Monday , November 25 2024
Home / John Quiggin / The new normal: put up with it

The new normal: put up with it

Summary:
Anthony Albanese has finally responded to the bushfire disaster. On the positive side, and by contrast with Morrison, he has at least acknowledged the role of climate change in turning our historical pattern of episodic bushfires into a new normal in which fires burn for weeks on end in places that have never seen them before. As of today, with the worst of the crisis behind us for now, NSW Fire and Rescue Service reports At 8.30am there are 129 fires burning, 66 are uncontained. One fire is at Watch and Act level. More than 1,800 personnel are working to contain these fires. Severe and High Fire Danger Ratings continue over much of the state today. Albo’s response is to call for an emergency COAG which will discuss how to deal with climate related disasters, but not, it

Topics:
John Quiggin considers the following as important:

This could be interesting, too:

John Quiggin writes Who’s afraid of Perrottet ?

John Quiggin writes What about other avoidable deaths? …

John Quiggin writes Dismembering government …

John Quiggin writes Labor and its imaginary friends: why the party’s traditional core is not an election winner

Anthony Albanese has finally responded to the bushfire disaster. On the positive side, and by contrast with Morrison, he has at least acknowledged the role of climate change in turning our historical pattern of episodic bushfires into a new normal in which fires burn for weeks on end in places that have never seen them before. As of today, with the worst of the crisis behind us for now, NSW Fire and Rescue Service reports

At 8.30am there are 129 fires burning, 66 are uncontained. One fire is at Watch and Act level. More than 1,800 personnel are working to contain these fires. Severe and High Fire Danger Ratings continue over much of the state today.

Albo’s response is to call for an emergency COAG which will discuss how to deal with climate related disasters, but not, it seems, look at doing anything about our contribution to climate change. That would, it seems, be unnecessarily divisive.

We now have a choice between two exciting climate policies

LNP: Don’t believe your lying eyes, let alone lying scientists. It isn’t happening

ALP: It’s happening, and we’re not going to do anything unpopular to stop it. Get used to it.

John Quiggin
He is an Australian economist, a Professor and an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow at the University of Queensland, and a former member of the Board of the Climate Change Authority of the Australian Government.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *