Imre Salusinszky, Christopher Monckton, and the wretched rag The Australian gives us more song and dance numbers in response to climate change news ..

(Above: Lord Monckton's at it again, under his modest title of Christopher, and this illustration found here in Disbelieving fans put faith in the lord, David Marr's note on his grand tour of the antipodes in February. Where do they find these people? The Australian knows ...)

So how's the hypocrisy meter running this fine Saturday morning?

Well it's doing splendidly thanks to Tony 'a levy isn't a tax' Abbott - let's all help the Queenslanders with re-building after the floods, except by chipping in - and naturally he's found a perfect little miss echo in Jennifer Hewett trotting out the faithful party line in Floods expose a Prime Minister with promise now dangerously adrift.

Voters certainly won't be fooled by the nomenclature of a levy not equalling higher tax. The question is whether they can be persuaded that increase to repair the flood damage is worth it in the interests of the economy and compassion.

Cue Tony Abbott's famous contention a levy's not a great big new tax. When scouting around for a reminder of Abbott's slipperiness, I came across memories of Laurie Oakes brutally doing him over as a weather vane incapable of holding a position for a month, most notably in his specious conflation of a levy with a tax on big business to fund his generous paid parental leave scheme. Amongst the bon mots recorded in Laurie Oakes Interviews Tony Abbott on Channel 9 (along with a desire to spell 'vane' as the more insightful 'vain'):

TA: The point is that I have been absolutely crystal clear...

LO: About changing your mind?

Ah memories. And there was this little exchange:

LO: Then you said that climate change was crap?

TA: I think what I actually said was the idea of the settled science of climate change is a bit aromatic.

LO: And then you said you only said that, in fact, on this program, you said you only said that climate change was crap because you were trying to persuade a group of Liberals in Beaufort Victoria that negotiating an improved ETS scheme would be the best thing to do?

TA: Sure, Laurie. Look we can go ...

LO: That's four positions so far?

A bit aromatic! Well that's what passes for humour amongst conservatives, and speaking of humour about climate change, we almost failed to acknowledge Imre Salusinszky's splendid effort in The Australian, Global warming is dead, let's move on.

If ever you wanted further proof that neoliberals, neocons, conservatives, or just straightforward loons have a strange sense of irony or satire or sarcasm, and absolutely no sense of humour, or at least an ability to induce straightforward, honest laughter in the Stewart/Colbert style, look no further than Salusinsky's series of sarcastic bon mots explaining how humanity has triumphed over global warming:

Clearly, with each meeting, each speech, each inked treaty, global warming was pushed back.

Here in Australia, we also did our bit, big time. We declared global warming the great moral challenge of our generation. We talked confidently about doing something or other. (OK, I can't remember what it was, and we never actually did it, but then we talked about doing something different . . . though maybe not straight away.)

Anyway, it worked, because last year was the coldest year since 2001.

Of course he means Australia had its coldest year since 2001.

According to the Bureau of Meteorology, 2010 was Australia's coldest year since 2001. Since logic tells us the planet can't be getting hotter and colder at the same time, we can confidently pronounce global warming dead, buried and comprehensively beaten.

Yes, Australia is exactly the same as the entire planet. There's impeccable knock down confident comprehensive logic. Do go on:

... I think we've earned a moment's pause, just to give ourselves a pat on the back.

We did it. We acted together. We killed global warming.

And now we will never have to hear anything about it, ever again.

What, not even the news that the Planet warms up to a record?

Well there's geese, there's a goose, and then there's Imre Salusinszky.

Salusinszky fancies himself as a Bob Dylan expert, devotee, fan, follower, or high priest - call the madness what you will - and if you want a real giggle, have a listen to a gaggle, a coven, a gathering, a warren, a murder, a muse of neo cons (more collective nouns here) explaining how Dylan led a spiritual rather than a political movement, and how all he did was write a few 'pointing the finger' songs (Songs that shook the world: Part 3, here on the ABC, proving that the Australian taxpayers' dollars are going to a worthy charitable cause, keeping ageing cons on the radio, wearing their cardigans, earning their super and indulging in memories of the sixties).

