A Royal Commission?
Alan Kohler, in an opinion piece in thepretend Murdoch ‘newspaper’ The Australian, has called for a Royal Commissioninto climate change and uses, as an analogy, the banking Royal Commission1.The latter was something that the government tried to avoid, such that it hadto be dragged kicking and screaming to actually convene it, when some of thegovernment’s own backbenchers started kicking up a stink. To cover themselves,the government got the banks to ask for it. The banks and the government triedto limit the damage by abbreviating the length of the inquiry, but CommissionerHayne was too astute for them and uncovered malfeasance on an industrial scale.His disgust with the government was obvious when he had to present his findingsto Josh Frydenberg, in front of the cameras, and refused to shake hands withhim.
Kohler says “we’re in the midst of asimilar process with climate change and now need a final believable, publicdebate where the issue can be tested judicially and agreement reached.” I haverarely heard something so silly. We do not need an enquiry into the veracity ofclimate change. That was sorted out 30 years ago when the first IPCC reportcame out2.
The problem with Kohler’s use of this analogyis that there was evidence of malfeasance long before the Banking RoyalCommission. You have a Royal Commission to investigate wrongdoing, not science.Having a Royal Commission into climate change is not analogous to the bankingRC. The banking RC investigated the perpetrators, not the whistle-blowers andcomplainants. There are still some nutters out there who do not believe in evolution,spheroidal earth3, gravity or heliocentricity. While these weresorted out by scientists many years or even millennia in the past, there arestill a few fruitcakes around who won’t have a bar of them. Using Kohler’slogic, we should have a Royal Commission into all these facts too, solelybecause of the ridiculous beliefs of those nutters (some of whom are inparliament).
Kohler does make the point that the governmentseems incapable of doing their job with regard to climate change, even to theextent that they have attacked big business (notably BHP Billiton) for havingthe gall to take account of climate change in its future planning. The onlybenefit of having a Royal Commission will be for the government; they will beable to use it as an excuse to change tack, and to kick the far-right climatechange deniers in its ranks in the goolies, but given that the government hasbeen taken over by them, it is unlikely. It will also allow the government toplead ignorance and give them at least a chance of avoiding justice, whether itbe at the International Criminal Court or something much, much worse.
What we do need a Royal Commission into, isthe climate change denial industry. That would be interesting, and wouldprovide many more names for the list of those to face justice. Just imagine thegovernment, assorted mining organisations, media organisations and lobbyists havingto reveal why they have taken their stance against the science, what moneychanged hands when, and where it came from4,5,6. That would be thebeginning of some sort of justice.
Sources
- https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/economics/lets-have-a-climate-change-royal-commission/news-story/180af54d5cb85b12c7df0848aa41b560
- http://www.blotreport.com/australian-politics/stating-the-obvious-30-years-too-late-2/
- http://www.blotreport.com/science/scientists-never-thought-earth-flat/
- https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dark-money-funds-climate-change-denial-effort/
- https://blog.ucsusa.org/elliott-negin/exxonmobil-still-funding-climate-science-denier-groups
- https://www.australianethical.com.au/news/understanding-climate-change-denial/
http://www.blotreport.com/2019/09/22/a-royal-commission/
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