[trees] ←(･_･┐) [forrest]

from "climate policy: when adults squib it, youth should take direct action" on yesterday's crikey:

Climate inaction is thus a direct wealth transfer from our children and their children and subsequent generations to ourselves, in the higher costs of adaptation and reducing the emissions intensity of the Australian economy. It’s a cost we have consciously selected through politicians like Kevin Rudd — who at least had the good grace to admit his mistake — Tony Abbott and Greg Hunt. Business-as-usual politicians convinced their own personal and partisan political ends are more important than the giant rip-off they’re perpetrating on subsequent generations.

What did you do when we could still have stopped it, our grandkids might ask about climate change, to which we can only answer “we took the easy, the expedient, way out. We put mediocrities and clowns like Hunt in charge. We placed the almost negligible cost of abatement action ahead of the massive costs you’re now paying for through higher taxes, more expensive insurance, lower economic growth.”

Sorry, kids, but we squibbed it. Squibbed it when it wasn’t even a hard choice to make for anyone with a basic grasp of maths.

In a world governed by Rudds and Abbotts and Hunts, in which a functional carbon pricing scheme will actually be removed and replaced with a nonsensical scheme even the creators of which know is a joke, our youth are entitled to wonder whether, in the absence of genuine political action, they should take some direct action of their own. Action to shut down the loaders and ports that export coal. Action to shut down coal-fired power plants. Actions to shut down the electricity-greedy industries we prop up, like aluminium smelting. Such action will be expensive, and damaging, and inequitable, and dangerous, but in the absence of real policies from political adults, it’s better than a status quo that will punish our youth as future taxpayers and citizens.

this question: of whether those serious about mitigating the worst effects of the impeding catastrophe should consider operating substantially outside the law, is a good one.

if the system has demonstrated that it is fundamentally incapable of significant reform then isn't it a waste of time to expect a top-down response to climate change?

it's been known for over 100 years that humans are warming the planet, and even a few decades ago there was bipartisan agreement that an adequate response was needed soon (yes, even in america)

however in the last decades climate change has almost disappeared as an issue in foreign politics, and closer to home we have elected the most anti-science, selfish and reactionary government this country has ever seen.

we now have a prime minister who dismisses the warnings of global experts out of hand and an environment minister who cites wikipedia when towing the same line. added to this, there has not even been a discussion about whether it is a good idea to continue to dig up and burn as much coal and gas as possible (which is on track to making us a single bigger contributor to global warming than saudi arabia by 2020). the status quo thinking is: of course we are going to sell that coal, we could get some money for that coal (if we hurry)

so why is it, when experts tell us we are in the critical decade and to even the most optimistic of types it is clear that we are moving backwards, none of the plethora of environmental groups globally have been willing to take a more combative stance to try and slow emissions?

it's not as though they're unwilling to take risks or that they're isn't enough of them. are they too smart for their own good? believing that operating substantially outside the law would be counter-productive in the long term?

for these questions i have answers not. but it is fun to speculate: if serious action on emissions is not forthcoming then is it possible we could see the reemergence of radical left-wing, western, non-state groups similar to those seen in the previous century? (obviously with a primary focus on sustainability rather than exploitation)

then again, there are an awful lot of marxists out there still waiting for that inevitable proletariat revolt. with inequality at an all-time worst the uniting of the workers of the world seems less likely than ever