Meet our new deputy PM: Michael McCormack is just another Nationals climate sceptic

Given he is our new deputy prime minister, it is not surprising that “who is Michael McCormack?” pieces are now popping up everywhere. And yet, they glide over his worst offence: he appears to be just another National Party climate change denier.

New National Party Leader, Michael
McCormack - another climate change sceptic.

In some respects, McCormack is a departure from previous leaders of the Nationals like John McEwen, Doug Anthony or Tim Fischer, who were themselves farmers. McCormack, who today was appointed infrastructure and transport minister, is already being lined up in Question Time as a “fake farmer”. Political opponents like Labor’s Stephen Jones joked that the price tag was probably still on his Akubra, and that the only muster he’d ever done was to muster the numbers to knock off Barnaby Joyce.

Read The Monthly story by Paddy Maning - “Meet our new deputy PM: Michael McCormack is just another Nationals climate sceptic.”

'Lukewarmers' frustrate strong mitigation policies

T

he “lukewarmers” who don’t deny, but pay lip service to climate change are probably the biggest obstacle to the implementation of strong greenhouse gas mitigation policies.



Tamsin Edwards -
"knee-deep"
in climate change.

Tamsin Edwards discusses the emergence of this definitive class in a Guardian article, “The lukewarmers don’t deny climate change. But they say the outlook’s fine”.

She writes: “Lukewarmers have much more mainstream views than the easy stereotype of the denier.

“They agree carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, that the world is warming, and that a significant fraction of this is down to humans

“In terms of policy, they typically support adaptation to climate change. But they differ from mainstream views because they’re not convinced there’s a substantial risk that future warming could be large or its impacts severe, or that strong mitigation policies are desirable.”

Populist points poiintless as climate keeps changing

Fire fighters have a poignant
 message for Tony Abbott.

Australia’s Prime Minister struts about the Middle East winning populist points as he rubs shoulders with soldiers, talking about his favoured “death cult”, when Australia and its people need him back here helping them prepare for an even more sinister threat.

Tony Abbott is an admitted denier of climate change and just today, fire fighters in South Australia appeared on Twitter holding a hand-written sign suggesting they would rather see the PM fighting climate change.

A story in The Age today headed: “Climate changes amid the blaming game” said that the weekend bushfires that scorched the Adelaide Hills, southern Australia, happened in the hottest region on the face of the planet.