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Everybody needs good neighbours, and thankfully mine are very good indeed. I am reminded of their virtue each day by prominently displayed posters and bumper stickers attesting to their commitment to this century’s cause celebre, climate justice.
My neighbour to the immediate left was quick off the blocks when Election 2020 was announced, promptly mounting a Corflute poster on his front gate promoting Climate 200 candidate Allegra Spender. Each time I see the poster, which is many times a day, Allegra challenges me to vote for “a better climate for Wentworth”, her beaming visage imploring me to reflect upon my selfish ways.
Immediately to my right, the other neighbour has hung a Corflute that provides a stern prescription on the importance of the climate crusade. Issued by an organisation known as Doctors for the Environment Australia (whose financials make interesting reading), it informs me that “Climate Care is Health Care.” Although not directly indicating which political party the worthy doctors are specifically recommending, I imagine a party now led by a Prime Minister who once championed coal by bringing a lump into Parliament would not be high on their list.
In addition to signifying that my neighbour is on the right side of history, this second Corflute also provides me with the useful information that the resident is a doctor, just in case I didn’t already know. This could come in handy if I ever come down with a case of climate-related gout. More likely, I fancy, is that the only prescription I might receive would be an admonition to cease driving the 3.6 litre V6 that is my preferred mode of transport.
Helpfully, yet another neighbour on my street has provided me with simple way to keep the car while remaining part of the climate movement. Their large petrol-guzzling SUV bears a bumper sticker that declares, “This is my last gas car.” The text is accompanied by an emoji of a small car with a power plug boasting only two prongs, which led me to suspect the sticker is of North American origin. This was confirmed by a visit to the website indicated in small print on the sticker, Electricpledge.org. Here I learned that an organisation called The 2 Degrees Institute has come up with a fantastic plan to help us transition away from a fossil fuel driven economy.
A new generation of 300km+ (200 mile) range electric vehicles are finally here in a price range comparable to mass produced gas vehicles, it is now easier then (sic) ever for the average middle-class consumer to make the leap to the new paradigm of zero emission personal transportation.
“To help individuals take this step, 2 Degrees Institute is asking people to take the Electric Car Pledge: that when they are ready to shop for their next vehicle, that next vehicle they buy will be an electric one. By physically taking the pledge, you are making it harder for your future self to give up on your goal. This is a physcological (sic) strategy proven by scientists to help people stick to their goals.
Taking the pledge is free, but the bumper sticker is $US3.95 + shipping costs and well worth it. Your future self will thank you.
While unable to use a spellchecker, the people at 2 Degrees Institute are obviously a bunch of geniuses. Why has nobody thought of this before? Alcoholics and the obese, drug and sex addicts alike, rest easy now, your troubles are over — just take a pledge and your addictions are cured. It’s a proven “physcological” strategy. Once again, the science has been settled! By affixing the pledge sticker to your car, you are also declaring to the world you are a petrol penitent and asking to be absolved of your sins of commission in driving a gas-powered vehicle. It may also help to recite a short climate prayer before sticking the key in the ignition. Something like this maybe:
I confess to Almighty Gaia and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned. In my thoughts and in my words, in what I have driven and in what I have failed to drive. Therefore, I ask the Blessed Greta, ever scowling, Peters Garrett and Fitzsimons, and you, my brothers and sisters, to pardon me for the fuel I use. Amen
If my SUV-driving neighbour does hold to the pledge and purchase an electric vehicle, I hope they plan ahead on how to keep the battery charged. The Sydney Morning Herald recently highlighted the sad case of a Sydney doctor who was forced to sell his electric car after his apartment building denied him access to a power point in the basement car park. A doctor clever enough to prescribe a cure for the climate no doubt, but not smart enough to realise he needs a way to charge his vehicle.
Like many living in Victorian terraces in the electorate of Wentworth, my EV pledging neighbour does not have a garage and must use on-street parking. It is interesting to speculate how he will keep an electric car charged. Perhaps a long extension cord snaking out his front window and across the footpath?
The Allegra Spender poster next door is just one of many that have sprung up across the district. Climate 200 candidates have a seemingly inexhaustible supply of free Corflute signs to display on neighbourhood gates, fences and front yards, courtesy no doubt of the generous campaign funding supplied by benefactor Simon Holmes à Court.
Visit the website of a Climate 200 “Independent” and you will be invited to “Get Involved by Hosting a Yard Sign”. Whether it is Allegra Spender in Wentworth, Joe Dyer in Boothby or David Pocock in the ACT Senate, Climate 200 candidates will have a printed Corflute quickly delivered to your door by an eager volunteer at no cost. Lightweight yet rigid, Corflute posters are popular with politicians as an advertising medium that can handle a couple of weeks in possibly rainy weather. The other political parties appear constrained by their budgets against handing out Corflutes willy nilly.
