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Today is ‘Don’t Give a Shit Day’

By Richard O’Brien

Today is ‘Don’t Give a Shit Day’ – a national day for not giving a shit about the planet.

Today is that one day of the year when all Australians can afford to take their minds of the catastrophic impact of human-induced climate change.

Forget this week’s news that global concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – the primary driver of climate change – has now passed 400 parts per million (ppm) for the first time in recorded history. Put aside your worries that the most recent data suggests our annual increase is more than 2.75 ppm CO2 per year, and rising. Stop stressing that even with recent efforts to reduce emissions – if we remain on our current trajectory, we will reach 1000 ppm within 100 years.

This Saturday, take a break from remembering that CO2 levels have been above 350 ppm, the upper limit of what experts classify as safe, since 1988. Ignore the fact that levels have increased by 10 ppm in the last four years, and stop fretting that it would take about 1,000 years for that increase to occur naturally.

Today, don’t let yourself be overwhelmed with the knowledge that we now have an atmosphere that resembles the mid-Pliocene era, about 3 to 5 million years ago, when sea levels were 15-25 meters higher, average temperatures were 2-3˚C higher, the polar regions were between 10-20˚C hotter, and several mass extinctions occurred.

This Saturday don’t burden yourself with the fact that CO2 stays in the atmosphere for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Dismiss concerns that we need to reduce global emissions by 80% to slow this increase, and by even further if we want to reverse it. Today, let’s just relax and not care that even if we stop all Carbon emissions right now, we won’t bring CO2 levels below 400 ppm again within the lifetime of anyone on the planet today.

Most importantly, this is a day to stop being angry with the government for its negligent inaction, if not outright sabotage, of emissions reductions targets. On this day, Australians can put aside their contempt for an Environment Minister whose actions have been to abolish the Climate Change Authority, scrap carbon pricing, and repeatedly approve a coal mine projected to produce 60 million tonnes of coal per annum.

This is our one day of the year to forget about all of that – and the reality that Australia, with just 0.3% of the world’s population, is the 15th biggest producer of CO2 emissions in the world, and the biggest per capita.

So come on Australia, take a deep breath, kick back and relax, and for just one day, don’t give a shit.

 

13 comments

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  1. Clean living

    Do you mean that for the past two years I have been wrong and mislead?

    Our recently departed leader, PM Tony Abbott assured me, and others that climate change was not a problem.

    Come to think about it, he said many things were not a problem. The economy for example, the lies he didnt tell, the budget repair, the way forward.

    Maybe I was wrong in placing my faith in Tony, our fearless leader. But now he is gone, after less than two years, and to be truthful, I don’t give a shit!

    About Tony that is. Climate change is a totally different matter!

    That’s where I belive we should practice constipation.

    Less methane.

  2. jim

    Yes Abbott blurted out “climate change is crap” and I think the Turnbull government are signaling the same “crap” with “wind farms cause ill health” and the LNP before lying their way into power said “no cuts to the RET”and then cut the RET by 70% under the LNP we saw a 88% drop in renewables investment the renewable sector which saw ten years of certainty until Abbott smashed it. The Alp under Whitlam stopped Joe bejackoff from drilling for oil on the Great barrier reef,.LNps G Hunt lied that the Carbon Tax cost Australia $36 billion while in fact the C tax brought in $15 billion over the two years that it ran and emissions by 5% or nine times faster than the previous 5 years Liberal party was about the only government in the world to battle against renewables and electric cars no doubt under the orders of the resources corporations but hey why give a shit.

  3. mars08

    But… but…. eh… but the terrorisms is coming to halal our flag!!!!

  4. Adrianne Haddow

    But don’t forget that coal is good for humanity.
    It will bring the modern world to those poor unfortunates in village India, if only their government would provide a power grid that reached them.

    The Queensland government via their resources minister is considering extinguishing the native title of the Wangan and Jaglingou people because the Adani company wants their land to build a super dooper mine, airport, power station, train line to the coast and worker’s accommodation near the Great Barrier Reef.
    And the persistent vexatious indigenous people refuse to be bought out or litigated out so I guess our representatives in government will just legislate them out.

    So it’s only non-Australian humanity that coal is good for.

    A little bit of India in Australia……
    One wonders what sweeteners came this way for the Libs and their Labour mates to fight so vehemently for that particular mine.

    Adrian Burragubba, community leader is asking for support via emails through Community Run to the Queensland premier and resources minister.

