Eighteen years ago, on this day, June 29th, 2004 another Liberal talks nonsense about renewables.
’ Mr Peter McGauran MP, the federal Minister for Agriculture and member for Gippsland, went further in June 2006, saying ‘Wind farms don’t live up to the hype that they’re the environmental saviour and a serious alternative energy source.
ABC, 2006. Pete McGauran says wind farms a fraud. AM Program, 29 June. 2006
(Prest, 2007: 254)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 377ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context is that the Howard government was doing its absolute best to suppress the rise of renewables. It had been forced or it had in 1997, chosen to announce a renewables target As part of its, “this is why we won’t sign Kyoto” campaign.
And then it had been forced to eventually create a mandatory renewable energy target that came into effect in April of 2001. By this time, the Howard Government had called a meeting of the Low Emissions Technology Advisory Group, a bunch of fossil fuel majors, asking for their help in suppressing renewables. So this is arguing that there is hype around renewables. But that very accurate critique of hype and unrealistic expectations around a new technology, oddly, never gets applied to carbon capture and storage or god forbid nuclear.
What we learn is that Liberal Party, people call themselves conservative, but they’re not conserving the planet, ecosystems, quality of life for anyone. What they’re conserving is their own position, relative power and importance by cuddling up to the status quo act as they are conserving a poisonous deadly status quo.
What happened next? The investment environment for renewables in Australia became so hostile that Vestas the Danish wind turbine manufacturer, ended up closing its factory in Tasmania/ It would only be from 2012-13 that renewables really took off in Australia, in part, thanks to international factors, but also don’t underestimate ARENA and the CEFC.
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.
Also on this day:
June 29, 1956 – Just DRIVE, she said…
June 29, 1979 – G7 says climate change matters. Yes, 1979.
June 29, 1979 – Thatcher uses carbon dioxide build-up to shill for nuclear power