Thursday night: climate-change skeptic, Lord Christopher Monckton, addresses a meeting at Notre Dame University, Western Australia.

Prior to the event, a group of over 50 Australian academics signed a letter asking the University to cancel the speech.

They said that Monckton “stands for the kind of ignorance that universities have a duty to counter”.

Lord Monckton commented that he was pleased there were only 50-odd of them — he had encountered bigger numbers trying to suppress his freedom of speech in other countries.

* * *

“Academics” usually pose as free thinkers – challengers of conventional orthodoxies. To be consistent, they should welcome Monckton as a soul-brother.

As for calling his ideas “ignorance” . . . although claiming no personal qualifications in climate science, Monckton can quote numerous qualified experts who agree with what he says.

He is not saying there is no greenhouse effect, he says it is unproven that the effects will be as great as the other side — and their political and media mouthpieces — claim.

Al Gore — who toured the world sensationalising a doomsday view of global warming — had no formal climate science qualifications either.

But, being on the side favoured by the media, Gore managed to score — not contempt and attempted muzzling – but a Nobel Prize.

* * *

The media will never forgive Monckton for some of his previous stands.

He takes the Catholic position on homosexuality – condemning unfair discrimination against such persons, while considering homosexual acts to be intrinsically disordered.

In the 1980’s, when AIDS was first investigated, Christopher Monckton made suggestions which, if they had been followed, might have saved perhaps 30 million lives worldwide.

Monckton is also opposed to Britain being part of the European Union.

A Western Australian Parliamentary committee yesterday recommended raising the legal alcohol drinking age to 21.

Plus fixing a minimum price for alcohol.

Plus phasing out alcohol company sponsorship of sport.

Sounds good.

WA set a good example recently in being the first state to ban Kronic and similar synthetic-cannabis products. The other states are starting to do the same.

Let’s hope all states will also adopt WA-type alcohol-curbing laws.

* * *

There is no doubt that the measures recommended are right — and overdue.

The scientific evidence is beyond doubt.

* A 2007 Melbourne study revealed a 5-fold increase in numbers of 16-to-25 year olds with alcohol-related brain damage in the previous decade. 16-to-25 year olds? How tragic! St Vincent’s Hospital’s Professor Jon Currie comments that laws re alcohol must inevitably change – as did laws re seatbelts and under-age tobacco sales.

* Deakin University professor of Health Psychology, Dr John Toumbourou, says he is a “very strong supporter” of raising drinking ages: “In countries where it (higher drinking age) has been introduced there has been about a 15 percent reduction in deaths and harm related to alcohol”.

* Flinders University Professor of Public Health, Dr Ann Roche, has said that “even smallish amounts” of alcohol can harm the developing brain, suggesting there are arguments for delaying drinking age to 25.

Yes, 25.

* * *

Our bodies are a gift from God.

If we respect God, we will respect his gifts.

The Bible says: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your body.”

Of all our body organs, we should value most our brain — that part which permits us to think about God — and about his love – and about our duties to him.

Australia’s CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) launched a new website yesterday.

Professor Paul Fraser says the site will publish data from the Cape Grim (Tasmania) Baseline Air Pollution Station displaying monthly atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.

“No strings attached, no outside interpretation,” he says.

* * *

* OK. Let’s visit the site.

Heading, page one: “Cape Grim Greenhouse Gas Data”

Not “so-called Greenhouse Gas Data”.

The implication is that the above three gases are definitely what cause the greenhouse effect.

We’ve copped outside interpretation before even being given any data . . . .

* OK. Next comes a graph.

Just  watch the CO2 percentage climbing steeply during the few seconds the little cursor thing takes to cross the page.

Look again. In fact, these changes took decades. They’ve been speeded up to frighten you.

* OK. Check the axes of the graph.

The up and down direction is the CO2 level.

The bottom of the graph starts at — not zero — but at 300-odd.

If it started at zero, the slope would be almost imperceptible.

Remember this rule — if you see a graph where the bottom doesn’t start at zero, ignore it. Somebody is bending the facts.

