Instilling Fear

*




The war robots moved very fast once they were inside the airtight environment of the wheel-shaped structure. They tumbled out of doorways and ramps in a slurry of dark armour, their traction legs a furious grey-black blur. They whisked through plazas and atria in a rampaging column of thrashing metal, as if lumpy black tar was being poured along the alleys and boulevards of the habitat's great public spaces, a tar that ate and dissolved people as it swept over them... Death, when it came, was always mercifully quick.
Alastair Reynolds.

Pushing an emissions trading system without warning people about the cost increases was always going to create a tricky political problem. But our own Hey Jude Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, exacerbated the inevitable political backlash. By framing climate change in soaring terms as the single biggest moral issue of our time, Rudd ensured that the climate change roller-coaster was always going to crash down to earth when cost finally entered the equation.

It's only in the past fortnight that Labor cabinet ministers have been admitting that the introduction of an emissions trading system will be the single biggest change to our modern lifestyle in decades. Forget opening up of the Australian economy, they say. Forget workplace deregulation. Forget the GST. This is going to be the most daunting challenge for the Prime Minister if the Government sticks to its guns over mitigating the effects of climate change.
Janet Albrechtsen



They say there was no solution, that the pitiless ideologues who ruled us would never back off until the entire economy was destroyed, until they were the only ones who could afford a vehicle, driven around in long dark limousines while the masses gathered around oil drums in the street, warming themselves against the fires. Nothing made sense any more. They will destroy everything. They will leave the country a moldering ruin and walk off satisfied, claiming they had protected the most vulnerable, protected the women and children. Once noble warriors will be brought low. Chaos will stalk our every day.

In these final fractured days, when everything he had stood for or understood had crumbled away, he sought solace in the only way he knew how: the interior swamp. When everything was warm, when there were lights at the edge of the forest, he lifted his aching bones, rose up for one more fight, shouted yet again: you are going the wrong way. They, the government figures, were mysterious; not just in their dim dislocation but in their total lack of purpose. The people had fled the compassionless bureaucrats who had seized the cities, fled their merciless indifference. Long ago this had been a prosperous country. Long ago the populace had experienced first world living standards.

Long ago giant houses, virtual mansions, McMansions they were sometimes called, although he had never understood the term, filled the cities. Whole families would occupy just one vast house; as if the whole country had been made up of the rich. They fed on each other, and their cruel indifference hunted down all those who did not believe. Three was no room for dissent. The transformation from capitalism to communism had, in historic terms, been lightning fast.

He couldn't imagine, now, how the authorities had got away with it. How was the populace so completely fleeced of their freedoms? Why did no one stand up and say NO: leave us alone. We are better off without you. Get out of our lives. Instead the government took over every aspect of their life. What people had thought was the soft left, a bit of social justice rhetoric here, a bit of income redistribution there, turned out instead to be very hard left, very hard. But by the time they realised all the freedoms were gone. And we cringed in dark alleys, living off scraps, warming our hands at open fires, cringing away from the brutality of the police forces.

There were rumours to this day of an Australia that had once been, full of hope and promise, wealthy beyond all imagination, young handsome people frolicking in the surf, gleaming houses on the cliffs. It began with the wind farms, oddly enough. Old forms of power became not just unfashionable, after a climate change scare which in reality never eventuated, How strange that they had surrendered all their freedoms over something which even then many people didn't believe. But the government of the day kept up the mantra: climate change, climate change, climate change, doing their best to instill fear into the populace, manufacturing a crisis.

That not even the scientists agreed was an irrelevance to the government, who ploughed over all dissent. They called it the great moral challenge of the age, although it was nothing of the kind. It was just an excuse to extend control. A gullible populace, frightened of being out of step with each other, fell behind the rhetoric and propaganda, and didn't raise their hands. He was cold now, as the fire in the oil bin ran out of fuel, dying down even as he watched. He had tried to speak out, if not entirely alone then certainly out of step. But the steam roller of government had ploughed right on over him. An awful darkness had descended on the entire country. No one had any money any more and all but the state controlled businesses collapsed. The free wheeling, pleasure seeking over indulgence that had been synonymous with the country disappeared almost overnight, it had seemed, in fact in less than five years, and he went back down the alley to find the alcove where he had been sleeping. He could hear the drunken shouts of another destroyed person, and snuggled deeper into the dark, more afraid than ever.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://news.sbs.com.au/worldnewsaustralia/emissions_trading_scheme_could_hurt_more_than_expected_550787

A peak industry body has warned that a future carbon emissions trading scheme will cost business and consumers more than expected, if companies fail to accurately report their emissions.

Martin Tolar from the Australasian Compliance Institute warns faulty emissions reporting will have dire flow-on effects for consumers.

“If the reporting isn't correct and accurate, then the pricing of those products will be quite expensive compared to what they should be, and those costs will be passed on to consumers and businesses” Mr Tolar says.

His comments follow a poll, showing widespread ignorance among top CEOs about just what the scheme is.

With a focus on renewable energy, the Federal Government released for discussion two options on how to get 20 percent of energy from renewable sources by 2020, an existing target it hopes will prompt big polluters to support the coming carbon emissions trading scheme.


http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/02/2292694.htm?section=justin

A survey has found the vast majority of people are unsure of how an emissions trading scheme will work and more than half have never heard of it.

The national poll by Essential Media Communications found only 7 per cent of those surveyed understood what an emissions trading regime involves despite Government plans to introduce a carbon trading scheme in 2010.

Political relations manager Ben Oquist says the positive for the Government is that most people are supportive of the concept once it is explained to them.

"There is in-principle support for the introduction of an emissions trading scheme," he said.

"Seventy-two per cent of the population, once it was explained to them, either support emissions trading strongly or support it a little bit.

"The Government starts with something to work with but of course, the devil will be in the detail, in what will be a difficult debate."
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23958589-5005941,00.html

THE Rudd Government has refused to rule out spending millions of dollars to advertise its controversial emissions trading scheme - despite slamming the Howard Government for abusing taxpayer funds.

Tough guidelines announced yesterday will prevent the Rudd Government exploiting publicly-funded advertising for political purposes.

But the reforms have provoked responses of "overkill", amid concerns it could delay vital information being made public.

Cabinet Secretary John Faulkner yesterday announced the "more rigorous" guidelines, which he said underpinned the Government's push to improve public confidence.

Under the new rules, any advertising valued at more than $250,000 would have to be approved by the Auditor-General.

The watchdog would also be required to provide a report on each advertising campaign to ensure the Government could not rort the system.

John Howard and his ministers spent more than $1 billion on government advertising during their nearly 12 years in power. More than $100 million was spent on WorkChoices, despite claims it was blatantly political.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/02/2292658.htm?section=australia

Senior Liberal MP Alexander Downer is back in Adelaide and says he will detail his plan to retire from federal politics on Thursday.

The former Foreign Affairs Minister is expected to announce his departure as the local member for Mayo in the Adelaide Hills.

Mr Downer arrived at Adelaide airport this evening, having returned from an overseas trip and a family funeral in Sydney.

"I'll talk to the media about whatever I'm going to do next, I will be very happy to talk to you tomorrow," he said.

"I've been to a funeral today of my uncle and I don't want to reflect on other things on a day like that."