The gentle art of blaming

Dr Curry's conclusion appeals to me.

In context of the climate debate, the lesson from Covid-19 is this… the solution is problem solving and new technologies, not blame. While isolation and austerity can be invoked for short time periods, they are not solutions. The Covid-19 blame game didn't get in the way of finding a solution (i.e. vaccine). However, the rush to blame the fossil fuel companies and punish them is getting in the way of a sensible transition away from the worst impacts of fossil fuels on the environment.

I am impressed by the weight of evidence pointing to the way in which we as consumers are at the heart of the problem. It seems plain to me that global action will not work. The evidence for catastrophe is too scanty, and each country sees the problem through its own spectacles. We all want electric power that is abundant, reliable, cheap and safe. But what are the priorities here? And how do we effectively prioritise them? I think my own priorities are straightforward: #1 reliable, #2 cheap, #3 abundant, and #4 safe. By safe I have in mind not CO2 emissions but smoke, particulates and other chemicals.

As Dr Curry says, it is in no sense an easy problem, and it has to be tackled on a nation-by-nation basis, not as some man-on-the-moon noble and global cause. We will see. The Coalition Government has made clear, at least so far, that it will deal with the issue for Australia itself, and that does not mean any agreement about what is to happen by 2050, whatever anyone else says.