Peter Costello, and a hearty dose of moral condescension and sanctimonious claptrap ... redux.

(Above: an oldie, but a goodie, here).

Now where was I?

Straight from Shanghai to a Lyle Lovett concert, and a little discombobulated on the way. Sheesh, I thought I'd dropped into a conference for old farts, but it seems that's the target demographic for Lovett these days.

Never mind, it was an excellent concert, and if the young have no taste, then all the more fun to load up future generations with debt and an uncertain future. That'll learn 'em for not liking Lyle.

But while I was away, it seems the loons had an excellent time, what with Barners being sent to the second eleven and Tony Abbott showing he was an Olympian capable of doing a Pheidippides, and bringing news of the battle of Marathon to Athens (never mind if that fabulist Herodotus disputed the story). There's something moving about the notion of Abbott delivering the words "We have won" before collapsing and expiring.

But some things never change, and why is it unsurprising to see that ghost of the battlements, Peter Costello, blathering on yet again about climate change, in The greatest moral conundrum of our time ... until the next one.

Costello has form in this area, and being a snide person given to insinuating monumental smirking snidery, has splendid form when it comes to harping on about moral conundrums and challenges. As a lawyer turned politician turned columnist and noise maker, how do you deal with the science of climate change?

Write about anything else, usually in moral terms. Here he is back in April 2009 in How immoral, to hold the wrong views:

Take climate change. The way the argument is being presented you can be for aggressive targets to cut emissions or you are for rising tides, mass drownings, increased heat-related deaths, the destruction of the planet and the death of polar bears.

Characterising this as a moral question allows the high priests of emission targets to actually measure the morality of their opponents. Supporters of a 20 per cent cut are moral, 10 per cent morally inferior, supporters of 5 per cent are grossly immoral, and so on.

But what about the smug? Does that produce a combination of fog and smog to mist up the world with a kind of smoggily foggy argument about a policy which the coalition government took to the electorate as a firm proposal to deal with climate change as the great crisis of our time?

If anyone questions whether these targets will be met, if they will make a difference without the co-operation of major emitters, or what will happen to those who lose their jobs in industries affected, they can be dismissed as engaging in moral subterfuge. This is a moral argument, and such people are really in favour of destroying the planet.

While the postmodern world has lost faith in absolutes - rights and wrongs in relation to private behaviour - it has discovered absolutism about the views that are acceptable in modern political discourse. Take the wrong turn and you are not just mistaken, you are immoral. It's not that your views are immoral. You are immoral as a person for holding them.

By adopting the right views you get a wonderful release. There is not much you can do wrong at a personal level as long as you're in favour of a better planet.

This kind of guff suits Costello down to the ground. By forgetting about the science and shifting the terrain to a political and moral discourse, he can sound like a righteous fogey dispensing wisdom to the sceptics and the true believers. So once again this week it's back to the future:

I watched this issue elevated in the lead-up to the 2007 election, when it was used to illustrate how the Howard government was old, tired and out of touch. It was brought to fever pitch late last year to wedge the Coalition.

When you're a hammer all you can see is a nail. When you're a politician, all you can see is a political issue. Never mind the truth. Never mind the coalition's policies when Costello was at the helm:

Without any immediate political target, it lies dormant. But I expect it will be back for the election - probably in an attack on the Coalition's policy on direct abatement measures. Which is why the public is entitled to get a little cynical. You never hear Rudd arguing for an emission trading scheme as if he really believes it is ''the great moral and economic issue challenge of our time''. He raises it, he drops it, it comes and it goes - like all the other issues of the regular media cycle.

Oh dear, poor old Malcolm Turnbull. He actually believed in the policy. What a moralist.

But what about the science? Well apart from the poley bears issue - which surely should be elevated to a new Godwin's Law whenever discussing climate change - here's Costello's astute take:

Those scientists who made exaggerated claims about the Himalayan glaciers undermined trust in the science behind global warming.

