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?
Given the Australian electorates tendency to be apathetic I can’t see any real penny dropping until there are a number of substantial blackouts in metropolitan cities.
Only then we might see some serious demand for change to the current net zero insanity (which might even be too late to address).
It is just darling to see the Cat embrace an equitable diversity of views by including even the most brain-dead stupidity on its front page. A pleasant reminder of the moronic nonsense Steve Kates used to dribble.
You know a lot about dribbling, how’s the Milko. Still doing his round.
Piss off, NAZI.
If not trusting intermittent solar, wind and batteries to provide the reliable electricity to sustain a modern industrial society is “brain dead stupidity”, what is trusting it to do so? Blind religious faith?
Have you taken the renewables test yet? Solar cells on the roof, EV in the garage, a battery attached to the house, and disconnected from the grid?
Or are you just another brain dead hypocrite?
Hey, dickhead, Donald Trump is President of the USA!
And you are still a dickhead and left wing wanker.
Except a wanker would have to have a dick!
Oh look, the gutless wonder reappears after significant radio silence to bring us his utter uselessness and such poor understanding of the climate scam he couldn’t create a coherent argument if he was given a cut and paste handout designed for five year olds.
Flings insults at people with far greater understanding and much higher IQ, capable of intelligent writing and factual debate, as if that somehow will dazzle us into admiration. Ideology over understanding. Always.
We see you, a pathetically weak and cowardly little shell of a human. Just give up, you’ve not been missed in your absence.
I note that renewables infatuated Germany has directly exported 20% of its heavy industrial manufacturing capacity to coal fired China since 2022. That equates to tens of thousands of jobs for working class people disappearing, a trend that will only increase given present policy settings.
Germany’s captains of industry – including the boards of BMW, Bosch, BASF & VW – aren’t brain dead stupid. Whatever they may say in public about climate change and net zero, they’ve made a calculated decision based on the impact of rising energy prices on their operational bottom line.
Wind, sun and batteries can’t support an industrial society.
I think we need our own “Energy Emergency” declared to get enough gas back into the system!
Without changing what has been done (the tactics) so unsuccessfully for the past four decades, the damage will continue to accrue until the point of a literal collapse of the system. Arguably, it’s already too late.
To repeat what I’ve written on numerous occasions previously: Conservatives don’t lack the brains required, but for whatever reason, we are stuck in some kind of amygdalic freeze. We are also where we are (a generic statement, I know) because we have FAILED over the past decades. Not conservatism, but CONSERVATIVES have failed. Our western civilization would not be where it is if we had done what was required.
The good news is that we can utilize this failure to start afresh. If we want to.
We will simply be legislated into compliance.
We have two gas hot water systems and a large gas cooktop. When any of them dies, I fully expect to be told it is illegal to replace them with anything other than electric. The same as when we need to replace our engineered stone bench top in the kitchen. “Sorry, no can do. Forbidden by law.”
Australians have never been given a clear choice between being part of net zero or not. We’ve been railroaded into it by both of the major parties.
My guess is that at least 60% of people would be against it.
*pantywaiste
A promising thing is that Trump is giving corporations an excuse to pull back from ESG. Quite a few banks have withdrawn from the net zero collective – something they would never have dared to do even six months ago.
And there’s been an amazing collapse of DIE oops DEI. I thought the federal bureaucracies would ignore or fight Trump’s executive order, but they all took down their DIE webpages just about overnight.
As well as all this we have pollies cautiously pushing to keep coal plants open – Queensland and even lefty controlled Germany.
The climate cult insanity may have peaked. I hope so anyway, but cults are very hard to be rid of.
A great ‘wrap’ Peter.
Thank you for that article.
Capitalists?
Don’t give in to their vocabulary.
Chris Bowen’s junk-science energy policy is designed to destroy Labor’s ideological enemy — the capitalist free market — and nothing else.
Prove me wrong.
Bingo.
While most of us watch the magician’s expressive, visible hand, the less visible hand is getting up the pay-off.
Engaging them on their own terms is pointless, because they know how the trick works.
I sincerely believe conservatives possess the necessary smarts, but simply don’t use them. We need to think more than half a move ahead.