‘Vindicated’ Tim Flannery unfazed by climate change critics

Dr Tim Flannery, the 2007 Australian of the Year, is the most famous environmentalist in the country and was one of the first people to warn of the dangers of climate change.

Fitz: Tim, despite the flak, you talk as a prophet ahead of your time. Most sensible people will now concede you were right on warning of the dangers of climate change and the denialists were wrong. Do you feel tragically vindicated?

Tim Flannery searches for fossils on the side of the road in the Upper Hunter of NSW in April.Credit: Janie Barrett

TF: I do feel vindicated. Not sure about “tragically”. We do still have time to get on top of climate change, but we have to move quickly.

Fitz: Even now, however, your critics bring up some of your predictions that were wrong, or at least not yet true, like predicting Perth “will be the 21st century’s first ghost metropolis”. Have you been scarified by that constant bitter criticism?

TF: Not in the least. It goes with the territory I am in. They always leave off the last half of that quote, which was that they’d be the first ghost metropolis unless they made changes. Well, they made changes. Half of Perth’s water now comes from desalination and a few years ago their water commissioner personally thanked me for sounding the warning they needed to get things done. As to the critics, most of them are just doing a job. They are paid lobbyists for the fossil fuel industry. I cannot take them seriously.

Fitz: Announcing you as Australian of the Year in 2007, then prime minister John Howard said you had “encouraged Australians into new ways of thinking about our environmental history and future ecological challenges” and even he went into that year’s election with a policy to reduce emissions. Despite the deniability of climate change now, have we gone backwards since then as a nation in dealing with it?

Tony Abbott stopped funding the Climate Council when he became prime minister.Credit: Andrew Meares

TF: We have. Largely due to the power of the aforementioned fossil fuel lobbyists and the growing power of the far-right in politics.

Fitz: A significant leap forward in their power was when Tony Abbott became prime minister and the very first action of his government was to have then environment minister Greg Hunt call you to dissolve the Climate Council which you chaired. Were you embittered?

TF: No. I saw it coming. And besides, who’s still here? I am, and the Climate Council goes on, it’s just privately funded. And I don’t know where Tony Abbott is. Taiwan, or somewhere, yes?

Independent MP Zali Steggall won Warringah from Tony Abbott.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Fitz: Where are your energies going now?

TF: Still going into the Climate Council, advising on how to deal with the challenges we face; growing new champions of activism, influencing the people who can make change to do so. I do a lot of work with the Voices movement, hopefully helping to grow independents like Zali Steggall. I am also trying to help in Melanesia, protecting remaining rainforests and biodiversity in places like the Solomons, New Guinea and West Papua. And I am shortly going to the climate change conference in Glasgow.

Fitz: What will Glasgow achieve?

TF: Ideally, get the world on the same page. And it has never been more open, with a lot of things up for debate that have not been previously arranged. But there is a lot happening. Most people in the world now get the urgent need for change, which helps, and the fact that clean energy is cheaper than ever and getting cheaper is also significant.

Gina Rinehart’s video for St Hilda’s Anglican School.

Fitz: Do you believe the federal government has genuinely found religion when it comes to taking action on climate change, with more and more of its parliamentarians now beating the drum, or is it all a put-on?

TF: Certain elements within the government know that it is absolutely vital that they change, for the country, for the planet and to win the next election. And the electorate has changed. They all saw what happened when Warringah changed but Tony Abbott didn’t. And I think even Scott Morrison sort of gets it now. I believe he learned a lesson from the bushfires. We had been trying to get to him for months before then, warning of what was to happen. Then when they did happen he went to Hawaii and the electorate reacted accordingly. There was a lesson in that.

Fitz: This week footage emerged of Gina Rinehart telling her old school to do their own research and ignore the nonsense about climate change. Do you ever throw a shoe at the television when stuff like that comes out?

TF: No. I am beyond that. I think, “poor Gina”. Twiggy Forrest now gets it too, and will make his next billions out of embracing the green economy, and she will miss out.

Fitz: Sir David Attenborough once describe you as being “in the league of the all-time great explorers like Dr David Livingstone” for your work in documenting some of Australia’s earliest wildlife. Do you despair at our population’s continuing neglect to preserve and nurture the wildlife we do have?

TF: I do get pretty upset, particularly when I see the ongoing land-clearing in NSW and Queensland. They don’t realise that as well as destroying biodiversity they are destroying their future prosperity.

Fitz: Your final words to the mob, for this interview?

TF: It’s not too late. Let’s develop great new policies, embracing clean energy and protecting what we still have. It’s not too late, but we must act.

Back in your box

While here in Australia the numbers of our anti-vaxxers are seriously dwindling as their position becomes ever more tragically absurd, alas, the same cannot be said in the United States. Here was the scene on Hollywood Boulevard last Saturday morning, as anti-vaccination protest ambled along.

Woman on loudspeaker: “Do you see all of these homeless people around. Are they dead in the street with COVID? Hell no. Why?”

Homeless person (walking by): “Because I’m vaccinated you dumb f---!”

