Greenwash Political Action Party and Urban Grassroots Movement for the Green Party

No Prime Minister, the issue is climate change.

At least twice yesterday I heard John Howard declare words to the effect that ‘water was the environmental issue of our time’ or the ‘greatest conservation challenge of the age’. He seems not to have been challenged on this pompous assertion that is plainly wrong.

On any measure climate change is THE environmental issue, not only of this generation but of all generations.

Howard is attempting to do just what we predicted on this blog last October. He is trying to shift the climate change debate into more of a discussion about helping farmers than actually reducing the emissions that are causing the climate change (and enhancing the water shortages) in the first place.

Here is what the piece, published by Crikey on 23 October 2006, said:

"Senator Bill Heffernan’s entry into the debate marked a dangerous turn. Heffernan argues that the climate change priority is to help farmers reeling from the impacts of drought to move North where there is likely to be an increase in rainfall.

With a massive budget surplus and the Government desperate to be seen to be doing something on climate change, Howard could announce a series of farmer-focused climate packages in the run to the 2007 election that pork barrels a key constituency and sidelines the Greens.

In a sense Howard would be moving beyond acting to prevent dangerous climate change to an ‘adaptation’ phase in which the government provides ‘solutions’ to the consequences of global warming. Dennis Shanahan gave the PM’s plans a push along on Saturday when he declared that Howard wasn’t going Green, instead Howard was ‘browning the Greens’.

The environment movement will need to confront this issue if it is to successfully prevent Howard hijacking the urgency of the issue with a farmer friendly pitch or his dangerous nuclear push.”

Where are the guaranteed environmental flows?
Anyway the big thing missing from yesterday was any guarantee that there would be increased environmental flows. Where was the commitment to put an extra 1500-3000 gigalitres (the amount scientists say is needed) in to save the Murray. You think $10 billion could have bought that. Instead, I think we will see a whole lot more money for the irrigators and precious little for environmental flows.

posted by Ben Oquist # 11:17 AM 3 comments