It’s been tough for me driving due to noise from diesel trucks, and from buses, in the lane next to me interrupting my enjoyment of the latest episode of my favourite series of podcasts. To cope I started using the car’s moon roof – the window in the cab ceiling, which opens at the press of a button. I’ll keep it up as doing so lets me get air circulation on hot days while keeping out the worst of the grumbles from the 16-wheelers beside me as their drivers gear down to stop at the traffic light on Regent Street in Chippendale.
I need to make such trips fairly often as they let me pick up my mail and get select groceries local stores won’t carry on their shelves. Choosing the right type of bread or getting my favourite type of cheese contribute to allocating the amount of time I spend in various shops.
It’s all about choice as well for investors, with the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank setting up taskforces to help their executives understand climate risk. The link between the environment and finance has been plumbed before – there was even a magazine called Ethical Investor that published stories, but it hasn’t flourished as green issues have moved to the centre of popular consciousness.
You wonder what Rupert Murdoch thinks of this happening within his purview. He’s preparing to hand his businesses over to son Lachlan. By all accounts the younger man is even more right-wing than dad. What cannot be denied is the active interference of the Murdochs in the editorial decision-making that goes on in their media companies. When journalists leave News Corp and go elsewhere to work they change. Their outlook changes, the battles they choose to fight change, their tone changes.
While the Socmed saga is still playing out globally – as traditional media companies try to claw back some of their lost advertising dollars – it’s very hard to feel sorry for the Murdochs. With his wife Sarah (see photo above), Lachlan bought, in 2018, another mansion next-door to his exclusive Sydney home.
In the final analysis it’s almost irrelevant what these two men think because others have moved on well past where they want us to sit vis-à-vis the environment. As pointed out above, events overtake them, though personally they’ll not be bruised if the share prices of petrochemical companies go south. Their personal fortunes are enough to keep many more journalists in work on a salary, and Rupert’s been happy to cross-subsidise his newspapers with profits earned from TV.
Lachlan mightn’t be as accommodating to loyal editors. Obviously we can’t yet know the answer to that question. But their viability as a force in the global media is testament to Rupert’s business acumen. When the Australian media industry began to liberalise in the 1970s – Fairfax journalists were given their head, and became able, for the first time as long as the papers’d been around, to make their own decisions – he saw an opportunity to capture part of the market.
The rest is history. The Liberal Party – Australia’s conservatives – is almost imperceptibly moving away from being on the wrong side of history. They might yet publicly rue the day they let the automotive industry crash out, since General Motors (which used to make Holden cars in the southern city of Adelaide) has said it’ll phase out petrol-powered vehicles before mid-century. Adelaide factory workers might have cause to wonder how many jobs might’ve been saved if more forward-thinking politicians had been in Tony Abbott’s cabinet.
Can the government’s hydrogen energy strategy help? Perhaps an electric truck or bus’ll get the noise, while driving, away from my ear. Makers of podcasts will no doubt be happy when EVs are given more wheels to play with because when it rains I have to close the moon roof and open the window to get the flow of air moving. It’s all about flow: evidence that things are moving. Hopefully in the right direction.
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