‘Nice’ climate talk won’t wash

Have you ever wondered about the difference between a nice person and a good person?

It’s not something I had thought about much, well, not at all really, until my son said he considered himself a “nice person”, while his sister, he said, was a “good person”.

A nice person, he argues, is someone who never upsets another, lives a quiet life, is agreeable in every sense, avoids any sort of confrontation — verbal or physical, is polite, courteous and never refuses a request for assistance, but of course help is never offered until the request is made.

His sister, according to him, is a good person and while she has all those “nice” attributes, she never avoids a verbal confrontation and without hesitation calls out anyone whose behaviour, verbal or otherwise offends personal or societal mores.

My son, I like to think is a reflection of myself as I have always considered myself a “nice person”, a claim, I’m sure, many would question, doubt or even laugh about.

Whatever, I’ve always seen my life through the prism of “nice”, but sadly events have forced a serious rethink as nearly 15 years of listening and reading have left me with no option to reconsider how I respond to the musings of others.

The damage you and I have done to Earth’s atmosphere is clearly evident and anyone who doesn’t respond by helping mitigate our carbon dioxide emissions or help us better understand and employ adaptive ideas, needs to be called out as by implication they stand with those who deny the reality of the climate crisis.

A nice person would “roll with the punches” and a good person would demand better, and so say.

Of course there is another option; an option suggested by former New South Wales fire commissioner, Greg Mullins, who’s said that when people doubt and question the connection between climate change and the Australian bushfire crisis, we should just smile politely and walk away.

Sound and “nice” advice, but for me “walking away” is over.

This is going to be tough, as to confront another and question their values and ethics is contrary to my nature and in keeping with youthful climate activist, Greta Thunberg, I rely on the facts and trust the people will see the error in their thinking, and behaviours, and change their ways.

That doesn’t work, facts don’t change minds, but as Scott Morrison illustrated in last year’s federal election victory, emotion and stories based on fanciful information structured around fear of the other, and baseless numbers seem to comfort people and carry the day.

To further complicate matters, while able to understand the broad concept of climate change, I struggle to regurgitate the facts and so argue my position.

The facts, it seems to me, are so clear, so damning and so obvious that simply presentation of them should be evidence enough.

The recent bushfires that swept through parts of Australia are little more than a taste of what is ahead - the world has warmed by just over one degree Celsius and the Paris agreement, which is championed repeatedly by many, including our PM, and has programmed the world for an increase of about 3.5 degrees Celsius.

Peter Doherty.

The root of our troubles is the prevailing economic system, commonly known as “neoliberalism” that promotes and encourages individualism, an idea that puts the success of one ahead of the many.

With that system comes privatisation and the steady erosion of the public sphere and what Canadian author Naomi Klein describes in her appropriately named latest book, On Fire, as the ‘gig and dig’ economy where jobs are not jobs, but precarious ‘gigs’ and the ‘digging’ up of fossil resources.

And contrary to what former Nationals leader, Barnaby Joyce, argues, we need more government in our lives for a thorough and honest examination of what makes this modern life possible, illustrates it all began through the government, that is public, intervention.

Thinking of what exists reminds me of the American Indian adage: “If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together”.

So, fundamentally, if we want to navigate this dilemma we need to invest heavily in the public sphere, redistribute wealth (an anathema to many), stop the wholesale privatisation of our lives, understand that our status is not attached to our acquisitions, and as RMIT associate professor, Anitra Nelson, points out, we all need to learn how to share.

Others, of far greater importance than I, have also stepped aside from nice and taken up the ‘good’ baton and one of the those is Nobel laureate, Professor Peter Doherty.

Professor Doherty, who spoke in Shepparton last year, said in a tweet: ”Get mad not sad! Be mad as hell at politicians who won’t act and the media liars who support them. Be mad at stupidity and ignorance. Rage at the fossil fuel types who screw your world (and theirs) for a few lousy $”.

Thanks, Peter, I’m not sad, rather I’m ‘good’, and mad.

● Robert McLean is a former News editor.

