GM vice-chairman says CO2 is not an issue

GENERAL Motors’ vice-chairman Bob Lutz might be a keen supporter of the Chevrolet Volt plug-in electric vehicle, but he still does not believe in climate change.

The man who came up with the V10 Dodge Viper during his time at Chrysler once famously described climate change as a “croc of sh**” and does not appear to have changed his view.

During an interview at the Detroit motor show, Mr Lutz was asked if the cold weather in Michigan proved that his views on climate change were correct.

He said: “They have been vindicated.”

Mr Lutz said he would not give a speech on the topic because he would “get into trouble”, but could not resist the temptation.

“All I ever say is look at the data, look at the empirical evidence, look at what they said ten years ago with rising ocean levels, hasn’t happened,” he said.

“Those of you who watch the Al Gore Inconvenient Truth saw him put his hands over the Gulf of Mexico with all this boiling water and (say) ‘If you think Hurricane Katrina was bad, you haven’t seen anything yet’, and we are going to have all these horrible hurricanes every year and we haven’t had one. Katrina was like six years ago and we are yet to get the next hurricane.”

Left: Chevrolet Volt.

Mr Lutz said the Russians were right all along.

“The climate has relatively cooled in the last ten years, just as the Russian astrophysicists said 10 years ago,” he said.

“They said it has got nothing to do with CO2 and everything to do with solar activity and when the solar flares stopped and the sun has been unusually quiet, almost to the point that it is starting to worry people, global temperatures go down.”

He concluded that “governments are still hell bent on this CO2 thing”, before mentioning with a hint of satisfaction that Rudd government CO2 cap and trade legislation had “come a cropper”.

While Lutz is clearly not a believer in climate change, he does feel there is an urgent need to move towards alternate fuels, especially electricity, because of a shortage of oil supply.

“Rather than gradual rises in oil prices, we face the risk that as the economy recovers as you get within two or three per cent of short-term peak oil refining capacity you get this sharp rise again and when you get the sharp rise it tips you into another recession,” he said.

“That’s why we have to find alternatives to petroleum, even if just to have a kind of dampening effect on these wild oscillations.”

Mr Lutz said the fuel supplies would come under increasing pressure from China in the next 10 to 20 years.

“They are going to consume a lot of petroleum,” he said.

“At some point we are going to start running short of petroleum because we will start to get to the limit of what can be extracted economically and at that point we have to have alternative drive systems which, to me are going to be electric.”