The Climate 200 Corflutes are predominantly of the 600x400mm poster size, although Zoe Dyer in Goldstein lets her fans go big with a limited edition 1189x841mm Corflute supplied, as usal, free of charge. It will be delivered by Zoe’s “cheerful sign crew” who have also volunteered to fix it to the side of your house.
Zali Steggall’s website is asking “Please Help us put Zali on every street in Warringah.” If the saintly Ms Steggall has not yet achieved full omnipresence in Tony Abbott’s former electorate, this will require the distribution of a very large number of free Corflute signs at a significant cost.
As I greet the smiling Allegra each day as I leave the house, I do allow myself a small smile back as it gives me pause to reflect on the nature of polypropylene, the material from which her Corflute poster is made. Polypropylene plastic, derived from propylene gas (C3H6), which is typically obtained during the refining of crude oil into petroleum and can also be produced from coal or natural gas.
Polypropylene is 100 per cent recyclable, although Allegra’s sympathetic smile – enhanced by a dentally perfect display of radiant white teeth – would seem to indicate that her campaign posters are not made from recycled Corflute. According to the website of Australian manufacturer Corex, recycled Corflute “usually has an off-white look with a very subtle speckle due to its recycled content.”
Polypropylene is used to make everything from bottles and bags, crates and furniture, car parts, fibres, syringes, medical devices, industrial tanks, sheets and pipes. That’s a very long list of products that will need to be reimagined in hemp or moulded seagrass by the time Net Zero 2030 is upon us.
If Corflutes are ruled out by Net Zero, the Climate 2032 Independents may have to turn to an alternative medium for electoral campaigns, and here they may be assisted by modern digital printers that can print directly to fabric. Although replicating Allegra’s sparkling smile on a non-plastic platform may still involve a climate compromise as the most widely used white pigment in printer inks is titanium dioxide (TiO2), produced from ilmenite, a titanium-iron oxide mineral (note to Allegra, minerals are mined. Interestingly, Australia was the world’s largest ilmenite ore producer in 2011, with about 1.3 million tonnes of production, followed by South Africa, Canada, Mozambique, India, China, Vietnam, Ukraine, Norway, Madagascar and United States.)
Affixed to my neighbour’s gate, Allegra’s grin will be there to welcome me home for the long five weeks remaining in the 2022 election campaign. During this period there is at least one positive contribution Allegra will make to the environment in my section of Wentworth. The lane leading to my front gate was closed to traffic and pedestrianised some years ago. At night the lane is almost completely dark, owing to the fact that the City of Sydney, a militant environmental organisation, refuses to prune the trees that block the streetlight at the entrance to the lane.
I have pointed out that the City of Sydney’s Safe City strategy “stresses the importance of adequate lighting levels as a key crime prevention measure, contributing to the reduction in crime and the increase in the public’s perception of safety.” But to no avail. Apparently, the trees contribute to “0ur canopy” a phrase the council loves to employ, basically implying we are all primitive residents of a natural jungle rudely interrupted here and there by such things as cities and suburbs.
Now, when I return home after dark and peer through the gloom attempting to make out my home destination, the streetlight at the far end of the lane is reflected strongly by Allegra’s titanium dioxide-enhanced grin printed on glossy polypropylene. If perchance I have failed to maintain a certain pledge on this dark and stormy night, Allegra’s smile provides a virtual lighthouse able to steer me home through unsteady waters. All power to her, my own lady of the lamp.
Walter Waverley is the pseudonym of a Wentworth resident who prefers anonymity to grief from his woke neighbours. He promises to continue reporting on electoral developments up and perhaps after May 21.
Interesting Links
https://corex.com.au/product/100-recycled-corflute/
https://www.thebalancesmb.com/an-overview-of-polypropylene-recycling-2877863
https://www.electricpledge.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanium_dioxide
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilmenite
Host a Yard Sign
https://www.allegraspender.com.au/yard_sign_sign_up
This will be an interesting seat.
Will Get Up pour money into it?
Will the financial backers be compensated by the good old Aussie Taxpayer?
Will the Climate be saved?
Will there be a charging point on every street corner?
Will the navy be moved out in case of a military escalation.
Will the electorate be declared a sovereign nuclear free zone.
Will the electorate reach net zero by 2030 and back it by putting in windmills, wave energy plants and recycling plants on the shoreline and windy bluffs.
Realistically the area needs more mental health services and support.
Taking a straw poll many of those in such need don’t vote.
Much of this campaign is bright placards and fashion.
I tirelessly remind MPs of the luxury of climate games played by the wealthy. It is a rich one’s sport. Up the road is a hard working single mother. From her car, I imagine she earns a reasonable but not lavish income. Her home has no solar collector panels.
Down the road lives a family of considerable wealth. Two Rolls Royces grace the multi car garage, along with a couple of less conspicuous vehicles (those with a low Veblen score). Their roof is covered with solar collector panels.
