Energy minister’s climate rant is all smoke and mirrors
Matt Kean is the energy minister. But rather than saving the world in the style of his bossy little Swedish spirit guide, he might be in a position to do something about electricity costs, writes Tim Blair.
Opinion
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“This is not normal,” says NSW minister for Energy and the Environment Minister Matt Kean, referring to Sydney’s current smoke blanket.
Full points for observation. But here’s something else that isn’t normal: being an adult who sounds exactly like 16-year-old Swedish climate doomist and school dropout Greta Thunberg.
For Kean doesn’t just note the relative abnormality of smoke across Sydney.
He also thinks we can magic the smoke away by further reducing Australia’s already-minuscule carbon dioxide emissions – just 1.3 per cent of the planet’s human-created total. NSW’s contribution is obviously smaller still.
China could probably match Sydney’s annual emissions during a busy morning.
“We need to reduce our carbon emissions immediately,” Kean told the Smart Energy Summit in Sydney on Tuesday, “and we need to adapt our practices to deal with this kind of weather becoming the new normal.”
Very well then. Mr Kean is welcome to list all the industries and jobs he thinks should be immediately sacrificed to his climate gods, and to explain how these sacrifices will make any difference at all to our weather.
(And to the destructive practices of arsonists, by the way, whose antics tend to be forgotten in any summer climate discussions.)
“Longer drier periods, resulting in more drought and bushfire,” Kean continued. “If this is not a catalyst for change, then I don’t know what is.”
Global warming is, according to Kean’s analysis, caused by tiny local carbon dioxide inputs and results in Gaia’s local vengeance.
Equally, by immediately reducing carbon emissions from bugger all to less than that, Kean apparently believes we’ll be spared bushfires and smoke. In NSW. In summer. During the – there’s a hint in the name – bushfire season.
To quote a certain minister, this is not normal.
You know what used to be normal? Quarterly power bills that didn’t send families begging to charities.
Kean is the energy minister. Rather than saving the world in the style of his bossy little Swedish spirit guide, he might be in a position to do something about electricity costs.
Because if those power bills aren’t a catalyst for changing the ministry, I don’t know what is.