How long before “lockdowns because of COVID” become “lockdowns because of climate”?
Sound like a crazy conspiracy theory? Sure, it does. But then, just a couple of years ago, so did lockdowns and vaccine passports. If there’s one thing recent history should have taught us, it’s to never underestimate how quickly today’s conspiracy theory becomes tomorrow’s grim reality.
The signs have been there since practically the beginning of the pandemic. As soon as HuffPo, the BBC and the rest began publishing breathless pieces about how “the planet is reacting positively to global lockdown”, anyone with half a brain could see where it was all going to lead.
And, right on cue, here comes Australia’s pre-eminent climate hustler…
Did you know the pandemic is a model for how we should respond to climate change? That’s according to Tim Flannery, the former chief commissioner of the now defunct Climate Commission.
The Australian
Flannery, who has apparently finished mopping up his riverside property after the flooding rains that he said Australia would never see again, is back doing what he does best: spouting obvious bullshit to the peanut gallery of gawping climate loons.
With his great gift for mangling metaphors, not to mention getting basic facts wrong, Flannery recommends a “three prongs” approach that he claims worked for the pandemic, and will for climate change too.
Likening the virus to CO2 emissions might be merely silly, but claiming that hospitals will have to be bolstered to avoid being swamped by climate casualties, just as happened with Covid, ignores the fact that the “swamped hospitals” meme was almost entirely mythical. By an odd coincidence, climate-related deaths have also plummeted in recent years.
Finally, Flannery claims that “restorative measures such as replanting old-growth forests” are the same as vaccines. But vaccines aren’t a “restorative”, they’re a preventive.
As an obstreperous actual climate scientist, who somehow snuck into a QandA audience along with the stacked benches of Sydney inner-city lefties, once noted, Flannery seems to regard himself as an expert on everything. Perhaps if he stopped spouting off about things well outside his narrow area of expertise, he might stop making such an eternal goose of himself.
Still, it’s not like we can’t take home any lessons about climate change from the Wuhan pandemic.
Firstly, experts are often wrong. Not just a little bit, but badly wrong: and their errors are incredibly costly – mostly to everyone except themselves. So the first lesson to take from the pandemic over to climate change is to hold experts brutally to account when they make disastrously wrong predictions.
I’m not talking about tar and feathers… nah, bugger it: I am. Watch how quickly the Flanneries, Fergusons and Wileses pull their heads in when they see a bunch of folk standing nearby with the buckets of tar and feathers.
Secondly, and related, computer models are useless junk when it comes to modelling the real world. So the next time the UNIPCC tries to tell us what “will” happen 100 years hence based on a computer model, tell them to shove it up their collective jacksies.
Thirdly, beware of “emergency measures” which are supposed to be for our collective good but, just coincidentally, hand enormous power (not to say wealth) to elite groups. Because it’s not a coincidence: it’s the whole point.
Finally, the pandemic has proved beyond doubt that the Chinese communist government are liars and opportunists without shame. They lied about the Wuhan virus and you can be absolutely sure that they’re lying about their pledge to help mitigate the effects of climate change.
So, thanks, Timbo: we have learned to apply the lessons of the pandemic to climate change. Just not in the way you intended.
Please share this article so that others can discover The BFD