Back in the day I used to think environmentalists played a useful role in society. True they went too far but that, I thought, was a beneficial counterbalance to the disregard capitalists sometimes have for generating negative externalities. Think of despoiling river systems. Alas, in my naivety, I didn’t think we would end up where we are. Environmentalists turned human-progress haters, embedded into government departments, central banks, commercial banks, corporations generally, universities, local councils, the media, and throughout international organisations. What a disaster it has been and is. Gave them an inch and they took a marathon and more.

Is there any hope of sanity returning, that is the question. Well, the answer to that question has never been about the idealistic pipe dreamers and Marxist thugs on the left. It’s always been about the preponderance of panty-waists on the right. Is Dutton a panty-waist? I don’t think so. But he has so many of them to appease within his party that he commits with a straight face to energy security and net zero. Double-think, as Orwell put it, the ability to hold conflicting positions at the one time. Happening before our very eyes in our post-truth world.

Trump managed to build a coalition within the Republican Party and a popular uprising of working people which allowed him to preach common sense and not only to get away with it but to win with it. You would think that would be easy. After all, we are talking about no more than common sense, not about some esoteric political theories pushed by assorted right-wing think tanks. But, there’s the rub, common sense has become increasingly passé over the past thirty years and more. So-called climate change, in particular, has infected the prefrontal cortex of the susceptible robbing them of sense – all of those on the left and many among politicians of all stripes, public servants, corporate heavyweights, the media, the universities and schools, and, of course, hand-wringing clergymen.

It is clear enough even for a slow learner. Wind, sun and batteries can’t support an industrial society. Let me repeat why. This is for those whose pre-frontal cortex has all but been eaten away. Among the many in this cohort, think, say, of those working for the Climate Council.  To wit, when the wind doesn’t blow and there is no sun there is no power. Zilch! Batteries simply cannot store remotely enough power to fill the gap, unless we start envisaging many trillions upon trillions of dollars and vast acreages of installations – with fire engines standing by. It is not doable. It is not doable!  Do you understand that numbskulls?

Nuclear is a partial answer down the track. In the meantime, and in the fullness of time, some combination of coal, oil and gas are a must. Otherwise, the deficiency gap will only grow larger as technological progress demands more and more electricity. Data centres, of course, are most in the news but they are only part of it. Blackouts, soaring energy prices and, inevitably, despotism will ensue as the powers that be ration power; selectively for their comrades and unmercifully for their political foes.

Of course, all of this has been said many times. Nothing new. And yet nothing changes. Heading closer and closer towards the cliff edge while Bowen, and his ilk internationally, whistle Dixie. The last best hope is Donald J Trump; he’s in political harmony with the Viagra Boys (“Common Sense”). Maybe, hopefully, the world will eventually stop whistling and start singing along?