climate policy
2 Sep 2009
A Chip Off The Old Block
Dynastic ALP politician Martin Ferguson is one piece of the puzzle of what's stalling energy and climate policy in Australia, writes Declan Kuch
Kevin Rudd might have been elected on a wave of resentment about Howard's recalcitrant industrial relations and climate policies, but the mythical split between economy and environment has been perpetuated within his administration.
Whereas attempts to reconcile economy and climate have been undertaken in the UK by integrating the Energy and Climate Change ministries, and in the US by appointing a Climate and Energy Czar, Australia has set itself up for failure with two ministers with entirely opposing worldviews — Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson and Environment Minister Peter Garrett — pulling in different directions.
While Garrett's policy credentials and ministerial performance are subject to almost constant scrutiny, Ferguson — who has arguably done more to direct energy and climate policy in Australia than Garrett — has been able to maintain a much lower public profile.
"Mar'n" and his brothers, former NSW minister Laurie and NSW CFMEU secretary Andrew, are members of that peculiar class of Labor dynastic politician whose worldview is informed by the experiences of their father, in the case of this family, Jack Ferguson.
Ferguson Snr returned from WWII to become a brickie and became enculturated in the ethnocentric, patriarchal practices of peacetime reconstruction. The scar of the Great Depression ran sufficiently deep as to generate a Labor ideology that could forgive the destructive excesses of World War II because it ended the Depression. Martin's anti-environmental alliance with global resource companies arises from this "slavery to the jobs ideology of the late 1940s", as one Labor staffer I spoke to put it.
Jack progressed from union organiser checking site standards to eventually become Deputy Premier of NSW under Neville Wran. Jack's reference to his parliamentary salary as "a fortune not a bloody wage" seems quaint — as much of a relic as marriage for life and building your house yourself, both institutions Jack proudly lived by.
Though his emphasis was on public works, the visions of social equity Jack pursued were premised on access to the speed, comfort and privacy the modern fossil fueled economy provided. In his maiden speech to the NSW Parliament, Jack advocated sewerage, decent roads and footpaths for his Western Sydney constituents, to "... ensure that all the things needed to make a happy community are provided". However, as the awareness of resource depletion and environmental damage has taken hold, the systemic violence upon which our visions of social equity are founded has turned the tables on the "jobs ideology".
Martin Ferguson's interventions into three debates — forestry, emissions trading debates and nuclear — illuminate this new political landscape in a particularly instructive fashion.
In the leadup to the 2007 election, Labor was still smarting from Mark Latham's politically disastrous forest conservation policy. Ferguson inherited the forests portfolio with such enthusiasm as to ensure that Kevin Rudd's only "clear statement on the environment [was] to confirm bipartisan support for the destruction of Tasmania's old growth forests", as veteran energy policy expert George Wilkenfeld noted in an incisive 2007 article.
The jobs mantra underpinned Ferguson's infamous 2005 speech to the Forestry Industry. In it, he claimed that Labor's policies would "maintain our forest assets in perpetuity" according to "world's best practice", preventing Australian manufacturing industries from being driven "offshore to countries with lower standards".
Naturally, this presumes there is actually a lower standard to logging than the use of napalm — as happens in Tasmania's forests.
The voting down of the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) legislation has rightly received much attention. The goal of a successful tradeable permits scheme is to diminish the profitability and hence viability of the high emitting incumbent industries, encouraging a "low carbon economy" to develop.
In 1999, the Australian Greenhouse Office elaborated on how this might be achieved in a detailed and useful series of discussion papers — all of which were left to languish in Howard-era recalcitrance.
When Howard finally saw political merit in an ETS, he tasked Peter Shergold with an inquiry. Shergold coined the concept of "Emissions Intensive Trade Exposed (EITE) Industries" as a way of ceding to continued industry rent-seeking. When Kevin Rudd finally released his ETS Green Paper in June 2008, the EITE lobbyists started a massive public scare campaign.
Liz Jackson has deftly exposed the pressure that was subsequently applied to government by Woodside and others that missed the cut. Give them an inch, they'll take a mile. Blair Comley, the bureaucrat encumbered with selling the next iteration of the ETS scheme in December, joked that if he didn't know better, he'd have thought every business in Australia was "Trade Exposed".