An opinion piece from The Shepparton News - “‘Nice’ climate talk won’t wash.”

Nobel Laureate Peter Doherty discusses being a tourist and talks climate change

Nobel Laureate Peter Doherty was recognised in 1996 for his work in medicine, but has now become an advocate for action on climate change.

Professor Doherty is based at the University of Melbourne working out of the Doherty Institute and commutes between there and the St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, America. He now spends most of his time at the Doherty Institute.

The professor has written several books and the latest - “The Incidental Tourist: The extraordinary travel tales of an eminent scientist” - was discussed on the ABC’s Saturday Extra when Geraldine Doogue interviewed the Nobel Laureate.

His comments about the contribution flying makes to the worsening of climate change come near the end of the interview.

Listen to the discussion between Geraldine Doogue and Professor Doherty. 

The book is published by Melbourne University Press.

Win a signed copy of 'Sunburnt Country' by Joëlle Gergis

Nobel Laureate Peter Doherty has heaped praise on “Sunburnt Country: the history and future of climate change in Australia” by Joelle Gergis.

He said: “It’s a book that should be read by every Australian”.

And now Beneath the Wisteria followers have a chance win one of two copies the new book personally signed by Joelle.

The book, Sunburnt Country, it says on the back cover, highlights the impact of a warming plant on Australian lifestyles and ecosystems, and the power we all have to shape future life on earth.

Further, it says, “Sunburnt Country pieces together Australia’s climate history for the first time. It uncovers a continent long vulnerable to climate extremes and variability. It gives an unparalleled perspective of how human activities have altered patterns that have been with us for millions of years, and what climate change looks like in our own backyard.”

One Shepparton reader has said the book is written in plain language and so is accessible and understandable to even those with the most basic grasp of climate science.

Tim Flannery has said that a Sunburnt Country is “A marvellous investigation of Australia’s climate and how we are affecting it.”

Those eager to be in the draw to win one of the two books need simply send their details (name and email address) to Robert McLean before midnight on June 15. Winners will be contacted for details for the mailing out the books.

Dr Gergis is an award-winning climate scientist and writer from the University of Melbourne.

The two books have been made available by the publishers, Melbourne University Press.

Scientists blast lack of NHMRC funding on climate

Heatwaves are becoming more intense,
more frequent and lasting longer in
 Australia, researchers say. 

Australia's premier medical research funder provides almost no research into climate change impacts on health despite the issue providing "a huge challenge for the health sector", a group of leading scientists say in a new paper.

The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) pioneered studies on the urgent need for research into global warming's health impacts with a 1991 report. 

Despite that Australia had spent less than one dollar in every $1000 on health funding to the issue since, the researchers including Nobel laureate Peter Doherty said.

Read Peter Hannam’s story in the Melbourne Age - “Scientists blast lack of NHMRC funding on climate.”

Discussing the fragmention of climate change debate

The fragmentation of the debate around climate change was on the agenda at the Perth Writers Festival in February this year.

Listen and watch: “Breaking the Impasse: Peter Doherty, Richard Denniss & Laura Tingle on global warming”.

Promotional material for the festival says, “We’re at a tipping point when it comes to global warming, and yet political discourse on the subject is often reduced to point scoring.

“How do we overcome the left–right impasse to achieve a collective will for action?”

Discussion the subject are Nobel laureate Peter Doherty, the Australia Institute’s chief economist Richard Denniss, and journalist Laura Tingle discuss this subject with Di Darmody at the Perth Writers Festival this year.

Unimagined, unforeseen difficulties demand dramatic, innovative and imaginative response

by Robert McLean

Hitherto unimagined and unforeseen difficulties demand an equally dramatic, innovative and imaginative response.

Climate change has become even more vigorous, more vivid and has maybe reached a measurable tipping point taking the world, and particularly humanity into unexplored territory.

The ultimate outcome of war - death and
destruction. An inevitable result of climate
change unless the people can again take
control of the levers of social change.

From here on in, it is like we are speeding down a busy highway, blindfolded with little more than hope to ensure we avoid crashing.

