(Copenhagen, Denmark, December 16, 2009) Global warming skeptics from CFACT yesterday pulled off an international climate caper using GPS triangulation from Greenpeace’s own on-board camera photos to locate and sail up long-side of the infamous Greenpeace vessel, Rainbow Warrior. Then in Greenpeace-like fashion, the CFACT activists unfurled a banner reading “Propaganda Warrior” which underscored how the radical green group’s policies and agenda are based on myths, lies, and exaggerations.

Earlier in the day the activists daringly boarded Greenpeace’s Arctic Sunrise with neither stealth nor force, but by baffling the crew with doughnuts, and unfurled a banner that read “Ship of Lies” off the starboard side.

“Greenpeace has been using these kinds of tactics for decades, and now they can find out what it’s like to have a little taste of their own medicine, “ said CFACT executive director Craig Rucker who masterminded the operation.

CFACT unfurled the banners for two reasons, CFACT president David Rothbard explained. “Greenpeace ships, like the Rainbow Warrior and Arctic Sunrise, have become global symbols for radical environmentalism, and we wanted to call attention to the harm these groups are causing.  And second, it seemed appropriate to use one of Greenpeace’s favorite tactics to make this point.”

Key Findings

* A conservative estimate of the total cost of Copenhagen is £130 million ($215 million, €143 million).
* This estimate is based on the Danish government budget and the costs to participating governments of sending 15,000 delegates – including flights, accommodation, food, conferencing facilities and salaries paid to delegates while they are at the conference.  It is a conservative estimate as it leaves out costs such as the need for supporting work by staff in the home countries.

Matthew Sinclair, Research Director at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said:

“The politicians and bureaucrats going to Copenhagen seem to think that it’s unlikely that they’ll reach a deal and they know that even if they can get something signed, an increasingly sceptical public aren’t going to accept ever more expensive climate change policies.  This means that a huge amount of money is going to be spent on the summit, and thousands of tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted to get there, just to give the delegates a good photo opportunity.  Politicians need to stop this expensive jamboree and instead focus domestically on bringing down the ruinous cost to ordinary families of green taxes and regulations.”

Researchers yesterday estimated that the bill for the 12-day jamboree will top £130million – and will generate as much greenhouse gas as an entire African country.

More than 15,000 delegates and 45,000 green activists are due to descend on the Danish capital over the next two weeks in a meeting described by British economist Lord Stern as ‘the most important since the Second World War’.

They will be joined by at least 5,000 journalists – including 35 from the BBC alone – and 100 world leaders, including Gordon Brown and Barack Obama.

The UN has confirmed flights, rail and bus travel, food and energy from the conference will generate at least 41,000 tons of carbon dioxide.

That’s more greenhouse gas than produced by Malawi, Afghanistan or Sierra Leone over the same period.

The Danish government says it will offset emissions by planting trees or investing in green projects.

Daily Mail: ‘Copenhagen climate change summit to produce as much CO2 as an African country’

Still, 10 years is an improvement on Gore’s Davos warning that ”North Pole ice caps “could” disappear during summer within 5 years” (2012). Not long to wait to verify that particular prediction, as also stated in National Geographic. Climate scaremongering seems to be a moving target.

The £6 million campaign, which begins tonight in the prime ITV1 slot during Coronation Street, is a direct response to government research showing that more than half the population think that climate change will have no effect on them.

But Philip Stott, Emeritus Professor of Biogeography at the University of London and a critic of the Government’s plan to cut CO2, said the advert was an attempt to manipulate people with alarmist language and apocalyptic imagery. “It is straight out of Orwell’s 1984: an attempt to control with images of a perpetual war against something, in this case climate change.”

Read the entire Timesonline.co.uk article and watch the advert: ‘Ministers target climate change doubters in prime-time TV advert’

Tim Nicholson, 42, says his beliefs on the environment are so strong they led to clashes with other senior staff at Grainger, one of the UK’s biggest property companies.

The Guardian: ‘Climate change believer takes firm to tribunal’

The estimated cost to taxpayers to send the group, who flew business class to Fiji via Australia, was at least £68,200, the Channel 4 Dispatches programme said.

Civil servants sent on £1,000-a-head seaside ‘junket’ to discuss bin taxes Critics labelled the junket “inappropriate and unnecessary” with the long-haul flights and local travel leaving a hefty carbon footprint.

Those who took the trip were Labour MPs Jim Sheridan, Betty Williams, Neil Turner, Meg Munn and Colin Challen, who were joined by Tory MP Andrew Rosindell, Liberal Democrat peer Lord Roper of Thorney Island and the Labour peer Lord Lea of Crondall.

Two staff members from the Commonwealth Paliamentary Association UK Two CPA staff members also travelled with the group.

According to the programme, which airs on Monday night, the flights cost £6,300 each and hotel bills for Fiji alone – where the group stayed in a five-star resort were expected to be at least £5,200.

During their time in the South Pacific the group also embarked on whale watching, enjoyed a £1000 dinner in Tonga and lunched on a paradise island where the Channel 4 reality series Shipwrecked was filmed.

The group also visited Tonga, Vanuatu, Kiribati and Tuvalu as part of their mission, with the Third World Countries picking up part of the cost.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance pressure group said: “People back home are struggling to pay the bills, never mind being able to travel around the world and it sticks in people’s throats when they see politicians jetting off at taxpayers’ expense.”

Telegraph.co.uk: Taxpayers foot MPs junket to South Pacific ‘to investigate climate change’

The Times of India: ‘Lewis Gordon Pugh on ‘melting’ North Pole trail’

Well, Pugh succeeded in failing, ending up about 600 miles short of the North Pole, around 81.5 degrees north :

We’re Stuck / Thinner Ice