Howard fiddles while 20,000 walk against warming
November 5th, 2006
Despite windy overcast weather, light rain and western suburbs trains not running, around 20,000 people filled Martin Place on Saturday to Walk against Warming. There was a huge Greens contingent in the crowd.
The opening speaker was Greens Senator Bob Brown who condemned the Federal government for supporting the big business interests of the old economy while marginalising the threats of climate change and putting at risk the wellbeing of future generations.
The number of parents with young children at the rally showed the depth of concern in this regard.
One of many imaginative placards in the crowd read: ‘Convenient lies: Safe nuclear and clean coal ‘.
Labor sent along Anthony Albanese as a speaker who covered himself in “Greenwash” pledging that renewables were the way forward. This seems to be at odds with Labor’s support for “clean” coal technology and the state Labor government’s almost total inaction on climate change measures over the past 12 years
But John Howard ignored the worldwide protest action, appearing on the news that night spruiking nuclear
options. He said NSW could have a nuclear power station in 15 years. Apparently Howard still thinks we have plenty of time up our sleeve.
Bob Brown during the week had pointed out that the ‘new’ money John Howard had announced for ‘clean’ energy was less than the funding he had already removed from research into solar generation.
Organiser Cate Faerhmann from the NSW Nature Conservation Council implored people to buck the trend of indifference in Australia and ‘get political’ as this was the only way the complacency of the big parties was going to be shaken.
In March 2007 Voters will have an opportunity to increase Greens representation to four or even five MLC’s in the NSW Upper House as well as putting Greens representatives into the seats of Sydney, Balmain and Marrickville. Such a move could place the Greens in a balance of power situation and then the public can expect some real and urgent action on developing alternative energy sources and reducing deadly Greenhouse emissions. Installing a parliament full of Labor & Liberal politicians will see more of the same inaction we have seen over the past decade.
