Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to Australian Federal Science Minister Karen Andrews, climate deniers are robbing Australia of the time and energy to deal with climate change by perpetuating an already settled debate.
Climate change deniers robbing Australia of time to respond to impacts, Science Minister Karen Andrews warns
Australia is wasting time debating the merits of climate change and should instead focus its attention on responding to the impacts it is having on the country, a senior Liberal minister has warned.
Key points:
- Karen Andrews wants people to move on from ideological debates about climate change
- The Science Minister says the focus should be on adaptation and mitigation strategies
- She says the science of climate change is settled and is apparent in Australia
Science Minister Karen Andrews said it was time to move on from ideological battles, which she said had robbed the nation of the time and energy needed to respond to climate change.
“Every second that we spend talking about whether or not the climate is changing is a second that we are not spending on looking at adaptation [and] mitigation strategies,” she said.
“It really is time for everyone to move on and look at what we’re going to do.”
Ms Andrews, a former engineer, said the science on climate change was settled.
Her intervention comes in the wake of the Bureau of Meteorology confirming 2019 was Australia’s hottest and driest year on record.
“Let’s not keep having debates about climate change,” the Cabinet minister said.
“Let’s accept that the climate has changed, the climate is changing and we need to look at what we’re going to do about that.“
…
Karen’s comments will be unwelcome news for companies worried about Australia’s soaring energy costs. If doing nothing is no longer an option the government will consider, the costs and rising risk of blackouts caused by the transition to unreliable renewables will continue, and will likely get worse.
Obviously we heard a very different message a few weeks ago from the delightful Craig Kelly. But Craig Kelly is a backbencher, while Karen Andrews holds an important ministerial portfolio. So I think it is reasonable to conclude Karen Andrews is more representative of the Morrison government than Craig Kelly.
Australia’s bipartisan climate action agenda has real economic consequences. Late last year Bluescope Steel diverted a billion dollars investment to the USA, a billion dollars worth of investment in jobs and national income, because of concerns about soaring Australian energy prices.
I doubt Bluescope is the only company planning to scale back involvement in Australia’s increasingly uncompetitive economic environment. Karen Andrews comments are a message to energy intensive businesses like Bluescope, companies which might be hanging on in case the situation improves, that whichever political party wins the next election there is no point hoping for a better future.
Update (EW): Prime Minister Scott Morrison has explicitly endorsed Karen Andrews comments on climate policy.
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ScoMo is a dead man walking. He is walking away from those who put trust in him during the unwinnable election. He is trying to appeal to those on the left with this soft green, socialist light approach.
Australia is running into a strongly left-wing ideology and ScoMo is leading the charge. In Australian politics you cannot win over the left as they are rusted on, it is the aspirational workers who are voting LNP.
I wonder about the Liberal Party they are a loose headed bunch of desperate ‘not to lose’ politicians, rather than trying to win.
To offer benefit of doubt, she did say (paraphrasing) that climate has always been changing and we should stop moaning about it and start considering how to deal with the effects.
Remember there is climate change and there is Climate Change(tm). One accepts such things as the Roman and Medieval Warm periods and puts forward the question as to what, if anything, was the ‘correct’ temperature of the planet in the first place, while the other group glues themselves to footpaths.
Karen MIGHT be a small c believer and in pragmatic terms, even if you are a big C believer what is better in the long run? To have endless circle jerks complaining that you didn’t get a nice room for the last conference and passing pointless agreements, or accept you are never going to affect CO2 levels and start building that sea wall?
Bit hard to say what she thinks. Remember it is from the ABC and the ABC will happily twist any quote if it suits their political agenda.
Her comments are quite ambiguous. My first reaction was she’s a greenie loony who believes all the warmist agenda and it’s going to be a disaster for all of us. But on reflection wether she is a true believer or not we just need to put in place measures to adapt to whatever the climate throws at us. So hopefully building of dams and managing forests by controlled burns is adaption . There is a tone of resignation in her voice , climate change is here , so let’s not argue about it, meeting our Paris agreement targets may help in 50 years ( although marginally) but in the meantime we have to prepare the country and its communities with ways to deal with it in ways that mitigate the damage. I don’t get any sense that this means more windmills and solar panels but new technologies and adaptions that make a real difference. Whilst Scomo sounds like he’s caving in to the Greenies, he’s firm on not increasing his target and is fully aware that we cannot make any difference no matter what cuts are made. Whilst I just wish he’d take them all head on and bring back his lump of coal and get out of Paris and stop all renewable subsidies, I realise with feral states like Victoria, South Australia, etc there is no much he can do. I just hope that Morrison won’t be bullied into doing something stupid and expensive on the policy front
Refuse to vote for her, or anyone like her, or anyone who shares those views, or for a Party, PM or Cabinet that supports same.
