Tag: Minerals Council of Australia

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anti-reflexivity Australia Denial United States of America

“Snowballs and morons and coal lumps, oh my”: on the hysterical materiality of old white men

Today some moronic Republican senator [Redundant adjective? Ed] brandished a lump of coal in the US Senate (thanks to Aaron for alerting me)

Via this Bluesky

This takes me back almost 20 years to the GE ‘clean coal’ advert (warning – utterly delirious).

And it takes me back to another cognitively-challenged Republican Senator [?? Ed], the late and unlamented James Inhofe who threw a snowball on the Senate Floor to ‘disprove’ global warming and rile the snowflake liberals, back in 2015.

A couple of years later, in the quarry-with-a-state-attached some people persist in calling “Australia”, the then-Treasurer (who would become Prime Minister), Scotty Morrison brandished a lump of coal in Parliament.  Some points to note: It was in the middle of a heatwave. He handed it on to one of the most absurd politicians of all time, Barnaby Joyce, who mimicked (?) wide-eyed joy at the gift.  The lump of dead matter (the coal, I mean) was provided by the Minerals Council of Australia, the industry lobby group that has done probably more than any other to stop meaningful climate action in Australia.  The lump was lacquered, so it wouldn’t smudge anyone’s hands – that’s the cleanest coal ever gets.

What’s going on here?  This isn’t just trolling, an effort to “own the libs,” and maintain the morale of Good Red Blooded Americans/Australians.  This is also, I suspect, some sort of desperate attempt to convince themselves of what they fear is a delusion, by having something material to hand.  The Marxists talk about (or used to – I don’t keep up with the jabber so much anymore) historical materialism.  This is more hysterical (2)  materiality.

Where will it all end? More of these stunts. More performative anti-nature nihilism. More asshole ambit claims.  O temperature, o mores.

See also

This blog post that I completely forgot I had written but says pretty much what I have said above.

Wind beneath their contempt

Petromasculinity 

Anti-reflexivity – see video

Footnotes

  1. David Brooks – the posterchild for overpromoted well-educated idiots – has written an entire kinda sorta mea culpa (but not really, because it is STILL the left’s fault) about ‘Where We Go From Here’ that manages to say not a single word about the climate (and ecological) debacle. Maybe if we pretend it isn’t there, or if we put our hands over our eyes, it isn’t there.  See also Dave Vetter’s review of the prosperity gospel for atheists book by Ezra Klein.
  2. I am alive to both the gendered and Fraudian aspects here, but idgaf for present purposes
Categories
Australia Denial Industry Associations Kyoto Protocol

August 20, 1997 – Australian Mining Industry operative misrepresents the #climate science. Obvs.

On this day, August 20, 1997, a mining trade industry figure, Dick Wells of the Minerals Council of Australia totally misrepresents what the IPCC was by this time saying about climate change.”

[The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 362.4 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.]

“In an interview on ABC television, 7.30 Report on 20.8.97, Dick Wells stated that industry did not support the assertion that most scientists believe a build up of gases will cause climate change. Instead, industry supports the IPCC results which, he asserts, conclude that there is doubt about the science. Mr Wells goes on to say industry takes the issue seriously, that there is a “need for caution and we like good science … we’re a science based industry …” and concludes “there are a wide range of scientific opinions about what the impacts are going to be of any global warming and what we’re saying is it’s still prudent to do cost effective measures now and that’s what we’re embarking on with government but to go beyond those measures which deliver economic benefits, we think it would not be prudent to do so at this stage.””

(Duncan, 1997:84)

Yes, this would be the same IPCC whose second assessment report had – to howls of confected outrage from the Global Climate Coalition – concluded that the “balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.”

Why this matters. 

Industry gets to seem reasonable. Australians don’t get up out of their armchairs and demand much much more of their elected leaders. Result!

What happened next?

The mining industry kept on keeping on. Who do you think supplied that lacquered lump of coal to Scott Morrison to brandish in parliament? Who do you think his inner circle was made up of?

Categories
Australia Kyoto Protocol

July 27, 2001 – Minerals Council of Australia versus the Kyoto Protocol

On this day in 2001 the Minerals Council of Australia (the lobby group for the big mining outfits tried to stiffen the Howard government’s stance on the Kyoto Protocol with a media release with the catchy title “Government Must Stand firm on Kyoto.”.

Australia had extracted/extorted a sweet sweet deal at the 1997 negotiations about rich countries reducing their emissions. It had signed the deal, but NOT ratified it. At this particular moment, the USA had pulled out, but Australia had not. There was an election coming, and one that was not looking safe for Howard (this is pre-Tampa…) Would Howard ratify in order to deprive Labor of a stick to beat him with? The MCA wanted to make sure that unlikely event did not come to pass…

Why this matters. 

Keep your eyes on what the big trade associations are saying (and – to the best you can – doing).

What happened next?

Business ended up splitting on Kyoto – the Business Council of Australia had to move from “don’t ratify” to “we have no settled position” because there was a stalemate between the pro- and antis within the members of the organisation.

See also Howarth, N. and Foxall, A. (2010)  “The Veil of Kyoto and the politics of greenhouse gas mitigation in Australia”. Political Geography. Volume 29, Issue 3, Pages 167-176. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2010.03.001

They argue that

“‘Kyoto’ has created a veil over the climate issue in Australia in a number of ways. Firstly, its symbolic power has distracted attention from actual environmental outcomes while its accounting rules obscure the real level of carbon emissions and structural trends at the nation-state level. Secondly, a public policy tendency to commit to far off emission targets as a compromise to implementing legislation in the short term has also emerged on the back of Kyoto-style targets. Thirdly, Kyoto’s international flexibility mechanisms can lead to the diversion of mitigation investment away from the nation-state implementing carbon legislation. A final concern of the Kyoto approach is how it has shifted focus away from Australia as the world’s largest coal exporter towards China, its primary customer….”