Proposals to upgrade the rail infrastructure on the Seymour line are far too
little, far too late.
 |
| Prof Kevin Anderson |
Rail is unquestionable to most environmentally friendly way
to move people and goods, but the climate change broadside that is about to pin
us down will ensure we are not going anywhere.
Rather than invest time, money and effort into figuring out
how we can maintain the status quo, that being “business as usual”, those
energies and resources should be directed at strengthening communities, making
them more resilient and so more able to cope with the unfolding and
unquestionable changes.
Rather than worry about our rail network, we need help
people understand and create the “five-minute-life”, that is, a way of living
which everything important in our day-to-day lives is five minutes cycling or
walking away.
Writing in his latest book, “The Conundrum”, American
journalist, David Owen, argued that if we are to endure the emerging
difficulties; we should not be going anywhere.
His “stay at home” philosophy is about each of us using less
energy and so reducing our carbon dioxide emissions; emissions that according
to the world’s leading climatologist, James Hansen, are making the world an
uncomfortable place.
Hansen’s thoughts, and warnings, have been repeated by a
former director of Manchester University’s
Tyndall Centre, the UK's
leading academic climate change research organization, Professor Kevin
Anderson.
Watching what is happening in and around Shepparton suggests
that many continue blissfully unaware of the shifts in lifestyle predicted by
the likes of Hansen and Anderson.
After two century-long indoctrination into the capitalistic
insistence on growth, most of us, myself included, are unable to escape the
mantra that life should be bigger, better, faster, safer, happier and packed
with consumer goods, mostly resulting from fossil-fuelled energies.
A few minutes spent listening to either Hansen or Anderson will remind us,
that our future will be somewhat different from that decades-long promise.
Interestingly, a friend recently said many young people have
fallen into a depressive malaise because of such doom and gloom, but there is
little I can do other than apologise.
However, what we can do as a broader society is encourage
our governments, at all levels, to force us into decided austerity; an
austerity that would enforce a degree of poverty and so slow our consumptive
behaviour.
Hansen and Anderson’s thoughts were
reinforced when the ABC reported that carbon dioxide levels were now
higher than at any time in the last 800 000 years, while the last decade in
Australia was the warmest on record.
To ease the doom and gloom malaise my friend pointed to, we need to invest time
and energy into making our neighbourhoods and our communities more inclusive
and happier places, rather than making them easier to leave.
