Imagine that terrorists have planted a bomb… well, it doesn’t matter where. Let’s just say though that the bomb is planted such that some heinous number of people face death – possibly even more than the three hundred thousand people who died last year from the effects of global warming. And for some reason all of the conventional, non-controversial means for defusing bomb-situations are not going to work. Luckily though, you have a terrorist in your possession. Unluckily though, s/he doesn’t respond to normal interrogation methods. You look grimly at your supervisor. They nod. And you prepare to waterboard the suspect.

(Note that this is an immensely unlikely set of circumstances. So, even if torture were morally defensible, it wouldn’t be worth legalising.)

What sort of factors come into the decision to waterboard (ie torture) the suspect? Obviously there is a lot at stake! And obviously the suspect is a terrorist – we could even go further to say that they are definitely a terrorist who definitely has the information you need to save lives, that definitely torture will be effective, and that its usage will definitely save hordes of lives. So what sort of right does this terrorist have to such luxuries as the ‘Geneva Convention’? Do they honour it? No! And these are war times, you beatnic. 

But hang on a second, the terrorist’s ‘evil’ comes in to this decision – they are a ‘wrongdoer’ which justifies the act. Would it be different if they weren’t? 

Let’s say all the terrorists who planted the bombs killed themselves so that they would not reveal the locations. But before they killed themselves, they revealed the locations of the bombs, and all the information required to prevent wholesale slaughter, to one innocent person. 

Philosophically, logically, it is valid to postulate the following question: What if torture were the only way to get this person to give up the information? 

This person isn’t a terrorist or a wrongdoer, but let’s say that the only way to get the information is to torture them. Highly, unlikely, I agree – about as unlikely as the set of circumstances detailed above in which torture might be called for. If you like we can make up some ridiculous back story – let’s say they have some mental affliction such that they can’t consciously recall the information, but could be ‘cracked’ under torture to reveal it.

If you would still torture this person, then …all right. Clearly the over riding concern for you is to prevent slaughter, even if it means innocent people suffer in the process. Hypothetically, your point of view could be carried further along – if it is so important to prevent suffering that it justifies inflicting minor suffering, why do people die waiting for organs when so many good organ sacks are still alive and kicking? But I digress.

Let’s say you wouldn’t torture this person – indeed, they didn’t do anything wrong. And the hypothetical terrorist did. So in this case the most significant factor is the guilt of the potential torture victim – where they sit on the fictitiously simple spectrum between ‘Hitler’ and ‘Mother Teresa’. 

“So I wouldn’t torture an innocent!” you are saying to yourself, “That doesn’t matter, the f**king terrorists aren’t innocent!” But…wait a second. The terrorists are guilty?

They certainly don’t think so. In fact, they think their extreme actions are justified because the people against whom they are committing acts of terror (you, your friends, your family, your country) is guilty. 

“But this bastard is a terrorist! He has no respect for human life!”

Look, it’s not like I’m gonna invite the person in question over for poker some time. However, if you are considering torture in these circumstances, you clearly agree with me in thinking that morality is relative. The alternative is that the terrorist is morally guilty in some absolute, natural-law esque sense, and if you subscribe to that view of morality I’m not exactly sure where this highly relative but morally defensible act of torture would come into the picture. My point is that you are making a moral judgement based upon your unique circumstances and point of view and, most importantly – your own self-interests in this case. 

Because, if you can make yourself believe that the person is guilty to the extent that it justifies your torturing them, then it is a whole lot easier for you isn’t it? Friends and family won’t die, the consequences will altogether be a lot better. Mind you, you know that you are facing a (again, absurdly invented) choice between torture and good consequences, and no torture and bad consequences. Obviously if you can find a way to justify the torture to yourself, then you get to be in good consequences town, and I hear it’s a great place to live.

You have a definite terrorist. If you torture them, lives will be saved. They are guilty, no worries.

You have a terror suspect. If you torture them, lives will be saved. You want lives to be saved. For this to happen, you need to feel morally justified in torturing the suspect. For this to happen, you need to believe them to be guilty. You _want_ to believe that they are guilty. They are guilty, no worries. 

You have an innocent. If you torture them, lives will be saved. You want lives to be saved. For this to happen, you need to feel morally justified in torturing the innocent. For this to happen, you need to believe them to be guilty. You _want_ to believe that they are anything but innocent. Phew – they are. Torture ahead. No worries.

There you have it. Nothing exhaustive, I know, and there are clearly lots of subtleties I didn’t think it was called for to enter in to. But I’m tired of this hypothetical being thrown around. Here’s what it comes down to:

Either it is justified to torture someone because of the bad consequences of not torturing them or because of what we might term their ‘guilt status’.

If it is because of the bad consequences of not torturing them…well, I didn’t go into that, but it is, in short, a utilitarian road that is very, very unclear. (How many lives must be at stake? 1000? 100? 1? And outside of terrorism – is it worth killing one person to save six etc. etc)

If it is because of their ‘guilt status’, then here is the kicker:

Who are you to decide that? And what position are you in to decide? 

You face immense pressure to come to the conclusion that this person is guilty. How can you trust that, in some objective or largely agreeable sense, the person is guilty, when the alternative – that you are convincing yourself that they are guilty in order to avoid an undesirable outcome- is much more likely. 

So don’t torture them.

So firstly, I am going to look at some of the assumptions underlying Government policy today, and subit them to the first part of this four-way test: is it true? Then, outlining my own case, I shall demonstrate that legalising drug use is the fair thing to do by all concerned. That it will build goodwill and better friendships, and that the legalisation of drug use is beneficial to all concerned.

