The Canberra Coal Club ignores what most people know: the future will be clean and smart | Peter Lewis

The dirty and dumb antics and the anti-renewables rhetoric being amped up by our politicians is out of step with majority thinking on energy

When Treasurer Scott Morrison clomped into parliament with his pet piece of coal after South Australia's electricity network collapsed in the face of extreme weather he was indulging in more than a tacky piece of political theatre.

As Barnaby Joyce fondled the fossil, the Turnbull government was signing up to the Coal Club's most audacious attack on the march of renewables since, well, the last one.