On the last day of his boss’s ill-fated jaunt to Hawaii, acting Prime Minister Michael McCormack has allowed that yes, it might just be time for Australia to pull its finger out on the whole climate change thing. Gosh. Do you think, Mike? Do you reckon?
In case you’ve been living under a rock – and if you live in Sydney, literally never going outside or near a window – a vast chunk of Australia is currently burning out of control. Fires are active in three states. People are walking around in full gas masks. We’re deep in the realm of climate dystopia, and the Australian public has been staggered by our so-called leader’s inaction.
Now, at the final press conference before Scott Morrison gets back from his holiday, McCormack has agreed with reporters that “further action” is needed on cutting back Australia’s global emissions contributions, saying:
Yeah I do, absolutely – I do agree entirely.
Reporters further asked if he accepted that “community sentiment on climate change” had shifted in response to the bushfire crisis, and that “the fear has increased as a result of those fires“.
McCormack responded simply: “Yes.”
But! Before you get all excited at the prospect of someone in power (however briefly) actually agreeing that everything’s fucked and we ought to be revolutionising our systems of energy production like, yesterday, McCormack was steadfast in refusing to nail down specifics – and in harping on about fucking coal.
The important thing is that we put the fires out. The important thing is that we wrap our arms around people who’ve lost loved ones. The important thing is that we make sure that we’ve got the proper resourcing and that we fully address these fires as they’re occurring … it’s going to be a long, drawn-out fire season.
I wonder why that might be?
He also put the boot in on environmental activists who’ve campaigned for the end of coal mining in Australia, saying that coal “provides two-thirds of our energy needs“.
For all those people running around saying we should abandon coal right now, what are they going to do with our electricity needs this summer if we stop all our coal fired power stations?
Yes, the discussion can be had [but] there’s been a lot of hysteria around climate change. Climate change isn’t the only factor that has caused these fires.
One of the causes McCormack cited? “Self-combusting piles of manure.” Now, who does that sound like?
