Stand up for the Future on Saturday

Shortly before the 2007 election I started writing to Labor politicians (chiefly Lindsay Tanner - my local Federal lower house member) about the critical issue of climate change. The initial positive constructive tone of these letters deteriorated steadily as awareness dawned that no-one was interested unless it threatened the security of their seats and/or their government. From writing to politicians I progressed through emailing anyone prepared to receive such emails to blogging on this matter in the hope of promoting some form of positive action in response to the climate crisis.  Now we are reaching a crucial turning point in the inevitable movement towards action on climate change. Next weekend we will all vote for a new Federal government. This seems a good time to go over the issues involved. What follows will not be new to those of you kind enough to sign up as 'Followers' to my (more or less) weekly ravings on this blog. You are all excused. You may go and make a cup of tea.

This post is more intended for those people I used to email who, vaguely alarmed by  predictions of climate calamity, might just be wondering how best to place their vote in this Federal election. First let's remind ourselves of what the problem is and how quickly it might manifest itself. The hard truth is that as the world dithers and delays the scientists increasingly believe that climate calamity is already upon us. Weather disasters have in fact doubled in the last thirty years. Huge sea level rises of seven metres or more are predicted with the destruction of the Greenland ice cap and the point of no return for this is possibly no more than a decade away. There is no doubt that the world is warming at an alarming rate. The Russian heatwave that accompanied their unprecedented forest fire outbreak probably caused the deaths of thousands in Moscow. The deniers are completely discredited. Even the Herald Sun has noticed it. Who will break the news to that clown Andrew Bolt?
 
We know that in the absence of strong action the situation will steadily worsen and that Australia will not escape the consequences. CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology have released reports detailing the warming of this the driest continent. We know that progress towards meaningful action has been slowed by that strange breed of people the climate change deniers with their ridiculous objections. No less a person than Australia's Chief Scientist Penny Sackett has repeatedly warned us of the urgent need for effective and rapid action. She has pointed to the confusion in the debate around climate action in Australia and the damage this is causing. It would seem that at the moment there is little chance of our politicians cutting through the confusion and promoting meaningful action on climate change. The lack of political will is clearly fueled by substantial and utterly inexcusable political ignorance. History will surely condemn the ignorant clowns from both of our major political groupings who  simply shut their eyes as we hurtle towards the precipice.

There is no shortage of good ideas and examples of meaningful action from the rest of the world to inspire our politicians. Both the Federal government and the Opposition are fond of stating that we can't act before the rest of the world. The reality is of course that Australia is lagging disgracefully as the rest of the world is already changing course. 

What can we do about this appalling state of affairs? Clive Hamilton thinks that it is already too late to avoid catastrophic climate change but argues that in the absence of the political will to act mass popular action becomes a civic responsibility. Massive expression of public discontent seems currently to be necessary to counterbalance the effects of the energy and industry lobbyists on our cowardly politicians. That brings me to the ultimate point of this blog post. This weekend presents the first of two opportunities this year for an expression of massive public discontent – the Federal election.

If you share the belief of tens probably hundreds of thousands of Australians that we are confronting a climate crisis and that this should be the primary determinant of how we place our vote it might be helpful to have some concise summaries of the climate policies of the main political parties. We know that the climate and energy policies of both Labor and the Coalition are inadequate but  what are the key elements and how do they stack up against one another.  ABC Online has published a concise summary of the key points which might be helpful. ACF has analysed the environmental policies of the major parties (a wider analysis than just climate change) and their conclusions can be found here. The Climate Institute's 'Pollute-O-Meter' examines the implications of  election pledges and party policy on emissions levels, clean energy prices and business accountability. The Vote Climate Campaign run by a coalition of inner Melbourne Climate Change Groups and The Climate Action Centre scores the political parties according to the effectiveness of their climate policies. The Vote Climate scorecard  is illustrated below and more information can be found on the Vote Climate website.

There is much much more that could be said about the utter failure of leadership and vision exhibited by both Labor and the Coalition in respect of climate change policy.  All of the policy analyses I have referred to above bear this out. To me the policies and actions of the Gillard government bear very little resemblance to the Constitution and Party platform of the ALP. These documents embody the social democratic values I believed the party stood for over the forty years I have voted for it. The current Labor government is a very pale shadow of a once significant Australian political and cultural institution. For their stance on climate alone (and God knows there are other issues) they deserve the utter condemnation of Australian voters.  If the Gillard government is poor the Abbott led opposition is worse. Again the policy analyses referred to above bear this out. Their grab bag of policy ideas is expensive, reeking of insincerity and aimed only at creating an impression of action sufficient to gain power. Their climate policies do not warrant consideration.

For anyone serious about addressing the climate crisis the only possible vote in this and probably also the next Federal election is Green. As a lifelong Labor voter I do not say this easily or lightly. To judge from the polls around 1.5 million Australians will vote for them this time, roughly a 50% increase over the 2007 election. My local member until this year Lindsay Tanner was fond of describing voting for the Greens as shouting from the sidelines. The polls suggest that the noise from the sidelines will be deafening this year. Perhaps even loud enough to make the other parties pay attention. It will be close but there is a very good chance that in the Federal seat of Melbourne Greens candidate Adam Bandt can grab a Lower House Seat that has been held by Labor for over a hundred years. This would be truly historic and I can't think of a single better way to focus Labor's attention on the necessity to address the climate crisis, an issue that 2/3 of Australians still rate in polls as in need of urgent attention. Can I suggest to you that if you live in the Seat of Melbourne in 2010 your vote has great power to deliver a message about the importance of change to the calcified old parties with their arrogant sense of entitlement and their cynical narrowing of the political landscape to the presumed interests of the marginal electorates of N.S.W. and Queensland.

We stand on the brink. When we vote on Saturday we have the opportunity to promote the necessary process of necessary change to our clean carbon constrained future. Will it be soon enough? Can disaster be averted? No-one knows. The only certainty I can see is that if we don't struggle now we become complicit in the extreme degradation even the destruction of our collective environmental future. Take heart and deliver a much needed message to both Labor and Liberals by voting for the Climate on Saturday.     http://duggyvans.blogspot.com/2010/08/stand-up-for-future-on-saturday.html