Federal Election 2019: Vote Compass Finds Broad Desire For More Action On Climate Change

ABC News - Catherine Hanrahan

A striking 89 per cent of younger voters want the Government to take more action on climate change. (ABC Radio Adelaide: Malcolm Sutton)

Key points: 81 per cent of voters want more government action on climate change Among Coalition voters, 60 per cent now back more climate action More than two-thirds of voters favour efforts to boost renewable energy and electric cars

A majority of Coalition, Labor and Greens voters all want more government action on climate change, Vote Compass data has found.
A majority of voters also support more renewable energy, a higher uptake of electric cars and a price on carbon, with renewables amassing the most support.
More than 80 per cent of Australians want the Government to take more action on climate change, up 20 percentage points since 2013.
Strikingly, support for more action was almost universal among Labor and Greens voters, the strongest response to any Vote Compass question during this election.
Nearly 60 per cent of Coalition voters agreed with the desire for more climate action.
One Nation supporters were more divided — more action was their most common response (40 per cent), closely followed by less action (34 per cent).

Support for government tackling climate change is rising

Proportion of Vote Compass responses to the question: "How much should the federal government do to tackle climate change?"

Based on 513,335 respondents to Vote Compass between April 10 and May 12, 2019

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Where do you stand?

Find out how your views compare to Australia's major political parties. Simply answer a few questions via Vote Compass.

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As a part of its climate solutions package, the Coalition is committed to Australia's Paris Agreement target of reducing emissions by 26 to 28 per cent by 2030.
Labor has promised to cut emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 and ensure half of Australia's energy comes from renewable sources.
Rosemary Lyster, co-director of the Australian Centre for Climate and Environmental Law at the University of Sydney law school, said Australians were understanding that the Paris targets were a modest contribution, not only on Australia's part, but on all countries.

"I think the Coalition is sticking to their climate policies and the electorate is a bit more sceptical about whether or not we're going to achieve emissions reductions through those policies," she said.

The desire for more action was even stronger among young Australians.

More young voters want climate action than older voters

Proportion of Vote Compass responses to the question: "How much should the federal government do to tackle climate change?"

Based on 513,335 respondents to Vote Compass between April 10 and May 12, 2019

On the surface, the mood for climate action detected in Vote Compass was higher than was reported in two surveys conducted in 2018, where 56 per cent and 62 per cent said Australia was not doing enough to address climate change. Those questions, however, were about "Australian" action overall while Vote Compass asked specifically about "the Federal Government".

Majority of Coalition voters want government to do more to tackle climate change

Proportion of Vote Compass responses to the question: "How much should the federal government do to tackle climate change?"

Based on 513,335 respondents to Vote Compass between April 10 and May 12, 2019

Voters back renewable energy and electric cars
Nearly 90 per cent wanted to see more renewable energy, including a majority of voters from all parties.
Three quarters wanted to see the Government do more to increase the number of electric cars, though Coalition voters were more uncertain than left-leaning voters.
Professor Lyster said people found the idea of technological and innovation solutions very appealing.

"They see that as contributing to the economy and they see lots more jobs, which is good for the economy," she said.

Strongest support for more renewable energy

Proportion of More/Less or Agree/Disagree Vote Compass responses to each question/statement

Based on 513,335 respondents to Vote Compass between April 10 and May 12, 2019; electric car question of the day based on 137,226 respondents

Neither the Coalition nor Labor is promising a price on carbon this election, though voters now broadly favour one.
About 70 per cent of respondents back a price on carbon emissions, up from 63 per cent in 2016 and only 46 per cent in 2013.
Climate change took centre stage in that election, when Opposition leader Tony Abbott promised to "axe the tax" — Labor's carbon pricing scheme.
The Greens promised net zero emissions by 2040, via a range of mechanisms that include a price on carbon.

