Ten years ago, on this day, November 8, 2013, John Howard gave a speech at the Global Warming “Policy” “Foundation” with the title “One Religion is Enough“
and
Same day – Typhoon Haiyan, known in the Philippines as Typhoon Yolanda, was one of the strongest tropical cyclones ever recorded, which devastated portions of Southeast Asia, particularly the Philippines.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 396,7ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that John Howard had been booted out as Prime Minister, and even MP, partly because he’d been such a terrible dickhead on climate, as befits old white conservative men.
The other context is that some “charity” called the Global Warming Policy Foundation had been set up and were holding annual lectures. So it seemed like a good idea to get little Johnny on.
It’s an interesting title, isn’t it, “one religion is enough”? Well, if we’re only going to have one religion, my vote is a for either a particularly humane form of Buddhism, or Fuck it, let’s just go to paganism. Let’s get rid of the bearded sky gods. And especially when the bearded sky gods have been whittled down to one, because that seems to have caused no end of trouble. Or, if not caused, it been a useful adjunct to keeping that particular shit show on the road…
Aaand breathe….
What I think we can learn from this is that anti-reflexive organisations are good at gaming the media, they knew that this would get outrage and clicks. Makes them feel like they exist.
What happened next
Well, the weather vane, Tony Abbott also gave a speech at the GWPF, and it’ll be interesting to see if the Global Warming Policy Foundation finds Scott Morrison too much of a reputational risk to them.
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.