Page 158 - Carbon Capitalism and Communication Confronting Climate Crisis

12 NOTHING BUT TRUTHINESS: PUBLIC DISCOURSES … 149

Whilst the burning of the coal would not fall within Australia’s national
greenhouse accounts, the magnitude of the annual emissions associated with
the burning of the coal would be equivalent to approximately three times
Australia’s annual emissions reduction target of 5% below 2000 levels by
2020 (Taylor and Meinshausen 2014, p. 10).

Because of its gigantic scale, enormous costs, and environmental impact,
including the myriad ways pollution from the mine poses a significant
threat to the already endangered Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area,
the Carmichael mine has been challenged in multiple court cases (Taylor
and Meinshausen 2014). Political battles over regulating, approving and
financing the mine, and the greenfield mining of the entire remote Galilee
Basin, have been fought in the halls of both the federal and Queensland
parliaments, and in the media across Australia.
How can a coal mine be subject to a regime of ‘truthiness’? A proposal
to build a greenfield megamine would appear to be an example of political
facticity: economic, geologic, environmental and other related facts about
mining and fossil fuel development should be arrayed to build arguments
for or against. In the following, after reviewing the concept of post-truth
and truthiness, we will demonstrate why official discourses around the
Adani mine in Queensland and at the Federal level instead constitute an
example of ‘truthiness’.

‘TRUTHINESS’ AND FACTS
The question of how to address the issue of ‘post-truth’ in politics and
particularly in political campaigns has begun to draw attention from
scholars in a range of disciplines, including media studies, communication
and cultural studies (Gilbert 2016; Hannan 2016; Harsin 2015). Many of
these authors have reflected on the usefulness of the word ‘truthiness,’ a
term invented by (fake media personality) Stephen Colbert in 2005. As
Gilbert (2016) notes, ‘truthiness’ is a potentially important concept for
understanding contemporary political discourse, for it conveys the emo-
tional quality of perceived realities, which, he argues, “are derived from
passionate preferences rather than scientific, logical or even journalistic
certainties” (ibid., p. 96). Citing Brian Massumi, he sees the language of
politics now couched in ‘a logic of “gut feelings” and “affectively legiti-
mated facts”’ (ibid., p. 96).