And, of course, by extension, that includes the people of Australia and the wider the global population.
The question is: “Why do I assume that?”
Well, I’m 78 in August and the life expectancy of Australian males is just over 83 years and so I have just five years left to see changes in our behaviour not yet understood by most people.
The other assumption, based on personal experience of engaging with people throughout the Goulburn Valley, is that few see the issue as serious enough for them to consider changing their way of life, how they live and how they broadly behave.
In 2018 Ian Dunlop, a former coal executive, and David Spratt, a Victorian-based authority on climate issues, wrote in The Guardian: “The top priority of government is security of the people. Yet on the greatest threat of all, most governments are failing abysmally.”
That “greatest threat of all” is climate change.
Frequently I hear politicians, of all stripes, declaring the first responsibility of government is the safety and security of those who live here.
Heroic rhetoric that might be, but its impotence takes shape immediately that “greatest threat” hoves into view.
So, the clock is ticking, and statistically I have a little over five years to witness the arrival of a hitherto unseen upheaval in social behaviour.
Just recently, I had a friend argue that there is nothing we, that’s Australia, can do to slow the advance of climate change, as we contribute so little to the total global carbon dioxide emissions that are polluting and subsequently have caused near irreparable damage to Earth’s atmosphere.
Australia’s less than 1.5 per cent contribution to global emissions jumps to about five or more when we add emissions arising from the coal and gas we export — and that’s significant and warrants our attention
The pragmatists repeatedly say they want evidence of a worsening climate, but then refuse to acknowledge the extreme weather events happening all around the world, and right here in Australia.
Shepparton is at the heart of the Nicholls federal electorate, which, being on a riverine plain, is one of the most at-risk flood-prone electorates in Australia.
Few of us can forget the floods of 2022 when the city faced a watery assault. That was when the tyranny of the immediate, or the urgent, kicked in, with machines powered by fossil fuels, an irrefutable cause of climate change, used to defend lives, property and infrastructure.
Let me now quote the co-author of the prescient 2008 book Climate Code Red, David Spratt, who wrote in a recent article: “The neoliberal market economy, with its unregulated consumption and rapacious short-term outlook, is destroying modern civilisation. The warning signs are obvious, not least burgeoning high-consuming populations, massive biodiversity loss and multiple resource scarcities.”
He ended by writing: “All of this leads to one conclusion: we are on the edge of a precipice and humanity now needs to throw everything at the climate threat, literally ‘all hands on deck’. The late Professor Will Steffen’s call to make climate the primary target of policy and economics is now a survival imperative. The business-as-usual delusion embraced by policymakers that climate is just another issue is laid bare by the 1.5°C time-bomb.”
Conscious of views similar to Mr Spratt’s, I was recently able to make a personal submission to Greater Shepparton City Council and its officers for the formation of its 2025-26 budget.
I had absolutely no impact!
Council’s previous budget had allowed one per cent of financial resources to deal with environmental and drainage issues.
Pointing to the quickly unfolding and burgeoning impact of climate change, I suggested at least 10 per cent of the council budget should be applied to addressing environmental matters.
Council’s recently adopted budget for the coming year sees environmental and drainage matters remain at just one per cent.
Maybe we will be okay for the year ahead or maybe the next five years, but by then I won’t be caring too much, as statistically, as I’ll be joining the ‘layabouts’, something my dad often said as he pointed at a cemetery we were passing.
Robert McLean
Shepparton
9°C