Dear Greg Hunt,
It’s funny how sometimes we get to see the worst of people and the best of people all in the same day. The best of people is not you, in case you are wondering. Tim Flannery and his new Climate Council colleagues are the best of people. They could have sulked when you fired them last week, from the most important jobs in Australia. But they didn’t. They’re too busy working for free, setting up the Climate Council. They have no time for sulking.
I want to make it clear, the founding members of the Climate Council are not working on something they ‘believe in’, like someone who works for a church because they believe in God. They are working on the important cause of educating our community about the devastating effects of climate change, which we are already experiencing, and which are going to get worse as people like you make it your life’s work to reduce action which could save millions of lives. I don’t know how many temperature records you need to see broken to take this situation seriously. Although I suspect we already know all we need to know about your strength of character in this situation. Having titled your university honors thesis ‘A Tax to Make the Polluter Pay’, it does seem a bit odd that you are now Abbott’s chief ‘kill the carbon tax’ environmental vandal. I mean, minister. I guess power is more important to you than doing the right thing for the community. Even if that means completely changing your view of the world on a subject you won an award for researching. Perhaps you don’t think carbon emissions are pollution? If this is the case, I guess the one blessing is that you’re not Abbott’s science minister. Oh, that’s right, your government has no science minister. Funny that.
So since people like Tim Flannery are the best of people, you are quite obviously a perfect example of the very worst of people. In response to the news that Flannery and his colleagues are courageously keeping the catastrophic effects of climate change in the public eye by working pro-bono to set up the community funded Climate Council, you said this news vindicated your decision to scrap the tax payer funded Climate Commission, with this explanation:
“That’s how democracy should work,” … “If people want to invest in those with a particular view, they have a right and a freedom to do that, and our job is to make sure that we deal with the core scientific agencies, that we protect the taxpayers’ funds. The fact that this can be done at the private level shows that taxpayers’ funds were not required from the outset.”
Wow. I was lost for words for a moment. It is 2013 and Australia’s environment minister is calling a group of world-renowned climate scientists ‘those with a particular view’. That’s like saying all those people who think the sky is blue shouldn’t be supported in this particular view as this is a belief, not a fact. Do you want to make your climate change denial any more obvious? What a complete and utter disgrace!
I was similarly lost for words when I read ‘protect the taxpayers’ funds’. How about you worry less about money, just for a moment, and start to worry about the environment where this money is being earned and spent? It’s called earth and it’s where we all live and we all keep our stuff which we buy with money. How will your government coffers look after climate catastrophe strikes? Or are you hoping not to be environment minister by then? How about worrying about the protection of our communities (ie the people in them) rather than the protection of taxpayer funds? Thanks for letting us know where your priorities lie. Very helpful.
So I guess since you think it’s great news that Australians who are scared about climate change are democratically reaching into our pockets to fund the climate council, this should now set new precedents for ‘user pays’. We all know your government loves nothing more than the concept of ‘user pays’. Maybe every road and footpath should have a toll at the end of it, so only those drivers and pedestrians using that particular strip should be the ones who pay for it? How about sewerage – should we drop a dollar in a pot every time we flush? Maybe parents should pay for their children to go to school and if they can’t afford the fees, their child shouldn’t be educated? How about medical bills – only those who can afford to have a heart operation should be in a position to save their own lives? Your version of our society sounds pretty depressing actually.
But what’s extra depressing is that you’re happy for a small number of passionate, community-minded people to fund an organisation which is trying to protect all Australians from the effects of climate change. Why the fuck should only those with a conscience be responsible for the fate of our entire community? I think you’ll find we’re all ‘users’ of this planet and we’re all going to ‘pay’ when it comes to the destruction caused by climate change.
The selfish people like you and Tony Abbott and all those voters who think it’s a great idea to stop action to reduce the effects of climate change, would never put your hand in your pocket to help. Those who are small minded and hell-bent on denial at all costs, who have different ‘beliefs’ from good people like Tim Flannery, are going to be affected by climate change too, just as much as those funding the Climate Council.
But you’re happy to leave this financial burden to good people, while your government wastes millions buying Indonesian fishing boats and paying millionaires $75,000 to have a baby. While your government builds more infrastructure for cars, but cuts funding for scientific research into renewable energies.
That makes you the worst kind of person, Greg Hunt. Petty, short-sighted and frankly just not very bright. How someone like you can be put in charge of Australia’s environmental protection is beyond me. You should try to spend some time with Tim Flannery. You would be a better person ten-fold just by breathing the same air as him.
