A sad state of affairs on looming Australia Day.

Australia 2019

With an overall very low performance, Australia ranks 55th in this year’s CCPI. The country continues to receive very low ratings in the categories GHG Emissions, Energy Use and Climate Policy. The country ranks at the bottom of low performers in the Renewable Energy category with national experts criticising the government for not putting forward any plans for renewable energy beyond 2020. Experts argue that national climate policy has continued to worsen – the government has no comprehensive emission reduction policy, no regulation of transport emissions and no plans to phase out coal. Experts observe that the government has become an increasingly regressive force in international negotiations, attempting to weaken climate finance obligations and dismissing the IPCC 1.5°C report.

Holland ranks 28th while Finland has a ranking of  9th

https://www.climate-change-performance-index.org/country/australia-2019

I am desperate and keen to have a positive something to say about Australia, the country my parents chose to migrate to back in 1956. With Australia day coming up on the 26th of January, can some of you please, guide me to a distinctly positive item that Australia excels in. Lately we have been inundated with bad things. We have a Royal Commission on aged care. Last week we watched how elderly are being strapped down in a chair for up to 14 hours and no toilet breaks. A man suffering from dementia was seen reduced to a vegetable, all bent double over, strapped on his chair. This was hard on the heels of video footage by combat troops with assault weapons at the ready, trained on children at a juvenile detention centre.

It just doesn’t seem to stop. The best thing that Australia almost achieved, but not quite, was allowing a Saudi girl in Australia. Sadly this did not happen either.

We will now see how all those dead fish in our largest river will survive. I don’t like their chances either.

I suppose a good thing that has happened is that the weather is now a lot cooler. For the moment we can turn off our air-conditioning. So…Aussi, aussi…oi oi oi.

Renewables, Wars, and Same Sex Marriage.

Indeed

Isn’t it amazing that no matter what the science is telling us, there will be people denying the truth that coal fired power is now as outdated as the horse and buggy were in earlier days? The Australian government is beholden to some that just will not budge and will stick to the past, forcing up the cost of energy. They do this with the fervour of an 1810 Leicestershire luddite destroying anything and everything progressive or forward looking in their paths.

Just read this latest from ABC News; http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-25/the-truth-about-soaring-power-prices/8979860

We live in a townhouse sharing a joint roof but are considering going the whole hog and install solar panels with the Tesla battery back-up. The cost of doing that will go down as time passes. My guess is that with power bills reaching stratospheric heights there will be a tsunami of home-owners doing the same. It just doesn’t make any sense not to do this. The energy companies are shunning coal power stations like the plague and no one wants to invest nor spend money on maintaining the old ones except our Government staunchly defending anything that doesn’t move forward.

With a keener more forward Government the renewable technology could be hurried along by local shires to install complete off-grid power stations on vacant land that Australia has so much of, and bring affordable cheap energy to those in units or apartment blocks without roof space for solar panelling.

The transition period between the old and new technology could have been made   easier and economically more efficient if we were not burdened by the Neanderthal fogeys in our present Government. Where do they come from and who puts them there?

It is the same with this referendums on SSM. Some of the same parliamentarians taking great delight in venting their hate and torture on refugees are now venting their rage on those who want the chance for love to stand a chance, and pass laws making choice of marriage equal to all, no matter what orientation. They twist and turn to try and prevent the law from becoming kinder and more just towards those who might be different.

Some of those same Parliamentarians take great pride in the bombing of foreign countries where we have no right to be involved in, and do so without asking permission from its citizens by holding referendums or postal polls. Billions of dollars spend on keeping a few thousands refugees in jail, billions on fighting in stupid wars, and now even more billions in propping up old coal powered technology. Were any of us asked our opinion or approval to do so?

So why the idiocy of holding referendums on SSM in the first place? Is SSM more dangerous than fighting wars or holding refugees in jails. Sorry, to be meandering so long about this SSM subject but rest assured I am just as keen to write about much more positive stuff. I suppose the return of Germany’s Angela Merkel is something to celebrate but…, the extreme right has also done well which is not so positive.

Was our previous PM Paul Keating right, when he predicted Australia could end up a ‘Banana Republic? I need a good carpet bowling session at the local RSL club.