So don’t vote then? They are all in on the game.
A better strategy is to vote for a minor party. If you don’t vote at all, it’s usually interpreted as agreement with the process and who ever wins.
“Department of Education and Training”
Is all you need to know about this person. Just another waste of tax payer dollars, and lots of them.
Yes.
But she’s heard-
“A year of extreme weather events and mounting evidence of global heating have catapulted the climate emergency to the top of the list of issues that are concerning the world’s elite.”
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/climate-crisis-fills-top-five-places-of-world-economic-forums-risks-report/ar-BBYZG0V
and who among our elites would not be galvanised into flapping their gums by that?
However it’s the same old same old-
“Despite a large number of participants flying into Switzerland by private jet, the WEF said Davos would be a carbon-neutral event.”
while you deplorables and lowlifes pay for the carbon credits with your power bills etc.
Australia must get serious on climate change-
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/aust-must-get-serious-on-climate-kean/ar-BBYZOeJ
and send a very large deputation of Extinction Rebellionistas to China urgently-
https://www.asiatimes.com/2020/01/article/old-king-coal-fuels-chinas-new-tech-revolution/
As a highly qualified retired Australian I will never return to that country. It has become a PC dictatorship. The Americas (North and South) are a 1000 times freer and better place to live in. I would never advise anyone to emigrate, visit or study in Australia. Next thing they wont allow you to breath air!! What a horrible place https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7884251/The-bizarre-surprising-rules-lead-fines-Australia.html
It’s even worse in Australia than you might have thought.
https://climateextremes.org.au/un-content-expert-contribution-workshop-climate-across-the-curriculum-educational-resources-for-teachers/
All the convenors are card-carrying climate alarmists whose on-going funding relies on the propagation of the CAGW myth. Good luck getting an impartial and objective briefing and set of teaching resources!
Another air head empty suit who has true belief, zero climate or science knowledge with an extremely high level of intolerance.
N.B. Karen Andrews blames those skeptical of current climate science for the utter failures of renewable energy and massive climate control budgets.
Science advance is dependent upon skeptics. Instead, Karen Andrews applies a demeaning holocaust related label to demonize people she can not control.
Karen Andrews reminds me of EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy who could not answer or explain global warming or any benefits to EPA’s carbon regulations.
https://youtu.be/hVRbldAGsag
Put Karen Andrews on a public podium and question her claims.
Given her training in mediation, make sure the questioner is not deflected easily.
So, the science is settled, eh? When I was a kid it was a ‘fact’ that the solar system had 9 planets, Jupiter had 12 moons, etc., but we didn’t just stop exploring and it all changed with new discoveries. Imagine that! I do feel sorry for Pluto mind…
Pluto is not a real dog.
He’s been demoted to a dwarf dog?
Australian policymakers have been given the ultimate counter against greeny pressure.
Just call the CLIMATE ARSONIST instead of activists.
I would like the science minister to explain how the next lightning-caused bushfire is going to be extinguished without fossil-fueled vehicles and aircraft.
Will she be the one to explain how electric fire appliances could not be despatched more quickly as they were spending many hours being recharged? How will property owners run emergency generators to power pumps?
She should be held responsible for any deaths and damage caused by insufficient resources being available for all of the naturally-caused disasters.
‘Angrified’ ala Willis should be the standard mood of the Oz public towards this idiot playing with our lives
She’ll be right mate. The great Michael Mann has decreed that Australia will be deserted soon. All Australians will join the ranks of the climate refugees.
https://news.yahoo.com/hot-dry-australia-could-join-221006927.html
Apparently he is down under having a bit of a bludge, or as he would prefer to call it a sabbatical.
No worries.