About the data

• Vote Compass responses have been weighted by gender, age, education, language, religion, place of residence and past vote to match the Australian population, creating a nationally representative sample.
• The sample size for this report is 513,335 respondents and 137,226 respondents for the electric car question of the day
• Find about more about the methodology in this explainer.

Links

• More than 80 per cent of voters want the government to do more to tackle climate change
• Young voters feel most strongly about more action on climate change
• Voters of all parties want more government action on climate change
• Voters are keener on more renewable energy sources than putting a price on carbon

Greta Thunberg Became A Climate Activist Not In Spite Of Her Autism, But Because Of It

Vox - Steve Silberman*

The 16-year-old climate activist’s radical approach to autism.

Greta Thunberg speaks to protesters as the Extinction Rebellion protests enter their seventh day on April 21, 2019, in London. Jack Taylor/Getty Images

Watching video of Greta Thunberg addressing the House of Parliament in London on April 24, it’s hard not to think of Cassandra, the brash young warrior of Greek myth who beseeched Apollo for the gift of prophecy. The petulant god granted her wish, but then punished the girl by decreeing that her predictions would be ignored “as idle wind in the hearers’ ears.”
“You lied to us. You gave us false hope. You told us that the future was something to look forward to,” said the 16-year-old environmental activist, who has become the stern face of a global movement of young people enraged by the idea that careless decisions made by their parents’ generation will doom them to an apocalyptic future. “Those who will be affected the hardest are already suffering the consequences. But their voices are not heard. Is my microphone on? Can you hear me?”
A poet wrote that as Troy was sacked by the Achaeans, just as Cassandra had predicted, the spurned oracle roared “like a lioness,” but Thunberg’s style is more low-key and surgical. “You only speak of green eternal economic growth because you are too scared of being unpopular,” she told the attendees of the United Nations’ COP24 conference in Poland in December. “You only talk about moving forward with the same bad ideas that got us into this mess, even when the only sensible thing to do is pull the emergency brake. You are not mature enough to tell it like is. Even that burden you leave to us children. But I don’t care about being popular. I care about climate justice and the living planet.”
Thunberg’s fearless rhetoric has proven to be enormously influential. A week after Thunberg shamed the MPs in Parliament, following a successful lobbying effort by Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party and a wave of protests in London by activists calling themselves the Extinction Rebellion, British lawmakers declared the climate crisis an “emergency.” In August, Thunberg began a one-woman student strike against climate change, standing alone with a distinctive hand-lettered sign on the steps of the parliament building in Stockholm for three weeks. Six months later, nearly 1.5 million young people in 100 countries worldwide followed suit, making March 22 the single largest day of climate action in history.
Thunberg also wields her considerable moral authority at home. Her mother, Malena Ernman, a celebrated opera singer, has opted to travel by train and bicycle instead of flying to her performances, and Thunberg has persuaded her parents to eat mostly vegan. How did she do it? “I made them feel guilty,” she told an interviewer. That’s her way: no nonsense, no vacuous chitchat before getting to the point — there is no more time for hand-waving, dithering, and compromise on climate.

Thunberg makes a radical statement about autism through her climate activism
Bluntness is also the way of many people on the autism spectrum, and both Thunberg and her young sister Beata have been diagnosed with autism and ADHD. A few years ago, Thunberg’s ascent to fame likely would have been framed in the media as that of an inspiring young girl “overcoming” her disability to become the leader of a worldwide movement. But Thunberg herself makes a different, more radical argument: that she became an activist not in spite of her autism but because of it.
“I see the world a bit different, from another perspective,” she explained to New Yorker reporter Masha Gessen. “It’s very common that people on the autism spectrum have a special interest. … I can do the same thing for hours.” Thunberg discovered her special interest in climate change when she was just 9 years old, and she couldn’t understand why everyone on the planet wasn’t similarly obsessed with preventing it.
A visceral feeling of repulsion toward deceit and hypocrisy is also common among people on the spectrum. As Thunberg told the BBC, “I don’t fall for lies as easily as regular people, I can see through things.” She has a particular contempt for the professional propagandists and apologists who prop up the fossil fuel industry and discourage the development of renewable energy resources, dismissing UK claims about reductions in carbon emissions as the result of “very creative accounting.”
”You don’t listen to the science,” she went on, “because you are only interested in the answers that will allow you to carry on as if nothing has happened.”
Indeed, Thunberg is not the only person with autism in public life raising her voice in defense of the Earth at this critical juncture in history. Another teen on the spectrum, Dara McAnulty in Northern Ireland, is also an outspoken climate activist, as well as being one of the most lyrical nature writers on Twitter at age 15. In 2017, autistic naturalist and TV presenter Chris Packham “came out” about his diagnosis in a candid BBC documentary called Asperger’s and Me. “What these protesters are saying is think about tomorrow,” Packham said recently in a video for Extinction Rebellion. “That’s what our politicians are not doing.”

