David Spratt, author of Climate Code Red, has written a series of blogs on the Climate Spectator website exploring why the "climate message" - the need for strong action to stop global warming - is not cutting through. Public support for action, and indeed public acceptance that global warming is actually happening, has fallen since 2007-8, despite the science becoming more convincing and more alarming.
Spratt identifies two key problems.
First is the idea that you should avoid bad news and focus on positive messages and good news stories - a strategy known as "brightsiding". Key advocates of climate change action such as President Obama, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and big environmental NGOs have adopted this strategy. They focus on the potential of clean, renewable energy rather than the dangers of global warming. Mustn't sound "alarmist", after all.
Will the Greens fade away with the departure of Bob Brown as leader?
No, for one simple reason: because they have what every succesful political party needs: a "big idea".
In other words, they actually stand for something. Unlike the Democrats.
And, it's tempting to say, unlike Labor. Labor used to be the workers' party; one that stood for trade unionism, public ownership and public services funded by progessive taxation. These days, it doesn't seem to really believe in any of these things. That's why it's support is waning.
The problem for Labor is the world has changed.
The key progessive "big idea" in politics today is not class war, liberty or equality. It's the environment. It's increasingly obvious that if we don't stop damaging the environment, nothing else will matter.
Hence the rise of the Greens. Let's not forget Australia's Greens are part of awell-established global movement, now two decades old. There are green parties throughout the world, all growing steadily. Greens have a committed support base and elected representatives everywhere from Tasmania to Scotland
A US study has concluded young people today are less concerned about the environment than previous generations. The longitudinal study of college students found only 5 per cent of young US students considered themselves "committed environmentalists" with 90 per cent saying they wouldn't be seriously inconvenienced or pay a cost to protect the environment.
Commentators in this New York Times article blame the decline in environmental concern on the fact that fewer young people today have much physical contact with the "unpaved world", and on fatigue and confusion over climate change created by vocal climate sceptics.
Fakegate: a loss is as good as a win for climate sceptics
In an obvious echo of the Climategate affair, leaked documents from the US Heartland Institute, a leading propagator of climate sceptism, show the organisation funded prominent climate sceptics such as Australian Bob Carter. The sums are not huge: climate sceptics will point to larger sums spent by governments and other organisations putting the climate change message across.
But to compare dollar for dollar spending is too simplistic because climate sceptics have some big advantages in this debate.
1) Climate sceptics get disproportionate media coverage. Less than 3 per cent of climate scientists dispute man-made climate change, yet sceptics often get as much press coverage as the mainstream science, for two reasons. Firstly, because white conservative men - the demographic most likely to be climate sceptics - are overrepresented in the media. And secondly, it's because journalists think - and report - in adversorial terms. If someone says yah, they'll find someone who'll say nay. It looks like balanced, impartial reporting even if one of the viewpoints has no credibility. And conflict makes sexier copy.
2) Dealing with climate change requires huge change. To go down that path, politicians need a huge groundswell of public support. Sceptics only need to create a little doubt to scare politicians off such a big challenge. Sceptics don't need to win - or even draw - the argument. They simply need to make people think there IS an argument.
It's well worth setting an hour aside to watch this lecture by Canadian journalist and historian Gwynne Dyer. Dyer's book, Climate Wars, explored scenarios that could arise from global warming in the coming decades, as changing climate creates food and water shortages and leads to increasing global conflict over resources. Dyer (whose has been dubbed, apparently, "Grim Die-er") doesn't paint a cheerful picture.
I was reading AIM HIGH Summer 2012, Australian Ethical Investment’s newsletter recently, it has a good article in it titled “The truth behind the mining boom”. It discusses the mining boom’s negative impact on other parts of the Australian economy, such as the manufacturing sector.
Did you know a single annual increase in U.S. military spending can be greater than the entire military budget of the next biggest military spender, China? Seven of the 10 largest arms-producing corporations are in the U.S..
It seems the Greens were right to reject Kevin Rudd's emissions trading scheme and CPRS (Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme) and hold out for a better deal. According to an assessment by climate-change think tank Climate Works, based at Melbourne's Monash University, the Gillard government's current carbon tax and Clean Energy Future Plan will generate double the emissions reductions of Rudd's package.
A recent article in The Guardian looks at how climate - in the form of drought and food shortages - has been a critical factor driving the Arab Spring.
If you want to know what a government really thinks, look at Treasury forecasts. These show that the Gillard government expects - as a result of its carbon tax package - that Australia's emissons will increase by 50 million tonnes by 2020, and will be 545 million tonnes a year by 2050. That's only 30 million tonnes less than we produce now.
As anticipated, the targets and price are too modest and compensation overgenerous. There isn't nearly enough to promote energy efficient. But there are some good things in the Gillard Government's carbon tax package.
Last week union boss Paul Howes threatened to oppose the carbon tax if it led to the loss of one job in the steel industry. Australian industry, sensing a weakened Government, is queuing up to demand special treatment.
The Greens won their first ever lower-house seat, Jamie Parker in Balmain, in the recent NSW state election. They won 10.3 per cent in the lower house, up 1.3 per cent. With 90 per cent of counting complete for the upper chamber, they have 11.16 per cent, up 2 per cent on 2007. They have two more senators, to give them a total of four. A third senate candidate, Jeremy Buckingham, is narrowly leading Pauline Hanson for the final seat.
