Miranda Devine is unusually subtle in her latest column, in fact if you’re not reading between the lines you might miss a piece of information that should have physicists all over the world excited. On first read the column appears to be a fairly pedestrian piece of climate change denial, quoting a physicist about climate science, but on closer examination Miranda is telling us that she’s seen disruptive events in time that would make Doc Brown and Marty McFly quiver.
According to Miranda, the increase in electricity prices over the past few years is a consequence of a global warming scare which will only be made worse by an ETS and an unpopular one-party state Rudd is attempting to fashion. Now these two statements confuse me, and I can’t understand how anyone who has travelled the conventional timeline to November 2009 could make them unless they have some kind of knowledge that the rest of us do not possess.
Firstly, the rise in electricity costs, which Miranda tries to tie to a global warming scare. According to Energy Australia;
Every year EnergyAustralia reviews its pricing strategy. Price changes usually are
effective from 1 July each year. This year prices increased significantly from the 1
July 2009.This year, prices have increased significantly. This can be attributed to:
• Increases in network charges to fund improvements in network reliability and
to upgrade and renew the electricity network.
• Increased electricity purchase costs; to reflect the higher cost of buying
electricity from power generators on the wholesale market.
So nothing to do with global warming then? But Miranda is certain. How can she have this information that no-one else does?
More frightening than paying more for electricity though is Miranda’s warning about Rudd’s one-party state. Now I admit that I haven’t read the proposed ETS legislation, but I’m pretty sure that someone from the Liberal Party would have, and they’d be fairly quick to point out any clauses which may preclude them from ever winning another election. At this point in time the only people threatening to leave us with a one party state are the Liberals, who seem intent on reducing their representation further after the next election, however Miranda clearly warns that it is Rudd who is attempting to fashion this outcome.
I think it’s pretty clear what’s going on here. Miranda Devine is a time traveller. She’s been to the future and seen the totalitarian, global warming hysteria induced, one-party state the Rudd has not yet revealed to the rest of us. Because this knowledge is so shocking she has become confused about when electricity prices started to be affected by climate change policy rather than normal increases in business costs. This absolutely must be true, because the only other alternative that explains today’s column is that Miranda Devine is uninformed about what she’s saying, which couldn’t possibly happen, could it?
11 Comments
I think she’s peeved she didn’t get a mention in Kev’s speech. I mean, is he saying she’s irrelevant?
Next time he does a rant like that, Miranda wants to be named.
She’s right about food going up because of climate change, though. Food prices have risen due to the drought, and the drought is believed to have been at least worsened by climate change. Nice of her to acknowledge this.
So because Miranda’s electricity bill has gone up this proves there is a conspiricy?
And notice how she tries to slip Nick Minchin’s “socialism by stealth” theory into her column, I am surprised we didn’t see the World Government line get an airing. As the right are fonding of using the “loony left” tag, would “raving right” be apropriate?
i got up to that passage in article, rolled my eyes and moved on.
i cant even read her as an exercise in critical analysis anymore. i don’t have the stomach
maybe she has been to the Large Hadron Collider – note the time.com link on Crikeys front page today /12/11):
Did a Time-Traveling Bird Sabotage the Collider? — http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1937370,00.html
I was thinking the same thing John. Something about the “Higgs bogan^H^H^Hson being abhorrent to nature”… But surely we’re above immature cheap insults like that… OK, maybe I’m not.
I’ve just deleted the NT from my shortcuts – the majority of commenters, particularly for shit-stirrers like Devine (188 comments as I write this), definitely appear to have come across from Murdoch sites.
What a disgrace the online NT is compared to the original printed version.
Is the author of the denier book dear Miranda spruiks the same Ralph Alexander who worked for or works for or runs BP?
Not a time traveller Miranda but an alien from a different galaxy where they have their own reality. Indeed, she is living proof that there is no such thing as extra terrestrial intelligence. How she got here is another matter the details of which I am not sure Crikey readers are ready
Why is it that every time read Miranda I am immediately reminded of Ern Malley’s Angry Penguins?
I can’t say for sure but my first instinct having googled the man is to say no.
But there is a ‘Dr Ralph B Alexander’ who appears as an engineer.
If this is the same guy, is it fair to ask whether engineers are joining the ‘old angry white guy’ in seeming to be over-represented among AGW denialists?
Well she got one convert, there was a “one world government” letter to the ed of our local rag earlier this week.