GetUp’s latest campaign is calling on the federal government to take action on climate change. As big issues go, this is the big one, so I’m sure many of my Australian readers will want to sign the petition, which reads “I want my government to take sweeping action to dramatically cut greenhouse pollution, shift to clean energy and solve the climate crisis now.”
It’s hard to disagree with that.
For this campaign, GetUp is recording your postcode and using that to plot responses on a map of Australia – here’s what it looked like after I signed on this morning:
The real thing is Flash-based, but nicely understated with the dots appearing like raindrops (we could do with some of that; I dreamt about rain last night).
Of course, it’s unlikely our present government is going to get the message strongly enough to change their current course, which is essentially to do whatever the coal lobby asks, and to divert public attention with a distracting and pointless debate about nuclear energy.
I’d like to see the ALP come out with a strong statement on climate change. It’s clear that an increasing proportion of Aussies see this as “the” big issue, and there’s an opportunity for the Labor Party to differentiate themselves from the coalition on this. Beazley should promise to sign the Kyoto Protocol within 10 days of becoming PM, and undertake to invest substantial cash and energy into renewable energy, a carbon trading scheme and a national water plan. He could be “the climate change Prime Minister”.
Will he? Probably not — the ALP is beholden to the coal industry too, and risk-averse when it comes to big issues which might negatively affect some hot-button workers’ groups (think of what the timber-getters did to Latham last time after he promised an end to old-growth logging in Tasmania).
Still, you can hope and dream and sign the petition — it only takes a minute.
We are at a turning point in the future of a fundamental and cherished Australian institution, the ABC. Right now, the Cabinet’s budget committee is deciding the ABC’s funding for the next three years. Their next meeting is on Tuesday.