Now, here’s the rub. My ‘up’ neighbour has her lifestyle limited by the outrageous power bills that are inflated by the economically and financially vandalistic subsidies to the wealth of their energy fantasies. One of these is my ‘down’ neigbour.
Climate capers are a rich one’s game, and who gives a hoot for the deprivation of the less well off of their annual holiday in the sun, their couple of annual visits to a restaurant, their replacement car. Not the government, no political party, not even the pagan-inflamed church groups and their meaningless preening. No one!
Mention of Wentworth brings to mind a former Prime Minister and his son, Australia’s Hunter Biden. It would be interesting to know how much the Climate 200 candidates, their friends and families, and their touchy svengali Simon Holmes à Court, have to gain by renewables subsidies.
I remember going to the big smoke of Cairns to welcome the Dad home when WW2 finished and will always remember seeing a few electric motor cars that reminded one of the cartoon depiction of Grandma Duck’s limo, and of course the strange looking vehicles that ran on “producer gas” generated by a burner affair on the back and filling a huge gas bag on the vehicle roof. They were a failure back then and will fail once again as history repeats itself.
And then there’s always these little problems with the batteries:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx62GzrsMkI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T71cVhxG_v4
In my electorate of Boothby, the libs have offered up a climate change zealot ,Rachel Swift. If outgoing Nicolle Flint has endorsed her, I’d be veey
Phone’s fault…. Very disappointed.
How sweet it is living in Emu Swamp, where the only neighbours are cows, sheep and kangaroos, none of whom are woke, and not a single visible sign of the impending election.
Ignorance, or isolation, is bliss.
How about this for a snappy anti-Spender yard sign; ‘Spender by name, Spender by nature’.
A few days ago I was walking along the street in my local shopping center when I was approached by a member of the local Climate 200 candidates Teal Army. I would normally waive them away and walk on but I had a bit of time on my hands and asked him a couple of questions about the candidates position on issues such as taxation, national security, cost of living et al. Now this fellow seemed to be a descent chap but he really didn’t want to discuss any thing else other than the “climate emergency”.
I lost patience and walked off. After a few steps I reminded myself of Winston Churchill’s definition of a fanatic, “A person who wont change their mind and wont change the subject”.
“Net Zero” has almost completely disappeared from the standardised lexicon of pro-Morrison journos. When was the last time that phrase was discussed by Sky News after 5 pm ?
Because Morrison’s double-cross of “Net Zero” is not a winning point … so we are supposed to pretend it doesn’t matter. It seems that the deepening energy supply mess that the UK, US and EU are now trapped in doesn’t really exist. Nor the fact that the EU, and Germany in particular, are funding Putin’s bloody Ukraine adventure by purchasing from his gasfields. This is not on the Aus agenda – our MSM would rather spit-fight over nonsensical “gender” squabbles.
Despicable.
A rose between thorns, Walter! IanMacKenzie, “Australia’s Hunter Biden” gave me a chuckle!
Decades ago, in British History classes in High School we learned of the mania in the eighteenth century that drove the populace to burning women at the stake for witchcraft.
How could those people have been so hopelessly stupid to think that every unfortunate ore inconvenient event was the result of witchcraft? Surely, it must have been that the masses were so “uneducated”!
250 years later, and we have this mania that blames EVERYTHING on the gas of life. Science is defined by the scientific method. Unless an hypothesis agrees with observation, it is WRONG. The hypothesis that CO2 is in some way shape or form related to the weather is one that can be disproven in a hundred different ways, because is does not agree with any observation, when only one such observation is sufficient to disprove it.
Still, the masses are so scientifically illiterate that the BIG LIE about CO2 permeates the media and the woke culture in general. At some stage, our descendants will discuss in amazement that human beings could be so stupid to believe the lies.
One wonders at what stage the woke will begin burning Conservatives at the stake.
Good God! it has begun already!
pic.twitter.com/oEvyZM6Tfs
What a great read. I really enjoyed it and look forward to more from WW.
PS: I wish my 75 year-old teeth looked like Alegra’s.
Each Climate Pledge should take the form of a “Do not resuscitate” request:
.
In the event of any emergency involving me or my loved ones, I hereby state that I wish neither they nor me be assisted in any way by fossil fuels, more correctly known as hydrocarbons, since fuel is only one of their uses.
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This prohibited list includes, but is not limited to:
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Any emergency vehicle, ambulance, fire engine, rescue helicopter, Flying Doctor Service, lifeboat, police rescue vehicle that is powered in any way by hydrocarbons.
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Any plastics such as sterile packages for medicines, syringes, and other medical and surgical equipment.
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Any electricity from any grid that is powered in any way by hydrocarbons.
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Any steel bar, sheet, rail or other component that was made with use of hydrocarbons, such as coking coal.
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Any electronic device constructed with any form of hydrocarbon product such as plastic.