Flannery predictionsIn 2005, Flannery predicted Sydney's dams could be dry in as little as two years because global warming was drying up the rains, leaving the city "facing extreme difficulties with water".
Check Sydney's dam levels today: 73 per cent. Hmm. Not a good start.
In 2008, Flannery said: "The water problem is so severe for Adelaide that it may run out of water by early 2009."
Check Adelaide's water storage levels today: 77 per cent.
In 2007, Flannery predicted cities such as Brisbane would never again have dam-filling rains, as global warming had caused "a 20 per cent decrease in rainfall in some areas" and made the soil too hot, "so even the rain that falls isn't actually going to fill our dams and river systems ... ".
Check the Murray-Darling system today: in flood. Check Brisbane's dam levels: 100 per cent full.
All this may seem funny, but some politicians, voters and investors have taken this kind of warming alarmism very seriously and made expensive decisions in the belief it was sound.
So let's check on them, too.
In 2007, Flannery predicted global warming would so dry our continent that desalination plants were needed to save three of our biggest cities from disaster.
As he put it: "Over the past 50 years, southern Australia has lost about 20 per cent of its rainfall, and one cause is almost certainly global warming ...
"In Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane, water supplies are so low they need desalinated water urgently, possibly in as little as 18 months."
Back to another tip Flannery gave in that year of warming terror. In 2007, he warned that "the social licence of coal to operate is rapidly being withdrawn globally" by governments worried by the warming allegedly caused by burning the stuff.
We should switch to "green" power instead, said Flannery, who recommended geothermal - pumping water on to hot rocks deep underground to create steam.
"There are hot rocks in South Australia that potentially have enough embedded energy in them to run Australia's economy for the best part of a century," he said.
"The technology to extract that energy and turn it into electricity is relatively straightforward."
Flannery repeatedly promoted this "straightforward" technology, and in 2009, the Rudd government awarded $90 million to Geodynamics to build a geothermal power plant in the Cooper Basin, the very area Flannery recommended. Coincidentally, Flannery has for years been a Geodynamics shareholder, a vested interest he sometimes declares.
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