Climate change & Australia Day

As far as I can tell, no one has read my blog that I posted the other day. But, hey! I won’t let that stop me from the writing and activities that I feel drawn to produce. People often say that great ideas and creations be they music or art or writing, may not resonate with many of the current population, but often a later generation will discover it. As humans, I think we have a drive to use our intelligence and work for the good of others as well as ourselves. And if we think something is a good idea, or we feel inspired to produce, we do not stop just because our audience is few, if any. If we think we are onto something that is of value, then we just keep creating. And then in the future, if the idea takes off and builds momentum, then all the work and strategising that has already occurred, allows for the project to be put into action more efficiently and quickly.

I also realise that 2018 is the year to get more skilled at sharing my blogs on different forums and to organisations that may gain value from my writing.

Over the weekend, here in Sosua, it has been raining and raining and raining. I am starting to run short on dry clothes! The sun has reappeared today with bursts of cloud and more rain, but the sun has now shown itself for 20 minutes, so that is unique! The weather has become very weird lately, all over the world. People with education, rather than shares in the petrochemical business, are pretty convinced that climate change is affected by raised CO2 levels, and suspect it may already be happening in dramatic ways.

But when do you see it as part of this possible process and when do you simply regard it as another natural variation? There are always going to be hotter summers and colder winters, floods, droughts etc. That is part of the variability of the world’s weather system and as a whole planet, weather systems interact all over the world. But when you start to see more extreme everything happening one after another, then you begin to wonder is this just more natural extreme or is something really happening with climate change, and to what degree should we be concerned? And is it that because of the conversations about climate change, we are on the lookout and reporting more on extreme events, or are they on the increase?

People often talk about sea levels rising over the next 100 years etc. But there are some alarmists predicting that climate change could bring us to cataclysm in the next 10 years! With all the extremes going on, you have to wonder, if climate change is really happening in an extreme way, which I suspect it is, how fast is the change occurring and can the CO2 be captured and other effects reduced? Scientists say that most excess heat is already being absorbed into oceans as water is a place that heat is often held. And that in itself is a concern. Water temperatures increasing by a few degrees do not just threaten the coral in the reefs. With enough heating, oceans can change their acidity and that means dying fish as well as other life in the seas.

Part of the issue that complicates this and other topics, is the degree of education that most people possess. It is still common for many in the developing world to not get the chance to go to school, and the quality of education around the world is limited in many ways. The cultures that dominate the world are generally anti-intellectual.

Because the majority of the world’s population have suffered from cultural imperialism and economic and cultural systems that devalued them economically & socially, many people were denied access to decent education. The levels of education across the world is quite low. There is traditional education of writing, reading & maths and overall these aspects are progressing in terms of how much of the world’s population has access. But in terms of high level education such as teaching people to explore and critique information, seek out information from different sources, examine and compare different viewpoints and contrast ideas and opinions, most of the planet is still very uneducated. In addition, there is a tendency for people to adapt to any situation. So, cultures emerge with ideas like that 'education is for the elites so is therefore no good'. Or ‘I didn’t receive access to decent education and I’m doing fine’. And one generation copies another generation. Or that 'intellectuals have no connection to real life' or that what they write about is in a language that normal people will not understand. 

We can see that many of the new celebrity ‘kings & queens’ often come from disadvantaged backgrounds. They grew up poor or from a racial minority etc which had limited access to education. Many people in these groups will be non intellectual or even anti-intellectual, because they rose to fame because of some skill or quality (music, sports) that was not related to education. As role models, they then pass on a bias that education is not so important. Being able to play football is. Or sing or dance well. Many of the current fad shows are popular because all people have a similar chance at success, regardless of wealth or education.

On Australia Day, which just passed, it was quite shocking to see the comments in general forums. There have been bigger protests against Australia Day than maybe ever. January 26 is Australia Day, the day that the first fleet arrived in Sydney from England and from which the massive diseases and genocide began the wipe out of many indigenous Australians and their culture. 'Change the Date' is gaining momentum as an idea. Reading the commentaries of so many, was fascinating to see how many Australians have little respect for the first nation's people. There is the blaming the people for being into alcohol and lazy or on benefits. There is the idea that the first cultures had no redeeming features. That it was over 200 years ago, and people should get over it and move on. That the writers were not alive then so are not responsible. These are all aspects of low education to think so simplistically. What occurs in the past continues to perpetuate until it is faced and acknowledged, thus forming a bridge to move forward to a better future. People are not bad if they drink alcohol or if they are not working. Alcohol is often used by people who have some kind of trauma. The traumas of the past keep reappearing and things like alcohol and glue sniffing are strategies some people will use to feel better. Much damage emerges from many addictions, but judging people for self-harm is ridiculous. Blaming people for addictions is a simplistic way of not examining the full issue. We need to always ask why people are doing what they are doing. Unless we subscribe to a simplistic idea of some people being good and others bad. Or bad genes! I am sure many of the writers believe in that idea too.

We don’t have to see facing issues as getting punished. If we see a group that seems to be suffering trauma, in a functional society that is driven by taking care of each other rather than greed, we look at how we can help the other people. I suspect that some people underneath all this judging, feel guilty, so are looking to push the blame on indigenous people, because with their mindset, somebody has to be blamed. But, just as the people alive today did not do the killing or introduce the diseases, just as the victims have long gone too, we can see some who are in need of care, respect & effective empowerment. The mindset of Europeans 200 years ago was of total superiority, so of course people were going to be disrespectful and abusive to non-Europeans. That’s what happened; that is history. That can not be changed. And feeling responsible for it, because your ancestry is European is a choice but a flawed one. It does not change the situation.

The biggest issues that I see between Australia & NZ on race issues is redress, leadership & inclusion.

By the 1870s following the NZ land wars, because of all kinds of reasons, including Maori leadership being warrior style, and a force to be reckoned with, the British realised that an accord needed to occur. Maori society had a leadership system too, so it was easier to build Maori leadership with the British system. Despite many issues, of disempowerment of many Maori which continue today in NZ, there has been Maori leadership in NZ Government for over 100 years. Efforts by indigenous Australians get quashed too often. Maybe justified at times such as corruption in ATSIC, without establishing alternative indigenous leadership, Australia’s governments have operated as racist exclusionist systems even to this day.

Redress means a system to resolve historical wrongs. The Waitangi Tribunal in NZ has looked at land and other things taken from the tribes or iwi by the British and worked to resolve some form of compensation. This has been occurring over the last 25 years. What has Australia done? Very little and with all the money in minerals, some wealthy fat cats in Australia, do not want any such compensation for Aboriginal people.

Maybe the biggest issue is inclusion. Again, right from the beginning, many factors brought about much more coexistence in NZ. Many people in NZ have ancestors who were Maori & Pakeha. To be Maori, today in NZ is something to honour, not keep secret. The stories of mistreatment & isolation and rejection in Australia is a continuing sad tale.

And this is why education matters. To think about why things are as they are, what can be done to improve the situations and how to move away from blaming victims of colonisation etc to understanding the traumas and respecting all people and their cultural strengths & differences.

To finish this blog, I will merge my beginning chat about climate change, with my ending chat about respecting indigenous Australians. Know a country that is extremely familiar with extreme heat and other weather events, unlike most other places on earth? I do! Know a group of people who have survived in that environment for over 60,000 years figuring out how to locate water when maybe other groups would perish? I do! That in itself, is a reason to acknowledge the strength and resilience of Indigenous Australians. Happy Australia Day… Now lets change the date!