Recently, a friend of mine had problems with his AIMN subscription, but when I later asked if it was sorted out, he responded that he was thinking about cancelling it, because all the writers were preaching to the converted.
And with a few notable exceptions – in the case of some of those who leave ignorant comments – he is right.
And I know only too well the frustration he feels, and which I share – that so many of us care about the world’s future and are confident that we know what governments should be doing – while they deny the issues even merit discussion!
Kaye Lee wrote about her despair at being expected to be proud of being Australian. It rang so true for me but I have double trouble on that one!
I have dual British/Australian citizenship, and the older I get and the more I see of the damage done to so much of the world by English colonisation, I am not proud of my inheritance from that source, either.
Other recent articles have been informative rather than expressing opinions, detailing facts that should be keeping our leaders awake at night.
Schools are back in the immediate future but for how much longer can we rely on our children marching for climate, only to be rubbished by so-called adults with dollar signs for eyes?
It is time!
It is time for us – every single one of us – to be out there, on strike if necessary. Filling the streets and telling our ignorant politicians they have got to shape up or go!
And we need to stay out there until those who are supposed to be leading us start to listen to the experts and seek their advice.
Every day that passes puts more emissions into the atmosphere than the day before.
We have rampant population growth, we have out of control pollution, we have corrupt political leaders who don’t give a damn about us as long as they can milk the system – preferably without being found out, but even then, in the certain knowledge that their comrades in arms will cover up for them.
Global corporations call the tunes and governments just say; “Yes Sir!”
We are saying the same things, over and over and over and nothing is changing.
We cannot make other countries take action – although many of them are doing a damned sight more than we are – but we cannot blame them for not doing so if we are not taking action ourselves.
SO!!
We must force change in the attitudes of our politicians!
Civil disobedience is the only way to go now or we will be saying the same thing while the elements explode around us.
STOP asking – “How much will it cost?”
START telling them “We cannot afford the cost – in lives, livelihoods and property – of failing to take action!”
We have the knowledge of a massive variety of sources of renewable energy.
Some of us have experienced having to put normal life on hold while we deal with a life-threatening emergency and we know it can be done.
We are sick to death of one-upmanship in politics and we need and want leaders who are prepared to listen to the experts and let them provide the necessary policies.
Without action in the very near future, we might just as well cut our throats now, because if we continue on our present path, we are going to find existence becomes unbearable.
If Greta Thunberg can work it out and we ignore the message, how can we face our grandchildren?
Climate change is influencing the elements to present us with extreme and devastating weather events and the prolonged drought and the ferocious bush fires are the entrée!
Out rivers are running dry while scarce pure spring-water is being bottled from the few remaining untainted sources to sell for profit while people in remote areas cannot even shower regularly!
How sick can we get!
We have witnessed heroism from our firefighters on an unprecedented scale but we have a long way to go before we all recover and we cannot take their efforts for granted the way that our useless PM is doing.
Let us make a commitment.
Choose a weekday when we can all walk out of work and home and fill the streets for at least 2 hours to demand action.
Every week until we succeed.
Talk gets us nowhere.
Violent action gets us to the wrong place.
Inaction dooms us.
Once more – this is my Resolution:
“I will do everything in my power to enable Australia to be restored to responsible government.”
Can we all commit?
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No Probs, sister
I’m in.
Lawrence – How about every Wednesday (Hump Day seems appropriate) for 2 hours starting at 1.00 pm local time?
To be repeated weekly with people on the doorstep of their local Parliament?
Re:
Couldn’t agree more. Perhaps it’s because we have no mechanism (or legislated structural processes/arrangements/etc if you like) that facilitate anything other than talk. There’s no recall provision for example (also called a recall referendum or representative recall by which, voters can remove an elected official from office through a direct vote before that official’s term has ended.) There’s no formalised use of technology that could bend our representatives to our will. Just talk and then some more talk.
And there’s no promised change on the horizon from any political party.. (So let’s just talk some more.) What we have are representatives who largely represent themselves and/or their party. The people are there to vote (once every 3/4 years) – not to participate in governing. Where would it end?
Funny how the idiocies of a parliament under government control parallels the frustrations of trying to get responses from unresponisive automated pay systems that refuse a method for allowing corrections.
Paypal etc and the government, the first entities totally impervious to reason, totally void of intelligence…
Not singling out AIM btw, many sites…
This government proves on a daily basis that democracy and the Westminster system is broken and has been broken by them and their partners in crime, the Main Stream Media.
Perhaps expanding the readership of AIMN by each of us posting appropriate articles on other websites may provide some leverage. The objective is to reach the masses of ill-educated, uncaring, self-absorbed Australian voters and break through their bubble of self-deception.
Rosemary J36
Spot on the button.
