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I have a lot of respect for Professor Tim Flannery - he’s a great science communicator and hosted a heap of shows in the early 2000’s. He fronted a parliamenta

I have a lot of respect for Professor Tim Flannery - he’s a great science communicator and hosted a heap of shows in the early 2000’s. He fronted a parliamentary hearing on climate change some time around 2010, where a heroic Liberal minister stated something along the lines of ‘you’re a palaeontologist, not a climate scientist, so you’re argument is invalid’. It was pretty sad to see. Even being a climate scientist back then was cause for your credentials to be brought into question, let alone one from a cognate field.

mistrial9 4y ago
first mistake - you take the words of a politician, at one stroke, against a lifetime of disciplined study and speaking.
poulpy123 4y ago
> Liberal minister Not being familiar with Australian politics, is it liberal in the US meaning or the european meaning ?
- erklik 4y ago
  Liberal party in Australia is the centre-right party. I am guessing they'd still be left of the US right-wing but that's beside the point.
  - tw1984 4y ago
    I personally won't label the Liberal party as a centre-right party or left of the US right wing when it is currently led by Peter Dutton who is a typical far right element in modern politics. I also struggle to categorize its recent former leader Tony Abbott and his close mate Joe Hockey who was the Treasurer as "centre-right". We are talking about a priest who was famously & accurately labelled by the only female Australian Prime Minister as a misogyny - that speech was voted for the No.1 moment in Australian TV history! These two are the people who want everyone to believe that it is a life style choice when people don't buy & drive ferrari. Oh, let's also don't forget what happened to Liberal's actual centre-right leader Malcolm Turnbull. He was replaced by a bulldozer PM who is responsible for the use of automated machines to force the most vulnerable people to fork out billions of $ to cover their non-exist debts so his federal budget can look better to his supporters. Is this centre-right?
    - robbiep 4y ago
      The Liberal party, for all its recent decade plus of derangement, is still clearly a center right party on an international scope. It would, for example, be anathema to degrade the level of services we experience in this country (and the Libs did pump a lot of money into services over the last few years, even whilst favouring private schools and clawing back robotically cash from those unable to fight back)
- gloryjulio 4y ago
  But even in US meaning, liberals are central right. Dems are central right. There is no labor or left party in US. The closest u can find is Bernie who is a social dem.
  - gseggset 4y ago
    Why do American users keep repeating this rubbish? Have you all read the same book / blockpost making this ridiculous claim?
    - gloryjulio 4y ago
      I don't understand ur logic. Won't American say Dems are left? and non-Americans would say there is no left in America acedemically? Isn't that the opposite of what u saying?
      - arethuza 4y ago
        "There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat." Gore Vidal
      - kortilla 4y ago
        > and non-Americans would say there is no left in America acedemically “left” isn’t a thing academically because there isn’t some line that actually captures the wide variety of political positions. This meme of “there is no left in America” is just a childish way of saying, “I don’t like the current majority opinion of the Democratic Party”.
        coldtea 4y ago
        >“left” isn’t a thing academically because there isn’t some line that actually captures the wide variety of political positions. Well, for Europeans (and I'd guess Canadians, Latin Americans, etc.) there is a line, and the Dems never cut it. A fuzzy line (a spectrum if you will on the left) doesn't mean there isn't one, and one can be of either side. Dems are not, and have never been, even close to the fuzzy "border" part of that line, always to the right of it. Centrist is the more accurate term for Dems (and even that's charitable). It's basically center-right (Dems), and right-to-far-right (GOP). Sure, for some Americans, Democrats might be called "left", but then again other Americans also considered Swedish style social democracy as "communism". >This meme of “there is no left in America” is just a childish way of saying, “I don’t like the current majority opinion of the Democratic Party”. No, it's more like saying "America never has had a left party, just a party more to the left than the other". Not in any historical sense of the term as developed and still currently used in Europe, at any rate.
- photochemsyn 4y ago
  Politicians are subservient to the entities that fund them, and in Australia? > "Coal is mined in every state of Australia. The largest black coal resources occur in Queensland and New South Wales. About 70% of coal mined in Australia is exported, mostly to eastern Asia, and of the balance most is used in electricity generation. In 2019-20 Australia exported 390 Mt of coal (177 Mt metallurgical coal and 213 Mt thermal coal) and was the world's largest exporter of metallurgical coal and second largest exporter of thermal coal." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_Australia The fact that Australia has been experiencing severe climate-change-related whipsaws from extreme flooding to extreme drought and fire hasn't changed this dynamic, as the Australian government cheerfully reports: > "Coal export volumes have grown at an average annual rate of 2.5 per cent from 285 Mt in 2010–11 to 363 Mt in 2020–21... In 2020, Australia held 14 per cent of the world’s coal reserves (black and brown), ranking third behind the United States (23 per cent) and Russia (15 per cent)." It's the same in the USA, although here we have two fossil-fuel-owned parties, Dems and Reps, but the former lie about their climate agenda while the latter are honest about it. In reality, both are owned by Wall Street interests who invest heavily in fossil fuels. At least they could be honest about the science, instead of trying to hide the reality.
moffkalast 4y ago
That's especially funny since almost all we know about the climate's long term behaviour has been dug up from the ground.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

mistrial9 4y ago

first mistake - you take the words of a politician, at one stroke, against a lifetime of disciplined study and speaking.

