Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison attempt to play both sides of the climate game has spectacularly backfired. By claiming to care about climate change but at the same time not doing a lot to reduce CO2 emissions, the Prime Minister has left himself wide open to green accusations he has not done enough to prevent Australia’s bushfires.
Are the bushfires Scott Morrison’s Hurricane Katrina moment that he can’t live down?
By Laura Tingle
Hurricane Katrina was one of the worst natural disasters in US history. It displaced hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The damage was estimated at $US100 billion, and more than 1,000 people are thought to have died.
When it struck, US President George W Bush was on vacation on his ranch in Texas. The two days it took for him to decide to cut short the vacation and return to Washington was a disaster of a different kind.
It was not just a political disaster for Bush, but a disaster for public confidence in the agencies responding to the storm.
Blame games erupted between Washington and state and local authorities about why the response was so slow.
…
As people yell at the Prime Minister when he visits their devastated communities, or howl for his blood on social media, the story of Bush’s failure to immediately recognise a catastrophe and the urgent need for leadership it represented, tells us what problems are created by Scott Morrison’s perplexing failures of political and policy judgement in recent weeks.
People are frightened, and angry. Some have lived through a fire, or just faced the anxiety of trying to evacuate family through massive traffic jams.
They may have faced shortages of food and fuel, and/or several days without power and communications.
Such people tend to lose their faith in the capacity of governments to comprehend, let alone respond, to a crisis like this that is likely to continue for at least some months.
…
Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-04/bushfires-climate-change-scott-morrison-perplexing-failures/11839770
Aussie climate activists have not yet won the public debate. There is widespread awareness that climate activists sabotaged fire safety forest management by occupying forests scheduled for controlled burns in the years leading up to this years’s horrific fire season.
A few days ago I heard local regional radio presenters criticising greens for their disastrous campaigns to prevent controlled burns.
And of course, as Morrison himself pointed out, Australian domestic climate policy has no real impact on global CO2 emissions, so even if CO2 was driving more intense fires, there is nothing the Australian government could do about it.
But none of this is helping Prime Minister Scott Morrison. His weak climate prevarications and his clumsy and insensitive response to the bushfire crisis are making him look uncaring and disengaged.
Ironically I think the biggest hurdle that has dictated Morrison’s response to the fires is his desire to announce a budget surplus when the annual accounts come through in May. Not just with the fires but also with the drought their has been a reluctance to put real money into the solution. In both instances he should’ve said , stuff the budget , this government will spend whatever it takes to get people’s lives back on track. Any money spent will have a multiplier effect in getting our sluggish economy going anyway. When it comes to the bushfires and the drought only the hardcore loonies really want more action on climate change , everyone else wants the government to fix it , and that means sufficient aid and water for farmers and fire victims and money spent on infrastructure ,dams and fire management solutions for the future. By engaging in any discussion as to whether we can really change the climate takes the focus away from what people really want which is immediate financial solutions. If it blows a hole in the budget no one could care less. And to be fair to Morrison he is being hounded by a msm press which is obsessed with climate change alarmism and sees the fires as an opportunity to push their more extreme agenda.
Real, effective solutions will not bust the budget, but there is a large and well organized effort to prohibit real solutions in favor of controlling the climate; an endeavour that will bust the budget several times over, with no hope of success or benefits.
This is a direct result of the power of myths.
The Greenies in Australia are pushing hard on the Climate Change Meme to draw the attention of the public away from their actions which have reduced hazard reduction burns and hazard clearing over the past years. The ABC recently disappeared Sites and comments it carried in support for the Green campaign against hazard reduction. It is not working. The average bushfire victim knows the truth of the matter from long experience of past bushfires.
Green campaigns to prevent controlled burns have all proved to be major disasters.
It’s time in Australia to launch Class Action against the Greens in Councils and Parliaments, Australian Conservation Foundation, and Environmental groups, including Steve (06.08) for the damages done and lives lost.
It is on their heads entirely
Zigmaster, Scott Morrison pledged one billion dollars to Renewable Energy October 2019!
Exactly what is it the greens and leftists want?
Morrison offered to send in the defense forces to assist the NSW bushfire effort, the premier declined the offer. Morrison had been respectful of the premier’s decision to handle the situation as it’s State responsibility to make decisions. That is until now, he has decided to intervene and is mobilising defence personnel to assist.
What do they want?
It’s been established that the majority of these fires have been either deliberately lit or caused by negligence, NOT CAUSED BY CLIMATE CHANGE! Sorry to shout but sometimes you just need to vent.
These fires are devastating, no one will argue that point. But we have had many devastating fires in the past, the difference now is that there are more people to be affected. More people spread over a larger area. I believe that it’s only due to the courage and diligence of our firefighters that the death toll isn’t much higher.
Referring back to the comment made by Observa, January 4 7.43 am, and the historical photos and data back to the 1800’s. Says it all really.
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/photos/australias-most-deadly-and-destructive-bushfires/ss-BBX0NlO
Dare I suggest that its possible that the INSTANT start of so many bushfires is caused
by GREENs who are working for their “”Cause””,
MJE VK5ELL
The MSM are being very political over the latest bushfires and using the wall to wall coverage to pile onto the PM even though he is the federal government leader and environmental management of parks where the fires are out of control, and the emergency response is a state government responsibility.
These fires are not weather but a result of poor management of forests over 20 plus years so when something or, more usually, someone starts a fire it rapidly gets out of control because of the massive build up of fuel.
The real nonsense from the green zealots is blaming a two or three degree ambient temperature above normal summer temperatures for fires which burn at hundreds of degrees at the fire front creating micro climatic conditions around them such as searing winds. To hear the fools on tv warning about hot days when of itself this will not ever cause a tree to spontaneously combust is nauseating.
Eric?
Are you unironically quoting from Laura Tingle?
This is the same Tingle who believes the correct way to offer balanced debate is to use her check marked Twit account to instruct opponents to, “Go (cough) yourself”.
Tingle has proven herself to be as professional in balanced debate as a drunken pub brawl.
Totally off topic:
The Australian PM is a ringer for Chris Hill, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_R._Hill
Sort of uncanny.
He’s called for changes to the laws that govern hazard clearing and that has not been received well. Can’t win! Two issues; People being allowed to build in high fire risk areas and these people actively banned from clearing fire hazards from their land. It can be done without massive burn offs. This disaster has been growing since the 1980’s.
I have block adjoining my land , 7 acres, full of trees dead branches and 6ft+ grass
owned by a melbouneite who got it cheap to try n double his money(no fools buying)
Im on the town boundary
I get clear your grass to 10cm max notices with threats of fines or council cutting with fees imposed
yet this chap? for 7 yrs? nothing done!
if it went up my land , and a row of homes across are at serious risk
The council should have the block cleared and then add the cost and a fine to the rates notice, and repeat etc until he pays. Raise the issue with your state MP and don’t accept weasel word replies.