The Watermelon Blog Green on the outside, social justice inside
"We can do better" (Kennedy)
Richest fluency
"This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body." Walt Whitman
Look, I think it's great that Malcolm Turnbull is phasing out tungsten light bulbs over the next three years. Not before time, you might say, and I would agree with you. A pity that he couldn't acknowledge that it was the idea of a conservationist that was belatedly accepted. Can't admit that the environmentalists have been right all this time, can they? Got to keep that dirty little secret as the government goes about frantically trying to work out how to repair the damage caused by 50 years of ignoring environmentalists.
So, wanting to be helpful, because I know Mr Turnbull is new to all this tricky environment stuff, here are some other ideas he can put a list of things to be phased out over the next few years - phase out petrol cars, coal, land-clearing, uranium mining, private energy companies, private water companies, irrigation, increasing population, increasing air travel, more and more freeways, expanding coastal development, logging old growth forests. And now a second list of things Mr Turnbull could phase in - the use in every Australian home of energy efficient appliances, house insulation, solar hot water; and the use across Australia of solar power, wind power, tidal power, geothermal power.
As Mr Turnbull obviously realises, this business of phasing things out and in is the way to go. It gives individuals and companies and the country as a whole time to adjust. People can simply replace an old appliance with a new one when the time comes, companies can change their energy sources and their energy efficiency, the country as a whole can look at training and retraining people for new kinds of jobs that emerge.
But Mr Turnbull better get started on the rest of my list pretty soon. Less than ten years now to start making a difference. And there is one more thing he could phase in - governments paying attention to environmentalists. We wouldn't be in the mess we are now if that approach had been phased in fifty years ago. Oh, and Mr Turnbull don't bother to acknowledge that I gave you the lists, I'm happy to remain anonymous as long as you just get on with it. I'm sure all environmentalists feel the same way.
"You are a person of some interest,one comes to you and takes strange gain away." (Pound)
"I find that I can have no enjoyment in the world but the continual drinking of knowledge. I find there is no worthy pursuit but the idea of doing some good for the world." (Keats)
"nothing startles me beyond the moment. The setting sun will always set me to rights - or if a sparrow come before my window I take part in its existence and pick about the gravel." (Keats)