Ten years ago, on this day, August 27, 2013, soon-to-be environment minister Greg Hunt was caught frolicking in fantasy land about the absurd “Direct Action” policy.
27 August 2013: Greg Hunt’s claims that Nobel laureates support direct action debunked by The Wire as they had not heard of ‘direct action’ or Greg Hunt and issue further followed up by Climate Spectator. https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/business-spectator/news-story/b8184490c3ccc2a49c17cd9c23048357
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly xxxppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was the Liberal Party in Australia had spent the previous 3 years boosting an anti-market pro-government intervention policy which was laughingly called “Direct Action.” Direct action had been analysed and shown to be bullshit. Business was pleading with Liberal leader Tony Abbott not to do it, but he couldn’t u-turn and we now ahead of the 2013 election had a situation where the Liberal environment spokesperson Greg Hunt was just making stuff up, knowing that there would not be consequences.
What I think we can learn from this is that, in the words of journalist Nick Tomalin, “they lie they lie they lie.” And they are allowed to lie by a supine amnesiac Media and here we are.
What happened next
The Abbott government brought in so-called Direct Action and it did not reduce emissions. Of course it did not – it was never designed to do that
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.