Some businesses, however, are clearly more equal than others. Martin Ferguson has promised that his door will always be open and that he will be happy to discuss the Green Paper with the oil and gas industry. A prudent investor may ask why she should take the risk of investing in low carbon technologies when the incumbents are being given free permits worth some $12bn in the first five years of the CPRS — or given concessions from the Renewable Energy Target as I write — with impunity.
One quick and dirty way of understanding how the Rudd Government has baulked at "driving the exit of high emission industrial plants and activities so that they can be replaced by lower-emission alternatives" is to look at the corporate video of the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association. A backhanded repudiation of mainstream climate science, it features Penny Wong and Martin Ferguson applauding the efforts of the industry — in between comments from an anonymous guy in a black hat sneering about "change" and "opportunity".
Finally, Ferguson's continued advocacy of nuclear energy has two strands. The first involves a tired rehashing of industry talking points reminiscent of 1950s techno-optimism. In Australia, as in Britain, the atom was to be the central figure in the transition from Warfare to Welfare State. Robert Menzies foresaw a prosperous Australia exporting uranium. He spoke in 1953 of weapons technology transfer as the means to "nourish ... the ancient structural unity [between Britain and Australia] which remains the best thing in the free world". Churchill declared that "instead of wreaking measureless havoc upon the entire globe [atomic energy] may become a perennial fountain of world prosperity." These days Rio Tinto, rather than "the world", would be the recipient of such prosperity.
The second strand of Ferguson's nuclear advocacy involves a range of claims ranging from the dubious to the absurd about electricity generation from renewable sources. Writing in The Australian on 13 January 2006, Ferguson took a swipe at climate science before declaring that "abandoning traditional base load power in favour of renewables would result in an indefinite global economic depression condemning hundreds of millions of the world's poorest people to starvation."
As the Australian Parliamentary Library noted in a research paper last year, "base load" is a socio-technical artefact — the outcome of decisions about the architecture, governance and use of energy systems to supposedly meet social demands. And many groups are questioning just who articulates those demands for energy. Research by my colleagues at UNSW into wind forecasting is just one example of how renewable energies are being successfully integrated into existing patterns of energy use.
Though part of a great dynasty built on the domination of nature, family is not destiny and the differences between Martin Ferguson and his brothers are stark. The union division of which Andrew Ferguson is an official is still imposing Green Bans. Laurie Ferguson has also been on the green side of important party decisions like the granting of export woodchipping licensing in 1995.
Martin, however, seems more intent on providing moral justifications to greenhouse intensive projects like Gorgon, which by itself will produce annual emissions equivalent to 3 per cent of all Australia's coal-fired power stations — twice that much if the carbon sequestration plans fail and it leaks. More worryingly still for Labor is Philip Wood's approving characterisation of Martin as a "climate science sceptic". Wood is one of those resources CEOs who probably took up Martin's offer to visit and chat about emissions trading.
If Australia is to address the challenges of climate, energy and economic security, we will need a resources and energy minister who views resources and energy as more than simply what gets dug out of the ground. The old economic problem — that breaking windows increases GDP but diminishes overall welfare — equally applies to environmental damage. Supporting job-creating projects that will damage both people and ecosystems through climate impacts needn't be Labor policy, but that does not seem to be Martin Ferguson's concern.
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"— as much of a relic as marriage for life and building your house yourself, both institutions Jack proudly lived by. "
Ooooh, now there’s a real nasty little double whammy ad hom if ever I read one.
Yes, lets do reconcile economy and climate by "integrating the Energy and Climate Change ministries" and turn this lovely country into one giant mess of abysmal management and over-taxed and over-priced everything just like the UK is already right now under the enlightened rule of the green Guardianistas
(This comment has been edited.)
Yes that unnecesarily snaky jibe that ecoeng refers to is what stuck in my throat after reading it - even though I cringe at Labor’s failure to face the tough decisions. Why don’t you get off your pet bike and stick to the subject you’re nominally writing about. Also my recollection of Jack Ferguson is that he was one of the decent ones.
Jane, ecoeng -
I think you guys are missing the fact that the author of this article isn’t actually attacking these things.
