Right on cue, this same day, you can read ineffable beltway-eminence Dr MS Keating, over at John Menadue Pearls & Irritations:

"A carbon tax will obviously help reduce emissions and achieve net-zero target, but will also help raise revenue needed to fund essential government services, and promote economic development."

Regular OLO readers might guess, which article is more Received Wisdom at Australian Treasury. In the Employment Department, I worked for MSK, decades ago. Goes without saying - we were chalk and cheese.

This article reads like a conspiracy theorist discovered a thesaurus.

This joker lurches from climate denial to anti-immigration panic, with side quests into DEI paranoia and half-digested quotes from public intellectuals. His claim - that net-zero is some elite scam - gets buried under sarcasm, acronyms, and sneering cultural resentment.

Rather than challenge climate science, he just ridicules it. That’s the play: strip the issue of complexity, frame concern as hysteria, and mask the absence of substance with smug derision. It’s not analysis - it’s a vibe war, and he hopes eye-rolls will pass for argument.

He leans hard into population panic, blaming everything from emissions to housing unaffordability on immigration - ignoring that Australia's sky-high per capita emissions come from entrenched fossil fuel use, not headcount. The housing crisis isn’t caused by net-zero targets, it’s caused by policy failures Saunders conveniently ignores.

The real trick here is inversion. He paints the powerful as helpless pawns of “woke” ideology, while claiming the real victims are everyday Australians burdened by green energy and migrants. It’s classic culture-war sleight of hand: punch down, pretend you’re punching up.

He ridicules leaders and experts but offers nothing in return. No roadmap, no solutions - just contempt in search of an audience. This isn’t resistance, it’s retreat. A foghorn of frustration, dressed up as critique.

If this is what passes for intellectual pushback against climate action, then we’re not dealing with an alternative vision - we’re dealing with a tantrum. And it’s wearing thin.

Hi Mr Daysh. Good to hear from you again. Some solutions are simple - cut immigration to 80,000 not Albanese 400,000-500,000, introduce meaningful gas reservation and/or export levies, drop fake net-zero.

In the second section, I present a detailed argument, with about 30 citations, why net-zero doesn't add up. Instead of engaging with that, you resort to personal abuse and accuse me of "punching down".

Ordinary people want affordable housing, low migration, lower energy bills, that's what I'm representing. I'm punching up, at overpaid charlatans like Laura Tingle, Tim Flannery, Ross Garnaut. Who are indeed woke.

The author is exactly correct in pointing out that efforts to reduce emissions, let alone get to the mythical net zero, are incompatible with the massive increase in Australia's population.

Every new immigrant increases the call on resources and increases the level of emissions. Australia's per capita emissions are around 15 tonnes and therefore each new immigrant adds 15 tonnes to our overall emissions. A government that truly believed that the level of emissions was a existencial threat would be looking to hold the popluation level steady at the very least.

That in this conflict between emission levels and population levels the government errs on the side of increased population shows their true committment to the net zero cult. Austrlian governments need population growth. Its the only mechanism they have that grants economic growth. Were it not for a rising population we would be in very near permanent recession. As it is, we are in near permanent per capita recession, but this is hidden and/or glossed over.

Australians have been convinced that getting to net zero is achievable and desirable. Its the only way to save the Barrier Reef we are told or the only way to avoid droughts and floods. Its rubbish but they've been taught to buy it. They've also been taught that achieving net zero is essentially painless even though the pain is obvious. So power prices rise and the government hides it via ever increasing subsidies ie they mortgage the future to hide the problems of the present.

The people want power that is green, cheap and reliable. But they can't have all three and governments since 2006 have floundered trying to hide that fact. You can have green and reliable, but it won't be cheap. You can have cheap and reliable but it won't be green etc etc.

Eventually they'll come to realise it

Steve,

Cutting immigration and scrapping net-zero aren’t solutions, they’re talking points. There’s no engagement with the structural causes of housing unaffordability or high energy costs. Instead, you lean on cultural resentment and broad-brush dismissal.

If you believe net-zero is a scam, then engage with the evidence. Mocking public figures and branding climate science “woke” is mere theatre.

You say you’re “punching up,” but the targets you choose (immigrants, scientists, broadcasters) aren’t exactly running the show. Meanwhile, the industries actually fuelling environmental decline get a free pass. That imbalance says a lot.

______

mhaze,

Your comment reads like it came from the back of a napkin at a Sky After Dark wrap party. The idea that every migrant somehow personally emits 15 tonnes of CO2 - as if they show up trailing smoke - isn’t just wrong, it’s embarrassingly simplistic.

Per capita emissions reflect the carbon intensity of the systems we live under - how we power homes, fuel transport, design cities. Change those systems, and emissions fall. But instead of talking about grids, storage, or energy reform, you pin it all on population growth. Why challenge industries or rethink the economy when you can just yell “immigration” and act like it explains everything?

Your solution to climate change? Apparently, sulking about net-zero until it goes away. Calling it a “cult” isn’t edgy, it’s what people say when they’ve got no workable alternative and want to sound clever while doing nothing. You’re not exposing a con, you’re performing detachment for applause.

And let’s not pretend your economic concern is principled. If we’re in “per capita recession,” the adult response is productivity reform - not shrugging off climate collapse like it’s someone else’s problem. Dressing surrender up as clarity doesn’t make you a realist. It makes you a narrator for decline.

Holy cow JD, how many ways can you misrepresent what I said? Or is it that you just can't understand what I said?

1. I didn't say immigrants come here trailing smoke. How childish. I said that Australia's per capita emissions are 15 tonnes and haven't materially changed for ages. So add more 'capitas' and you get more emissions. Does the math elude you? These people come. They need cars and fuel and electricity and white goods and food and water and and and .... All of that creates emissions. Fewer people = fewer emissions. Its really not hard to fathom.... unless you just want to not get it.

2. I wasn't blaming immigration for the system's failure to reduce emissions. Just pointing out that if reducing emissions was their primary goal they'd reduce immigration. I thought it was an easily understood point but it seems it eludes some.

3. I haven't offered a workable alternative "solution to climate change" because we don't need a solution. So-called climate change (it used to be global warming!!) isn't a problem requiring solutions. I've explained it many times before but it seems it eludes some.

4. You completely missed (or ignored) my point about our per capita recession. I was pointing out that the ONLY thing stopping a per capita recession from being a national recession is immigration and that's why governments continue to import people, placing avoiding recession ahead of reducing national emissions. A rather easily understood point, but it seems to elude some.