Michael McGuire: Australia needs to take climate change seriously
Australia’s deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, has been calling out the “raving lunatics” who persist in linking bushfires with climate change. Well Michael, it’s time to get real and back science over ideology.
Opinion
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The deputy prime minister is a bloke called Michael McCormack. You may or may not have heard of him. But a wise and sage bloke is our Michael.
Just this week for example he was calling out those mad lefties who persist in linking unprecedented bushfires with climate change.
Talking of the victims of the ferocious fires, the bold Michael said: “They don’t need the ravings of some pure, enlightened and woke capital city greenies at this time.’’
He told these “raving inner-city lunatics’’ to pipe down. And rightly so.
So, just to help out Mick, here are some other mad ideologues he better keep an eye on.
“Defence views climate change as a complex and increasing challenge which poses a range of risks nationally, regionally and globally. It acts as a risk multiplier, exacerbating other security challenges.’’ – The notorious commies at Australian Defence Force.
“The danger of global warming is as yet unseen, but real enough for us to make changes and sacrifices, so that we do not live at the expense of future generations. It may be cheaper or more cost-effective to take action now than to wait and find we have to pay much more later.” – That was virulent socialist and woke queen Margaret Thatcher in 1990.
“Climate change, with its potential to impact every corner of the world, is an issue that must be addressed by the world,’’ said that disgusting peacenik US president George W. Bush in 2001.
“The current trajectory of water use and management in Australia is not sustainable. In a protracted drought, and with the prospect of long-term climate change, we need radical and permanent change’’ said John Howard in 2007. (Wait. That John Howard?)
“The evidence is abundant: global warming is indisputable. The planet will survive. Many species may not. All emitters, resource companies, customers, consumers must play their part together with governments to meet the climate challenge.’’ – BHP chief hippie Andrew Mackenzie this year.
“The impacts of climate change are real and are now being felt across the state. Climate change will lead to more extreme and intense weather events across the year, which creates a greater likelihood of natural disasters occurring.” – The South Australian Country Fire Service. And what would they know about bushfires?
“It is useful to remind ourselves regularly of the capacity of human beings to persist in stupid beliefs in the face of significant, contradictory evidence.’ – US Army War College in its 2019 paper Implications of Climate Change for the US Army.
This is the point. This has been coming for a long time. The potential dangers of climate change have been known for a long time. And we have been let down by our body politic for a long time. There is plenty of blame to go around. Liberal, Labor and Green.
For a decade we have fiddled, playing petty politics, and now the nation burns.
These latest fires may or may not be the direct result of climate change but the science says Australia is becoming hotter, drier, more prone to severe weather events, so you do the maths. There are going to be many more days like these.
Then we have people like Barnaby Joyce and a Queensland Liberal senator called Gerard Rennick who popped up the other day to say the Bureau of Meteorology was manipulating weather data to suit a global warming agenda. Where do we find these people? But they are only echoing ideas put forward by the intellectual bin bag that is the Institute of Public Affairs, a “think” tank with close ties to the Liberals.
Then we’re told we can’t talk about the causes of the fires while the fires burn. As if it’s not possible to walk and chew gum at the same time. It’s reminiscent of the approach taken by the National Rifle Association in the US after each and every mass shooting. Now is not the time to discuss gun control. But if not now, when?
Australia has to start to take climate change seriously. It has to stop substituting science for ideology. We need to work together to find solutions. And we need to start now.