Perhaps Salusinszky should stick to Dylan - who could argue with that - but where would that leave The Australian in its eternal quest for comedy stylings in relation to climate change?

Why fear not, Christopher Monckton is their ever reliable song and dance man, and so today he's hard at it in Earth's climate crisis ain't necessarily so.

Yes, what better way to respond to the news that 2010 tied for hottest year than publish a piece by Monckton, as if in answer to the question embedded in The Atlantic's Wire section 2010 Ties for Hottest Year: Will Climate Change Denials Persist?

Of course climate change denials will persist, and especially in their antipodean denialist home, the la la land of The Oz, and with a nice song and dance:

As the Gershwins rightly concluded, "It ain't nessa, ain't nessa, ain't nessa, ain't nessa, ain't necessarily so."

Well, the situation is serious but there's always time for a giggle, and Monckton delivers way better than the feeble Salusinszky:

The forest fires in Russia and southern Australia, and the floods in Pakistan and eastern Australia, were far from the worst ever. Nor can they be attributed to human influence: the UN's climate panel has warned us against that.

They were caused by naturally occurring weather patterns called blocking highs. And global warming can scarcely be blamed after a decade without any.

Nor did 2010 see the second-highest level of natural catastrophes. Yes, 90 per cent of them were weather-related, but in most years that is true, and was true long before we could have influenced climate.

Tremendous flip with pike. Quote the UN's climate panel, for a point that suits, while relentlessly dissing them as fools when their points don't suit, and then round it out with the strange notion that last year was the second-highest level of natural catastrophes, and 90% of them were weather related, but in most years that's true.

What? Most years feature the second highest level of weather related catastrophes, and so each year is the second highest level of natural catastrophes?

Never mind, in case you're a tad worried about the news, and perhaps are gripped by the delusion that global warming might actually be happening, Monckton is to hand rather like a gigantic genial BP to pour oil on troubled waters and settle things down.

It ain't necessarily so, he assures us, once again dragooning the helpless hapless Gershwins into his cause:

Satellite datasets show last year was not the warmest on record.

Uh huh.

Geneva, 20 January 2011 (WMO) - The year 2010 ranked as the warmest year on record, together with 2005 and 1998, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Data received by the WMO show no statistically significant difference between global temperatures in 2010, 2005 and 1998. (WMO Press Release No. 906)

Do go on:

It was not the least snow-covered year but the most snow-covered: a largely unreported gain in Antarctic sea ice since 1979 almost matches the widely reported loss of Arctic sea ice.

Uh huh. Note the careful wording involving sea ice. But what about land ice? Well in Antarctica the land ice isn't doing so well, as noted some time ago in Is Antarctica losing or gaining ice?, while oops, it's a little hard to talk about the land ice in the Arctic, so let's just settle for the latest WMO on the sea ice:

Arctic sea-ice cover in December 2010 was the lowest on record, with an average monthly extent of 12 million square kilometres, 1.35 million square kilometres below the 1979-2000 average for December. This follows the third-lowest minimum ice extent recorded in September.

... 2010 was an exceptionally warm year over much of Africa and southern and western Asia, and in Greenland and Arctic Canada, with many parts of these regions having their hottest years on record.

Uh huh. So how about some song and dance mathematics? Sure thing:

Thus what we maths wonks call the proportionate change in CO2 concentration if the committee got its way would be 505.826 divided by 506, or 0.9997. The UN says warming or cooling, in Celsius degrees, is 3.7 to 5.7 times the logarithm of the proportionate change.

It expects only 57 per cent of manmade warming to occur by 2100: the rest would happen slowly and harmlessly across 1000-3000 years.

To be charitable to the committee, let us take the UN's high-end estimate. The warming forestalled by cutting Australia's emissions would be very unlikely to exceed 57 per cent of 5.7 times the logarithm of 0.9997: that is - wait for it - a dizzying one-thousandth of a degree by 2050.

Which proves only one thing. Maths wonks shouldn't be let out of their cages, because they produce maths of dizzying stupidity and irrelevance when so encouraged.

But once again note the happy capacity to selectively cherry pick UN information, and then deliver the good news unto the world ... the bit about it all happening slowly and harmlessly over thousands of years.

