At the start of the year 2008, the Australian Rudd government announced their long awaited 2020 emissions reduction targets of 5% off 2000 levels (...hey I thought the benchmark was relative to 1990 levels? I thought it was 20%?) complete with contingencies on the rest of the world, innuendo and hand outs to the coal industry and polluting heavy industry whom may be “inconvenienced” by having to start absorbing a tiny fraction of the true cost of their operations.
The green sector is in outrage that the government has gone soft, promising big for the election, and delivering little in reality. They should be upset, because in their eyes, their savior political party has taken its eyes off the prize and succumbed to the under-the-table politics of coal, oil and big business. Perhaps they have...
But hang on a moment. Consider this thought – aren't we ALL to blame? Don't we turn our Halogen lights on in our Air Conditioned Homes, whilst watching our Plasma TV's? Don't we drive our Cars to work and sit in Air Conditioned Offices thinking of where we will Fly to on our Holidays? Don't we all consume the goods, products and services produced by the same industry lobbying the government for the soft-start emissions targets?
Fact is, society and our current lifestyle has to lie somewhere in the blame stack for our climate change problem. We all want it now, and we want it bigger, better and more than before – and all for less.
So let's stop trying to transfer the blame to our poor politicians – these guys just represent an aggregate of wants and opinions, which at this point in time represents our consumerism culture. There should be no surprises here. The difference starts within each of us, by changing what do, adjusting our points of view and lifestyles, consuming less energy and making better and more efficient use of what we have.
It's up to us, one step at a time.
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This manages to try to blame without actually offering any suggestions.
I'm particularly fond of the phrase "over airconditioned"--that seems somewhat arbitrary doesn't it? It seems to cover both cooling (air conditioning) and heating (running the furnance), on the theory that using less of each means less energy usage, and hence less coal/CO2/etc. It hearkens back to a century ago and basically says, "See? We lived without these things then."
It seems cutting down on air conditioning is rather like mas transit--everybody thinks it's a great idea for the other guy and have a myriad of reasons why they don't do it themselves. Obama was the perfect example of this--after lecturing Americans many times about "over airconditioning" the first thing he did in the White House was to turn up the furnance to keep the rooms warmer (apparently he likes to work in shirt sleeves). After lecturing people on the one there was a reason why he couldn't do it...all lecture, no example.
I have a better idea--let's make our energy sources cleaner, simpler nad more diverse rather than reducing our level of civilization.
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