A few words from Clive Splash

Posted on 03. Dec, 2009 by Cameron Reilly in climate change, geopolitics

It was announced today that Dr Clive Splash has resigned from the CSIRO because the organisation was censoring his attempts to criticize Cap and Trade schemes. As I’m meeting Dr Peter Ellyard tonight to discuss the current ETS situation, I reviewed some of the materials on Dr Splash’s site. Here’s a short excerpt of a piece he wrote for Adbusters in 2008 (the bold parts are mine):

Well, we’ve been here before. Major international political attention was first paid to climate change in 1988. At a meeting in Toronto, governments agreed to 20 percent cuts in CO2 emissions by 2005. The same year, the Hamburg World Congress recommended 30 percent cuts by 2000 and 50 percent by 2015 (with some dissenters). However, instead of government action, we only saw the IPCC established to “study” the issue further. A decade later, Kyoto’s few percent emissions cuts for developed economies were still seeking ratification. Businesses in the US spent $100 million fighting the Kyoto Protocol, claiming it would hurt the economy. The highest per capita polluters, the US and Australia, withdrew and remained outsiders in the international consensus of concern. Underlying this government backtracking, delay and timid target-setting is economic power politics.

And here we are, 21 years later, with the Rudd government still pussy-footing around, trying to appease the fossil fuel industry, and the new “leadership” (and I use that word with derision) of the Liberal Party sticking to their 1988 rhetoric.

I’m sick of it. We need a people’s revolution.

Australia Needs To Lead The World

Posted on 01. Dec, 2009 by Cameron in climate change, geopolitics

I’m reading the Australian government’s CPRS white paper tonight and there are some issues that I don’t understand.

In the Foreword, the paper says:

“… we have more to lose than any other developed nation if the world fails to reduce the carbon pollution that causes climate change.”

Wow, we better take it seriously then.

A couple of pages down, it goes on to say:

“By 2020, we have committed to reduce Australia’s carbon pollution by up to 15 per cent below 2000 levels in the context of a global agreement where major economies agree to substantially restrain carbon pollution and advanced economies take on reductions comparable to Australia.”

“Where major economies agree?” And what if they DON’T agree? We will do nothing? I thought this was serious?!

In debates on Twitter, people have tried to explain to me that it’s about balancing our long-term priorities (eg staying alive) with our short-term priorities (eg keeping people in jobs that are threatening our ability to stay alive).

I don’t see why we should be protecting the jobs of people when those jobs are threatening our ability to LIVE. That’s like protecting the jobs of the terrorists because, well, they have families too.

Mining in Australia employs about 129,000 people. That’s about 1.3% of the work force.  If we shut down mining and pensioned them all off with $100k a year, that’s about $10 billion a year, which, coincidentally, is about the same about of money the government has set aside for financial assistance to businesses and households anyway. So it’s not inconceivable to just shut it all down today.

Anyway, that’s not my point. My point is that you can’t justify continuing to do something that’s just WRONG by saying “yes but it makes money”. For example, slavery is profitable. But we don’t do that anymore (officially, anyway). We also don’t invade poor countries and kill all of their indigenous population and steal their assets (officially, anyway). Why not? Because it’s WRONG. And it’s NOT justified by saying “but we need to stay competitive”. It’s not dissimilar to countries developing nuclear weapons with the rationale that “they have them so we have to have them too”. I call BULLSHIT on that argument.

I would much rather see the leaders of our country stand up for doing what is RIGHT regardless of whether nor not other countries are willing to take that step. We should be LEADERS, not bureaucrats.

As for the mining companies – I don’t feel the need to protect their asses, either. They’ve had plenty of warning that what they were doing was unsustainable. And how much of their BILLIONS of profits did they spend on coming up with alternatives over the last 20 years? Pretty much ZERO. Did their investors force them at their AGMs to change their practices? No, they didn’t. So screw the mining companies AND their investors. Why should we protect the interests of companies that have been deliberately destroying the planet in the name of profit for decades?

Hell, even Bob Hawke understands.