Seventeen years ago, on this day, September 26th, 2007, Australian Prime Minister John Howard gets mocked for his climate change “position.”
FANS watching Saturday’s grand final can be sure of a political hit with their footy.
Activist group GetUp! is spending $70,000 on a 30-second advertisement sending up the Government’s Climate Clever ads.
Grattan, M. 2007. Spoof sinks the boot into climate clever ads. The Age, 26 September
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 386ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Australian Prime Minister John Howard had spent 10 years being a complete douche on many issues, including climate change. Now, there was a federal election pending and he had released some ridiculous television adverts. A then new and exciting-ish group called Get Up dd spoof adverts. It’s easy to look powerful when kicking a man when he’s down. What’s more interesting with Get Up is how its model has fallen over since 2019. But there you have it.
What we learn is that satire could look powerful against a weak and wounded politician. When they’re in their pomp, it seems to bounce off. Maybe it does, maybe it suddenly undermines them. There’s that line in Somerset Morton’s Then and Now (an account of an ageing Machiavelli), where people can survive any hatred but they can’t survive mockery.
What happened next Howard not only lost government, but he lost his own seat as an MP. First time in 70 years. Labor’s Kevin Rudd became prime minister and screwed the pooch on many things, especially climate change.
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.
References
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Also on this day:
September 26, 1989 – Australian Union body tries to add green to red…
September 26, 1998 – Howard decision only to ratify Kyoto if US does leaks.