by Robert
McLean
Most of us are susceptible to endorsing something
we instinctively approve.
 |
| Kenneth Davidson. |
Conscious of that, each of us
needs to approach what we read with caution as without care we can be swept
along by a current of thinking. Global warming is typical of that, but when examined
in the hard, cold and sceptical light of true analytically consideration, it can
be shown to be correct.
The skeptics/doubters want us to
believe otherwise and of course they would for when you “follow the money” they
are funded almost entirely by the fossils fuels industry, the villains in the
climate change conversation.
For most of the past decade,
global warming has been fundamental to my intellectual diet and years ago it
became obvious to me that it was human-induced and rather waste further time debating
its existence and cause, we needed to be preparing our communities, and more
widely society generally, to survive in a decidedly different future.
Still, there lingered this
nagging concern that I was being swept up by this scientific enthusiasm that
appeared remote from society generally and most in my community.
Events of the past five years
have removed any doubt – civilization is in desperate trouble and the severity
of what is ahead appears to be beyond the intellectual capacity of our leaders,
be they local, state or federal, for the first priority of all appears to be to
protect the economy, which, in reality, has little to do with the ongoing
welfare of civilization.
The economy, a human construct,
as we understand it today is about making certain our wants are answered, when
in reality it should be about answering our needs.
Humans are aspirational, and that
is fine, but those aspirations have become distorted and are about enriching a
few, rather than answering the needs of billions.
However, despite Tony Abbott and
his cohorts dragging us back into the 1970s we should not be too disheartened
for many things are happening in our communities through which people are attempting
to steer our society toward some workable solution.
I am decidedly pessimistic that
the Australian Government will do much to counteract what is happening to our
climate, but I am optimistic the Australian people will work their way to
answering this profound difficulty.
he business and
political establishment's reverence for free markets should not blind its
members to the fact that even rigid adherence to neoliberal economic theology
provides space for government interference to correct for market failure which
distorts resource allocation and impoverishes the commonwealth.
