Andrew Bolt: Climate cultists need to be asked if the pain of tackling global warming is worth any gain

The latest science suggests Australia’s efforts to tackle global warming are almost literally insane and too many of us are still not asking one key thing.

Aren’t you also getting sick of the green bullies and liars?

Take my idiot council, which not only thinks it can change the world’s temperature but has announced it has a great plan to, ahem, “reduce energy costs” for me and my neighbours. But by “reduce energy costs” it actually means it will hike our rates – make our electricity even more expensive – if we don’t buy solar panels for our roofs.

Oh, you rascals. Straight out of the Chris Bowen school for green porkies.

Bowen, our holy-rolling Climate Change and Energy Minister, tried this very same cruel-to-be-kind trick himself, to effectively ban our most popular petrol cars, especially utes.

Mind you, I’ve always suspected Bowen was one of those shopaholics who swear they’re “saving” when they’re spending.

How often has he told us “renewables are the cheapest form of electricity”, only for you to find that the more renewables we get, the more we pay?

But now Bowen has a new law, the New Vehicle Emissions Standard, which he claims will “save about $1000 per year per car”. So lucky you.

Chris Bowen has no idea what the word ‘save’ means. Picture: Gaye Gerard

New vehicle emissions standards will drive up the price of popular utes. Picture: Supplied

As I said, Bowen clearly has no clue what “save” actually means, because the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries estimates his “ute tax” will instead drive up the price of our most popular car, the Ford Ranger, by $6000.

It will do that by putting a cap on the total emissions of the cars each car company sells, and then ratcheting it down. That’s to force these companies to sell more electric cars and fewer gassy models, which means they’ll stop selling our most popular petrol-driven utes or force down demand by charging more for them.

So, how much more will you really save after allowing for the extra you must pay for your new car?

And if it’s an electric one, more fool you. It’s not just much more expensive to buy, insure and fix. CarExpert just drove both a BMW 740i and its electric version from Melbourne to Sydney, and found the electric car also cost $14 more to recharge and two hours longer to drive, after long waits at the recharging station.

What’s more, it’s still recharged by an electricity system that depends on coal and gas, so how much does that really help the planet?

But what makes all this flim-flam about “cheaper” electricity and “cheaper” cars truly unforgivable is that it’s all in the name of an even bigger swindle.

That’s because so many trusting Australians still don’t ask the right question about this global warming “crisis” that these green schemes are supposed to stop.

The question is not: “Is climate change real?” The climate always changes.

Nor is the question: “But aren’t our emissions changing the climate?” They probably are, a bit. So?

No, the real question is this: “Is the warming so bad for us that we should spend trillions to try to stop it, or is it actually good? What’s the gain for all this pain?”

The science is in — the world in becoming greener.

That’s why the latest science and data suggest Bowen’s schemes are almost literally insane – even if we ignore that Australia can’t actually change the world’s temperature by anything we can measure, because we’re too small.

Just look around you. Australia’s dams over the past two years have never held so much water.

Australia has had fewer cyclones over the past 50 years, and our farmer have had record grain harvests in the past decade.

If this is global warming, why on earth are we trying to stop it?

Even more startling, a new study, published in the peer-reviewed Global Ecology and Conservation journal, says the world is actually getting greener – as in more leaves and plants. Isn’t that great?

The study, by scientists at top Chinese universities, plus a catchment modeller at Queensland’s Department of Environment and Science, says this “global greening is an indisputable fact”, and it’s not just because China is planting more trees and India is using more irrigation. Large parts of the US, Canada, Europe and Australia are also greening – faster than ever, on the whole – and these scientist say it’s in part from “CO2 fertilisation”.

Yes, the carbon dioxide in our emissions is a plant food, as every Year 10 biology student should know, and it’s helping to give us a greener world. Or would you really prefer more deserts and dust?

So is this the global warming we should be trying to stop? Is this what the lies about “cheaper electricity” and “cheaper cars” are really for?