People with autism have been ignored and condemned throughout history
Being autistic does not protect these environmental advocates from the usual attacks leveled against anyone who raises the alarm about the oncoming climate catastrophe; instead, it gives the trolls another angle of attack.
In one particularly egregious recent example, Brendan O’Neill, the British editor of a webzine called Spiked, trotted out a hit parade of toxic stereotypes in a crass attempt to paint Thunberg as a “millenarian weirdo” with a “monotone voice” and a “pre-modern” lack of affect. (One of the deep-pocketed funders of Spiked is Koch Industries, a hothouse of climate change denialism.) Meanwhile, a recent court victory by Packham’s Wild Justice, a nonprofit he set up to defend threatened species, inspired bullies to send him death threats and string up dead birds on his garden gate (prompting a characteristically cheeky response from Packham).
Though it’s rarely discussed in the clinical literature, the fact that some people on the spectrum feel an intense connection to the natural world has been known for a long time. My history of autism, NeuroTribes, explores how autistic scientist Temple Grandin’s love for animals inspired her to become a designer of more humane technology for the livestock industry (though I doubt vegan Thunberg would approve). In one of the first case reports of Asperger’s syndrome from 1954 — long before there was a name for it — a boy teaches himself the names of the plants that flourished around the residential facility where he was forced to live, while offering lectures on nuclear fission and corporate finance to his peers.
Many people with autism throughout history have been ignored and shunted to the margins of society, and condemned as weird, insane, or worse. But the idea that people like Greta Thunberg have valuable insights not in spite of their autism but because of it is gaining ground as part of a global movement to honor neurodiversity, a word based on the concept of biodiversity — the notion that in communities of living things, diversity and difference means strength and resilience. Great minds, in other words, don’t always think alike. It’s not surprising that people who feel an intuitive love for nature and an instinctive disdain for dishonesty are now taking leadership positions in the global fight against climate change.
Unlike Cassandra’s dire warnings to the doomed occupants of Troy, Thunberg’s words are getting picked up and amplified by media around the world, which is a sign of hope. She is also being recognized as a major influencer by political leaders, and has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Freddy André Øvstegård, a member of Norwegian parliament who submitted Thunberg’s name for the prestigious award, told the international news agency AFP, “If we do nothing to halt climate change, it will be the cause of wars, conflict, and refugees. Greta Thunberg has launched a mass movement which I see as a major contribution to peace.”
Her emergence on the world stage has been particularly meaningful to other autistic people and their families, says Ari Ne’eman, who co-founded the Autistic Self Advocacy Network and is the author of the forthcoming book The Right to Live in This World: The Story of Disability in America. “It’s noteworthy that Thunberg has chosen to be open about being autistic, because by being openly autistic while serving in positions of leadership, autistic people can help transform how society views us, opening up opportunities for other autistic people around the world,” he says. “By being proudly autistic in our moments of excellence as well as our moments of struggle, we help to change the public image of autism and tell the world that we have much to offer.”
As deceit and hypocrisy reign at the highest levels of the debate about how best to tackle climate change, we need more warriors like Greta Thunberg and Chris Packham on the front lines.