I recall two comments ,are in AIMN, paraphrased as follows.
Hey AIMN contributes please post your brilliant contributions on FaceBook, because aIMN os preaching to the converted, we actially need to preach to the unconverted.
Hey AIMN contributes, please stop promoting Votes for minor parties or so called Independents – a vote for these are a risk to allow the LNP third term from preferences.
I recall the dismay when my comments were ridiculed !
I almost left AIMN for the put down, coments I received, but I just shut up for a while untill I realised that I had a right to my opnion, and guesx what my opinion proved correct.
But then I am just a dumb Licensed Aircraft Maintenance Engineer without a degree.
L.A.M.E. comment Stephengb.
(Sorry, I just couldn’t resist the pun)
In any robust debate there is no place for the thin skinned; there are those who will denegrate everyone else’s opinions without any rhyme or reason in order to score points (they believe).
Hurtful they are – if you allow yourself to be hurt.
If you have a well reasoned argument to put forward then it is a duty to present it and to be prepared for others to question it – often without constructive, or even factual, contributions of their own.
Shitheads abound – fortunately, they are not in a majority on this site.
How sick can we get? The answer, shockingly, is we can be and have become pretty sick. More and more people are accepting that climate change is real and that something needs to be done about it ….. by the government. The overwhelming number of individuals, including those who reject climate change and those who accept it as a reality, are not willing to change their behaviours. They will keep right on over-consuming in every area. Explain to me why SUVs and dual-cabs, houses, TVs, fridges are all getting bigger. Explain to me why more and more vehicles are being produced with bigger and more powerful engines. We say we want action on emissions, but what we do at a personal level is to go right on with our previous needy behaviours – figuring that no one person (or country) can make a difference, so let’s just continue in the rabid pursuit of visible affluence and immerse ourselves in competitive consumerism so we can boast to our friends and, ideally, gain the attention we crave (and the marketing tells us that our car can get us that attention and don’t we deserve it). It is a massive conundrum but we are utterly captivated by our wants and adept at convincing ourselves that all of our “wants” are actually “needs”.
And then, to cap off the collective lunacy, when we have a chance to vote out of office an incompetent and corrupt government who have only ever lied about climate change and their performance on emissions, and vote in a government who might just do something, we pike out and go with 3 more years of an utterly appalling government who are still trying to convince us that they are meeting their Paris emission targets, that under their “policies” emissions are reducing and that Labor under Rudd/Gillard/Rudd was a bigger polluter than Abbott/Turnbull/Scotty from Marketing. And yet it is likely if there was an election tomorrow, half of the voters would either vote for Scotty from Marketing or for a party that gives their preferences to the LNP. Yup, we’re pretty damn sick.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-28/climate-researcher-says-australians-need-to-take/11892966
In about 1 and a half minutes this climate researcher says what Australians can do and need to do!
Climate researcher says Australians need to take personal action
Posted about 9 hours ago
“The director of the Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility says Australians are going to have to change their way of life if the country is to take greater measures to reduce emissions and act on climate change.”
Source: ABC News | Duration: 1min 28sec
Topics: climate-change, environment, government-and-politics, australia
Hello Uta, the person you linked to is part of the Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility.
This is a ‘GreenWashing’ gimmick, one of many our Govt. is playing. They set up research agencies that say ‘Well the problem is here, but just get used to it.’
stephengb, they are on FB.
Hi Blogg People, Apparently, the 1900 Constitution was, and still is, highjacked by politicians of both the major parties starting in the 1970s. The Referendum of 1988 was voted down with three No’s and was ridden roughshod over with arrogance.
“If the Houses of Parliament disregard the WRITTEN WILL of the
people on ANY matter, then the people have the legal power, and
responsibility, to directly inform the Queen (&/OR Governor-General )
given the right circumstances, The Australian People have at all times
the Inalienable Right to “Petition The Throne” & inform Her Majesty
that THAT legislation is not in accordance with their WRITTEN WILL,
and request to have it annulled or amended accordingly.”
Quote from Les Power See … http://thewillofaustralians.com.au/
I believe we, as a Nation, have been lulled into apathy and ignorance with intent. Despite the quarrels about allegiance to the Crown and the mention of God, the original Constitution holds the Legal power of the people, the Commonwealth, to do something.
I feel your pain, Ill fares the land. We appear to have more than our fair share of gullible people, willing to dismiss science and common sense in favour of the fake news of vested interests. All I can say is, with the government so willing to look like a bunch of climate idiots in the eyes of the world, they must be getting a lot of money out of it. Why else? After all, money is all they care about.
Thanks Rosemary, I take your comments seriously and am in strong support. You pointed to the essence of our circumstances: “Global corporations call the tunes and governments just say; “Yes Sir!”
