Twenty five years ago, on this day, November 18, 1998, Australian Prime Minister John Howard trolls the environmentalists and the planet by appointing a coal guy as “environment minister”.
Australia announces new environment ambassador.
18 November 1998
CANBERRA, Nov 18 (Reuters) – Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer announced on Wednesday the appointment of senior Foreign Affairs and Trade department officer Ralph Hillman as Australia’s new Ambassador for the Environment.
Hillman, who has an extensive economic background, was most recently the Ambassador, permanent representative of Australia to the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris. He replaces Meg MacDonald, who held the post since September 1997.
1998 Democrats unhappy that Ralph Hillman is now environment ambassador, with ACF more emollient –
FED – Democrats damn appointment of environment ambassador. 19 November 1998
Australian Associated Press
CANBERRA, Nov 19, AAP – The Australian Democrats today damned the appointment of economist and trade expert Ralph Hillman as Australia’s new ambassador for the environment.
Democrats environment spokeswoman Lyn Alison said the announcement that Mr Hillman would replace Meg McDonald as ambassador this month was a cynical decision.
“Mr Hillman has no obvious qualifications to be an advocate for the environment, he is more likely to work against the interests of the environmental movement,” Senator Alison said in a statement.
“The key credential Mr Hillman brings to the position is his hard-headed economic rationalism and experience in foreign affairs. This makes him just the ticket for a government that doesn’t take the environment seriously.”
But the Australian Conservation Foundation said it would work with Mr Hillman.
“We believe it is a very important job,” ACF campaigns director Michael Krockenberger told AAP.
“It is especially so as Australia faces a lot of international pressure on the environment on issues like climate change and looking after world heritage areas threatened by issues such as uranium mining in Kakadu National Park and oil shale mining at the Great Barrier Reef,” he said.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 366.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Howard liked, I think, occasionally to troll his opponents. And this was classic trolling, appointing the head of the Australian Coal Association, to be the next ambassador for the environment, a post that had been created a few years earlier during the “Greenhouse Effect” spasm.
Howard also appointed Wilson Tuckey as Minister for forestry – “ he has a sense of humour.” (quote from Hamilton)
What I think we can learn from this is that by putting these sorts of people in these sorts of positions, you send the message – you demoralise your opponents, you destroy the credibility of organisations and institutions to poison the well. In other words,
What happened next
Howard kept trolling – his best was using World Environment Day to announce, in 2002, that he would submit the Kyoto Protocol, which Australia had signed, forward for ratification.
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.