Cold Comfort For Antarctic Warmists
Roger Franklin: They set out to compare Douglas Mawson's century-old observations with their own modern readings, but a stranded band of true-believing, Australian-led warmists has discovered there is still plenty of ice in Antarctica. Also, that embarrassment can be almost as painful as frostbite. ■ Somewhere in a parallel universe a prominent climate scientist much given to doom-laden predictions leads an Antarctic expedition of likeminded warmists intent on chronicling the damage mankind’s CO2 emissions are doing to our fragile planet. His party finds the polar sea largely free of ice and he concludes that whales and penguins are in all sorts of trouble as waters warm and food sources vanish. After re-tracing the route of Douglas Mawson’s expedition and comparing his measurements and findings with contemporary readings, everyone voyages back home, the ABC sends a camera crew to the dock and that night’s news is another warmist sermon dressed up as that fabled stuff “quality journalism”.
UPDATE: At last report the rescue ship was itself stuck in those not-quite-melting ice floes. | And here is something else that has been withdrawn: Any mention in press coverage that Turney and colleagues headed south to assess the ongoing impact of global warming. The closest any report comes to describing the expedition’s original purpose is the rather inadequate explanation that it is an attempt at “recreating Australian explorer Douglas Mawson’s century-old voyage to Antarctica.” When Turney is quoted he is mentioned only as a common or garden-variety “professor”, not as UNSW’s official Professor of Climate Change. Anthropogenic global warming may or may not be altering the planet, but the lack of it can certainly mess up even the best planned scientific expedition/PR offensive.