Hey Matteo Canavani, climate change, and the very very many consequences including food shocks, is occurring whether you understand it or not. As a national leader, how about leading instead of bleating on about preferred energy sources?https://civileats.com/2019/05/30/climate-change-is-intensifying-food-shocks/
Yes indeed, crises call for big and immediate responses, but if I do bang on about geo-engineering, it’s because it may be big and immediate(ish), it has consequences that could make it as bad as the crisis is is supposed to resolve. “Outlandish and unsettling … redolent of science fiction” says one group of scientists. Geo-engineers blithely imagine “purpose-built high altitude tankers making 60,000 flights annually releasing sulphates into the stratosphere”. Now how does that strike you?https://e360.yale.edu/features/geoengineer-the-planet-more-scientists-now-say-it-must-be-an-option
Albo, this is not a good start. You forgot to add ” … or disapprovals” to your statement “What it’s up to governments to do is give environmental approvals”. When the project is clearly untenable, as nearly all economists and all environmentalists will tell you, you must show leadership on this challenging policy position.https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/federal-election-2019/it-s-not-up-to-government-it-s-markets-albanese-takes-swipe-at-anti-adani-activists-20190528-p51s3i.html
Ah yes, this is repeating what has oft’ been said, but how many senior bureaucrats and tourism executives have been yoyoing between their big corporations and the upper echelons of the public sector? The fossil fuel industry has many well-placed shills to ensure that coal keeps the upper hand and they have the pollies to do their bidding.
The recently rehabilitated plane-flying property buying ex-Minister for Health Sussan Ley, accountant and numerologist (hence the extra ‘S’ in her first name), is Minister for the Environment. Trevor Evans, economist and ex-ACCC and ex-CEO of the National Retail Association, is Assistant Minister for Waste Reducation and Environmental Management. Gus Taylor, economist, is Minister for Energy with responsibility for emissions reduction. No greenies in this lot and the jury is out.
“The Liberal campaign was a fairly empty, negative campaign with not much substance and Mickey Mouse announcements”. Then there was the porky about the death tax and the dodgy purple corflute in Chisholm purporting to be from the Australian Electoral Commission, the handout that wasn’t a tax, a uranium mine approval one day before calling the election, verballing CSIRO and GeoScience Australia on Adani’s water plan and …. . And they won.https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/25/election-lessons-from-regional-australia-why-labor-got-the-push-in-the-bush
The numbers on Adani simply don’t stack up. The idea that with Adani going ahead, coal has a bright new future is very expensive fantasy. So why is Adani still being proposed as a going concern? Here’s yet more analysis pointing to the ‘uneconomics’ of the proposal.https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/the-numbers-on-adani-simply-don-t-add-up-20190524-p51qoy.html
Is anyone else struck by the yawning chasm between the crisis we face in climate change and our national conversation regarding our response? As if the election result wasn’t enough, there’s now talk of walking back from a market response, of fast-tracking Adani and opening coal-seam gas projects. When you fall off a cliff, you only feel the pain when you land and I feel that right now, we’re falling. Read some of these articles and see what you reckon.
Off list again. For those who have time and the inclination, this is a very interesting read for the grand sweep of issues that Rudd analyses. It is particularly relevant after May 18. It is a long article, but then the bloke who gave us ‘detailed programmatic specificity’ was never going to be known for brevity. The intro below is his.To all Australians who are hurting this week & who hoped for a different future, never forget it’s been our values of fairness for all that have made us a better people. For those interested, here are some reflections on the future written before the election.http://kevinrudd.com/2019/02/04/the-complacent-country/
Planetary ‘death-bed’ conversions are possible. Here’s the argument that swayed one denier to a fervent belief that we have to mitigate, and mitigate now.https://thebulwark.com/what-changed-my-mind-about-climate-change/