By calling marriage for life and the building of your own home "relics" he’s just pointing out that they are from another era. Or are most of us still married for life, in houses we built ourselves?
Kuch is making a critique of the appropriateness of this whole quarry ideology that Martin seems to have inherited, but I see no "snaky jibe" in his recognising that for his father it’s was one part of a set of values that we no longer seem to display as a society.
It wasn’t supposed to be an ad hom, just a comment on the declining ‘crude marriage rate’ http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/PrimaryMainFeatures/3306.0.55.00…
I would argue that such trends are far from superfluous, but part of broader dynamics of social changes which are in part produced through a view about nature and our ability to master it.
Crossed with barney
Ferguson, Wong, Rudd et al are all bowing in the same direction: your ever so faithful servant … (to big business).
Big business will not rest until the whole ground has been dug up and emptied out. Once the resources are gone, they are gone for good; there is nothing left for future generations. CO2 control, pollution control is not really on their mind - short-term profit is.
But where will they move to when the resources are gone? Do they have a secret plan B or - more likely - are they simply not thinking that far ahead.
We have to push on with renewable energy in a big way and the government has to take the lead, show leadership.
To say that it will cost jobs, is ridiculous. We need energy, demand is not likely to diminish. The renewable energy industry will provide the jobs that the extractive industry is going to lose.
Good article Decline & I have to substantiate your statement; (as the awareness of resource depletion and environmental damage has taken hold, the systemic violence upon which our visions of social equity are founded has turned the tables on the "jobs ideology"). The jobs are only going to come with economic success & it’s a shame that the law is being manipulated to support the degradation of human rights. The use of holding everyday Australians in a loophole & practicing the art of ignoring their legal needs, have become something from the laws of the late 1800’s.
The "instructive fashion" that you mention, which is dominating the landscape is deep within the subsoil & dominates more that substrate. In fact it is dominating a persons eating , drinking & every other habit that the nasty interfering politician dictator & it’s $870 million investment, plus more needed, for preventative health environment but refuses to address their psychological problems with other peoples lifestyles.
In other words they have blown the money & now we are seeing the detrimental outcome of deceit, in order to play the whole thin slyly into the background with the sweetest of lies. The problem is that the Counselor needs to be counseled & stop thinking that they are the intelligent species.
While Martin Ferguson is part of the Krudd Ministry, in particular in the Resources portfolio, but just about anywhere, we in Australia have no chance of reducing carbon pollution. Instead it will grow exponentially as a result of Ferguson/Krudd activities boosting the Big Polluters.
Why Krudd put him there has to be the 60 billion $ question. Perhaps he is actually doing what Krudd would love to be doing openly, but knows that part of his ‘voting public’ would be gone if he came out in the open.
Wish that the Libs had been just about eliminated, so that they could be re-juvenated into something approaching small L liberals in time, but as they are, they are NO opposition. They are more in support of the Ferguson abominations than most of the Krudd mob, so there is no hope there.
As for poor silly Peter Garrett, that shadow of a man, that poor excuse for an Environment Minister who Ferguson ( and Krudd) treats with utter contempt, no hope there either.
Interesting to note that the Wrong Wong is part of that APPEA Video.
Just what is Krudd doing putting all these terrible people in charge of the future of the Planet. Vampires in charge of the Blood bank! The sooner people wake up to him, and his popularity slides to the low single figures, the better. Might just wake him up. Maybe even get him to resign!!!! What a hope!
I’d just like to point out one howler that completely destroyed this article’s credibility for me.
According to the Australian Greenhouse Inventory, the CO2 emissions for Australia’s coal fired poweer stations in 2007 were approximately 120 million tonnes (see fig 5 in the Inventory of May 2009 at http://www.climatechange.gov.au/inventory/2007/index.html).
The EPA Report the article references states that the Gorgon project will emit around 5.45 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent per annum.
Not quite "three times" the emissions of Australia’s coal fired power stations. More like, er, five per cent.
Surely it can’t be that hard to get your facts straight.
Thanks for injecting a bit of sanity Tim.
Nice to read after the other four nutters straight out of the woodwork.
