Well, it’s possible that we just may get a silent spring — but in a good way. The silence will be that of the right after the release of the IPCC’s sixth assessment report (or part one thereof). It hit the world webs two days ago and is effectively the world scientific community’s announcement that the target of holding increase to 1.5 degrees in this century has gone by the bye. So far there’s been precious little by way of the usual right responses — the data cherry-picking, the reproduced communiques of Lord Monckton, the guffawing jokes about it being winter, we could do with some global warming in Melbourne fnar fnar fnar. Has the denialist right finally run up the white flag?
Let’s hope so, because the sixth report is another example of that grisly modern genre — your own suicide note, but received through the mail. We will need zero-net emissions by 2050 to hold things between 1.5 and 2 degrees, and warming will continue for 20 years after that before it is slowed to a halt. It’s the 1.5 degrees-plus threshold that the news has focused on, in part because the report has focused more specific attention on modelling multiple scenarios of a zero-by-2050 scheme — and also because the sixth report has had some criticism of the way in which the fifth report had communicated threshold risks, such as the possible mass methane release from the thawing of Siberian permafrost.
But the melancholy fact from the sixth report is that the possibility of catastrophe hasn’t gone away. Threshold events such as the permafrost melting or disruptions of ocean currents are of low probability but they are still possible, and they would threaten the ability of modernised human society to reproduce itself, a massive and epochal reversal of the human condition. The report has also remedied earlier reports’ lack of attention to warming inequality, and how it will impact the rich and poor differently — hence the attention to the inundation of the Pacific Islands. Africa — where, the report says, effects will be disastrous for hundreds of millions — didn’t get much of a look-in.
But as I say, despite this stepping back from the more apocalyptic scenarios, nothing from the right. In past years it would have jumped on it — not so bad after all, we might get a tan fnar fnar fnar. Has it suddenly come to its senses? Well, not it, but possibly “he”. As a glance at London’s The Times shows, global warming is once again accepted within the Murdoch empire, and the politics has shifted to the question of what to do about it. The brave contrarians who populate the News Corp papers have suddenly all discovered they would rather talk about anything else. Will the Bolter bolt on this? He hasn’t yet. Perhaps The Spectator or Quadrant will have a go. If the loon pond is drying up, good to keep a puddle to remember it as it was.
Whether this was Rupert’s deep and brooding study of the science, or News Corp’s simple realisation that he couldn’t get away with it any more in his mainstream product (I haven’t, and won’t be, checking Fox or Sky AF, sorry Sky AD) is a mystery for the ages, but it’s just another stage in the lurching hysteria that is the right on global warming.
News Corp pursued a strong denialist position for a number of years in the 1990s and 2000s, with all its major, mainstream, comparatively “centrist” figures joining in. Ian Plimer’s shoddy book Heaven+Earth was pushed hard, and so too was denialist bug-eyed loon Monckton — before he jumped off climate change and became an Obama birtherist.
Then under the influence, it seems, of James Murdoch, News Corp announced its green conversion, that the organisation would be carbon neutral, and Rupert announced that the carbon neutral message would be pushed in his papers’ articles, which was a great demonstration of his view of a free press. Then it was all change again, and a new wave of denialism returned. Was it a last hurrah?
Let’s hope so. If what has to be fought over is whether a genuine commitment by us to zero-net by 2050 or earlier makes a difference — it does — then that is an enormous advance. If Barnaby Joyce is now obstructing a net-zero commitment for rural privilege, then Labor should use that in the Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide middle-class marginals (poster/ad with a photo of Morrison and a photo of Barnaby: “Vote for Scooter, get the Beetrooter”. No, you’re welcome). All of it is at least on a plane of rationality. We’ve won that battle, and that battle was the Somme.
But what sheer destruction of possibility and the future it has been! What a waste of time and energy! What stupid, narcissistic self-indulgence on the part of people who live in a scientific civilisation, whose every part of life is created by the same science that goes into forecasting global warming. Bolt, Planet Janet, Piers the Nose, Tim the Bag, crazy Craig Kelly the furniture king, loofah in a suit Rowan Dean, and the “centrist” equivocators who didn’t have the guts to fight for a rational approach on the right. We wish them all long life — so that they can spend their old age explaining to the people looking after them why they damaged their lives and prospects with their pernicious, amoral, nihilistic two-decades-long continental-scale methane release of lies. Fnar fnar fnar.
Why would the loony right climate change deniers bother with continuing to spout their contrarian claptrap? They’ve already won. We’re now subsidizing the building of fossil fuel plants and Labor is supporting them. Both parties accept “donations” from the fossil fuel lobby.
Nothing further needs to be done. They’ve won the battle.
They won the war when atmospheric CO2 reached 400 ppm (9 May 2013, the day after the 68th anniversary of VE day).
If Barnaby Joyce is now obstructing a net-zero commitment for rural privilege, then Labor should use that in the Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide middle-class marginals (poster/ad with a photo of Morrison and a photo of Barnaby: ‘Vote for Scooter, get the Beetrooter’. No, you’re welcome).”