One of the assumptions regarding drug use is that it is harmful. This is true. The use of any drug carries a risk of serious health consequences, and even if such consequences do not occur, it can still cause an impact on a person’s health. However, the harm that comes of drugs can be managed and minimised by legalising the use of the drugs and taking steps to make it safer, a point I shall return to later. Also in regard to this, just because the use of drugs is dangerous, it does not mean that it should be illegal. Already legislation allows many dangerous activities: skydiving, alcohol consumption, AFL, smoking cigarettes. We allow these activities because we can respect a person’s right to choose and possibly face a danger of their own free will. We do not allow these activities when they have the potential to harm others: drunk driving is, and should be an offence, tackling someone Footy style is classified as assault, and legislation is coming into place to limit smoking in venues where second hand smoke can harm other people. By this same rationale, while I believe we should legalise the use of drugs, it should not be legal to use drugs when it can place others in danger, drug use in conjunction with driving for example. This is only the fair thing to do.

The second assumption regarding drug use is that it will increase if drugs are legalised. This is a worrying assumption, because it potentially means that even though legalisation can minimise harm, the increase in number of users would cancel out the benefits. Thankfully, this assumption is not true.

We have examples disproving this assumption in history, and in our own day. In America in 1914, when drugs like cocaine were available on grocery shelves, 1.3% of the population was addicted. In 1979, before the so-called “War on Drugs” crackdown, the addiction rate was still 1.3%. Today, while billions of dollars are being spent to reduce drug use, the addiction rate is still 1.3%. This is because most people realise the negative impact a drug can have and choose not to use it. The other 1.3% of the population wishes to use cocaine and will do so whether it is legal or not. Another example, of our own era, is the presence of cigarettes. Cigarettes in Australia cannot be sold to people under 18. Effectively, when a person turns 18, for him, cigarettes become, ‘legal’. However, there is no rush to buy cigarettes. This is because youth nowadays are informed of the health damage that smoking will cause and so make an informed decision against it. The people who would start buying cigarettes at 18 would already have an addiction, more evidence that access to drugs is possible regardless of legislation.

Having discussed the harm associated with drug use, and that legalisation does not correlate with an increase in usage, I believe that we should legalise drug use because by doing so we can minimise the various harms associated with it. By doing this we are acting fairly, respecting a person’s right to make their own choices. We are building goodwill by removing the antipathy towards drug users, and benefitting all concerned by helping those who use drugs, preventing non-users from being harmed, and freeing vast resources for greater use elsewhere.

Using a drug whether it is legal to do so or not carries potential for harm, but using an illegal drug is far more potentially harmful than using an illegal drug. Some of the greatest risks associated with drug use are the possibility of using an impure substance, infection from unclean needles, and financial problems. The legalisation of drug use can minimise all of these harms. If drugs were sold legally then there would be more control over the quality of the substance and the consumer would be able to ensure the purity of supply. No longer having to buy drugs on the streets, our 1.3% of the population would have access to a clean version of the drug. If we look at the use of heroin, one of the more dangerous drugs, it is particularly dangerous due to the HIV risk. If a Government recognises that people are using heroin and allows them access to clean needles, it can limit the spread of HIV. In Holland, I quote the Dutch Minister of Health, “the possession of small quantities of illicit drugs for personal consumption really is not a matter for the police.” Amsterdam, in Holland, operates a needle-exchange programme and that has helped to keep down the level of HIV infection. An already low rate of drug-related deaths is actually falling, and drug-related violence in the Netherlands is minimal.

And the third harm associated with drug use is the financial problems. Ofter, drug addicts will find themselves needing a fix, but without the money. This sort of situation often leads to break-ins, which harm good people everywhere. By legalising drugs, the free market will dictate a realistic price, and so this situation will occur less. I will also point out that, without fail, when the price of marijuana, for example, rises, users will start drinking more beer, associated with a higher incidence of drink-driving, or move onto harder drugs. The legalisation of drugs ensures a price that will not encourage crime in desperate addicts, a substance that isn’t tainted, and gives the opportunity to institute programs to minimise the harm of drug use. We are treating users fairly in respeting their autonomy and right to health, and the recognition promotes an equal relationship, better friendship with those too often seen as inferior.

Before I discuss how the legalisation of drugs benefits non-users, I would like to deal with the argument that legalisation will promote addiction levels. I see addiction as a fly in the ointment as ’twere, because an addicted drug user has actually lost their able to choose, and so I can’t argue that we should respect this right. But again, research comes to my aid. In the Netherlands, a brilliant example for me, as one of few more western countries to effectively legalise drug use, drug addiction rates, though hard to measure, are actually thought to be slightly lower than in the UK or France, and very much lower than in the US, which fights tooth and nail in the war against drugs. In America, a 1994 Rand study shows that treatment of heavy cocaine users is seven times more effective than asset forfeitures, arrest and imprisonment. The same study shows that the cost of treatment is one-fourth that of police enforcement. There you have it. Drug addiction is an awful thing. By outlawing the drugs, an addict is forced to greater and greater lengths in order to procure a supply. With drugs legal, the addict can be realistically treated, and their problem dealt with. Again, it is fair to addicts to treat them with respect and goodwill while trying to help them.

I have just discussed how the legalisation of drugs is beneficial to the drug users. But the legalisation of drugs is in fact beneficial to all concerned, so I will now show how it benefits non drug users.