But... is that good?
On the face of it, yes. It's the Greens' highest ever vote and first lower house seat. They are clearly the third party in Australian politics. The gap between them and the Labor Party is closing.
But with so many voters deserting Labor, the fact the Greens didn't pick up another 2 or 3 per cent must be a worry.
One issue that may have hurt the Greens was the call to boycott Israel by Marrikville candidate Fiona Byrne (in her capacity as Marrickville mayor), supported by prominent NSW Green Lee Rhiannon. This foray into left-ist fringe politics was a godsend to conservative media commentators keen to portray the Greens as extremist lunatics.
Greens leader Bob Brown thought so. "NSW voters wanted to hear about issues that were effecting them day to day ... I think it was damaging to the campaign," Senator Brown said.
The Greens are at a tricky point in their evolution. As the only party that takes climate change seriously, they will continue to grow, because climate change is the key issue of our time.
But growth brings challenges. Being a junior partner in government risks means you are tarred with the same brush when the government is on the nose. It also means compromising, as with the carbon tax, and thus risking alienating your own core support.
The Greens must do two things. Firstly, they must find candidates who come across as intelligent, respectable, reasonable people who do not alienate "middle Australia". Bob Browns, not Lee Rhiannons.
Secondly, they must keep focused on their core issue, which is the environmental.
Political parties need a core narrative, a guiding principle at their heart. Liberals stand for the free market. Labor stands for worker rights and universal access to public services such as education and health. (Labor's problem is they no longer believe unequivocally in either of these.)
It looks like the Federal Government will use the Queensland flood levy to kill off a few ill-conceived funding programs, including a raft of green schemes.
Tipped for the chop are the cash-for-clunkers and green car innovation schemes, and funding for carbon storage.
The Gillard Government certainly isn't inspiring confidence on climate change so far. The Citizens' Assembly on climate change and the Cash for Clunkers scheme are so laughably bad you almost wish Kevin Rudd was still PM.
As Copenhagen summit lurches towards predictable disaster, George Monbiot in The Guardian identifies the crucial division in politics now as no longer left versus right but between those who realise we live in a world of environmental constraints and those who refuse to accept this.
It's a conundrum. The climate science has becomes firmer and more urgent, but studies show less people believe it.
Scientific papers published in peer-reviewed journals that dispute the idea of man-made global warming are rarer than hen's teeth.
Yet recent polls by the Pew Research Centre and Rasmussen Reports suggest the public is less convinced or concerned about global warming then they were two years ago.
Researchers have dubbed this the "licencing effect". Because you've done something "ethical" you feel you've raked up some moral brownie points, so you feel more entitled to act selfishly afterwards.
The UK has announced an energy policy featuring 10 new sites for nuclear power stations, investment in clean coal (with a promise of no new coal-fired power stations without clean coal) and 30 per cent renewables (mainly wind) by 2020. The UK plans to generate 40 per cent of its energy from nuclear power by 2025.
I've mentioned before how the ETS will prevent ordinary people from helping reduce Australia's emissions. The problem is, if you or I save energy, it simply means your energy supplier has more unused carbon permits so someone else doesn't have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions elsewhere.
If you live in Melbourne, make a note in your diary to head to St Kilda beach on 17 May to form part of the Climate Change Human Sign. Help put climate change on the news!
While conservative parties around the world are slowly sidelining their most strident opposition to policies addressing environmental problems, conservatives' suspicion of what is still perceived as a “lefty” agenda continues to be a significant roadblock on the road to decisive action. How to overcome that suspicion? Here's one idea to help make the case for the benefit of climate-change skeptics among your family and friends: Global warming will kill million of conservatives – namely plants.
Critical time for Green New Deal I've blogged previously about the "Green New Deal" to direct financial stimulus and job creation packages towards renewable energy and energy efficiency. Everyone suddenly agrees governments must spend (or give away) money to stimulate the economy. So why not kill two birds in one stone and spend the money on measures that will also reduce greenhouse gas emissions and thus head off climate change?
The Daily Telegraph reports that the NSW State Government is believed to be working on a "green agenda" for the state, in a bid to reverse its disastrously low poll ratings.
Charting the history of the Australian green movement led me to reflect that there are two types of political movement - those that represent paradigm shifts and those that simply rearrange the furniture. Reaganism, Thatcherism, new Labour in Britain, Ruddism (if there is such a thing) and the Democrats are all examples of the latter type.
Along with many environmentalists, I'm not a fan of carbon trading. In my view it's unwieldy, too open to rorting and lobbying by industry pressure groups and it's ability to actually reduce emissions remains totally unproven. More likely, it will only serve to make some traders rich with little emissions reductions.
In case you missed it, something important happened yesterday in the US. The Republicans have won a run-off for the Senate seat in Georgia, after the original election-day vote failed to produce an outright winner. The result means the Democrats cannot secure the 60 Senate seats that would have given them the power to override blocking manouvres (called filibusters) in the Senate. (Another run-off, in Minnesota, is too close to call, but is now irrelevant given the Georgia result put the 60 seat mark out of Democrat reach.)
