Did you see an elephant following Gillard and Abbott around the campaign trail last week? No, I’m not talking about Mark Latham. I’m talking about the Climate Elephant. Over the past 10 days, everywhere Julia and Tony have turned; the Climate Elephant was there. Its message is simple: you can’t ignore the elephant in the room — the lack of action on climate change.
It was patted by Julia in Pakenham. It confronted Tony in Colac. It got booted from the RSL in Blacktown. You couldn’t miss it on the 7pm Project, ABC News, Lateline, The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and more. The elephant is an initiative of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, and while some journalists quaffed at the blatant attention-seeking tactics, they have filmed it, photographed it and tweeted at every elephant appearance. Sky News even interviewed one …
It seems strange that we had to resort to this: dressing up a volunteer in a furry animal costume and literally jumping up and down to get noticed. It’s hardly a dignified way to get attention for such a serious issue. Trust me, we did write many other serious press releases over the past month in an attempt to put climate back on the election agenda. These serious press releases were full of alarming facts such as the fact that an ice island, four times the size of Manhattan, recently broke off from Greenland. The fact that a new study shows that due to warmer water, 40% of phytoplankton (the base of the marine food chain) has died since 1950. The fact that the world has just come out of its warmest April, May and June on record.
Interestingly, none of these “serious” press releases got picked up by the media. But the elephant did.
It really is no wonder that both major parties are so intent on ignoring the elephant and sweeping climate change under the carpet, given the unpopularity of their climate policies. Labor had two well-publicised flops in the cash for clunkers and the citizens’ assembly. But Labor says it is still committed to an emissions trading scheme, at some point, that is better than nothing — but only just.
Abbott has ruled out putting a price-tag on pollution widely recognised as the most economically efficient and prudent climate change response. Instead, the Coalition has ditched its economic reputation to announce it will introduce a public fund to provide incentives for business to reduce their pollution. Overall, both have been largely silent, making way for broadband, health and education announcements instead. The AYCC decided that we couldn’t just go silent on such an important issue. It was time to start talking about the elephant in the room — and there is a lot to talk about.
Let’s talk about the fact that both major parties have set a target of reducing pollution 5% by the year 2020 but that, with their current policies, neither party has any way of meeting that target. Recent analysis by The Climate Institute shows that under both major parties Australia’s pollution will increase. Let’s talk about the fact that even if they did meet their 5% target, that wouldn’t be nearly enough to meet our fair share of a global deal to keep temperature rise to less than 2° of global warming.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that to have a 50/50 chance of avoiding dangerous climate change developed countries such as Australia need to reduce their emissions by between 25% and 40%. And let’s talk about the fact that 2° warming, actually might be too high, and is very likely to exceed lots of tipping points in our climate system. Many scientists now say that anything more than 1.5° would be too much warming.
Many pollsters and political analysts might tell you that climate change is a third-tier issue for most people, second-tier at best. Some will say that in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, caring about the environment comes after concern for health, education and taxes, and we can’t expect people to keep climate change front-and-centre in an election. Politicians and the media often get away with blaming the lack of interest among the community for lack of action on an issue. These excuses, however, are simply not true.
A recent poll of young people commissioned by the Australian Youth Climate Coalition showed that for two thirds of people aged 18-30, climate change is an important issue when deciding their vote. A recent Lowy poll showed that 86% of Australians still think that climate change is an issue that needs addressing. There is significant interest in the community for more climate action; it’s just not being backed by the media or our politicians. And anyway, even if there wasn’t significant interest from the community — is it not in humanity’s best interests for politicians and the media to lead?
How can the very future of the planet, the clean air we need to breathe, the water we need to drink and the ecosystems we need to sustain our food systems, be secondary issues not worthy of media coverage or policy change? This is not about an abstract environmental issue. It’s not about a political issue. This is about the basic survival of life on earth. If ever there was an issue that transcended polling, politicking and partisan-politics, surely the future of our planet should be it.
