Labor will destroy the planet in a much more loving and grown-up way

Why the sensible centre has blood on its hands

Baby, sweet baby
I wanna feel your breath
Even though you like to flirt with death
Baby, sweet baby
Can't get enough
Please come find me and help me get fucked up

—Lucinda Williams, Essence

It was disappointing—but as predictable as rising temperatures—to see Tanya Plibersek all over social media last week boasting that her government’s lobbying had caused UNESCO to withdraw its “in danger” warning regarding the Great Barrier Reef.

As pyrrhic victories go, they don’t come much pyrrhicer.

For years we have wondered what people in power would do when denial of climate change was completely overtaken by events, when the evidence—from melting glaciers to hot oceans to extreme weather events—leaped off the climate models and into people’s summer holidays and became overwhelming.

We are starting to find out, with responses happening on a continuum, from delay to what the fuck.

Even Plibersek conceded in her ill-judged tweets that UNESCO’s decision “doesn’t mean the Reef is in the clear”, but she conti…