Barnaby Joyce Declares Climate Change Is “Solved” Because It Is Raining
"We’ve obviously fixed that problem."
Former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has declared that climate change a thing of the past in an interview broadcast on live national TV.
In an interview with Sunrise on Monday morning, Joyce was grilled about Australia’s abysmal recycling efforts after it was recently revealed that only 16 percent of Australia’s plastics had been recycled in the last four years.
But instead of acknowledging how the Coalition failed to address the issue during its time in government, Joyce simply claimed that the problem of climate change doesn’t exist anymore. Why, you ask? Because it’s raining.
“We’ve solved global warming, we’ve solved the drought, we’ve obviously fixed that problem,” said Joyce, looking around at the rainy weather he was experiencing in regional NSW — as if torrential rain in mid-November isn’t a clear example of the very real impacts of climate change we’re currently facing.
Sunrise host Natalie Barr quickly shut down the claim.
“Not really,” she replied.
After literally groaning in response to Barr’s answer, Joyce pivoted to promoting fossil fuels, doing a complete 180 from the initial point of the interview.
“One of the things about it, of course, is [that it] costs money to recycle. Like all manufacturing … requires energy, requires power,” said Joyce in the trainwreck interview that not only denied the existence of climate change, but suggests the solution to Australia’s recycling problems is more fossil fuels.
“If we keep devoiding [sic] our nation of the capacity to produce baseload power, shutting down coal-fired power stations, not wanting to talk about nuclear power … then you’re not going to have manufacturing and means you’re not gonna have recycling.
“You just gotta be a realist. Gotta get cheaper energy.”
It should go without saying that politicians like Barnaby Joyce should not be given airtime on national TV to promote blatant climate change misinformation, but here we go anyway: Barnaby Joyce should not be given airtime on national TV to promote blatant climate change misinformation.
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