Antinuclear

But what of Labor, whose supporters and parliamentary members overwhelmingly do accept the mainstream science and the need to take strong measures to minimise damage to our economy and our way of life?

Labor seems terrified of leading the debate on climate change, despite the now monotonous reports such as the recent one from the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology that our temperature is predicted to rise by between 0.6 degrees and 1.5 degrees by 2030…….

As for Victorian Labor, it’s all but mute on the subject. Last week, environment commissioner Professor Kate Auty quit her job, rebuking the Napthine government’s lack of leadership on climate change, and even its reluctance to use the term.

So where’s Labor? Daniel Andrews has not mentioned ”climate change” in parliament this year, or in 2013. Neither has the shadow minister for the environment and climate change, Lisa Neville.

She told me she had ”probably not” made a speech predominantly about climate change, either – she says there have been other big issues, such as cattle grazing in national parks and opening parks to development. When the record heatwave struck Victoria in January, only the Greens dared to draw the link with climate change. Labor was silent.

Former Labor leader Mark Latham is hardly the party’s favourite son, but he does think deeply about policy. In his book Not Dead Yet, he argues climate change must be a central concern for Labor. Dealing with it is not about destroying capitalism; it’s about ”saving capitalism from itself”. The challenge is to reduce the economy’s reliance on carbon, and maintain a profit-based system.

”Politically and ethically, Labor has no alternative but to continue advocating a market-based mechanism for reducing carbon emissions,” Latham writes. ”It needs to regard carbon pricing as an immutable principle, no different to its support for Medicare and free public schooling. The challenge is not to crab-walk away from right-minded policy, but to crusade for a better public understanding of why the policy is right.”

Labor’s climate change bruises may not yet have healed, but this issue isn’t going away.

Bill Shorten was right when he called it a defining issue for our parliament and our nation. It’s also a defining issue for Labor, and for him.http://www.theage.com.au/comment/climate-change-bad-guys-apply-heat-to-labor-20140313-34pbd.html