This is what the Climate Elephant is about: keeping the issue front-of-mind in an election cycle when climate seems to have dropped off the agenda. So while you might not be seeing more announcements from our politicians or leadership from journalists in these last few campaign days, you’ll be seeing a lot more of the Climate Elephant.
“These serious press releases were full of alarming facts such as the fact that an ice island, four times the size of Manhattan, recently broke off from Greenland.”
The reason these alarmist press releases were ignored is because they falsely attribute cause. This ice calving occurs naturally when the glacier grows too large.
The facts are this glacier is where it was 50 years ago, a bigger chunk broke off 50 years ago, and the rate of ice moving to the sea has not changed. There is absolutely no story here.
Our warming friends get more desperate by the day. It is pathetic.
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/Greenland-Ice-Island-Prompts-Global-Warming-Debate-100590574.html
Bravo for the elephant! I look forward to seeing an elephant badge on every youngster’s lapel.
Occasionally even, a whole herd of elephants, marching in the street. But beware of being caught in an elephant stampede. We want you to change the world, but not wreck your studies.
The Liberals don’t believe in climate change, but have a few policies so that they can give an impression of action.
Labor does believe in climate change, but all their actions, non-actions, and policies only make sense once you realize that the also believe that it is unnecessary or impractical to make any large changes to our economy. The result is next to no real action over the last few years, and policies this election that are as ineffective as the Liberals.
Climate change deniers can comfortably vote Liberal or Labor secure in the knowledge that, on the whole, it will be business as usual.
What worries me is that the majority of people who are concerned about climate change will this Saturday vote for one of the major parties.
Rudd, Wong, Gillard, and Turnbull have been very effective in giving people the impression that doing just a little is ‘real action’ on climate change. You can play such political games with the public, but nature will not be fooled.
What the major parties propose means that warming will continue. Though it can be argued that 2 degree warming is too much, their lack of effective action will take us to 4 degrees and onwards.
Ask the major parties candidates and their supporters what they think of the concept of cuts of 40% by 2020 and moving close to zero emissions by 2050. I’m sure that almost all of them will say that this is extreme and unrealistic.
This must mean that they:
1 – Don’t believe in climate change, or
2 – Believe in climate change but think that the scientists are wrong to say that warming of 4 degrees or more is very bad, or
3 – Think that maintaing business as usual is far more important than taking real action, even though the consequences of not taking action will be very damaging to future generations.
I urge anyone who is concerned about climate change to vote 1 Green. When your local Green’s candidate comes third, your second preference then counts as a full value vote to the major party who you think is least worst. So voting Green is not a wasted vote.
Congratulations to the Australian Youth Climate Coalition for getting some coverage on climate change. In fifty years time I’ll be dead and you will be living in a very different world. At least you can say that way back in 2010 you tried to bring this to people’s attention.
The climate change deniers (like Tones9) don’t really matter.
What matters is how the majority of Australian’s who do want action vote on Saturday.
Nothing we say here will change Tones9’s mind, but hopefully it is possible to get a few people who care about climate change action to vote 1 Green instead of giving a major party their first preference.
I guess I am a Climate Change denier – I don’t think it matters a tinkers cuss what the cause of it is, and I certainly don’t think any ‘mad scientist’ attempt to ‘fix’ it will be positive in any way whatsoever. Adaption is the name of the game imho. I would say “Stop wasting precious time you idiots and start adapting. Here in Australia. Today.”
The rason efficiency isn’t being pushed, and so many idiotic and utterly impractical furphies are, is because we don’t want a reduction in our standard of living. We are too mentally weak. The pollies know it and revel in being ‘elite’ while they still can. When the blind lead the blind they all fall into the ditch.
Anyway, what I want to say in response to this interesting article is that if Climate Change is this prominent in the Aussie political arena in 2010, just wait til 2020!!