When the leader of a huge coal producing country blasts climate change deniers and "skeptics," he's most definitely worth listening to. That leader would be Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Australia, which has 84 billion short tons of coal reserves - the sixth largest in the world, behind China and India, and whose Senate votes in about three weeks on their own national strategy to tackle climate change. With that, here's the full transcript of Prime Minister's Rudd's speech, and here are a few highlights.*We "are reaching crunch time" on climate change, and "When you strip away all the political rhetoric, all the political excuses, there are two stark choices – action or inaction."
*"This is a profoundly important time for our nation, for our world and for our planet."
*Unfortunately, taking necessary action "is hard, because the climate change skeptics, the climate change deniers, the opponents of climate change action are active in every country."
*Who are these people? "They are a minority. They are powerful. And invariably they are driven by vested interests."
The opponents of action on climate change fall into one of three categories.
· First, the climate science deniers.
· Second, those that pay lip service to the science and the need to act on climate change but oppose every practicable mechanism being proposed to bring about that action.
· Third, those in each country that believe their country should wait for others to act first.
Together, these groups, alive in every major country including Australia, constitute a powerful global force for inaction, and they are particularly entrenched in a range of conservative parties around the world.
*Rudd then takes on the "arguments" - if you can even call them that - made by "fearmongers" against taking action on climate change. First, economic concerns are wildly overstated, and in actuality, "clean industries will create sustainable jobs of the future." Then you've got the "gaggle of world government conspiracy theorists [who] are so far out there on the far right, that they rub up next to the global anarchists of the far left." There are "[t]hose who argue that climate change does not represent a global market failure." And there are "[t]hose who argue that somehow the market will magically solve the problem." What these "arguments" constitute are nothing less than "total bald-faced denial of global scientific, economic and environmental reality," with "zero basis in evidence" and zero credibility.
*In the final analysis, Rudd says, opponents of taking strong action on climate change "are driven by a narrowly defined self interest of the present and are utterly contemptuous towards our children’s interest in the future." These people "are dangerous because if they succeed, then it is all of us who will suffer."
Powerful stuff, and all undeniably true. Thank you, Prime Minister Rudd; now, can we please see leadership like that here in the United States?
Speaking of the United States...this past Tuesday, right here in Virginia, we elected a slate of climate change "skeptics" and "deniers," the exact same type of people Prime Minister Rudd blasts in his speech. As I said during the campaign, for that reason alone - and there were dozens more - Virginia should never have voted for Bob McDonnell, Bill Bolling, and Ken Cuccinelli. The fact that we did so - although huge numbers of voters simply didn't show up at all, thanks in large part to the "worst campaign ever" - the pathetic disgraces known as the "Deeds campaign" and the "coordinated" - now means we are going to be "led" by people who have no respect or understanding of science, economics, or pretty much anything else but completely discredited right-wing claptrap.
Oh, and for those who argue that Virginia has "so much coal and we just can't do anything," according to EIA, we've got 217 million short tons of recoverable coal at producing mines here in Virginia. Now, that may sound like a lot, until you realize that Australia has 84 billion short tons of recoverable coal reserves. That's almost 400 times as much coal as we've got here in Virginia, yet Australia is on the verge of taking strong action against climate change and for the "clean tech" jobs of the future. What are Bob McDonnell, Eric Cantor, and the "know-nothing, just-say-no" Republicans doing here in Virginia and in Congress on either of those fronts? Nothing, of course, except to do the bidding of their masters in the fossil fool industry. Sadly, we should expect nothing better from these people. Even more sadly, pathetically, disgracefully - here in Virginia, we just elected them!
