On Monday this week, the United Nations Climate Summit began in New York. World leaders gathered to talk about global warming and what their countries were doing to limit it by reducing emissions. Australia wasn’t invited to speak because our country isn’t doing enough. So our PM, Scott Morrison, didn’t bother to turn up, even though he was in the States.
We have brilliant scientific minds in Australia. We should be leading the world in finding ways to reduce carbon emissions and make more use of renewable energy. But we’re not.
It was just 12 years ago that Australia’s then-PM, Kevin Rudd, called climate change the “greatest moral, economic and social challenge of our generation”. Now, it’s obviously not a high priority. Yet every day seems to deliver more and more grim predictions of how the earth will suffer if we don’t act now. The latest: rising sea levels mean Australians need to be prepared for more extreme coastal flooding, and less fish in our fisheries.
I feel ashamed to belong to a country that leaves it up to other countries to do the hard work on climate change action.
This week also saw the world’s most respected environmentalist, Sir David Attenborough, scold Morrison for his lack of action. That deep, rich voice we’ve been listening to all our lives is now telling us that he’s disappointed in our country’s leader. “You are the keepers of an extraordinary section of the surface of this planet, including the Barrier Reef, and what you say, what you do, really, really matters,” Attenborough told Triple J's Hack. “And then you suddenly say, ‘No, it doesn't matter... it doesn't matter how much coal we burn... we don't give a damn what it does to the rest of the world.’”
I feel ashamed that the man who showed us so many of the wonders of life on earth now feels that Australians are not taking care of our own wondrous land.
I used to wonder what Morrison told his kids about climate change. As of this week, I know.
He says he wants children to feel “positive” about the future, that they will have a “wonderful country and pristine environment to live in”. He says he wants them to make up their own minds.
“But I also like to give them reassurance because the worst thing I would impose on my child is , he adds.
Let me mention some worse things that I could impose on my child: more and more summer days where it’s too hot to go outside, devastating bushfires sweeping through the countryside year after year, country towns dying as more farmers abandon the land due to extreme drought.
I feel ashamed that we have a leader who thinks it’s better to tell fairytales to kids than to take action to look after the earth for them.
This week, as all these articles about climate change have appeared online, they’ve been flooded by comments from people insisting that climate change isn’t real, or if it is, it has nothing to do with humans. Sure, no one wants to accept that we’re ruining the earth for future generations. But you can’t suddenly decide you’re not going to believe in science anymore. You can’t ignore scientists because you don’t like what they’re telling you, and at least 97 per cent of climate scientists agree that it’s “extremely likely” that global warming is due to human activity.
I feel ashamed that so many Australians are aggressively anti-science, and that numbers seems to have exploded in recent years.
Of course, there are things to be proud of. Last week, hundreds of thousands of Australians, many of them school kids, turned up to climate change rallies held around the country. There is hope that the tide will turn in Australia. But the people who will be affected most by our lack of action are the ones who are still too young to vote.
Let’s make sure they don’t grow up to be ashamed of us.
How do you feel about Scott Morrison's lack of urgency towards climate change? Comment your thoughts below.
Top Comments
I’m fine with being an Australian. I don’t fly in private jets around the world to tell some people to use less because I’d be a bit of a hypocrite wouldn’t I?
So help me out here. China is the worlds leading producer of coal fired energy with 1000GW. They have plans in motion to increase that by at least 220GW more (about as much as the entire US, number 2 in the world, currently produces) whilst Dave and Greta are traveling to not there, to criticise the west. China produces about 1/3rd of the worlds Co2, more than the US and all of Europe combined.
Since we seem to need to pay attention to foreigners lecturing us, can I ask in all honesty, will we ever be seeing an article criticising China at all? If not, why?
Well according to Morrison it's racist to even question Gladys Liu regarding her connections to the CCP propaganda unit.
If the PM calls us racist for questioning an elected Australian MP, then criticising China is off limits in his books.
That would because we are not responsible for China. We are only responsible for we do. We cannot even ask the Chinese government to do more to stop global warming when we give up the moral high ground by not leading the world on reducing emissions or even doing as much as we promised.
As a middle aged woman I am ashamed that my cohort of adults have not forced the government to do something earlier. It is an indictment on us that our children need to lead the way. It's even worse for politicians who are paid to take responsibility for their country's well-being and they need unpaid children to lead the way.
You do raise a good point regarding China. Short of boycotting them. What's your strategy to incentivise them to do their part?
Because we don't live in China.
Because we can't take immediately effective action in China.
Our vote holds no sway in China.
Because we're Australian.
So, we talk about what can be done in Australia and avoid being sidetracked down ineffective dead ends. Time wasting whataboutisms.
We discuss and act on what is within our control.
Carbon emission in Australia, not China.