By Cliff Reece
According to Greens leader Adam Bandt, opponents of the Albanese government’s absurd renewables-only strategy are putting lives at risk.
Bandt has lashed the food distributors of Australia for questioning Labor’s renewable energy strategy and claimed they are “putting Australian lives at threat by backing more coal and gas.”
Marxists have always been good at promoting their twisted ideology via propaganda that’s based almost entirely on lies – and Bandt and his Watermelon Warriors (green on the outside/ red on the inside) are no exception.
They work on the basis that everyday Australians are so dumb that we will believe everything they tells us.
His latest rant relates to the Albanese/Bowen government’s bizarre renewables-only energy policy.
He claims that opponents of the Labor-Greens policy on climate change and the need for spending billions more dollars on renewables – including green hydrogen – are “putting Australian lives at threat (sic) by backing more coal and gas.”
He further claims that “there are people whose homes are being destroyed and who are in fear for their lives because of climate change-fueled extreme weather events (such as) fires and floods that are fueled by coal and gas.”
The fact is, energy costs have risen by more than 50% since Labor took office in 2022 largely due to the high cost of additional renewables entering the energy system.
Bandt’s argument that human use of fossil fuels like coal and gas is to blame for recent extreme weather events is totally false.
There have been equally extreme weather events throughout history and well before the introduction of coal and gas for industrial use.
Bushfires occurred well before settlers arrived in Australia in 1788. Since then, there have been numerous major fires including the following:
1802: French scientist Francois Peron and colleagues from the ship Geographe were astonished by the multiplicity of fires in SE Tasmania: “In every direction, immense columns of fire and smoke arose from the mountains were burning for an extent of several leagues.” Days later he wrote: “Violent squalls of wind attended with such an extraordinary degree of heat that it was scarcely possible to breathe even in the open air, the wind seemed like the heat from a furnace.”
1836: Naturalist Charles Darwin commented that he encountered: “So many blackened tree stumps as a result of bushfires ….and clouds of dust and volumes of smoke sweeping across the land”. He also experienced a thermometer reading of 48.3 degrees Celsius just outside Bathurst.
1851: Black Thursday bushfires in Victoria killed 12 people and burned 5 million hectares with temperature up to 47C. Ships 30kms off the coast of Victoria reported coming under ember attack.
1898: Red Tuesday bushfires in Victoria killed 12 people and destroyed about 2000 buildings.
1926: 60 people died as a result of bushfires.
1939: Black Friday bushfires extended over 2 months killing 71 people.
1944: A month-long bushfire in Victoria killed 20 people
NASA recently reported that the area burned by global bushfires had reduced by 25% since 2003.
IPCC concluded in 2018 that there was “little or no information” about possible links between climate change and fire risks in Australia.
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) reported recently that Australia’s average temperature has increased by only 1.4 degrees since 1910.
The Productivity Commission believes that 85% of bushfires in Australia are caused by everyday human activity, not climate change.
Dangerous floods have been recorded in Australia over the past 170+ years. Here’s a rundown of some of the worst in terms of loss of life and damage to infrastructure.
1852: Floods destroyed almost the entire town of Gundagai NSW, only 3 houses were left. 89 people died. The town was then relocated to higher ground.
1890: Flood levels in Lismore NSW peaked at 12.46 metres and these were not surpassed until March 2022.
1893: Ipswich, Queensland floods caused 35 deaths and 300 injuries.
1916: Floods in Clermont and Peak Downs, Queensland caused 65 deaths and enormous property damage.
1927: Floods in Brisbane, Cairns and Townsville caused 47 deaths and damaged roads, railways, bridges and buildings.
So Bandt’s claims are entirely false.
As Advance Australia recently noted in one of their articles, many people believe that the Greens are about saving trees and wildlife, so voting for them is helping our environment.
But the reality is, they are a malignant political force trying to destroy what we love about our country including, ironically, much of our forested areas and wildlife
They need to be opposed and politically annihilated at the coming federal election.
Thanks to Dean Alston for his cartoon
Cliff Reece is the retired Principal of consulting firm Crisis Risk Management, former Executive Director/CEO of the National Safety Council of Australia (NSW/ACT) and divisional manager with KPMG.