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There is nothing Australia could have done on its own to curb climate change. Even if we removed every single human and factory from the country it wouldn't hav

There is nothing Australia could have done on its own to curb climate change. Even if we removed every single human and factory from the country it wouldn't have influenced climate change one bit. Now I know "we need to start somewhere", but this somewhere needs to be the biggest polluters not Australia. The best thing Australia could have done is to decrease their consumptions of goods manufactured by these big polluters by imposing heavy tariffs maybe, although this could have triggered a local industry to build this tariffed stuff which could have only been stopped by imposing very heavy taxation on those local industries, I don't think any politicians would like to commit political suicide though.

tomlock 7y ago
Australia is the largest coal exporter in the world.
- tomhoward 7y ago
  ...to countries [1] who need it for their societies and economies to function and grow. Is the argument that the noble thing to do would be to refuse to sell the coal, and force these countries to use more expensive forms of energy, regardless of whether it keeps more of their people in poverty for longer? It's an easy thing to say for those of us already living in first world countries with access to all the modern comforts. And sure, Japan and Korea are not poor countries, but they are populous, resource-poor countries with huge manufacturing industries (producing some of the world's most fuel-efficient cars, no less), so they have to import their energy from somewhere. [1] Major importers of Australian metallurgical coal are India, Japan and China. Major importers of Australian thermal coal are Japan, China, South Korea and Taiwan https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/minerals/mineral-resources-and-advice/australian-resource-reviews/black-coal https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/minerals/mineral-res...
  - tomlock 7y ago
    If you excluded metallurgical coal from our exports, we'd still be the largest exporter of coal in the world.
    - tomhoward 7y ago
      How is that a refutation of anything I wrote? The coal is still important for the economic wellbeing and personal welfare of the people in those countries, whether it's used for power generation or materials production.
      - tomlock 7y ago
        Keeping global warming under control is important for the economic wellbeing and personal welfare of the people in those countries.
        tomhoward 7y ago
        Notice how easy and noble-seeming it is to say that, compared to saying "I believe we should force more people in developing countries to stay in poverty for longer", even though they amount to the same thing? Please understand, I'm with you that climate change is important to mitigate; I lived through the bushfires and smoke haze this Australian summer, and I worry about the prospect of that being a more normal part of our future. I'm also expecting a child and have concerns for their future, as well the broader effects of climate change and environmental damage on humanity and nature everywhere. But I know that it will take more than scapegoating Australian politicians (funny how it's the conservative politicians that get attacked over this, even though their coal export policies aren't substantially different from Labor's) to fix the problem, when the whole reason for the demand for coal is that people in the developing world just want, quite reasonably, a standard of living approaching what we in the west take for granted. If these discussions involved sensible ideas about how developing countries could modernise their economies without fossil fuels, or acknowledged that large-scale carbon capture will have to be part of a comprehensive climate change solution, then I might be able to start taking them seriously. But I guess that kind of discussion doesn't deliver the quick hit of sanctimony that so many people seem to crave.
jamil7 7y ago
I agree Australia could not have prevented it on their own but given a clear, devestating example of the possible effects of climate change both parties shrug it off.
rypskar 7y ago
This is only a variant of the old "that big group of peoples are much larger than our group, so they need to change first". The others are always larger, so easy to accuse. Total for a country is maybe not the best metric to use. Per person emissions shows much more than total for a group of peoples called a country. Of course the largest polluter both by country and per person need to change the most, but the total pollution is the total of what you, me, and everyone else pollute
- reitzensteinm 7y ago
  Yes, and it's scary how often this broken thinking pops up here. Here's a quick quiz: China decides to split in two. Can each half now by rights pollute twice as much as it was before? Does the EU count as one large mega polluter or a bunch of small conscientious countries? Should we cap an Indian's emissions at 1/50th of those of an Australian, or use their economic development as an excuse to do whatever we want? The planet doesn't care about whatever imaginary lines we draw on a map. Per capita is all that matters and Australia is doing very poorly.
simonh 7y ago
Every country has to pull their weight. All of them. No excuses. You're probably right that events like this weren't avoidable even if drastic measures had been taken a decade ago. Maybe the effects could have been reduced, or the likelihood minimised but not eliminated. That doesn't matter though. What matters is what we do now, that we and politicians take this issue seriously and do what we can to address it.
imtringued 7y ago
Everyone says that, even the Americans who are second place. If the Chinese had a scapegoat they would blame someone else too.