But for a special absurdity, I loved this the most, as a kind of knockdown argument and logic worthy of either (a) Humpty Dumpty or (b) the Queen of Hearts:

Nor is sea level rising fast. It has risen at the rate of just 0.3m a century since satellites measured it reliably in 1993, under a quarter of the average rate during the past 11,400 years. The Greens don't believe their own whining about sea level: their Hobart office is just metres from the "dangerously" rising ocean.

The notion that anyone believes that the sea will come crashing over the barriers in a minute's time, rather like the catastrophic visions conjured up in a Hollywood disaster movie - you know Maximilian Schell and Liv Tyler facing the wave on a North Carolina beach in another great Michael Bay show - is simply silly (unless you happen to be living on a south Pacific island, but that's another story).

It's a measure of Monckton's logic that he should berate catastrophists by leading with his own impression of catastrophe, which somehow imagines climate change as the rough equivalent of a tsunami ...

It would be about as logical as dragging in talk of how Cleopatra's mansion and the famed town of Alexandria got dragged below the sea in the fourth century AD by earthquakes (Underwater Museum Planned for Egypt's Alexandria).

Oh okay, I just did it, but I've been on a Cleopatra jag just recently, helped along by - sob - Counterpoint, here.

And you can guess by now that I've wearied of Monckton's presence. One thing we learned early on in the life of the pond is that you should never argue with a loon, it only gets them excited and urges them on to more exalted squawking and shouting and loonishness, and perhaps even to humming a Gershwin tune.

What's actually more interesting is to see the Related Coverage function in The Australian's sidebar. Now you might expect with the recent news of the hottest year, noted by the UN, the WMO and many others, that The Australian wouldn't just be satisfied with Monckton, but would have lots of other coverage in its opinion pages, detailing the state of the science, and the cut and thrust of arguments. If nothing else, as balance and ballast to offset the usual Monckton song and dance routine ...

What do you get instead? The Latham v Howes spectacular from The Oz's November 2010, Ain't life a bitch for dumped Tessa from the Daily Terror in July 2010, Gillard's talent for spin from Adelaide Now in July 2010, Column attack no Bolt from Blue from The Oz in June 2010, and I ain't stealing from Captain Jack from Perth Now May 2010.

Now it's true that the Related Coverage functionality might have failed in this particular case - what happened to Imre? - but really in spirit it still conjures up the heart and soul of The Australian's attitude to climate change. To ignore it, or to wheel out the cranks, like the wayward Salusinszky's satirical effort, or Monckton's simply bizarre rant ...

Oh sure you can see the odd bit of coverage - take these lame five pars under the header Earth posts hottest year as rain cools, which leads to some feeble related coverage, and which contains a little spanking of Imre:

"To take one year and suggest because it was the coolest year in nine years it is not a warming trend is not the case. We've just had an exceptionally wet year in inland Australia which effectively has an evaporative coolant effect on temperatures," Dr Jones said.

But there's no way around it, whether because of related coverage failure, or by offering up Salusinzky and Monckton as the rag's considered response to climate change news, The Australian is a disgrace, which naturally sees us hunt around in search of an appropriate song, and who better than Bobby Dylan?

The link will only last as long Sony doesn't get around to issuing a take down notice so here's some lyrics for Imre so he can sing along by himself. Let's hope he gets really loud when he comes to the lines about a wave that could drown the whole world and standing on the ocean until he starts sinking. Maybe Monckton could do backing?

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son ?
And what did you hear, my darling young one ?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin'
I heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
I heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin'
I heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin'
I heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin'
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, who did you meet my blue-eyed son ?
Who did you meet, my darling young one ?
I met a young child beside a dead pony
I met a white man who walked a black dog
I met a young woman whose body was burning
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow
I met one man who was wounded in love
I met another man who was wounded in hatred
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

And what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son ?
And what'll you do now my darling young one ?
I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin'
I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest
Where the people are a many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
Where the executioner's face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I'll tell and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it
Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin'
But I'll know my songs well before I start singin'
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Now that's catastrophist thinking, well worthy of Imre ...