Rudd was right, but forgot to mention what really matters

Stepping back into to what is colloquially known as Australia’s “top job”; Kevin Rudd said “politics has failed Australians”.

Kevin Rudd - right, but he
 missed what mattered.

Our new Prime Minister was right, but forgot to add that it was not just politics that had faltered, but politicians themselves.

Politicians are embedded in a political paradigm that is broken; a paradigm in which there is a vacuum of ideas about encouraging Australians to prepare for a decidedly different future.

Australian’s have the opportunity on September14 (well, that is presently the date) to change that and elect people who can help us understand and make-ready for that difference.

What is missing, however, are the people, the personalities and the leaders with the intellectual athleticism and the courage to make the essential decisions we need if Australia is to endure the unfolding global differences.

Australians elect their federal representatives in September this year, but their choice, if it is that, is little more than deciding between a Jonathon or a Pink Lady –both are apples, about the same colour, taste pretty much the same and have similar nutritional value.

Irrespective of who we vote for on September 14, little will change and the dynamics of impending disasters that have the world in their thrall will continue to close in.

The agonies of the Labour Party are equally irrelevant, although it seemed Julia Gillard had some grasp on what was needed if Australia, and the world, is to puncture the envelope of difficulties in which we are trapped.

We need leaders who accept and understand the implications and complications of the world’s changing climate; who will lead us through the arising maze of difficulties it will produce; those who will change government priorities to build a country in which emphasis is on small and local; who are sufficiently independent thinkers to comprehend that the paradigm of the past is not feasible in a future in which collapse will be driven by financial disarray, burgeoning population growth, a looming energy crisis, and food and water shortages.

Questioning the effectiveness of our politicians or at least those of her home country, American finance and energy commentator, Nicole Foss, said: "The only things that are likely to come from the top down are problems, not solutions."

“Fixing this situation goes beyond politics; it requires leadership at all levels of society. But politics has a role to play. Both politicians and the electorates they serve must have the courage to enact sweeping policy changes that shift the course of the deep current, not just stir up the surface eddies”, Ms Foss said.

Our politicians continue to waste valuable time as they verbally joust about issues they consider serious, but in reality matter nought when it comes to preserving circumstances in which our communities can flourish.

Rather than worrying about digging up, using and exporting more coal; making us wealthier through financial wheeling and dealing, which by any measure is less than honest; or implicating us further in existing market systems; our politicians should be building resilience in our communities and shaping the lives of Australians in way that would allow them to endure a very different future.

Our present political trajectory driven by bickering and misunderstood wants takes us closer to the abyss, and although we demand courageous and innovative leadership we, as citizens, face an equal ultimatum.

A Federal Budget loaded with irrelevant numbers

Last week’s Federal Budget was irrelevant.

The idea of a budget is not irrelevant, but a list of financial strictures that pander to life as we know and understand it, is wholly inappropriate.

Life in Australia ranges in extremes from damn difficult to obscenely prosperous, but beyond our daily difficulties, most people live relatively happy and expansive lives.

Those who profit from what exists stand with the advocates of more and lament any budgetary changes that limit their opportunities to further boost their bank balances.

Contrarily, those on the other side of the scale and whom, for various reasons, have seen much of the country’s wealth bypass them, equally lament changes, with their protests being almost unheard.

Australia is unquestionably the lucky country; well, for the moment.

Australia, as does the rest of the world, faces a collision of events that any budget built around existing economic dynamics is fundamentally flawed.

The world is changing, no surprises there, but it is changing in a way that is publically unacknowledged by the world’s financial gurus, among them those who are calling the shots with regard Australia’s future, be it economic or otherwise.

There is a rude immediacy about how the world operates with liberal democracy holding us hostage to the next election and more colloquially, to the next episode of television’s “The Block”.

Rather than piece together a budget, good or bad depending on personal situations, ideology or political adherences, that responds to populist needs that further fuels business as usual, we should be endorsing courageous decisions that prepare us, for the shocks ahead.

The workings of the world, and by implication Australia and so the Goulburn Valley, depends almost entirely on oil or some derivative of it and with more than half the world’s easily accessible oil already gone, it is going to become increasingly expensive as it becomes more difficult to extract.

To counter that, the government needs to enthusiastically invest in the public infrastructure and discourage private profiteering that arises from exploitation of the public domain.

The issue that will trump all concerns our changing climate and although there should have been a budgetary response three decades ago, it is still not too late, although any effective response will now need to be innovative, bold, courageous and be an immediate break with the “business as usual” paradigm.

Australian society will need to be seriously decentralized; public transit systems massively refurbished and upgraded, while there is an equal divestment in the private infrastructure (roads); community infrastructure and resilience needs to be bolstered; food security needs to be localized; and while work is psychologically important, it needs to be re-imagined and restructured allowing people to work fewer hours, live closer to their work and spend more time strengthening communities.

