Post #1 Crisis? What Crisis?

First, apologies for including a Supertramp song title in my blogging debut but in the wake of the spectacular victory of the Climate Change Skeptics earlier this week I'm wondering if the coalition will take that song title to the next federal election as their campaign slogan? Barnaby Joyce, Nick Minchin et al managed to unleash that deep seated mistrust of science and deep thought that lies at the heart of most conservative political thinking. "If you can't see it and you can't sell it, then how can it be real".

But climate change is real. It's as real as Melbourne's water supplies are low. 30 percent at the beginning of what promises to be another blistering Summer. It's as real as the mid November heatwave Melbourne and Adelaide experienced with temperatures in the high 30's for Melbourne and in Adelaide tops in the 40's.

The conservatives claim that an emmissions trading scheme would cost thousands of Australian jobs, and it might but here's an interesting reality check from the Greens Bob Brown. The entire Australian Coal industry provides only 30,000 jobs while the various industries (fishing, tourism etc) that depend on the Barrier Reef provide 65,000 jobs. At the current rate of global warming the reef will be 90% dead within 30 years and the jobs that depend on it will be gone too.

There are opportunities for Australia to step up to the mark in regard to climate change and there is a lot of money to be made from developing alternative and renewable energy. If the conservatives are truly, as they claim the parties of enterprise, why aren't they looking just a few years down the track when oil goes back to $150 and beyond a barrel, petrol prices skyrocket and Western economies once more find themselves on the verge of collapse? Show us your vision for the future, not just the next election or soundbite. Give us some hope to avoid that inevitible crisis. Oh but there you go,I forgot; Crisis? What Crisis?