When the Acting Opposition Leader in Australia is illiterate, innumerate and more interested in digging up coal than speaking truth what does it look like?

It looks like this:  “Indeed I guess there’ll be more CO₂ emissions from these fires than there will be from coal-fired power stations for decades.” – acting Opposition leader, Warren Truss, January 9, 2013

The on-line magazine, The Conversation, which publishes research by academics and scientists responded:

“Around 30 tonnes of CO₂ per forested hectare were emitted by the Black Saturday Fires in 2009.

Bushfires this year have so far burned around 130,000ha of forest, so have emitted nearly 4 million tonnes of CO₂.

So, the bushfires this year have emitted an amount of CO₂equivalent to 2% of Australia’s annual emissions from coal-fired power.

The current bushfires must burn an area of forest greater than Tasmania to generate CO₂ emissions equivalent to a year of burning coal for electricity.

And the current bushfires must burn an area of forest the size of New South Wales to generate CO₂ emissions equivalent to a decade of burning coal for electricity.

However, the carbon emitted from bushfires is not permanent. Eucalypt forest regenerates after fire, and will quickly begin to sequester from the atmosphere the carbon that has been lost from the current bushfires.

The same cannot be said of coal-fired power stations.”

 Folks like Mr Truss will die before they admit they’re wrong and that burning coal is causing climate change.

But while he’s alive and in a position of political power he’ll do as much harm as does the coal he wants burnt . . .

M