Turnbull Makes An Heroic Assumption Of Himself

Our new Environment Minister was on Lateline last night looking and sounding very uncomfortable trying to defend Howard’s latest talking points on how tackling climate change would destroy our economy.

Having finally abandoned outright climate change denial, the new central strategy is to argue the extent of climate change, the cost of adapting to it, whether black is white, up is down or if yes means no. 

One good thing I can say about Turnbull’s interview is that at least the Liberals are finally embracing recycling:

• apparently the goals outlined in the Stern Report and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports are all “aspirational” goals.  Something that might be fun to aim for, but like the average Australian families hoping for a better life under the Howard regime – not really very likely at all.
• the Government’s response to climate change was to be “pragmatic” and “practical” whereas the Opposition’s was going to be merely “symbolic“.  For those of you who don’t remember, when the Government began talking about the benefits of “practical Reconciliation” it signalled the end of any attempt at actual Reconciliation.  And their approach on that contrasted with piffling fuzzy “symbolic” acts like admitting anything had been done wrong in the past, or *gasp* saying “sorry”.
• Outright lying.  “No Government in the world has done more to address climate change than the Australian Government”
• Lionising themselves for doing the unthinkably esoteric.  I didn’t get the exact quote, but one of his points to back up the previous point, Turnbull said something pretty close to this – “The Australian Government is leading the way in lighting efficiency by phasing out incandescent bulbs.” I forget what his second supporting point was, I think it might have been about the regional forest programme the Government announced.  This policy is like trying to stop your bath flooding by turning off your downstairs neighbours taps.  It’s still worth doing, but it doesn’t stop your own problem, and it won’t save your neighbour in the long run.

The Minister happily dismissed all the incredibly detailed and thoroughly researched modelling on climate change by saying that they made “heroic assumptions” to plot that far ahead.  Now it is true that assumptions had to be made, and that’s why many of the reports contain multiple scenarios - A would happen in the event of X,Y,Z  but B would happen if L,M and O occurred.  To dismiss all the reports on the grounds that none of them involved a crystal ball is patently ridiculous. 

Earlier in the evening I was at a Fabian Society forum on nuclear energy featuring Ian Lowe and moderated by Senator Bartlett, and one of his many very resonant points was about the first national convention on climate change in Australia, in about 1987 I think.  At that time there was still some legitimate questions about whether the increasing climate change was caused by us.

Lowe’s analogy was of driving a car in the dark.  If you can’t see what’s ahead of you, should you carry on as normal or even speed up?  Or would it be prudent to slow down and act more cautiously?

Twenty years ago, we might have been in the dark.  Today, we can see there’s something wrong with the road we’re on.  The Environment Minister might be right, that we’re still a little unsure of exactly what it is, but whether it’s a brick wall across it or a cliff ahead of it, it’s no longer viable.

We need a new road, and a new driver. 

>> The Lateline transcript is now up, so feel free to see if I’ve misrepresented the intent of the Turnbullshit*

*All due credit to Murray for coming up with the term Turnbullshit after having read the transcript.