Chris Kenny: The climate change debate suffers from too much emotion and too little rational analysis.

THE climate change debate suffers from too much emotion and too little rational analysis – and is scaring our children as a result, writes Chris Kenny.

Chris Kenny says the cyclones, bushfires and floods that have always been part of our liv

DELUSIONAL alarmism over climate change is literally frightening our kids.

So ridiculous has it become that one columnist has written about his daughter’s fears and tears in a piece exacerbating the alarm.

Another, paid by taxpayers at the ABC, has talked about the “death of what we might recognise as our planet” and suggested Tony Abbott’s climate policy is a “betrayal” of not only the national interest but all humans.

For those of us concerned about political bias at the ABC this sort of sloganeering against Abbott on the taxpayers’ purse is an open and shut case.

Let’s start with the commentator who can share any opinion he likes because he is in the commercial media.

Sam de Brito told his Sydney Morning Herald readers this month that after watching a television news story his four-year old daughter asked: “Will we die if the world gets too hot, daddy?”

De Brito told her “of course not” but then went on to talk about the “white lies” he used to reassure his daughter because, apparently, it is all a bit dire.

He wondered whether he should have been more honest and said; “I won’t die. But you might.”

Really.

The columnist drew parallels between what he considered to be his dishonest parental assurances to the thoughts of “climate change deniers” and the “fairytales” told by Abbott.

When parents hear children share such wild fears about climate change you would think they’d get angry at the alarmists in the media and those pushing this agenda in our schools.

The climate change debate suffers from too much emotion and too little rational analysis – too much about belief and not enough about facts.

The cyclones, bushfires and floods that have always been part of our lives are now talked up as a growing, pressing and dire threat.

Tim Flannery has told us our dams will dry up. Suburbs will be inundated. Islands will be swamped.

We are constantly fed a diet of “angry summers” or “extreme weather events” when sober talk is what we need.

The ABC piece, by Radio National’s Jonathan Green, also zeroed in on Abbott by endorsing a protester’s slogan: “No jobs on a dead planet.”

What some might see as a glib line, the aptly-named Green saw as penetrating brilliance, suggesting Barack Obama ought to repeat the slogan to Abbott.

You see, Green is concerned that Abbott either doesn’t think climate change is a problem or is happy to let the planet die for his short-term political aims.

He took great exception to Abbott saying he didn’t want to “clobber” the economy with a carbon tax.

So the Prime Minister of Australia, apparently, is betraying humankind.

What was stunning about both these articles was the rampant alarmism about a dying planet and the clear assertion that Obama’s approach on climate change trumps Abbott’s.

When Obama accepted the Democratic Party nomination in 2008 he claimed it was “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal”.

When he’s done with that presumably he will spin the earth back on its axis to 2008 so he can have another term in office.

Obama has achieved next to nothing on climate policy, dropping his plans for a carbon price in the face of Congressional resistance.

He talks a big game but hasn’t been able to deliver.

And now he is talking again about legislating cuts in emissions from power generators.

We shouldn’t believe any of this, of course, until and unless it actually happens.

But even then, be aware that such action is closer to Abbott’s direct action than it is to a carbon tax.

And here is the rub. The Abbott Government is committed to the same emissions reduction target as Labor was under its carbon tax (5 per cent below 2000 levels).

So if you want to talk about the primacy of science, there is precisely no scientific difference between the atmospheric impact of Labor’s carbon tax or the Coalition’s direct action.

None.

There is only a difference in the method and therefore the impact on the economy.

What Green and de Brito and their fellow travellers are barracking for is not science but rhetoric – not climate but politics.

Obama, like Labor, gives us more rhetorical flourishes on climate but not more action.

Still, let’s pretend Abbott or anyone else could ban carbon emissions altogether, immediately shutting down our economy and our nation.

It would make no discernible difference to the planet.

Global emissions would initially be cut by about 1.4 per cent and in less than a year those emissions would be made up by increasing emissions in China.

Green and de Brito and their many fellow travellers don’t bother themselves with these realities.

Nor do they bother to note that most countries, including Obama’s US, are doing less to reduce emissions than Australia.

They actually pretend that if Australia achieves its 5 per cent target through a tax instead of direct action, the planet will be saved from ruin.

This is the inane level of our climate debate.

Add the fact that global average temperatures have plateaued for the past 15 years despite constant predictions they would keep rising and you start to see how the panic merchants are the ones avoiding the facts.

They also avoid debate about nuclear energy; the baseload, emissions-free energy source that could halve global emissions in a generation if we really needed to get serious.

We have had enough fearmongering and emotional bleating; enough denial of basic facts on policy options.

No matter what he does, Abbott can’t kill the planet – and nor will Obama save it.

Climate debate will be with us for decades to come, involving science, economics, politics, technology, research, mitigation and monitoring.

Scaring the children and pushing phony political narratives at taxpayers’ expense won’t help anyone.

Chris Kenny is Associate Editor of The Australian and hosts Viewpoint on SkyNews at 7.30 Sunday nights.