A modified excerpt of the following article was published last weekend in The Perth Voice and will also be published this weekend in Fremantle’s local paper, The Herald.
Australia: 2050
November 4
Satis Arnold: A New Voice on Climate Change in Perth
November 2
Today at Murdoch University in Western Australia Satis Arnold, Director of Policy and Planning at Murdoch, gave a presentation on climate change to the assembled students and academics at the Institute of Sustainability and Technology Policy. Satis’ forceful and vibrant delivery, combined with his detailed knowledge of the science and politics around climate change, put many a more measured and boring academic to shame. Satis has recently been on a study tour of North America, meeting the people behind California’s inspirational Climate Action Team, and visiting the Earth Institute at Columbia in New York. Satis’ power point presentation is a whirl wind tour of climate science and a lesson on the greatest threat to humanity. We should all see it. Let me know if you are living in Perth and are interested in seeing the presentation and I’ll let you know next time he’s speaking. If you know of a public venue where you think he could appear, again, let me know. WA now has its own ambassador for the truth that the planet is heating up.
Labour Candidate Feeling Awkward Over Climate Policy
October 30
This evening I was at the Tropicana Cafe in Fremantle for a session introducing the candidates for the 2007 federal election for this area. During the question time a friend of mine asked Melissa Park, the Labour candidate, if her party was committed to cutting total greenhouse gas emissions in line with the aim of avoiding a two degree rise in global temperature (which amounts to 80% to 90% reductions compared to 1990 levels by 2050). Melissa throughout the evening had presented herself as an amiable, well intentioned, and highly intelligent individual. As she stepped to the microphone a shadow of awkwardness crossed her face for a moment. She obviously felt uncomfortable at having to say that no, her party’s target was 60% reductions by 2050. But, she said, it might look at changing this target later on. Here is her moment of weakness:
Steve Walker, the Greens candidate then took the microphone. He said that no matter how nice and well intentioned a Labour candidate such as Melissa Park was, when it came to the hard and fast game of politics, she would be voted out by other less progressive elements in the Australian Labour Party.
He had a point, and he did not feel awkward when he said that the Greens had a set of climate change policies that were designed to help us stay below two degrees in rising temperature, and thus avoid run-away climate chaos.