(Long have I believed
that climate change is such a threat to humanity that it makes most everything
else in the modern world redundant.
Subsequently, I
frequently referred to the dilemma in my weekly (now fortnightly) newspaper
column until several weeks ago when my editor said such references were no
longer appropriate and I was asked to steer away from the subject.
Climate change, however,
has become such a critical and urgent issue that it was something I could no
longer directly avoid and so I wrote this column, which will be published in
the Shepparton News on Monday, November
2)
- Robert McLean
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I
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t’s time to “scare
the horses”.
Great, but what does that mean?
A more than a decade of reading about and listening to some
of the world’s best minds and understanding the damage you and I, and our
fellows are doing and have done to earth’s atmosphere, the constant, although
subtle, message has been not to scare the horses.
Okay, but what does that mean?
The facts about climate change, indisputable and illustrated
beyond debate by the world’s scientific community, are so contrary to life that
to articulate them, as we must if we are to emerge intact from this dilemma,
would freeze people into inaction.
Many have warned of that freeze, along with caveat that many
“lectured” to about their behaviour, re-double their resistance, become angry, even more remote from reason and so
increasingly determined to adhere to behaviours that are worsening our troubles
and align themselves, emotionally and physically, with values contrary to what
the world needs.
Circumstances that manifested themselves in two world wars
most certainly scared the horses and although the responses were varied, people,
although frightened, unsure and uncertain, broadly and generally responded with
a commitment that saw sweeping transformations in behaviour preparing
communities around the world for the privations, destruction, costs and deaths
of war.
Climate change demands an even more disciplined approach,
but unlike a war there is no obvious adversary and so while some are scared and
confused, a small, but powerful and massively influential minority whose power
and influence rest in maintenance of the status quo, continue to laud what
exists and encourage more of the same.
As convincing and as populist as their arguments might
sound, they are false and beyond that, what is proposed for United Nations
climate talks in Paris later this year can be shown as insufficient to put the
world on a path to repair.
Preparations for war illustrated the amazing innovative,
inventive and can do nature of people and within that their adaptability, which
has taken humans to the top of the food chain, as we stood together to confront
a common enemy.
Having a clear understanding of who and where the enemy was
simplified affairs as it gave people a focus; somewhere and something upon which
to vent their frustrations, fears and anger.
Climate change is a more complex, convoluted and wicked
problem as the enemy is “us”, making it difficult and confusing, and somewhat
impossible, to be angry with yourself and along with that put yourself, your
family and friends, and in fact the whole of society of which you are an active
part, in the “enemy” category.
So rather than bolt about like scared horses and be angry
and irrational, we need to understand and accept we were wrong, we made a mistake
and although time is scarce, we need to bond on a war-like footing, make bold
decisions, take equally bold actions and make the great escape.
