Canada To Tony Abbott: "Inuit Don't Think Climate Changes Is 'Probably Good.'"

Canada’s environment minister hit out at former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott on Tuesday over his promotion of climate sceptic talking points. Catherine McKenna told a Chatham House conference she did not normally spend much time talking about climate science, preferring to focus on policy.

“Unfortunately, some people in positions of power continue to propagate myths, including yesterday just here in London,” she said. That was a reference to Abbott’s lecture to the Global Warming Policy Foundation climate sceptic thinktank, in which he said global warming was “probably doing good”.

McKenna described meeting indigenous youth in Canada’s high Arctic region, which is warming three times as fast as the rest of the country. One 14-year-old boy came to her with a list of environmental changes he thought might be caused by climate change. These included a decline in caribou numbers and experienced hunters falling through thinning sea ice and being lost forever. His observations were backed up by a climate scientist in the group. “I can say with complete and utter certainty my young Inuit friend does not think that climate change is ‘probably good’,” said McKenna. “Unlike some people, they do not have the luxury of burying their heads in the sand… It is up to people in this room to stand up for them.”

Abbott’s speech was heavily criticised back in Australia, with the Labor opposition’s deputy leader Tanya Plibersek describing it as “weird stuff”. He had “left the realm of the merely destructive and entered the realm of the loopy,” Plibersek told the Guardian. Former British climate minister Ed Miliband was also scathing, tweeting coverage with the comment: “I know Donald Trump has lowered the bar for idiocy but…”

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http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/10/10/canada-tony-abbott-inuit-dont-think-climate-change-probably-good/