Bringing on the clowns at Copenhagen

I was intrigued with a reference in Wes Pruden’s Washington Times column today that the Copenhagen COP15 delegate from Tuvalu, weeping while pleading for energy restrictions (and money) to keep the tiny Pacific island from sinking into the sea, is really a Ph.D. student in Australia, who lives in New South Wales.  The source for this information is The Australian newspaper, which carried an article about the Tuvaluan representative, Ian Fry, on December 17.  Here’s an excerpt:

But the part-time PhD scholar at the Australian National University actually resides in Queanbeyan, NSW, where he’s not likely to be troubled by rising sea levels because the closest beach at Batemans Bay is a two-hour, 144km drive away. Asked whether he had ever lived in Tuvalu, his wife told The Australian last night she would “rather not comment”.

A career environmentalist who once worked as a Greenpeace political liaison officer, Mr Fry has found his niche in global climate change talks over the past 10 years, representing small Pacific nations and running the climate negotiations for the Association of Small Island States.

What’s also interesting is that Tuvalu is the poster child for rising sea levels caused by global warming, but as this article in Science magazine notes, the sea level around the island has actually been declining for nearly 50 years.

Is there no shame among global warming zealots?