Tim Flannery

"Climate expert"  Tim Flannery  link (Public scientist)
Born	28 January 1956
Nationality	Australian
Alma mater	La Trobe University
Australia's most high profile "climate expert" and ecologist.

Timothy Fridtjof Flannery is an Australian palaeontologist, environmentalist, conservationist,, author, science communicator, activist and public scientist. He was awarded Australian of the Year in 2007 for his work and advocacy on environmental issues. His predictions led to the building of hugely expensive desalination plants that immediately turned out were not needed.

No more rain

In a 2005, Flannery made expert predictions that led to the building of expensive desalination plants in all Australian capital cities except Hobart: "Over the past 50 years southern Australia has lost about 20 per cent of its rainfall, and one cause is almost certainly global warming...But by far the most dangerous trend is the decline in the flow of Australian rivers: it has fallen by around 70 per cent in recent decades, so dams no longer fill even when it does rain. Growing evidence suggests that hotter soils, caused directly by global warming, have increased evaporation and transpiration and that the change is permanent. ....Desalination plants can provide insurance against drought. In Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane, water supplies are so low they need desalinated water urgently, possibly in as little as 18 months Of course, these plants should be supplied by zero-carbon power sources."

In Queensland, the Peter Beattie Labor government built a $1.126 billion desalination plant based on these predictions. The Victorian Labor Government cited the same reason for building its own $5.7 billion plant. By 2010, the plants were mothballed for lack of need.

The push for unaffordable desalination plants was possibly in part driven by the as a scam by the construction and banking industry, in order to extract public money by building debt-financed white elephants.Template:Cn