Yours Sincerely
Victoria Rollison
Media Inequality 
Yes i appreciate with this
Thank you Victoria. Yes I will be dipping into my pockets and donate some of my very low income towards Tim Flannery Climate Council soon.
As to those who have voted for this new Evil Abbott Government of Australia, that they think hard and long when they will suffer the full effects from climate change when the weather turns nasty and sweeps them into the sea, that is if the firer storms don’t burn them alive.
Ashes to ashes dust to dust then buried in a sea of mud from the effects of Climate Change.
Victoria
The problem with your argument is that you make a fatal mistake in your unequivocal endorsement of Tim Flannery and his merry crew and that boils down to the bang for the taxpayer’s buck that we have been getting for the quango. Even those who are believers in AGW must surely still be able to see that the Climate commission gave us nothing but recycled scaremongering,
as I said at my own blog yestrday:
So my question to you is how deep are you and your readers willing to dig to support Flannery?
😉
Good old Iain Hall, nothing but depressing trolling from you. You would not even know what is positive if it hit you in the face. Go back to your flatearth hole and please don’t bother us with your inane sayings.
Now that i have got that off my chest – though i know it won’t make any difference to people like Iain Hall – thank you Victoria, you have my support in this letter to Greg Hunt. I also have already contributed from my meager pensioner income but i think this issue is too important not to chip in. Thank goodness for all the good people in this world.
hilderombout
Your comment still begs the question of what value have we got from Flannery I would love you to cite the “valuable” contributions that he has made to public discourse on the issue. are you happy to contribute to making up that 180 grand Per annum that Flannery was personally getting for a part time job from your pension?
go away fool
Mark
I will take that as an admission that you are conceding the debate
Iain Hunt, Your comments regarding Professor Flannery are ignorant, rude and wrong. He has published well over 100 papers of his own scientific research.
How many have you written? (don’t confuse your blog with peer reviewed material by the way).
Mark its Iain Hall , not Hunt 🙄
Flannery is not even a “climate scientist” he is by profession a palaeontologist so please don’t use the “appeal to authority” argument when he has no real authority on the subject along with a propensity to make outlandish predictions that have repeatedly been shown by events to be very wrong indeed. (check out the dam levels that he predicted would be bugger all by now by way of an example). so the number of peer reviewed papers he has written matters very little indeed.
Thanks MarkD, my exact thoughts: go away fool!
hilderombout
I will take that as an admission that you too are conceding the debate
I see now that Iain is trolling for a fight, he sees it as a competition. He is a sad fool. Don’t feed the troll.
Glad to see that voices still exist for the majority of people who believe more should be done for climate change.
When bloggers start lecturing about scientific method and the invalidity of the peer-review process is definitely one of the signs of the apocalypse.
Absolutely agree, Victoria. I have donated. And – posted this letter on Greg Hunt’s FB page. I wonder how long it will stay there?
Can I recommend that anyone who has not read The Merchants of Doubt does so at their earliest opportunity.
It explains ‘The Tobacco Strategy’, which was used to delay universal acceptance of the connections between smoking & illness & death – which was initially discovered by German scientists in the 1930’s – and which was used to challenge the causes of acid rain & the hole in the ozone layer.
What’s more, it is the very same scientists , luminary physicists Seitz & Singer (also Nierenberg & Jastrow), who initiated the development of this successful strategy, and who are behind its use in the ‘debate’ about climate change.
Just as earlier acceptance of the smoking/death link could have saved millions of lives, the same is true exponentially for climate change.
Suzuki, who was stupidly wasted on Q&A the other night when they began with the false premise that Suzuki is a climate expert and could/would argue climate science, recommended this book, so if you don’t want to take my advice, consider his:-)
Yes! We all know what those tobacco cartels have known all along over the decades. The ill effects caused by smoking tobacco related products, especially manufactured cigarettes and its addiction. The there is another which is just as bad and is those alcohol consumption by humans and those manufactures who also rely on this human factor of addiction. I am glad that I have quit both evil products invented by the devil for profit over good health.
It took decades by scientist, medical specialists and the good old LMO workers in the medical field, to lobby hard against governments and big business to wake up to themselves about the causation lung cancer and heart diseases by tobacco products. Well in most case scenarios some politicians have, while the rest of those dumb politicians suffer the same sceptic CL syndrome as Mr Hall does and always will.
So to all those sceptics on global warming. I say go and lock yourself in a room full of CO-2 and see how long you can survive.