Raising Hell: Issue 34: The Chill Edition

So it was that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its funeral note for humanity last Monday. The organisation reported that humans were “unequivocally” altering their climate in a way that was “unprecedented” and the damage is would cause, “irreversible”, even if humanity were to bring it under control.

The global reaction was palpable. Some tried to find silver linings in the report, pointing out the IPCC had revised its worst case scenario by a smidge while those at The New Statesmen wondered allowed whether extinction would really be so bad. Others such as Ajay Singh Chaudhary writing in The Baffler zeroed in on the reactionary right wing politics coalescing around slowing action of climate change in a long essay titled, ‘We’re Not In This Together’. In it, he described the deliberate shorting of humanity’s interests by the fossil fuel sector as “The Rex Position”:

“There is tremendous evidence that people deeply invested in fundamental system preservation do consciously proceed with “business-as-usual” knowing with a reasonable degree of certainty the likely climate outcomes. I often jokingly call this the Rex Position, after Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil from 2006–2016, and Secretary of State under Donald Trump for parts of 2017–2018. Tillerson famously proclaimed “my philosophy is to make money. If I can drill and make money then that’s what I’ll do.”[…] The Rex Position is not shortsighted or irrational once one accepts that climate change does not “produce” a universal human subject. One does not have to construe Tillerson as “evil.” Tillerson and those he works with are not in some kind of shadowy conspiracy. The Rex Tillersons of the world have taken a look at the same data, the same trends, the same underlying social and political conditions, and they have noticed that in the probable world in which nothing changes for them, business-as-usual, they end up on the “winning” side of a sharp global and local dividing line. Every structural incentive serves to reinforce such thinking. ”

Though they were talking about the US, the same might be said of Australia. In Raising Hell Issue 33, I wrote about the communications strategy the Australian Petroleum Production and Export Association’s (APPEA) on this issue. I, myself, ran into this while researching a story on the close relationship on the oil and gas sectors close relationship with the Australian government for VICE. Now that it’s live, you can read for yourself. When I hit the organisation up for comment, I was treated to a subtext-laden conversation that implied — but never said outright — if I wrote anything that identified any of the “hard-working” people at APPEA, there’d be consequences.

Naturally, it was with some interest I watched how a day after that story in VICE Asia Pacific went live, APPEA had an editorial published in The Sydney Morning Herald under its chief executive’s name claiming: “We are part of the solution. We are not the enemy.” APPEA weren’t the only ones scrambling to defend their existence with a clutch of weasel words like “cleaner energy mix” and claims to clarity. Prime Minister Scott Morrison blamed the developing world and promised “technological breakthroughs” would deliver a hail Mary cure for climate change, while federal environment minister Angus Taylor tried to rewrite history and the deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce swerved hard into incoherence.

In effect, Australia is The Rex Position made flesh, a nation that has so badly misunderstood the implications of climate change that it is slowly moonwalking into oblivion. Until such time, the only policy seems to be “drill, baby, drill” — so much so that the run of approvals for gas exploration and production proposals (the very same week the IPCC report was delivered) has been keeping me in work for the last week (more on that below). And while much of this is variously terrifying or likely to bum a person out to the point of depression, we have to talk about it as this stuff is too important to hand a microphone to those in the oil and gas sector.

For the Fortnight: August 4 to August 17

Reporting In

Where I recap what I’ve been doing this last fortnight so you know I’m not just using your money to stimulate the local economy …

Some News!

A week ago, I was started a four month stint with The Guardian’s environment desk. I’ll be helping out as an extra pair of hands and going forward, it will not change anything for Raising Hell or its subscribers; you will still get the fortnightly newsletter and though I won’t be publishing any original content I had planned to, I’ll be continue to work in the background on a few lines of inquiry.

