John Lewis explains how somethings are 'Just meant to be'

(This article was published in The Shepparton News on Friday, November 14)

by John Lewis.

Some things are just meant to be.

John Lewis - reporter at the
Shepparton News.

On the day that a product of human ingenuity lands on a faraway comet to find out why the earth has so much water, we finally decide to stop polluting the stuff and shirtfront this climate change mess.

Just as the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission robot touched down on a speeding filthy snowball 510 million kilometres away, China and the United States agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

This is good news for solar panel producers and not so good news for the makers of smog masks.

There are winners and losers everywhere.

At the moment, the Australian Government is losing the battle to convince us we don’t need to do anything about climate change. The Abbott Government and other conservatives argue any decision by Australia to tackle climate change would be pointless while the big polluters continue to filthy up the place.

Consequently, there’s plenty of Australian dollars for fossil fuel producers and not so many for wind farm builders.

That argument yesterday lost a big cornerstone.

The Chinese pledged to cap China’s growing carbon emissions by 2030, or earlier if possible.

The Americans said they would aim for a reduction of 25 per cent or more by 2025.

What a turnaround.

All we need now is India and Russia to get on board and maybe, just maybe, Australian conservatives will be dragged back to the carbon tax table.

As former Prime Minister Paul Keating bluntly said yesterday: ‘‘When you stop pricing pollution, you start gifting money to polluters, you know, you’re on the wrong tram.’’

Makes sense to me — but there again I’m just a little lawnmower with not much shirtfront.

Vladimir Putin is a man with a big shirtfront in the shape of  two very big warships which he is apparently sending our way.

Perhaps he really is a closet One-World Gaia prophet and wants to convince Australia to get on board the world’s climate change cruiser which is now leaving harbour.

But somehow I don’t think so. Mr Putin’s gesture is just another macho stand-off between hairy-chested men.

Unfortunately, hairy-chested men in charge of armies tend to start wars.

So Mr Putin’s gesture does have to be taken seriously.

It also makes the point that when it comes to making threats — think ahead, and make sure you can actually carry them out.

However, governments are not that good at thinking beyond the next economic cycle, which makes the United States and China’s climate change agreement all the more remarkable.

Perhaps European Space Agency scientists need to be consulted on how to tackle climate change — they took 20 years to plan and execute the Rosetta project to help solve a mystery of the universe.

The bigger mystery is why men with big shirts can’t agree to shake hands and save the planet.

That’s thinking ahead.

(John Lewis is a general news and features writer at The Shepparton News.)