Antinuclear

While Australia burns, the world watches our credibility go up in smoke, The New Daily,  Damien Cave  14 Nov 19, When a mass shooting shattered Australia in 1996, the country banned automatic weapons.In its first years of independence, it enacted a living-wage law.

Stable retirement savings, national health care, affordable university education – Australia solved all these issues decades ago.

But climate change is Australia’s labyrinth without an exit, where its pragmatism disappears. The bushfires that continued raging on Wednesday along the country’s eastern coast have revealed that the politics of climate in Australia resist even the severe pressure that comes from natural disaster.

Instead of common-sense debate, there are culture war insults.

The deputy prime minister calls people who care about climate change “raving inner-city lunatics”. Another top official suggests that supporting the Greens party can be fatal.

And while the government is working to meet the immediate need – fighting fires, delivering assistance – citizens are left asking why more wasn’t done earlier as they demand solutions.

“We still don’t have an energy policy, we don’t have effective climate policy – it’s really very depressing,” said Susan Harris Rimmer, an associate professor at Griffith Law School. ……

in Australia, where coal is king and water is scarce, the country’s citizens have spent the week simmering with fear, shame and alarm……..

Even as the country’s emissions continue to soar, it’s been hard to reach a political consensus on energy and climate change policy because of Australia’s mining history and a powerful lobby for one product: Coal.

“Coal is our NRA,” said Dr Harris Rimmer, referring to the National Rifle Association, which has stymied changes to gun laws in the US even as mass shootings have become shockingly common.

“They have total control over Parliament.”……

For conservatives in particular, extraction of natural resources in rural areas is a stand-in for values worth fighting for against condescending urban elites.

Just a few days before the fires, for example, Prime Minister Scott Morrison told a mining group that new laws were needed to crack down on climate activists and progressives who “want to tell you where to live, what job you can have, what you can say and what you can think”.

“Climate change has become a proxy for something else,” said Robyn Eckersley, a climate politics expert at the University of Melbourne…….

Mr Morrison, who in the past has made it clear that Australia’s economic prosperity comes first, has repeatedly argued in recent days that now is not the time to discuss climate policy or politics.

Photographed hugging fire victims, he has sought to focus on emotional and financial support.

Joëlle Gergis, a climate scientist and author, said that “it wastes the opportunity to explain to the Australian public what we’re seeing in climate extremes”……. https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2019/11/14/while-australia-burns-the-world-watches-our-credibility-go-up-in-smoke/