The new Australian cabinet is a breath of fresh air compared to the previous venal, incompetent lot, but that in itself presents me with a gnawing sense of guilt. Chris Bowen is spruiking a new climate change bill (how wonderful to even have such a thing), but its “target” reductions by 2030 are far too low to line up with +1.5ºC. What’s more, not only is it not a proactive real plan but just wishful projections based on “how the world will change,” it keeps approving new gas mines, some of which guarantee the underlying spreadsheet projections will fail. It is disastrously inadequate.
Adam Bandt, the leader of the Greens, campaigns for phasing out coal/gas electricity plants or mines, exactly what the science tells us we need to do. A poisonous debate brews in which the Greens will be portrayed as climate action wreckers who insist on perfection, a debate I know is simply wrong. Australia must act in line with the Greens proposed policies, that’s all there is to it.
My simmering sense of guilt is a longstanding one. Having dropped out of Extinction Rebellion actions, how now should I act? Especially when I simply cannot afford to suck time away from writing! Can I continue to not act at all?