was in his position of not doing anything.

He was going to prove he disagreed with climate science, with the majority of Australian voters and with the mother of a six-year-old who had just literally begged him to take the climate emergency seriously, with a jocular bet. No doubt he expected me to laugh and back down.

And maybe I should have, amazed and insulted beyond belief. Maybe I should have said instead (as my husband suggested when I got home) “I’m not going to bet $100. Bet me something substantial, like your electorate, or all your power, so that you’ll actually be motivated to work to save the climate.”

Read the story from The Guardian by Cassie Flanagan Willanski - “Tony Abbott bet me $100 the climate will not change in 10 years.”

Rick Perry loses his cool when confronted by Sen. Franken on climate science

After a week full of misleading and inaccurate statements, Energy Secretary Rick Perry remained incredulous and defiant when confronted with climate science-related facts in a budget hearing Thursday.

 Energy Secretary Rick Perry remains incredulous and defiant

Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) informed Perry that scientists have concluded that “humans are entirely the cause” of recent warming, to which Perry responded, “I don’t believe it” and “I don’t buy it.”

And when Franken reminded him this was the conclusion of a team of climate science skeptics funded by conservative petrochemical billionaires Charles and David Koch, Perry raised his voice and said: “To stand up and say that 100 percent of global warming is because of human activity, I think on its face, is just indefensible.”

“Read the story by Joe Romm on Think Progress - "Rick Perry loses his cool when confronted by Sen. Franken on climate science.”