My first post...I wrote this in November 2009, however on re-reading I feel it is still apt for now:
While I sit here contemplating Bernard Keane’s latest astute account of the joke that is climate change debate, I am left wondering what action we will take when houses start falling into the ocean, thousands of islanders turn up on overcrowded boats seeking environmental asylum, and Victoria is one year long fire...
The old saying ‘better late than never’ doesn’t apply here! Given that the so called outrageous projections made by the IPCC, have turned out to be quite optimistic, we need to have acted years ago to stem the environmental impact of man-made climate change. I believe, and your local scientist most likely agrees that action is necessary and not acting has dire consequences (and no matter how quickly we act there will be consequences which cannot be stopped).
However, if you are a denialist, I ask you – doesn’t using less resources, developing new, less resource intensive power sources and cutting air pollution have long-term positive fiscal, health and standard of living impacts? Doesn’t a $0 electricity bill sound good to you? How about less risk of asthma for your kids? All these things could be yours, and although we are and should be working towards them already, they will be by-products of combating climate change! And, should climate change turn out to be, as Mr Keane chuckles, ‘... a left-wing con, the ultimate scam cooked up (ha!) by some lazy academics and watermelon greenies...’ then what have we lost? Pollution, asthmatic kids, unhealthy lifestyles? Isn’t that worth some short-term economic pain, and maybe swallowing your backwards, pre Darwin approach to the climate?
The latest study by the Global Climate Change Lobby shows what we all already know: Government’s around the world are being influenced by expensive, intelligent, strategic and most disturbingly, anti-climate action lobby groups. Malign activities of individuals protecting their bottom line, or being paid to protect their benefactors bottom line (be they public or private benefactors).Well, I know for a fact that I am not the only individual passionate about taking action on climate change, many of my colleagues, friends, family all feel the looming threat and are left disappointed by our political ‘representatives’. What can we do to tell them? I have taken part in the Prime Minister’s blog and the Prime Minister’s online chat, and I have signed a petition along with tens of thousands of young Australians – but to no avail.
However, the only legitimate action we have left is the vote – but how legitimate is it? The Greens seem to be the only ones with ideas that are even close to rational and with potential for affecting change – but who wants them running our economy, or setting our international agenda, or setting agriculture policy, or anything except environment, energy policy (even that makes me a little queasy) and climate change? The Liberals can’t make up their mind one way or another, and Labor seems to have lost the plot focusing all their energies (pardon the pun) on an ETS that has been watered down so much that it will make little to no impact on Australia’s contribution to climate change.
Coming back to my first question: what action will we take when the world starts falling apart? Will parliament, as Bernard posits,
‘Apologise to the people who died of dengue fever or in bushfires, apologise to the families of the elderly who succumbed to heatwaves. Apologise to the tourism employees who lost their jobs when our great reefs died. Apologise to the farmers forced off the land as the Murray-Darling dried up. Sorry, dried up even more.
Apologise to the whole community because of all the economic opportunities we missed by locking our economy into some sort of carbon-era cryogenic freeze when we could have started the transition to the low-carbon economy that we will need to be in the future, now.’
Or will it be even more extreme; will climate change denialists be the next generation’s war criminals? Or, will there be any semblance of organised civilization left to hold anyone responsible? I know, I know, a bit bleak and maybe exaggerated, but then again maybe not...
For your consideration...Zen
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