* * *

If all human beings started living simply — because they understood the spiritual value of self-denial – emissions of carbon dioxide would dwindle.

Would that affect the temperature, rainfall etc?

Sounds unlikely. But it hardly matters.

If we don’t live by unselfish motives, we’re going to annihilate our race before there’s time for the climate to change much.

Dear God, give us the wisdom to remember that we are not owners of this world, but administrators . . . .

Give us grace to invest our wealth in the bank of heaven — by sharing generously and  justly with the poor, who are your children too . . . .

Synthetic cannabis is increasingly used by the party-going/drug-using category of our species, worldwide – including Australia.

In Australia, one such product, called “Kronic”, has been turning up in a number of shops.

But hopefully not for much longer (see below . . . .)

These products have been promoted as “herbal incense” — supposedly a combination of certain exotic herbs (Nymphaea caerulia, Leonotis Leonurus etc.) which nobody has heard of, but sound rather quaint and harmless.

Some spoilsport scientists, however, did a bit of analysing and found them to be full of chemicals – designer drugs — almost, but not quite, identical to the active ingredient in cannabis, THC.

* * *

Leading expert in the science of synthetic cannabis, Professor John Huffman, warns against its use as a recreational substance.

To quote his words, “People who use it are idiots.”

The US Drug Enforcement Agency describes synthetic cannabis as a “drug of concern”, linked with “a surge in emergency-room visits and calls to poison-control centres. Adverse health effects include seizures, hallucinations and paranoid behaviour . . . .”

* * *

Yesterday synthetic cannabis was made illegal in Western Australia.

Today it became illegal in South Australia — possession or sale incurring penalties of up to a $10,000 fine, or two years in prison.

Victorian Premier, Ted Baillieu, is considering similar legislation.

* * *

The Catechism of the Catholic rules that: The use of drugs inflicts very grave damage on human health and life. Their use, except on strictly therapeutic grounds, is a grave offence. Clandestine production of and trafficking in drugs are scandalous practices. They constitute direct co-operation in evil. (CCC, 2291)

Which makes them an offence, not only against the welfare of human society – but an offence against God himself.

Last Monday, Australia’s Independent Climate Change Commission released its first report.

The “Chief Commissioner” is Professor Tim Flannery.

Professor Flannery is described in Wikipedia as a “mammalogist, palaeontologist, environmentalist and global warming activist”.

He is famous for being in favour of shutting down coal-fired power stations for electricity generation.

He was named “Australian of the Year” in 2007.

He is a great favourite of the media.

* * *

With Prof Tim in charge, it seems odd to call the Commission “independent”.

On Monday, he announced that human-induced global warming is “indisputable”.

Well it isn’t.

People do dispute it.

If the Commission was independent, it would have mentioned the evidence that casts doubt on the “greenhouse gases/carbon footprint” orthodoxy . . . .

If independent, there would have been a “minority report” from those Commission members unconvinced that taxing carbon dioxide-producers out of business will make the weather improve.

Was there no Commission member holding such a view?

Was this not so much an independent Commission as a carefully-selected bunch of clones of Brother Flannery?

* * *

Anyway, Prime Minister Julia Gillard is pleased with the Commission for producing a report saying exactly what she wanted them to say.

The Cancer Council of Australia announced the other day that there is a closer link between alcohol drinking and cancer than previously thought.

It seems now that alcohol causes not only uncommon cancers like liver cancer and throat cancer — but is also a factor in the major killer cancers, like bowel cancer and breast cancer.

The research doesn’t suggest that there is any safe amount of alcohol that you can drink, but that all alcohol drinking increases one’s risk.

So what to do?

Logically one should drink no alcohol at all.

Starting now.

             * * *                    

All beer, whisky and wine containers should carry a health warning, such as:

CAUTION: Users of this product are not only likely to throw up, fall down, get punched out in bars, lose their jobs and lose their families — they also increase their risk of dying of cancer – painful and distressing — also distressing to those having to watch it happen.

* * *

Will the Church take the lead in advocating complete abstinence from alcohol?

We will have to wait and see.

Should it?                                                 

The answer to that question seems obvious.