Antinuclear

Bushfires ravaging Australia are expected to cost billions of dollars in recovery efforts and the nation’s bills for tackling natural disasters risk soaring in coming decades with worsening climate change.

Record-breaking temperatures and severe droughts have fuelled the fires which have burnt millions of hectares across the country. At least 24 people and hundreds of thousands of animals have been killed.

Data from the Australian government Bureau of Meteorology shows December’s mean temperature was 3.21C warmer than the average for the month. Ed Hawkins, a professor of climate science at the University of Reading, said the country’s mean December temperature had warmed about 1.4 times faster than the global annual average temperature over the past century.

But pro-coal Prime Minister Scott Morrison has denied the link between climate change and the unprecedented intensity of bushfires across the country, describing it as “misconstrued”.

In May 2019, enough voters were in denial of the urgency of climate change to facilitate the election of a climate-denying government. Morrison showed us what he was made of when he fondled a lump of coal in the House of Representatives. It had been lacquered into cleanliness.

“Don’t be afraid, don’t be scared,” he mocked. “This is coal,” Morrison bellowed. He laughed as his sycophantic frontbenchers handled the gleaming black lump with glee.

Optimism is not the same as pretending in the face of evidence to the contrary that all will be well. That kind of optimism exists in the realm of charlatans or fools.

Morrison had a Happy New Year’s Eve party and photoshoot with the cricket team. “Life, as usual, continues” was the message. As people died, houses burned, ecosystems and millions of native animals are incinerated, the Prime Minister was having his summer of beach and cricket. It was like a crass tourism promotion.

This is the bizarre game that the denialist team has been playing for many years. As the planet hotted up and the science grew more insistent of our need to act, the denial team was in full throat. As the birds were silenced, the usual suspects became more shrill in their squawking.

There are too many to name but here are a few of those seated at the have-a-sham table:

• Alan Jones;
• Ray Hadley;
• Steven Price;
• Peter Gleeson;
• Peta Credlin;
• Chris Kenny;
• Andrew Bolt;
• Terry McCrann;
• Rupert Murdoch;
• Ian Plimer, as reported on Media Watch; and
• the Institute of Public Affairs, a pseudo think tank that promotes denial in the interests of its mining founders.