The Melbourne Writers Festival: A Climate of Extinction.

At the recent Melbourne Writers Festival I attended two
sessions with climate change and the future of the planet at their centre. One
of the sessions was called The Science of Survival, a discussion of the book The Sixth Extinction, written by
journalist Elizabeth Kolbert. The book’s main contention is that the Earth is
currently experiencing a sixth period of mass extinction. The other session was
The Politics of Climate Change, academic Phillip Chubb’s account of the failure
of the climate change debate in Australia.
 

The Science of
Survival.

Elizabeth Kolbert  is
an American journalist and author on the environment for The New Yorker magazine and
National Geographic. She discussed her new book, The Sixth Extinction, with Australian agricultural scientist, Dr
John Williams. The moderator for the session was Australian malaria scientist
Dr Krystal Evans. 

The Sixth
Extinction
says there have been five
comparable periods of mass extinction to what is currently occurring. Kolbert
said that the current extinction rate of flora and fauna could be as high as
that of the last mass extinction, 66 million years ago. A meteor caused that mass
extinction, humans are causing the current mass extinction. 

She said one of the main
reasons for this mass extinction period is ocean acidification caused by too
much carbon dioxide entering the oceans. She said the Great Barrier Reef will
cease to exist by the middle of this century.

Another reason for the
decimation of flora and fauna is the introduction of new species by humans,
such as those flushed into foreign waters from the ballast of ships. Humans are
great at introducing pests into new areas.

Williams said humans had transformed
40% of the Earth’s land, and there wasn’t a river that had not been altered by
humans.

Kolbert warned that the
dominant creatures did not survive in each of the last mass extinctions. So
will humans survive this one?
 

The Politics of Climate Change.


Phillip Chubb is a Walkley
Award winner who was the editor for the National Times and an investigative
journalist for The Age. He was also executive producer of the 7.30 Report. He
is
currently Head of Journalism in the School of Media, Film and
Journalism at Monash University.

He said Kevin Rudd was the major reason for the failure
of Australian politicians to tackle climate change.

Chubb said that before the 2007 election John Howard’s
emissions trading scheme was not dissimilar to Kevin Rudd’s scheme. There was
consensus between the political parties to implement a scheme. But after the
election Rudd used climate change to undermine the then leader of the
opposition Brendan Nelson and then Malcolm Turnbull. So we ended up with Tony
Abbott and consensus on climate change was lost. Chubb thought that If Rudd had
not played politics with his emissions trading scheme it probably would have
been introduced.

Chubb said Rudd went to the Copenhagen climate change
conference thinking Australia would get the world to do something about climate
change. But the conference failed to do anything. Chubb said Rudd then had an
emotional breakdown.

The Senate voted on Rudd’s emissions trading scheme in
2009. Two liberals crossed the floor to vote for the scheme. If the Greens had voted
for it, it would have passed. Chubb said the primary reasons the Greens voted
against the scheme were the high level of compensation proposed for brown coal
users and the low 5% reduction in emissions target. But both of these were in Gillard’s
carbon tax legislation which the Greens voted for.

When the Greens blocked Rudd’s emissions trading scheme,
Chubb said Rudd should have gone to a double dissolution election. Everyone in
Labor wanted a double dissolution in early 2010, but they decided not to call
one because they thought Rudd was emotionally incapable of running an election
campaign.


Rudd shelved this scheme and then there was a devastating
leak about that shelving, to which Rudd reacted appallingly.

Rudd, Wayne Swan and Penny Wong had been the driving
forces behind climate policy. Gillard had not had much to do with climate
policy before she became leader. She had been busy working on other issues.

When Gillard became Prime Minister she made mistakes by
coming up with a scheme to have 150 people chosen from the election roll to
help decide the government’s carbon policy. And, of course, she said there
would no carbon tax under her government.
 

One effective thing Gillard did was the creation of a
multi-party committee on climate change that included the Greens and the
independents. She was much more consultative than Rudd. This enabled her to get
the carbon tax legislation passed in 2011.
 

Chubb said non-government organisations failed to push
the cause of an emissions trading scheme or carbon tax during the last six
years. He mentioned the Say Yes campaign that involved Kate Blanchett. He thought
the negative publicity that Blanchett received scared off many NGOs.

I had read and heard in The Age and on the ABC much of
the politics around climate change that Chubb mentioned during the session, but
I had failed to join all the dots, so it was worth having it all laid out for
me. No doubt others, especially Greens and Rudd supporters, will strongly
disagree with Chubb’s view of the why the CPRS and carbon tax failed. And of
course there are those ignorant and selfish fools who think we should do
nothing about climate change.

After reflecting about the sessions, it seems that if we
are going through a sixth extinction it looks like Australia will do absolutely
nothing about it.

0 Responses

  1. After reflecting about the sessions, it seems that if we are going through a sixth extinction it looks like Australia will do absolutely nothing about it.

    Well, the good old United States ain't doing much either. Aside from some state and local efforts anytime Obama mentions climate change the idiots, morons, fools, and those in the oil industry go into fits.

    I actually have some long-term hope for us Homo sapiens, despite ample evidence to the contrary we are a decent and moderately intelligent species. Though, in the short and medium term things are going to get real bad.

  2. At least the US seems to be moving forward with their approach to doing something about climate change, with Obama's laws to cut greenhouse gasses from electricity production. Unlike Australia and Canada and Japan, and it looks like Russia, who all seem to be giving up the fight. China seems to be moving forward too. I wish I could be as positive about the future as you are Beach Bum.

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