When it comes to cutting carbon emissions, one can use the image of a sports trainer in full voice: 'If there is no pain there is no gain.'
To allay fears and gather support from poorer households, Labor government spokespersons have told them that they will not be worse off when a price is put on carbon. They say big business and the wealthy will have to pay and poorer household will be compensated. A spokesperson added, 'You may even make money'.
This is playing dirty. It hides the fact that when a price is put on carbon our way of life will be changed. Perhaps it will be just as happy or even happier, but it will be changed nonetheless. Pain will be involved in adapting and redirecting where we spend money. As homes and transport are redesigned to become more efficient, as new job opportunities and the new training needed to do those jobs expands, as the real cost of producing food is reflected in the supermarket and the supply of cheap imported goods slows, life in Australia will be changed. Even cheap and frequent overseas trips will slow. The inconvenience of readjusting our life plans will be a part of adjusting our expectations. Some will enjoy the venture in developing new lifestyles despite the pain. But others will hanker for the way things were.
Some years back, Professor Derek Eamus, Director of the Institute for Water and Environmental Resource Management, spoke at the University of Technology Sydney on the Australian lifestyle under the title, 'Is the Australian Dream killing us?' Buying into unreal expectations has given us a busy lifestyle.
In our exhaustion we look for more and more exotic holidays to soothe our frenetic psyche, disregarding the carbon footprint. In the Wallace Wurth lecture, Kerry O'Brien laid much of the blame on politicians and the media for a race to the bottom. Politicians form policy to placate the latest fad proposed by focus groups; the media searches for news-entertainment to titillate the masses. Both fail to present what is real and of value. But responsibility must be shared by ordinary people and their blinkered demands.
Facing up to rapid climate change is the great challenge of our times. The physics of increased greenhouse gases is clear. That human induced fossil based economics and its associated First World lifestyle is the main factor causing the increase is also clear. The impacts on food production, more frequent severe weather events causing storms and floods, droughts and fire storms have already begun. This is the reality which no amount of denial will take away. D'nile is not a river in Africa. Denial is not a response owned by St Peter alone.
Many people do not like religious ideas, such as the place of human suffering, to be brought into public debates. But the declared atheist A.C. Grayling speaking on his recent publication, The Good Book, says that philosophical writings from the continents over millennia prompt us to think for ourselves and ask questions about what constitutes the good civic (civilised) life. These writers speak of the human virtues needed for us to grow a peaceful and happy human society. They tell us that each person can choose to practice the virtues needed, including resolution in striving with pain and anxiety.
Philosophy is not foreign to religious traditions. Siddhartha (the Budda) chose the ascetical journey on his path to enlightenment and changed to a humble non-grasping style of life. Gandhi led his followers to accept beatings as they confronted colonial salt taxes and exposed the moral bankruptcy of the British investors. Jesus suffered in confronting the accepted arm-twisting ideas on religion of his day to affirm the giftedness of life. Francis of Assisi chose to reject the empty frivolity and flamboyant consumerism of his day. Mary MacKillop took a little brandy for her health but chose to bear the opprobrium involved in confronting the accepted educational practices in her day and the place of women in church leadership.
Given the present state of cultural values in Australia, perhaps the spirit behind the carbon debate is as important as any debate on the mechanics of a carbon tax or carbon trading. That busy and grasping spirit may hold us back from imagining an economy and lifestyle based on alternative energy.
The increasing claims for compensation from flood victims to live cattle exporters suggest a distorted grasping Australian spirit. The pain of these victims is real and sad to see, but are the cries misplaced? To dismiss responsibility for building on flood plains or for being slow to teach humane animal practices is to deny reality. The risk assessments used by insurance companies accept that climate change poses huge and imminent risks to the nation. The dithering and failure to act by our civic and business leaders may well feed future compensation claims.
Part of the human enterprise is to think beyond the immediate. We should begin by asking what legacy we leave to future generations. Will it be one of increasing climate related disasters in food supply, of rising sea levels and of environmental refugees? Will it be a rapid diminishment of the planet's diversity of plants and animals? To address either of these evils might lead us to campaign for the worldwide financial transaction tax proposed by Jubilee Australia . Just a 0.05% levy would generate some $48 billion a year in Australia alone. Ordinary businesses would pay a small percentage of this compared with currency speculators.
Speaking to a group of ambassadors recently Pope Benedict XVI used the phrase 'human ecology' to argue that we 'must adopt a lifestyle that respects the environment and supports research and the exploitation of clean energy sources, respectful of the heritage of creation and harmless to humans. These must be our political and economic priorities.'
Dr Charles Rue is a Sydney-based priest of the Columban Missionary Society, and coordinator of Columban JPIC (Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation).