Talk becomes heated over climate change

THE issue of climate change has long been a hot topic for debate and Wagga's full cross-section of views were represented at a seminar last night.Three climate change sceptics addressed an audience of about 30 at the seminar, which was given at the Country Comfort Hotel.Among those listening intently to the points of view expressed by Anthony Watts, an internationally renowned climate commentator from the USA, solar expert David Archibald and Tim Curtain were One Nation candidate Craig Hesketh and a spokesperson for Climate Rescue of Wagga, Stephen James.All three of the speakers were keen to downplay climate change as a man made catastrophe and each rejected any scientific evidence linking carbon emissions with global temperature change.Mr Watts, a former climate activist and a self-professed "green guy", said he drives an electric car and has a solar powered house but does not believe that carbon emissions have any effect on the climate."In the early 1990s I was a climate activist -saving trees and telling people about the value of planting trees to offset CO2," Mr Watts said."But in 1996 something changed my way of thinking."That something was a survey of the USA's climate stations, which revealed that just 10 per cent met quality standards and that many of the results that were recorded were compromised.Mr Watts said that since this had been discovered and remedied the results revealed that temperature changes over the last 100 years had been minimal.