The recent fluctuations in world oil prices didn’t destroy the world so why would taxing carbon be so destructive?
If jobs can go for globalisation then why not for the globe? We live and learn.
The only problem in this argument is that 0.03% increase in people made CO2 does not warm the globe. Besides why is the globe cooling this century while people made CO2 has increased by 5%? How come that the globe is cooling faster? Also CO2 is not a poison or a pollutant, it will enhance the environment since it is "plant food", hence it is used in green houses at 5x the natural percentage. People who work in them are not aversely effected.
Emissions trading is political, a world tax, and has nothing to do with catastrophic climate change.
The foot soldiers are seeing the changes, not just the computer modelers. Anyone with a computer can find physical photo evidence that we are going through a hot phase. Hippies/Greenies/Lefties are not starting bush fires to destroy capitalism. Most of them pay their rent by capitalism and do not want a world devoid of technology, they just want to moderate excess if it is detrimental to the foundations of ecology and society. Ecology as in Home Economics has its etymology in the local, balance at the hearth. Water is essential for life but how long do you intend to tread water? Take a deep breath and hope for a friendly sun spot to save you as they glide by or start swimming? The choice is yours.
I stand corrected, Tim.
It was a very quick calculation this morning and I’ll look to having the piece corrected.
(That correction has now been made - Eds.)
No problem, DK.
Touch a nerve, did we ecoeng?
This is a good article.
In the KRudd Government, Penny Wong and Ferguson seem to be the heavyweights that ‘balance’ the pro-environment leanings of Peter Garrett and his portfolio.
It’s no contest, really - not on the big issues which the resource portfolios really care about. I don’t know if Garrett even puts up a show in cabinet. Is he reconciled to the interests of future generations being sold out by this government?
My path crossed with both Wong and Ferguson in the 1990s, while i was working as an environmental advocate. In the case of Mr Ferguison, it was merely an exchange of letters. I got to know Ms Woing a little better.
As someone who cares for the future of our planetary habitat, I could honestly not think of two people I’d less like to have in their current positions. They are a team predestined to ensure business as usual. Each plays somewhat different roles.
Ferguson is highly redneck in his views. That comment may be unfair to rednecks, some of whom are considerably greener than Ferguson. In the early 90s, for example, Ferguson’s polices on forests were akin to the rabid end of the National Party of the time. If Ferguson had his way, even the National Parks salvaged from the Eden woodchip industry under the Carr Government would never have been protected.
Penny Wong is less extremist but in some ways more dangerous. I suspect she’s more cunning than Ferguson and she’s certainly much more able to throw up a green sheen. But she has form for knifing environmental interests in the back.
The net result is that this government - which currently looks set for two terms - is likely to be yet another environmentally-disastrous, heel-dragging, follow-not-lead-on-the-environment outfit. We may hear more flimflam about ‘sustainability’ - but there will be no real drive to achieve it. Yet again…
This Labor Government, I sadly conclude, has already defined its major environmental credentials through the Greenhouse emissions polices is has announced.
These polices are so bad - most notoriously in the way they provide huge ongoing public subsidies to the worst polluters, effectively discouraging investment in alternatives - that I’m pretty much ready to declare this government over already as a credible instrument for positive environmental policy change.
I hope I’m wrong, but fear we shall have to wait - at least - until the end of this government before there’s much chance again of moving forward. We may have to wait longer. Yet we may well be running out of time for an effective global response on climate change…
In the meanwhile, I trust environmentalists will push hard to get as many ‘little’ wins as possible out of KRudd & co. To assuage anger over the major sell-out on climate change, Peter Garrett will doubtless be tasked to hand out ‘sweets’ to spread a little cheer. It’s a good time for environmentalists to lobby for small gains.
But not much point asking the KRudd Government for a responsible, forward-looking climate change policy. The decision has already been taken to roll out a major environmental swindle. It was probably taken before the ALP came to power.
In those circumstances, the only responsible response from environmentalists - those of us free to speak out - is attack.
Someone has to tell the truth.
Syd Walker - I was waiting for your sober assessment and voice of reason to come online. Voila, here it is.
What a good summary of the situation and assessment of the players.
