Speaking to a liberal think tank in Sydney on November 6, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd declared that "dangerous" global warming skeptics are "holding the world to ransom" with global "fear campaigns" that could derail the climate change agreement at Copenhagen.

"Australian PM warns 'skeptics' could derail climate talks," declared the headline to an Agence France-Presse report in Spacedaily.com. The Australian newspaper, The Age, announced the Prime Minister's outburst with this headline: "Rudd blames climate sceptics for global sabotage."

Here's an excerpt from the AFP account:

Powerful climate change skeptics were "holding the world to ransom", Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Friday as he warned of fear campaigns designed to derail global talks.

Rudd said naysayers were active in every country as the world approached the United Nations' climate summit in Copenhagen in December.

"They are a minority. They are powerful. And invariably they are driven by vested interests," he said.

"As we approach Copenhagen, these three groups of climate skeptics are quite literally holding the world to ransom," Rudd told a gathering at the Lowy Institute in Sydney.

Rudd, a left-wing Labor leader, campaigned on an extreme environmental platform in 2007. According to Rudd, opponents of the UN climate change treaty are busy doing the following: "Provoking fear campaigns in every country they can; blocking or delaying domestic legislation in every country they can; with the objective of slowing and if possible destroying the momentum towards a global deal on climate change."

That's rich! Alarmists like Kevin Rudd and Al Gore have been screaming that man-made global warming is going to cause the end of the world — melting ice caps, rising oceans, deluged coastal cities, the extinction of polar bears and other species, increasing frequency and intensity of hurricanes, droughts, famine, pestilence, etc. — yet the Rudd-Gore alarmist camp claim that scientists, politicians and regular folk who don't buy their hysterical alarmism and don't embrace the draconian global controls they propose are the ones who are spreading fear.

Rudd repeats the charge that alarmists regularly level at climate realists: They are "deniers," a transparent attempt to smear them with the "denier" label that is reserved for Nazi Holocaust deniers. And, another frequent charge: They are well-funded puppets of corporate interests.

"Climate change deniers are small in number, but they are too dangerous to be ignored," Rudd said. "They are well resourced and well represented by political conservatives in many, many countries." These nefarious "deniers" are threatening to upset the entire UN program for planetary salvation. According to Rudd, "the danger they pose is this: by collapsing political momentum towards national and global action on climate change, they collapse global political will to act at all."
   
Marc Morano at Climate Depot offers a point-by-point rebuttal to Rudd's claims. The full text of Rudd's speech is available here. Here's an excerpt of the Climate Depot rebuttal:

Rudd Claim: Skeptics are "powerful enough to threaten a deal on global climate change both in Copenhagen and beyond."

Climate Depot Response: Yes, skepticism, the foundation of science, is and always has been strong enough to derail lavishly funded and politically motivated science based on wildly speculative climate model "predictions" and distortions of past climate records. A "scientifically meaningless" domestic carbon trading or international treaties will not impact global climate in any detectable ways, but will have huge human impacts.

Rudd Claim: Skeptics "constitute a powerful global force for inaction."

Climate Depot Response: On the contrary, skeptics constitute a powerful force for scientific truth and morality based vibrant energy expansion to the developing world's poor. To the extent that we can prevent "scientifically meaningless" climate treaties and regulations from passing, then yes, we plead guilty to promoting "inaction." As former Thatcher science advisor Lord Christopher Monckton has said: "Climate change is a non-problem. The right answer to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing."

Rudd Claim: "Climate skeptics are quite literally holding the world to ransom."

Climate Depot Response: Reality check Mr. Rudd. Science, economics and reality are holding man-made global warming fear promoters like Rudd to ransom. It must be frustrating Mr. Rudd to have once believed you could hoodwink the people of your nation and the world to believe in climate fears and your purely symbolic "solutions." Polling data from the U.S., the UK, Canada and your Australia show the public growing more skeptical. (See: Polls: 'More Americans believe in haunted houses than man-made global warming' - 37% vs. 36% ) The only "ransom" involved in this debate is the financial demands placed on countries to redistribute money based on collapsing climate fears. See: Reparations: Africa seeks climate change cash...demands billions in compensation for 'damage caused by global warming' & Global Carbon Tax Urged at UN Climate Conference & 'Controlling climate? More like controlling humans': Beware of 'unprecedented transfer of wealth, power and control to domestic and global governance.'

