Re Christine's speech

Thank you Christine ( and everyone who worked on this speech). This is inspirational stuff. A real landmark speech that should be distributed far and wide. We just have to go for it, and enjoy the ride.

That's It!

I'm glad some of our elected representatives are able to stand up, take heed of the science, and challenge all of Australia to deal with this threat. The goal of a safe climate is a noble one, surely, but also a realistic and necessary one. Talk of 'economic disruption' is absurd - I'd sleep much sounder at night knowing that we aren't going to make the Earth hotter than it's been in human history.

Greens Need to Work With the Government

Christine

Anybody with any project management experience knows that for Targets / Objectives to be achieved, you need ALL stakeholders to agree with the Targets, then all work together to meet the Targets / Objectives.

I believe that the Federal Government has had their representatives establish that the Mr and Mrs Average in the outer suburbs of the capital cities (mortgage belts) are currently doing it tough, and will not accept any cost of living increases that will potentially impact their life styles, so any cost increases either need to be very minor initially, or changes likely to instigate cost increases need to be delayed. Business has also advised the Government that any changes that increase their costs will automatically be handled in one of the following ways:
a. Pass cost increases back to the consumers, advising the consumers the reasons for the costs (i.e. Government policy)
b. Reduce internal costs by shedding staff where ever possible
c. Move offshore (India, China, South America) where no (minimal) cost increases will be incurred.

In the case of Melbourne, where the population is increasing by around 50,000 a year, and the Government is required to build a large electrically powered desal plant just to provide water that the public is demanding, an immediate cut as proposed by Christine Milne in her recent speech to the Press, would be physically impossible. In fact I believe that the Victorian Government is planning a new gas fired electricity generation plant to meet the increased demand. We also need to remember that new suburbs (the Government has already established that residents in inner suburbs within 25km of the city will only allow limited medium density housing in their suburbs) need to be developed to house all the people, including street lighting, security lighting, traffic control, and not to forget all the houses built need to be fitted with the usual electrical appliances.

Sorry Greens, you need to work with all stakeholders to establish a long term plan to reduce carbon emissions without major impacts to the general population, and business, else we will still be arguing in 2020 about ways to cut emissions.

In the case of emission reductions, the old saying "you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him / her drink" is very true. Work with the stakeholders, you will never be able to force emission reductions on them without the risk of a change of Government to the Liberals, then having a need to start all over again.

Great speech, Christine

I was lucky enough to catch this by chance today.

Impassioned, informed - a great speech on a major, colossal issue.

The major parties and virtually the whole political establishment are hopeless on this issue. It will take a big push from the community and the grassroots.

But there is hope and Christine made that plain today.

Limits to Growth

I was lucky to happen to be in front of the tube at lunchtime yesterday to actually catch the speech.... I wasn't going to bother to be honest, I just got the latest "Limits to Growth" book from the library, on my bike of course...! But Christine sounded so good, so passionate, that I delayed the reading. Even though I don't agree with her views of the future, it was the best Press Club speech I've ever heard, because at least it was visionary, even if the vision was way too optimistic. Vision really is lacking in today's politics, it's all so boring, so 19th and 20th Century.

Christine of course SHOULD read "Limits to Growth". Whilst I totally agree with her we need to do something urgently, I don't believe it will happen soon enough, and will all happen way too late.

Yes, we will reduce our emissions, but it will be forced on us by severe austerity and by the end of the economy as we know it. The time to do all the things Christine mentioned in her speech was thirty years ago. Now we'll be lucky to escape collapse, and even possibly a dieoff of humanity. We have already entered powerdown, and we're not ready, we don't even collectively realise it.

To do all the things Christine proposed would require EITHER that we reduce our fossil fuel consumption dramatically, OR build more carbon power stations, because we will need shiploads of upfront energy to build all the nice green stuff. Renewables do not come down in the next rain shower, they need INPUTS, loads of them, and right now, well it's totally impossible to make renewables using renewables, isn't it. Not realising this is simply living in lalaland.

My take on the future is that modern civilisation as we know it will collapse, we will mostly stop going/driving to work, and with no income we will simply stop consuming. End of problem. If you haven't started yet, dig up your backyard and plant it with food. It was regreshing to hear Christine at least mentioning this possibility in her speech.

It is impossible for the economy to invest more money in renewables expansion, when it is so heavily burdened with debt. Christine repeatedly spoke of 'new politics' when in fact we need 'new economics'. We need a debt free economy, one that utterly does not rely on more growth, more people, more houses, more..... more more more!!!! It's alway more! Even more renewables....

We must cancel the debts. ALL debts. Then we will be free to redesign civilisation, but until this occurs, and it will certainly occur, just way too late, we will simply continue on our destructive old ways.

Fascinating responses to Christene's speech

Three camps have emerged above and can be categorised by way of analogy which is to imagine there is a toddler in the street and a bus is bearing down on it.

The first camp is prepared to roughly hurl the toddler out of harms way, even if it means the toddler will suffer some lesser (than being struck) injury in the process. Christine and her supporters would be in this camp.

The second camp believes the bus is actually miles away yet and so there is plenty of time to find the toddler's parents so they can retrieve the toddler from the road. This would be Grant and Ray.

The third camp believes it is too late and the toddler will certainly be struck and there is no point in doing anything at except perhaps calling the ambulance so that it can ferry the inevitably struck toddler to hospital and even it if the toddler is revived it will never fully recover to its present condition. This would be Mike.

