The release of Ross Garnaut’s final report on climate change has revealed a disconnection between what Australians needs to do and are willing to do. Aussies are prepared to pay 10 bucks a month more for electricity rather than the 40 that Garnaut says we will need to. Still, with that extra 30 bucks a month we should be able to rent an inhabitable planet.
Garnaut says that with a carbon price of $30 per tonne, petrol prices will soar a whopping 8 cents per litre, which is almost as large a change as if a sheik sneezed.
Aussies really need to pay 40 dollars a month more for electricity, but say they are only prepared to pay an extra 10. Fair enough too – that 30 bucks has already been blown on petrol.
Aussies really need to pay 40 dollars a month more for electricity, but say they are only prepared to pay an extra 10. They need that 30 bucks to afford their alcopops.
To cut down on methane emissions, Garnaut says Aussies may even have to forgo our much-loved beef and lamb in favour of chicken, pork, kangaroo, and these weird coloured things called veej-tables. / and something called “salad”. / and, God forbid, some things that aren’t even meat at all. / and whatever it is inside nuggets.
To cut down on methane emissions, Aussies may have to forgo beef and lamb and start eating chicken, pork, kangaroo, panda, whale, and people from the Third World. Well, ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
Apparently, climate change could be averted altogether if we stopped eating cows and moved on to I-Can’t-Believe-it’s-Not Cows.
They used to say Australia’s economy “rode on the sheep’s back”. No-one realised the environment was being shat out its arse.
Garnaut cites a study which found that by reducing cattle and sheep numbers, we could increase kangaroo numbers sevenfold to 240 million. Weirdly that would mean the international image of kangaroos hopping down every Aussie street could turn out to be a prophecy.
But I think we need to start thinking outside the square. Surely, the best solution for Australia’s carbon emissions is to ride around in the pouches of giant genetically-modified kangaroos?
With roo-farming, the kangaroo population could rise from the 34 million we have today, to 240 million – in which case, we’d have more than enough to have them pulling chariots. “Yah Skippy, yah!”
By reducing cattle and sheep numbers, we could increase kangaroo numbers sevenfold to 240 million. Wow, imagine the culling we could do then! / Now that’d be a cull! / Makes you wonder why we spend so much time and energy culling them.
In the future, instead of eating cows and sheep, we’ll be primarily eating kangaroos, supplemented now and then with the flesh of climate-change-deniers.
“What’s that Skip? You’re delicious?”
Kangaroos have a tiny carbon footprint, and you can also farm them in greater density than cows and sheep. In fact if we embrace it sufficiently, maybe we can breed enough roos to stitch together a new polar ice-cap.
Come off it, if Aussies give up beef and lamb I’ll eat my hat. Might be the only option.
Garnaut said failure to deal with climate change in our generation could haunt humanity for the rest of time. Cool, immortality!
Professor Garnaut says that, if we don’t make these changes in our lifestyles, “the failure of our generation will haunt humanity until the end of time.” But at least we got to watch ‘Sex and the City’ on a really wide screen.
So it looks like the future could be bright after all – dining on succulent roo, driving around is space-aged electric cars, warming ourselves with geothermic and solar energy, as the land heals itself after 200 years being ruined by sheep and cows… It makes you wonder just how big business is going to fuck it all up.
I still insist the best solution is exercise-bike-generators. Not only can we then generate our own power, but we can stop the obesity epidemic! Am I a genius or what? Huh? Huh?
This year’s Lowy Institute Poll found that climate change had move from being the public’s most important foreign policy issue to fifth most important. And fair enough, the global economy’s melting down! This is no time to think about the future!
Garnaut did have some good news, in that Australia has exceptionally low-cost resources for renewable energy including deep hot rocks, solar, wind and wave. And if the climate keeps going to buggery, those resources are only going to improve!
Well if we really want to lower the price of solar, wind and wave power, surely we should be encouraging catastrophic climate change. Sizzling summers, stormy winters – we’ll never be so energy secure!
Climate change deniers have decried the study, saying that until they get some solid evidence they refuse to believe that Professor Garnaut exists.
