Bernardi’s singular achievement is having helped destroy the Rudd government’s emissions trading scheme in 2009 and, with it, Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership. His opposition to the ETS, and later the carbon tax, was first inspired by veteran climate sceptic, University of Adelaide’s Ian Plimer. It was girded by a 2009 visit to the United States where he sought advice on strategy from America’s foremost climate-change deniers; among them Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner who, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, “routinely ignores and denies even the most robust, vetted scientific findings”, and Senator James Inhofe, a beneficiary of generous energy industry funding, who has described global warming as “the second-largest hoax ever played on the American people, after the separation of church and state”.

Inspired by the tactics of the Tea Party, Bernardi established the Conservative Leadership Foundation in 2009, which in turn set up the Conservative Action Network (CANdo) that Bernardi likens to “a Facebook for conservatives”. CANdo rallied dozens of like-minded groups and thousands of individuals to join an orchestrated ‘grassroots’ campaign – also known as ‘astro-turfing’ – against the ETS. Their efforts persuaded Liberal MPs to revolt against Turnbull, killing the ETS and propelling Abbott into leadership.

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Have the nominations for Australian of the Year opened yet? (via different-exotic-fishes)

Can you imagine a world in which Turnbull is leader of the opposition?

I actually don’t hate him. Am I forgetting something?

(Source: themonthly.com.au, via different-exotic-fishes)