Garnaut - initial thoughts

Unless you've been living under a rock lately (or at least living outside of Australia) todays release of the Garnaut report would come as no surprise.

Now, let me say at the outset that I've not read the report yet, as it's just on 600 pages in length. Anything I note below is really the result of a quick 'skim through' of the main report, and the analysis in the media.

But the first thing I've observed in a remarkable level of acceptance among the major players (maybe they've not read the report either) The farmers seem reasonably happy (agriculture has been excluded in the initially proposed trading scheme), the conservation movement seems comfortable (albeit that we could do more) and the union movement seems to be on board as well. Even the Business Council of Australia is apparently OK with the proposal to ramp the scheme up slowly in the first two years.

Predictably the Federal Opposition are dissenters. Not having learned the obvious lesson from last years spanking in the polls, Brendan Nelson and co., aren't exactly on board with the imperative to address Climate Change. Brendan wants to source his own advice (as if the last 12 months of effort by Professor Garnaut counts for naught) and is warning against "rushing in" (despite all the scientific opinion that says we need to do just that).

But even more disappointing to me than the Liberals who, frankly, we've come to expect this from, is the level of uninformed, unintelligent "commentary" from the general public. Here is just a small selection from some of the News Ltd web sites

It would be complete lunacy for Australia to implement this report, given that we are a miniscule polluter in global terms. This has got to be one of those government reports that gets filed away and forgotten. -- Dumfounded of Adelaide

Correct me if I'm wrong. So the poor really don't have to worry because no matter what they contribute to climate change they will be compensated? Typical Rudd screw the people that want to get ahead and reward those that don't! -- Barry of of don't blame me I didn't vote Labor

Tax, tax and more damn taxes. Does a Labor government know anything different? Already one of the highest taxed nations in the developed world. What fools voted for Krudd. Thanks -- Peter of Adelaide

To borrow a phrase from The Chaser - "these people vote!"

What I have picked up thus far from Garnaut is something I've been looking to see for some time, and that's a simple acceptance that we have to do this, and that it is going to cost. The sooner that we can get that message out there, the sooner that we can get on with implementing a solution. I see no way that we can make the dramatic kind of greenhouse reductions that are needed, without changing people's behaviour. And I can't see how we can change people's behaviour without a financial incentive to do so.

For that reason, and this is where many of course will disagree, the current rise in the price of oil has got to be seen as an opportunity, as much as it's seen as a problem. If the need is to reduce emissions, and if reducing car use is a part of that, then what better way to get cars off the road than for it to be too expensive to drive them? Isn't that kind of what London did with their congestion tax? According to the ABC, that tax, and the subsequent increase in fuel prices, is now causing people to saddle up their bicycles en masse instead.

A visionary government will see this, realise there's little it can do about the price of oil anyway, and take advantage of the opportunity afforded to bring forward some of the needed changes.

But I have my doubts that we have anyone with any political courage or any vision left, and that's sad, because we've never needed them so much.

Tomorrow, I'll find some time to get into the detail of Garnaut's report, then I'll head out into the bush with Bearded Dave and we'll do a few hours of bushcare work. That way I'll know that I've at least done my bit.

Creeping Change

The past few days of drizzle are most welcome after another few dry months. The gully that flows through our property would normally be burbling merrily by this time of year, but a few small pools are still all that it has to show for itself.

Wandering around the property on the weekend, the impact of the past two dry summers is still very evident. Hillsides that would normally be verdant green, are a sea of brown where whole areas of bracken died back last summer. Those areas are usually accompanied too by clumps of dead stringybark, among them a handful of the largest stringybarks on the property. At least one of the larger trees seems to have been missed in the Great Lopping of the 40's, so its sad to see such a tree go.

The bush will recover of course, but not quite as it was before. There will be a few less mature trees, a few less stringybarks - perhaps the areas covered by bracken (where the bandicoots seek refuge) will be a tiny bit smaller. And this is how climate change manifests itself - gradually.

Bit by bit the bush will change under the pressure of drier and hotter summers, and each year the Stringbark forest will recede a tiny, imperceptible bit. Species like the bandicoot will move away with it - if they can. Other species will move in, or establish themselves more widely and one day we'll look back and realise that the whole ecology has changed. Forever.

We're fortunate to own such a beatiful and biodiverse piece of bush, in such fantastic condition. And one of my Big Goals is to be able to hand our bit of bush over to the Princess Irulan when she grows up, in better condition than when we bought it.

But the impact of climate change is causing me to worry that that won't be achievable.