Category: climate change

15 Sep

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Australia’s ‘Left’ in government. Part 2: Greens trapped in a prison of their own making

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Since when did building a climate movement mean cheerleading neoliberal government policies? In the last post I argued that the deep crisis of the Gillard government is also a crisis of the Greens and the Left more generally. By effectively entering a “Left” government the Greens have replicated the disastrous strategy of Italy’s main party of the […]

09 Jul

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Carbon pricing — even the Right admits it’s really all about neoliberalism

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  This is what the climate movement, the Greens and sections of the Left have staked their futures on: [I]n Australia, the push for carbon pricing originated from the Treasury as a pro-market economy-wide reform whose great advocates were Ken Henry, Martin Parkinson and Ross Garnaut with their ideas holding sway with John Howard, Rudd and […]

12 Jun

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liz_beths interviewed on ‘The Third Degree’

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  Given our article on The Drum this week, about the carbon tax debate, it seems timely to post a link to a recent episode of The Third Degree: Environment and Social Justice Radio on 2SER in Sydney. The program was the first in a series of discussions under the theme ‘The Carbon Kerfuffle: Critical Discussions in Climate Change […]

09 Jun

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Unfit for purpose: The carbon price debate as smokescreen for inaction

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ABC’s The Drum has published an article today by @Dr_Tad and I about the reliance on market mechanisms to solve the climate crisis. We take on the accepted wisdom these mechanisms can adequately deal with the climate crisis, or that they are the only option. Moreover, we argue the debate is a distraction harming the climate movement and likely to see its demobilisation and defeat. Yet it is […]

14 Apr

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The ETS and CPRS: Neoliberalism by any other name

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A most curious thing happened that continues to shape mainstream political debate in this country. In the lead-up to the 2007 election Kevin Rudd campaigned strongly on winning a mandate for taking real action on climate change, skewering the inaction of the Howard Government as proof that it had failed on the “greatest moral challenge” […]

07 Dec

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Michael Costa, George Megalogenis & the strange death of ‘reform’ politics

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Now also cross-posted to ABC’s The Drum website. The last fortnight saw the release of two significant contributions to the post federal election debate on the state of official politics, and more specifically its intimate connection with the fortunes of the Australian Labor Party. The first, the new Quarterly Essay by George Megalogenis of The Australian, is a detailed attempt […]

26 Sep

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Desperately seeking authority

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That new paradigm thingy didn’t last long, now, did it? At least not the world of “kinder, gentler” politics that Tony Abbott was promising. Nor the ability of rural Independent MPs to rise above the fray of deal-making and remain untainted by “old-style” party politics. Nor, of course, the dream of politicians finding more “consensus” […]

15 Aug

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Greens economics (2): The problem with the problem with growth

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Among progressive environmental thinkers it has become de rigueur to attack economic growth as the main problem leading to ecological destruction and runaway climate change. The argument is put with certain variations, but the central theme is always the same: economic growth is infinite while the planet is finite, and so we cannot afford to […]