Tag: Christine Milne

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Australia

January 4, 2015 – Christine Milne warns about extreme weather events, knackered infrastructure etc.

10 years ago, on this day, January 4th, 2015, the Greens leader Christine Milne points out the obvious,

“Every year we are going to face these extreme weather events, which are going to cost lives and infrastructure, and enough is enough,” she said.

“The Abbott Government has to stop climate denial and help to get the country prepared to adapt to the more extreme conditions.”

Ms Milne said now was the time to talk about Australia’s preparedness for extreme weather events.

“Look at what is happening to people, communities, our environment, loss of infrastructure and for goodness sake abandon your nonsense about climate variability,” she said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-04/south-australia-victoria-bushfires-climate-change-greens-milne/5999342

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 400ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

Milne makes another plea for sanity and a warning about the consequences that lie ahead, as she had in June 2009.

But she is, of course, only a woman, and she is, once again, basically ignored. I should definitely read Cassandra by Crista Wolf. But to be fair, her gender is only part of the story. Because lots of men who are saying the same thing are also being ignored

The context was that the emissions trading scheme the Greens had worked with independents and the minority-ALP government to enact was toast.  Tony Abbott was doing everything he could to slow down the growth of renewables. Desperate times.

What I think we can learn from this is that a good minority of political elites have known, perhaps a tiny minority of political elites have both known and been willing to speak out. What was always missing and is still really missing is engaged enraged, civil society. We have a few NGOs, but that doesn’t count as civil society. 

What happened next

Milne stepped down as Green Party leader a few months later. The emissions, of course, they kept climbing, and here we are.

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Also on this day: 

January 4, 1977 – US politician introduces #climate research legislation

January 4, 1982 – Global 2000 Report updated

Categories
Australia

June 17, 2009 –  Blistering speech about how “The Climate Nightmare is Upon Us” by Christine Milne

On this day, 17 June 2009, as Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was playing parliamentary and political games with his “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme,” Tasmanian Greens Senator Christine Milne  gave a blistering and prescient speech at the National Press Club

“Would you put your son or daughter on an aeroplane if you knew that it had a 50-90% chance of crashing? If not, why would you take that risk with the whole planet?”

‘The Climate Nightmare is Upon Us

Milne: The climate nightmare is upon us

Fortunately, sections like this below are now completely irrelevant.

“In Australia, the dominant economic, social and therefore Labor and Coalition view, is that resource extraction underpins wealth, power and influence — always has and always will. Regardless of the physical capacity of the Earth to sustain it, regardless of the collapse of the Murray Darling or the climate impact of burning more coal or logging more forests, nothing will stand in the way of that extraction continuing. All policies to address climate change are seen through that cultural lens.

“It is why, when people hear the climate science telling us that, if we do not act swiftly and decisively, the world we hand on to our children will be a very different, much poorer world, so many jump through hoops to deny it, to explain it away, or to pretend that we can compromise with the laws of physics and chemistry to suit own imperatives. It is no wonder, as Ian Dunlop observed recently, “climate policy and climate science are like ships passing in the night.”

And this too.

The truth is the climate nightmare is real and happening now. We are destroying the Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu and the snow caps. We are eroding our beaches, and our coastal cities will face managed retreat due to sea level rise. We are drying our food bowl, the Murray Darling, beyond repair, jeopardising rural communities and our food security.

Many of our Asia Pacific neighbours are struggling with rising seas and extreme weather which threatens a refugee crisis beyond anything we’ve ever seen.

Read it. Read it and weep.

Why this matters. 

People get written out of history. Oddly, this seems to happen more to women than men. It’s a puzzle why, and I am sure our best scientists (meaning, of course, the males) might eventually come up with some explanation. 

We knew. We were warned, again and again and again. And the glib, slick careerists (more males than females, but females can do that too you know) just kept on keeping on.

What happened next?

Rudd’s CPRS never got through because the evil wicked awful Greens voted against it. (And the ALP then refused to countenance the Greens’ proposal for a temporary carbon tax, though the ALP goons never mention that). After the 2010 Federal election, the Greens and the independents forced the ALP government to do something about climate legislation. Milne then sat on the MPCCC (Multiparty committee on climate change). And we got an ETS, CEFC, ARENA. The ETS got killed off by Abbott, day one.

On 19 February 2013 Senator Christine Milne, as Leader of the Greens, returned to the Press Club and gave the following speech –  “Australian Democracy at the Crossroads: the mining industry and the quarry past versus the people and the innovative future”,

See also, on the National Press Club,

Turnbull, #climate and the National Press Club #auspol