Consider this question put to respondents in the latest Oz Newspoll on where an Emissions Trading Scheme stands in the public’s mind in the wake of the global financial meltdown:
Under a carbon pollution reduction scheme, the price of energy sources, such as petrol, electricity and gas may become more expensive. Do you think the federal Government should delay or should not delay the introduction of carbon pollution reduction scheme…
I think our editorial today put it best:
They missed the bit about an ETS also causing the death of all firstborn and heralding the Apocalypse.
Does this line of questioning really add to the debate on climate change and what to do about it? Especially when it produces headlines like “Young turn against 2010 deadline” and “Crisis puts ETS on the backburner”?
One Comment
We indeed are living very interesting times, times of change, and times of huge opportunities. Though, those opportunities will not be for the hesitant. Whether we manage to profit from them or not will depend on the leadership and conviction of this and probably our next government, do not look any further… We are running out of time, and the type of journalism Crikey refers to does a good deal of damage. Australia is a well educated country, though that doesn’t prevent us from falling prey of the easy explanation / argument / solution. Even highly educated people can really miss completely the point, look at the President of AgForce saying we need to give up the reef instead of better regulating our highly inefficient sugar industry. Climate change and its “godfather” global change (i.e. climate change is just one of the drivers of ongoing global change), are really complicated socioeconomic – political – environmental issues. And my main worry is the ridiculous level of real investment the Federal and State governments and their agencies, are making to address our desperate need for information on how to mitigate emission and increase preparedness and adaptive capacity “to change” in regional economies and production systems.