Denialism dies hard — and expensively — on the right

For those who might have wondered if the grim reality of climate change had dawned on many on the right, the last few days have been an eye-opener.

Climate change, Gina Rinehart tried to tell her alma mater, was caused entirely naturally and anyone who said otherwise was doing so “on emotional basis, or tied to money, or egos, or power-seekers”.

None of this stuff that humans are a minor contributor to climate change, or that climate change is unstoppable and we have to adapt, or the you-beaut carbon capture and storage will save us line of the kind favoured on the right these days — this was your proper, old-school 100 proof, conspiracy theory denialism from one of Australia’s richest and most powerful people.

Campbell Newman isn’t quite so powerful — the man who infamously managed to go from a super-landslide victory to defeat in a single term isn’t even in a major party any more — but he’s fairly prominent on the right in his new guise as a tribune of the Liberal Democrat party. He was on Sky News this week (you might remember that Sky News is supposed to be taking a more rational line on climate these days) calling for people to question climate science.

“The hysterical projections made … 30, 34 years ago, exactly the same sounding sort of projections that we hear today,” Newman told that noted journalist of record Alan Jones. Climate action would “decimate” agriculture and “decimate” our regions.

As Crikey pointed out a few weeks back, in fact land-clearing restrictions resulting from the Kyoto Protocol coincided with an extraordinary boom in agricultural production and exports, so decimation, even in the wholly improbable event Newman was using that word correctly, is an unlikely result of any climate action. That might be why so many agricultural groups are calling for much more ambitious action from the federal government.

On that front, we were treated to two extraordinary contributions from two other denialists, somewhat closer to direct power than a failed premier or billionaire heiress mining magnate. Resources Minister Keith Pitt proposed a quarter-trillion dollar coal mining fund that, as we pointed out yesterday, would keep coal going into the second half of the 22nd century.

And the Coalition’s Matt Canavan wants to exclude Australia financial institutions that refuse to fund fossil fuel projects. There was some interesting language on that from Canavan:

How is that any different from the Chinese Communist Party telling us that we should write certain laws if we want to trade with them … What these international bankers are saying is if you don’t have a net zero emissions target, we’re not going to trade with you.

Hmmm. “International bankers”. It’s always a worry when right-wing politicians begin talking about “international bankers” dictating to people. Cutting off access to international capital — I’m old enough to remember the days when the Coalition wanted to attract international capital — might drive up interest rates. But Canavan thinks that won’t happen: “There’s no shortage of capital in Australia, there’s no shortage of capital in the world.”

Matt’s changed his view on that since a couple of weeks ago, when he said it’d be fine if “we pay higher interest rates but that is worth it to protect our independece [sic].” Matt might not like closed borders, but he loves the idea of closed financial systems.

A couple of basis points increase in interest rates — of the kind Canavan thought could result from kicking out banks that don’t want to fund a dying industry — would add around $900 a year to the current average new mortgage taken out by Australians, all to prop up coal.

It makes Angus Taylor’s CoalKeeper tax, which would only add up to $400 a year to electricity bills, look modest.

Notice how all this utter stupidity has been normalised in our political debate. No one bats an eyelid when a senior National proposes financial isolationism and higher interest rates, like no one batted an eyelid when David Littleproud — an actual serving minister — said banks should lose their deposit guarantee if they refused to fund coal projects.

But it points to a deep, deep vein of irrationality and denialism that still pervades the right on climate, and it’s not going anywhere.