More deaths and more billions – the true price of our inaction on greenhouse gases.

170 dead and $2 Billion for the Victorian bush fires.  Over 40 dead or missing and $20 Billion for the Queensland flooding.   Homes ruined, livelihoods destroyed and billions more for flooding in the other states. Suicides, depression and broken families during the drought with a cost to our economy of tens of billions of dollars.  These are the true costs of our politicians inaction on reducing greenhouse gases.

These gases, that keep our planet some 30 degrees warmer than the moon, were identified 140 years ago and we have been warned about the impact on our climate for over 50 years.  Impacts which we are seeing, not just in Australia but around the world. 

Yet what do we hear from our politicians?  They wring their hands and put on their saddest faces.  They talk about commissions of enquiries.  They throw out some quick fix solutions - change the planning laws, build a levee, increase building regulations, build a dam. But do enough of them give a damn, beyond getting themselves re elected?  Hopefully, more and more of them do, for how can anyone still claim that “climate change is crap” after witnessing the last 12 months of climate carnage around the world.

The ball is now firmly in the Coalition’s camp.  They should throw out their federal leader who has delayed the action that the majority of Australians demand. They should then work with The Greens to move us from our dependence on job poor, 19^th Century, fossil fuel technology to the job rich, 21^st Century of renewable energy, clean air and a healthy climate.