The most immediate case is that of the family of a drug user. These people do not use drugs and are often helpless to deal with the addiction of the user. In Australia, this family, which is already suffering just by having the drug user in the family, could have their sorrow compounded by having the person sent to jail. If the drugs are legal, yes, the family will still face the problems of drug use. But the user, if addicted, can be treated more even-handedly, or otherwise be able to continue the usage without endangering himself or the family.

For the wider society, we don’t have such a face-to-face relationship with drug use. But the legalisation of drug use still benefits us in a wide ranging way, through the re-distribution of resources. A large amount of time and money in our law enforcement system goes towards dealing with drug offences.

Of the people adjudicated in Australia’s Higher Courts in 2005-06, 17% were finalised for illicit drug offences. Only 3% of these people were acquitted. If we ignore whether or not these people even deserve to be imprisoned, this means that 2333 people were jailed for drug offences. This means that each of these people was given a bed in prison, and fed and attended to out of the public purse. What it also means, with prisons overcrowded as they are, is that other prisoners are more likely to be let out early on parole. While believing in rehabilitation as the purpose of our penal system, ladies and gentleman, convicted rapists or murders should be let out when they are no longer a threat to our society, not because their space is needed for a drug user.

Furthermore, the police costs of having to constantly attend to drug offences begins mounting, meaning that more tax dollars are spent on police actions against drug activity. And this also means that police are being taken away from investigating break-ins or robberies, or other more serious crime.

So imagine with me what the case would be if drug use was legalised. Australia’s courts would have fewer cases to deal with, being able to run more efficiently, and less expensively. Prisons would not be crowded with those whose only crime was drug use. The police force would have less work to do, requiring less money and being able to focus on crimes that actually harm other people. Thus it is all too apparent that the legalisation of drugs benefits each and everyone of us, by freeing up resources in the public sector for more worthwhile causes. Not to mention that the customs officials would be able to focus on preventing importation of truly dangerous goods, not drugs. That people would not have to be ashamed of an innocent, and indeed, widespread occurrence.

The war on drugs will never be won. So many people use drugs, that, in the USA for example, It would cost $365 billion to jail everyone who smoked marijuana last year – five times the total state and local spending for all police, courts and prisons. The money spent fighting against drug use is ill spent and more useful elsewhere. A better war fought, is a war against ignorance and unnecessary suffering, a war to minimise the harm that comes of drugs, to treat people fairly regardless of what they do in private, a war to allow each person to make decision’s for his or her own interests.

It is true that legalising drugs is the right thing to do, because it is fair to all concerned. It builds goodwill and better friendships, and it will be beneficial to all concerned. Mark Twain remarked, “What we know that isn’t true can cause more harm than what we don’t know”, and now I place you in an enviable situation- knowing the truth. Drug use should be legalised.

The above was a speech delivered about drugs, which is particularly applicable to marijuana.

In some ways, the whole situation isn’t too unlike that in Richard Adams’ ‘Watership Down’, in which Fiver, the lagomorphic protagonist is seized with a vision of an apocalyptic future, in this case for the rabbit warren he calls home. Although the rabbit chief and his militia scorn Fiver, a few rabbits are swayed; and he and his companions, some of whom are only accompanying him out of pity, leave the warren in search of a new home. Their journey is not without trial, but the suffering and loss that they endure is found to be justified when, later, they are told by the few survivors that their old warren was exterminated by humans. Unfortunately, this analogy falls short of describing the current real world situation. The climate realists, who are very much in the role of Fiver in the modern world, do not have the luxury of being able to take like-minded companions and secede from the global climate. Instead, they are compelled to try, time and time again, to sway public opinion, to sway political process, because their survival, indeed, everyone’s survival, is dependent upon the threat being not just recognised, but addressed.

It all gets a bit ‘Australia 1970′, ‘that we are ruined by the thing we kill’. While climate realists are attempting to save humanity, they are too often dismissed as mere environmentalists, as if it is possible for humanity to function independently of the environment in which we live. Even people who accept the message too-often fail to modify their action accordingly, and it becomes yet another good idea, like fair-trade, or vegetarianism, which is too inconvenient or too costly to take on board. And even when progress is being made, when a growing proportion of the population is concerned enough to take action, industry-funded scientists abuse their position in society to muddy the waters and stir up doubt, which enables selfish people to continue to excuse their actions, and governments to continue putting off the inevitable.

But that’s not the point of this little spiel. The point of this spiel is that the good fight is worthwhile. This was impressed upon me last night, as I watched a free screening of ‘Telling The Truth’, a rather wittily named documentary that follows seven Al Gore-trained climate project presenters as they each deliver their personalised version of his slideshow to various audiences across Australia. I saw people from all over Australia, and from all over society: not just the dreadlocked stoners that some would have you believe are the majority of climate activists, but doctors, sportspeople, students, businessmen, all trying to change the world for the better. Each of these people was motivated to act on climate change for different reasons: some were trying to protect their children’s future, some dreamed of a less injust world, others wanted to be able to keep living in their house. It was great. They weren’t the sort of policy hacks who might attend seminars and write letters to the newspaper (ie me), but they believed in what they were doing, and they were making a difference. 

So I began thinking about my own growth as a climate change activist, from a largely unaware lad who was surprised to know that his vegetarianism was helping the climate to an informed and passionate chap (not a lad anymore) who mentally ticked off a box when a senior meteorologist speaking about climate change referred to an albedo flip. I thought about the friends and the beautiful people I had met and worked alongside, the inspiring figures who, by their dedication and commitment, gave hope to others, or who, by their willingness to take direct action, promoted discussion and encouraged others to do more. I thought of the members of the various groups in which I’m involved, not one of whom is remarkable, but all of whom are doing remarkable things, giving up time, energy and money to try to keep this issue at the front of people’s minds. 

