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News about climate change can be depressing. But it was downright shocking to learn that budget cuts to CSIRO have led to the decimation of the agency's climate science. Australia is one of the worst global emitters, yet Australian citizens have outsourced responsibility for climate protection, as they have for refugees. The ease of bipartisan agreement on such crucial dilemmas confirms the point. A dormant electorate creates a negligent, sleeping, self-satisfied and corrupt government.
Josh Bornstein compared the ABC to the victim in an abusive relationship, desperately trying to ward off the next blow by anticipating the criticism of its enemies. Certainly, enlisting Andrew Bolt to participate in a documentary on Indigenous constitutional recognition seems like a pre-emptive defensive move against the accusations of bias that are routinely levelled against the national broadcaster. For Bolt the arrangement is win-win; for the ABC it's yet another example of self-sabotage.
Hailing from Argentina, Francis puts his trust neither in ideological Communism nor in unbridled capitalism. We need to enhance international security, building the rule of law within multilateral organisations, and fostering the climate for investment sensitive to the triple bottom line - economic, social and environmental. I return from Rome grateful that we have a pope prepared to open these questions, accompanied by senior prelates happy to mix it with business and community leaders.
'The people who were most impacted were people in developing countries who I've cared about my whole life. And then I started having grandchildren too, so that passion to do something about climate change was turbo charged. The thought of little kids being swept out to sea because of a typhoon, or killed in a cyclone - they haunt me.' Thea Ormerod, President of Australian Religious Response to Climate Change, was arrested last year while protesting the Maules Creek mine site in NSW.
Francis does not pretend to have answers to the big questions which will confront world leaders when they gather in Paris. But he does think the science is IN, and the evidence is clear that much of the climate change, loss of biodiversity and water shortages are the result of human action. We are blessed to have a pope who speaks to all the world about the prudence, justice and empathy required so that more people on our planet might enjoy integral human development.
Environmental justice will be part of the discussion in Paris this month. The principle of justice says each person is of equal value no matter which nation or ethnic group they belong to. Each Australian contributes 16 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, while each Bangladeshi contributes a little more than a third of a tonne. If the principle of justice is applied, Australia will have to move from 16 tonnes per person to about a third of a tonne, roughly equivalent to what a Bangladeshi emits now.
Francis knows there are all sorts of issues inside and outside the Church where for too long people with power have tried to keep the lid on, in the hope that the problems and complexities will go away, often by parodying those who see the problems or complexities as small 'l' liberals or cafeteria Catholics. He delights in being joyful and troubled while contemplating big problems, calling people of good will to the table of deliberation reminding them of the kernel of the Christian gospels. He has the faith and hope needed to lift the lid without fear and without knowing the answers prior to the dialogue occurring.
This year's International Day of Peace comes amid much war-making. Those with a feel for history may see it as an echo of an idealistic age that had experienced years of war and was determined to shape a better world. To those caught in fear and violence, and promised another ten years of the same, it will come as an insinuating hope against hope; a reproach to a world that stirs rather than douses wars.
Lomborg's profile was built by a book on global warming in which he accepted its reality, but argued its effects would not be as catastrophic as predicted. He is a good media performer whose métier is not scholarship but popularisation. Universities, which claim that their activities are characterised by depth, appoint people with higher scholarly credentials and research experience to lead their research centres.
The Federal Government's ethical argument for coal is that it is the most readily available and cheapest resource for generating electricity for the development of poorer countries. The structure of this argument based on our duty to the poor is significant. It assumes that governments, mining companies, banks and the people who invest in them a duty to consider the effects of their actions on people both in their own nations and in other nations.
In a series of articles, The Australian newspaper has strongly criticised the new encyclical Laudato Si', with editor-at-large Paul Kelly charging that the Pope has 'delegitimised as immoral' pro-market economic forces. This is wrong. Pope Francis is not opposed to the free market in principle, but insists that it be well regulated to ensure social justice for all involved.
In his recent encyclical, Pope Francis demands that, in addressing the needs of the environment, wealthy nations must reform an economic system that perpetuates poverty in the underdeveloped world. In seeking a conversion of heart on the part of those who are wealthy, he sees imposing artificial population control on the world's poor as a thoroughly unfair and unconverted attitude. The real problem is the greed of the rich, not the inability of the poor to control their fertility.
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