Let’s not party like it’s 2019

As to Premier Dominic Perrottet’s plan to take away some of the speeding signs on our road map to recovery, I am as keen as everyone else. But doesn’t the Victorian experience offer a warning? They were batting 900 new COVID-19 infections a day, right up until the AFL Grand Final. Just one night of surreptitious parties as people gathered to watch the match together and five days later, like clockwork, they surged by 500 cases and have not recovered since. Yes, we have a heavier rate of vaccination than them, but if just one night of a few thousand gatherings on the sly can cause that level of damage, do we not risk a similar surge if we resume business as usual too soon?

Joke of the week

The swing doors of the Last Chance Saloon burst open and in strides the sheriff, as the whole bar falls quiet. “I’s lookin’,” the sheriff announces loudly, ’fer the Brown-Paper Cowboy.”

“Wass’ he look like, sheriff?” asks the bartender.

“Waaaal, he’s got him a big ol’ brown-paper hat, wears brown-paper shirts, brown-paper pants and brown-paper boots. He’s got him a brown-paper gun that fires brown-paper bullets and he rides him a big ol’ brown-paper hoss.”

“Waaaal, sheriff,” the bartender replies, “I caint say that we rightly seen him in these parts, but we’ll sure as hell keep an eye out fer him. Saaaay, what do you want him fer, anyway?‘

“Rustlin’.”

Tweet of the week

“Save Australia!!! We are being held captive here by universal healthcare, no guns, abundant sunshine and low covid rates. Help!!!” Journalist @Paul_Karp in response to the bizarre American protest outside the Australian consulate in New York, calling on people to “save Australia” from punitive responses to COVID-19.

Quote of the week

“If he so much as kicks a cat, he’ll be back in jail.” – Police Minister David Elliott trying to assure the public that infamous rapist Mohammad Skaf, let out on parole this week after nearly 21 years in prison, will be fully monitored on the outside.

What they said

“I always said I’d give people a choice. They have chosen emphatically. Democracy is the winner today, Dominic Perrottet will be a magnificent premier.” – Rob Stokes puts on a brave face after losing 39-5 in the last Premiership match of the season to Dominic Perrottet.

“Today begins a new chapter for NSW. We’re going to take our state from good to great.” – New Premier Dominic Perrottet on the day of his ascension.

“It is certainly not a model we ever consider at a federal level, anything that has been on display for some time. You have got to have processes that assume people are innocent before they are thought to be guilty.” – Prime Minister Scott Morrison on the possibilities of a federal Independent Commission Against Corruption. ICAC made no pronouncements on guilt or innocence. It simply announced it was investigating the Premier.

“This is not the great righteous process, it’s a little bit Spanish Inquisition. We elect politicians, not bureaucrats. People should be the final arbiter. The bureaucracy reigns supreme here and politicians are basically terrified to do their job.” – Barnaby Joyce about the NSW ICAC.

“The ICAC has almost certainly done exactly what the usual system requires, which is that there is a detailed private, in-camera investigation first, before they decide to call a public inquiry; the premier has been given notice of the matters that they are looking at investigating; they seem to be entirely proper matters for investigation. Now, to call this the Spanish Inquisition is really just a very silly comment.” – Former senior judge Stephen Charles, who sat on the bench of Victoria’s highest court for more than a decade and now is a prominent voice advocating for the commonwealth to create a federal anti-corruption commission with similar powers to the NSW ICAC.

“We will stop at nothing to make sure that we get more rapists behind bars and we have more successful prosecutions for rape and for sexual violence. Because that, I think, is going wrong.” – British Prime Minister Boris Johnson talking the talk.

“We’re not your average surfer chicks; we are not 19 with two-metre long legs ... We’re a group of fun-loving older women who raised more money than any other team, including the Billabong team. Everyone lost a lot of connections in lockdown, and we did too, but we’ve formed really strong relationships through this. The challenge to surf every single day was tough at times, but our sisterhood made it possible.” – Mona La Cour, co-ordinator of the Surfie Chicks Eastern Suburbs group, which raised more than $33,000 to support the charity Surf Aid by surfing for 30 consecutive days in September.

“The aim is to accelerate Australia’s COVID-19 vaccination program in a safe way throughout the month of October. The faster we reach higher vaccination rates nationally, higher than 80 per cent, the sooner we all can safely resume our full range of community and business activity. The purpose of the promotion is not to convince people to be vaccinated. That’s a decision you should make in consultation with a health professional.” – Craig Winkler, co-founder of software firm MYOB and part of the Million Dollar Vax Alliance, a group of philanthropists and corporations that hopes to push national vaccination rates above 80 per cent, announcing a $1 million prize on offer to Australians who get both jabs before mid-December.

“Her [Gladys Berejiklian’s] demise, I honestly just felt sick when I saw that. I wasn’t willing to continue in the cabinet. I’d always had a bit of ambition to go federal and I just never got into the right space, right time, I suppose. I had been sitting on an 80-20 decision, and then it really just sunk in that I needed to move on.” – NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance saying that he has quit state Parliament for a tilt at federal politics in the seat of Gilmore in the 2022 election. Doesn’t he sound excited, and ungrammatical.

“I often hear about psychic mediums ... and wonder if they come in small and large.” – @steve_arama

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