And we shouldn't forget the fourth camp (not represented above) who believes that buses don't exist and are simply a figment of the imagination of the gullible. This would be Barnaby Joyce's team.

An individual's perspective on which stance is the more rational of the above depends entirely on their personal biases. As such it is fairly pointless for any of the camps to directly argue to the other camps to adopt their preferred course of action. The only sensible thing it to try to win over those who've not yet formed a view, so a first rate media and grass roots campaign is called for.

It is likely that the majority will fall into either the first or second camps, and if true we can pretty much ignore Mike and Barnaby since the personal biases of the majority will mean camp 3&4 arguments largely fall on deaf ears and if anything drive people into either of the first two camps because they are so repulsed by camp 3&4.

The battleground really is between the first and second camps and it probably deadlocked which is means the default least effort position wins and this is really camp 2 since Christine calls for a more proactive approach.

However camp 2 needn't rejoice just yet because if Christine is right then camp 2 delivers society the worst possible outcome, since it will incur a cost to society (the distraction of searching for parents, or stepping out of the analogy to be clear the costs associated with a CPRS scheme that fails to avoid catastrophe) and delivers no benefit whatsoever since the child is struck anyway and suffers all the consequences. This arises since its a binary outcome (hit / not hit) which is not proportional to how hard we try. Either we did enough or we didn't. Failing by an inch is as bad as failing by a mile.

Bearing a cost for no benefit all at all is certainly the worst possible outcome and camp 2 is unique of the above offering that possibility. In truth Mike's horrific suggested course is greatly preferable to the camp 2 posture if Christine turns out to be right.

It may strike camp 2 as very odd that others see the camp 2 position as the most reckless of all, since that is precisely camp 2's objection to Christine!

If Christine is wrong no one will much care, and this will have been an unremarkable phase in history's march. However if Christine is right, and camp 2 wins the day but history will forever identify camp 2 as the villains of our age because of the deprivation camp 2 will have they inflicted on future generations.

Great speech, well done

Christine, your speech is excellent and timely. Well done. It is great to see a real vision for a green and sustainable future with a safe climate.

National Press Club Speech

Bravo Senator Milne – an extraordinary speech that hit all of the key isues in the Climate Change and emissions trading debates.

Her point about the CPRS in its current form sending a very strong signal that will drive inappropriate and misguided investments is key. Risk management is currently one of the few areas of common ground inhabited by climate activists and big business.

In a standard Risk Management table, attaching any value greater than zero to the risk that anthropogenic climate change is real, when the consequences are known to be catastrophic, would show the risk of assuming the problem away is too great. Business should be very wary of choosing ways ahead that are essentially “business as usual”.

Now what if we believe in the (slight) mitigation offered by the CPRS and choose to invest in a future that fits the marginally greener standards set by that legislation. Is there still a risk? You betcha! The risk in that case, as pointed out by Senator Milne is that the CPRS and the emissions cuts it facilitates will be revealed as ineffective in the battle to combat climate change and they will be replaced by stronger measures. Business must decide how high that risk is and what the result will be for investments made to meet the currently proposed standards. As a business manager, I would be taking my cues from the scientific community to decide how high the risk is that small emissions cuts will not later be in need of replacement.

Just as Kennedy didn't promise to get halfway to the moon, Noah didn’t build half an ark.

We are destined to inhabit a different world in the near future due mostly to the way we have recklessly polluted the planet during the last 200 years. We can choose to take the drivers seat, shaping that world to support our continued existence in a sustainable way or remain obnoxious passengers, tossing our garbage out along the road to a destination we seem to care little about.

Limits to growth

"Just as Kennedy didn't promise to get halfway to the moon, Noah didn’t build half an ark."

Just like Andrew, I found this remark in Christine's speech interesting, however, the irony of it all didn't escape me. The peak year of global oil discoveries was 1964. In the 60's, when Kennedy made his famous speech, we were finding oil at maybe ten times the consumption rate. The world was our oyster, absolutely anything was possible, we were swimming in oil. Today, we use oil at five times the discovery rate. In the 60s, we were still finding oil fields containing tens of billions of barrels of oil. Today, we're lucky to find anything that has 100 million barrels.

Just being my realistic self, and sticking to Jim's camp 3!

Cultural Change

Christine's observation is as interesting as it is challenging:

"This is a cultural problem. It is not a lack of climate science that holds back action. It is how we respond to the challenge that the science poses, and that is deeply cultural. It is the values that we bring to bear, what we think is good for us, our religious underpinnings, our view of power and opportunity, of what is possible in the world and Australia’s place in it. All these value judgements stop us from embracing change."

There are some, apparently including Senator Fielding, who do not accept the science, but for most it a failure of imagination and reason that we can live better.

As to Ray's observation about stakeholders and project management. We are all individually and collectively stakeholders. We are stakeholders in the fate of other people who do not live in Australia, and for those not born. For example, for people in India enduring their hot summer, there is a report that the Monsoon is bring less rain this year, with particular effect on NE areas. Whatever the reason for the variation, and I suppose global warming may be an influence, the monsoons allow have an effect on Northern Australia. Our weather systems are global. We are global citizens and we should act with that responsibility in mind, even if our actions are limited to our local community. As on the question of global warming, as on other issues, it is not simply Australian domestic politics but global politics within an Australian context.