A bitter group of troops send the PM a message: you're no John Monash

It is no coincidence Coalition backbenchers have unveiled a pro-coal 'ginger' group, the Monash Forum, just as Malcolm Turnbull braces for the embarrassment of a landmark poll loss.

Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull are at odds over energy policy.

Nor it is coincidence that it comes just as his government eyes the first realistic prospect of a breakthrough in the decade-old climate wars, with Commonwealth and state energy ministers due to meet in April to consider the National Energy Guarantee.

Nor even that they've appropriated Australia's greatest soldier, Sir John Monash, just as the Prime Minister heads for the Western Front later this month.

The symbol for reaching a 30th wedding anniversary is the gleaming white pearl. Turnbull's present for notching up that same number in Newspoll losses - the very milestone he cited as proof that Tony Abbott's standing was irreversible - is an altogether dirtier object.

Hardliners are now presenting the Prime Minister with the same lump of coal they flaunted in Parliament last year.

Read Mark Kenny’s story from The Age - “A bitter group of troops send the PM a message: you're no John Monash.”

Despite the politics, good news on climate

Anyone following the news on climate policy might well incline to despair. Not only is the Turnbull government continuing to promote the idea that coal is the energy source of the future as well as the past, but many of its backbenchers also think that the best alternative is nuclear power. 

Gesture politics: Donald Trump signing executive
 orders relating to climate policy in late January. 

Of course, in the grand scheme of things, what Australia does or doesn’t do counts for little. That’s not a justification for doing nothing or doing the wrong thing – with a couple of exceptions, no single country counts for much. The biggest exception to this rule is the United States, of course, followed by China and India. So the real concern is that the Trump administration is adopting a similarly retrograde position.

The good news is that it’s almost certainly too late for Trump and Turnbull to derail the progress that’s being made towards a decarbonised and sustainable global economy. They are engaged in gesture politics designed to appeal to culture warriors on the right, not a serious strategy to revive coal and nuclear power.

The case of nuclear power is the clearest. The only hope for nuclear power is the adoption of a single low-cost design that can be built in large numbers, thereby achieving economies of scale. France managed this in the 1970s, but no one (including France) has managed to repeat the trick.

Read John Quiggan’s Inside Story piece - “Despite the politics, good news on climate.”

'Science deniers reject authority and facts' - The Age

In North Carolina, a community rejects a solar farm amid concerns it could "suck up all the energy from the sun" and cause cancer.

On the sidelines of climate negotiations in Paris, an eccentric British peer continues to insist anthropogenic climate change is a hoax. In Canberra, prominent backbenchers publicly share the same doubts. So, it seems, do 17 per cent of the Australian population.

The principal of Brunswick North West Primary School makes a point of respecting the "diversity" of views on vaccination. Months later, a quarter of its student body comes down with chicken pox.

Read The Age story - “Science deniers reject authority and facts.”