Inconvenient Truth
Al Gore (the guy who won the US presidency in 2000), is in town to promote his new film about Global Warming. In it, he urges western governments to take the threat seriously and begin concrete steps to addressing it. While here, he urged the Australian Government to lobby the 'States to do more.
Our government's reaction was appalling. Howard said that "he doesn't make policy based on entertainment". Environment Minister, Ian Campbell, said the Gore was here just to sell seats to his movie.
Australia has a history of leading conservation and environmental protection initiatives. However, under this government, we are degraded in the international community by playing lapdog to the extreme right US administration. We must be a backwater laughing stock in Europe, where countries such as Sweden are movie to an oil-free industrial economy by 2020. And to have this kind of dismisal of such an important issue is such an embarrasment coming from our supposed leaders.
In the 90's, the world moved quickly to address the problems associated with CFC's (ie, the depletion of the ozone layer). Now obviously, this is a much less complex problem, but world moved to address it - and recent reports show the hole actually shrinking now. And there was no grand collapse of economies.
Humans are an innovative lot - we have an amazing ability to solve problems. However, chained to big business interests, all thinking from leaders is in terms of short term profits. I hope we have a renaissance in the public conciousness that breaks the me-mine-now mentality and sees us refocusing on humanity as a whole.
Our government's reaction was appalling. Howard said that "he doesn't make policy based on entertainment". Environment Minister, Ian Campbell, said the Gore was here just to sell seats to his movie.
Australia has a history of leading conservation and environmental protection initiatives. However, under this government, we are degraded in the international community by playing lapdog to the extreme right US administration. We must be a backwater laughing stock in Europe, where countries such as Sweden are movie to an oil-free industrial economy by 2020. And to have this kind of dismisal of such an important issue is such an embarrasment coming from our supposed leaders.
In the 90's, the world moved quickly to address the problems associated with CFC's (ie, the depletion of the ozone layer). Now obviously, this is a much less complex problem, but world moved to address it - and recent reports show the hole actually shrinking now. And there was no grand collapse of economies.
Humans are an innovative lot - we have an amazing ability to solve problems. However, chained to big business interests, all thinking from leaders is in terms of short term profits. I hope we have a renaissance in the public conciousness that breaks the me-mine-now mentality and sees us refocusing on humanity as a whole.
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