Great news! We’re set to lose about $900,000/year in the Geology Department, crippling our ability to research natural hazards and climate change. But what we aren’t realising is that this is actually a genius move from the top levels of government to solve the climate crisis overnight.
We’ve got all sorts of national climate and hazard problems to worry about and, if that weren’t enough, we’re expecting to be hit with the largest-ever recorded earthquake when the Alpine Fault goes. Lots to worry about, which also means lots of expensive maintenance. Central government knows this, and while they aren’t busy taking $2 billion from totally-unproblematic Blackrock, they’re in charge of supporting our universities. They could, if they wanted, use some of that $2 billion to bail out our entire tertiary sector in the name of climate security. But here’s their genius play:
If they let all of our climate and hazard research departments fail, nobody will be collecting climate data. And then the problem disappears!
It’s so simple, really, when you think about it. Answering an alarm bell can be an extremely costly and downright annoying exercise. So instead of paying consultants millions to figure out what the best response would be, we can save heaps of cash by just getting rid of the bell! They say “numbers don’t lie”, so all we need to do is get rid of the numbers. Simples. This definitely won’t end up costing more in the long run.
Letting geology and science communication collapse is the first step towards a more sustainable future. At least, it’s the first step towards a future where people just shut up about climate change for once. Even if that blabber was worth listening to, what’s the point? Everything is already so irrevocably screwed that training new scientists can’t have any value at all, right? Like why are we even studying earthquakes if we can’t say exactly when they’re going to strike? Save some money by putting your fingers in your ears. Ignorance truly is bliss.
What you don’t know can’t hurt you, so we’re making sure we don’t know much about anything. Ergo, we are indestructible. The millions it would take to prop up our floundering departments (which are only floundering because of the system we imposed upon them, nice) has got to be a higher price tag than the consequences of crippling our hazard and climate researchers. It’s not like deplatforming your earth scientists could possibly lead to millions more in damages when we get blindsided by a disaster that one of them was studying.
But I guess that doesn’t matter since Blackrock just gave us $2 billion dollars to become carbon neutral. Who needs home-grown experts when you can just tap that sweet, sweet American oil-military-investment income? I say: keep our heads in the sand! It’s a lot more peaceful that way.