Till now I have been saying that I have seen worse in my lifetime (87 years) with a lot of that time spent in the bush. The current spell has reached a point where I can not honestly claim that. I have not seen worse than it is now. That goes along with a lot of other things that I have never seen worse. Honesty, trust, respect for others, greed to name a few.
Even though that is the case I still stick to the fact that it is not all doom and gloom. I still say that there is an "industry" that is capitalising on the current situation, a carbon industry. I maintain the opinion that the largest problem is outside Australia, mainly China and India, and anything we do will have very little effect. All that will happen is that we will make it harder for us to compete on the world stage and make it easier for China to increase their world domination attempt. I still say that carbon emissions is not the largest problem, rather it is the cover excuse for not tackling the larger problem of increasing population and pollution.
The problem situation now is drought not atmospheric CO2. It is certainly climate change, the climate has always been changing and will continue to do so.The drought will break, maybe our climate will not be exactly as it was in the past but we will adapt to it. Maybe there will be extreme weather events but they will be managed. The predicted sea level rise is scaremongering and my waterfront block will remain a waterfront block and not an underwater block. In 20 years time you will be saying "what was that all about". There will have been a silver lining to the clouds that are around now. People will realise that to live among the gum trees is risky and will be doing things differently. The watermelon influence will no longer be stopping the construction of new dams or insisting on the closing of fire trails and forest access roads. Farming practices will be continually changing to meet new challenges as they have always done. Water will be treated as a necessity and should not treated as a tradeable commodity. It will be allowed to be harvested and stored.
In 20 years time the world will either be smothered in plastic or poisoned by it or it will have been recognised as a far greater problem that carbon emissions and solutions will be in place to rein in that problem.
Politicians will need to have a little courage to make some of the changes and not let protest movements from fringe groups set an agenda. They will need to stop the country's wealth being frittered away and build a wealthier nation with the wealth not being only measured in dollar terms. They will have to put back into the Public service the notion that they are there to serve the public and the public are not there to serve them. On the other hand the general public will have to learn to do their part as well.
