By Michael Whelan
I READ Oliver Jobe’s article My local MP blocked me and the sage advice by people from my baby boomer generation suggesting ways he could become better informed. My reaction was “Well done to Oliver for having your say and more particularly for sharing it in a publication that doesn’t generally represent the views of young people.”
I don’t need to agree with Oliver to thank him and I have sufficient memory to know how I would have reacted at his age to old people telling me how to think. Especially if I looked at the environment, climate, biased taxation system and the parlous housing prospects that the younger generations are being bequeathed by my generation.
I READ Oliver Jobe’s article My local MP blocked me and the sage advice by people from my baby boomer generation suggesting ways he could become better informed. My reaction was “Well done to Oliver for having your say and more particularly for sharing it in a publication that doesn’t generally represent the views of young people.”
I don’t need to agree with Oliver to thank him and I have sufficient memory to know how I would have reacted at his age to old people telling me how to think. Especially if I looked at the environment, climate, biased taxation system and the parlous housing prospects that the younger generations are being bequeathed by my generation.
You’re not the only one being blocked. Following the decision by Environment Minister Murray Watt to approve a 40-year extension for Woodside’s climate destroying North West Shelf project. I wrote an article attacking the new Labor Government’s decision to sell out future generations by allowing the ongoing release of massive volumes of carbon pollution. A decision that Albanese had cynically hidden during the election campaign.
The Post editor politely advised me that she wouldn’t be publishing it as it wasn’t about Bass Coast. That in itself is an interesting position from two perspectives: How do we get community discussion on issues that impact us all, such as climate change or the current push toward a hard right regime in the USA and its implications for Australia’s strategic approach to defence of Australia? Secondly I would feel happier if the massive amount of carbon emissions were to be contained in the North West Shelf airshed and only impact the climate in the north west of Australia but it has global implications for us all.
But playing the game – how is it local? I’ve always thought the ecological principle of “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts” was the way to tackle a monstrous problem like climate change. Ten years ago I considered what I could do about the threat of climate change and its insidious potential to make life incredibly hard for my children and increasingly for my grandchildren in future decades.
So, I stepped up and joined Bass Coast Council and served for eight years as a councillor with two years as mayor. I contributed to the declaration of the Bass Coast climate emergency and to the preparation of the Climate Action Plan at a time when there was a national vacuum on climate action. Over that time we established an Environment Fund, built the first Passivhaus building in Bass Coast, and contracted to buy green electricity for council activities.
I served for five years as chair of the South East Councils Climate Change Alliance and during that time we changed our approach and became more ambitious on climate projects. We were an effective unit bringing together the efforts of nine councils to make a difference. We also took the message to Canberra and lobbied both sides of politics, seeking a partnership for effective climate action.
I finished up my time as a councillor thinking I had made a contribution and done as much as I could. So I watched the recent federal election with interest, even writing about it in the Post. I was haunted by the thought of going back to the bad old days of climate denial with a Dutton Government.
The outcome was “better” than the early polls were predicting but, like many people who value action to address environmental degradation and wanted more effective action on climate, I had hoped for a minority government with a requirement for the government of the day to consult on a wider agenda.
I wasn’t surprised by the decision made by Minister Watt in approving the North West Shelf Woodside gas extension but I was gutted. It makes an approval of the Browse Basin also likely and it shows the Government is firmly in the fossil fuel industry’s pocket.
It feels that all the work that I and others have done, the little bits here and there in Bass Coast, across the region, and across the country, are all for nothing. A wilfully ignorant government can, with the stroke of a pen, approve a carbon bomb that makes everything we do, and can do, pale to insignificance.
That is how I felt as a 70-plus-year-old man. But we should take a moment to think of how our younger generations regard this as they look at politicians ignoring the interests of young people while still courting their votes. We have a strong coterie of young people in Bass Coast who are active on climate and other issues and who strongly feel the weight of this action by the Labor Government. The extension of gas extraction on the North West Shelf until 2070 is a disgraceful sellout of future generations of Australians.
