Ten years ago, on this day, July 29, 2013, an unreadable “book” about climate change was launched in Adelaide. That sound you hear? It’s real conservatives spinning in their graves…
“Written by Bob Carter and John Spooner, Taxing Air was successfully launched by Senator Cory Bernardi (below right) at the Bert Kelly Research Centre on 29 July. [in Adelaide] Speakers at the launch included Lydia Bevege (Institute of Public Affairs), Centre Chairman Bob Day and author Prof. Bob Carter “
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 394.5ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
In the sleepy country town of Adelaide another schlub firing blanks in the culture war. The context is that Julia Gillard, against the expectations of her opponents, had successfully shepherded the ETS legislation through parliament in 2011. She had since been toppled by Kevin Rudd, whom she had toppled in 2010 (oh, what times they were). And an election was coming, which Tony Abbott would win. But climate, despite the hopes of Bob Carter, and the other author, was no longer the culture war dynamite that it had been in the past. Everyone was sick and tired of it. Everyone who had an opinion, had their opinion. It was not going to be changed one way or the other. And the book “Taxing the Air” is the most deliriously embarrassing hodgepodge of crap you’d ever had the misfortune to (try to) read. Connor Court press were a long way from the glory days of Ian Plimer’s Heaven & Earth in 2009.
What I think we can learn from this
Idiots gonna idiot.
What happened next
Carter died.
And the climate wars in Australia continue, courtesy Peter Dutton, chasing the wrong demographic.