It has been an existential election for Chris Bowen.
Not only is the Climate Change and Energy Minister largely irrelevant, whispering to his BlueSky safe space about surfboards made of wind turbines and ‘cheap’ batteries valued at $2.3 billion … this week his carbon footprint was strung up in the public square for everyone to ridicule.
The Minister, who has built his entire political personality on the danger of carbon emissions, has been caught spending $260,000 (of our money) visiting 10 countries over 55 days.
That’s 200 tonnes of carbon emissions, according to the Herald Sun.
The average person produces 4.7 tonnes and for Australia, it’s 15. Is he really worth 13-ish Aussies?
The Labor government is ripping up the fabric of our economy to ‘fix’ a problem the Minister doesn’t seem to take particularly seriously.
I’m just saying, if I thought carbon emissions were manifesting the Biblical Doomsday, I’d make a Skype call instead of hopping on a plane.
Climate ministers, climate celebrities, and climate conferences are the worst offenders of this hypocrisy. Right now there is a honking great bald strip being cut through the Amazon rainforest near where the next COP conference will talk about saving trees.
Dave Sharma, who foolishly tried to out-climate shill the Teals and lost, accused Mr Bowen of auditioning for Foreign Minister.
What does it matter? The Labor leadership has the talent pool of a packet of chips.
Some are curled up. Some are broken. Some are stuck together. Some have that ominous green tinge at the edge. But they all taste the same and clog up the arteries of government.
‘A few weeks ago, Mr Dutton was complaining that members of the government didn’t travel enough. Now he’s complaining about the opposite. Is he saying Australia should not have been represented by a minister at the G20, COP, or Pacific Island Climate Ministers’ meetings?’
Well, those last two sound shonky, but the point is, it doesn’t matter what Mr Dutton says or thinks about Mr Bowen’s travel.
What matters is what Mr Bowen’s actions say about his alleged devotion to Net Zero and his belief in the climate crisis. A man of faith doesn’t run up a carbon bill to visit talkfests.
Which makes us wonder if he is more like those Medieval monks displaying fake relics at the side of the road. You can almost see him collecting old nails, picking thorns off the rose bush, and filling hollowed-out statues with wine. We call them ‘subsidies’ and ‘grants’ but it’s basically the same thing.
Mr Bowen did not offer any excuses on BlueSky for his sins against nature, instead opting to do Peter Dutton a favour by putting up a nice big graphic accusing the Opposition leader of threatening to wield the axe in health, education, and the ABC. Awesome! If only it were not misinformation… Conservatives really want the ABC to be put on a diet.
To finish the day off, Senator Matt Canavan posted a meme that was sure to hurt Mr Bowen’s feelings.
Featuring solar panels and wind turbines, it read: ‘If wind turbines and solar panels were so effective, China wouldn’t need coal to make them.’ Ouch.
That has always been the great idiocy at the heart of decarbonisation.
Renewable energy is the child of fossil fuels. The world’s open-cut mines are its DNA and coal is its crib. It is staggering that so-called ‘smart’ and ‘educated’ people refuse to acknowledge the reality of renewable energy’s reliance on fossil fuels. If nothing else, we should take from their delusion a lesson about the power of propaganda. It’s like a poker to the eyes of reason.
While the smartest people in society remain convinced that the world will end without green taxes, ordinary people are wandering away from the climate cult.
How else can we describe the conscripting of hairdressers and barbers as propagandists?
According to the Irish Independent, a project is being offered €63,000 to ‘empower’ hairdressers and barbers to chat about the climate apocalypse.
‘The relationship between client and hairdresser is a deeply personal and trusting one,’ said a quote from the article.
It’s overstating the role of mindless salon gossip but even if it were true, why not violate that trust by reading off government talking points? Sounds fun.
You won’t be surprised to learn this idea began in Australia. Sorry Ireland.
Saturating people’s lives with political discourse and co-opting unrelated businesses is an indicator that our civilisation is slipping into the arms of an insidious, omnipresent State. Politics is a social divider, and it should be properly cordoned off to ensure citizens are able to form strong community bonds across political lines.
Other examples of unacceptable political creep include Welcome to Country messaging at sporting events and the ‘we’re all in this together’ crock of the pandemic years where the dogma was so thick it was literally plastered over streets, shops, media, cafes, parks, and even human faces.
We need to stop calling the expansion of politics ‘innovative’ and start calling it cringe.
Cringe like Mr Bowen’s selfie in a Labor-red shirt with a picture of a battery on it, as if that isn’t a wasteful ‘wear once’ product that’ll find its way into landfill. Didn’t the Environment Minister campaign against Fast Fashion for about five minutes last year or did I dream that?
‘We will co-create roleplay exercises with hairdressers which will be tested and implemented in salons. A change in knowledge, attitude, and behaviour amongst the hairdressers would be a strong indicator of success, as would any perceivable change in attitude in the clients.’
The decade-old trash magazines in the salon have a higher IQ than this logic and are more reliable at guessing celebrity pregnancies than the IPCC is at predicting temperature.
Indeed, the only weatherman on TV with a flawless track record is that random bloke who forecasts the political winds every Sunday morning…
Flat White is written by Alexandra Marshall. If you would like to support her work, shout her a coffee over at donor-box.
