Published 5 May 2009 · Main Posts we’re going to burn Jeff Sparrow Maybe I’m too pessimistic but I just can’t see now how there’s now going to be any serious action on climate change in the short to medium term. As Bernard Keane argues, the Rudd government’s latest amendments to its emissions trading scheme represents ‘almost complete surrender to the largest polluters, who will now face virtually no increased cost associated with their carbon emissions’. The whole tenor of Rudd’s approach has been to insist that there’s no crisis, no emergency, and that targets for carbon reduction can be dickered about as if they were donations to a charity, where you just give amount depending on how generous you feel. Framed that way, they’ll always be trumped by some more immediate issue. As David Spratt argues in the forthcoming edition of Overland, the real argument’s quite different. Either you accept the science or you don’t. If you agree with the scientific consensus, you reach certain targets or you suffer the consquences. You can’t just do the best you can since failing by a small amount produces results just as disastrous as failing by a lot. That’s why climate denialism seems to be gaining ground. By acting as if climate change were simply another issue to be bargained about, the Rudd government sends out the message that, really, it thinks the scientists are exaggerating. And if you agree with that — if you feel that the scientific establishment isn’t telling the truth when it warns of looming disaster — why do anything at all? In any case, it’s clear now that there’s going to be a hard core of climate denialists in the conservative parties and that these people will have the continued support of the Murdoch press (despite Rupert’s alleged conversion some years back). In other words, there’s not going to be a political consensus about the need for action. To get anything done, Rudd will have to stare down the Australian and and its tabloid siblings. In other words, he’ll have to fight. And that’s something for which he’s never shown any enthusiasm. Jeff Sparrow Jeff Sparrow is a Walkley Award-winning writer, broadcaster and former editor of Overland. More by Jeff Sparrow › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 28 March 20249 April 2024 · Main Posts Why we should value not only lived experience, but also lived expertise Sukhmani Khorana In the wake of this year’s International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, I want to extend the central idea of El Gibbs’s 2022 essay on 'lived expertise' and argue that in media accounts of racism, analytical expertise and lived experience ought to be valued together and even in the same body. 5 March 2024 · Main Posts Andrew Charlton’s school assignment Alex McKinnon Australia's Pivot to India exists for three reasons: so that when Andrew Charlton is interviewed on the radio or introduced on Q+A, his bio includes the phrase "he has written a book about Indian-Australian relations"; to fend off accusations that he is another Kristina Keneally engaging in electoral colonialism in western Sydney; and to help the Albanese government strengthen economic and military ties with Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.