The wrong target

Two years of Government for Labour and we have seen no progress on the most important issue of our civilisation. Elected on a mandate for real action on climate change, among other things, yet we have not made progress. Kevin Rudd looks around for someone to blame, but he need not look far. He just needs to find the nearest mirror.

We know he has his sights firmly set on keeping Government for as long as Howard did. He will use each and every issue to manoeuvre them into a political advantage for himself by either carefully wedging his opponents or by bribing the electorate with another billion-a-day handout, designed only to manage the day’s headline issue.

Rudd’s CPRS has been designed to be so abhorrent to the far left and the far right of the political spectrum that neither the Greens not he Coalition could support it. Not that they had a chance to negotiate, at least for nearly two years negotiation was off the table, it was “take it or leave it” for as long as it was politically necessary.

The government cut out all negotiations with the Coalition until the bitter end of Malcoml Turnbull’s tenure. This was completely orchestrated to steer Turnbull into a position of weakness within his divided party on the issue. Any press conference for two years with any Labour representative contained little explanation of the policy itself, no substance beyond merciless abusing of the opposition on every point they made.

Two years to explain the scheme to the public, two years to negotiate an effective scheme with either the Coalition or the Greens and the Independents in the senate. The Government chose only to negotiate with the Coalition in order to force them into a position that their fragmented base could not accept and would yet again plunge them into internal anarchy.

Rudd calls this mission accomplished, for it means that the opposition is again hurt, his job more secure, our planet more ah, rooted? The Government could have negotiated a scheme that would actually, reduce emissions by negotiating with the Greens and Independents in the Senate. Sure nutcase Fielding would vote no, however a mere handful of Coalition Senators crossing the floor (which did happen!) and we would have been on an effective scheme -it was possible!. It could have been the real deal, not the appalling deal that was chewed through between Wong and McFarlane in the dying days of Tunbull’s opposition.

But alas, Rudd instead chose to sacrifice two of the most pivotal years in our history for nothing but political games with the opposition parties, to the detriment of Australia’s environment and place in the civilized world. Fortunately China and the USA have made some progress over this time, maybe even enough to save the world.

Both China and the USA had for a long time been the favourite excuses for Rudd and others of similar lack of conviction to use for stalling, or apportioning blame for the lack of global agreement and progress on this issue. When Rudd could only see the opposition as his target, other leaders saw targets like… reducing emissions and creating new-tech “green” jobs.

Well, through a massive investment of political strategy in a CRPS policy of such utter disaster, Rudd has watched the rest of the world enter Copenhagen with progress made. Rudd only has the scalps of Nelson and Turnbull as his and Australia’s progress, unless we consider Abbott as an alternative PM as “progress”?

What sort of Australia do we want?

When a country is at the crossroads in deciding its future path, policy makers should be putting this question to us: What sort of Australia do we want?

To frame it better, it might help to think of it as: How would we like to be seen when we retire? One way to measure this, in a qualified way would be to ask the young what they think of our life’s work, our choices, our legacy?

If you ask an elderly Australian this same question about their life, in most cases you will get some pretty impressive responses. Be it building huge projects, fighting wars, hardship and sacrifice- these themes are common and deserve praise.

What exactly would be impressive to our future citizens about what we are doing in this country now? Let us cut to the chase, Australia is barely more than a huge quarry. We dig dirt, chop down trees and send it to overseas, mostly to Asia. Then, using largely slave labour, they convert into houses and infrastructure for their use, for building unnecessary consumer goods to export and to fuel industrialisation (inseparably coupled with emissions growth).

Australia’s largest investments are all in extracting minerals, gasses and oils as fast as possible in fuelling the world’s unsustainable appetite. Simultaneously, ensuring our future citizens will not have access to these materials AND will have to deal with another 13 Million locals, hotter average temperatures, more bush fires, less water, less arable land for food production.

We are on the path that ensures the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef and the Murray-Darling basin, probably other key treasures that our grandchildren will see crumble before their eyes- and for what? our greed? We need to have good answers if we are committed to allowing it to happen…

Politicians justify our path as ensuring jobs, growth and prosperity. Hard to blame them when they only care about being re-elected and their coffers are filled by companies with investments in these big industries, which need government backing and shareholders to lie to.

Our leaders are programmed to deliver one-dimensional policy that is benchmarked only by the budget balance sheet and the polls. Our morale compass is ignored, our leaders claim it is not their role to provide that, it is up to our own “free, democratic choices” to determine our lives. Politicians believe they just need to defend our right to buy stuff (including education- no longer an entitlement) and have emergency services.

Our out-dated mantra is that growth is good- it is our only measure of success for western politicians. What are we? Unfunny Ferengi?

I would like to know when I am much older that I am not embarrassed to the core in what the young have to say about my life and my generation.

I do not believe it is a good enough response to say that I lived only to make my life more comfortable and buy more things or take more happy snaps to try and convince everyone else how good I am. I accept my views goes against current convention where we are expected to “live our lives to the fullest, in our own way, our own goals” and other libertarian themes.

Those themes are no longer justifiable when our footprint is so large, yet our overall mental, physical and psychological health so poor.

What Australia do we want? Not the one with 35 million of Kevin Rudd’s consumers… no thanks.

Response to The Australian’s endorsed article – Beware the greenies

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25667725-7583,00.html

To quote: “We don’t need to rein in the “human footprint” but rather stamp it even more indelibly on our planet, and in the future, on other planets too.” – Brendan O’Neill

Mr. O’Neill, you may be shocked to learn, just like Steve Fielding, that a human invention- science, has told us we have indeed overreached our grasp and are plunging the world to the point where we threaten our way of life. These same infallible, luminous beings called humans, who magically turn the world in a “place of abundance” have through our divine cleverness decided to think about what is happening around us and use our communities to pool our learning. Amazingly, we come to the conclusion that there is some connection between the consumption activities of billions of people and the shape of our world’s resources and climate.

Clever humans looked ahead for once, saw the earth isn’t flat and along the way, found that supplies are not limitless and greed and laziness (the cause of most emissions) have put us on our own path to well, hell. Little wonder the rest of the world finds Australian’s arrogant when we think we can be some sort of exception to the natural forces of the world and should be entitled to emit, “stamp our footprint” further as Brendan suggests.

Humanising our planet might sound like some devine entitlement and stewardship, but what are you hoping this leads to Brendan?

Do you mean Waterworld or Mad Max? What would you prefer?