How Stupid Can Denial Get? How long is a piece of string.
The Guardian newspaper reported today that “Australia’s richest person, mining magnate Gina Rinehart, has been revealed as a key funder of the rightwing thinktank the Institute of Public Affairs – a consistent promoter of climate science scepticism.”
“Rinehart’s company, Hancock Prospecting, donated $2.3m to the IPA in 2016 and $2.2m in 2017, according to disclosures made to the New South Wales supreme court.”
The article further reported that “In 2011, she wrote in a magazine column that she had “yet to hear scientific evidence to satisfy me that if the very, very small amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (approximately 0.38%) was increased, it could lead to significant global warming”.
She added: “I have never met a geologist or leading scientist who believes adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere will have any significant effect on climate change, especially not from a relatively small country like Australia.”
“According to Forbes, Rinehart was the seventh-richest woman in the world in 2017 and Australia’s richest person, with current wealth estimated to be $17.6.bln.”
Now, I get this. She’s making squillions of dollars by flogging Australia’s carbon-rich thermal coal to buyers overseas who use it as the fuel to generate electricity.
I also understand that the provision of electricity in many parts of the world can significantly extend the life span of many people. I’ve read this could be up to 10 years in parts of rural India.
I doubt this Rinehart’s main concern though.
She’s talking her own book, which is flogging coal and other bulks and making millions if not trillions of dollars for herself by doing it.
Rinehart, one of those plucky billionaires and fossil fuel company owners, must surely be the poster girl for the IPA, their pinup girl.
The sweetheart of the deluded and desperate demographic of climate change-deniers.
And that’s who and what this cracked cohort of deniers are fighting for as they trash science and in so doing trash civilisation: so Rinehart can continue making quadrillions.
