Abbott wrangles with his own climate paradoxTony Abbott's language so far on his overseas tour betrays a complete lack of connection between what climate change is and what it might do, writes Jonathan Green.
In September 2003 a young man with a fair degree of climbing talent scaled an old power station chimney in central Melbourne and then lowered himself down its long concrete face, painting as he went.
The result was a towering vertical billboard that read, in painstakingly rollered sweeps of white paint: "No jobs on a dead planet."
It stood for ages as a daily reminder to commuters exiting Spencer Street station, that they owed their material wealth and wellbeing to the benign, mild, generosity of this pleasantly hospitable moment in nature.
The chimney is gone now, demolished with its supporting buildings for job-creating legions of apartments. The slogan probably suffered from being so bluntly self-evident.
It lives on as one of those shorthand parodies of environmental concern, probably filed with "land rights for gay whales"; something to be trotted out with a sneering derision while deflecting Green Left Weekly street vendors. "Yeah man. No jobs on a dead planet, man."
None of which makes it any less true, or continually pertinent, as we grapple with the more sobering predictions of climate science, predictions that veer ever closer to the death of what we might recognise as our planet.
And here's a thought for Barack Obama, as he steels himself for imminent discussions with Tony Abbott that may well include the occasional oblique reference to climate change. The man you are talking to is something of a sloganeer.
Now, as an outsider it's hard to tell whether punchy epigrams actually form the totality of Abbott's conversation, but on the basis of the observable evidence, there is that chance. What is more certain is that a man who deals in the slogan may respond positively to an offering in kind.
So Barack, you might like to try this as an opening gambit: "Tony, there are no jobs on a dead planet." It might help break the ice, it might not. It's entirely possible that our PM might just blink uncomprehendingly at first mention, but as with any decent slogan, repetition is the key, so keep nagging away, again and again until you think the thing is so worn with use that it might fall apart at the softest touch. Then say it again.
Maybe it will be Obama, but let's hope that someone, somewhere can make that case to Mr Abbott: that our economy and ecology are intertwined, so closely connected in fact that the transforming degradation of one might well lead to the collapse of the other.
Abbott assures us he is convinced that human induced climate change is a real and happening thing. From that point of agreement we are only arguing about the severity of consequence. On this point the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is fairly clear and succinct.
In its view there is every chance that our world may warm by about four degrees come the end of this century. This will have consequences. As the IPCC puts it, a four degree warmer world would lead to:
Severe and widespread impacts on unique and threatened systems, substantial species extinction, large risks to global and regional food security, and the combination of high temperature and humidity compromising normal human activities.
This four degree world would be the outcome, says the IPCC, if nothing is done to change the rate of carbon emissions from this point. Doing a little would change that, but only by a little.
Chew over the IPCC's words for a moment. "Compromising normal human activities" is an interesting turn of phrase ... you might call it evocative; it kills with understatement.
Bear that phrase in mind when you now consider Abbott's expressed thinking this week on the notion that we ought to act, as people, as countries, as a world, to ameliorate climate change.
It's not that we don't seek to deal with climate change, but we seek to deal with it in a way that will protect and enhance our ability to create jobs and growth and not destroy jobs and growth in our country ... We should do what we reasonably can to limit emissions and avoid climate change, man-made climate change, but we shouldn't clobber the economy.
No. Let's not clobber the economy. There is a ghastly paradox lurking in this kind of thinking, the sort of giddy inconsistency that should be apparent to a man with Abbott's intellect and learning.
As the IPCC says, climate change, unchecked, will destroy the economy we recognise. Isn't that what we can read beneath its anodyne, phlegmatic phrasing: "compromising normal human activities"? The idea that acting to thwart climate change might "clobber the economy" is so disconnected from logic and simple common sense as to suggest some other line of thinking entirely.
Language, as ever, is full of meaning. Parsing the Prime Minister's repeated offerings on climate and economy reveals a politician with concern for one, and at best a watching brief on the other. The language betrays a complete lack of connection between what climate change is and what it might do.
To suggest that the economy needs to be protected from the only policy path that might in the long term secure its very existence, is so close to absurd as to leave you wondering just whether in fact Abbott does accept any recognisable concept of climate change.
There is another possibility: that he does concede the menace of a warming world, but for the sake of effective short-term politics has elected not to act in its interests. It's hard to imagine any greater betrayal of national - human - interest.
It's a position that can be countered in just a few words: no jobs on a dead planet.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-12/green-abbott-wrangles-with-his-own-climate-paradox/5517210