As the scientific evidence about climate change grows to the point where all mainstream politicians are now converts, the global warming denial hucksters continue to tout for business among audiences for whom this whole debate remains a Leftist plot created by anti-capitalist Greenies and scheming Elitists.

Today, for example, the director of the Institute for Private Enterprise, Des Moore, writes in a letter to The Age that …

… history is replete with … doom-and-gloom predictions by scientists unless we humans restrain ourselves. The 1972 Blueprint for Survival, for example, effectively endorsed the Club of Rome prediction that the world would run out of resources without stabilising population and reducing living standards. That “blueprint” was supported by 14 fellows of the Royal Society and 36 holders of science chairs in British universities. As with other gloomy predictions, the opposite has occurred. Other similar examples of scientific “certainty” exist. Now we have more doom-and-gloom reports endorsed by even more scientists …

… and Jennifer Marohasy from the Institute of Public Affairs follows the same line in The Courier-Mail …

… while the global trend has been one of warming, a plot of mean temperatures since 1998 shows that there has been no warming since then, now eight years later. The IPCC summary does not acknowledge the current downward trend, which may or may not prove to be just a blip in the scheme of things. All in all, the IPCC summary paints a picture of a warming world, but I couldn’t find a climate crisis …

Meanwhile the coterie of regular table-thumping denialists remains unmoved, judging by their latest output — “Global warming is a religion, so facts don’t count. Beware” (Andrew Bolt); “The [Stern Review] is built on the same emotional sand that … qualifies its author … as a high priest in the First Church of Climate Apocalypse” (Terry McCrann).

Presumably they’ll keep huckstering until there’s nothing Left

PS: From today, Crikey no longer has a dedicated sports section. We’re incorporating our sports coverage in a section that includes media and arts. Sport stories will still get a run in Crikey on their merit, but we’ll no longer commit to three stories a day and instead will concentrate on the subjects we know our readers want from us: politics, government, business and the media.