Scorcher: The Dirty Politics of Climate Change

by Clive Hamilton

This is the book that blows the whistle on the politics of global warming in Australia. Why have our political leaders been so slow to act? How have big corporations succeeded in preventing real action? Who are the "greenhouse mafia"?

In Scorcher, Clive Hamilton reveals a shadow world of lobbyists and sceptics, spin and hidden agendas. He investigates a deceitful government and a compliant media. And he lays out the facts about Kyoto, carbon emissions and what governments and individuals might do, and have done.

Written with humour, urgency and great authority, this is the definitive account of the politics of climate change in Australia.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Climate Change, Australia, Environment

266 pages, Paperback

First published March 31, 2007

About the author

Clive Hamilton AM FRSA is an Australian public intellectual and Professor of Public Ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics and the Vice-Chancellor's Chair in Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University. He is a member of the Board of the Climate Change Authority of the Australian Government, and is the Founder and former Executive Director of The Australia Institute. He regularly appears in the Australian media and contributes to public policy debates. Hamilton was granted the award of Member of the Order of Australia on 8 June 2009 for "service to public debate and policy development, particularly in the fields of climate change, sustainability and societal trends".


(From Wikipedia.)

Reviews

[Row Dela Rosa Yoon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clive Hamilton opened a can worms on Canberra-Energy Policy mafia's sinister partnership.

Under John Howard, energy policies in Australia were written by large private corporations. (p.15)

Hamilton exposed the Energy Policy mafia in Canberra which is closely associated with coal and industry leaders. The mafia is composed of cabinet ministers who wrote ministerial meetings and drafted/approved policy agenda.

An email that circulated in 4 June 2004 details how the Howard government should respond to a forthcoming energy meeting. The email outlined the still-secret policy and rehearsed the line that spokespersons should use in the media, including “key messages” such as “the program is a positive step forward” and the Government believes it is a win-win approach. p.12

The Government is connected with Murdoch’s media including the morbid commentator, Andrew Bolt.

Phillip Jennings of Murdoch University believes that research funding for renewable energy will not get funding if it criticises the Federal Government. (p.14)

Certified Australian scientists on Climate Change: Bob Carter, William Kininmonth, Ian Pilmer, and Garth Paltridge. However, only Carter and Paltridge have recognised stature in research. (p.21)

Christopher Pearson from The Australian newspaper gave a summary of Lawson’s view on environmentalism:

• Environmentalists are the enemies of capitalism
• What they advocate must be contrary to the interests of capitalism
• Those who provide the evidence that supports environmentalists’ views (climate scientists and policy makers) are also enemies of capitalism
• Accepting the evidence of global warming means giving into anti-capitalist; therefore
• We must not accept the science of climate change and will seek out any shred of evidence that appears to contradict it p. 214

[Clare Snow · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book in 2007 and wrote about it on my blog https://ockhamsrazor.wordpress.com/20...

I now know why Australia’s government is so anti-renewable energy and until recently sceptical of climate change. If I watched more TV I might have seen Four Corners in February 2006 and heard about Guy Pearse’s PhD thesis on Australia’s greenhouse mafia.



I recommend Hamilton’s book, although it was depressing to be reminded of the things Australia’s government has done in relation to the Kyoto Protocol and denial of human-induced climate change.

Prior to Australia’s last federal election in May 2004 the Lower Emissions Technology Advisory Group (LETAG), made up of CEOs of fossil fuel corporations, met with government ministers. Prime Minister Howard wanted the meeting to provide

"Some ideas about how the Government could beef up its greenhouse credentials in a way that would convince the Herald [newspaper and thus the public] that it was serious about climate change"

He could have achieved this by Australia ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, but no one in the room was going to suggest that. John Howard's nephew Lyall Howard is the head of government relations at Rio Tinto (one of the companies at the above meeting). This is how Australia's Prime Minister finds "nothing improper" with meeting with these companies and asking them for input in Australia’s greenhouse policy.

Australia relies on energy-intensive exports such as coal, aluminium and uranium and our current government (with encouragement from the industries which deal in these exports) wants to keep it this way. Other countries ratifying the Kyoto Protocol will affect these exports. It has concerned some that

"If Australia has repudiated the Kyoto Protocol, why is it so desperate to continue to participate in Kyoto negotiations?…A plausible answer is that as long as the Howard government has a seat at the table, it can continue to spoil and make progress more difficult."

Carbon capture and storage and nuclear power are technological solutions to climate change favoured by Australia’s government which would allow these exports to continue, but

"will not have any significant effect for 15 to 20 years."

We should have thought about them 20 years ago. While researching for the book Hamilton came across Fossil Fuels and the Greenhouse Effect by the Office of National Assessments, dated November 1981. Thus, Australia’s government has had access to information on climate change for quite some time. In 1989 Western Australia’s state government adopted the Toronto Target, to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to 80% of 1988 levels by 2005. This would have been why I did my primary school project on the greenhouse effect. (All I remember of my project was the title: "The Greenhouse Paradox" which I plagiarised from a newspaper article - I was anti-copyright from way back.) Other states and subsequently the federal government adopted the Toronto Target. A few elections later and no one remembered that one. At the time, Prime Minister Bob Hawke said,

"Greenhouse cannot be dismissed as just another environmental issue. It has the potential to change fundamentally within a single lifetime the way all nations and peoples live."

Hamilton also discussed personal versus government action on the issue.

"For all its good intentions, green consumerism contributes to the progressive privatisation of responsibility for environmental degradation…we are told that we each have to take responsibility for our personal contribution to the problem…consistent with the economic rationalist view of the world."

One example of this voluntary approach to decreasing carbon emissions was Greenpower, paying more to receive electricity from renewable sources. In 1995 it was suggested that by 2000

"between 26 and 30 percent of residential customers would be participating in such schemes. However, by July 2006, less than 4 percent of all households had signed up."

The Big Switch was a campaign to encourage people to choose Greenpower, but only so many people will ever do this because inertia gets in the way. Hamilton suggests an opt-out system would increase the number using Greenpower.

"Climate change is far too big a problem to be left to the goodwill of individual citizens"

Further reading
1. Yusuf, Irfan (2007, 21 Aug) The Greenhouse Mafia New Matilda
2. Pearse, Guy (2007) High & Dry: John Howard, Climate Change And The Selling Of Australia's Future
3. Naughten, Barry (2006, 15 Sep) Climate change: Howard holds a monkey wrench New Matilda
4. Hamilton, Clive (2006, 20 Feb) The Dirty Politics of Climate Change. Speech to the Climate Change and Business Conference, Hilton Hotel, Adelaide.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book. Clive Hamilton discussing The Australian: "Yet in the case of climate change it has actively promoted those who challenge the established science. The sceptics who inhabit its pages not only dismiss the science but also constantly attempt to 'deconstruct' the motives of the scientists who carry it out. They are always on the lookout for biases and prejudices that could lie behind the scientific facts on global warming and turn them into those who want to act on the evidence. In their view, scientific truth is malleable, contingent and contestable. Like the creationists who believe that victory requires them to destroy the theory of evolution, The Australian promotes a form of anti-scientific fundamentalism...".