I have voiced my disappointment many times over, but it falls on deaf ears with politicians. We may have a democracy and a chance to make our choice once every 3 years (or 4 in the States), but our real mode of government is a plutocracy.
We chose KRudd et al to make a difference; it did not happen. Who is left to choose? Maybe we have to revolt and take to the streets to get our message across - not in timid small assemblies, but in a big way which sends a wakeup message.
"In those circumstances, the only responsible response from environmentalists - those of us free to speak out - is attack. Someone has to tell the truth."
and
"Maybe we have to revolt and take to the streets to get our message across - not in timid small assemblies, but in a big way which sends a wakeup message.
Just what ‘truth’ and what ‘message’ is that exactly? I presume that it certainly wouldn’t be by any chance the sort of truth and sort of message that looks anything like this:
‘No evidence for accelerated sea-level rise’ says Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute – December 12, 2008
Renowned Sea Level expert predicts sea level ‘will rise in the 21st century by about 8 inches’ - April 23, 2009
Survey of more than 51,000 Canadian Earth scientists reveals 68% disagree that global warming science is “settled”, with only 26% of the scientists attributing global warming to “human activity like burning fossil fuels.”
“I have found examples of a Summary saying precisely the opposite of what the scientists said,” says South African Nuclear Physicist and Chemical Engineer Dr. Philip Lloyd, a UN IPCC co-coordinating lead author who has authored over 150 refereed publications.
UN IPCC’s own guidelines explicitly state that the scientific reports have to be "change[d]" to "ensure consistency with" the politically motivated Summary for Policymakers. IPCC more closely resembles a political party’s convention platform battle - not a scientific process. During IPCC Summary for Policymakers process, political delegates and international bureaucrats (not scientists) squabble over the specific wording of a phrase or assertion.
etc
etc
Uhhmmmm I guess not.
Well, the good news is that this is NOT 1968, the issue is NOT Vietnam, at this point in time you certainly DON’T have a clue on actually what is ‘the Truth’ and therefore you can shove your ‘message’.
@ Marga
Thanks Marga. The thing that truly mind-blowing is that the plutocracy doesn’t even seem particularly competent, except perhaps when it comes to covering up its crimes - and apparently hasn’t a clue about ecological management.
@ ecoeng
I genuinely hope you are 100% right that climate change is only an issue to sneer about. You’d probably get on well with Martin Ferguson.
I trust you don’t mind, however, if I continue to advocate a precautionary approach on this issue. After all, if you’re wrong, it’s not just your grandchildren who’ll be rooted.
@ Marga
Thanks Marga. The thing that truly mind-blowing is that the plutocracy doesn’t even seem particularly competent, except perhaps when it comes to covering up its crimes - and apparently hasn’t a clue about ecological management.
@ ecoeng
I genuinely hope you are 100% right that climate change is only an issue to sneer about. You’d probably get on well with Martin Ferguson.
I trust you don’t mind, however, if I continue to advocate a precautionary approach on this issue. After all, if you’re wrong, it’s not just your grandchildren who’ll be rooted.
ooops, sorry for duplicate.
can the mods please delete the duplicate as well as this post?
The discovery of instances which confirm a theory means very little if we have not tried, and failed, to discover refutations. For if we are uncritical we shall always find what we want: we shall look for, and find, confirmations, and we shall look away from, and not see, whatever might be dangerous to our pet theories. In this way it is only too easy to obtain what appears to be overwhelming evidence in favour of a theory which, if approached critically, would have been refuted. In order to make the method of selection by elimination work, and to ensure that only the fittest theories survive, their struggle for life must be made severe for them.
— Karl Popper, The Poverty of Historicism, 1957
And as for our children and our children’s children….
If we are expected to consider paying $600 billion per year to tackle Third World Climate Change, or $438 billion to deal with China’s contribution to global warming within 20 years, the cost of a solar power satellite based economy would be a drop in the bucket by comparison, and would eventually replace fossil fuels entirely.
It would also drive new industries in a world continually tormented by economic woes, and abate the threat of warfare fuelled by shortages of vital resources.
Since such warfare is likely to eventually include nuclear weapon exchanges, this would be a good thing in itself.
New Frontiers are places of dynamism, enterprise, and hope - closed societies are not.
