let's talk about the weather

Let’s talk about the weather

I have recently ‘enjoyed’ a south coast low.  Nothing particularly unusual about that.  However, the accumulative effect of exaggerated weather events, exactly as climate scientists predicted, is not historically usual, but is now normative.

Hotter than ever, wetter than ever, drier than ever, worst ever fires, worst ever floods, I doubt there is a place on the planet that is not experiencing the accumulative effects of weather events of increasing severity.  All of this with a mere 1.5 global temperature rise. It is now inevitable that this mark will soon be exceeded; in some parts of the world, notably Europe, it has already. More than a global 2 degrees is now more probable than not in the foreseeable future.   These events are but the visible manifestation of a much more extensive problem.

Yesterday, 16 July, Ken Henry gave a very important address at the National Press Club.

Few addresses at the Press Club in recent years have been more important.  This one should be read and heeded by all who are interested in the direction humankind is heading. Unless we address the fundamental imbalance in the relationship between ourselves and the natural order, we face economic as well as environmental problems that technology alone will not have the capacity to solve. He makes the point that recent falls in economic productivity (an observation made by both sides of politics) alongside declining environmental sustainability is not coincidence. If the health and capacity of the natural order is in decline it is inevitable that human productivity will also decline.

Every individual has a responsibility to act given the information available to us, but Ken Henry argues the responsibility of the legislature to enact credible policy is the key. For example, no new dwelling should now be built without a capacity to produce and store solar energy.  No housing complex should be built without investment, and proportional ownership, in a solar farm. In the last two decades there have been several reviews resulting in recommendations that have been ignored by those in power.  Because Albanese and his government now have so much political capital, their responsibility to finally formulate policy that will cement necessary reform, is vital.  If not now then perhaps never, a very depressing outcome for every succeeding generation. If Jim Chalmers is serious about policy that will increase productivity, he must support policy that ensures human activity works with the natural environment, not against it.

It is beyond my capacity to understand that those with the responsibility for energy policy still argue that the cost of transition away from fossil fuels is too high, that at best we need to slow the transition down, at worst abandon it altogether.  The reality is that, had we seriously decided to make the transition 25 years ago, when climate science was already blatantly obvious, and transition easier, we would now be past the most painful parts of transition, enjoying increased productivity.  But no, we endured a quarter of a century wasted in the mire of climate wars. Please don’t tell me we are still there.

Why are we so stupid, so slow to change, so wedded to a path that is going to cause very considerable grief? The answer lies in the way the privileged (I and I suspect you are numbered in this company) have chosen to live our lives as if the natural order must submit to human desire; where possessing is winning, consuming a duty, and moderation is either weakness or losing.  Why is the Church so mute, so reluctant to lead? The answer is that Christianity, since the enlightenment, has become so transfixed with the individual and their salvation that a vision for the individual’s place within the whole created order has been lost. Good has become individualised, not common.

Yes, we are a technologically advanced society, but being economically dependent upon a ceaselessly expanding GDP is dumb.  The Venice wedding of Jeff Bezos was an extreme, crude, even obscene example of outcomes emanating from this madness. It is clear the main players wanted to be admired, even envied, but there was nothing here to be admired, least of all envied.

We need less technology and more wisdom. Science and religion, at least the religion that forms the foundation of my life, sing from the same song sheet.  Both are committed to understanding warp and weft – the manner in which all existence is intertwined. Night and day balance one another, as do the seasons of the year. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. “When a butterfly stretches its wings in South America, the weather patterns of Europe change”.   We share some DNA with all living, breathing life. A forest is a living ecosystem where each element contributes to, and gains from, the rest. The same is true of the ocean.  The patterns and cycles of the universe are replicated in miniature on earth.   Nothing exists independently, every action has consequences.

‘Commodity’ is a word we use for a disconnected entity. Before a resource became dislocated into a commodity, it belonged somewhere, it was related to something.

A commodity can be moved around, traded, bought or sold, seemingly without consequence.  But it is not without consequence. Donald Trump is the commodity king. His ‘deals’ are trades of one commodity for another. Tariffs are ways of exploiting the price of a commodity. But commodities are not just items such as beef, iron or aluminium, they have come to include land like Panama, Canada and Greenland. Water, air, space human health, - everything has become a commodity to be bartered.

Our economic way of life is based upon commoditising everything.  However, nothing exists by human hand that has not been drawn from the natural order.  It is no wonder that in the western world we humans are the most prosperous and at the same time the most disconnected: as a result, the most prone to the effects of dislocation – loneliness depression, disillusionment and mental health crisis.
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The good news, as Ken Henry points out, is that there is still time for us to do this. The old normal which began with the industrial revolution is over. Those invested in its continuity will do all in their power to pervert and prevent a new order. So far, they have mustered sufficient political influence to achieve their ends. However, the cost of their success is being borne in the present by increasing loss of productivity, extinctions, climate refugees, conflict over resources, insurance denial etc; and in the future by generations who will never enjoy the freedom my generation has taken for granted.
 
 
 
 
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