SHORTEN WANTS A VOTE FOR INSANITY

IS there anything Bill Shorten actually understands about global warming and his dangerous plan to “stop” it?

His ignorance about his hugely expensive plan to cut our global warming gases by 45 per cent by just 2030 is frightening.

Here’s a list of things the Labor leader either doesn’t know or refuses to say.

Shorten doesn’t know what his plan will cost the economy or you.

In fact, he last week repeatedly dodged that basic question, and eventually suggested the answer didn’t matter: “If you don’t believe in the science of climate change, no amount of evidence will ever convince you because, fundamentally, it’s a stupid position not to take action.”

But unless we know the cost, how can we know whether Shorten’s pain is worth the gain?

Here’s another thing Shorten doesn’t know: there is no climate “emergency” for him to stop.

Last week, he savaged climate sceptics because we allegedly “never look at the cost of extreme weather events”.

Wrong. In fact, Professor Roger Pielke Jr, the world’s most famous expert on damage from extreme weather events, points out that “weather/climate losses have decreased as proportion of global GDP”. We lose proportionately less stuff than ever to weather events.

That’s another thing Shorten doesn’t know. In an interview last year, he disputed a clear fact I put to him: we’ve been getting fewer cyclones, in Australia and the world.

Shorten also falsely believes global warming is drowning Pacific atoll islands: “Paradise is drowning,” he’s declared.

In fact, as Professor Paul Kench has shown: 43 per cent of low-lying atoll islands studied have grown, and just 14 per cent have shrunk.

Here’s more that Shorten doesn’t know: the inconvenience he’ll cause with his plan to make us drive millions more electric cars.

When asked how long they took to charge, he said “eight to 10 minutes’. But today’s models take 30 minutes, even with a fast charger.

Nor, critically, does Shorten know that his policy won’t work. As Chief Scientist Alan Finkel admits, even if Shorten banned every car, plane, factory and power station, the effect on the climate would be “virtually nothing”.

Yet Shorten still insists “it’s a stupid position not to take action” — including his action: a fake fix to a fake climate scare at a price he won’t say.

How can you vote for such insanity?