New Zealand has a right-leaning clickbait muppet called Mike Hosking.
He mostly appeals to old white people.
He’s on the radio and writes reactionary vomit-in-your-own-mouth columns for the NZ Herald newspaper. The Herald’s online articles are mostly behind a paywall. Mike’s drivel usually isn’t—it’s main goal is to drive the clicks, sell some ads, empty some brains. (also the slogan of the NZ Herald by the way: ‘Empty some brains’, but I digress)
When it comes to climate change, he’s one of those odious types that rarely comes out and directly denies it’s happening. Instead he denies that it will overly bother humanity*:
“Bad news. I’m afraid the IPCC – the International Panel on Climate Change – has issued its latest report. It’s 2,600 pages long and spans 32 volumes. But I can sum it up for you. Ah, we’re stuffed. The seas are rising, the storms are coming, the locusts are close, we are going to climatic hell in a handcart. That’s of course, if you believe them. Which, as it turns out, I don’t”.
Yesterday he was at it again, in a piece entitled, ‘We need to face up to the growing threat of climate change’.
Oops. I read that wrong.
The actual title was, ‘We need to face up to growing insurance threat’.
My bad.
In his words:
“Looks like the nightmare is real.
“The same way we seemingly refuse to make some of the major calls around things like water, we are burying our head in the sand over insurance.
“QBE has told us parts of Australia, to use their words, aren’t worth the risk, that they are uninsurable.
“And so it begins”.
It turns out the nightmare isn’t climate change. Phew! (wipes brow)
The nightmare is insurance companies bailing because they have calculated that climate change has made some places too risky to insure.
Mike continues:
“And what are communities going to do when the insurance isn’t there, and the value of the property plummets and the population dwindles and it all becomes a vicious cycle?”
No longer build at sea level or next to flammable forests, perhaps?
An equally pertinent question Mike could have asked but didn’t is: What are NZ’s communities doing at the moment?
Here are a few of those things:
In NZ, 2/3 of new cars are SUVs or small trucks (which are bigger, heavier, less aerodynamic than compact cars, thus requiring more fuel per km and emitting more CO2)
In NZ, people have the habit of setting the AC in their car to 18°C when it’s only 20°C outside, and then shutting the windows (AC = more fuel required = more CO2)
In NZ, greenhouse gas emissions (CO2, methane, etc.) are equivalent to 16 900 kg CO2 per person per year (7th highest per capita in the world)
In NZ, there is a feeling that you live in a far-away fantasy world (in part due to a near total absence of actual journalism, see: NZ Herald) where the rules don’t apply.
The vicious cycle we should be worried about is: ignorance -> global heating -> Mike -> ignorance.
It turns out that this vicious cycle causes Mike’s vicious insurance cycle.
Hello kiddies, and welcome to the Muppet Show! Today’s expression, listen up carefully boys and girls, is… Mike can’t see the forest for the trees!
Maybe it burned down already.
[* 1 April, 2014, “7 Sharp”, TV1]