I guess I am like many others who receive news summaries on a daily basis into their chosen email inbox.  Since I am a filthy left wing green liberal (with a small L thanks very much) my chosen feeds come from SBS and The Guardian and are what I usually refer to as a “decent” level of journalism.  Mostly they are factual, though of course there are opinion pieces that push that individuals chosen agenda, but being scientifically trained I believe I can pick those out and treat them accordingly.

But The Guardian I am reading this morning just starts digging a very large hole and keeps on expanding with the kind of dogged determination that I would wish to possess myself of late.  And it’s not a bad hole at all.  It’s the kind of hole that could fit an entire parliament into.  And to be fair, I’d like to be drive the dozer that covers it over once they are placed in it.  It’s a hole being dug by climate and environmental misadventure.  News piece after news piece about bushfires, land clearing, climate change, drought with the occasional segue-way into the looney bin of our elected parliamentarians.

Allow me to demonstrate.

Firstly, three communities being utterly smashed by one of the most unforgiving droughts in history.  One of those towns, being Dubbo, is only a couple of hours drive from me.  And I can safely say that same drought is giving my area a good thumping too.  There are canola crops beginning to flower, but the plants are smaller than I have ever seen them.  There are feed crops growing and they are so green in comparison to the utter dustbowls around them it is almost jarring to the eyes.  Pastures are basically just dirt and today I saw a mob of sheep eyeing a feed crop through a fence that reminded me of a movie scene of crooks casing a future bank heist.  “Storm the fence boys, we’re going in!”  Maybe not, but I bet they were thinking it.  So I can’t blame the Government for a drought now can I?  Perhaps not.  But distancing the drought from climate change is liking distancing vehicles from the roadkill that I see almost every bloody morning.  The roo/fox/rabbit/sheep got hit by a car/truck/van/bus/SUV and it’s fairly obvious.  Droughts are made worse by bad planning and not doing anything at all to lessen greenhouse gas emissions.  It also doesn’t help when you deny people their say by saying that striking school students should leave politics to the grown ups, and having those same politicians threatening to use cattle prods on protesters.  Questioning the science also doesn’t help but I could go on all weekend on this so it is time to move on.

Secondly there is the NSW Government’s investigation of land clearing that isn’t being released to the general public anytime soon.  Up, up and up go our land clearing rates to grow crops.  But if I go up one paragraph can I ask with what water?  Why clear native vegetation which is at least offering some ground cover, keeping some moisture in the soli, plus the carbon of the root systems, the soil structure itself and the soil biota.  Ah, what would I know.  I only hold a degree in Sustainable Terrestrial Ecosystems.  And when I asked a local grower about his canola planting regime and told him I was at Uni doing an Environmental Science degree his reply was that I was “just another $%#^ing tree-hugging greenie”.  Righto then.  He stormed off when I asked him how his yields were going.  Back on topic though land clearing increases greenhouse gas emissions.  That is undeniable.  If you care about facts anyway.

Moving on and coming in at number 3 on my hitlist for the day, yes, just today, is the bushfire update and how the weather is affecting current firefighting efforts.  70 still burning in Queensland and 45 in NSW.  And yes, it’s the second week of Spring.  The old “Bushfire Season” used to start on October 1.  Courtesy of story 1 and the lack of rain, whatever vegetation is left is very dry, fire fuel stocks are high from dead vegetation and nightmare scenarios abound for the very fine folk of the RFS and professional Fire Brigades across many regions.  And we’ve been warned for years, well decades actually, that climate change will intensify bushfire events.

And just because I am obviously a left wing tree hugger allow me to introduce article number 4 where one of our federal ministers has stated he “accepts the science on manmade climate change, and [I] always have”.  Except perhaps in his WRITTEN statement to The Guardian earlier in the same week where he posited that “I don’t know if climate change is manmade“.  Not a bad flip there, took 3 days apparently.  But of course he was taken out of context blaming his statement being cut short during a TV interview.  Which is kind of why I typed written in upper case earlier – it was an email response to a question from The Guardian.  So well played sir, I like the fact that you are training for a place on Boris Johnson’s front bench.  You have the qualifications already, just need to get that citizenship request in.  Is it too soon to mention citizenship again in a sentence relating to parliamentarians?  Oh well.

Now all of that probably looks like I’m picking on our fairly and freely elected Government.  That a fair statement.  I am.  Our freely and fairly elected opposition are currently trundling from one pothole to the next as they try to divorce themselves from the fact that they were utterly pulped by an uncaring and probably uninformed electorate.  They are madly looking for policy, any policy, that doesn’t sound like something the former Opposition Leader had anything to do with.  Totally unaware that the former Opposition Leader had a serious handicap in his recent history of basically being disliked by the majority of the population.  Most of the policy was good, but now politics is a reality show.  And if the public don’t like the cast they switch off.  They didn’t like Bill so they switched off.  Now we have Albo.  But will the factions let a generally likable bloke be himself or will they be paralysed in fear of him actually connecting to people and saying something against the factions.  Actually doing something we want instead of the party?  Honestly, who cares?  Expecting Labor to do something useful at this point with no majority is liking me pining for the Powerball win.  I do.  I really, really do.  But it ain’t happening.  And neither are they.  Which is why there is not one single story about a Labor policy in The Guardian.  The one newspaper prepared to give them any sort of platform at all and they have nothing to provide.

So it really was a stupid day to look at the news.

Sigh.