The lost plot

Here are two more stories that show how badly John Howard and his government have lost the plot on all things climate change.

The first is about solar power and the second is on the future of Australia as global warming kicks in.


The story about solar power is interesting, and frustrating, and a good example of lost opportunities. The Australian company couldn't find support for its Australian product in Australia, so does the sensible thing and moves offshore. Then it gets picked up by an American company, lands a huge contract providing clean renewable energy on a huge scale.

I've always thought that Australia is the logical place for solar power to take off. We've got a large amount of space, and lots of sunny weather. It should be an obvious combination. But we've got a government that talks about solar power being inefficient, expensive and unable to provide baseload power, and so they've not invested in it or provided any significant subsidies for research and development. And now, an Australian company is going to provide all those things to the Americans. I guess that'd be a shock to John Howard and friends, although they'll probably waffle on about how it's still not in production and there's a lot of risks etc etc. And in the meantime, our country loses out on the benefits of the project, and we waste our money on trying to develop clean coal technology that will take at least as long as solar power to provide any decent returns or environmental benefits.

The second story shows what this could cost us. While we're basically refusing to take any serious action on climate change or reducing our emmissions, our country is going to get hotter and dryer and the seas will continue to rise. That's bad news all around, and yet our government has continued to deny there's a problem. Until recently, that is, when they realised they might actually lose this election. Now we've got some token acknowledgement of the problem for them but their only action seems to be more political spin. As in dressing up already existing schemes and presenting it as something new. Anyway... bring on the election, lets get a new government!