hifiandmtb
Sphincter beanie
An excellent article from Richard Flanagan (in parts - he doesn't press home the demonstrated urgency of actions needed):
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...climate-change-does-he-think-were-that-stupid
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...climate-change-does-he-think-were-that-stupid
This is not about ScoMo per se. It about everyone who drifts along not challenging this line of thought.Getting on with the job would be calling a moratorium on new thermal coalmines and gas fracking. Getting on with the job would be announcing a subsidised transition to electric vehicles by 2030. Getting on with the job would be working to close down all coal-fired powered stations as a matter of urgency. Getting on with the job would be calling a summit of the renewable energy industry and asking how the government can help make the transition one that happens now and one that creates jobs in the old fossil fuel energy communities.
And getting on with the job would be going to the world with these initiatives and arguing powerfully, strongly, courageously for other countries to follow as we once led the way on the secret ballot, women’s suffrage, Antarctic protection, the charter of human rights.
We are not a superpower, but nor are we a micronation. We have an economy the size of Russia’s. Our stand on issues whether good or bad is noted and quoted and used as an example. And one only has to look at the global standing of New Zealand to see the power of setting a moral and practical example, and the good that flows from it for a nation and its people.
Our actions have brought this upon ourselves.That same day, news broke of a panicked attempt by the federal government to administer some desperate triage over the growing costs to ordinary Australians of climate change in the form of perhaps the most ill-considered piece of policy in recent political history: to underwrite insurance premiums in north Queensland where premiums on homes in cyclone-affected areas are becoming unaffordable.
Major insurers have been warning for years that many homes will no longer be insurable as the consequences of climate change are felt and have been demanding action on climate change. The government has done nothing and now wishes to use taxpayers’ money to hide the growing costs to individual Australians of climate change. If the government does go ahead with this panicked response the precedent established is pregnant with catastrophe for the public purse.
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