And I thought about how I sometimes feel like this issue is consuming me, like I am giving up too much, potentially losing who I am. But I realised that that’s not the case. I know, of all of the things I have done or that I do, it’s not the academic pursuits that make me who I am. I’m just happy in myself that I have been able to contribute to what is a vital growing global movement for justice and sustainability. I think of who I am now, of what I feel, of whom I know. I am doing what I do because I know it is the right thing. I am doing it because I have a vision of a society where we are healthier, where our energy supply isn’t dependent upon sending people to war, where the environment isn’t polluted by oil and slurry spills, groundwater contamination, and mine waste being dumped into waterways. Where people don’t have to spend hours in traffic to function, where essentials are within riding distance, and people have more time to spent with their families and friends. Aiding in the realisation of this vision is the single best contribution I can make to this world.

During the questions, I was asked one of the toughest questions that I’ve had to publicly respond to in a long time… “What is your vision for the sustainable world you want by 2050?”

We spend a lot of time in the environment/climate/justice movement talking about how we need to “take urgent action now”. We’re very good at talking about the changes that we want to see - more renewable energy, an end to coal and fossil fuels. We want to decrease wasteful, unnecessary consumption and have ‘cyclical’ production systems, recycling, instead of linear extract-use-waste systems. We want an end to materialism. We want an end to deforestation. We want people in the least developed countries to have clean water to drink and access to healthcare. We want bicycles, buses and trains, not cars. And if cars, fully electric. We want polluting activities to cost more so that there is a financial incentive to be environmentally friendly. We want a fundamental shift in the way that our society, industry and economy operate. We want local food production and an acknowledgement that we’re currently overpopulated and need, somehow, to address this. We don’t want biofuels that destroy livelihoods or which compete with food production. But limited amounts of biofuel, from agricultural wastes, if they would otherwise be wasted are ok. We want you to eat less red meat.

We say that we - today’s youth - are the generation who are willing to make these changes reality over the next four decades, during our working lifetimes. On this topic, youth in Bonn ran a ridiculously-successful t-shirt campaign called ‘How old will you be in 2050?’ Personally, I’ll be 65, just retiring after dedicating my working life to the sustainability transition.

But when all of these changes are in place, in 2050, how will the world be different? What sort of society will we have? What is the key difference between now and then? We know that we need ‘a fundamental shift’, but what to?

This was the question that I was confronted with (and surprised by) at the side-event last week. While I know the answer in my heart, and have thought about it in countless ‘visioning sessions’, I have rarely had to articulate it.

I started to list the things that I outlined above… “We want a world where all the electricity comes from renewables, no more fossil fuels, a world where people ride their bike instead of driving cars.” It was about this moment that I realised that this was fairly predictable, and not what the Texan reporter was looking for.

“But all that is the obvious stuff. What we need between now and 2050 is a fundamental revolution in our social values. Where we understand and focus on what really makes us happy, instead of how much money we make.”

Without wanting to waffle for too long in responding to the question, I pointed to an end to wasteful materialism and the capitalist growth-at-all-costs economy, and referred to the study of happiness and the happiness economics that they do at Harvard, and other places. 

I also managed to briefly outline a few aspects of my vision - a world where we no longer ‘work jobs we hate to buy shit we don’t need’, where we entertain ourselves with arts, music, sport, community, cooking and sharing meals with friends, instead of going to the shopping mall to ‘consume’.

There’s obviously a lot more work to be done here. Communicating a positive vision of the sustainable future - and not just the stuff/technology/practices that it has in it, but the values which underpin it - is crucial to our success. I’d like to start collecting these visions and over the next few months, synthsise them into something that is widely communicable. Then we can make this vision not just personal, but political too.

Two experiences that I’ve collected in the past five months of travelling give me some indication of the world that I want to head towards

1. It’s Easter Sunday in Amsterdam today, and everything is shut. People are staying in their houses and not out on the streets as they usually are in Amsterdam. So it’s been quiet all day. I’m standing on the balcony listening to some birds and sipping tea. Then, suddenly, emerging from around the corner, an eclectic four-piece band (Trumpet, Saxaphone, Tamborine and Accordion!) bursts into my quiet reality playing sweet Samba music. They’re colourfully dressed, appear totally impromptu, and are a mix of ages and races. There is no choreography. I watch for a few minutes as they make their way down my street - windows are opening, people stepping onto their balconies to see what is going on. Some are even dancing. The street is alive! When the song finishes and the band disappears around the next corner, a polite round of applause comes from the balconies, and people return to whatever they were doing before. Such random acts of beauty and kindness are something that I envisage being not just ‘random’ in 2050, but a focus of our existence.

2. In January I had the immense pleasure of living at London’s Temporary School of Thought. Just today I came across a notepad where I had recorded some reflections on the school, which I’ve never had the opportunity to share. I think that this goes some way towards the vision that I am trying to articulate.

“From day one in this society we are made to conform, to be less free, with less choice - through indoctrination by our school systems, through fear of authority, through rigid moral rules imposed on us by closed-minded religions, and through the false ideals that advertising causes us to pursue. In direct opposition to this conformity, the community here [at the Temporary School] is totally free - we educate ourselves how and when they want to, we explore the nuances of existence and life, and we are constantly discovering new ways of thinking.

