Is there a link here?

The Aussie government, which wants to ban marketing by producers of cigarettes on the products they manufacture and sell, is spending AUD $3 million to sell a carbon tax to its people.

Government offers $3 million in grants to spin up carbon stories

By Gemma Jones

From: The Daily Telegraph

July 01, 2011 12:00AM

DESPERATE to drum up support for a carbon tax, the federal government is now handing out $250,000 grants to groups willing to sell it to a sceptical public.

A total of $3 million will be spent on the grants, with the cash given to organisations that “help the public understand the challenges of climate change and opportunities for a clean energy future”.

“Many people are working hard to build a clean energy future for Australia. We think they deserve the opportunity to be heard,” Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said.

But opposition climate spokesman Greg Hunt said it was a slush fund for “mates”.

“It is simply creating advertising money for groups such as the ACTU, GetUp or the Climate Institute to advertise in favour of the carbon tax,” he said.

“It is clear that people who might want climate action but don’t want a carbon tax will be excluded and so it is a misuse of public funds.”

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national/million-to-spin-up-carbon-stories/story-e6frfkvr-1226085258662#ixzz1QpVmfkav

And then this morning, the Business Day runs with an article on its front page, quoting an Aussie physiology researcher who makes one of the most ludicrous climate change fear-mongering arguments I think I’ve heard to date.

Climate change may kill Joburg golfers

SUE BLAINE

Published: 2011/07/01 06:40:47 AM

YOUR golfing days may be numbered owing to the effects of climate change.

Temperatures and humidity were expected to increase, and because there was a point where they combined to the extent that no human could maintain a healthy temperature , there would be days when it would be impossible survive nine holes, University of Western Australia physiology researcher Shane Maloney said in Johannesburg this week.

While Prof Maloney’s research uses climate projections for Perth, Johannesburg is in the same temperate zone as the Western Australian city and the results would be similar .

“There are a couple of other studies that put the space around Perth and Joburg into categories of similar change by 2070, but Joburg is generally cooler than Perth now,” he said after a presentation to the Royal Society in SA.

“So … Joburg will most likely end up with a lower incidence of dangerous days. Exactly how many is hard to say without running the model on Joburg data.”

The projection for Perth is that between now and 2070, the number of days when acclimatised people participating in moderate activity were at risk of heatstroke would increase from one day every 10 years to 10 days a year.

Read more http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=147333

You think there’s a connection between government spending on wasteful projects, which then leads to wasteful, pointless, and ridiculous university research done to secure the wasted taxpayer resources?