Yes, it’s long been the corporate system calling the tunes which is how we have come to see ‘normal’ life in the privileged ‘west’ – but you offer no practical way to go about challenging this gargantuan system. Just calling it out and public marching plays into their hands – they say “the people want action..good, we’ll give them action … it’ll be capitalism on steroids but we’ll give it a name they like ‘green this and green that’ and well fund their NGOs so they can be the purveyors of our plan”
The reality is that neoliberal capitalism is lining up to take control of what we think is a ‘peoples movement’ ie climate marches and strikes, demands for facing an emergency….but behind the scenes, including scenes behind Greta Thunberg, Avaaz, Green New Deal, Extinction Rebellion, Naomi Klien, et al there lurk the Davos plutocrats who are underwriting the entire game in order to shift their faltering capitalism into a new box seat……..I encourage all to read Cory Morningstar, The Art of Annihilation – Canadian investigative journalist – she has the most thorough dissection of this hideous, incestuous plutocrats game – its truly eye opening and eye watering… in all conflicts a first principle is “know thine enemy”.
Stephengb,
Regarding your exhortation for people not to encourage voting for minor parties and independents to avoid the danger of preferences flowing to the coalition, I have a simple solution.
Research who you are voting for and allocate your own preferences.
I post many AIMN articles on my Facebook account.
Yes – there is much which we, as individuals can do towards change and eventually it will have some impact. But I know that much of what we need to do will only get done if it is mandated by a National government – as it was in WWII in the UK. We could not buy petrol for civilian use, for example.
Those of us who accept the science on climate change will do what we can, but, like so many of our politicians, there is a significant proportion of the population which will only take action if they have no choice – which requires national laws.
One of the drawbacks of compulsory voting is preferential voting. If people need a how to vote card from their favourite party before they can vote, then I suspect they are not politically mature enough to have a vote!
Time for action, would this include no more flights from sydney to perth to watch live footy next winter, or that flight OS to go skiing.
Great article Rosemary. Finally a call to action.
I fear that to get credibility with the non believers we may need more than a Facebook link. Perhaps a short YouTube video presenting climate change as some sort of thing the mainstream media don’t want everyone to know with somebody with some letters in front of their name might do it. Lol or something like ‘do this one trick to look 20 years younger and save the planet’. Sorry I’m being terrible, more seriously though:
“ In his National Press Club address, an extract of which was released ahead of delivery, Morrison will say there is now “a clear community expectation” for the federal government to have greater power to respond in a national emergency or disaster, particularly through the use of the defence force”.
From ‘the conversation’.
https://theconversation.com/scott-morrisons-resilience-speech-overshadowed-as-mckenzie-crisis-deepens-130700
I think he is correct regarding natural disasters, but the part about “national emergency” worries me. So when the people finally do wake up and rise up will the government declare a national emergency and deploy the military against its own people? Am I paranoid or is this government not to be trusted with this? It feels similar to what happened at the beginning of trouble in 1930s Germany to me.
“These are natural conservative issues, don’t leave this to the left or you’ll get an anti-business, anti-enterprise, anti-technology response.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-29/david-cameron-says-dont-leave-climate-change-action-to-the-left/11907804?section=environment
Thanks for your all knowing wisdom Cameron.
Get Up are doing a message to Murdoch et al.
https://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/media/take-on-murdoch/take-on-murdoch-end-climate-denial?t=KbgkDhMeP&utm_campaign=Andrew_Bolt&utm_content=28537&utm_medium=email&utm_source=blast
I do not belong to a political party and have no respect for the current policies of either major party.
I have put an event on Facebook calling for people to congregate outside their State/Territory Parliament every Wednesday from 1.00 pm to 3.00 pm – a variant on Greta Thunberg’s vigil.
I shall be there next week and in successive weeks (as long as I remain able to do so!) until the NT government ceases to allow fracking – and beyond that if the Commonwealth government has made no moves to develop effective policies on the Climate Emergency.
My now 19 year old granddaughter has been active in the UK Extinction Rebellion movement and I have joined the ER Darwin group.
From little things, big things grow,
They say action speaks louder than words so here is hoping!
And Johno – I have no plans to travel anywhere for the rest of my life!
Once more – this is my 2020 New Year Resolution:
“I will do everything in my power to enable Australia to be restored to responsible government.”
Well done Rosemary.
The tourism industry will have to do some serious naval gazing as it contributes 8% of global carbon emissions. Indonesia just said they want more of the tourism pie by creating 10 more Bali like destinations and why not, the rest of the world have cashed in for eons. Can’t see the 8% going down in a hurry.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-27/indonesia-plans-to-build-ten-more-balis-for-tourists/11751840