I haven’t posted for a while, and I guess that it is because I have no earth shattering news, or that I suspect nobody is interested anyway. My ego had been inflated by having 2500 subscribers, until I realised that most of them were robots dedicated to spreading spam (an unwholesome meat product). And as my website sent out notifications of new posts to each, I had been turned to the dark side and become a spammer myself. So I disabled and deleted the subscriber app. I just don’t know that many people in Russia or Romania.
So this is in the nature of ‘letter to self’. A review of the last month to see if my life is improving or declining. Got the sauna finished and new guttering up on Blackbean Cottage, but a mouse disabled my hydro generator control system in a suicide attack. That issue yet unresolved. The unusually hot spring weather has dissuaded me from heavy labour, but been a boon for my grandkids to play in the creeks. The rainforest is suffering with the wild ginger curling up it’s leaves, the brambles and small trees drooping and browning off. The creek is dwindling away putting further pressure on the already crippled power system. And I am one of the lucky ones! Much of Queensland and NSW has been subject to unprecedented fires with total fire fronts 6000 km long. Think about the word ‘unprecedented’. It means hasn’t happened before. But it has happened now, and will happen again with increasing frequency. There was a time when climate change by human agency was proposed. There was a time when climate change was debated due to short term data. Now we are in the period of abundant, comprehensive and overwhelming data that it is happening now, with disastrous consequences.
I was outraged by Scomo’s pronouncement that “this is not the time to talk about climate change while grieving Australians are suffering”. Many of those grieving for loss of life or home got right up him and said this is exactly the right time. His mealy-mouthed, sly, disingenuous piece of PR, trading on the loss of victims, earned him the odium he deserves. Still a few days to go before summer when the official fire season start, and the rural firefighters are just about dead on their feet and 150 fires burning in NSW with 64 uncontained. The forecast from BOM until the end of Feb is for hotter, drier conditions than normal to come for the whole of Oz except for a tiny patch just inland in the north west. Congratulations Marble Bar for just getting your usual blistering temperatures. Most of the rest of us have an 80% chance of above average day and night temps.
I am appalled that new fossil fuel projects have been advanced by government approvals. Adani in Queensland, fracking in the Top End. It took geological forces 250,000,000 years to sequester that carbon. If we burn it and put it back into circulation in 50 years, doesn’t that seem a bit hasty, a bit rash. In fact total insanity!!
The powerful neoliberal and corporate forces seem to have such a strong grip on the levers of democracy that elections are window dressing, a mere nod to the idea of the people having representation. The people are voting with their feet to support alternative energy with so many people installing solar panels. The government, lump of coal in hand, is doing everything to stop the future from happening. Our government in thrall to legacy industries, doomed to extinction but with plenty of accumulated wealth, is wringing the last residual money from a collapsing system.
Your finger is right on the button with this one Paul, however, mine is not. I don’t have any facts to debate this subject. But what I do have is a passion for seeing Australia go forward, not backward. In my lifetime it has saddened me to see the loss of jobs, blue-collar jobs, which gave both men and women character/confidence/status/pride and a decent living. The flow-on effect to their extended families is immeasureable. This country’s natural resources are its mainstay. If managed propitiously in the long-term, I can see no reason to leave them in the ground, or worse, sell them off to foreign countries who have been jealously/zealously eyeing them off for decades. We once were the “darling” of the World, now look at us! More like a fifth cousin, twice removed, a darling no more. In my lifetime it’s been all too obvious that the powers that be have muddled through without a future plan. The FatCats are too comfortable to worry, we the lesser mortals feel powerless to try, the intelligencia is too busy preening/competing to look beyond themselves, the rational thinkers are crying in the wilderness – all together a worrying scenario. Throughout history, a saviour has appeared at times like this – We need that now, a powerful, intelligent, caring, Aussie-loyal, altruistic human being needs to step up and save this magnificent country of ours. In my lifetime, please……..
I promise I’m a real person who reads your blog.
Is that “Mayenne” in France, Mark? Are you native born/visiting/working there or ? Just curious…..