Painting Fakes

It rained.  And rained.  It rained more.  The river was rising.  There would be minor flooding.  It rained more.  Actually, it would be moderate.  More rain.  No, sorry, major. We moved stuff upstairs.  The lights went out.  We headed for higher ground, and there we stayed for five days.  We were lucky, we just had a couple of inches of water in the rooms we had emptied.  Our neighbours, a few metres down the hill, not so much.  The rain headed south, wreaking havoc wherever it went.   Amidst all this, along with the war in Ukraine and the ongoing global plague, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report saying how bad the impacts of climate change are, how much worse they will be, and how much we're not doing to adapt.  Tell us something we don't know.  If you listened to our politicians, you wouldn't know the report had been published.  From many of them, you wouldn't even know that its contents were being acted out in real life in communities th

This week the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the IPCC) released its Sixth Assessment Report .  It's a synthesis of the latest scientific understandings of climate change, put together and carefully vetted by a group of several hundred climate scientists.   The news is not good. The earth has already warmed by 1.09 degrees Celsius on average.  Australia has warmed by 1.4.   Scientists are more certain than ever that it's caused by humans (us, and particularly the wealthy oligarchs who are blocking action).   They are also much more certain than they were last report about the direct link between climate change and natural disasters.  Remember those bushfires, and the ones sweeping Europe right now, right after the floods that swept Europe?  There'll be more. Sea levels are rising.  It's hard to say by how much because it's hard to model how major ice sheets will melt.  But higher than now.  Some Pacific nations are at risk of disappearing.   This is not t

I just wrote my eighth letter to our dear Prime Minister on the subject of climate change.  I haven't had a sensible reply to the previous seven (one spin letter in response to the first , one brief acknowledgement of my praise of the Government's handling of COVID in the fifth which fails to mention the actual subject of the letter) but that's not the point.  The point is that he and his minions hear, repeatedly, that there are Australians who are not happy with inaction on climate change. For this eighth letter I have widened the audience.  Along with the original to the PM I have sent a version to all Queensland Senators, my local Commonwealth member and the Minister for Emissions Reduction (sic.), and to my State and Local Government representatives.  This is the main content of the letter, without the opening bits which were tailored to each audience. *** As we roll out the COVID 19 vaccines and we can see the containment of the virus approaching, all of us are turnin

Here's my latest letter to our dear Prime Minister.  I've broadened the ask to take in three things that are uppermost in my heart at the moment.  After all, you're allowed to ask for more than one thing for Christmas aren't you? *** Dear Prime Minister I trust you have an excellent Christmas and New Year, and return to work ready to face the considerable demands that 2021 will bring. I have many wishes for 2021, some of which have nothing to do with you.   However, one of my wishes is for better government in 2021, from you and your colleagues.   This wish could be summed up in one main theme – end the divisive, partisan slanging match that politics has become, and get on with making the difficult decisions that we all need. The silver lining in the cloud of 2020’s pandemic is that for a short time, our governments (State/Territory and Commonwealth) worked together irrespective of political colour via the National Cabinet.   However, it didn’t take long to return

So, in honour of the Gas-Fired Recovery (TM) and the Technology Roadmap (TM) I have included the Minister for Energy and (ensuring there is no) Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor in my latest Dear Scomo letter. My source of hope (and don't we all need hope?) is that the federal Liberal and National Parties are part of a small and decreasing number of people and organisations who still don't get that climate action is essential.  The climate war is over, but our current Commonwealth Government is like one of those Japanese soldiers still holed up in some remote jungle, not having heard the news and still holding their posts for the Emperor.  We need to entice them out and give them the good news so that they can get on with their jobs. *** Dear Prime Minister and Minister I trust you and your families are well and thriving through the COVID crisis. Thanks to your success in keeping COVID-19 at bay so far (and trusting we continue to do a god job on this front!) we are now able to

So after all my letters to our esteemed Prime Minister I've been neglecting his State colleagues here in Queensland.  Of course, they are making a better fist of climate policy than Scomo and his mob, but that's not saying much.  So I thought that in this new era of Commonwealth/State cooperation (and with an eye to our State election which is just around the corner) I would adapt my latest missive for the Queensland Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk. Dear Premier I trust you and your family and loved ones are well and thriving through the COVID crisis.   I would like to thank and congratulate you and your government, along with your State and Commonwealth colleagues, on your astute handling of this crisis.   It’s been reassuring to see the speed and effectiveness with which our governments have reacted, and the success this has brought about in keeping the number of infections low.   No doubt there is a long way to go and there will be twists and turns along th

So it's been a few months and last week was the Student Climate Strike, staged online as everything is at the moment.  I admire those kids for their persistence to keep going when it seems doubly hopeless, so decided it was time for my next letter to our esteemed Prime Minister.  Here it is for your reading pleasure.  Others have said similar things, not really my idea, but the more of us say it the more they have to listen. Dear Prime Minister I trust you and your family are well and thriving through the COVID crisis. I would like to thank and congratulate you and your government, and our State governments, on your astute handling of the crisis.   It’s been reassuring to see the speed and effectiveness with which our governments have reacted, and the success this has brought about in keeping the number of infections low.   No doubt there is a long way to go and there will be twists and turns along the way, but so far so good. To me, your success rests on fo