In the meantime, here’s the list of stories from the past fortnight:

• ‘The world’s on fire, yet Australia keeps pumping out the gas’ (VICE, 11 August 2021).
• ‘China slapped punishing tariffs on Australian wine last year. Now the industry is looking for new opportunities’ (Business Insider, 10 August 2021).
• ‘Paralysis by analysis’: Financial sector focused on climate data instead of action, report says’ (The Guardian, 17 August 2021).
• ‘Victoria consents to gas production from well near Twelve Apostles’ (The Guardian, 16 August 2021).
• ‘WA government draws ire of green groups for approving Woodside gas pipeline in Pilbara’ (The Guardian, 12 August 2021).
• ‘Tadpoles growing in captivity provide hope for Victoria’s threatened giant burrowing frog’ (The Guardian, 12 August 2021).
• ‘It wasn’t built to eat broccoli’: Australia’s largest ‘dragon’ unveiled’ (The Guardian, 9 August 2021).
• Weirdly, I was also namechecked in the Smithsonian magazine this last fortnight. So that’s… something.

Cracking COVIDSafe

Over the course of November, Raising Hell ran its first serialised investigation, CrackingCOVIDSafe, in association with Electronic Frontiers Australia. The series looked at the creation of the government’s automated contact tracing app COVIDSafe and stepped out how I used Freedom of Information to learn more so that others may learn to do their own. Along the way, we tracked how a constellation of government agencies and a clutch of for-profit companies made a hash of a new public service. So far we have managed to reveal how the government prioritised reputational risk over service quality and how security issues were not addressed by government for weeks after release, even though they put the app in breach of the government’s own privacy policy.

Laramba’s Water

The story of Laramba so far is straight forward. High concentrations of uranium were first found in Laramba’s water back in 2008. The situation in the remote Indigenous community of about 263 people hit the headlines in 2018 when NT Power and Water Corporation (PWC) published a report showing uranium concentrations there nearly three times higher than the national guidelines. That story made news again early this year when the community lost a legal fight to force the NT Government to do something to fix it.

Thanks to the support of my generous subscribers I’ve been able to pick up the issue to find out more. Here’s a running list of published stories that will be updated as I do more over time.

• ‘High levels of uranium in drinking water of NT community’ (NITV, 31 July 2020).
• ‘Company remains shtum on plans to filter Laramba's contaminated water supply’ (NITV, 21 October 2020).

You Hate To See It

A dyspeptic, snark-ridden and highly ironic round-up of the news from our shared hellscape…

• Psyched-Out

  NASA has announced it is going prospecting — but not here on earth. The space agency has announced it will be launching a mission to Psyche 16 — an asteroid first identified in 1852 — to examine the potential for space mining. The value of these minerals, measured in today’s currency is said to stand at $10,000 quadrillion — enough to make every human being alive a billionaire. Though don’t hold your breathe. As the race to privatise space heats up, the globe’s pre-existing billionaires have already been working to fence off the belt for the betterment of their bank accounts.

• But Wait, There’s More

  Fear not, fellow citizen, there are those among the one percent who want you to know they do care about what happens here on earth. In the wake of the latest IPCC report, a group calling itself “1% For The Planet” — a “global network consisting of thousands of businesses, individuals, and environmental nonprofits” — put out a press release telling the world that “taking immediate action is not a choice”. As the organisation’s website explains, the group was founded in 2002 when Yvon Chouinard, the billionaire owner of outdoor clothing brand Patagonia, and Craig Matthews, found of Blue Ribbon Flies, met and “realizing their responsibility to protect our planet” pledged to give away 1% of their sales in philanthropic donations to environmental causes. Obviously, this would have absolutely no effect on the tax obligations of participating organisations.

• Need A Distraction?

  Emily Blunt and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson have teamed up in to tell the story of the first ever female Pinkerton! The Pinkertons — for those unfamiliar — were a roaming troupe of private detectives and security guards who, among other ignoble roles, served as a defacto paramilitary organisation during the 1892 Homestead strike wherein nine steelworkers were killed. Kate Warne would be counted among these hired guns when she was hired by the agency in 1856 at the age of 23. Blunt will be depicted as the “world’s first female Sherlock Holmes” who paved a “bright future for women in law enforcement”.

• Trolling From The Abyss

  Days before the IPCC published a report telling humanity that its days were numbered, the future leaders on Australia’s conservative right were busy auctioning off a lump of coal during the ACT Young Liberals ball. At the fundraiser held on 7 August, a Liberal party donor paid $2600 for a combustible piece of fossilised wetland dug from the ground at Adani’s coal mine in Queensland. Among a host of senior ACT Libs, the gathering was attended by chief of staff to Amanda Stoker, Kevin Andrews and SA Liberal MP Tony Pasin — many of whom we now assume are in lockdown.

