Senators Sue Boyce and Judith Troeth have announced their intention to cross the floor and vote for Labor’s mind-bogglingly pointless and expensive ETS.

They both express the hope that the party members and constituents they are betraying will understand they have acted in good faith.

I have just emailed both of them as follows:

Dear Senator,

I urge you to vote against Labor’s ETS scheme.

Opposition and government both have an absolute obligation to ensure that legislation which would impose massive additional costs on industry and transport, and consequently undermine the wealth of every Australian, is necessary and based on clear evidence. The ETS is neither.

The evidence for human caused global warming is very thin indeed.

Over 30,000 scientists have signed a petition saying humans are not causing harmful climate change.

The ETS will not change the climate. It will achieve nothing at huge cost.

At very least there is no rational reason to rush this legislation through.

Please oppose it.

Why?

Senators, have you read from a variety of sources on the climate debate?

Have you, for example, read the recent WSJ article by one of the world’s leading climate scientists, Richard Lindzen, Professor of Meteorolgy at MIT, in which he says:

Our perceptions of nature are similarly dragged back centuries (by climate change alarmism) so that the normal occasional occurrences of open water in summer over the North Pole, droughts, floods, hurricanes, sea-level variations, etc. are all taken as omens, portending doom due to our sinful ways (as epitomized by our carbon footprint).

Have you read the petition signed by over 30,000 scientists disputing the claim humans are causing harmful climate change?

Have you considered the massive summary of peer reviewed research undertaken by the Non-Governmental International Panel on Climate Change?

Have you spoken to leading Australian scientists like Ian Plimer or Robert Carter?

If you have not yet managed any of that, have you at least read a straightforward lay summary of why the alarmist claims are doubtful? Like Jo Nova’s or mine (Jo Nova’s is prettier, but I think mine is more substantial).

And if you haven’t done any of these things, on what basis do you claim to be acting in good faith?

Your opinions may be strong. So were Mussolini’s.

Acting in good faith means more than just having strong opinions and acting on them. It certainly means more than leaning out the window and deciding it is a little hotter than it used to be.

Acting in good faith means wanting to do the right thing. Good intentions are a start. But doing the right thing depends on sound knowledge – on thinking the right thing.

Thinking the right thing means thinking based on the evidence; careful, honest research, and being willing to have your opinions challenged.

If you do not do this, then your claims of good faith are no more than hot air.