The cry is for leadership, but not as we know it

The cry for leadership from our leaders can be heard across the country, and of course the world.

All that noise is rather subjective for one man’s leader is another’s despot.

Climate change supplants those arguments for now we are being dictated to by something else and although it is natural, it is also man-made and leaders, past and present, and often unknowingly, have led us to this nexus.

'All that noise is rather subjective for one man’s leader is another’s despot'

That plea for leadership, both courageous and decidedly different from what has led us to this collision of circumstances, was made by several people at a recent Shepparton discussion initiated by the National Climate Change Adaption Research Facility (NCCARF).

Sherri Goodman.

Many ideas were tabled and discussed about how communities and broader nation could adapt to the changing state of the climate, and so the weather, but, it was agreed implementation of those ideas needed leadership.

The idea that we need leadership surfaced again when the former U.S. Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Environmental Security), Sherri Goodman, who is now with the Wilson Centre to America, was answering questions after her recent address at  the University of Melbourne’s Lab-14.

The last question of evening from the audience was on often heard at such events: “What do you suggest should be the first thing we do when we go home tonight?”

“Elect a leader who will act,” she answered, suggesting we need leaders who will move to mitigate the causes of climate change.

Her warnings about the implications of the world’s damaged climate system were dire and she used examples of conflicts around the world, along with potential and emerging catastrophes to illustrate her argument.

Dr Louise Jeffrey talking
with the Director of the
Australian-German College
art the University of
Melbourne.

 Earlier that same day a post-doctoral researcher from Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), in Dr. Louise Jeffery, talked about “Aviation, shipping, and the Paris Agreement”. 

Her message was equally daunting and as there are complications as to who and where the carbon emissions are attributed, there were blatant implications that they were matters whose resolution rested with commanding leadership.

Dr Jeffrey is a 2017 EU Centre Visiting Fellow at the University of Melbourne. 

Leadership is not just about instituting and applying the practical matters that will slow climate change, it also has a sociological aspect for leaders need to help us see the elephant in the room - the emergence in the 20th Century and its solidification in the 21st of individuality and rights that clash with the science that tells us that we must prepared to forego some of individual personal pleasure to allows for the greater good.