Media Release

The Lavoisier Group

'The more empirical evidence, observation and rigorous analysis discredits the IPCC global warming hypothesis, the more strident greenhouse industry assertions become', former Senator and Lavoisier Group President Peter Walsh told the Group's Annual General Meeting in Melbourne today.

'Satellite sensing---the most comprehensive and accurate method of measuring global atmospheric temperature---has shown little if any increase in global temperatures the 23 years for which data has been recorded.' Mr Walsh said. 'At least for this period and probably ever since the last cold snap (1800-1820) of the Little Ice Age, global surface warming cannot be attributed to the greenhouse effect.'

'Even if the scary scenarios used to prop up the Kyoto Protocol were correct, and there was a real problem, Kyoto is certainly not the answer. To stabilise atmospheric CO2' at 1990 levels over the long term demands a 60--70 per cent reduction in global 1990 emissions. The Kyoto 5 per cent reduction target would, as even CSIRO's Dr Graham Pearman has acknowledged, 'make hardly any difference'. We have never been able to control our naturally and sometimes rapidly changing climate in the past, and the belief that we can do so today, by decarbonising our economy (and impoverishing ourselves at the same time), is an illusion.'

'In a letter to IPCC Chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, former Australian Statistician Ian Castles has recently shown that the economic statistics on which IPCC models are built are at least as flawed as the 'science'. The common denominator seems to be a desire to prop up the pre-determined conclusions required by those who sup from the climate change gravy train'.