The sheer stupidity of the Albanese government and the renewables investment lobby groups would be comical if it were not so deadly dangerous. Across Europe, the failed decades-long ideological pursuits and policies of ‘net zero’ are leading to despair and popular insurrection. Farmers in over a dozen countries are protesting in mass convoys of heavy tractors, some even bringing entire cities to a standstill. Their fury is against the increasingly onerous and asinine EU climate change regulations destroying lives, livelihoods, farms and businesses. In renewables industry after industry, from EVs to wind turbines, investors are discovering that the immutable law of corporate capitalism – go woke, go broke – inevitably catches up with the left-wing virtue-signalling of lazy executives and cowed boardrooms. In Britain, the Guardian laughably blames comedian Rowan Atkinson (aka Mr Bean) for poor EV sales, simply because he wrote a bad review about them, as Rebecca Weisser writes in her column this week. The unctuous petrol giant BP, which over a decade ago attempted to ride the green bandwagon by changing its name from British Petroleum to Beyond Petroleum, is back increasing its investment in oil and gas. Perhaps it’s time for yet another name change and ad campaign: Back-to Petroleum. In the past fortnight famous steelworks in both Britain and Australia have closed down, unable to remain productive in the crazy world of climate alarmism.

When will the madness stop? We are now in a race against time. If Western voters (the majority of the developing world has no interest in this idiocy) do not wake up to the appalling damage being inflicted upon our once-thriving and prosperous economies by the climate scam, we will quickly reach a ‘tipping point’ and the descent into a Third World lifestyle and status will be unstoppable. Perhaps we have already tipped.

This week saw major blackouts across Victoria, with around half a million homes and businesses having to make do without electricity. Naturally, this was blamed on ‘extreme weather conditions’. Those would be the same ‘extreme’ conditions that Australians have coped with for over two centuries. It is difficult to know who to feel less sympathy for – those governments who blindly pursue this unhinged commitment to reducing emissions at all costs or the voters and corporations who continue to support them.

At the end of the day, if individual voters feel so persuaded by the admittedly relentless and alarmist climate propaganda as to sacrifice their own, and more importantly, their offspring’s prosperity, then there is little the rest of us can do about it. Except perhaps to buy a diesel generator. But the tragedy of what this anti-humanity doomsday cult is doing to everyday lives and livelihoods is nothing compared to the damage being done to our industrial and defence capabilities. At the very moment the Western democracies need to be building up our military might in every conceivable fashion to deter the menacing expansionist ambitions of the communist powers, we are in effect laying down our weapons and reducing our strength. Without cheap, abundant and consistent energy supplies, and without steel-making and other heavy manufacturing capabilities, we are sitting ducks in the face of Chinese (or any other) aggression.

Here in Australia we have only one glimmer of hope, and that is a Dutton-led Coalition taking government at the next election. Thanks to the treachery of the Morrison government in disgracefully and pointlessly embracing net zero at Cop26, Australian voters have been denied the choice that in the past they repeatedly exercised to say No to climate alarmism. As this page pointed out several years ago and long before anyone else did, the only sensible policy for the Coalition to pursue is a nuclear one. Had Mr Morrison listened to us back then he may well still be in power now, instead of smirking his way through supercilious sniping on the ABC.

The ideal commitment would be for the Coalition to not only embrace nuclear, as they now intend to do, but to also go the whole hog and abandon net zero. This would allow them to fully and convincingly decimate the Chris Bowen doctrine in all its folly and futility without pulling any punches.

Voters don’t like mixed messages. The reason the Voice failed so spectacularly was because the opposition’s message was clear, concise and unambiguous. ‘No.’ (Although there were a few wobbles along the way, best not mentioned now). Already, the Coalition has been forced to present an awkward compromise on the stage three tax cuts, following an inspired wedge on the part of Labor, ably assisted by the ‘neutral’ public servants at Treasury.

The opposition’s embrace of nuclear power is critical. But a full-throated repudiation of the ‘net zero by such-and-such a date’ mantra is critical to slay the cult-like grip (driven by fear) that climate change has over large sections of the public.

The good news is that thanks to the gift that keeps giving, aka Chris Bowen, the task of trashing net zero is one the opposition can approach with relish.