Midsummer madness

Summer Down Under also has attracted two high-profile US climate worriers. Hear the collective sigh of relief from paid-up members of the Canberra Carbon Cargo Cult Club (CCCCC) and folk down at the Clean Energy Regulator and Climate Change Authority.

Mr Bob Inglis, a lawyer and former Republican congressman from South Carolina, is one of them. Described as a devout Christian by The New Daily's Quentin Dempster (here), he "instinctively rejected Al Gore's prognosis about catastrophic climate change until one of his five children suggested he clean up his act."

Another epiphany came on visiting Antarctica with a congressional committee. The "increasingly infectious carbon dioxide bubbles from the past two centuries" he saw in ice cores were a revelation, but increasing sea ice around the continent left him cold.

Mr Inglis now feels all so-called "extreme weather events" are a consequence of escalating concentrations of the gas. As a believer in God, one has a "responsibility to nurture all life on the planet, and not threaten its survival."

Hence Mr Inglis has established republicen.org to promote a cumulative carbon [dioxide] tax in the USA, starting at US$40 a tonne. Several veteran Republicans from the Climate Leadership Council reportedly have joined up, including James Baker, Henry Paulson, George Shultz, Marty Feldstein and Greg Mankiw.

Mr Inglis addressed the National Press club on 22 February. Perhaps there was a question on recent public comments by US Supreme Court Justice, Samuel Alito. He defended carbon dioxide in a recentkeynote speech honouring Sir Winston Churchill (here). How could an invisible trace gas we exhale be a "pollutant"?

The other visitor was Michael Mann, the professor of atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University whoseso-called hockey stick graph landed him in hot water a few years ago.

From Tina Perinotto's breathless account for The Fifth Estate (here, also see here) on 9 February, "Finding hope in a time of madness," one could be forgiven for thinking the Messiah himself had graced our shores, rather than the inspiration of Mark Steyn's compilation, A Disgrace to the Profession.

Tina Perinotto: Mann himself was stunning. Humble, quietly spoken, reserved, like the really superior minds among us are, and also mindful not to venture publicly into too many political no-fly zones, lest he provides more targets for those who lie in wait to down even more respect for science with their ballistic missiles.

If Mr Inglis has God on his side, Professor Mann had the weather on his during the workshop, organised by Professor Christopher Wright, University of Sydney Business School, and the Sydney Environment Institute.

Tina Perinotto: One of the world's most respected climate scientists who, Mann was the star attraction. The tour came in the two weeks since Donald Trump took power and promised to destroy American leadership in climate action. Poignantly, as if to underscore what's at stake, it was also amidst the increasingly vile weather punishing the country.

It was mostly bad news. But there is "a kind of solace and strength" in solidarity. Lesley Head was there to deal with the emotional fallout. "We don't always have to be optimistic," she said. "There is value in acknowledging grief, for it has its own work to do."