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Sometimes, you’ve just gotta go overseas and chill… with cocktails… in a tropical paradise… while the world around you burns. Especially if you’re an elected leader, because that sh*t is really stressful. Chris Graham helpfully suggests some things the Aussie PM can do in Hawaii while the rest of us try to save our homes.
The most obvious 10 things Morrison could do while he’s in Hawaii are ‘Go fuck himself’, repeated another nine times. Failing that there’s plenty of climate change related things in the Pacific that Morrison could ‘experience’, to get a better understanding of the legacy he’s hoping to leave his grandchildren and great grandchildren.
In case you missed it, Morrison snuck off for a holiday while Australia’s bushfire crisis continues to grow. As he did, his office denied the destination was Hawaii, before the office of Greens NSW MLC David Shoebridge’s finally confirmed it.
It does beg the question: why lie about something that was so easily disproved….? A bit like, Australia’s carbon emissions, for example?
On that front, the most important thing we all need to remember while Morrison chills in a tropical paradise is that apart from ‘the warming’ associated with climate change (remember that time we had to dump the term ‘global warming’ and replace it with ‘climate change’ because in some places it got colder and conservatives like Morrison got really confused), the thing we should all most fear is the additional energy that climate change pumps into the weather system’.
Namely, bigger storms, hotter droughts, strong winds, bigger fires, larger floods… etc etc. And so with that in mind, here’s a few things Morrison can do on holidays to help ward off the homesickness and remind him of the nation he was elected to lead… which is currently on fire.
1. Surf Jaws
It’s one of the most famous surf breaks in the world. It’s also one of the most dangerous. If you survive the wall of water that wants to bear down on you, then you might not survive the reef it throws you onto. And if you survive both those things, then you also have to run the gauntlet with the locals, guard their surf break with a religious zealotry that Morrison is likely to find comforting by beating up visitors and tourists with the temerity to venture out the back. Point being, you can’t just rock up like a tourist and ride Jaws – you have to earn yourself a spot on the wave. And if you do, you stand a better than normal chance of dying.
In the coming years, that’ll only get worse as bigger storms in the Pacific drive larger and larger swells to the island paradise. So yeah, like Morrison should totally just hang with the locals, earn his stripes, then take on Jaws. No rush. In the meantime, please enjoy the video of the 64ft monster above.
2. Surf Pipeline
It’s officially the most dangerous surf break in the world – even worse than Jaws. The reef is meaner too, having killed more people than any other. Same problem with the locals too. So correction to the above – Morrison should surf Pipeline.
3. Stay at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort
It’s tall, it’s beautiful and it’s right on the water’s edge. The Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort is the accommodation that world leaders and climate deniers should pick, because as water levels rise from melting ice caps, they’ll get first-hand experience of what it looks like when a storm surge hits a few thousand tonnes of concrete. Which is what will increasingly happen not just all over the Pacific, but at virtually any country with a coastline.
4. Go for a walk in the long tall grass
Hawaii might seem like a tropical paradise – and it is – but it also happens to lose annually about the same percentage of its land to wildfires as the continental United States. And that’s increasing. Of course, Morrison flew to Hawaii to escape the wildfires, so maybe avoid the hilly grasslands.
5. Visit the beaches… while they’re still there
Hawaii is, of course, most famous for its beaches, but as the climate changes, erosion increases. So much so that local authorities have already begun bringing in new sand to popular tourist locations like Waikiki. Morrison is staying just around the corner.
6. Visit the reefs… while they’re still there
Morrison might be familiar with this one… just like the Great Barrier Reef, warmer ocean temperatures led (in 2016) to mass coral bleaching events throughout the Hawaiian archipelago. That’s going to increase as the climate changes and the ocean warms. Morrison and his fam-bam should get some piccies of the reef now, to show the grandkiddies one day.
7. Go kite surfing
If Morrison survives Jaws, then Pipeline, he should consider getting a few lessons in kite surfing, one of the gnarliest of all water sports, particularly in areas with an increasing number of cyclones and hurricanes.
And in that department, Hawaii is quite blessed – in recent years the island state has set new records on both fronts, with outstanding performances from Hurricanes Lane and Hector.
8. Go white water rafting
In just 24 hours in April 2018, more than 50 inches of rain fell over Hawaii, breaking all records for the United States.
This is bad news for people who want to live, but it’s great if you like white water rafting. Morrison should definitely give this a crack, preferably after any one of the increasing number of significant rain events the islands are experiencing.
9. Visit Honolulu County
It’s a really nice part of the islands (Oahu), and it’s also one of the most ardent when it comes to climate change. A survey in 2018 found 82 per cent of people acknowledged global warming.
This compares quite unfavourably to the Liberal’s party room in Canberra, where almost no-one believes in it, or at least not enough to keep Malcolm Turnbull in office.
10. Visit Parliament – find out how it’s done.
Australia will ‘meet its carbon emission commitments’, suggest Morrison (no, we won’t). But even if we do (we won’t), they’re already embarrassingly low and we’ve been cooking the books and cheating on the calculations.
While he’s in Hawaii, Morrison might like to visit the parliament, where at a state level they voted to be carbon-neutral by 2045.
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