On November 12, 2013, The Australian newspaper reported newly-elected Prime Minister Tony Abbott had vowed to repeal the Australian carbon tax legislation.
He'd referred to international climate negotiations taking place in Warsaw as 'socialism masquerading as environmentalism”.
This is illuminating because it exposes one of the reasons, coming from a high level, for the sustained attack on climate science and environmental issues: free market idealism.
Humanity is facing multiple threats. Climate change is only one of them; population growth, declining water supplies and the end of cheap oil are further good examples. These threats are real. Many people believe that 'business as usual” will not deal with these threats and humanity needs to do better.
That doesn't mean throwing out our economic or political systems, but it does mean fixing the broken of parts. Unfortunately, to people like Tony Abbott, and perhaps your letter writers last week, M Kuipers von Lande and M Houlding, any suggestion the system is less than perfect is misinterpreted as a call for communism or worse. Their reaction is to try to discredit climate science and Green issues generally. We cannot afford to let them succeed.
A Thorpe, Welcome Bay.
1 comment
Go Abbot
Posted on 23-12-2013 12:19 | By Mike Kuipers von Lande
If Tony Abbot tosses out the emmisions trading scheme/carbon tax it will be a spectacular beginning for the new PM. No one needs a fraudulent scheme costing $billions just in this part of the world that will do nothing except line the pockets of the fraudsters. If scrapping bogus taxes is an example of free market capitalism then bring it on. The world is facing multiple threats and we need to deal with the real ones, not the imaginary. If this money can be put to addressing the actual issues then it may do some good. We cannot afford to let the fraudsters or their apologists like A. Thorpe succeed.
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