In which the pond narrowly avoids humbug alley ...

(Above: by golly that's some rabbit, and more Pope here).

Truth to tell, the pond thought twice about getting out of bed today.

Look at this humbug alley, this gasoline alley row of blather and hypocrisy:

Thank the long absent lord, there was Nikki Gemmell carrying on the sacred crusade with a bit of murderous creed bashing.

No wonder the pond, inspired by Popish jokery, resorted to reliable old tune for a bit of light comedy.

You see, in amongst their many patriotic duties, the reptiles felt the rousing call to arms and stepped up to defend Bjorn Lomborg against the cruel slings and arrows of outrageous fortune:

 Oh indeed, indeed, it's just so unfair. Do go on:

In short and fundamentally what to do with taxpayers wanting to know who decided to stump up the taxpayer cash and give it to me consensually so we could have a little consensus fun ....?

Well they can kiss my ass ...

As for Paul Johnson, the second refuge of the scoundrel is academic freedom:

A deep believer in climate science? Suddenly science has become a matter of deep belief?

Oh roll the jaffas down the aisle...

He's saying we can reduce emissions?

 Like this?

I helped organise something called the Copenhagen Consensus on Climate where we have got some of the top climate economists to look at what is the smartest ways to tackle global warming. And they basically say, don’t try to cut carbon emissions. Even if you do it effectively it’s going to cost a lot. And it’s probably not going to happen and even if it does it won’t do very much. But if you spend money on research and development into green energy. Essentially make sure it becomes cheaper than fossil fuels over the next 20 to 40 years. We’ve solved global warming. If we could make solar panels cheaper than fossil fuels by say 2030/40 we’d have done, we’d be done. Everyone would buy them not just rich well meaning westerners but also the Chinese and the Indians. (here in pdf).

Courtesy of the reptiles, the pond has had a long introduction to the fuzzy thinking and dissembling of the Lomborg, which much suits the reptiles since it's at least a degree warmer than Screaming Lord Monckton.

Yes, on any day of the week, you can find Lomborg saying that there's no need to reduce emissions. Of course on any other day of the week, he might be saying something entirely different, provided it suits the coal industry and his funding patrons ...

Others have written about the climate confusionista's unique capacity to tell the emperor what he wants to hear about his brand new set of clothes - back in December 2014 for example in Is Bjørn Lomborg writing Australia’s climate and energy policies?

The joys of fracking, the blessings of coal, the need for research on solar rather than actual expenditure on solar or other useless RE, and so on and so forth ...

Lomborg the professional confusionista, smoke screener and paid humbug is your man ...

More to the point, Lomborg is also the Bolter's man.

Now on the surface it might seem odd that a profound climate denialist should be at one with a "deep believer" in climate science, but that's the cleverness of Lomborg's confusionista strategies.

So it almost goes without saying that the Bolter is outraged, outraged the pond tells ya, at the treatment dished out to his deeply believing hero ...

But it does produce some great comedy stylings ...

This is disgraceful - a real indictment of Australian academia - and shame on the journalists encouraging this intellectual McCarthyism.

Now if ever anyone had wanted the pond to nominate the best top notch intellectual McCarthyist doing the rounds in Australia at the moment, it would have been the Bolter, as rabid a populist demagogue as has done the rounds since the grand old days of Father Coughlin.  Closely followed by the reptiles of Oz, who can only be considered and counted as a pack because of the baleful influence of the hive mind ... (Of course on the world stage they'd be considered small beer against the best of the Faux Noise Murdochians).

The entire point of the confusionista exercise is to dissemble and to delay, to fudge and to conflate, to confuse and produce inertia, and that's why the Bolter and the Lomborg can be as one, and the Bolter knows just who to quote:

Eco-realists contend that for the bulk of the world’s population, energy poverty is the immediate concern that must be resolved before climate change action can hope to deliver the desired results.The question remains whether ambitious early action will foster long-term change or squander the opportunity for a more considered solution.


Eco-realists? Oh the endless stream of jargon and cant, it's too much ...

So let's just kick the can down the road.

But if that's the solution, why does Lomborg need four million dollars of Australian taxpayer money to line up the can?

That's the thing that gets the pond. There's the Bolter out defending the government lavishing cash like a drunken sailor on a man who can't raise two bob in his home country, and there's Johnson talking about academic freedom when he's really defending the right of blow-ins to raise a bit of government cash, so he can do a little scavenging and temple-building on the sidelines:

And that's at the heart of this story:

And so on, in Australian taxpayers funding climate contrarian's methods with $4m Bjørn Lomborg centre.

And that surely is the nub of it. At a time when the federal government has slashed and burned the CSIRO, sundry other scientific research activities, and bodies dealing with climate science matters, pleading desperate, dire poverty, and a budget emergency of the first water, does anyone think that blather about academic freedom and McCarthyism can hide the giant double dose of political hypocrisy ... as a monorail spruiker, abandoned in his own country, rides into town to take the rubes for a ride?

Dr Eric Feinblatt, an honorary research fellow with the department of engineering, said as he left the meeting the centre “would not happen anywhere but Australia”. 
 “The only reason it’s happening in Australia is because the policy of the Abbott government makes it a favourable environment,” he said. 
“This is just a proxy for the Abbott government. And for the administration of the university not to admit that, to deny that, is ridiculous.” (here).

But where would the pond be without the ridiculous?

Down humbug alley with the scoundrels ...

(Below: and more Wilcox here)

And here's a bonus for Lebowski lovers, and more cartoons here.