poulpy123 4y ago

> Liberal minister Not being familiar with Australian politics, is it liberal in the US meaning or the european meaning ?

erklik 4y ago
Liberal party in Australia is the centre-right party. I am guessing they'd still be left of the US right-wing but that's beside the point.
- tw1984 4y ago
  I personally won't label the Liberal party as a centre-right party or left of the US right wing when it is currently led by Peter Dutton who is a typical far right element in modern politics. I also struggle to categorize its recent former leader Tony Abbott and his close mate Joe Hockey who was the Treasurer as "centre-right". We are talking about a priest who was famously & accurately labelled by the only female Australian Prime Minister as a misogyny - that speech was voted for the No.1 moment in Australian TV history! These two are the people who want everyone to believe that it is a life style choice when people don't buy & drive ferrari. Oh, let's also don't forget what happened to Liberal's actual centre-right leader Malcolm Turnbull. He was replaced by a bulldozer PM who is responsible for the use of automated machines to force the most vulnerable people to fork out billions of $ to cover their non-exist debts so his federal budget can look better to his supporters. Is this centre-right?
  - robbiep 4y ago
    The Liberal party, for all its recent decade plus of derangement, is still clearly a center right party on an international scope. It would, for example, be anathema to degrade the level of services we experience in this country (and the Libs did pump a lot of money into services over the last few years, even whilst favouring private schools and clawing back robotically cash from those unable to fight back)
gloryjulio 4y ago
But even in US meaning, liberals are central right. Dems are central right. There is no labor or left party in US. The closest u can find is Bernie who is a social dem.
- gseggset 4y ago
  Why do American users keep repeating this rubbish? Have you all read the same book / blockpost making this ridiculous claim?
  - gloryjulio 4y ago
    I don't understand ur logic. Won't American say Dems are left? and non-Americans would say there is no left in America acedemically? Isn't that the opposite of what u saying?
    - arethuza 4y ago
      "There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat." Gore Vidal
    - kortilla 4y ago
      > and non-Americans would say there is no left in America acedemically “left” isn’t a thing academically because there isn’t some line that actually captures the wide variety of political positions. This meme of “there is no left in America” is just a childish way of saying, “I don’t like the current majority opinion of the Democratic Party”.
      - coldtea 4y ago
        >“left” isn’t a thing academically because there isn’t some line that actually captures the wide variety of political positions. Well, for Europeans (and I'd guess Canadians, Latin Americans, etc.) there is a line, and the Dems never cut it. A fuzzy line (a spectrum if you will on the left) doesn't mean there isn't one, and one can be of either side. Dems are not, and have never been, even close to the fuzzy "border" part of that line, always to the right of it. Centrist is the more accurate term for Dems (and even that's charitable). It's basically center-right (Dems), and right-to-far-right (GOP). Sure, for some Americans, Democrats might be called "left", but then again other Americans also considered Swedish style social democracy as "communism". >This meme of “there is no left in America” is just a childish way of saying, “I don’t like the current majority opinion of the Democratic Party”. No, it's more like saying "America never has had a left party, just a party more to the left than the other". Not in any historical sense of the term as developed and still currently used in Europe, at any rate.
photochemsyn 4y ago
Politicians are subservient to the entities that fund them, and in Australia? > "Coal is mined in every state of Australia. The largest black coal resources occur in Queensland and New South Wales. About 70% of coal mined in Australia is exported, mostly to eastern Asia, and of the balance most is used in electricity generation. In 2019-20 Australia exported 390 Mt of coal (177 Mt metallurgical coal and 213 Mt thermal coal) and was the world's largest exporter of metallurgical coal and second largest exporter of thermal coal." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_Australia The fact that Australia has been experiencing severe climate-change-related whipsaws from extreme flooding to extreme drought and fire hasn't changed this dynamic, as the Australian government cheerfully reports: > "Coal export volumes have grown at an average annual rate of 2.5 per cent from 285 Mt in 2010–11 to 363 Mt in 2020–21... In 2020, Australia held 14 per cent of the world’s coal reserves (black and brown), ranking third behind the United States (23 per cent) and Russia (15 per cent)." It's the same in the USA, although here we have two fossil-fuel-owned parties, Dems and Reps, but the former lie about their climate agenda while the latter are honest about it. In reality, both are owned by Wall Street interests who invest heavily in fossil fuels. At least they could be honest about the science, instead of trying to hide the reality.

moffkalast 4y ago

That's especially funny since almost all we know about the climate's long term behaviour has been dug up from the ground.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]