Brooding about crap ...

(Above: more Wilcox here)

The pond is inclined to brood ...

It's an unfortunate tendency, and it leads towards an expectation that Christians will tell the truth ... which is really deluded and silly, and likely in due course to lead to cynicism, especially when contemplating ostensibly Xian politicians.

Now it's clear enough that back in the day, Tony Abbott did say that climate science was crap.

We can turn to wikipedia, in the manner of Greg "Wikipedia" Hunt to remind ourselves of what the Pyrenees Advocate reported:

In a wide ranging speech, Mr Abbott talked about climate change, the Liberals [sic] political fortunes and Kevin Rudd. 'The argument (on climate change) is absolute crap,' he said. 'However, the politics of this are tough for us. 80% of people believe climate change is a real and present danger,' Mr Abbott said. (here).

For the avoidance of ambiguity and doubt, we can head off to the reptiles at the lizard Oz, known home of climate deniers, Town of Beautfort changed Tony Abbott's view on climate change:

The Weekend Australian this week returned to Beaufort to talk to those who were with Abbott when he set his foot on the road to Damascus. 
Among them was Joe McCracken, the young vice-president of the Beaufort branch of the Liberal Party. "He did say crap; he did say I'm a sceptic and there was big applause," McCracken says. 
... There were about 130 people in the room, from Beaufort, surrounding towns and farms in between. Senator Julian McGauran was there, along with state MPs David Koch and John Vogels. 
There was also Craig Wilson, editor of the Pyrenees Advocate, standing at the back of the room. Wilson was bored. Abbott spoke for about 20 minutes, plugged his book Battlelines, outlined the difficulties confronting the party and then opened the floor to questions. 
After several questions on the ETS, including the impact on farmers and whether it was wise to commit to a policy before Copenhagen, Abbott called for a show of hands on whether the Coalition should support the ETS. Only a handful voted yes. 
Abbott, until that point Turnbull's main defender on the ETS, became increasingly blunt. According to many in the room, he left no doubt that he was a climate change sceptic. He ruminated there had been many changes of climate over the millennia not caused by man. Finally, he said the science behind climate change was "crap", at which stage Wilson snapped awake. "I think I was nodding off down at the back of the room when all of a sudden he came out with the comment that the science around climate change was `absolute crap' and I kind of jumped back awake and wrote down his quote," Wilson says. 
In the fourth paragraph of Wilson's article, he quoted Abbott as saying, "The argument is absolute crap. However, the politics of this are tough for us. Eighty per cent of people believe climate change is a real and present danger."

It was a turning point for Abbott ... he realised he'd discovered a way he could shake down Malcolm Turnbull, and the Labor party, all in one go dog whistling to the faithful, while at the same time, when convenient, denying his denialism:

Since his election as Liberal leader, Abbott has described his use of "crap" as "a bit of hyperbole" and not his "considered position" and said it was made "in the context of a very heated discussion where I was attempting to argue people around to what I thought was then our position". 
In Beaufort, no one remembers the meeting as heated. Branch secretary Margaret Barling describes it as "a very happy night". Former mayor Robert Vance calls it a friendly gathering of like-minded people. Stoneleigh farmer Phil Bennett says Abbott's explanation is "a very difficult interpretation".

Heated v. not heated? A very difficult interpretation?

That's rural talk for horse shit.

Back to that transformative moment, as Abbott talked to Nick Minchin, a notorious climate science denialist:

About midday, Abbott left Beaufort for Melbourne in a government car. On the way, he writes in his new afterword to Battlelines, he had the long phone conservation with Minchin that crystallised his new thinking, after which he had decided that "the politics of this issue really had changed". 

The rest, as they say, is history, Turnbull done like a dinner, and years of nattering negativity, and never mind the truth of the matter, just dissembling, lies and dog whistling.

Nothing Abbott has since said or done in any way indicates he's resiled from his double-headed, fork-tongued, purely political and Janus-like approach to climate science, which is to say dog whistling denialism and a luke warm public embrace of a window-dressing policy designed to pretend he intends doing something about it, but not too much and which in any other context could be taken as old-fashioned environmentalism ... plant a few trees, improve the atmosphere by phasing out a few of the least efficient coal-powered electricity generators ... and other things that might allow taxpayer money to be funnelled to some good mates ...

So why is the pond brooding?

Well it comes back to Greg "Wikipedia" Hunt, and the feeble defence he offered on the BBC World Service in relation to what Abbott said (as noted in the pond yesterday).

