After Scott Morrison’s decade late realisation that appearing to do something on greenhouse gas emissions may be electorally useful, Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg gave a speech pushing the case to finalise a plan1. After 8 years in government, over forty years of warnings, and over thirty years of IPCC reports2 considering finalising a plan is as far as the government have managed to get. However, internal divisions within the government may prevent Morrison from even getting near a legislated target such as net zero emissions by 2050.
The problem is typified by Victorian Nationals cabinet minister Bridget McKenzie who took a swipe at her Liberal colleagues, particularly Frydenberg, labelling their support for a carbon neutral economy by 2050 the “worst kind of vacuousness over values”. She maintained that too many federal MPs were worried about being “cool” rather than “the consequences of their decisions”3. Her phrasing is ironic insofar as keeping the planet cool was perhaps achievable thirty years ago, but is now very unlikely to be possible. The Paris Accord of 2015 had as its goal to limit warming to well below 2 degrees C, preferably to 1.5 degrees C, when compared to pre-industrial levels4. Keeping it below 1.5 degrees seems like a forlorn hope now, with a recent study showing that existing greenhouse gases (i.e. at the current concentration) will eventually push the globe into more than 2 degrees of warming5.
McKenzie’s complaint about the ‘consequences of their decisions’ is equally ironic in that the consequences of her government’s decisions to not do anything about greenhouse gas emissions have helped condemn our younger generation to a much more dangerous planet. With a 2-degree temperature increase, some islands in the Pacific and Indian oceans may become uninhabitable, weather-related disasters will become more frequent, outdoor workers in many parts of the world will face dangerously hot conditions and large numbers of people will be displaced, particularly in coastal cities. Many of these cities are home to many millions of people6.
Not to be outdone for abject stupidity, on Peta Credulous’ show on Sky News, Queensland Liberal National Senator Gerard Rennick was interviewed7. Rennick’s stupidity has been the source of amazement on this blog before. He accused the Bureau of Meteorology of being part of a global conspiracy8. Seemingly descending into an even deeper conspiracy rabbit hole, Rennick said: “I will say this to the treasurer, that … he is starting to come across looking like Dan Andrews in the Belt and Road Initiative by signing up to what’s effectively a Marxist, green, woke agenda which is what Glasgow’s going to be”7. Poor benighted Rennick seems to have forgotten to include the epithets ‘nanny state’, ‘elites’, ‘political correctness’, and ‘virtue signalling’ among other supposed pejoratives used by the dangerously wacky far right wing of the Liberal and National parties9.
While people like Morrison and Frydenberg know that climate change is a ‘hot button’ issue and will sway many voters in the coming federal election, their inaction over the last 8 years demonstrates that they believe donations to their party from the fossil fuel industry are more important than the future of the nation, or the planet. However, the idiocy of McKenzie and Rennick and their National and LNP colleagues in even denying this reality, and the danger of doing nothing, demonstrates their complete lack of concern for future generations of Australians. They belong in gaol, not in parliament.
Sources
- https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-24/treasurer-backs-net-zero-2050-target/100489434
- https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar1/wg1/
- https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/bridget-mckenzie-takes-swipe-at-vacuous-frydenberg-over-net-zero-20210927-p58v97.html
- https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement
- https://www.ecowatch.com/greenhouse-gases-paris-agreement-2649767807.html#toggle-gdpr
- https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-temperature-idUSKBN0NM40820150501
- https://www.skynews.com.au/opinion/peta-credlin/treasurer-signing-up-to-marxist-green-woke-agenda/video/5c00bc1e59fbf2c5be545185ebd1785d
- https://blotreport.com/2019/04/24/a-stem-world-or-no-world/
- https://blotreport.com/2020/07/23/the-naming-of-things/
Down a 19th century coal mine in 19th century conditions with 19th century technology is where they belong.
