T'was ever

Pea and Thimble Trick

Science Minister Karen Andrews’ talk about climate change being real may be ‘a shift in rhetoric’, but it isn’t ‘a blunt warning’.  The live rail in Coalition politics is, specifically, the word ‘anthropogenic’. After thirty years denialists have now reluctantly come round to agree that climate change is happening, but that doesn’t mean they’ve conceded that humans have caused it. They’ve moved on to talking about adaptation to change only because that doesn’t involve doing anything to stop it, and people like Andrews will happily fight on that front for the next thirty years. When Andrews refers to ‘unnecessary debate’ she means ‘science’. She isn’t actually the Minister for Science: like every other minister in the Morrison Government, she’s the Minister for Coal. The Age shouldn’t enable her evasions. We're well beyond the point where 'a shift in rhetoric' is anything but adding insult to injury.