Cartoon by Nicholson from "The Australian" newspaper: http://www.nicholsoncartoons.com.au
In a previous post (part 1), I described some media reactions to my recent Energy paper (on how carbon pricing changes the relative competitiveness of low-carbon baseload generating technologies). The section of the media I covered in that post is often considered to be ‘progressive’ and environmentally focussed — and yet, their reactions to our recommending of nuclear power ranged from luke warm to hostile and dismissive. I was somewhat surprised by this, although, on reflection, that was rather naive of me! Ingrained attitudes are hard to shift.
So what of the more conservative and (putatively) economically focused media? In short, their reactions couldn’t have been more different — and yet, these are the journalists that often profess to care little about global warming or other human impacts on the Earth system. It’s a strange situation.
Let’s look at the reaction of my old sparring partner Andrew Bolt, a journo and popular blogger for News Ltd. In response to our paper and some other related reports that came out at the same time, he wrote an Op Ed in The Herald Sun, “Only nuclear will save Prime Minister Julia Gillard“, and two blog posts “Go nuclear, Julia” (note that I’m still a ‘warmist’ — some epithets refuse to die) and “Desperate Gillard deceives: nuclear not “economically efficient” on the topic. I think you might get a whiff of political undertones here (!) — less subtle certainly than that of the progressive media, but perhaps, in the end, no more or less real.
Some excerpts to illustrate the content:
She must stop telling outrageous untruths about nuclear power, and especially this one, said this week to slap down some of her own MPs: ”Nuclear power doesn’t stack up as an economically efficient source of power.” That’s either monumentally ignorant or a bald-faced lie. Either way, it may also be the signing of a death warrant. You see, it’s actually nuclear power — not same-sex marriage — that can save Gillard and Labor from destruction…
…Yet as Ferguson has warned, investment in new power stations has plummeted, because operators of coal-fired ones think the Gillard Government will bring in a carbon tax that will kill them, while operators of cleaner but dearer forms of power fear she won’t, leaving them uncompetitive. So everyone sits on their hands. It’s the paralysis that is killing our future, years before you’ll really notice. That’s in large part why Gillard abruptly declared last week that next year she truly ruly will finally announce what she’ll do to put a price on every tonne of carbon dioxide emitted by factories and power stations, to force the gassier ones to go green. Trouble is, her deadline means she could be promising a carbon tax next year just when Labor is forced to a new election, and won’t dare campaign on a new tax on your electricity. What a nightmare for Labor. And the last element in this great closing of the trap is the failure to find a workable technology to catch and bury the emissions of our existing coal-fired power stations, to make them “green” without having to scrap them…
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