tomlock 7y ago

Australia is the largest coal exporter in the world.

tomhoward 7y ago
...to countries [1] who need it for their societies and economies to function and grow. Is the argument that the noble thing to do would be to refuse to sell the coal, and force these countries to use more expensive forms of energy, regardless of whether it keeps more of their people in poverty for longer? It's an easy thing to say for those of us already living in first world countries with access to all the modern comforts. And sure, Japan and Korea are not poor countries, but they are populous, resource-poor countries with huge manufacturing industries (producing some of the world's most fuel-efficient cars, no less), so they have to import their energy from somewhere. [1] Major importers of Australian metallurgical coal are India, Japan and China. Major importers of Australian thermal coal are Japan, China, South Korea and Taiwan https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/minerals/mineral-resources-and-advice/australian-resource-reviews/black-coal https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/minerals/mineral-res...
- tomlock 7y ago
  If you excluded metallurgical coal from our exports, we'd still be the largest exporter of coal in the world.
  - tomhoward 7y ago
    How is that a refutation of anything I wrote? The coal is still important for the economic wellbeing and personal welfare of the people in those countries, whether it's used for power generation or materials production.
    - tomlock 7y ago
      Keeping global warming under control is important for the economic wellbeing and personal welfare of the people in those countries.
      - tomhoward 7y ago
        Notice how easy and noble-seeming it is to say that, compared to saying "I believe we should force more people in developing countries to stay in poverty for longer", even though they amount to the same thing? Please understand, I'm with you that climate change is important to mitigate; I lived through the bushfires and smoke haze this Australian summer, and I worry about the prospect of that being a more normal part of our future. I'm also expecting a child and have concerns for their future, as well the broader effects of climate change and environmental damage on humanity and nature everywhere. But I know that it will take more than scapegoating Australian politicians (funny how it's the conservative politicians that get attacked over this, even though their coal export policies aren't substantially different from Labor's) to fix the problem, when the whole reason for the demand for coal is that people in the developing world just want, quite reasonably, a standard of living approaching what we in the west take for granted. If these discussions involved sensible ideas about how developing countries could modernise their economies without fossil fuels, or acknowledged that large-scale carbon capture will have to be part of a comprehensive climate change solution, then I might be able to start taking them seriously. But I guess that kind of discussion doesn't deliver the quick hit of sanctimony that so many people seem to crave.

jamil7 7y ago

I agree Australia could not have prevented it on their own but given a clear, devestating example of the possible effects of climate change both parties shrug it off.

rypskar 7y ago

This is only a variant of the old "that big group of peoples are much larger than our group, so they need to change first". The others are always larger, so easy to accuse. Total for a country is maybe not the best metric to use. Per person emissions shows much more than total for a group of peoples called a country. Of course the largest polluter both by country and per person need to change the most, but the total pollution is the total of what you, me, and everyone else pollute

reitzensteinm 7y ago
Yes, and it's scary how often this broken thinking pops up here. Here's a quick quiz: China decides to split in two. Can each half now by rights pollute twice as much as it was before? Does the EU count as one large mega polluter or a bunch of small conscientious countries? Should we cap an Indian's emissions at 1/50th of those of an Australian, or use their economic development as an excuse to do whatever we want? The planet doesn't care about whatever imaginary lines we draw on a map. Per capita is all that matters and Australia is doing very poorly.

simonh 7y ago

Every country has to pull their weight. All of them. No excuses. You're probably right that events like this weren't avoidable even if drastic measures had been taken a decade ago. Maybe the effects could have been reduced, or the likelihood minimised but not eliminated. That doesn't matter though. What matters is what we do now, that we and politicians take this issue seriously and do what we can to address it.

imtringued 7y ago

Everyone says that, even the Americans who are second place. If the Chinese had a scapegoat they would blame someone else too.