Ah Tony Abbott, God Bless you (because I won’t be). Your timing is not so much impeccable as it is despicable. This is the week of that long awaited for Copenhagen Conference to address climate change. The week where those of us who want to see our planet protected, are hoping against hope that governments of the world embrace the idea of changing our current ways and take big, brave steps.
And in this very week where boldness, innovation, and thinking-outside-squares is of vital importance, Tony Abbott drags back from the brink of extinction old, conservative, stultifying MPs to his front bench. Bishop, Andrews, Ruddock - *creak creak, groan groan*. Anyone wanting a vibrant and forward looking opposition to move our country forward can only gape in amazement, disbelief and dread. It feels a little like we are scuba diving and on our ascent, with our oxygen running out, needing to break the sea’s surface to take big deep breaths. And instead being caught and held around the ankles by thick, toxic, seaweed. We need lungfuls of revitalising, fresh air and instead we are given salty water.
Is this indicative of a general fear of change around the country? Why do we fear change when such change is exactly what we need and perhaps, what will save us as a species? Why, for example, do we fail to focus on the opportunities that climate change can ring in and focus only on what we’ll lose? Do we not have enough faith in our own intellectual stock that we don’t think we’ll be able to find new resources (albeit intellectual ones) to export. We have the brains to do it – and so far, other countries are reaping the benefits. Aussies seem to only to be able to trust and rely on those assets we have which are tangible, and for which we are in fact, just lucky to possess, i.e. coal, LNG. Living in a regional town whose prosperity is reliant almost solely on coal and other mining, I understand the costs that could result if such mining was restricted or ceased in order to reduce carbon emissions. However, is it too simplistic to think that our prosperity and high standard of living are pointless if we have no liveable climate to survive in?
Those of us alive today and in the generations to come are lumbered with the slowly failing earth that we have been given by our forebears. It is just our bad luck, really, that the ‘buck stops with us’. Handing this problem on to generations and generations to come is cowardly and unethical. We as a nation and a global community need a little tough love. We need to stop sulking, cease denying that we have to be the ones to make the difficult decisions and find new ways of living.
I’m not saying it will be easy. When we compare a general fear of change with an inability to change ourselves or our own immediate environment we can perhaps understand the reluctance. So often we personally know what part of our own lives or families or homes need changing or improving, yet taking the impetus to change it eludes us. It could be losing weight, teaching a non-sleeping child to sleep better and hence putting up with the week(s) of unsettledness and sleep deprivation that will entail (as in my case). We maintain the status quo, no matter how unhealthy or dysfunctional it is because we are unsure of the outcome of change or don't have the ability to think clearly enough to know how to create that change. But what opportunities are lost? Instead of seeing the exciting, healthier possibilities which grow at the top of our ruts, we dig in deeper and deeper. Denial is easy and seductive, but slowly, almost invisibly, destructive.
We need to be excited about changing; personally, locally and globally. We need to be shown the infinite possibilities, not the finite losses. Yes, responsibility can be a frightening weight to bear but it means also that we can be the creators of brave, bold and beautiful new worlds. Let’s move forward and leave the stick-in-the-muds behind. Up to their necks in it.