  5. Kaye Lee

    Canada has promised $2.65 billion over five years to help developing countries cope with climate change. The UK has committed £21 million for disaster management and £5.5 million for the ocean-based economy. Australia has committed $1 million for a new Commonwealth idea: a Climate Finance Access Hub.

    http://thecommonwealth.org/media/news/australia-britain-and-canada-commit-climate-change-action-commonwealth-summit#sthash.C0dE421o.dpuf

    ONE million? That’s less than Malcolm’s expense account for the year. Yeah, we are really committed to establishing all sorts of hubs but don’t ask us to reduce our emissions or our exports of fossil fuels. Greg Hunt has already achieved stacks of emissions that will perhaps happen some time in the future but may have been double counted and, far from being far cheaper, they COST us rather than us collecting the money – a point Greg Hunt likes to gloss over when comparing the cost of emissions reduction.

    PS Turnbull at least looked very embarrassed in the clip I saw as he should. I hope they keep the pressure on him rather than congratulating him just for coming instead of Tony

  6. PC

    Just for one day don’t give a shit? Murdoch’s zombies have been programmed not to give a shit at all about the catastrophic collapse of Earth’s life support system.

  7. philgorman2014

    And don’t forget the People’s Climate March, be there or be square, Sunday 29th. We’re all being treated as drips so join all us other drips until we become a raging torrent.

  8. philc

    This morning Ian MacNamara (Macca of the overflowing mouth), that font of all knowledge on the ABC , just read one of his old Aussie poems. It proved, he said, that there have always been fires in Oz therefore everything Tim Flannery says is rubbish and there is no climate change. So there you go. Who needs science? Who needs records? Just read an old poem, listen to Macca, and let’s all go back to sleep. And the silly pricks will do just that.

  9. Mercurial

    Less lead, clean living. It’s not good for you.

  10. Chris the Greatly Dismayed

    Macca obviously only pretends to care about this country, like all those people who ‘accidentally’ light fires, hate native vegetation and want to shoot wildlife….
    The People’s Climate March in Adelaide was great except it would have been better starting at the trashed, wrecked and inhospitable Victoria Square and ending at the far more comfortable army barracks park. Across the road from which was some sort of car show, with Volkswagens and VW clubs occupying prime position near the road….somewhat irony. The VW appreciation club had a nazi style eagle clasping a VW symbol instead of a swastika which seemed a very weird de-sensitization to nazi symbolism.
    The cricket was on and the governors residence was having a tea party open day……..
    On one side of the King William Street bridge over the Torrens I pointed out to the kids the bright swirls of blue-green algae and on the other side the river fountain was spraying the filthy water up into the air over the cricket goers and rev-heads………

    We had a ‘beyond excellent’ Vietnamese lunch in Chinatown and I gave away all the money I had left in my wallet to homeless people on the way back to the car.
    That’s Adelaide for you…..

  11. Chris the Greatly Dismayed

    My eucalypt seeds are not ‘giving a shit’ when they decided to begin germinating today. : )
    ….cold comfort considering the number of old hollowed ones down after the recent fire and the iconic mallee box that ‘had to go’ for the trenching for the free waste water pipe to water shit house grape vines in the Barossa Valley.
    …But….but…the shitty grapevines make money and provide employment……
    So you couldn’t avoid the 4 or 500 year old tree at the start of the highway to my town ?
    …..we didn’t care about that……it was in the way……the plan didn’t tell us to go around it…….
    The road to my town now looks like any other shitty highway……..apart from all the burnt paddocks and downed and smouldering trees (I think it must be fire service policy to pull down any smouldering hollow trees. I don’t think they all fell down without help. They were also about to chip the one Eremophila longifolia along that road as we drove back. It has looked dead for a while due to fertilizer use from the adjacent paddock but has many suckers that the main tree protects and is no doubt connected to. It has useful medicinal properties….. http://www.swinburne.edu.au/magazine/7/133/bush-medicine-for-a-germ-killing-heart-saving-gargle/ )
    Native vegetation was not responsible for the destructiveness of this fire. It was all due to weed grasses and grain paddocks, stubble and hay bales but native vegetation still has to pay.

  12. Sen Nearly Ile

    i don’t give a …. about the crap.
    It is simple:
    we got rich on coal and oil and the fogs and smogs attest to the cost.
    Our life style is oil dependent and the killing shows how far we will go
    But there are 5+ billion who deserve to get as rich as we are without the damage of fossil fuels so renewables are essential for those people as a first priority.

  13. Pingback: Today is ‘Don’t Give a Shit Day’ – » The Australian Independent Media Network | olddogthoughts

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