We are approaching a point when we must choose between two alternatives:
1) an open future based on developing extraterrestrial industries such as space tourism, reusable launch vehicles, energy generation e.g. Solar Power Satellites and, in time, human settlements beyond Earth, or
2) the Earthbound alternatives of a ‘green’ neo-Malthusian impoverishment, a quasi socialist imposition of equality of misery, coercive, tyrannical and high-taxing regimes of an anti-human hue, decay and eventual extinction. Earth differs from Rapanui in scale, but not in kind.
The price of an open future in Space is widely derided by those who do not especially value human civilization or even the species itself- but the costs of NOT building a future in Space are conveniently ignored. Liberty would be an inevitable casualty, with a concomitant death toll exacted by ideologically driven, corrupt, tyrants. We have seen it all before…
It is time we looked beyond this one small planet for our future, if we are to truly give our grandchildren hope and prospects.
It appears that the window of opportunity is narrow - and closing even as we argue right here….
Talking about nutters, it seems that ecoeng is doing all the arguing. Space travel & settlement are just another option but "I still call Australia home" because we still need the resources to build the craft to carry us there.
I’ve quite enjoyed sitting back taking in the commentary & I can see the different opinion that makes it a democracy we live in & that is one of the driving forces that makes a person want to save the planet that we have. I’m still under the opinion that humans are part of the climate change problem but the rest is part of the cycle that the world spins on an access, just like a spinning top that wobbles in & out of access but over millennium year cycle. That also being part of the scientific investigation into the cause of climate change & makes me understand that all of the arguments have credibility to some extent. Like all scientific investigation, it takes quite some time to prove some theories & Einstein’s theory is a classic example to that.
The problems are within sight but being blanketed by political crap under the politicians grab for extra money & the desperate need for political power, to maintain the political position. The counselors need to be counseled & I agree with Marga, it’s time to stamp the feet & march on parliament.
"…it’s time to stamp the feet & march on parliament."
Don’t forget to have someone run up a lot of brown, oops sorry green shirts.
As Obama is a great disappointment to everyone who really thought he meant it when he repeated over and over that his Government would CHANGE THINGS, we had to believe Krudd and Co. and have been totally disappointed. We now hear that the American Senate will sit on the Obama Bill (as weak and as corrupted by the Big Polluters as Krudd’s is) until after Copenhagen.
Here, most Australians see that it may be much better if the Krudd/Wong/Ferguson bill is not passed in anything like it’s present form, or anything like what the Opposition wants, because it will only cement in place a legislated increase in Carbon Pollution, with lots of Taxpayers money handed to Big Business for free.
Seems the way of things.
However, now there are groups rising all over Australia, and possibly the world, who are working with ordinary people to MAKE CHANGE, well aware that if they do not, nothing is going to happen.
I would suggest that all of you who are concerned that our Planet is stuffed by Greed and it’s odious adherents, join with one of these community group.
I have mentioned Re-Energise and Get Up!, but there is also The Greens, Wilderness Society, Greenpeace and now, believe it or not, the ACTU is activating to combat Global Warming. On their part it may be only a Green Wash, to obfuscate the fact that some of their members are rancid polluters (Coal Miners) and destroyers of our Old Growth Forests, but even if they are shilly-shallying, every little but may help.
If it were true that the ACTU has realized that the jobs of the future are going to be in non- polluting industries, then this could apply some pressure to the Krudd Government to get rid of Wong/Ferguson and their friends in Cabinet, develop some backbone, and work to DO SOMETHING!
ecoeng
"2) the Earthbound alternatives of a ‘green’ neo-Malthusian impoverishment, a quasi socialist imposition of equality of misery, coercive, tyrannical and high-taxing regimes of an anti-human hue, decay and eventual extinction. Earth differs from Rapanui in scale, but not in kind."
We get to the nub of the problem here. All reputable scientists that are seeing global warming in action are actually part of a hippy plot to destroy capitalism. Reds under the beds and greens in the wood chip pile.
So easy to find the facts when you know the ‘real’ big picture.