An authority unto itself alone, with no recognition or even acknowledgement of systemic powers, the moral code of the School and it’s friends is based only on mutual respect, trust and community. The ideals shared here have nothing to do with what advertising has told us to aspire to.

In 2050, we will be a society that is:

Unplugged but switched on.

Truly alive. Safe, beautiful, fun, welcoming. Coommunity.

Independent. Free. Temporary.

Always expressing love as the joyful recognition of each other’s existence,

even on the quieter, harder days.

This is the joyfully cobbled together, temporary, school of thought.

We drink lots of tea.

A sustainable world is a creative world.

This was first posted on Climate Change Perspectives

The Australian people are facing a catastrophe if we do not act to mitigate the threat of climate change. Human society has so far flourished during a period known as the Holocene, during which global mean surface temperatures have varied little, and the sea level has been almost constant. Climate change threatens to disturb this balance, drive up temperatures, raise sea levels, and endanger human civilisation as we know it.

The CPRS legislation indicates a fatal disregard for this scientifically-accepted conclusion. The 5%/15% target is woeful and scientifically inadequate. The compensation to polluters fails to create an incentive or serious price signal that will drive the change that is needed in our society – most worryingly is the compensation given to the coal industry. While the compensation given to EITE industries is expensive, I agree with it in principle. The compensation given to the coal industry is without rationale or justification – James Hansen of the NASA Goddard Institute, amongst many other scientists, justly calls for an end to all coal-burning as a necessary step to addressing global warming. Furthermore, the scheme allows for unlimited international ‘carbon credits’, that is, businesses can offset their domestic emissions by decreasing emissions in other countries. As I understand it, treasury modelling indicates that Australia’s emissions will actually rise, given this provision. While this may seem a technical point, the truth is that we need to not just reduce international emissions, but have a paradigm shift in Australian cities, and move towards a carbon-free future. International exports do not support this.

Also, as you hopefully are aware, Richard Denniss of the Australia Institute makes an irresistible case against the CPRS on the grounds that it ignores the efforts of individuals. In short, emissions reductions undertaken by concerned individuals – say, by installing insulation, or solar hot water - will simply free up permits to be used by others, most likely the big polluters. The 5% target thus represents not only a ceiling, but a floor, and emissions reductions cannot go beneath that in the current scheme.

Addressing climate change is the single most important issue facing the world today. Luckily, we need not address it at the expense of human well-being. Various modelling has shown that stabilising at a lower level of carbon dioxides has a net-cost near zero. Aside from protecting a livable climate, benefits would include: lower rates of the respiratory illness brought about by photochemical smog and airborne pollutants; lowering the strain that these illnesses put on our health system and those costs; reducing oil imports from middle-eastern countries with a history of supporting terrorism – imports that effectively subsidise terror; minimising the other environmental harms associated with fossil fuel mining and production, such as oil spills, coal ash slides, groundwater contamination and wilderness and habitat destruction.

Economic benefits would inevitable flow from this movement. International competitivity would be increased by greater environmental legislation – countries such as Germany are an example of this, having a high rate of patents of environmental technology. Green jobs would be created, jobs that couldn’t be outsourced, and many of these jobs would be in rural areas. Investments in efficiency would shortly pay for themselves, working out to be cost-negative, saving both businesses and individuals money. The extra disposable income for all people would act as a further stimulus to the economy. 

The case for climate action, properly understood, is, quite simply, without flaw. In this day and age, every parliamentarian – indeed, every holder of power in every nation – is morally indebted to those who their decisions affect, and this moral obligation demands decisive, inspirational, world-changing and life-saving action against climate change.

Well, that was refreshing.

A few hours ago, the new US administration made their first public input into the UNFCCC process! It was yet another pleasurable reminder that G.W. Bush is gone, and that his legacy is slowly dying.

Todd Stern, the new, much-celebrated, US Special Envoy on Climate Change, opened his speech with a message that he transmitted ‘direct from President Obama’:

“We’re very glad we’re back. We want to make up for lost time, and we are seized with the urgency of the task before us.”

This was received with a rapturous, enthusiastic round of applause - the sound of hope ringing in the room.

“You will not here anyone on this very skilled US team cast doubt upon the science of global climate change,” said Stern, again demonstrating how substantive a shift occurred on November 4. Every climate campaigner in the room, when reflecting back to the dark days of climate scepticism in the US administration, seemed to breathe a sigh of relief at that moment.

Stern even said that ‘the US acknowledges their responsibility as the largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases’. Another big step forward. Another sign of hope. With all this hope, it would have been so easy to get carried away.

Thankfully though, Tuvalu, an AOSIS member, brought the room back town to earth after America spoke, warning us to take the words of the US with a grain of salt:

“It is beholden on me as a representative of the most vulnerable country in the world to speak out. We welcome the United States remarks… but we hope the rhetoric is matched by reality.”

With this in mind, I’d like to offer some advice to US activists - don’t pause your campaigning to celebrate the government’s rhetoric. Let’s not be stupid about this. Don’t ‘give them time’ without criticism, naively hoping that they’ll do the right thing, translating good words into real action. If you don’t push them, hard, then you won’t be rewarded. We learned this the hard way in Australia, after the election of Kevin Rudd, November 24 2007. Let me tell a story to illustrate…

Consider the parallels with the current ‘Obama situation’:

One week after his election, our new PM Kevin Rudd publicly ratified the Kyoto protocol, as his first act of government. It was publicly acclaimed as great leadership. The nation celebrated. I was proud to be Australian again. However, in 20-20 hindsight, it wasn’t anything more than a symbolic act, and it certainly wasn’t ‘international leadership’ – it didn’t step out ahead of the pack and lead, it just brought Australia into the ‘Kyoto club’ that they had been out of for so long. Our praise of the government’s action went on for a little too long.