Offensive, but understandably charming

Shepparton’s weekend-long “Spring Car Nationals” were decidedly offensive to the sensibilities of some, but for thoroughly understandable reasons, they charmed many.

A scene typical of the "action" at the
weekend-long Spring Car Nationals
 in Shepparton.

Thousands rushed to the city for a celebratory orgy of the energy of oil manifested in the bucking, sliding, roaring cars primped and preened to brilliantly exhibit their conversion of oil into power, noise and smoke.

An idea few understand or, if they did, acknowledge.

Humans, men in particular, have long been fascinated by power and to control it just for a moment, even if it is little more than on bucking, sliding and roaring car, gives admission to a select group, as distorted as that may be.

A 15-year-old boy I once knew (me) would have stood with that group and throughout the weekend, would have been would have been breathlessly watching, almost high on the exhaust fumes and the testosterone cloud, and gleefully joining in the strange bonding that such hedonism brings.

In view of the world’s evolving difficulties, such blatant pleasure seeking events are an aberration when the resources that make it possible are in serious depletion and with our atmosphere absorbing the true cost.

Of course what happens at Shepparton’s Spring Car Nationals is insignificant compared to the world’s Grand Prix events, America’s National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) and Australia’s V8 Supercars.

Together they promote a paradigm that is the antithesis of how we should live; a paradigm we cannot escape until we understand, or least learn that conquest is not about brute force, rather collaboration.

It is about understanding and learning to live with nature, rather than compete with and subdue it; the world is a finite place and rather than align ourselves with the misplaced desire of growth and progress, a code word for exploitation, we have to learn about conservation and care.

The second law of thermodynamics discusses the fact that disorder in the universe always increases and that surging disarray brought on by the transformation of energy into less usable forms was been forestalled first by coal and now oil, the principle portable energy used by for humans for more than two centuries.

Bruce Springsteen.

The power of that portable energy was demonstrated for all to see, and hear, at the city’s showgrounds over the weekend.

Listening to the wail of what sounded like dying dinosaurs, which they are, I thought about the words that rock poet, Bruce Springsteen, who wrote in his song “Something in the Night” in which has sang about driving in his car:

“….I take her to the floor,

Looking for a moment when the world seems right ……”.

Maybe participants pursued that “moment”, but any legitimizing argument of incidental economic boost to the city quickly evaporates when the full costs are considered.

 

A simple event, an irrevocable change

A friend often talks about how the simplest of events can irrevocably change our lives. 

Flowers gather on the
Sydney Rd footpath
where Jill Meagher
was last seen by CCTV
cameras.

Should we pause for a few moments, he argues, to say “hello” to a friend we have actively, but not consciously, re-shaped our lives.

That brief stop for what was a seemingly innocuous chat shifted our lives from one paradigm onto a wholly new footing with new horizons opening and some hopes and dreams closing down.

That is, granted, somewhat dramatic, but when considered analytically, it is true.

Life, no matter how hard you might try to control it or comply with your hope and dreams, or respond to other yearnings, there is a rogue randomness about our lives.

A few seconds spent talking with a friend folds almost invisibly into our lives and beyond the relative importance of the exchange, it is not seen, mostly, as having any significant relevance to how our lives are evolving.

Examples of life’s randomness abound with the most recent being the abduction, rape and murder of Melbourne ABC reporter, Jill Meagher, on Saturday morning.

Jill Meagher - witty
and intelligent.

That random event began seemingly innocuously and ended in a rather grisly way – desperately sad for Jill Meagher, her family, friends and workmates, and in what must have been a fleeting opportunistic decision, the perpetrator’s life changed forever.

Considering such moments in life, we can all torture ourselves with a million “what ifs”, but that will not do any good for as a friend told me years ago what is “is” and cannot be changed regardless of hope, prayers or actions.

The randomness of life is non-negotiable.

Interestingly it is something we cannot avoid, we can twist, turn, manipulate, take this or that stand, but never can we divorce randomness from our lives, but importantly, and strangely, it is that randomness that brings life fully alive.

Blandness awaits those who attempt to remove randomness from their daily affairs and sidestep its impact and even worse it can bring on a noticeable neurosis that can manifest itself in ways that play out in moments such as those on Brunswick’s Sydney Road on Saturday morning.

Of course the mysterious randomness of life does not always necessarily lead to grim or bad moments for equal to those who can point to difficulties; tragedy and disaster are those who can illustrate happenings that were happy, enlightening and rewarding.

Random and unplanned moments have led to wonderful life-long relationships, business successes, and serendipitous discoveries for which no-one can take responsibility short of saying that “they were in the right place at the right time.”

