Greens MPs

This post was published originally this morning at ABC Online

One of the most important numbers in Australia's history was revealed yesterday - a number that carries with it the hopes and fears of millions of people and embodies our priorities as a nation, our balancing of the relative worth of human beings.

It has been argued that the 5 per cent 2020 emissions reduction target that Prime Minister Rudd announced is no more or less than a political balancing act - navigating a midway path between the competing demands of business and scientists, of the Coalition and the Greens. But that is an extremely superficial view, and one that fails to see just how all-encompassing climate change is. There are much deeper choices at the core of any decision on emissions targets.

Perhaps the most obvious of these choices is the question 'do we value our children as much as ourselves?'

This piece from Christine Milne ran in today's Crikey email.

After all his careful statements of the prisoner's dilemma, Ross Garnaut has blinked.

Garnaut restates the problem in today's report, making the point that we cannot go to the global climate negotiations and plead a special case. He goes so far as to say that:

There will be no progress towards an effective international agreement if each country lays out all of the special reasons why it is different from others, and why it should be given softer targets. When climate change negotiators from any country list reasons why their country has special reasons to be treated differently, and take them seriously, we should be quick to recognise that the negotiators, and the countries they represent, intentionally or not, are inhibiting effective international agreement.

This piece by Christine ran in Crikey's email today.

Late in August, while the Business Council of Australia was making its ambit claim to limit Australia's emissions reductions to no more than 10% cuts by 2020, the famous North-west Passage around the north of Canada opened.

A few days later, just as Martin Ferguson was circulating his "softened" emissions trading proposal to big polluters, the North-east passage, around Russia, also opened.

Both these historically and strategically significant events have occurred individually in recent years as the Arctic summer ice has progressively melted. But this is the first time in human history that both passages have been open simultaneously, making the North Polar ice cap an island, and the consequences are far-reaching.

This is probably the best visual depiction of climate change in action that I have ever seen.

I'm sure most people by now have seen An Inconvenient Truth.

Well, you might not have seen Al Gore's new talk on the global climate crisis, given in March 2008 at TED.com.

Friends of the Earth Australia have released a research report today, Climate Code Red, that prompts us to once again ask this question - why do we want to cut emissions?

This piece was published in today's Crikey email.

The Productivity Commission's clear attempt this morning to influence the outcome of the Garnaut Review may be couched in detached and academic language, but its implications are profound.

A cartoon ice sculpture of the PM slowly melted in the sun outside his Eastwood campaign office today as The Greens marked three days to go until the election! 

A short video containing Bob Brown's speech at Walk Against Warming is now on YouTube.

I personally lost about 5 kilograms doing the walk dressed in a furry penguin suit on a 30+ degree day. 

The annual and growing Walk Against Warming is happening again this weekend in cities across Australia.
Originally timed to coincide with the Kyoto / UN Framework Convention on Climate Change meetings each December, this year's event has been brought forward to coincide with the Federal Election campaign.