Just call me Nero

John Howard is 67, so he'll be nearly dead when we run out of oil, have to move our cities 20km inland due to sea level rise, have no barrier reef thanks to coral bleaching, and abandon tracts of farming land due to permanently changed weather patterns. And until then, he'll be laughing.

"As an efficient, reliable supplier, Australia has a massive opportunity to increase its share of global energy trade," he told a Committee for Economic Development of Australia lunch in Sydney.

Mr Howard gave a nod to fossil fuels' contribution to rising global temperatures and changing weather. But he continued to reject both the Kyoto Protocol and carbon emissions trading or a carbon price as a way of dealing with climate change, preferring instead to rely on as yet commercially unproven carbon capture and storage technology.

"The Government's energy policy framework unapologetically emphasises the role of new low-emission technologies to deliver a sustainable greenhouse outcome and it unapologetically seeks to preserve the economic value of our energy resources at a time of soaring global demand," he said.

I would make some scathing commentry here but really he just says it all himself, plain as day. Bugger the rest of you, me and Janet will be dead so my kids have enough trust money to run really expensive air conditioning.