Higher ground in Kiribati, good luck with that one.
A map of Kiribati.
Kiribati’s Gilbert Islands
The total land area mass total 811 km2 (313 sq mi). It includes three island groups - Gilbert Islands, Line Islands, Phoenix Islands. Most of the land on these islands is less than two metres above sea level.[2]
My solar panels generate more power than I use, I’m revegetating a couple of acres of remnant bush land, I do volunteer wildlife rescue work, I get public transport to work and drive less than 15000km a year, I’ve taken one overseas flight in 15 years, and I’ve cut my meat consumption to maybe 2 or 3 meals per week.
There’s a temptation to follow that up by asking ‘What do YOU do?’ but that’s glib and unhelpful pointscoring that avoids the main issue. I’m aware that I’m fortunate enough (financial position, line of work, etc etc) that I can make these decisions, but that right now not everyone can die to prevailing models of energy generation, transportation, land management, and work. And I’m also aware that nothing I or anyone can do on a personal level will stop or even slow the onset of the upcoming climate catastrophe without these prevailing system models being changed.
Which is what makes it so depressing when Wong (who I highly respect on other matters) comes out with stuff like this, quivering in their boots at the prospect of making the systemic changes to the status quo of the sort that scientific reality demands. Talking about ‘political reality’ and 50 years of coal, my ■■■■. Political ‘reality’ and economic ‘reality’ are malleable. They can be changed if sufficient will & determination is applied. Scientific reality is not. But Wong and people like her seem to believe that the latter trump the former. News flash, it doesn’t work that way. Reminds me of that slimeball Turnbull’s insistence that the laws of mathematics could be somehow overruled by the laws of Australia, during the encryption debate.
Frankly, this is just climate denialism. I’d almost prefer Bolt to this, at least he’s just mad and deluded enough to believe it isn’t happening in the first place. What Wong is saying is that she knows climate change is real and she believes the science about what’ll happen if it isn’t addressed and … she’s made the political calculation to be ok with that, because it’d require her to push difficult policies and she isn’t willing to try. Pretending the climate isn’t warming cos of human emissions is denialism. Pretending climate change can be curbed while failing to address the single largest source of emissions is denialism too.
Oh, and Tuvalu and Kiribati are doomed as ■■■■. The west Antarctic ice sheet has passed a tipping point, and losing the whole thing is unavoidable at this point. That sheet alone will raise the sea level by 3 metres, and most of their nation is only 2m above water. Sucks to be them. Guess they’d better just learn to love the inside of a Manus Island barbed wire fence, cos that’s where their entire nations look to be heading…
Yep, reckon the Chinese could make it higher though, in return for a few favours !!
Maybe we can give them Norfolk Island or one of those holiday places in the Whitsundays.
I do not disagree with you about most of that at all. However that is not what Penny Wong is saying, and it is not political calculation at all. My reality is that most Australians do not give a fark about what happens in the Pacific, and this last election shows that stopping coals mines like Adani is not that popular with a majority. Even though I sell products to mining, and I do feel like a huge farking hypocrite, I am totally against any expansion or even continuance of coal mining, but that is not going to happen.
This is what I hate about democracy, and this is what all Political parties have to cope with. You are damned if you do (stop coal mining) and damned if you don’t (accused by @benfti of being a sell-out)
And my crack to beni about what are you doing is not really meant to be personal. I just have watched the “environmental” groups where I live, say one thing and then do the other. That is just another reality of life in our society.
We are all on the same side.
To further that, I find being asked what I’m doing as an individual when I’m asking the question of a member of the government who’s in the postion to action large scale change incredibly straw man.
With that being said when I mention grown own veggies, solar panels, work from home, wife works on developing sustainable agronomy practices and deficit irrigation, and I’m 1 year off finishing my spacial science degree because I am going to working on aqua flow planning (where the water goes in the event of flood and ocean level rising) it tends to quieten them up.
It’s silly to bring up anyway, I’ve got friends that try to argue we are wasting our money on all of it. I go “dude your talking to a household that’s got 2 bachelors, 1 masters and a PhD in science fields, do you tell your your doctor he’s wasting his money when they tell you they take vitamins?
I didn’t hear Penny Wong, what put you off her?
The lack of opposition
It’s foreign affairs, you don’t usually oppose as much as domestic portfolios.