• Papers, Please

  There is a peculiar sort of horror that emerges when the Australian penchant for bureaucratic process is cross-bred with opportunistic notions of citizenship. Between cutting off Australians overseas and refusing to accept vaccine certificates issued in developing world countries (forcing those people to journey home to be vaccinated), those looking to leave again now have to get special permission to do so. Getting that permission requires participating in a lengthy bureaucratic process where a person needs to prove they have a valid reason for leaving in order to get approval. In an indication of how well this is going, a notice appeared on the government’s website explaining to prospective applicants that, among other things, photos of dead bodies — presumably of family who had died overseas — were not considered “appropriate documentary evidence” and submitted such images was “offensive” to the bureaucrats processing the application:

  

• And Then There’s NSW…

  No jokes: it’s just shit.

  how it started how it's going

  — Justine Landis-Hanley (@justinel_h) 2:16 AM ∙ Aug 15, 2021

Failing Upward

Where we recognise and celebrate the true stupidity of the rich, powerful and influential…

• In looking for a candidate for this fortnight’s Failing Upward, we here at Raising Hell couldn’t decide in the three-way tie between SA Labor MP Jane Stinson, Liberal Police minister Vincent Tarzia and the South Australian Police.The trouble began when a constituent complained to Stinson’s about the hoons in their area. Stinson then wrote a letter to the Tarzia, asking for the police to be dispatched to blitz the working class suburbs Stinson represents. Tarzia's office forwarded on the letter to SAPOL, who then faithfully ordered is officers into the streets where, as they handed out fines, they also handed out copies of Stinson’s letter saying “this woman sent us here”.There are so many dimensions to this story, it is difficult to know actually what to do with it. For instance, there is the way in which Stinson, who resigned from the opposition front bench in February following claims of workplace bullying by staff, actively sought more police for the neighbourhoods she represents. Tarzia, meanwhile, says he knows nothing about the breach of confidence — and the department of Premier and Cabinet put in a call to one intrepid reporter over a Tweet about the incident. Meanwhile, SAPOL — an organisation that is allegedly politically neutral — also claim to not know how it happened but are conducting an investigation into the matter, which will of course be open, transparent and far-reaching.

Good Reads, Good Times

To share the love, here are some of the best or more interesting reads from the last fortnight…

• Though it was published back in late July, I only just clocked this by Liam McNally in Overland which gives an excellent overview of how defamation laws are being used to chill public interest journalism.

• These photos of post-industrial landscapes by Magnum’s Josef Koudelka are stunning and worth your time.

  Josef Koudelka finds visual poetry in post-industrial rural landscapes: bit.ly/3CjKh66
  
  © Josef Koudelka / Magnum Photos

  — Magnum Photos (@MagnumPhotos) 9:00 AM ∙ Aug 16, 2021

• If anyone tries to tell you that Australia is doing great on reducing CO2 emissions, just point them in the direction of Ketan Joshi:

  Hello, this is why Scott Morrison keeps referring to Aus emissions falling by 20% but not explaining what, within that 20% resulted in the fall
  
  (hint: his gov't actions worked *against* the drop by enabling more coal/gas extraction emissions)
  
  

  — Ketan Joshi (@KetanJ0) 10:19 AM ∙ Aug 10, 2021

• I honestly tried to include this report from ProPublica report — telling the story of how elected officials bought by billionaires did a nip and tuck on a tax billion in order to suck hundreds of millions from the tax base — but I honestly couldn’t find a way to make a joke about yet another depressing chapter in the annals of human greed.

Before You Go (Go)…

• Are you a public sector bureaucrat whose tyrannical boss is behaving badly? Have you recently come into possession of documents showing some rich guy is trying to move their ill-gotten-gains to Curacao? Did you take a low-paying job with an evil corporation registered in Delaware that is burying toxic waste under playgrounds? If your conscience is keeping you up at night, or you’d just plain like to see some wrong-doers cast into the sea, we here at Raising Hell can suggest a course of action: leak! You can securely make contact through Signal or through encrypted message Wickr Me on my account: rorok1990. Alternatively you can send us your hard copies to: PO Box 134, Welland SA 5007
• And if you’ve come this far, consider supporting me further by picking up one of my books, leaving a review or by just telling a friend about Raising Hell!