For a while, News Corp executives and editors thought they could brazen out the bushfire catastrophe.
They thought they could run the conspiracy theories that arsonists and a lack of fuel reduction (as a result of out-of-control Greens) were the real cause of the fires; pretend it had nothing to do with climate change; and demonise the criticism by other outlets of the coverage of The Australian, The Telegraph, Sky News and other Murdoch platforms for denialism as a kind of war on free speech and diversity of opinion.
Things fell apart pretty quickly.
The arson argument was rapidly exposed as a lie by police, and even foreign outlets like the BBC and Vox as well as fact-checking sites demolished claims advanced by The Australian and extremist websites. The claims about lack of fuel reduction were debunked by the most authoritative figure of all — NSW Rural Fire Service commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons.
He specifically rejected the idea, advanced by News Corp and the government, that a lack of hazard reduction burning was a key cause. Conspiracy theorists were also unable to come up with any actual evidence that Greens politicians at any level had stopped hazard reduction.
And even as News Corp defended its coverage, cracks were appearing there too.
A News Corp finance manager, Emily Townsend, went public with a damning email that nailed the “irresponsible, dangerous and damaging” coverage by the company. On Tuesday, a panicked News Corp announced a $5 million donation to bushfire relief (Australian journalists were the only people who retweeted its puff piece on the donation).
Five million dollars is a tiny fraction of the tax News Corp and its predecessor companies have dodged in Australia over the decades, but that was forgotten in the self-congratulation.
However, any positive reaction beyond “arsonist offers a fire extinguisher” was overwhelmed when James Murdoch slammed News Corp’s climate denialism, particularly its “ongoing denial among the news outlets in Australia given obvious evidence to the contrary”.
The Australian would usually respond to high-profile criticism with a holy war against the critic — dozens of articles running to tens of thousands of words smearing them. But this time, the calls were coming from inside the house. The high-profile rejection of thermal coal by BlackRock’s Larry Fink only added to the sense that denialists were increasingly isolated.
With its standard blatant climate denialism looking less sustainable by the day, News Corp had limited options. Then they remembered the old lesson: if you’re losing an argument, change the argument.
Thus the NT News, purporting to offer some sort of departure from the in-house denialism, declared it was time to discuss climate change — but not, it insisted, by “armies of keyboard warriors”. Australia needed “real, affordable solutions”.
Of course Australia had a “real affordable solution” in place with the Gillard government’s carbon pricing scheme, which drove down emissions with a minimal impact on inflation, but News Corp led the charge against that.
An idea of the kind of debate News Corp wants was indicated in The Daily Telegraph editorial yesterday. It noted that “Australia contributes only a very small amount of human-generated carbon dioxide” but that decreasing emissions would “demonstrate Australia’s global goodwill”.
The editorial went on to laud Scott Morrison’s climate strategy while criticising Labor for failing to have a policy.
So we have an idea of what kind of climate debate the Murdochs — James apparently apart — would accept: around “affordable” solutions that reflect the government’s woefully inadequate emissions targets and its current strategy (whatever that actually is).
Expect to hear a lot more about “adaptation”, which Scott Morrison is already pushing as the key theme of his allegedly “evolved” climate policy (an evolution that, as John Hewson correctly pointed out, has suckered press gallery journalists and no one else).
Adaptation is, of course, critical given that we are already experiencing damage from global warming and have set a course for a further, perhaps dramatically greater, increase in temperatures. As plenty have noted, Morrison’s new emphasis on adaptation is at odds with his abolition of adaptation programs.
But emphasising adaptation only — rather than mitigation — is the fossil fuel industry’s preferred framing of climate policy.
The message is, we can’t do anything about climate change, so we’ll just have to adapt to it as best we can — and therefore we need maximum economic growth and development to pay for it.
The self-serving fatalism pedalled by “adaptation” enthusiasts is at odds with reality — we very much can radically decarbonise our economies without massive economic dislocation. The all-too-brief experience with carbon pricing in Australia demonstrates it.
And we have to — no amount of “adaptation” is going to work on a planet headed for a global increase of four degrees in temperature. But that, of course, is exactly where News Corp doesn’t want any discussion of climate science to go.
“armies of keyboard warriors”? …. Like Murdoch’s armies of orcs and trolls?
“trolls”? Is this moderation serious????
Carbon pricing was obsolesced by the international target of net zero emissions. Anyone trying to introduce a carbon trading scheme would give carbon criminals a right to emit. Now that we know that any emissions at all damage the climate, no one should have a right to emit, not at any price. Achieving net zero emissions requires the whole world to roll out completely non-carbon power. Labor needs to study how in government they (and the world) can achieve “real, affordable solutions”.
Realistically, any method of approaching zero is going to be decremental, including carbon pricing. Success depends on the rate and the deadline.
Here’s one thing relatively simple test for Scott Morrison that might convince me that he (and the rest of the Libs and Nats) are genuine in their new-found pious concern for climate change: say ‘no’ to new coal mines. Not in the Galilee Basin, not anywhere.
Other needed actions, such as closing down existing coal-powered generation capacity and retraining workforce and so on will all take time, but a declaration of no new mines can be done immediately.
The current fires have made it painfully obvious – if it wasn’t obvious already – that if we (and they) are serious about climate change mitigation, the coal that is in the ground needs to stay in the ground.
Until such time as he does this, I will regard every word about climate change that comes from his mouth as a lie and/or a diversionary tactic.
And similarly, of course, for the News Corp brigade.
The best argument against the Galilee Basin mines is the potential for water catastrophe. They will not change the world’s coal consumption.
Water is the key as to why the Carmichael mine should not proceed.
We are in drought and the area in question is in drought, so why is a thermal coal mine going to be allowed to pump a river dry and have an unlimited draw down of water from the artesian basin.
The general public think that the artesian basin is a limitless source and they are very wrong.
The basin relies upon rainfall in distant parts filtering down through permeable layers to the impermeable one. What if it doesn’t rain??
No top up for the basin and then there is already an enormous draw down for the fracking gas fields.
What happens to all the towns and properties reliant upon bore water for their main water supply when the basin water level drops below the level of the bores supplying these people?
All of these people are at risk of losing their homes, lives and agricultural production for about 49 jobs on a fully automated thermal coal mine.
Is that logical economically?
Oh, I suppose it is nothing that the National’s senator Bridget McKenzie can’t fix with a nice dollop of our tax money to a sporting association nearby.
It’s not just tha t the artesian basin h as to be replenished by rain far away .its the time that it takes to filter through the variouslayers .about 2million years I believe.
Yes it is the time lag in renewal that is the ‘killer’ rational argument to excess and currently unmonitored consumption. As I understand it there are no reliable figures for either consumption or rate of recharge.
Adaptation is a great word, isn’t it? The more times you say it, the more vague its meaning. Another Weasel Word courtesy of Scotty from Marketing.
Adaptation and mitigation are the most necessary actions at present, because despite the bullshit if News and Craig Kelly climate change is here. The reason Morrison should essentially be declared a criminal along with some of his cronies is that they know this bloody well. Now you can argue till the end of time about the reasons, but not the fact. But almost every action of the coalition has been the opposite of what is needed. This is here and now, anything we do about CO2 is necessary and vital, but the time frame on mitigation is yesterday.