The world doesn’t care what we do, rather it matters only to
us what we do.
 |
| Gernot Wagner of America's Environmental Defence Fund. |
Of course, it is not just us, what we do matters to every
other species that has flourished in the conditions that have been favourable
to humanity.
Interestingly, we had little, or nothing, to do with this
Goldilocks-like (not too hot, not too cold, but just right) epoch, rather it
just happened and we benefitted, richly.
Had conditions been just a little different, a degree or two
warmer or colder, what has eventuated might never have happened and if it did,
then life would have been structurally and substantially different.
It took millions of years for conditions here to become
favourable for humans and the network of other of our life-supporting species
to flourish and in less than 300 we have put all at risk.
An environmental economist with America’s Environment
Defence Fund, Gernot Wagner, wrote “But will the planet notice?: How smart
economics can save the world” in 2011 making it abundantly clear that if one
person drives less or changes all their light globes, the planet won’t know or
care.
Wagner, a research associate at the Harvard Kennedy School
and a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, argues for more sweeping
and systemic changes to our behaviour, not simply individual efforts rather, rather a
society-wide approach.
Reading Wagner and watching what is happening in Australian
society, we face a dual dilemma, for as laudable bottom-up efforts are, they
are presently disjointed and disparate, and appear to lack the cohesion
necessary to excite the almost revolutionary-like dynamic needed to jolt the
Abbott-led Coalition Government into serious mitigation of climate change.
In pointing to the rather lame efforts of most politicians,
Gernot argues that frying the planet is much easier than getting burned at the
polls.
He writes: “Individual actions, of course, only go so far,
which points to the government’s role in helping to protect us and the planet
and have everyone take full responsibility for their own decisions”.
In that, Gernot is effectively saying that Tony Abbott and
his cohort need to step forward initiating and instigating changes to remove
Australians from among the world’s worst carbon dioxide polluters.
Such a move will take courage, foresight and endeavour,
traits the Coalition claim, but are yet to demonstrate.
We need an immediate, and serious, reduction in our carbon
dioxide emissions, cuts that will reshape how we live and rather than celebrate
growth, we should have no other focus beyond recognizing the collapse of
resources and the unfolding dilemma of a changing climate.
Yes, the world doesn’t care what we do, but we should care
that our leaders are distancing us from a possible solution to climate change.