First Hunt found "crap" rude and offensive, which in an Australian context, and never mind that the BBC bleeped it, is a hugely laughable conceit.

Even "shit", and its corollaries, "horse shit" and "bullshit" turn up in all sorts of places, sometimes without an asterisk ...

To get agitated about "crap" is undiluted "crap". Horse shit if you will ...

Second, Hunt claimed that Abbott was having a personal conversation. Horse shit. Abbott was having a conversation with 130 of the faithful, in a political discourse, and with an actual journalist in the room.

Third, Hunt claimed that Abbott was quoted out of context. As the lizard Oz report makes clear, that's also horseshit, or if we're being polite, so as not to offend Hunt's peculiar sensitivity, "a very difficult interpretation".

The conclusion? Well Abbott is a liar, a cunning liar, but a liar all the same, and Greg Hunt, a feeble defender of a liar, and lying himself in the process, with standard lying political gobbledegook - out of context, private conversation, oh please don't say naughty words to me.

Now this is hardly new - after all, it took days for Don Randall to break from cover, and then to cover up the matter of his Cairns trip with feeble excuses, endorsed and confirmed by Tony Abbott, and never mind the pathetic nature of the alibi

Yet the weaker things get, the more it brings out the blood lust (Tony Abbott can't ride out the expenses scandal), and the same hopefully will apply to climate science.

Why does it matter?

Well today the Sydney Fairfaxians are having a little buyer's remorse, featuring Greg Hunt and his denial of the bleeding obvious.

Ditto the Melbourne Faifaxians, who can at least claim that they said 'beware what you're about to buy, it might be faulty, come with defects and much dissembling and lying':

Cheekily, the Fairfaxians label Climate change raising fire risk (forced video at end of link) an exclusive, on the basis of leaking a report due in November, though the notion that climate change is raising fire risk is old news, except apparently to Tony Abbott and Greg Hunt. 

Inter alia, on the matter of Hunt, Heath Aston noted:

...the political storm over the bushfire-climate link shows no sign of abating, with international experts continuing to weigh in to domestic politics and Mr Hunt facing ridicule over using Wikipedia for bushfire facts. The head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, insisted a link existed between rising temperatures and bushfires. 

The Fire Services Commissioner of Victoria, Craig Lapsley, agreed climate conditions increased fire risk. ''The facts are on the table that in Central Australia it was hotter than normal, hotter than any time on record,'' he said. 

But actually if you were reading the reptiles in Murdoch la la land, not only has the bushfire-climate link debate abated, it never got off the ground.

Here's the hard copy for the lizard Oz this day:

Yep, forget talk of central Australia being hot, let's talk about Uluru and maintaining the boom, and inevitably yet another "exclusive" on Labor party navel gazing:

Yep, instead of Labor getting stuck into Hunt and Abbott, Tony Sheldon embarks on yet another bit of blather. Well played Tony Sheldon. Can we call it anal gazing?

Oh and leading the charge in the opinion pages, we have Gra Gra "Swiss bank account" Richardson - or as he's fondly known at the rag as """ -  praising jolly Joe Hockey:

Thanks """, well played ...

Meanwhile, if you scour the other Murdoch tabloids, you'll find bugger all about Hunt and his wiki nonsense, but you'll find plenty of Tony Abbott reaffirming his denialism, including an epic piece of hagiography with the Bolter.

Here's how you ask a question in a brave and bold way, without any loading or apparent bias, in a calm, neutral and objective way, head on and damn the torpedoes:

AB: I've been struck by the insanity of the reaction in the media and outside, particularly linking the fires to global warming and blaming you for making them worse potentially by scrapping the carbon tax. 

Strangely, amazingly, fortuitously, Abbott is struck by the same notion of insanity, and has a soothing answer, as you can read as the Bolter firmly tackles the PM on the big issues:

 PM: I suppose, you might say, that they are desperate to find anything that they think might pass as ammunition for their cause, but this idea that every time we have a fire or a flood it proves that climate change is real is bizarre, 'cause since the earliest days of European settlement in Australia, we've had fires and floods, and we've had worse fires and worse floods in the past than the ones we are currently experiencing. And the thing is that at some point in the future, every record will be broken, but that doesn't prove anything about climate change. It just proves that the longer the period of time, the more possibility of extreme events … The one in 500 year flood is always a bigger flood than the one in 100 year flood. 

At which point the pond starts to brood and to wonder.