So continuing with “business as usual” was have realised the fears of many scientists, including those of Nobel Laureate Peter Doherty, who wrote four years ago about his concerns that we would be forced into a “fire engine” mode to counter some major, and perhaps irreversible global disaster.

Well, all the numbers suggest that the feared “fire engine” mode, that need for a global and sweeping response to our inattention and willful ignorance, or is it “rational ignorance?”,  has arrived.

Two questions immediately come into focus – what and how?

The first question is probably not the most critical as it revolves around our energy use and consumptive habits, but the second question of how we go about changing those behaviours, holding on to what we enjoy about modernity and along with that preserving our civility and decency is probably the most complex and perplexing of the dilemmas.

More than a decade ago, Richard Heinberg wrote about the party being over and although his book, “The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies” now populates the remainder tables, it was rather prescient.

So how do we wean humanity off gift-rich, party-like atmosphere of the fossil fuel era without a collapse in social disarray?

Unsure, but it will take hitherto unseen leadership embedded in a charisma and with an urgency that swept the world as it gathered resources in the late 1930s in preparation for what was to become World War Two.

It is a sad but necessary comparison for war is about destruction and our attempts to mitigate and adapt to climate change are quite the reverse for this is about the bonding of humanity, it is about having a common goal, it is about the realization that unless we work together, collaborate and share our resources then as Heinberg said early this century, “the party’s over”.

Sadly, those who have profited most from this uninhibited fossil-fuelled party have control of society’s levers of change and until they either surrender that control (unlikely) or conditions on earth become such that they lose control, then we are destined for damnable difficult times.

Time is remarkably short, there is a pressing urgency about addressing the advance of climate change and I have no resort other than optimism – the hope that what I sense is a growing movement among people that will demand, irresistibly, that the “business-as-usual brigade” change its behaviour and put the welfare of the planet ahead of profit.

I hope that happens and I hope that happens quickly for we are now deep in what has been described by many as the “critical decade”.

Four years gone, four years to go - what are our chances?

-       Robert McLean

The 2012 book.

Just four years ago the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute assembled the thoughts of more than 30 people and subsequently published “2020: Vision for a Sustainable Society”.

The resultant book was not on the best seller list, I suspect, despite being timely, educative, informative and alive with information that would have made the achievement of a sustainable society in eight years possible, or at least not impossible.

Writing about “Public Wisdom” Tim van Gelder said public opinion falls a long way short of public wisdom.

van Gelder quoted democracy theorist, James Fishkin, who said “Respondents are generally ill-informed; they are usually “rationally ignorant” on the topic.

“Individuals’ attitudes are subject to manipulation by powerful forces pursuing their own agendas: eg, major corporations resisting tax system changes.

“The opinions elicited in standard polls may be artificially manufactured by the polling process itself: ie, may not reflect any real view held by the respondents but rather views shaped by that process,” Fishkin said.

The forward for the book which declares on an opening page, “For our grandchildren”, written by a Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Australian National University and both a Vice-Chancellor's Fellow and Professorial Fellow of Economics at The University of Melbourne, Ross Garnaut AO, ends in saying:

Professor Ross Garnaut.

“What Australians do over the next few years will have a significant influence on humanity’s prospects for handing on the benefits of modern civilisation to future generations. This book will help Australians understand their part in the global effort for sustainability.”

Nobel Prize Laureate, Peter Doherty, was awarded and shared the prize in 1996 for his work in discovering how the immune system recognises virus-infected cells.

The University of Melbourne Professor wrote about disease and his concluding “Actions for 2020” were:

A sustainable society must be a fairer world that promises health and global wellbeing. Medical, agricultural and other professionals can provide expertise, but what is really needed are innovative economic models and courageous political leadership.

Hopefully, we can mobilise the necessary will before we are forced to act in “fire engine” mode to counter some major, and perhaps irreversible, global disaster. Though agreed international regulatory frameworks and collective action clearly have important roles to play, any effective action can only work via mechanisms that also emphasise individual enterprise, insight and inventiveness. Perhaps what we need most is innovative and business entrepreneurs who function as global gamekeepers, not poachers, and focus as much on human as on financial capital. A dedication to greed makes people fundamentally callous and less than human. Giving back enhances lives, not least the life of the giver.