LOL
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/little-boy-sees-rain-for-very-first-time/ar-BBYZZUo
and here’s a 15 year old schoolgirl that got it over a century ago for you Mike-
http://www.dorotheamackellar.com.au/archive/mycountry.htm
We had Erlich here not long ago sprouting his doom and gloom. All we need now is a carbon fibre racing yacht to drop anchor in Botany Bay and we have won the Trifecta. Perish the thought.
yes that mongrels here and shitstirring merrily
would that he had a proper sabbatical and was locked in a cell with bread and water!
abc is all over him like a rash
“Update (EW): Prime Minister Scott Morrison has explicitly endorsed Karen Andrews comments on climate policy.”
Well, that’s it. What I’ve suspected all along; Morrison is a Mini-Me Turnbull, determined to feed the subsidy-hoovering unreliables industry until the country is bled dry.
We’re stuffed.
What is Karen Andrews’ CV?
She might be a former engineer, but she seems a bit naïve to think she has something new to offer. If she did, she didn’t offer it.
As always, they’re just acting out of self-interest. The Left have used the bushfires to double-down on the GW hoax and now the Australian government, after years of allowing the Left to control education and the state-run media, finds itself backed into a corner.
Climate Change belief is wonderful. It gives the political class something to blame for their own mismanagement.
For example in Australia.
After years of good rains, we had greening of regions that are normally dry, and increased growth in the regions that are wet.
That means politicians and fire chiefs cut funding to rural fire brigades, despite a big increase in rural populations. A lot of money was saved. Blaming climate change means they don’t take the blame for there mismanagement.
Local councils with the blessing of State leaders stopped maintaining fire breaks, stopped reducing fuel load, and encouraged (usually compelled) the planting of trees and scrub right up to houses. So when the fires break out in a moderately dry season, when the houses burn down and people die, the Councils can blame climate change.
Then there are the National parks. Most were open woodland for 50,000 to 100,000 years. They were maintained by the Aboriginal low temperature burns. The woodland evolved to adapt. But eucalypt and wattle burns. The unmaintained Parks, with huge accumulation of dead scrub, become explosive bombs. One glass bottle, one cigarette, one lighting strike now creates massive lethal blazes. So blame climate change, much better than blaming the gross mismanagement of the Parks.
We have huge areas in New South Wales under irrigation. Water comes from the Murry Darling River system. The region is nominally semi desert and the rivers dry out roughly every ten to 15 years. Politicians and bureaucrats agreed with environmentalists to give preference to “natural” water flows. So there is not enough water for irrigation, and the farms are dying. Towns face the prospect of having no water. Who to blame, why climate change. It can’t be the fault of “experts”, they might lose there jobs.
The water flows south. It’s needed to maintain this huge lake system (Lake Alexandrina, Lake Albert and the Coorong). Environmentalists maintain this is essential. Unfortunately, the lake system is a salt water estuary that only turned fresh in times of flood. Entire fish populations have been wiped out. Bird populations were affected. What was salt bush desert in my youth is now dairy that depends on the artificial fresh water. An entire unique ecosystem, destroyed, to keep environmentalists happy. The main use of the fresh water is recreation – boating and fresh water fishing.
And dams. This is a dry continent. There is enough water, if it is managed. That means water storage, usually dams. In my youth, water tanks supplied by roof runoff supplied many households. In my home state, no new water storage has been built for decades. The population has doubled. Tanks were banned when I was in high school, but although not encouraged they are no longer illegal. The State Government has buried plans for three big dams, and banned a fourth private dam. So now we have water shortages, due to the population doubling, and no new infrastructure. But the State Government blames Climate Change, and does almost nothing to increase supply in our rapidly growing cities.
It is a warm summer. So was last summer. This is Australia. It’s the hottest on record only because the Australian Bureau of Meteorology is constantly adjusting the record. We were overdue for a dry summer, but it’s not that dry. I live on rainwater collected from my roof. My tanks are nearly full.
Climate change is wonderful. Anything goes wrong from mismanagement, why just blame climate change. It is never the fault of Government mismanagement. And I used to think Australian Government wasn’t corrupt.
I think the Australian Federal Government just lost the next election.
It has stopped being about the risk of blackouts, but about the frequency and how widespread they are.