Climate Fail: Influential Aussie Politician Demands Cheaper Energy and a New Coal Plant

“The modified Bradfield scheme Pauline is referring to is a large scale irrigation scheme backed by Australia’s CSIRO, to capture the vast runoff from reliable tropical watersheds in Australia’s North, and pipe the water to dry farmlands in the south.”

CSIRO does not support the Bradfield scheme, modified or not. No scientists do. The scheme linked here proposes dams in the north, but they do not divert the East flowing rivers of Qld, or pipe it to the South. They are conventional local irrigation schemes.

That Q&A video referenced by Mike contains material suitable for starting investigations of criminal misrepresentation before one of the formal bodies Australia has for investigation of corruption in its various forms.
For an example, take the question that quoted broadcaster Alan Jones at about 1:11:40, as quoting 3 numbers (here summarised for brevity- you must refer to the video for accuracy). They were that CO2 is 0.04% of the volume of our atmospheric gases; that 3% of that 0.04% is contributed by Man; and that Australians contribute about 1.3% of the global total.
After a lot of words, including that on the rest of his numbers Jones was wrong, panellist Karoly conceded that points 1 and 3 were more or less correct. So let us go to point 2.
Here, Karoly changed the question and answered the question he invented. The original question arose because there are 2 ways in which CO2 is added to the atmosphere over time. There are natural processes involving sources such as the decay of living matter after death. This flow from natural sources is about 97% of the daily total. The contribution from Man, estimated from weights of fossil fuels burned, for example, is 3% of the flow. So Jones was correct.
Karoly made up a scenario that is also correct, but not what was asked. He noted that pre-industrial CO2 levels were about 280 ppm, now 400 ppm, the 120 ppm increase being 40% of the original 280 ppm. Karoly then maintained that the correct figure that Jones should have used was 40%, not the Jones 3%. He asserted bluntly that Jones was in error (he was not). That was the Karoly debate tactic, but it was not science.
The science answer is that yes, 3% of the flow of CO2 into the atmosphere is from Man-made sources. Where Karoly has been obfuscatory is his statements on Q&A that “…that 40% is due to human activity” and that “We know that for absolute certain.”
The science says that we do NOT know that for certain. This point is at the center of the warmist scare campaign. One of the main, fundamental impediments in climate science is a way to differentiate natural processes from anthropogenic ones.
There are some indirect methods for tagging CO2 and its poaths, such as its carbon isotope composition. The proposals (as pushed by F. Engelbeen, for example) are far from certain, far from accepted, far from specific.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/24/engelbeen-on-why-he-thinks-the-co2-increase-is-man-made-part-4/
So little is known about the quantitative aspects of CO2 flow from very many sources to very many sinks. We are not yet sure if we know of all natural sinks and sources, let alone an accurate figure for their fluxes, that it is simply foolish to assert that “We know that for absolute certain”.
Under the Q&A circumstances, a reasonable person would infer that the Karoly statements listed here were made with the intent to convince people that there was scientific certainty, when a person in his position would have been aware that there was far from scientific certainty. He would not have been doing his job if he failed to notice the many uncertainties.
So, the conclusion that a reasonable person would draw is that he acted to deceive.
Now, go for it, you serious litigants. Geoff.