Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Liberal Emissions

What is it with the *blue* team - and carbon emissions?

Just about every one of them speaks against an emission trading scheme and a large number of them actually don't believe that increasing carbon in the atmosphere is a problem - duh.

If you believe George Megalogenis (and i do) then you will understand what went on during the *glorious* Howard years - and this is what they are desperately trying to replicate - unaware that the game has changed.

One of the fantastic revelations George points to today is in Annabel Crabb’s Quarterly Essay on Malcolm Turnbull - is a previously unreported argument in the Liberal partyroom after the 2004 election.

Senator George Brandis, a moderate Queensland Liberal, asked Howard if the government seriously believed its public rhetoric that a hairdressing certificate was as a good as a PhD. As Crabb writes:

Brandis was heckled by some of his colleagues, who jeered that people with degrees weren’t as smart as they thought they were. "He was howled down, of course. It was frightening," recalls one (university-educated) MP who was present. "They were a mob by that stage. You couldn’t get up and say things like that. It was like the French Revolution." Howard himself, recalls another Liberal, made it clear where his sympathies lay. "He just gave out this big laugh, and said: Oh, George. At least you have more chance of making some money with a hairdressing degree."


It's just stunning that an Australian government, including Ministers and a Prime Minister can believe this crap.

It's why the tertiary sector was defunded and why science was treated with suspician by the ruling elite - it was simply a tragedy that will take decades to fix.

And this explains why such a high percentage of the *blues* are in some form of denial around climate change, increasing carbon in the atmosphere and an emissions trading scheme.

They simply don't understand the problem because they don't understand science - and this is a problem that requires a basic understanding of science.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

True, a basic understanding of science is required, after that it’s just faith. The trouble with the public is they don’t understand why Cap&Trade is the solution to the problem of changing climate. It makes no sense to them and me too. Cap&trade is designed to drive up the cost of living, thereby forcing people to conserve energy use and change their lifestyle. But for the most part, it only harms the poor and lower middle classes, the rich will not need to change their habits in any way. For example, Al Gore lives a high carbon lifestyle, but he simply buys carbon credits from a company he owns which has shares traded on the Chicago Climate Exchange which he also owns. He has made no changes in his high carbon lifestyle, he doesn’t need to, he’s a multi millionaire. But regular folks don’t have his money so Cap&Trade will hit them hardest. So why don’t we dump the Cap&Tarde idea and simply write legislation which encourages investment in renewable energy? Why must it be Cap&Trade? The public smells something fishy about this whole deal.