We sit on the high hill of history and laugh at 17th-century Europeans who spent vast fortunes investing in tulips, only to go bust. How could they be so gullible? we ask.
Well, I’ve two words for you: Net. Zero.
The conceit and absurdity of our country’s political obsession with global warming is so bizarre that it is more Monty Python than Yes, Prime Minister. Yet it is an ongoing tragedy that is undercutting our prosperity and up-ending our politics.
Seldom have so many people sacrificed so much, trying to do so little, for no discernible gain. Futility meets delusion.
Yet here we are again. And it is about to get worse, with Labor doubling down on its failing renewables experiment and the coalition returning to its climate wars like rats returning for cheese and an electric shock (if the wind is blowing).
The very premise of ‘Net Zero’ is ridiculously flawed. For all the shrieking about a so-called ‘climate emergency’, it just can’t be found in the data. Bushfires, floods, cyclones, droughts: all of the so-called ‘emergencies’ just aren’t showing up in the data as anything other than normal variation.
It’s even more lunatic when it comes to Australia and New Zealand. Even assuming a global emergency engendered by greenhouse gas emissions, our contributions are nine-tenths of fuck all. Both our countries could disappear tomorrow, and it would make not a poofteenth of difference to global emissions. China emits more in just three weeks than we do in an entire year.
Yet, oddly enough, China is exempt from the ‘climate targets’ our dear leaders sign us up to. If that doesn’t give the whole game away as a complete scam, nothing does.
Even if – if – the hysterical claims of the Climate Cult were proven, it’s not a neutral equation. Sure, climate change (anthropogenic or natural) imposes a cost: so does climate action. Again, we laugh at people in the 19th century who swallowed mercury to treat syphilis. Only a fool would spend money on a ‘remedy’ if it’s worse than the disease.
We are ruled by fools.
I challenge any Labor, Liberal, Nationals or teal politician to commission the parliamentary library to provide a total estimate of local, state and federal government spending on emissions reductions policies. The rebates, subsidies, grants and taxes; the solar panel giveaways and electric vehicle incentives; the transmission lines, wind turbines, solar farms, community and large-scale batteries; the demand management payments, feed-in tariffs, conferences, overseas delegations and foreign aid projects; the advertising and marketing campaigns; the redundancy payments to former coal-fired power plant workers and the compensation payments to keep some coal-fired generation running – the whole shebang.
The tally would certainly top $100bn, possibly $200bn or even $300bn, and we have only just begun. Reputable estimates suggest the entire “transition” – assuming it can ever happen – will cost $1 trillion.
Keep going. I’m no authority, but a few quick back-of-the-envelope calculations indicate that we’re more likely talking in the region of six to eight trillion dollars. And that’s just Australia.
What else could have been done with all the money, what companies and industries might have stayed and invested on our shores if we had not imposed escalating energy costs, turning our natural energy advantage into our Achilles’ heel?
What of the families and small businesses burdened by unprecedented electricity prices? What difficult life decisions or missed chances might they have avoided without this power price pressure?
The cost of “climate action” is high. If it did what the zealots pretend, saving our beautiful planet from impending doom, it would be worth the communal sacrifice, but there is no evidence or prospect of any benefit.
As high priest of Climate Alarmism Downunder Tim Flannery was once challenged: if Australia ceases its greenhouse gas emissions today, what difference, in degrees Celsius, will that make to the climate in 100 years. Ol’ Timbo has never answered.
Some scientists are at least marginally more honest.
Back in 2018 Alan Finkel, the nation’s chief scientist at the time, said if we shut down our whole country so that no human being in Australia produced a single gram of greenhouse gas emissions the impact on the climate would be “virtually nothing”.
That’s what we’re beggaring ourselves for.
What sane person thinks this is a rational policy? Because I’ve got some tulips to sell them.
