Hunting in Packs, South Sydney Herald, 2007.
HUNTING IN PACKS
John Stapleton
During the last year, in the not so cool depths of the media currents,
a giant shoal of fish changed direction all at once, to the right, or
was it the left, they veered sharply, as if controlled by one mind.
It's hard to believe that only a year ago to be green was entirely
passe, painting the protagnoist as a deep scrub hippy who should have
stayed on in Nimbin. But last year, in this sped up world of
high-speed multi-media communication and sweeping intellectual fads
lasting barely nano-seconds, was an eternity ago.
Way back then, in the dark ages of 2006, there was no surer way to
turn off a news editor than to label your issues environmental,
yourself a greenie and to prattle on about the future of the planet.
Press releases from Greenpeace, WWF, Landcare, the Greens and all the
other worthy groups large and small were barely, or rarely, even
glanced at as they made their way from the fax machine to the garbage
bin; of even less interest than most of the dross that makes up the
snow storm of press releases passing through the nation's news rooms
on a daily basis.
How times have changed. Now it's a crime to leave your kitchen light
on by accident, for to do so it to burn up fossil fuels unnecessarily
and threaten the very future of the planet. Think of the lives, the
species, the shorelines you could have personally protected, if only
you hadn't left that light on when you went to work.
From the start global warming, or climate change,has been a gift to
politicians. It made them look and sound important. You knew when the
Prime Minister John Howard, always one to sniff the political wind,
started to talk about global warming that the tide had reached vote
gathering proportions. Remember him declaring, as he went off to
Vietnam a few months back, that in his meeting there with US President
George Bush he would be discussing amongst other things serious issues
such as climate change? Oh really?
All a galaxy of politicians have had to do was to utter the words
"climate change" or "global warming" to appear to be doing something
about the single most vital issue facing the planet. Form a committee
to discuss how best your government, department, association or
kindergarten can best address climate change and by Golly, you're a
hero.
For the media, too, it has been a gift; giving what were once boring
environmental stories a ring of importance which guarantee them a run.
Just as in the late 1980s, when every second story led with a green
angle, driving voiceless farmers to despair, so, too, in 2007.
The followers of global warming have been showing serious signs of
religious fervour. Indeed it is the perfect religion for the modern
age. To be a good guy, to capture the high moral ground, to convert
and become at one with a large and growing body of initiates, all you
have to do is declare belief. It requires no commitment, training,
major sacrifice or discomfort. A simple statement of belief; an
expression of concern about the fate of the planet; and you can feel
good about yourself, amongst the enlightened.
Just as the Reverend Al Gore can touch God by turning a few of the
lights off around his mansion; so practitioners of the new faith can
serve penitence by turning their television off at the wall or by
getting a different brand of petrol. It is easy, perfect for the age.
It was in this atmosphere of heightened hysteria that Australia's
Opposition leader Kevin Rudd could slam the Prime Minister John Howard
as a climate change sceptic, and be treated seriously, as if being a
sceptic was in itself an evil.
Does anyone really think any politician in this country could care
less what was happening in 50 or a 100 years time? They care about
their own survival, they care about feathering their own nest, they
care about furthering their own ideological positions. If climate
change can serve all those purposes and make them appear busy,
important, capable of tackling the big issues in a spirit of
self-sacrifice, it is a very convenient vehicle indeed. It is hardly
the first time the vicious self-interest that has come to rule our
society has been paraded as a worthy issue.
In reality, what possible real difference to the future of the planet
can a remote and sparsely populated country like Australia really
make?
The arrival of climate change as the new state religion came at just
the right time for those seeking a secular belief system. The previous
state sponsored religion of multi-culturalism was falling apart under
the weight of its own contradictions and hypocricies and the
government of the day was moving to change the core tenets of the
over-arching belief system, away from m-m-m-multiplicity to unity.
Few commentators, and even fewer journalists, have struggled to point
out the complexity of the debate over climate change. Sceptics in the
scientific community also found themselves swimming against an
overwhelming tide.
Just when you thought it couldn't get worse, when it was impossible to
becme more cloakingly, cloyingly converted to global warming, the
Sydney Morning Herald published a green newspaper, literally, aimed at
promoting the WWF's Earth Hour, an event where we could all feel good
about saving the planet by turning our lights off for an hour.
In the history of Austrlaian journalism, the publication of a green
edition by the SMH, once regularly listed as one of the top 20
broadsheets in the world, was a milestone in the abandonment of
perspective.
Whle campaigning journalism is all very well and good, running such
propaganda ensured that objectivity was impossible, as the rosy,
optimisitic coverage of Earth Hour demonstrated.
Perhaps David Salter described it all best, when he called it "a burst
of vacuous symbolism designed to flatter the moral vanities of the SMH
readership while turning a fast buck behind their backs."
But don't worry. For those feeling a winter bout of existential angst
or spiritual yearning, no need to worry. Big Brother is back on.