Following ratification, the Rudd government announced a year-long plan of reports, drafts and papers, which now seems to have been designed to placate the Australian environment movement, create the illusion of progress, and distract us from ‘the big picture’. The Garnaut interim report, draft report and review; the green paper and then the white paper on emissions trading, the targets. Australia’s targets were originally scheduled to be announced well before Poznan, but were instead delayed until the day after COP14 closed – and then they were only 5-15% below 2000 levels – a total disaster.

The ‘Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme’ – government-speak for Australian emissions trading – is now so poorly designed and gives out so much compensation to polluters, that the climate movement in Australia is now saying that it must be scrapped in its current form. One year after the ‘inspiration’ of ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong have demonstrated that in fact, they are still laggards, not leaders on climate.

And all this because many of us in the climate movement naively trusted them, placing our hope in government to bring us the solutions that we wanted, and ‘giving them the space’ to make progress through the bureaucracy. It didn’t work.

America – don’t make the same mistake. Don’t trust Obama to save your nation’s climate policies without serious pushing from the people. You of all nations know that healthy public criticism is what makes democracy great.

I am personally extremely concerned - especially after today’s press conference in Bonn of American climate NGOs - about the polite restraint within the NGO sector from criticism of the new administration.

Isn’t it clear to the US movement that Obama’s target of 1990 by 2020 is entirely inadequate, and needs to be shifted? Even the old, conservative IPCC science says ‘at least 25-40% below 1990 levels’ is what is required by 2020. Al Gore’s ‘We’ campaign is talking about 100% renewable energy by 2020. That sort of thing is visionary, and that is where government policy needs to go.

In Todd Stern’s presentation in plenary today, he referred to the possibility of agreeing on a global reduction target of ‘more than 15% by 2020?. Sorry, America, but that’s the wrong answer. The global target needs to be at least 40% by 2020. 15% is strongly likely lead to runaway climate change, and destroy our future. Not good enough, Obama.

Additionally, they new administration is still focused on the ‘economic growth’ paradigm, and on ‘capitalising’ on the solutions to climate change – which is a long way from the total paradigm-shift that many in civil society are now calling for, as an opportunity emerging from the financial crisis. Also, Obama is persisting with Bush’s ‘Major Economies’ process – having renamed it from the ‘Major Economies Meeting’, or ‘MEM’ to the ‘MEF’ instead. That’s ‘F’ for ‘Forum’. By including 16 ‘major economies’ in parallel talks to the UN climate process, they are effectively removing the voices of the smaller, poorer, and more climate-vulnerable nations from their discussions. It is not morally correct.

So what should the movement do about this? While it’s great that Obama is not Bush, and we should smile about that – let’s not allow this to create an illusion that the new administration is somehow a ‘leader’ on climate. Because they certainly aren’t. The real leadership is from the most vulnerable nations – AOSIS and LDCs. And it is with them that our solidarity and focus should lie.

Strengthening the US climate movement is crucial. The next four decades to 2050 will be a people-led but government-supported sustainability revolution. The USA, even after today’s progress, still doesn’t support the growing movement. The government is still a block to action.

If Obama’s reputation as ‘a movement man’ – a man who listens to the people – has any substance to it, then the path to removing their block and replacing it with support is clear.

As the climate movement, we need to not pause, but to keep criticising, encouraging and pushing the USA in the right direction, in negotiations and in the public sphere, until their political walls give way.

This post first appeared in Climate Change Perspectives.

Welcome to Queensland: home of the Great Barrier Reef, the Daintree rainforest, the Torres Strait Islands and the pastoral Darling Downs.

Sadly, each of these Queensland icons is at serious risk from climate change – whether by drought, cyclones, ocean acidification, rising sea-levels, or, as our North-Queensland communities will testify, floods.

Given the importance of addressing climate change to our state’s future, you’d think that it would feature more highly in the 2009 election debate.

But the climate change elephant – the most important issue of our time – doesn’t even appear to be in the room. It’s been crowded out by the global credit crisis, the police force, and payroll taxes.

Meanwhile, in our so-called ’sunshine state’, renewable and sustainable initiatives are going offshore because they can’t find support here.

Welcome to Queensland, the coal state: home of the Bowen basin, Macarthur coal, and what is set to become be the world’s largest coal export terminal at Gladstone.

We’ve got certainly a lot to change, and the public is ready for it.

Shifts in our climate policies would yield not only massive environmental dividends, but also political dividends for whichever major party proposes them.

Thus far, however, the election campaign hasn’t hasn’t mentioned ’sustainability’ or ‘climate change’ in a statement from either side.

It’s no wonder they are avoiding talking about it – the climate policies of both the ALP and the LNP are decidedly lacklustre.

On the ALP’s watch, Queensland Rail is set to invest $654 million – not on the ailing suburban train network in Brisbane, but on expanding the capacity of regional coal export lines.

They introduced the ‘ClimateSmart’ package which could be more accurately renamed ‘ClimateStupid’, handing out over twice the amount of public money to rich coal companies than to start-up renewables. Bligh and her government are masters at the fine art of spin over substance. 

Could ‘The Borg’ and the LNP be a better option? Let’s explore…

They do rightly oppose the Traveston Dam, which the ALP – aided by recent rainfall – conveniently ‘postponed’ until after this election. They could do some serious damage in north-Brisbane ALP marginals by talking up their water management credentials.

