In 1865, the United States of America descended into civil war, between the Union Army in the north and the Confederate Army in the south. Naturally, there were many different reasons for the conflict, but the predominant issue was the institution of Slavery. The North wanted it abolished and the South wanted it retained. But just imagine, that the north called for the abolition of slavery and the southern states responded by saying “there’s no such thing as Slavery”!
Well, unfortunately, that’s the world we seem to have been living in for the past few years, at least. Our social and political discourse in the 21st century has become so ideologically possessed, that objective facts are almost meaningless.
Australia had a short reprieve from this anti-science lunacy during the corona virus pandemic. Sadly, many other nations caught in the grip of blithe science deniers have not been so lucky, like Brazil and the USA.
But never under-estimate the fear of Government intervention. One of the more paranoid theories, was that the Covid vaccine was nothing more than a tool for the government to start tracking you. Why? What information could the government want that you haven’t already given to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, Apple, Samsung, Sony, Microsoft, Amazon, Ebay, Craigslist, Tinder, PornHub, YouTube, Netflix, Disney, Hulu, your Telephone provider, your Utilities provider, your Employer, your Bank, your Doctor, your Health Insurance company, the Tax office etc.
HISTORY OF ENVIRONMENTAL CARNAGE
Since it was established as a British penal colony in 1788, Australia has had an appalling record in relation to the treatment of its rich, unique environment. Despite claiming the entire country, the European colonists only really settled the coastlines. In central Australia there are tribes of indigenous people, who didn’t see a white face until the 1960’s.
Colonial expansion and the introduction of foreign pests, resulted in so much habitat loss and slaughter of the native wildlife, that around 100 species of animal have become extinct, and it’s still occurring today.
Which brings us to the 2019/20 Australian Bushfire season. Also known as the ‘Black Summer’, these raging inferno’s destroyed around 190,000 square kilometres of territory. To put that in perspective – the entire nation of Syria is 185,180 square kilometres in area.
HEADS IN THE SAND
The only thing more frightening than the fires was the federal Governments response, or lack thereof. Despite decades of exhortations from all kinds of Scientists, despite the actuality that Australia had been experiencing record levels of heat and drought, despite the fact that this was the largest outbreak of bushfires since settlement in 1788, and despite the constant warnings from emergency service organisations regarding the lack of firefighting resources, according the Coalition Government, and their cheerleaders in the Murdoch press, it was just another day.
Just like in the aftermath of a mass shooting in the United States, when powerful, vested interests try to blame the tragedy on everything but guns, the Australian version of such cretinous shriekers tried to blame the bushfires on everything but Climate Change.
It started with headlines blaming Arson – which the Police said accounts for less than 2% of the fires. Then we moved onto blaming the lack of prescribed burning in the months before the fires. In response to these claims, Professor of Pyrogeography and Fire Science, David Bowman, stated “These are very tired and very old conspiracy theories that get a run after most major fires,” and that they were “an obvious attempt to deflect the conversation away from climate change.”
Likewise, Professor for Bushfire Behaviour and Management Trent Penman added “If there was a silver bullet on bushfires we’d have found it by now, after the 51 inquiries since 1939,” and that “blindly putting money into prescribed burning won’t stop the problem”.
THE OLD NEW STRATEGY
Eventually, the scope of the disaster became way too big to keep denying, so the federal Government evolved their position…kind of. After finally acknowledging that climate change is real, they made a whole new commitment to doing nothing about it – by telling Aussie’s to simply accept it and adapt!
Cities choking on smoke, kids in gas masks, a billion dead animals, thousands of homes destroyed, dozens of people killed, no problem. In the words of satirists the ‘Juice Media’, it’s all part of a grand new policy called “Get f**kin’ used to it”.
The usual justification for inaction on climate policy, is the fact that Australia is only responsible for 1.3% of global emissions. At a domestic level that is true, however if you take into account Australia’s massive exports of gas and coal (and what they will be used for), that contribution increases to around 4% of global emissions. This figure would make Australia the 5th largest emitter of global greenhouse emissions, behind only China, India, The USA and Russia.
The other old chestnut is that since Australia is one of the largest miners and exporters of coal in the world, if they started putting the environment first, the negative impact on jobs and the economy would be so big it would cripple the country.
This approach is wrongheaded for several reasons. First of all, money isn’t much good to you on a dead planet. Secondly, the Coal industry is no longer a job creator, but a job destroyer. If you look at the employment trends in the coal industry over the last few decades, the number of available jobs has been declining rapidly, as the industry moves further and further towards automation (Replacing people with machines run by Artificial Intelligence).
Finally, as the rest of the world is starting to move away from fossil fuels as an energy source and replace them with renewables, a big chunk of Australia’s export market is going to disappear anyway, and that’s a future that nobody seems to be planning for at the federal level.
It’s also important to be aware of the fact that whilst everyones attention is distracted by the pandemic, members of the Federal Government have been furtively trying to rush through new legislation which would butcher our existing environmental protection laws.
IN CONCLUSION
After all, the science that put man on the moon, the science that eliminated smallpox, and the science that created your smartphone, is the same science that is now saying that Anthropogenic Climate Change is real.
It is not based on faith or opinions, it only recognises good, solid evidence. Evidence that can be tested to demonstrate its truth, and can survive all attempts to falsify it (Peer Review). Of course climate change is a natural phenomenon, but human activity is increasing the RATE OF CHANGE, and that’s bad for our species.
History has warned us, Science has also warned us, and it knows what it’s talking about. The question is, will we listen?