You see! That's it. Done and dusted.

And those politicians who made exaggerated claims about their policy proposals have undermined trust on the political issue.

You mean like the coalition that led with the ETS as its preferred policy, and then retreated as soon as it knew it could make political hay out of a new stance? Yep, it's back to the land of kettle and pot.

It would have been better to be honest enough to admit the uncertainties, and acknowledge the downside of their policy. As it is, Earth Hour has become an apt metaphor for their tactical approach - a time to spread darkness, rather than illumination.

Oh for heaven's sake, as if Costello is intent on spreading anything other than moral humbuggery, pontificating pretentiousness, and smug smirking condescension. His entire piece is a series of non-sequiturs and bland evasions:

Can a momentous moral challenge fizzle out like this? Or are you beginning to suspect all the crisis was politically driven?

It's a politically driven crisis, and if the politics will go away, so will global warming?

As evidence, Costello offers up the way newspapers dealt with Earth Hour this year, and instead ran with pictures of a gas guzzling car race.

But what's his point? Earth Hour is a stupid idea, whose main point is to show that after an hour people turn on the lights and proceed on their energy guzzling ways. As a piece of symbolism, it's truly empty and meaningless, but does that mean that mean there are no alternatives?

What's Costello's solution? Is climate change not real? So we can forget about it and go on with our gas guzzling, plasma devouring ways? Then why not simply say it? Why not propose that we can simply go on consuming on into an eternally glorious future? With the supply of oil infinite, so that formula one petrol heads can have an eternity of pleasure ...

What amazes me is the way this greenhouse campaign can be switched on and switched off as quickly as the lights during Earth Hour. And for the moment the government has decided to switch it off so we can all get back to talking about health funding.

What amazes me is the way the likes of Costello can deride the greenhouse campaign, yet also switch off the discussion of the dud coalition policy designed to do something by way of 'direct action', in a way which will allow us to keep eating our cake while demonstrating care for the environment. Substituting feeble socialist initiatives sponsored by government in preference to the marketplace initiative they once championed.

But that's because, you see, the progressives are just lap dogs for the lick spittle government:

Our monthly Anglican newspaper broadly reflects the prevailing progressive left opinion. In the December issue, in the lead-up to the government's self imposed timetable for securing the emissions trading legislation, it ran four extensive articles on the need for action over climate change. It published no contrary views.

In fact, the Copenhagen summit was given more column inches than Christmas, which is quite an achievement for a religious newspaper. But the issue has hardly registered in the newspaper since. Even though nothing has happened, the urgency has gone out of the campaign.

Oh no, not more inches than Christmas! Not that we'd in any way question the sincerity of people who foolishly believe that the Himalayan glaciers are melting:

The activists from NGOs who flew to Copenhagen to get urgent action on carbon emissions have gone back to their previous causes. This doesn't mean they are insincere - on the contrary. It's just that their enthusiasm can be heightened or lessened with adroit management from the political professionals running the government's election year agenda.

WTF? What previous causes? Did everyone who believed the coalition offered up its ETS as a solution were simply mugs being fed prime quality wheat and corn just to vote Costello and co. back into the comfy chairs of office?

Why do I get the feeling that blather about the moral and political dimensions of climate change is, in the hands of Costello, just another way of spreading darkness, rather than illumination?

He should spend a little time in China, which currently has areas in deep drought, and cities with air that settles in the throat in the same way it must once have done in industrial Britain in the old days. And squillions of people devouring resources as if there was no tomorrow, thoughtfully provided by Australia.

The one joy? Costello continues to irritate his readers, or at least those sufficiently driven by rage to offer up a comment on his truly stunning moral pomposity. I particularly liked this one:

Exaggeration, trust, honesty, political expediency, climate change...an Ouija Board of hypocrisy Peter?

Oh yes, pass me the ouija board. And bring back Barnaby so that we can have an even more informed debate on the moral dimensions of climate change.

(Below: another oldie).