Both major parties are in bed with the fossil fuel interests and miners more generally. Remember when then Environment Minister Sussan Ley appealed against a court decision that she as environment minister had an obligation to consider the interests of future generations? Seriously – our children’s interest don’t matter?
They didn’t matter to a Liberal National Government then and they clearly don’t matter to a Labor Government now.
So more power to your writing arm, Oliver. As Bob Dylan put it when I was young and angry about Vietnam and environmental destruction, the time they are a-changin’. Climate change is being felt right here in Bass Coast with coastal erosion, the threat of inundation and a greater bushfire and heat wave threat.
The demographics are also changing. As baby boomers recede in influence, we should listen to Oliver and his generation - but it won’t matter if we don’t because increasingly they have the numbers.
The Post editor politely advised me that she wouldn’t be publishing it as it wasn’t about Bass Coast. That in itself is an interesting position from two perspectives: How do we get community discussion on issues that impact us all, such as climate change or the current push toward a hard right regime in the USA and its implications for Australia’s strategic approach to defence of Australia? Secondly I would feel happier if the massive amount of carbon emissions were to be contained in the North West Shelf airshed and only impact the climate in the north west of Australia but it has global implications for us all.
But playing the game – how is it local? I’ve always thought the ecological principle of “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts” was the way to tackle a monstrous problem like climate change. Ten years ago I considered what I could do about the threat of climate change and its insidious potential to make life incredibly hard for my children and increasingly for my grandchildren in future decades.
So, I stepped up and joined Bass Coast Council and served for eight years as a councillor with two years as mayor. I contributed to the declaration of the Bass Coast climate emergency and to the preparation of the Climate Action Plan at a time when there was a national vacuum on climate action. Over that time we established an Environment Fund, built the first Passivhaus building in Bass Coast, and contracted to buy green electricity for council activities.
I served for five years as chair of the South East Councils Climate Change Alliance and during that time we changed our approach and became more ambitious on climate projects. We were an effective unit bringing together the efforts of nine councils to make a difference. We also took the message to Canberra and lobbied both sides of politics, seeking a partnership for effective climate action.
I finished up my time as a councillor thinking I had made a contribution and done as much as I could. So I watched the recent federal election with interest, even writing about it in the Post. I was haunted by the thought of going back to the bad old days of climate denial with a Dutton Government.
The outcome was “better” than the early polls were predicting but, like many people who value action to address environmental degradation and wanted more effective action on climate, I had hoped for a minority government with a requirement for the government of the day to consult on a wider agenda.
I wasn’t surprised by the decision made by Minister Watt in approving the North West Shelf Woodside gas extension but I was gutted. It makes an approval of the Browse Basin also likely and it shows the Government is firmly in the fossil fuel industry’s pocket.
It feels that all the work that I and others have done, the little bits here and there in Bass Coast, across the region, and across the country, are all for nothing. A wilfully ignorant government can, with the stroke of a pen, approve a carbon bomb that makes everything we do, and can do, pale to insignificance.
That is how I felt as a 70-plus-year-old man. But we should take a moment to think of how our younger generations regard this as they look at politicians ignoring the interests of young people while still courting their votes. We have a strong coterie of young people in Bass Coast who are active on climate and other issues and who strongly feel the weight of this action by the Labor Government. The extension of gas extraction on the North West Shelf until 2070 is a disgraceful sellout of future generations of Australians.
Both major parties are in bed with the fossil fuel interests and miners more generally. Remember when then Environment Minister Sussan Ley appealed against a court decision that she as environment minister had an obligation to consider the interests of future generations? Seriously – our children’s interest don’t matter?
They didn’t matter to a Liberal National Government then and they clearly don’t matter to a Labor Government now.
So more power to your writing arm, Oliver. As Bob Dylan put it when I was young and angry about Vietnam and environmental destruction, the time they are a-changin’. Climate change is being felt right here in Bass Coast with coastal erosion, the threat of inundation and a greater bushfire and heat wave threat.
The demographics are also changing. As baby boomers recede in influence, we should listen to Oliver and his generation - but it won’t matter if we don’t because increasingly they have the numbers.