Another saving grace, aside from Traveston, is the LNP campaign website – vastly superior to ‘Anna4Qld’. Perhaps that’s where they directed the massive donations from mining magnate Clive Palmer – one of the biggest vested interests in Queensland coal.

It’s no wonder Palmer wants to help get Springborg into power – The Borg is a climate change denier who thinks that global warming is caused by volcanoes. The LNP doesn’t even have a climate change policy.

These are facts that Bligh would do well to highlight – the 2007 federal election showed that the electorate no longer tolerates climate sceptics like John Howard.

To make matters worse, the Nationals wing of the LNP still wants to reverse Queensland’s restrictions on broadscale landclearing.

So a change of government wouldn’t help the climate, or future generations, at all.

With no confidence in either major party on this crucial issue, the best election outcome that I am left to hope for is that enough people vote for independents or minor parties to produce a hung parliament.

Perhaps such a result would be consistent with what seems to be the prevailing view of Queensland politics – that we dislike the mess that the ALP is making of our state, but that the LNP, our only major alternative, is totally incompetent.

Maybe with a hung parliament, both main parties would start listening to community concerns, competing with each other to determine which policies – on climate, healthcare, education, crime or industry – are the most representative of public opinion.

After all, isn’t that the way that democracy is meant to work?

On climate, I suspect that the vast majority of Queenslanders – especially those who’ve recently been flooded out or hit by worsening cyclones – would put their vote behind a major party that came out with an inspiring, Obama-style, science-based climate policy.

The right policies could build a sustainable state, with renewable industries, public transport, and green jobs that Queenslanders could be proud of. Policies like that are just such an easy sell in an election campaign, and look a hell of a lot better than becoming the world’s largest coal exporter.

Sadly, I sincerely doubt that such a seismic shift could happen in the next two weeks. Nonetheless, I issue the challenge to Bligh and Borg: give us – the citizens who you work for – a climate policy that we could vote for with pride.

Go find the climate elephant, and make it your pet issue.

What I’m talking about is absolute poverty: an issue that directly impacts upon no reading this and very few people in Australia. I’m not looking at the world poverty that has been an object of political discussion for at least thirty years. I’m not interested in the decades of suffering and the inaction that has historically accompanied it, with successive generations pledging to do their bit and consistently failing. What I’m interested in is looking at world poverty in the modern context of the world food crisis. This is because it is current, it is a moral disaster, and because there are things that we can do.

This ‘food crisis’ might come as news to some of you. This is because we are lucky to be of the first world or, as some people call it, the minority world – a title ironically contrasting the first world’s relatively miniscule population with its vast consumption. Because of our lucky position, all the world food crisis means to most westerners is having slightly less money to spend on mobile phones, jewelry, or new shoes for the school formal. We are allowed to smugly continue our unsustainable habits of consumption, pretending that these problems can be solved without real change. The reality is far different.

In the majority world, including the ‘two dollars per day’ world that is 45% of the world’s population, this food crisis is another matter altogether. Whereas in the western world 15% of income, on average, is spent on food, the world’s marginalized spend up to 75%. And of late, for a number of different reasons, food prices have been rising. Since the start of 2006, the average world price for rice has risen by 217%, wheat by 136%, maize by 125% and soybeans by 107%. These products are staple food items in much of the majority world, and their increased cost has had a vast human toll: people can no longer afford to eat. The poverty of these people means that they can get priced out of the market, the food that could have fed them going to a consumer who is able to pay more. They can’t compete.

So, in Haiti, people, to live, have had to make salted cakes of mud to eat. In Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, The Ivory Coast, Egypt, Haiti, India, Mozambique, Senegal, Somalia and Yemen, people have launched protests against rising food prices and the failure by governments to deal with the issue. Malnutrition already kills 3.5 million children annually, and this is going to get worse.

Think about this: Six million Jews died in the Holocaust. This is common knowledge and it is an event that the media remembers, that people and governments remember, that is recognised.

On the other hand, seven million children died in the time it took me to complete my SACE. Seven million. One person for every millimetre in seven kilometres. Everyone who lives in Sydney and Melbourne. And so little is being done. This is a reality that no one with enough food to eat can begin to understand. People are literally dying because they don’t have enough food. We aren’t talking about an artistic tableau demonstrating the plight of the homeless. We are talking about 30 000 children under 5 every day. This is sickening. It’s sickening that it happens, it’s sickening that not enough is being done, it’s sickening that it isn’t on the conscience of every single westerner.

It’s too easy to hear this, as we all have, before, to varying degrees and think: ‘nuts…this problem is too big for me, I can’t cancel the debt, I can’t make trade fair, I can’t give more aid.’ Well yeah, you can’t. But there is one thing that everyone can do, and, I believe this: one thing that everyone should do to try to minimise the suffering in our world.

While there are lots of different things contributing to the food crisis, one of them is meat consumption. Eating meat contributes to the suffering of millions, of billions of people the world over.

Because, to be prepared for slaughter, cows, pigs, chooks, sheep, are fed food specially grown for them on huge areas of land. The animals ssentially are transformers: they convert this vegetable protein from corn, or grain, or maize into animal protein. This is a hugely inefficient process. According the theory of trophic dynamics, the study of the energy economics of natural systems, it requires ten times as many crops to feed animals being bred for meat production as it would to feed the same number of people on a vegetarian diet. What this means is that ten times as many people could be fed if the meat wasn’t involved.

