Change is here. We need more than hope

An open letter from Moms Clean Air Force:

DEAR Barack Obama and Mitt Romney – if I may be so familiar, as you are with me in your fund-raising emails.

You are campaigning for our nation's highest office in a year of record-breaking heat waves, droughts, floods, and monster storms. More than half the contiguous U.S. is under drought conditions. In June wildfires destroyed 1.3 million acres across the country. More than 40,000 daily heat records were broken-by July.

Climate scientists tell us that the signals are loud and clear: We are experiencing global warming – NOW. Our climate is changing, more and more rapidly – because of greenhouse gas pollution. We have compromised the thin layer of atmosphere that protects our lives on this planet.

The weather is sending us a clear message: Danger. Danger. Danger.

Sirs: What is your message?

American families are looking to you for leadership on climate change--before it becomes catastrophic climate chaos.

I'm a mom, and like all parents, I want to do everything I can to keep my children out of harm's way. I assume you feel the same way about your beloved children. What is your plan to talk to Americans about the urgency of climate change, not only for us, but for the world our children – and your children – will inherit?

What is your plan to lead the country into a new era of energy efficiency? What is your plan to cut the carbon and methane pollution that is contributing so heavily to the atmospheric "blanket" that is trapping heat?

Whether we are Republicans or Democrats or Independents-waiting for more information about our candidates to decide how we vote – we are all in this together. Please, talk to us about global warming.

Give us more than hope. Give us a plan of action.

Change is here. Climate change.

Give us a plan to end greenhouse gas pollution. NOW.

Thank you.

Monbiot gives up on governments

"Greens are a puny force by comparison to industrial lobby groups, the cowardice of governments and the natural human tendency to deny what we don't want to see. To compensate for our weakness, we indulged a fantasy of benign paternalistic power – acting, though the political mechanisms were inscrutable, in the wider interests of humankind. We allowed ourselves to believe that, with a little prompting and protest, somewhere, in a distant institutional sphere, compromised but decent people would take care of us. They won't. They weren't ever going to do so. So what do we do now?

"I don't know. These failures have exposed not only familiar political problems, but deep-rooted human weakness. All I know is that we must stop dreaming about an institutional response that will never materialise and start facing a political reality we've sought to avoid. The conversation starts here."

- George Monbiot, "Climate change enlightenment was fun while it lasted. But now it is dead".

Perhaps the UK's best known writer on ecological issues, George Monbiot has now given up on a sane institutional response to climate change. This is more or less the same discussion as back here.

My response would still be to say that I agree with Monbiot insofar as expecting governments and other institutions to respond in ways that solve or largely dodge the problem has for some time been wishful thinking, however, it remains the case that their actions over the coming months and years will make significant differences to the lives of millions as we face increasingly difficult situations.

One example of this concerns whether city governments prevent or allow further development on flood plains. Another, whether remaining biodiversity is respected and preserved or trashed for short term gain. Such examples can be multiplied many times over. Even if the cumulative response still falls well short of what is required to prevent very bumpy times ahead, such decisions still make a significant practical difference one way or the other.

To use another (partial) analogy: if I receive a terminal diagnosis and become convinced that nothing can be done to save my life, do I go out and squander my goods (either in a hedonistic spree or on far-fetched miracle cures), or do I make sure that I have a generous and thoughtful will drawn up, and seek to use my remaining days to bless others?
I also agree that part of a healthy response at this stage is to build resilience at whatever levels we can (certainly including, though not limited to, local resilience) and I will say more about this in coming posts. Some call this building lifeboats (or I heard a paper at a Christian Ethics conference recently that called it "ark building"). There are some serious problems with the metaphor, but the basic idea is sound.

Are the Greens anti-Christian?

Is it possible for a Christian to vote for the Greens in good conscience?

Frank Brennan, Professor of Law at ACU, argues at Online Opinion that it is "unbecoming and unhelpful" for Christian leaders to single out the Greens as anti-Christian.

"If all the Greens' policies were truly classifiable as “anti-Christian”, I would have no problem with church leaders urging people to vote for another party. But given that some of their policies, and on issues which will be legislated in the next three years, are arguably more Christian than those of the major parties, I think it best that Church leaders maintain a discreet reticence about urging a vote for or against any particular political party."

All parties have positions unpalatable to a thoughtful Christian (though which ones are most repugnant may vary depending on a range of factors). It is only possible to vote while holding one's nose. One consideration in selecting the least worst is to weigh the relative importance of the various policies that one doesn't like; another is to estimate the likelihood of particular distasteful policies ever being implemented. Prof Brennan makes a good point: from a Christian perspective and taking the current political landscape and functioning of the Senate into account, the more objectionable Greens policies are far less likely to come up over the next six years than some of their more attractive positions.

A crash in slow motion

Perhaps the present ecological and resource crises of industrial civilisation are a little like a car crash unfolding in slow motion. The car has way too much speed and momentum and is already sliding out of control. If we'd started slowing or turning earlier, then we might have been alright, but as it is, there is little the driver (government and business leaders and whomever else exercises authority or influence in society) can do to avoid a collision (I won’t call it an accident because we've had plenty of warning). However, the reactions of the driver during the last few “seconds” (years) prior to the crash can still have a big effect on the nature and severity of the damage. So, I think the driver still has an important role in preventing a multi-car pile up with many fatalities. Quick reactions could hopefully mean just some severe whiplash and a few vehicles written off.

This puts me at odds with those who believe that the crash can be avoided entirely as long as we floor the accelerator and do a little creative navigation. That may or may not be true, but at the very least, everyone ought to make sure they are wearing their seat belts. It's going to be bumpy up ahead.
If you're a passenger and don't trust the driver's reactions, you may have time to try jumping out of the door. Of course, this doesn't guarantee that you'll be any better off than if you make sure the driver is paying attention.

UPDATE: This image is continued and developed here.

Gillard and the girls

"Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult."

-Charlotte Whitton

Australia has a new Prime Minister. RIP Kevin Rudd. Long live Julia Gillard.

There are all kinds of interesting things to say about this transition, from Rudd's inability to trust, to whether Gillard's move was its result or justification, from his record popularity earlier this year, to the hundred million dollars spent by the mining industry on undermining him, and from the single Liberal vote that ousted Turnbull and sank the ETS (with the help of the Greens), to Rudd's failure to use his double dissolution trigger. We can talk about a figure from Labor left taking the reins, the role of Labor right in bringing it about, of the likely timing of an election, of Gillard's chances against Abbott and of likely shifts in emphasis. Will the mining tax be dropped? Will the ETS be revived? We can even note the milestone that Gillard will be Elizabeth II's 150th prime minister.

However, just for a moment, can we notice something really novel? Not only is Julia Gillard Australia's first female prime minister, a notable landmark in itself (and on her first half-birthday crushing my daughter's possibility of being the same), but look around a little more and notice that this isn't an isolated phenomenon. For the first time, I am represented by women at all three levels of government: local, state and national. But it even goes beyond that. Can anyone beat this?

• Queen of Australia: Elizabeth II
• Governor General of Australia: Quentin Bryce
• Governor of NSW: Marie Bashir

• Prime Minister of Australia: Julia Gillard
• Premier of NSW: Kristina Keneally
• Lord Mayor of Sydney: Clover Moore

• Federal Member for Sydney: Tanya Plibersek
• NSW Member for Marrickville (and Deputy Premier of NSW): Carmel Tebbutt

"Women really do rule the world. They just haven't figured it out yet. When they do, and they will, we're all in big big trouble."

- Doctor Leon