As we head towards what looks like yet another record breaking Summer we already find ourselves in the midst of a savage fire season.  Bushfires have already devastated parts of Queensland, New South Wales, Tasmania and Western Australia.  Fire season isn’t supposed to start until October 1 but we’ve had serious fire activity occurring since early September.  We’re in the midst of a severe drought in New South Wales where water restrictions are occurring pretty much everywhere outside of Sydney.  And still our elected officials drag their feet, and I personally would add they drag their knuckles too, doing nothing at all to address Climate Change.

And really it’s no surprise at all.

The Coalition are too busy pandering to their mates in the Mining industry to bother doing anything.  And they still have what are politely called sceptics, but I prefer to use the term ignorants, in their party they have to placate.  So even talking about Climate Change is fraught with risk inside their own party.  So in the meantime the agriculture industry, which blindly votes for the National Party at every election, are seriously thinking to themselves something like “what have we done?”  After all, they are the first to suffer at the hands of this drought.  Empty promises of aid echoed down the halls of Parliament for weeks before a watered down and quite frankly inept and bumbling policy to assist farmers was announced.  I highly doubt they are feeling much better after seeing it.

Not that the total joke of an opposition are doing any better.  Bushfires raging all over the place and they decide to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Government and agree it ‘isn’t time to talk about climate change while all of this is happening” – my paraphrasing, not an actual quote – but that is exactly what they have done.

Funnily enough the opportunity to talk terrorism was taken up in the wake of both Christchurch’s tragedy and the Lindt Café shootings in Sydney.  We talk about netting beaches immediately after a shark attack.  We talk gun control after every American school shooting.  We talk drug testing after every music festival overdose.  So why exactly can’t we talk Climate Change during a natural disaster that is obviously exacerbated by that very phenomenon.

I will tell you why.

For the Coalition – they have nothing to say.  They don’t want to acknowledge it exists.  It’s not good for their favourite businesses so it’s not allowed air time.  It’s all bullshit, smoke and mirrors, corrupt scientists, “raving inner-city lunatics” (and that is a quote from our Deputy PM – I’m ashamed to admit he is anything more than a street sweeper with a viewpoint like that but there you have it – welcome to Democracy – ain’t it great?) and mad left wing greenies (something I have been called in the past).

For Labor – they are shit scared that it will cost them votes.  Yep.  Votes.  Years before the next election is due.  They have just completed a post-mortem of how they lost the unlosable election.  One of the points was their Climate Change policy.  Seriously you lot, it didn’t matter what your policy was with Bill in charge.  People didn’t like him and in the cult of the personality that we live in today that was all it took.  He backstabbed Rudd, then did the same to Gillard.  That was why you dumb arses.  That’s why his approval numbers were always rubbish.  No matter what he did, no matter what he said.  He was as popular as a fart in an elevator.  If almost anyone else was leader you would have won.  Albo, Burkey, Tanya, Dreyfuss – any of them.  You would have won.  You still wouldn’t have got my vote out here though – your candidate in my area is a notorious tool.  So now they are paralysed with fear that if they say the wrong thing then the madly popular “thoughts and prayers” PM ScoMo would strike you down in the public arena and your votes will bleed away never to return.  It makes me sick.  Can someone please put Penny Wong in charge.  Someone with some fight.  Some courage.  And a load of credibility.   But no, the factions run the party and deals would need to be made.  Idiots.

So the “major” parties basically are doing nothing.

But while the bushfires continue to rage it’s the Greens who get the blame.  Yes, the Greens.  The ones with a single seat in the House of Reps.  The ones that do not have control of the Senate.  The ones that HAVE NO EFFECTIVE SAY IN PARLIAMENT.  The ones that have brainwashed everyone somehow, even though that same brainwashing has utterly failed to get them into a position of power.  So the Greens, the very party who were formed due to environmental issues, get the blame for an environmental catastrophe they have been warning about for the last 25 years.

You know it makes sense.  To an idiot perhaps.  Not to me.

Now a group of retired fire chiefs have come out and spoken out as a group to call bullshit on what the Government are doing.  To heap scorn and fiery brimstone on our elected officials who sit on the throne of Rome fiddling away madly while the country burns.  Why retired guys?  Because those in the jobs are not allowed to discuss Climate Change.  Ridiculous.

And in the previous week 11,000 scientists also spoke out in a joint statement saying we are on a road to perdition itself.  Also one of the world’s largest banks issued a major policy saying Climate Change was the single biggest risk to the world’s economy.  And they said it in great depth.

Now I don’t know if having an Environmental Science degree makes me a scientist or not but I’m with the 11,000 who say nowhere near enough is being done.  I’ve only being saying it to anyone mad enough to listen to me for the last 20+ years.  And all of my studies from 2005-2010 just reinforced it even more.  Plus another 9 years of reading IPCC reports, climate change journals and other studies have done nothing to change my viewpoint.  Except for one thing.  It’s worse than we think.

Here is something that only the scientific community ever seem to talk about.

Climate has momentum.

It’s like a very big truck running down a very steep slope.  It will not stop quickly.  Even if by some miracle we stopped emitting all the bad stuff tomorrow morning it will be years before anything improves.  Years.  Quite a few years actually.

So lock in some really interesting times.  Where we do not have control.  Where all we can do is react.  I don’t think it will be pretty.  I also don’t think it will be short.  I know for a fact that the IPCC reports are always heavily swayed to the most conservative numbers.  And everything we have seen is at the other end of the bell curve, the uncomfortable end if you like.

What do I really think?  I think we, as a country, are not mature enough in our thinking to meet this challenge.  I think we are too complacent to pull the trigger on real action.  I think we are too comfortable with our unsustainable Western lifestyles to make the changes required.  And finally, I think we are not the Clever Country we have always been told we are.  More like the Gullible, Stupid, Ignorant, We-Are-Too-Small-To-Make-A-Difference country.  And since we are “too-small” we will just rely on the rest to save us.  Won’t happen.  Everyone says they are too small.  China still say they are a developing country and want all the benefits of that status.  Yeah right, thanks China.  The USA are too introspective and important to give a shit about anyone else.  And the EU is imploding with right wing xenophobia that will derail efforts to continue the good work commenced in many EU states.   Not to mention Brazil.  I actually don’t want to mention Brazil.  Just wow.

TL:DR – Pardon the language but we’re fucked.