*Steve Silberman is the author of NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity.

Links

• The Uncanny Power Of Greta Thunberg’s Climate-Change Rhetoric
• The Guardian View On Greta Thunberg: Seizing The Future
• Greta Thunberg Backs Climate General Strike To Force Leaders To Act
• Humanity Is At A Crossroads, Greta Thunberg Tells Extinction Rebellion
• Climate Strike: Greta Thunberg Calls For ‘System Change Not Climate Change’ – Here’s What That Could Look Like
• The Uncanny Power Of Greta Thunberg’s Climate-Change Rhetoric 
• 15-Year-Old Greta Thunberg Speaks Truth To Power In Katowice 
• Greta Thunberg Backs Climate General Strike To Force Leaders To Act 
• Greta Thunberg Dresses Down More Global Elites For Climate Inaction 
• Forget Brexit And Focus On Climate Change, Greta Thunberg Tells EU

Climate Change Is This Election's Top Issue. Guardian Australia Tells You What You Need To Know

The Guardian - Guardian staff

Guardian Australia gives climate change reporting the prominence it deserves, stories which often go unreported by others in the mainstream media

The No 1 issue for Australians during this 2019 election campaign is climate change. Guardian Australia has covered the climate emergency from every angle. Composite: David Mariuz/AAP

The No 1 issue for Australians during this 2019 election campaign is climate change.
Polling by foreign policy thinktank Lowy found the majority of Australians believe global warming is a critical threat.
 From a list of 12 threats to Australia’s national interests, more than 60% of adults rank climate change as No 1. This is up 18 points since their survey in 2014.
Reporting on climate change is a priority for the Guardian globally. We give these stories the prominence they deserve, stories which often go unreported by others in the mainstream media. At this critical time for our planet, we are determined to inform readers about threats, consequences and solutions based on scientific facts, not political prejudice or business interests.
During this election campaign, we have covered the climate emergency from every angle. From the shocking UN report on the accelerating decline of the Earth’s natural life-support systems released last week and what Australia needs to do about it, through to the short-sightedness of some of the political debate and also why there is still hope for our species, Guardian Australia has reported on it. There is simply no bigger issue.

