Thursday, August 09, 2018

In which the pond again visits climate science denialism central ...


The digital lizard Oz maintains its racist ways, but the pond has never had much time for the white nationalist fear-mongering of the reptiles …

The destruction of the planet is the sort of apocalyptic scenario that appeals to the pond, long trained in the genre by Hollywood movies, and this morning there was another hefty dose of climate science denialism afoot in the rag …


The pond slid into the pool slowly, with a dose of nattering "Ned", and what do you know, the prolix blatherer was for once inclined to keep it short …


Around this point, the pond will have to declare an interest, summarised by Bernard Keane at Crikey



The pond doesn't like to break the Crikey paywall, as they lurch along struggle street … and the full story is here for those who want to find it … but Keane's opening is worth repeating as a teaser trailer …


And so back to nattering "Ned" …


Oh heck, the pond must call on Bernard Keane to do a little more work …

...on emissions, the government insists consistency is an overriding virtue — Abbott’s minimal emissions reduction targets must be locked in all the way to 2030 for the sake of “certainty”. Its original ambit claim was to literally lock those targets in; it has since retreated to allowing the possibility of change (in the mid-2020s) but with the proviso that any change must be signed off by the senate, when the Coalition is almost certainly going to block any effort to improve on Abbott’s targets. That, as you know, is because Turnbull is unable to face down the denialists in his own ranks. 
The NEG is thus a political solution to Turnbull’s political problem — albeit one that has its roots in Abbott’s successful revolt against Turnbull’s policy in 2009. Turnbull inherited the problem, rather than created it. But it’s still his. 
Into the climate policy void created by the Liberals stepped the states. There’s a line from certain commentators that the states have no right or role in relation to emissions targets. In effect, that insists that states and territories politely acquiesce if a federal government pursues a denialist agenda on climate change, rather than using tools they directly control — the energy generation and distribution systems they either own directly or regulate directly. That’s the problem with arguing the states should stop sticking their noses into emissions reduction — the Commonwealth doesn’t own any generation or distribution assets of its own; it’s the states that control the biggest emitting sector of the economy. The federal government has all care and no responsibility. And the lack of responsibility has been pretty evident since 2013.

But enough of sanity, because it's time for a full-blown bout of climate science denialism from the bromancer, still close-kissing cousin to his great pal, the onion muncher, on certain matters.

The essence of this form of denialism is to say it's all hopeless and useless and why do anything, a form of comfort only available to those who don't mind if the planet comes to resemble a cooked goose …

Watch and admire how the bromancer plays this fiddle as California burns …and the presence of a Lobbecke guarantees this effort has full reptile approval and cult status ...


See how the magician waves his Lobbecke-approved wand … all is useless, all is failure, but … and here is the implicit message … as it's all a hoax, the flapdoodle doesn't really matter, as the climate hoaxers go about their Chicken Little business …

See how that emerges in the subtle line "he wants more extreme measures and I disagree with him," because where's the panic folks, it's all just a hoax …


Note that splendid line "Like anyone who is remotely serious in all this, Ball advocates using nuclear energy", because by definition in the reptile world, renewable energy simply can't be serious …but then none of it is serious, because by definition in the reptile world, it's just a hoax …everybody's  doing it, dinkum clean Oz coal oi, oi, oi, and did the bromancer mention it, "our often fantastic climate debate is dominated today by myths" …

How long before the bromancer trots out that old line about Australia being such a small part of the global game, it doesn't matter what Australia does? It's the sweetest line in the climate science denialist mantra, and the pond can't count the number of times it's popped up in reptile la la land ...


Car manufacturing went because of climate science?

The pond wishes that in all this the bromancer would at least come clean with himself and his readers.

The bromancer writes from the comfortable and superior position of believing climate science a hoax. 

That's the bottom line to everything he scribbles, but he never says it and he never tackles the science. 

Would it hurt him to admit it?

He doesn't even have the naked honest stupidity of a Plimer … instead he sends out his dog whistles and the reptile readership hears his call …


The pond could go on with more quotes to prove that along with being white racist nationalist central, the lizard Oz is climate science denialist central, with the bromancer always standing by, ready to muddy the waters, and cast doubts, and mock, because it's all just a hoax …

But enough already, it's time for a Pope cartoon, with more infallible papery here … though as the pond is always on the hunt for sub-text, is The Groundhog Gazette actually the Pope's new label for the lizard Oz?




2 comments:

  1. Is Frydenberg an Australian citizen.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "Would it hurt him to admit it?"

    Oh yes, DP, no doubt about that: it would hurt him right plumb in the middle of his "rational centre-right" credibility. Why, he might not get another invite onto the ABC and would have to settle for the Bonkers Bolter on Sky.

    "He doesn't even have the naked honest stupidity of a Plimer"

    Now of all the things I might call Plimer, "honest" would never be one of them. 'Glaringly barefaced', I might venture, or even 'palpably overt', but never "honest".

    "… instead he sends out his dog whistles and the reptile readership hears his call …"

    And that's really it, isn't it. It's exactly the same trope that Trump uses in his tweets and rallies: fly some manifest nonsense up the flagpole, and watch "the base" go hysterical with salutary approval. Never state a source, and never ever show how duplicitous you are by even remotely hinting at a 'fact check' - that only ruins a lovely story.

    Of course, he's just a teensy weensy bit correct: of all the factors which determined that the Abbott/Hockey razor gang would find the Australian car industry "unviable", the cost of electric power probably amount to less than 1% - less, in other words, than Australia's direct greenhouse gas contribution that the Bromancer is so scathing about.

    Just for a bit of background as to how very much impact "high energy prices" had, here's a small quote from Jason Dowling in the SMH back in November 2013:
    Holden was the key. Toyota wanted to stay. The company had a viable export market to the Middle East, a robust business plan and most importantly, pride on the line.

    Nowhere in the world had Toyota closed a fully-owned vehicle manufacturing plant and Australia was the first western country outside of Japan where Toyota chose to manufacture vehicles. Toyota just needed a viable supply chain, so the future of Holden and Toyota were linked
    .
    [ https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/who-killed-the-car-industry-20151112-gkx1c8.html ]

    ReplyDelete

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