The Coalition's culture wars are now getting hazardous for your health. From her air-conditioned Sky News studio, this week Peta Credlin whinged about a "leftist" council in Melbourne cancelling the Moomba Parade due to extreme heat, accusing the council of "trying to reinforce notions of a climate catastrophe" - as though getting heatstroke is a failure of character, rather than a life-threatening medical emergency.
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"Since when has 38 degrees triggered 'a severe heatwave alert', and since when has this been enough to cancel an outdoor parade?" asked Ms Credlin, Tony Abbott's former chief of staff, with the smug indifference of someone who has never had to work outside in 38-degree heat.
Never mind that the Bureau of Meteorology issued heatwave warnings that temperatures were expected to be 10 to 15 degrees above the March average and "that's putting stress on the body that's dangerous". Never mind that the Pitch Festival also had to be cancelled due to extreme heat and fire danger warnings from the CFA. Never mind it's just a few months since global headlines announced a 23-year-old Taylor Swift fan had died of heat exhaustion during a heatwave in Brazil in November. Never mind that Adelaide's morgue once ran out of room following a killer heatwave of six consecutive days with temperatures above 40 degrees in 2009.
In reality, heat kills. As temperatures rise above 35 degrees, the human body loses the ability to cool itself by sweating. If the internal temperature of your body rises too much, heatstroke can cause organ failure and, ultimately, death. Sometimes quite quickly.
Heatstroke constitutes a medical emergency, but Ms Credlin would have you believe extreme heat is nothing more than a woke leftist concern. Tell that to a roofer or a brickie who has to work on a 40-degree day.
It's just science. Australians are already facing the consequences of global warming; whether it's extreme heat and heatwaves, more frequent and intense bushfires, or floods.
It is impacting other countries right now, too. We need only look to our neighbours in the Pacific Islands to see climate change is an immediate problem that requires immediate responses.
Anote Tong, the former president of Kiribati (2003-2016), is currently travelling the country as a guest of the Australia Institute. Kiribati is on the front lines of climate change; the IPCC says by 2060, sea level rise could make Kiribati uninhabitable. And while the island nation has little power to stop the encroaching ocean, Tong warns climate change is not just a threat to Pacific islands, but to Australia and the whole planet: "Climate change is not a political football, it's a matter of planetary survival."
For a decade, Tong has been calling on global leaders to stop expanding fossil fuel projects, including Australia. The Pacific is committed to being fossil fuel-free, but Australia is the third largest exporter of fossil fuels, with plans to expand even further.
It's just science. There is a direct link between Australia's coal mines and gas fields, the record heatwaves Australia is experiencing more frequently, and the sea level rise that threatens Kiribati's future.
Coal and gas, when burned for energy or electricity, emit potent greenhouse gases which trap heat in the atmosphere and increase global temperatures over time. This used to be known as the greenhouse effect, though we don't seem to talk about that much anymore. But just as the human body loses the ability to cool itself as temperatures soar, the burning of gas and coal is diminishing the Earth's ability to regulate its temperature.
It doesn't matter if the coal is mined in the Hunter and burned in India, or whether the gas is fracked in Queensland and used in Japan - every Australian coal mine and gas field is making climate change worse. It's just science.
It's true the Coalition's plans to build six nuclear reactors are nothing more than a distraction disguised as a boondoggle, a policy designed to keep gas and coal going for as long as possible.
READ MORE EBONY BENNETT:
It's also true there is no 'clean energy transition' while the Albanese government is still subsidising and approving the expansion of gas fields and coal mines. The Albanese government is using public money to subsidise the problem. It's giving $2 billion in public money to gas development in the Northern Territory, including Darwin's Middle Arm project, to expand gas exports. That's around the same amount of money as the entire gas industry paid through the petroleum resource rent tax, the main tax on the gas industry. Last year it passed a sea dumping bill designed to pave the way for Santos' controversial Barossa offshore gas project. And Australia spends far more money subsidising fossil fuels to make climate change worse (around $11 billion a year) than it spends on aid to the Pacific (around $1.4 billion a year).
That shows pretty starkly where the government's priorities are. While the Albanese government is making up for a decade of inaction under the previous Coalition government by accelerating the move to renewables domestically, no amount of solar panels or wind turbines or batteries can stop warming globally if we keep using and subsidising fossil fuels.
The federal government must stop expanding the fossil fuel industry. Full stop. It must stop subsidising the problem. Full stop.
Not only will that stop making climate change worse, but it will also stop wasting taxpayers' money. The gas industry is raking in tens of billions of dollars in windfall profits and gas prices are through the roof. The gas industry doesn't need $1.5 billion from taxpayers. Taxpayers need the gas industry to start paying its fair share.
In order for Australia to transition to a cleaner future, we first have to stop making the problem worse. The science could not be clearer. There is no room for new gas and coal projects anymore.
Ebony Bennett is deputy director for The Australia Institute and a former Greens media advisor and a regular columnist for The Canberra Times.
Ebony Bennett is deputy director for The Australia Institute and a former Greens media advisor and a regular columnist for The Canberra Times.
The government must stop helping the fossil fuel industry today
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15.03.2024
The Coalition's culture wars are now getting hazardous for your health. From her air-conditioned Sky News studio, this week Peta Credlin whinged about a "leftist" council in Melbourne cancelling the Moomba Parade due to extreme heat, accusing the council of "trying to reinforce notions of a climate catastrophe" - as though getting heatstroke is a failure of character, rather than a life-threatening medical emergency.
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Login or signup to continue reading
"Since when has 38 degrees triggered 'a severe heatwave alert', and since when has this been enough to cancel an outdoor parade?" asked Ms Credlin, Tony Abbott's former chief of staff, with the smug indifference of someone who has never had to work outside in 38-degree heat.
Never mind that the Bureau of Meteorology issued heatwave warnings that temperatures were expected to be 10 to 15 degrees above the March average and "that's putting stress on the body that's dangerous". Never mind that the Pitch Festival also had to be cancelled due to extreme heat and fire danger warnings from the CFA. Never mind it's just a few months since global headlines announced a 23-year-old Taylor Swift fan had died of heat exhaustion during a heatwave in Brazil in November. Never mind that Adelaide's morgue once ran out of room following a killer heatwave of six consecutive days with temperatures above 40 degrees in 2009.
In reality, heat kills. As temperatures rise above 35 degrees, the human body loses the ability to cool itself by sweating. If the internal temperature of your body rises........
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