One example of climate change contrarianism found in a Sydney Morning Herald report on 6 March 2012 where the financial trigger is more than obvious:
But a property developer, Jeff McCloy, said he was contemplating leading a class action suit against the council, which he said was ''falling for this unjustified, worldwide idiocy about sea level rises''.
Mr. McCloy recently arranged for climate change sceptics Ian Plimer, Bob Carter and David Archibald to address residents and councillors,…..
Mr. McCloy is seeking to gain approval for a subdivision of 24 homes that is likely to be affected by the Lake Macquarie planning guidelines…..
He said he had studied sea level rise on the internet and concluded it was rising at only a very slow rate, and that rate had slowed in the past decade, so any planning restrictions were unjustified.
As the Lake Macquarie mayor has observed; "Jeff is unashamedly a climate change sceptic and he won't be swayed, but he expects other people will be swayed by him" .
He is also Chairman of the McCloy Group which says of itself that it is a Hunter-based property group with a diversified portfolio of commercial and residential assets. Our portfolio currently holds more than 21,000 m2 of commercial office space in the heart of Newcastle’s CBD, attracting long-term, quality tenants, including Telstra, The Wests Group and Wesfarmers’ subsidiary, Blackwoods. The McCloy Group is staging construction of over 1,600 council-approved residential lots geographically spread in the Hunter. And we have almost 2,000 lots in the pipeline.
That he is seeking to publicly pressure Lake Macquarie Council and the NSW O’Farrell Government at this time probably has some relationship with the fact that Lake Macquarie Council has recently reviewed its Draft Lake Macquarie Waterway Flood Study (2012) and Draft Lake Macquarie Waterway Flood Risk Management Study and Plan (2012) to include the effects of predicted sea level rises to the year 2100.
During this review climate change contrarians and local residents received a fair hearing in the community consultation phase (more than 90% of workshop participants were residents who own foreshore properties that are vulnerable to flooding and sea level rise) and it appears no additional properties were identified as affected by flood or sea level rise.
So it would appear that Mr. McCloy already knew his own residential property was in an ‘at risk’ area and his present concerns are purely commercial in nature.
Sadly the McCloy Group stance is typical of developers operating along the NSW coast.
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