McKenzie is surely taking the piss talking about values and consequences of actions given her history. I don’t take any notice of her ramblings but did she have anything at all to say about parliamentary standards and sexism and the mistreatment of women when Morrison failed to show during the March4 Women period?
To use Keating’s words, the Nationals are unrepresentative swill. Their influence on government is way out of whack in proportion to the vote they get. Queenslanders in particular owe their nation a huge apology for sending the likes of Littleproud, Canavan, and Christensen to Canberra. I was born in the state and have this message for Queenslanders: if you must have them, keep them in your own bloody parliament and reap what you sow, don’t inflict them on the rest of us.
Jon,
The problem this country has is that too many people are disengaged from the political process, so that muppets like Member for Manila get voted in by muppets like him.
Jon’s dead right; if we want to know where the nub, the epicentre of vast ignorance about the the real issues facing Australia resides, it’s the deep north, where the Great Divide becomes a synonym for what educated Yanks call with hilarious disdain the Appalachians. (Think Jed, Granny, Jethro and Ellie-May).
Please Queensland, get a big secession movement going that could mean you lot break away from Australia. Then you are no longer able to put the likes of the Mad Monk or Moronsin into the job of Prime Mongrel. Oh yes, and what utter delight we would take in seeing the arse-ends of Mad Hatter Katter, that dreary dopey dreg Matt Coalcaravan, the Whacky Witch of Ipswich and most of all, the dastardly Pete Himmler.
You’ve written a number of times about the Dunning Kruger effect. It seems that this effect has become endemic in our society. We have a government full of quite unintelligent people, with immense egos, who hold views that are totally unsupported, not only by science, but by what is happening now, in front of their obtuse noses to our world. We also have people who vote for these morons, people who are happy to dismiss the views of scientists, and reality, just because they are being told what they want to hear, no matter how unreliable the source. I would dearly love climate change to not be something that is happening. I would dearly love for climate change to be something we could rectify with no effort. Most of us would. Just because we want it to be so does not make it so and to go deliberately searching for people to tell you everything is ok is truly stupid, and immature. The politicians are despicable, the media buffoons who support this idiocy are disgusting, the people who give these creeps their power, the voting public, are completely irresponsible fools. The current era is the tyranny of the smart arse. The fool who knows better. The other side of the Dunning Kruger effect is those people who under estimate their own ability. There lies the problem. Those that can fix this mess are nowhere near as pushy as those who have made it. Yet.
Mark,
It was said by someone (cannot remember who) with regard to the US presidency, something along the lines of: The person who wants it the most should never be allowed near it. I sometimes agree, but I think it gets down to motivation. I think that someone like Morrison is the type of person they were thinking about. He is driven by his malignant narcissism, coupled with a ludicrous religiosity which reinforces that. I think that so many of those in politics have this inflated view of themselves, but they realise that their abilities are such that they will never rise beyond mediocrity in the real world. So what do they do? Ingratiate themselves with local powerbrokers so they get preselection. This problem is exacerbated by the small number of people who are members of political parties, which allows halfwits like Rennick, Craig Kelly, Barnaby Joyce and George Christensen to get into parliament.
Mark Dougall says it all just like it is. Nothing but total collapse of our corruption-riddled pseudo-democracy can be the beginning of an answer to the situation that Mark describes.
I see Morrison’s favourite lad, Alex Hawke, has entered the reshuffled Canberra ministry. Hawke’s long apprenticeship brown-nosing Scott, has paid off. If one goes by history (concerning the Liberal Party over the past two decades) “Mr Vulture” will be PM by 2030. He’s the very stuff that all Liberal PM’s are made of – chicanery, malfeasance and other negative human qualities suited to any politician who weevils his way to the apex of the Liberal garbage heap.
Russell,
Alex Hawke is a favoured boy, for the same reason Stuart Robert is, no matter how bent, and that is because they are Pentecostal nutters. They are the christians who have jettisoned all that Jesus stuff. For them it is all about power and money.