What this means is that land is being used to grow food, and this food is going to animals for meat: it is not going to people. In the US, 70% of grain is consumed by cattle, not people – with a horrific human toll. According to ecology professor David Pimentel, “If all the grain currently fed to livestock in the United States were consumed directly by people, the number of people who could be fed would be nearly 800 million.” Worldwide, of the 2.13bn tonnes of grain likely to be consumed this year, only 1.01bn, less than 50%, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, will feed people. 760m tonnes will go to chickens, pigs and cows for meat, instead of the world’s starving. This amount could cover the global food deficit 14 times. The raising of animals for food is condemning people, all over the world, to starvation. This is about humanity. This is about preventing injustice. And this is a heinous injustice that needs to be righted.

Whether or not you are vegetarian, the less meat you eat the better. Less meat eaten means less food going to animals for meat and more food going to people to live. Simple.

It is easy to look back on past generations and criticise their moral ignorance: issues such as slavery, apartheid, the subjugation of women, the Stolen Generation, seem almost to be too obviously wrong to have ever happened. It’s much harder to look at our own generation in the same way. Acting morally isn’t just about taking big stands on controversial issues. It’s about living so that your decisions make the world a better place. I initially became vegetarian to prevent animal suffering. Since then I have learned more and more about vegetarianism and have become more and more resolute. The meat I don’t eat means that there is more food for the rest of the world. Food that goes to the world’s deprived instead of the world’s depraved. This is a choice that you each has to make. The power is on your plate.

Reflecting upon this, it seems that there is some sort of path that human civilisation is on. This path leads to a society that is characterised by greater equality and respect for all of its members. Whether or not there is some ‘city on the hill’ where all conceivable social progress has been made, or whether it is an endless journey, there is no doubt that humanity as a whole is more than just it has historically been. While recent developments in the context of global terrorism have seen these rights violated in some instances, this situation of human social progress, can be thought of like a ratchet, such that each step, once made, is almost irreversible, and that a right or recognition, once granted, is now available for all humans.

This sort of advancement can also be seen in humanity’s attitude towards the environment. While it is true that human environmental destruction is greater than it ever has been, even to the point of threatening current civilisation, our awareness of the vulnerability of the environment seems to be more acute than ever, no doubt partly motivated by a selfish awareness that environmental destruction will spell our own demise. The banning of CFCs, in terms of environmental protection, is comparable to other developments in social progress: there was something wrong, laws and attitudes changed, and now humanity is in a better place than it was. Personally, I see a lot of hope in this regard. Opportunities to help the environment abound more than ever, and people are taking advantage of these. On a recent trip to Melbourne, I was able to bus to and from the airport. I took a bus back to Adelaide and offset my emissions. The camp I attended had an ‘Environmental Sustainability Officer’, who had overseen revegetation projects and the installation of rainwater tanks, which supplied water for showering or gardening. A friend who put me up for a night or two had an awe-inspiring vegetable garden. Her organic waste went into a compost for this garden and other waste was recycled as much as possible. In South Australia, a ban on plastic bags has been introduced and, once it takes effect, customers will have to use the re-usable ‘green bags’ that are the obvious solution to the problem of disposable bags. In addition to this, the state has met its target of 20% energy from renewable sources. Federally, a similar target is to be instituted, and the introduction of a Carbon Trading Scheme in 2010 will no doubt also encourage environmentally sustainable practises. One might think that, on the environmental front, things are just peachy.

Well, it’s not quite a case of ‘you couldn’t be more wrong’, but there is one difference between making social progress and making environmental progress. The social advances that have been made didn’t occur in an environment of urgency. Women campaigning for women’s rights didn’t need to achieve their goal by a certain time and, while the existence of discrimination in the past would always be sad, it would be possible to prevent it from directly affecting the present once equal rights were gained. Regarding gay marriage, while I think that it should be made legal, I don’t fervently campaign for it: when Prop. 8, a proposition to remove the right of gay people to marry, passed in California: 62% of voters over 65 voted for it, a similar proportion of younger voters voted against it. This demonstrates that the legalisation of gay marriage is almost inevitable – it is a simply a matter of time, as those who would vote against it are gradually taken to the grave. While it is shameful that it will take maybe twenty more years for this injustice to be righted, those twenty years aren’t much considering the centuries of injustice that preceded them.

Environmental progress is a different ball game, because even if it may be desirable, there is an inescapable deadline on making change. Lowering of our carbon emissions is definitely set to happen, as technologies continue to improve and people continue to realise how easy it is to change. This lowering is urgent, and must occur within the next few years. Head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri, a scientist and an economist, has made it clear:

“If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.” 

Tackling climate change isn’t comparable to opposing apartheid or supporting the legalisation of euthanasia: climate change is a threat to human civilisation that demands immediate and urgent action. If this action occurs doesn’t occur in time, even if it does eventually, the carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere will contribute to irreversibel change. A rapid reduction in emissions from 2010 would still result in 2.1 – 2.8ºC rise in global temperature by 2100. On our current emissions path, we are looking at 5.5 C: mass extinction, ocean acidification, desertification, brutal heat-waves and rising sea levels.

Climate Change isn’t an unfortunate injustice that ought to be righted some time in the future. It is a threat to human civilisation as we know it. 

Image courtesy of westcoastclimateequity.org

With growing numbers of people refusing to succumb to the roles of ‘over-consumer’ and ‘ladder-climber’ that our current society would have us automatically take up, perhaps 2009 is the year that democracy becomes democracy again, the year that we choose to take our future path into our own hands, and the year that we change the course of history.

This is my hope for the world.

This was first posted on Climate Change Perspectives.