HOWARD'S WAY

Australia's Prime Minister John Howard on the looming climate catastrophe

John Howard said he was “sceptical” about “gloomy” climate change predictions.

Prime Minister John Howard, a friend and ally of Bush, said he would not meet Al Gore during his Australian visit and would not heed his advice to sign up to Kyoto. "I don't take policy advice from films," Howard told reporters.

"Whilst believing that the planet is getting warmer and whilst accepting some, I don't accept all, and I believe that the methods that he [Gore] proposes will do a lot of short and medium term damage to the Australian economy."

AL GORE: “He is increasingly alone in that view among people who've really looked at the science. The so-called "gloomy predictions" are predictions of what would happen if we did not act. It's not a question of mood. It's a question of reality. And, you know, there's no longer debate over whether the earth is round or flat, though there are some few people who still think it's flat, we generally ignore that view because the evidence has mounted to the point where we understand that it shouldn't be taken seriously.”

In a talk given in February, Clive Hamiliton (director of Australia's most prominent progressive think tank, The Australia Institute) identifies John Howard as one of Australia's climate change "dirty dozen".

[Australia's Prime Minister John Howard said terrorism was a greater threat to Australia in the future than global warming.
"I think terrorism is a greater threat because I think we are doing things about global warming. We're doing things about terrorism, but terrorism is more arbitrary, it's far more capricious, and of course its immediate consequences on the people it touches are more hideous.]