The Australian federal government yesterday released its plans to reduce carbon pollution by 5% by 2020 (compared to 2000 levels). I thought that after eleven years of conservatives in parliament house in Canberra, that this year, with a brand new government, would be a turning point. I was wrong. I, and many other Australians, have been let down. Today in the centre of Perth the Greens Senator Scott Ludlum spoke on behalf of all us who feel frustrated by the news. He was on the RTR program Understory this evening, and said that the governement may as well have done nothing as release this paltry 5% target. With government inaction like this the time has come for the community to stand up and protest.
The truth is that physics does not do bargains with lobby groups or make fudges or compromises. The climate does not care about us, or our our political arguments and discussions.
The climate crisis we are now facing is very simply explained. If the melting ice in the Arctic is the canary in the coal mine, then the canary is dead. It is time to evacuate the mine.