Guardian Links

• The climate change election: where do the parties stand on the environment?
  Adam Morton reported on the parties’ key policies, including emissions, renewable energy, endangered species, waste and recycling and the Great Barrier Reef.
• Human society under urgent threat from loss of Earth’s natural life
• Jonathan Watts reported on the damning UN report by the world’s leading scientists that revealed human society is in jeopardy from the accelerating decline of the Earth’s natural life-support systems.
• UN environment warning: 10 key points and what Australia must do
  Calla Wahlquist looked at Australia’s role in the extinction crisis and what we must learn from the report about native species, Indigenous land management, water efficiency and more.
• Climate change takes centre stage in Australia’s election
  Kate Lyons reported on the very different messages from the two prime ministerial candidates on how to address environmental emergency.
• Tony Abbott bet me $100 the climate will not change in 10 years
  Cassie Flanagan Willanski revealed the former Australian prime minister is so confident climate change is nothing to worry about he put money on it.
• The obsessive focus on imaginary costs of climate action is harming our prosperity
  Erwin Jackson wrote on the short-sightedness of the current election campaign discussions on climate change and how the focus on mythical costs of action risks will harm our prosperity and squandered economic opportunity.
• Modelling that shows Labor’s climate policy could cost billions is ridiculous
  Frank Jotzo examined the modelling that caused such consternation and reminded warring parties that we should be focusing on positioning Australia for a low-carbon future.
• I’m willing to go to jail to stop Adani and save our beloved country. Will you stand with me?
  In this anti-Adani rally speech, Richard Flanagan said the fight against Adani’s Carmichael coalmine defines the fight against the climate crisis.
• Climate change costings that don’t count the cost of inaction are worthless
  Greg Jericho said we must demand better of our political parties and our media on this issue.
• Britain passes one week without coal power for first time since 1882
  Jasper Jolly reported on the landmark event that followed the UK’s government pledge to phase out coal-fired electricity by 2025.
• It’s time for nations to unite around an International Green New Deal
  Yanis Varoufakis and David Adler wrote about the need for a global response to climate change, given several countries have proposed their own versions of a Green New Deal.
• After Extinction Rebellion, Australian politicians are on notice – change is coming
  Nicky Ison implored major parties to learn from the UK’s Extinction Rebellion protests and other global movements to fight climate change.
• The media is failing on climate change – here’s how they can do better ahead of 2020
  Guardian reporters asked climate change experts for advice on how news outlets can cover the environment in ways that make voters listen.
• Climate change poses a clear financial risk to Australia
  Chris Barrett and Anna Skarbek discussed how Australia stands to benefit from a successful – and rapid – low-carbon transition, given our world-class solar and wind energy resource base.
• Dare to declare capitalism dead – before it takes us all down with it
  George Monbiot wrote about the incompatibility of the economic system with the survival of life on Earth, and called for something new.
• The Extinction Rebellion scorecard: what did it achieve?
  After mass civil disobedience in the UK, Guardian reporters looked at what impact the protests had made and whether anything had changed.
• Fact or fiction? We check Coalition’s claims about Labor’s climate change policy
  Adam Morton fact-checked the government’s claims that the opposition’s emissions reduction policy would cost $26bn.
• Melting permafrost in Arctic will have $70tn climate impact – study
  Jonathan Watts looked at a study that shows how destabilised natural systems will worsen a man-made problem.
• To stop global catastrophe, we must believe in humans again
  Bill McKibben said it was time for mass resistance to demand action on climate because the technology to prevent the crisis already exists.
• Politicians’ reluctance on climate change is bizarre – action would not only be right but popular
  Jeff Sparrow wrote how strange it was that there were political inaction given many ordinary people are calling for radical climate policies
• Humanity is at a crossroads, Greta Thunberg tells Extinction Rebellion
  Guardian UK reporters reported on Greta Thunberg, the teenage climate activist, who told London protestors that governments will no longer be able ignore the impending climate and ecological crisis
• Our leaders are ignoring global warming to the point of criminal negligence. It’s unforgivable
  Tim Winton wrote about the difference between the cold war and climate change, and how we can no longer wait patiently for our leaders to catch up.
• We are not yet doomed: the carbon cutters determined to save the world
  Guardian correspondents set out to find hopeful climate stories, and found an orchestra, a village, an entire country who are part of the growing movement to rein in greenhouse gas emissions.
• Buying international permits is a cheap way to cut emissions. It’s that simple
  Katharine Murphy reminded readers that as recently as 2017 the Coalition was in favour of international permits and yet it’s now losing its mind over Labor’s climate policy.
• Decades of denial’: major report finds New Zealand’s environment is in serious trouble
  Eleanor Ainge Roy reported on how even the nation known for its natural beauty is under pressure with extinctions, polluted rivers and blighted lake.
• The financial sector must be at the heart of tackling climate change
  Mark Carney, François Villeroy de Galhau and Frank Elderson discussed a new international report from the Network for Greening the Financial System that demonstrates that the financial industry is key to achieving a low-carbon economy.
• Only rebellion will prevent an ecological apocalypse
  George Monbiot on why mass civil disobedience is essential to force a political response now.
• How anchoring a ship to an ice floe will help fight climate change
  Robin McKie wrote about Mosaic, a year-long Arctic mission aims to answer fundamental questions about global warming.
• Glaciers and Arctic ice are vanishing. Time to get radical before it’s too late
  Bill McKibben on why we should all be grateful rather than annoyed when schoolkids start leaving class en masse or surprised that Green New Deal advocates call for dramatic overhaul of society.