The book, “2020: Vision for a sustainable society” was published in 2012, allowing humanity just eight years for concrete action – that has been halved and we now have just four of those critical years left.

Claims of success are many, but the simple and measurable reality is that our carbon dioxide emissions continue to climb worsening the risk of irreversible climate change and so with just four years left until this arbitrary date arrives, we have in fact done little to change our behaviours and so seriously mitigate our carbon dioxide emissions or understand how and when we should adapt to what is unfolding.

Many point to the Paris climate conversations and with considerable glee claim that global agreement to tackle climate change was significant and important.

Maybe it was a global agreement and while that acknowledgement is critical, the Earth’s climate has been disrupted to such an extent that the world needs more than words, it needs a style of action replicating what happened among allied countries in the lead-up to the Second World War, anything less will not do.  

What do we need to reach a sustainable society?

Narratives: a sustainable future will be attractive.

Actions: specifics to achieve sustainability. Largely, behaviour and policy changes, not technology.

Evidence: research to identify what is needed and its impact when it occurs. Publicise success.

Commitment: join the movement.

Partners: civil society, government, business and media working in concert.

Is proof overrated? October Wheeler Centre debate

T

he concept of scientific proof is an important one in a rational society, but what does ‘proof’ really mean and how does it inform public policy in practice?

Policy-makers often cite research as proof on contested issues. But whether or not overwhelming evidence necessarily leads to evidence-based policy is another question. Is proof overrated? How does Australian society use research to inform its decisions?

'Is Proof Overrated?' is being staged in partnership with the Wheeler Centre and University of Melbourne Research Institutes, and explores how proof is used by society to make decisions and the role that research plays in informing public policy in practice.

The panellists are Professor Peter Doherty, Associate Professor Megan Munsie, Dr Ranjana Srivastava, Professor Kate Auty, and Dr Sara Bice, who between them have a wealth of experience in both policy-making and research.

They and host Sally Warhaft will have a spirited debate about the role of research in the choices we make about everything from energy technologies, social equity, and environmental policies to our use of medical breakthroughs and new communication technologies.

Australia 'public enemy number one' - Peter Doherty

A

ustralia is emerging as “public enemy number one” of the United Nations climate change negotiations to be held in Paris in December, according to a Nobel laureate of medicine speaking from a sustainability symposium in Hong Kong.

Prof Peter Doherty.

Prof Peter Doherty is representing Australia at the symposium, held every three years and which is being attended by 11 other laureates from around the world, who will sign a memorandum detailing their recommendations for making major cities sustainable.

The four-day symposium ends on Saturday afternoon, and Doherty said a clear message had emerged from his peers, who hold expertise across specialities including climate, economics and business.

“People are saying informally that Australia and Canada are emerging as public enemy number one for the Paris talks on climate,” Doherty said.

Read The Guardian story here: “Australia 'public enemy number one' of UN climate talks, saysNobel laureate”.

Government procrastinates while our reef erodes

The wonder and 
brilliance of the Great
Barrier Reef is being
eroded - it will be
reduced to a shadow
of itself within a
decade.

The Queensland Government procrastinates and argues the science of climate change is inconclusive, suggesting the need of more research, while one of the fundamentals of the state’s infrastructure crumbles.

The Great Barrier Reef, one of the seven natural wonders of the world, is disappearing and according to new report there might less than a quarter of it left within a decade.

A story in today’s (October 2) Melbourne Age, headed: “Great reef catastrophe” reports on a long-term investigation by scientists at Townsville’s Australian Institute of Marine Science who found that coral had been wiped out by intense tropical cyclones, a native species of starfish and coral bleaching.

"The big concern going forward is that if nothing else changes then within 20 years the reef could be in a perilous state," said institute senior scientist Peter Doherty.

The sheer brilliance of the Great Barrier Reef is one of the fundamentals of Queensland’s tourism industry.