As opposition foreign affairs minister, when your nearest neighbours go “can you back off that ■■■■, we are ■■■■■■■ dying here” and the current government is trying to strike climate change off the records and his deputy is offering the soon to be displaced fruit picking jobs, you freaking oppose their position! While staying on message about your pre election promise of transitioning the economy.
It seems Labor thought they lost the election on not appealing enough to the right.
They lost because the swing voters didn’t think they could trust them. Turns out their fears were justified.
Liberal are a bunch of heinous, self serving, bigoted, inhuman corrupt ■■■■■, but at least they stay on message.
And every time the alp pull a regressive stunt like this, they condition a few more swinging voters to believe the libs take on the issue, because ‘see, even labor admitted [insert this week’s heinous ■■■■ here] was true’ which makes it a bit harder for them to take a reality-based policy into the next election, for fear of looking like flip floppers.
Regressive stunt ?
Yep, reality is always regressive.
I wish I could like @Humble_Minion lengthy monologue just a few posts above 100 times.
I’m sorry but it’s about time we saw the ALP for what they really are - the party is controlled by forces that are indoctrinated into neoliberalism and Wong just confirmed it. It’s a pity because I had quite liked her up until very recently.
While neoliberals like Wong et al don’t flat out deny climate change and its potential to ruin human life, their incrementalism is going to get us all killed just the same, only it might be drawn out perhaps a decade longer.
Fighting this is going to require systemic structural changes - politically, economically and culturally.
Yes. Globally.
What happens in Australia one way or the other, won’t make a jot of difference as to whether those Islands go under and we all know it.
Unless the US China India at the bare minimum take action, and drastic action, … the Planet is fcked.
I have come to accept that, because Globally, those that make the money, and have all set themselves up to make more of it from the Climate change that is coming, own the Governments that should be doing something, and aren’t,… including our own.
If the Scientists are correct with their numbers predictions, & timelines, there’s no way on God’s green (soon to be even more blue) Earth that enough will be done in time, and we’re already screwed,
My only hope atm, is that they’re wrong.
We are the third biggest exporter of fossil fuels on the planet so don’t talk to me how about what happens in Australia won’t make a jot of difference. That’s just bullshit and a morally bankrupt talking point.
Except if we don’t sell it, they’ll buy it elsewhere, … but sure.
A bit like the EFC & our pokies licence 
If we don’t sell it, global supply reduces and so it gets more expensive, which increases the incentive to transition to cleaner generation tech.
(Y’know, cos if there’s one thing that modern politics proves is that merely keeping the earth habitable for human civilisation isn’t enough incentive on its own…)
And I’ve heard the argument about Australia only producing 1.7% of emissions before. Even though @FromOutside50 is 100% right in saying we export a huge percentage of earth’s dirty fuel, there’s another wrinkle.
If we say Aust can’t reduce emissions because we only produce 1.7% of them, then logically no country emitting less than us needs to reduce their emissions either. Problem is, the combination of us and all those other smaller countries produces more total emissions than the US, or China. So if all of us together don’t need to reduce emissions, then logically neither does anyone on the planet, and we’e all stuffed.
The ALP has always been what it is ! No matter how hard you wish it is always going to be a Democratic Socialist Party that is the political wing of the Trade Union movement.
In order to win Government to enact laws and policy that are progressive for working Australians, it needs to be pragmatic and realistic. Labor Andrews Government has a commitment to 52% renewable power by 2030, and this will be achieved in Victoria without power shortages. Shutting down Australian coal mining will have little effect on the world usage of coal, except to raise prices. It will destroy our economy in the short-term, and cause massive power shortages. No Party will win Government with these policies, and no matter what you or I think, winning Government and hence control is the only game in Town.
Neoliberalism was adopted by Hawke/Keating in 1983, and Is no new thing in our society. Their policies on one hand helped modernise our economy, but at the loss of Union power with “accords” which favoured the boss. In fact, the policy agenda Shorten took to the last election was hardly neoliberal at all.
Listen to what Penny Wong says and tell me what she could say differently that would be honest or achievable. Now if we were NZ who do not rely on coal to generate power, or mining to sustain their economy, maybe we could take the Jacinta approach.
“The impact of climate change is very real and no one knows this better than our pacific neighbours, who’s homes and livelihoods are being destroyed by rising sea levels, to strike climate change terminology from the records by our government was disingenuous and diminishing of their plight, coal is indeed an important part of our economy so we will continue as the labor party to work towards transitioning our economy to be more globally responsible and towards the targets we set out before the election to help reduce our emissions”
