In which the pond enters the echo chamber of the bromancer and dinkum coal for the world expert Lloydie ...

There's nothing like a meme to start the day, and as a way of leading the pond into the profound truth of this little reptile story ...

The pond was startled. Guilty as charged. 

Having abandoned tree killer echo chambers, the pond is now a slave to the online Murdochian reptile echo chamber ... yet strangely, it doesn't emerge with existing views reinforced, so much as mad as hell and determined not to take it any more ...

But the echo chamber is a wondrous thing, and it's a marvel to see it in operation, as the murmuration of starlings whirls in unison ...

Please allow the pond to ignore the usual culture wars of the day. 

They would make a fine example of the starlings at play, especially the Terrorists ...

But instead, here, see this ... the bromancer has become an expert climate scientist ...

It's preposterous of course ... he's supposed to be something to do with foreign affairs - please, don't get the pond smirking about his affairs, foreign or domestic - yet here he is, a jack of all trades and talents, or in short, a jack ass ...

Now cynics will note that already the mantras of the climate denialist have crept into the conversation: "No one knows precisely how much climate change is occurring or how much of it is caused by human activity."

That's the way to spread confusion, chaos and inertia. 

Throw in impotence and the job is done: "It is true that nothing Australia does will have a measurable effect on the global climate."

People can argue amongst themselves as to which level of awareness and denialism the bromancer has reached ...

The pond thinks it might be the wrong scale. It's possible the bromancer has reached OT-VII level, which is to say the same as Kirstie Alley and Tom Cruise, which permits a little magical mind-reading ...

Because Australian coal is so much cleaner ... and now, since Operating Thetans have reared their ugly heads, will we get a mention of religion at the end of the bromancer piece?

Yes, there it is, the classic bait and switch ... "climate change religion."

Only your climate denialist steeped in the religion of coal dubs it thus. Only someone completely bereft of science seeks, transubstantiation style, to convert the discussion to idle chat about religion.

Only a fuckwit of the most sublime kind, in a discussion of science, bursts out with a "God help us."

Your god isn't going to help you, stupid one. She's off attending to other parts of the universe ... or maybe She doesn't exist ...

Now if the pond didn't exist in the reptile bubble chamber, it might head off to The Conversation and read Lynette Molyneaux's Is 'clean coal' power the answer to Australia's emissions targets?

But naughty Lynne - god help us all - offers data, which clearly makes her a part of the climate change religion ...

Instead the pond plunged back into the echo chamber to discover where the bromancer - always a copycat, and a bludging one at that - got his ideas from, and so to see the resident scribbler for dinkum coal, coal, coal (oi oi oi day) doing it for the reptiles ...

Now in the usual Lloydie way, this is something of an epic, so the pond just has to pause for a moment to marvel at Lloydie quoting the Donald because the denialist Donald is such a deliverer of the paranoid goods ...

And now, it being important to stay in this echo chamber, it's back to Lloydie ...

Yes, it's dinkum coal, coal, coal for the woorrrld ...

(you can get your New Yorker daily cartoon here)

Considering what day it is, the pond should probably keep adding an oi, oi, oi, before doing even more hard yards with Lloydie ...

By golly, he never shuts up, does he, but then recycling the press releases of industry lobby groups is an onerous business and nobody does it better than Lloydie ...

Yes, there'll be pie in the sky some time soon, and meantime, it's dinkum coal, coal, coal for the woorrrld ...

Now if the pond were outside the echo chamber, it might head off to The Conversation to read about the current situation of fusion power, and wonder just how soon Lloydie's dream is going to come to pass ...the idea being that we just keep using coal, coal, coal, oi, oi, oi until a technological fix comes along and sorts out everything like magic ...

Speaking, as we were, of operating thetan religions ...

But the pond doesn't like straying outside the echo chamber, not when the conversation inside is such a joy to behold ...

Oh democracy, huzzah, huzzah ... it's Dr Freud and coal, coal, coal for the ages ...

And so to a couple of Rowes, which will provide a nice uplifting distraction, and hope for the energy future ...

Oh yes, it's going to be great, it's going to be huge, no matter what angle you look at it from ...

Oh you naughty, naughty Rowe, and more naughty Rowe here ... including this pussycat joke ...