Love it. As for rural privilege, ever been this way since squatters took up land and the gentry confiscated it from the rightful indigenous custodians.
“In Australia, ‘agriculture’ contributes around 13% of our greenhouse gas emissions each year. By weight, about half of the agricultural sector’s emissions – or 42% – are methane. Most of this is the methane produced by cows and other livestock due to the fermentation of plant matter in their stomachs. Smaller volumes of emissions come from other sources such as fertiliser applied to vegetable crops and wastes, including manure and decaying vegetable matter.
Another separate source of emissions related to agriculture is land clearing for pastures and grazing land. While the climate impact of land clearing is partly offset by land restoration activity elsewhere and management of Australia’s forests, land clearing for agriculture nonetheless contributes significantly to Australia’s total emissions. Australia has repeatedly been identified as a global hotspot for land-clearing, and much of this has occurred to facilitate the growth of the agricultural sector.
In recent years, agriculture and associated land clearing released around 115 million tonnes of greenhouse gas (measured as carbon dioxide equivalent) into the atmosphere per year, according to conventional analyses. In comparison, burning fossil fuels for energy released around 400 million tonnes of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, measured using the same approach.” Climate Council
Already the agriculture sector’s emissions are not fully counted as emissions from certain agricultural activities, including the fuel you put in your car….all tax deductible of course under the rural privilege of primary producers tax lurks enjoyed for donkeys years by lawyers, foreign land owners, pension funds, state owned companies and others of their ilk including Turnbull.
No way Zeke. They’ve won a couple of battles for sure. But I have seen the children rise, and children have a dastardly habit of turning into VOTORS!
The battles the right have won are 100% the result of Murdoch’s miss use of his virtual monopoly of newspapers and TV, especially in Queensland and NSW. His definition of ‘Free Speech’ has been that he and his minions have been free to say what they like, with anyone else either denied voice or declared ‘left’ or worse the ABC he is determined to close.
You are right that the LNP and a liberal light Labor have both surrendered on this issue, however that is not the end of the war. Just look to NZ for what a progressive young female LEADER can deliver. That’s all that’s missing here LEADERSHIP and ‘we the people’ can choose to do something about this situation, or not.
Talk to your kids and find a candidate that addresses their concerns. Whether they are Green or Independent that is where we will drive change, not within the current crooked Lib/Labor crock of tish.
I’m more inclined to think it’s a deliberate strategy. They will lay low when the spotlight is on and the release of the report is newsworthy. Speaking against it right now risks attracting strong criticism that garners a lot of public attention. Once it has slipped out of the news cycle again, the white anting will begin.
In terms of the Murdock empire it is about the money always; if he / they can make more money by pushing a particular line then they will do that. If something happens and the alternate line is seen to harvest more money then he / they will change to directly the opposite with absolutely no expression of remorse. Rupert and his 2 gutless sons live by one guiding rule how to make money all the time. They are just like the Covid19 virus they mutate to suit the end goal of more money even at the expense of the host.
Well said Bloggs, however I believe that once more people awake to the Murdoch Empires deliberate misinformation program (an exact copy of the tobacco industry’s methodology to create doubt about the dangers of their product), then the Murdoch’s will learn that they may have a right to free speech but they do not have a right to be protected from the consequences of their speech.
They will pay for the damage they have deliberately vested on our children and our children’s children.
They’ll just wait for the next cold snap.
The Gerard Henderson modus operandi.
I think you are right, Graeski, but I do persist in believing, more and more forlornly, that they will lie low.
As world beating Limbo lickspittles, it never ceases to amaze that there is no limit to “how low can they go?”.
The big issue isn’t the loonies but the “proportional response” crowd. Same as with Covid. I hope I’m wrong but I see little to be optimistic about even in relatively green Europe.
The sheer scale of meaningful action is not mentioned – emissions only dropped around 17% when half the world was locked down last year and Mumbai and Beijing residents could see the sky!
I expect more green washing and locally more “we’ll do something when they do something”.
A vote for any Liberal in any electorate in Australia is a vote to keep Barnaby Joyce running climate policy (https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2021/08/10/coalition-climate-change-deniers/).
Guy, your last paragraph is a wonderful summation of the evil that men do, as well as a cry from the heart. More power to you.
Yes such a good article.
Bolt, Planet Janet, Piers the Nose, Tim the Bag, crazy Craig Kelly the furniture king, loofah in a suit Rowan Dean, and the “centrist” equivocators who didn’t have the guts to fight for a rational approach on the right. We wish them all long life — so that they can spend their old age explaining to the people looking after them why they damaged their lives and prospects with their pernicious, amoral, nihilistic two-decades-long continental-scale methane release of lies.
I heard these on the take mouthpieces for sale on a radio in a shop, it is devastating and they should be removed as per posts and videos