Photo of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd: AP Images

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92% of environmental sceptical books are associated with right wing think tanks, Lowly rated comment [Show]

Russell Cunning said:

Skeptics I can think of a few more skeptics - people who challenged the beliefs of their time. Copernicus, Gallileo, Christopher Columbus and Leonardo da Vinci are just a few. Mankind has always benefited from skeptics. Blind faith is just that - blind. Should we reduce carbon dioxide emissions? Yes. Should we invest more heavily in 'green' technology? Absolutely. Should we run around screaming, "The sky is falling?" No. "Chicken Little" Rudd is adept at labelling anybody who gets in his way. He's known as Kevin 747 because he spends so much time touring the country in the Government jet. He's also called Carbon Bigfoot Kevin for the same reason. If he wants to make a difference, he should try staying at home more often and looking after his own mess.

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November 09, 2009 | url
Votes: +7

Kudos to Rudd, Lowly rated comment [Show]

Andrew said:

	450 Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism of "Man-Made" Global Warming 450 Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism of "Man-Made" Global Warming http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html
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November 09, 2009 | url
Votes: +3

Bob12hh2 said:

	... Right Rimu. And nobody who espouses Climate Change is linked to any leftist groups... at all.
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November 09, 2009
Votes: +3

Thomas Paine said:

	New World Order wants control You global warming freeks are pawns to the NWO. When they get control of our country and wipe out the constitution, then you will see their true Fascist/Communists intentions: Wipe out Christianity/Judaism. Reduce population through mass killing. Chip entire population with RFID, give Elites the special chip that says: KMA (Kiss my a_ _ ). Liberal Suckers!
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November 09, 2009
Votes: +2

fling said:

	We need to adapt. Take a look at this article The Great Transition: http://www.scribd.com/doc/2165...lent-Times
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November 09, 2009
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Flu-Bird said:

	A better start Whats realy needed is a way to stop all this political HOT AIR by putting DUCT TAPE over the mouths of green nuts like AL GORE and this crazy prime minister
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November 09, 2009
Votes: +1

Mark Whitney said:

	... "Sceptics are powerful"? No. Real science is powerful. The alarmists have 1000 times the funding, but can't make the Guano stick. That is because they have no rational support, and people are awakening to that. MW
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November 09, 2009 | url
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Gerald Jones said:

no show I'll write something, but I see above there will be a vote on it, so it will be hidden. Heritage are liars. Rush and Hannity, liars. Inhof? Liar. Lindtzen, liar. Morano, liar. George Will? Guess what? Liar. Cooling since 1998? Lie. Sunspots causing heating? Lie. Antarctica cooling? Lie. More ice at the North Pole? Lie. I won't do the work for you. A little research across the entire Internet (NOAA, NASA, Nat. Geographic, Science) will yield the evidence. You will not get evidence or the truth from Rush and Sean and FOX. Nor from the New American.

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November 10, 2009
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Cade Foster said:

Reality check ..... Why is it that Al Gore does not have a public debate with Lord Monckton ? Why is it that the politicised-IPCC does not directly confront the non-politicised-NIPCC ? It appesrs the climate alarmists do not want a transparent discourse/debate about the climate change phenomenon. The climate alarmists (like Gore, IPCC) would like us to be ignorant of history, amongst other things. e.g. The warm climate of the the "Medieval Warm Period" (AD 800–1300) allowed a Viking colony to thrive on Greenland (a land that was green, full of grass and trees and not a white frosted land). Following the "Medieval Warm Period", the cooling from the "Little Ice Age" caused these Viking settlements to eventually die out. Thus, there was much more heat in the past to cause a "green" Greenland before the emergence of a "white" Greenland. With all this global warming (or climate change) alarmism, Greenland is still "white", not appreciably "green". With man not being industrialised during the "Medieval Warm Period", then the origin of the warm period could not be anthropogenic based. What the climate alarmists like to avoid is the topic of NATURAL CLIMATE CHANGE.

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November 10, 2009
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red & black texas said:

... Yes, Greenland was green at some point, dionsours roam the earth too. Everything changes--like our climate! No ice now at the North Pole, high CO2 levels, brown clouds at 40,000 feet is not good news people! To prove my point, stand at a busy bus stop for a hour in major American city in summer & try to breath. Smog from the trucks, cars, & buses make breathing almost impossible! Those who say there is no climate warming is in cars with the air conditioning. Anyway, tell-tell signs are all around us, we just need to look.

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November 16, 2009
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Florida Warren said:

	I love the smell of diesel exhaust Reminds me of standing on the platform in the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York. I always associate that with a fun day in the city! Hah!
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November 16, 2009
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