John Howard lost not only his position as prime minister of Australia last week, but even his long-held seat in parliament — a defeat widely described as "humiliating." His support for the war in Iraq and against action to reduce the risks of climate change had a lot to do with that humiliation. For those of us living far away from Australia, John Quiggin succinctly defines Howard’s blase attitude towards the climate crisis neatly in a pre-election newspaper column. Quiggin concludes:
Nothing sums up the government’s position better than Howard’s response
to the IPCC report. After noting the serious of the challenge, Howard
observed that ‘the world is not coming to an end tomorrow’. Indeed not,
but Australian voters might prefer a leader who can look a little way
beyond tomorrow.
One thing we know for sure: the world is not coming to an end today, but John Howard’s world pretty much is. And isn’t that the nature of life for all of us? It’s not the world at large that matters, but the little world we live in.
In this new century, those who will not face change will have to suffer the consequences.
Kit Stolz 