We must reverse bipartisan support for oil and gas
As Ken Russell observes, Labor and the Coalition offer bipartisan support to the fossil fuel industry, authorising new gas and oil projects, and maintaining substantial industry subsidies.
Russell calls for climate experts to step up their public advocacy to bring change. During covid people listened to experts because we were afraid: an incurable virus was spreading freely among us, we were desperate for information. Most people do not yet feel this intensity of fear about our changing climate. Governments and experts downplay the risks lest they be accused of fear-mongering. Labor holds their climate security review in secret. Experts like the Emergency Leaders Group and the Climate Council sound the alarm, but too few listen.
We are hurtling towards the destruction of most of the life on Earth. Governments will change when the community feel such visceral fear of the changes in our climate that they demand it, but by then critical climate tipping points will probably have been crossed. The feared changes will become irreversible; all that will be left is adaptation to an unliveable environment, and recriminations for those who’ve brought the world to this end. We need people to demand bipartisan change before it is too late.
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