Australia: Climate change (to which nuclear power is irrelevant) – theme for August 2017
Of course the Great Barrier Reef is important, to Australia, and globally. It is a World Heritage site, and a unique and wonderful ecosystem. It’s just that I get a bit sick of everyone talking about its economic value – as though business is the only thing that matters to Australians.
Even more, I question the emphasis on the GBR, in context where nobody seems to be talking about the appalling impacts of climate change that are already happening, and will increase, in African and Asian nations.
Climate change is a global tragedy, for humans and other species. We are now in an era, (the Anthropocene) in which global action is imperative – quite the wrong time to put up the barriers, and say “our nation first”
Even if we do think “Australia first” – we’d better realise that WE might need some international help, as Australia is predicted to be hit particularly hard by climate change. Some of these impacts: increasing heat waves, some regions drier, bushfires, changed and damaged ecosystems, sea level rise, increased severity of floods. All this has effects on agriculture, infrastructure, human health, and society, with the most disadvantaged communities suffering the most.
The effects of climate change elsewhere will impact Australia – sea level rise, especially affecting Pacific islands, environmental refugees, food shortages, environmental disasters, social instability, and increasing need for humanitarian aid. Australia is an island, yes, but can no longer function as though the rest of the world doesn’t matter.
Climate change is THE ISSUE right now, although the nuclear issue remains critical too – especially this month, when we remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The nuclear industry’s claims to fix climate change are farcical, and deserve to be ignored; the only relevance nuclear has is that its proponents are holding back REAL answers to global warming.
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1.This month.
The Road to War brings a sharp focus to why it is not in Australia’s best interest to be dragged into a war with China which will almost inevitably go nuclear very quickly. The filmmaker has interviewed some of Australia’s senior foreign policy analysts who have vast experience behind them in analysing what really is going on here as the United States rattles its sabres with China. And sets us up to be its proxy, like the poor Ukranians have been fed into the Meatgrinder. So America can remain the Top Dog. The Road to War reveals how the United States through its spy base at Pine Gap and by stationing six nuclear capable B52 bombers in the Top End (without permission from the traditional owners) is making Australia a prime nuclear target if the current war of words suddenly melts down into full scale war.
The Road to War shows the implicit connection between Carbon emissions (the US military uses a whopping 70% of America’s annual petroleum to move its armies and vast War Machine around the globe to its 800+ military bases..but under a loophole wangled at Kyoto, the US military does not have to report its C02 annual emissions). The Road to War starts screening at selected cities and regional centres in March. See the trailer end for details.
Antinuclear 
The Editor
The Advertiser
According to Dick Smith “you cannot have endless growth and endless greed” (The Advertiser, 14/8/17).
As part of his plan for protecting our quality of life he calls for increased taxes on “Australia’s wealthiest one percent” (the super rich/wealthy), and an “immigration plan that more than halves the current number of people arriving in Australia every year”.
It comes as no surprise to me that some ignore Dick Smith’s main themes of growth and greed, opposing higher taxes on the “super rich” (erroneously referred to as the top 10% of earners), and focusing almost entirely on reduced immigration.
Such commentators are almost certainly, like me, the beneficiaries of population growth including by highly selective immigration policy. Our role should be to not greedily exploit our luck but to make sure that those who were already here are not exploited or disadvantaged, and to protect the quality of life which is often erroneously equated to ‘standard of living’.
Dennis Matthews
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