We consider Victoria's future from amid the wreckage of the recent federal election

Looking about from among the wreckage of a recent federal election, we must now decide who we want to best administer Victoria.

Times are somewhat unpredictable, but what has been predictable is the public response to those difficulties.

Most people, understandably, want the good times handed down by cheap and easily-accessible fossil fuels to continue uninterrupted and any disruption to that paradigm is greeted by the embrace of whomever, or whatever, promises the continuation of business as usual.

Subsequently we see a rise of those who pine for the good old days and so vote for those who promise a return to that way of life, ignoring the human and ecological cost, and opposed to those who trumpet a government that puts long-term concerns ahead of short-term satisfactions.
A fellow who understands long and short-term implications – in geological terms long is millions of years, short is hundreds – will speak tonight at Shepparton School of Medical Health in Graham Street.
Professor David Karoly (above right) from the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Earth Sciences will give a free lecture about climate change from 7:30pm.
A Professor of Meteorology and a Federation Fellow with the Australian Research Council Federation, Prof Karoly was involved with the preparation of the Fourth Assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
He will discuss the world’s weather in general and focus, in particular, on what is happening in Victoria. Issues of why our weather is changing and how, subsequently, we should behave will also be discussed.
Tonight’s lecture is a coup for Shepparton as Prof Karoly is recognised as one of the world most powerful thinkers about the reasons for and the implications of climate change.
Recently, I listened as science historian, American Naomi Oreskes, talked about her new book, Merchants of Doubt, which explains how the same people, a few scientists addicted to growth ideologies, proffered theories that raised doubt in such things as smoking, acid rain, the ozone hole and climate change.
Prof Karoly introduced Professor Oreskes and his naturally pleasant nature pervaded about 300 at Melbourne’s State Library to transform an evening with a rather brutal message into a satisfying encounter.

Racing around Shepparton in the hope of understanding what it is like to live with a disability

Finding your way around Shepparton and attending to your daily needs is generally pretty simple, unless confronted with complications of having a disability.

Come Wednesday, November 24, about 25 Shepparton people will experience those complications when they adopt a disability in the city’s first “Realistic Race”.

Shepparton MP, Ms Jeanette Powell (right), will be among those who will race around the city searching for clues to enable them to follow the race to its next stage, using a pattern similar to that of television’s The Amazing Race.

“Race” may well be in the title, but with their adopted disabilities, the local personalities will be a little lost as they struggle rather than race around the familiar streets of Shepparton with both physical and intellectual disabilities.

Some will be confined to wheel chairs, verbal skills will be absent for a few, others will have few cognitive understandings, hearing might be a challenge for some and all will have to wrestle with the perception of those they engage with during the Realistic Race.
Shepparton Access Chief Executive Officer, Wendy Shanks, said her organization had organized the race with the support of City of Greater Shepparton with the hope of breaking down barriers between Goulburn Valley people with a disability and the wider population.
The November 24 race will start at one o’clock and end three hours later after the five teams of five have explored, and learned something about, Shepparton experiencing it as a person with a disability.
But it was more than that as they also learned something about the alienation a disabled person encounters go about their daily business.
Having been on the periphery of a disability, I understand the alienation, the loneliness and one’s inability to participate in the normal machinations of your community and the sense that you don’t really belong.
The sense of belonging is among the most important of human needs and while the November race might make us aware of many dilemmas facing Shepparton’s disabled, importantly it might also enhance their sense of belonging.
Disabled people need many things, but importantly what they need is your understanding, friendship and a sense that they belong.