The most telling part of the Rudd Governments deferral of efforts to reduce Australias greenhouse emissions is that it wont even look at the issue again until 2012. In other words, it is unlikely Labor will actually do anything in its next term, even though it leaves open the suggestion it might do something in 2013.
It is almost universally believed that reducing Australia�s carbon emissions will be very expensive and therefore our economy will be disadvantaged if our emission reductions get ahead of the rest of the world, but it is not true.
The way global warming and our efforts to stop it have been discussed in this critical Parliamentary week tells a sorry tale of Australian societys scientific illiteracy, myopia and psychological denial.
According to global warming sceptics and denialists, climate scientists are variously really stupid, prone to irrational herd behaviour, egotists pushing barrows, trying to feather their nests, or all of the above. According to the media they are apparently nerdy pains whose gloomy message is easily trumped by serious, reality-based political dramas. According to politicians they are another interest group to be placated. According to the Prime Minister they are radical greens.
[This was sent to the Canberra Times Tuesday. I’ve been busy with my day job for a while, but expect I’ll get more posts up here from now on.]
The Government fails completely to grasp the urgency of the global warming situation. This is obvious every time it speaks about climate. Its views on the economic effect of emission reductions are dominated by those of the polluter industries, and fail completely to take account of the new industries that could and should be developing to replace them. These failures are fundamental failures of leadership, and the failures are critical, because they threaten Austalias future, and the future of industrial civilisation.
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