That would be the advice to a cancer patient if current discussions on 'energy policy' are any indication.
Today there has been a large fracas on gas shortages, with worries about what changes to policy could mean for future investment in gas. The underlying assumption being that Australia needs future investment in gas.
I was listening, as I often do, to Jon Faine on the radio. He interviewed a colleague in Canberra about the implications and the options. But not once did either journalist mention climate change when discussing energy options.
This seems to be a persistent blind spot. Jon Faine, and colleagues in the ABC, seem to agree that climate change is real, that there is a scientific consensus on the issue, but they don't seem to think that this means that something has to be done. This isn't about politics, it isn't about radical positions, it is at the very least what needs to be done to protect the global economy (which is far more important than the people in that economy, obviously).
Climate change is a cross-cutting issue. It affects refugees, it affects women, it affects food security and energy security and jobs and health. Yet it is never mentioned in relation to any of these things, at least not on the ABC.
As you can tell, this is starting to annoy me. But it's more than that. It is an example of how media framing is preventing us from recognising the scale of this issue. This is the biggest problem the world faces right now, and yet most of the world's media are fiddling as the world burns.
As readers, as viewers, as human beings with a stake in the future, please urge your local, national and international media of choice to not just pay lip service to the reality of climate change, but look at how you might change your programming if the future of the people on this planet actually mattered.
PS This was supposed to be an uplifting happy post for International Women's Day. I got distracted.
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