Of course, there is the opposite and what apparently began as a simple event for Jill Meagher changed her life irrevocably.

Jo doesn't 'believe' in climate change, but she BELIEVES in science

Former Melbourne
 Age, science writer,
 Jo Chandler.

Jo Chandler doesn’t believe in climate change, but she does believe in science.

The implication of that observation for the former science writer at the Melbourne Age is that the science of climatology illustrates conclusively that humans have changed the world’s weather patterns.

Ms Chandler, who only took voluntary redundancy at The Age last month, was one of two speakers at the University of Melbourne’s “A conversation on the climate crisis”.

Her fellow speaker at the seminar was the author of the Garnaut Climate Change Review, Professor Ross Garnaut. His 2008 report was then presented to the Australian Government and updated last year.

Ms Chandler told the more than 100 people who joined the conversation that family and friends often asked her why she believed in climate change.

She said she doesn’t, rather she believes in the clear, unambiguous and evidence-based findings of science that illustrate the reality of the changes we have made to our atmosphere.

Professor Ross Garnaut, who presented his review to the then Australian Prime Minister, Mr Kevin Rudd, came to the recent conversation with an unparalleled understanding of the economic impact of climate change on Australia.

Prof Garnaut appears a naturally conservative fellow and even when exploring the most damning scenarios of our changing climate, talks in a kindly way and seems to avoid observations the might “scare the horses”.

Ross Garnaut.

Despite that, Prof Garnaut was unable to avoid the facts; facts that point to a certain two degree rise in earth’s temperature (we are at less than one degree at the moment) and explore realities suggesting even the two degree number is conservative.

Leaving the seminar feeling somewhat euphoric about having been a part of reasoned and respectful conversation about a crisis not yet understood, I walked straight into a Melbourne that is what it is because of business as usual, a paradigm that underpins our changing climate.

The dichotomy was evident; some understand, recognise and want action on the crisis, but even within that mindset there appears to be a reluctance to let go of the good life.

That made me think of Homer Simpson, who in trying to pilfer a soft drink from a dispenser, became trapped and after significant effort it was realized that if he loosened his grip on the can, his hand could slide free.

Humanity is locked in the “Homer Simpson paradigm” and until we are prepared to let go of our lavish life-style, scale it back and accept a simpler life we, like that cartoon hero, will remain trapped, and doomed to difficult times.

I stand with Jo Chandler and, like her, embrace science and align myself with the likes of Ross Garnaut enjoying his respectfulness and kindly behaviour.

 

Touching the 'untouchable' will secure our future

The sacrosanct eight-hour day might seem untouchable to adherents of the present scenario, but a four-hour day in most industries would see a similar amount of work undertaken and completed with hitherto unseen efficiencies.

The "responsible men" gather to plan how
 they can ensure the 'many' work harder and
 longer to boost the bank balances of the few.

Those who only see the welfare of man linked inextricably to the economic paradigm and therefore have no understanding of the richness of human contemplation and the fruitfulness of humanism would weep at the idea of people doing what they love rather than having their shoulder to the wheel.

An eight-hour day is a fantasy for many and a move to halve that would need a cultural change of tsunami-like proportions, which undoubtedly would be accompanied by threats from the “responsible men” about the inevitable collapse of society.

Contemporary work injects discipline into our lives, bringing with it a certain contentment arising from that understood regime and so to live with what would effectively be a half-day holiday every day, people would need to re-think their affairs enabling the fortification of personal resilience and survival understandings that future scarcity will make imperative.

Naturally, a switch to a four-hour day would bring complexities, but from those subsequent intricacies would emerge people who were psychologically more intact, happier, better workers and, importantly, vastly improved communitarians.

Suggestions of a four-hour work day will bring, no doubt, a chorus of comments ranging from “stupid” to “won’t work” from those unable to see the finer attributes of life and whose futuristic vision is limited to what they can see through the prism of growth and its attendant consumerism.

A four-hour work day will naturally slow our exploitation of earth’s finite resources, first by reducing our manufacturing throughput and so resultant output and secondly by an overall reduction of our monetary wealth and, one would hope, a decline in our apparently inexhaustible desire to accumulate.

The seismic-like cultural change of a four-hour day would ricochet through the whole of society and with such a short working day it would be advisable to live where you work, or at least within easy walking or cycling distance, bringing an urgent reality to the idea of a five minute life – that sees most everything critical to day-to-day doings being just five minutes away.

The idea that is “work” will be re-shaped, restructured and re-thought with many working either at home, or from home, and travelling, maybe weekly, to a central place.

Work is essential to our mental and emotional health just as is the “balance” we are always encouraged to bring to our lives about many things.

Should we have the capacity to understand how our egos ignite to underpin the consumerism that drives the capitalistic ethos, then maybe we can find a true balance in our lives between work and living.