To eco-eng
It would be better to seek our New Frontiers right here on this planet. We could use our boundless ingenuity to solve our biggest problem and our biggest challenge: "US" - how to rein in the exploding human population, which is spreading like a plague. Exporting them to other planets is not the answer. Managing reproduction is, through persuasion and excellent family planning.
I know of three environmental scientists now (James Lovelock, UK; Tim Flannery, Australia; Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Germany) who spell gloom and doom for the human race unless we act. There may be many more who make such predictions.
This is Ground Control to Major Ecoeng…
Permission to take-off granted.
Enjoy the universe. Just don’t crap in the stratosphere on your way out :-)
Ah isn’t consistency in the conservative deniers so endearing. ecoeng begins by finding an ad hominem attack where there is none, decries it then launches into the same. Wonderful stuff.
Kevin McCready
http://kmccready.wordpress.com
Whenever issues of substance come up in the press, issues that require knowledgeable or compassionate responses, a vast bevy of dills pop up to trot out all sorts of mean-spirited and arrogant rubbish. And when talk turns to Rudd and the other junked up power dross with their hopeless greed and pig headed self centred lap dog pronouncements I take great heart in remembering that Australia is a very small country. Thankyou ecoeng for reminding me what a good thing it is there aren’t many of us.
Exporting them to other planets is not the answer. Managing reproduction is, through persuasion and excellent family planning. Well said Marga.
"Probably," Norman Mailer wrote in 1957, "we will never be able to determine the psychic havoc of the concentration camps and the atom bomb upon the unconscious mind of almost everyone alive in these years." Today, however, we have something like an answer: We are living in an age of catastrophic thinking. Our social and cultural discourse on any number of subjects-the environment, the economy, public health, technology-is defined by a vocabulary and a worldview that can only be described as apocalyptic. The world, we are constantly told, is in a state of mortal crisis, and unless we act fast enough to stop it, we are all facing disaster and oblivion. Everything, it seems, is swiftly accelerating toward a terrible end.
While catastrophic thinking has become ubiquitous on any number of issues, it is nowhere more apparent than on the subject of the environment, especially the topic of global warming. Of course, this appears most explicitly among the various groups specifically dedicated to the cause of environmentalism, but the sentiment has already become a worldwide phenomenon. Perhaps its most famous exponent, former United States vice president Al Gore, used explicitly apocalyptic language to describe the problem in his Oscar-winning film An Inconvenient Truth.
Global warming, however, is only the most popular vehicle for prophecies of environmental disaster. Overpopulation, we are told, will soon cause unprecedented starvation, war, crime, and mass extinctions.
These various examples of apocalyptic anxiety may at first seem unrelated. In fact, they are remarkably similar. All of them predict a coming global disaster; all of them use ominous rhetoric and imagery to give weight to their prognostications; and all of them claim that mankind has only a very short time left to take action in order to prevent the cataclysm they are sure is coming. In light of this, one cannot help but wonder how and why catastrophic thinking has become such a prevalent feature of our day and age-and what effect this new zeitgeist may have on our lives.
Certainly, fear of impending disaster is usually seen as a negative emotion. In fact, however, it has unquestionably positive aspects. First and perhaps foremost, it is exciting. In a world given over to comfort and entertainment, in which we are more and more interconnected while having less and less to say, fear provides a profound antidote to boredom and stasis. It motivates people and convinces them that their lives are important and meaningful.
This is especially true if catastrophic thinking is combined-as it almost always is-with the belief that the disaster can be averted. All of today’s popular apocalyptic scenarios make the claim that if we act now, and above all act together, there is a chance of preventing the end. The task of prevention, in turn, provides a sense of purpose, however misguided it may be. Moreover, it gives people the feeling that they have power over their surroundings, that they can influence the world around them for the better through conscious action. In many ways, this bears a strong resemblance to the religious impulse, especially in its need to proselytize…..
FULL ESSAY AT:
http://www.azure.org.il/article.php?id=504
Scientist warned us that pumping CFCs into the air was destructive to the ozone layer so we changed the way we acted and avoided the holes in the ozone layer getting larger and larger.
Scientists are warning us that if we don’t control our release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere we will damage the the planet as we know it now.
Want to pull out that old can of under arm because it was just a scare campaign by smelly hippies?
Why waste a can of anything on an argument which always stinked?