CLIMATE CHANGE MAYHEM DOWN UNDER:
By Uli Schmetzer
Melbourne, Australia, December 3, 2009 – Voter apathy and conviction that politicians are liars who sold
out their electorate to the corporate world gained a big boost this month with the news that world leaders
who had promised to end the war and tackle climate change were now supporting the war and listening to
arguments that climate change is really a paper tiger invented by misguided do-gooders.
Take U.S. president Barack Obama, a man of brilliant oratory skills, who sold himself into the presidency with an
anti-war pledge and a promise to save the planet from choking on its carbon and gas emissions. Everyone just loved to
see that photogenic Afro-American in the White House – until he used his glib tongue to add another 30,000 soldiers to
the U.S. Forces in Afghanistan and argued – as sea levels are rising and weather patterns have become more vicious â
€“ that it was still too early to come up with a carbon reduction policy.
If Obama, almost venerated as the Savior of America and Mankind, cannot deliver on pledges who then in
future will believe any politician or aspiring leader?
The fallout from this political treason is perhaps most visible among America’s allies, like Australia, a
notoriously conservative nation given to denials of the obvious. (Until three years ago Australia’s foreign minister still
publicly proclaimed allied troops would find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – though George W. had already
officially abandoned that hope.)
Australians these days are being bombarded by the opposition Liberal party with the argument climate change
is simply a natural phenomenon and certainly can not be blamed on human activity alone. Why should Australia, a major
producer of coal, be expected to take the lead in the reduction of carbon emission as Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
had proposed? Was it not better to wait and see what the other nations intended to do about climate change at
Copenhagen rather then rush to be among the first to legislate on the issue?
The leader of the Senate, Barnaby Joyce, a Liberal, even took ‘experts’ around country towns to
tell rural folks the whole climate change scare was exaggerated and had nothing to do with poisonous gas
emissions from power stations or diesel fumes from their tractors. TV spots showed professors ‘knocking
down’ climate change though some of these experts, especially the ones unearthed from Russia, had
never been heard of. But their credentials sounded impressive.
Packaged with this ‘don’t believe’ promo was a scare campaign that emission reduction would bring
financial hardships to the country and every citizen would have to reach deep into their pockets to finance such
legislation. And who in the world wants to finance someone’s harebrained scheme?
This strategy, paid and planned by an industry opposed to any carbon emission legislation that might
curb its profits or diversify production of energy, has been so successful that opposition leader Malcolm
Turnbull was fired in a party coup this week.
He was replaced by the enfant terrible of Australian politics, Christian fundamentalist Tony Abbot who would
probably like to take Australia back to Victorian days and who has already advocated there should be more scientific
debates on whether climate change really exists or is just an epochal phenomenon, completely ignoring that the world
has been debating this topic for the last twenty years.
Abbot often resembles a grown-up altar boy. He engineered the ouster of Turnbull who had upset Liberal
supporters by pledging to vote for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s proposed legislation of a five per cent emission
reduction, a far cry already from the 20 per cent Rudd had promised the electorate when he successfully campaigned to
wrest the government from John Howard’s long ruling Liberal Party last year.
Though two Liberal Party members of parliament voted with the government in the Senate, where
the Liberals have majority, the proposed legislation was defeated in two readings making it almost
compulsory for the Labor government to order snap-elections next year. These are sure to be fought on
people’s fear that Labor’s proposed carbon emission reduction might make them a lot poorer.
The irony of these shenanigans is this: While other developed nations, especially the U.S., are battling the effects
of a recession and toxic investments Australia is considered the country that escaped virtually unscathed from the
financial turmoil and could easily afford legislation, especially a meek five per cent, to curb carbon emissions.
But even that insignificant five per cent would slightly reduce someone’s profit-margin. And that is
the core of the problem.
Uli Schmetzer is the author of 'Times of Terror'
and 'Gaza' both available on Amazonbooks.com
By Uli Schmetzer
Melbourne, Australia, December 3, 2009 – Voter apathy and conviction that politicians are liars who sold
out their electorate to the corporate world gained a big boost this month with the news that world leaders
who had promised to end the war and tackle climate change were now supporting the war and listening to
arguments that climate change is really a paper tiger invented by misguided do-gooders.
Take U.S. president Barack Obama, a man of brilliant oratory skills, who sold himself into the presidency with an
anti-war pledge and a promise to save the planet from choking on its carbon and gas emissions. Everyone just loved to
see that photogenic Afro-American in the White House – until he used his glib tongue to add another 30,000 soldiers to
the U.S. Forces in Afghanistan and argued – as sea levels are rising and weather patterns have become more vicious â
€“ that it was still too early to come up with a carbon reduction policy.
If Obama, almost venerated as the Savior of America and Mankind, cannot deliver on pledges who then in
future will believe any politician or aspiring leader?
The fallout from this political treason is perhaps most visible among America’s allies, like Australia, a
notoriously conservative nation given to denials of the obvious. (Until three years ago Australia’s foreign minister still
publicly proclaimed allied troops would find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – though George W. had already
officially abandoned that hope.)
Australians these days are being bombarded by the opposition Liberal party with the argument climate change
is simply a natural phenomenon and certainly can not be blamed on human activity alone. Why should Australia, a major
producer of coal, be expected to take the lead in the reduction of carbon emission as Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
had proposed? Was it not better to wait and see what the other nations intended to do about climate change at
Copenhagen rather then rush to be among the first to legislate on the issue?
The leader of the Senate, Barnaby Joyce, a Liberal, even took ‘experts’ around country towns to
tell rural folks the whole climate change scare was exaggerated and had nothing to do with poisonous gas
emissions from power stations or diesel fumes from their tractors. TV spots showed professors ‘knocking
down’ climate change though some of these experts, especially the ones unearthed from Russia, had
never been heard of. But their credentials sounded impressive.
Packaged with this ‘don’t believe’ promo was a scare campaign that emission reduction would bring
financial hardships to the country and every citizen would have to reach deep into their pockets to finance such
legislation. And who in the world wants to finance someone’s harebrained scheme?
This strategy, paid and planned by an industry opposed to any carbon emission legislation that might
curb its profits or diversify production of energy, has been so successful that opposition leader Malcolm
Turnbull was fired in a party coup this week.
He was replaced by the enfant terrible of Australian politics, Christian fundamentalist Tony Abbot who would
probably like to take Australia back to Victorian days and who has already advocated there should be more scientific
debates on whether climate change really exists or is just an epochal phenomenon, completely ignoring that the world
has been debating this topic for the last twenty years.
Abbot often resembles a grown-up altar boy. He engineered the ouster of Turnbull who had upset Liberal
supporters by pledging to vote for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s proposed legislation of a five per cent emission
reduction, a far cry already from the 20 per cent Rudd had promised the electorate when he successfully campaigned to
wrest the government from John Howard’s long ruling Liberal Party last year.
Though two Liberal Party members of parliament voted with the government in the Senate, where
the Liberals have majority, the proposed legislation was defeated in two readings making it almost
compulsory for the Labor government to order snap-elections next year. These are sure to be fought on
people’s fear that Labor’s proposed carbon emission reduction might make them a lot poorer.
The irony of these shenanigans is this: While other developed nations, especially the U.S., are battling the effects
of a recession and toxic investments Australia is considered the country that escaped virtually unscathed from the
financial turmoil and could easily afford legislation, especially a meek five per cent, to curb carbon emissions.
But even that insignificant five per cent would slightly reduce someone’s profit-margin. And that is
the core of the problem.
Uli Schmetzer is the author of 'Times of Terror'
and 'Gaza' both available on Amazonbooks.com