In Australia and across the Western world, there’s a sneaking tendency to have STEM policies written and decided by humanities graduates. Powered by emotion and indifferent to the arithmetic of the natural world. Unfortunately, feelings must care about the facts.

These aren’t necessarily recently graduated kids, but they operate without any detailed understanding of the sciences they’re working in. Germany’s Energiewende ‘Ethics Commission’ ordered a nuclear phase-out post-Fukushima. This was done by a committee of theologians and philosophers, where environmental representatives overruled engineers. They closed 17 reactors, leading to a ten-year high in coal and lignite use by 2022.

CO₂ emissions rose by 40 million tonnes in one year, and power prices hit €400/MWh peak – the highest in Europe. Their focus on ‘ethical safety’ increased actual risk and emissions.

Likewise, South Australia had a policy of achieving ‘Net Zero by 2025’. Electrical-grid engineering policies were set by arts-and-law graduates in the Premier’s office.

In July 2016, wind farms tripped during a storm, leaving 1.7 million people without power for 12 to 48 hours and costing $500 million in economic damage.

In the post-mortem, AEMO determined that ‘ideological targets ignored interconnector physics’. Engineers begged for gas baseload; humanities wanted a ‘world-leading’ headline. A lot of technical work is happening to fix this now, but only after nearly two million lives were put at risk.

Victoria’s ‘Gender Affirmation’ Protocol in Schools in 2021 followed a similar pattern. This was written by gender-studies academics, not paediatric endocrinologists.

Puberty blockers are now prescribed after a single 30-minute consult with no bone-density baseline being established.

A 2024 Tavistock-style review found that 96 per cent of trans-identified youth had co-morbid ADHD or autism – ignored in the protocol.

Detransition lawsuits are already incoming because biology was subordinated to the identity narrative.

Despite recent and regular disasters this trend persists and is actively putting Australian lives at risk. An education theorist pens the National Curriculum’s ‘sustainability’ priority. There is little mention of Australia’s 1.1 per cent of global emissions and only one bullet on adaptation. Teen climate anxiety rose 40 per cent.

This is where things get seriously dangerous both economically and potentially to human life. China produces 30 per cent of global emissions, building two coal plants a week. India produces around 7 per cent, and the United States produces 14 per cent. Together they produce 51 per cent of global emissions … and rising.

If this problem is going to be solved, and it will not be, then it will need to be solved largely by these three nations. Not us. The issue of our I significance in this area has been prosecuted many times and no one is listening.

China and India have a moral right to provide their populations with a middle-class lifestyle. They’re not asking permission. They’re claiming their turn. And they’re right. Trying to raise the ladder behind us is arrogant and won’t lower sea levels.

Meanwhile, Australia is committing tens of billions of dollars to futile emissions reduction programs, but only hundreds of millions to a few billions (so far publicly announced) for adaptation/resilience in the near term.

The only policy that is going to benefit the Australian people are concepts like seawalls in Brisbane, drought-proof wheat in the Wheatbelt, and heat-proof cities in Darwin.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.

This is a time for ‘grown-up’ decisions now. Adapt, or die. Forever. That’s all there is. It is the only option we’ve ever had.

Feelings must care about the facts.