What is this climate change? What does it do? Records are just there to be broken, and apparently 7.12 billion or so people - soon enough 9 billion - roaming the planet have had no impact on anything. We've been there and done that in the past, and we'll do it again in the future, and what's all the fuss about?

The alternative? Well Abbott doesn't actually have a clue about climate science, and like the Bolter, he's a denialist, pure and simple.

And how to the Fairfaxians maintain their rage?

Why by running a piece by Abbott headed Brave hearts, cool heads will guide us through long, hot summer ahead:

This sunburnt country of ours tests us often. In the last week it has tested us, but we have not been found wanting. 
Our ability to endure natural disasters has been built up over many years. Fires and floods have tested our character, but they have also strengthened our resolve. 

He can't even pay a tribute to firefighters without slipping in a dog whistle. Sssh, whatever you do, don't mention climate change.

Think of Churchill instead ... bloody, but unbowed, fighting on the beaches, fighting in the fields ...

It might shock the sensitive ears of Greg "Wikipedia" Hunt, but Abbott was, is and will continue to be a denialist, and Hunt his lickspittle lap dog, given the task of rolling out some window-dressing "direct action" to placate the "eighty per cent" of fools who take the issue of climate science seriously.

Meanwhile, the Bolter scored a self-serving win, though it took a little time and an incredible amount of naked, blatant self-interest:

 AB: The ABC, though, has run on almost every current affairs show an almost constant barrage of stuff linking climate change to these fires. 
PM: That is complete hogwash. 

Ah the ABC, talking through their hats, talking hogwash. The local version of the UN.

What to do, what to do?

AB: It is time to really question the bias of the ABC? 
PM: But people are always questioning the "bias" of the ABC. 
AB: Yes, but you're the bloke that is handing over $1.1 billion a year to the ABC to continue a bias that's against their charter. 
PM: If we were starting from scratch we may not have the media landscape that we do, but we're not starting from scratch … The ABC is an important part of a pluralistic media landscape, and I'm not going to complain about it, Andrew. I will do what I can to ensure the ABC is well managed, has got a good board, a strong board, and … 
AB: But would you agree that the bias of the ABC, as observed even by former ABC chairman Maurice Newman, is in breach of its charter? 
PM: I would say that there tends to be an ABC view of the world, and it's not a view of the world that I find myself in total sympathy with. But, others would say that there's a News Limited view of the world. AB: Taxpayers don't pay News Limited. 
PM: But I'm a conservative, I'm a traditionalist. I'm not persuaded that we need radical change here. AB: Does it disturb you that the ABC is venturing into new areas like the internet, in direct competition with Fairfax in particular, offering the same audience the same product for free? 
PM: If the ABC were to come to us, this government, seeking more money to do things that took it into competition with the private sector, we'd say no.

Which effectively rules out any new money for the ABC.

Well that was always on the cards. There was never going to be new money, and likely as not, in due course there will be a substantial set of cuts ...  just as well jjj have snuck in their re-branding of Dig Music as a new station for old farts (triple j launch new digital station for the "over 30s"). Because, you know, old farts can never have enough music ...

If you think about it, anything the ABC does can be construed as being in competition with the private sector - new Australian drama, new news, new internet offerings like iView and The Drum - and everybody from Crikey, the Fairfaxians to the Murdochians have moaned about it, blaming the competition for their woes, rather than look at themselves and wonder why in a rapidly changing world, their potential users have deemed that their "exclusive" services suck, and the punters decide to spend their time and money elsewhere.

Make their products attractive? Make people want to pay money? Make advertisers clamber over firewalls to pay big money to advertise with them?

Too bloody hard.

Will, for example, the Bolter ever forgive or forget that he lurks on a network which has totally failed at everything it's attempted these past few years?

Not bloody likely, not when The Bolter Report can't even beat The Insiders, a totally boring, carefully balanced, typical ABC outing only redeemed by a few newspaper cartoonists that turn up towards the end of the show ...

He can't even out-rate that!

Yep, the Bolter is also a brooder, a resentful, angry man who really never bothers to think about his anger, but instead just lashes out at his enemies and the world. And the ABC. And climate science. And ... how much time you got? All day? All night long? (now there's a song for old farts, coming from a fridge near you).

A psychiatrist would have a field day, but the pond would rather analyse Oscar the Grouch, who at least offers comedy stylings along with the anger ...

(Below: more Tandberg here. Well we can't keep running David Pope every day, but he has a very neat effort regarding Abbott and Hunt at the top of his page today, here).