What is a Climate Emergency?
The climate change activists lost the climate change election on May 18. The people of Australia, and more specifically those in Queensland chose jobs, cheaper electricity and lower costs of living when they voted.
But leftists activists of course don’t take losing very well, it wasn’t that the people weren’t convinced by their arguments, evidence or ideology, it was because vested interests brainwashed voters, people are too stupid or selfish to know what’s good for them, or the activists weren’t loud or alarmist enough.
Climate activists have chosen the third option, this was demonstrated by their reaction to the Queensland Labor Government’s approval of the Adani coal mine in Central Queensland.
They have staged disruptive protests in our major cities; in Brisbane two climate activists glued themselves to a pedestrian crossing in Queens Street last week, and on Wednesday activists blocked traffic on South Brisbane’s Victoria Bridge during peak hour by sitting in a canoe.
Many are bewildered at such a public relations strategy; that inconveniencing people going about their daily lives is going to convince them of your argument. But the mainstream media still love such stunts and along with light legal consequences it is why climate activists are encouraged to keep performing them.
All of these disruptive protests are coordinated by a global climate change action group called Extinction Rebellion who are demanding that government’s enact legally binding policies to achieve net zero emissions by 2025, and have climate decisions coordinated by citizens’ assemblies (remember Julia Gillard’s 2010 climate policy?). This will apparently save us from imminent human extinction and ecological collapse.
The first step they want governments to take is to declare a climate emergency, similar to when they declare a state of emergency during natural disasters or martial law during war or civil unrest.
The Governments of the United Kingdom and Canada have signed up, but there has been no radical change in those governments’ policies, or operation of their laws. So what exactly is a climate emergency?
Well when local government authorities like the City of Sydney led by Lord Mayor Clover Moore believe they need to declare a climate emergency then you know it is simply another exercise in virtue signalling.
This was the view of legal expert Michael Eburn of the Australian National University when he spoke to the ABC’s Science blog: “Unless there’s actually a written declaration that refers to an Act, and I haven’t seen one, then that’s all it is — symbolism” but if enough lower level government authorities declare a climate emergency then “That might be used to bring more pressure to bear, but as far as I can tell, [it doesn’t] have any legal meaning at all”.
This type of local up pressure has been attempted before when local government authorities in Australia declared their support for same sex marriage. The most absurd form this has taken is the inner Sydney Marrickville council signing on to the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel in 2011.
Despite the meaningless of declaration of climate emergency, the extreme climate activists still believe it is their only hope of continuing to alarm the public about catastrophic, irreversible climate change. When all the doom you’ve been predicting for the past 20 years hasn’t come true, all you can do is up the doom even more, right?
While the climate cult of Extinction Rebellion will always have its adherents, the quiet Australians have grown tired of the scare and now want to address actual problems facing our nation; like jobs, wages and cost of living. And no federal government will ever declare a legitimate climate emergency to grind our way of life to a halt.