Last Sunday's 'The Burning Question' on BBC Radio 4, attempted to look at how 'the fight against climate change can move beyond the political left/right agenda', in the words of the content writers of the BBC website. I say 'attempted', because, although the producers took a good look at Donald Trump's attempts to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, little or no mention was made of exactly how much Joe Biden's incoming administration are going to do to actually implement and ultimately enforce the Paris Agreement at ground level; once they have taken office and fulfilled their election pledge to rejoin the only really international agreement on Climate Change. Perhaps the reason for this has something to do with the events of the past few days, and the various controversies that have arisen as a result of the epic 'Storming of the Capitol' in Washington by elements linked to the American Alt Right, along adherents of the so called 'Q Anon' conspiracy theory.
Meanwhile, 'Down Under', in Australia, the situation with Wildfires is still burning out of control, and very few people, apart from the Guardian's Environmental News team, and a few other equally concerned Econews outlets, such as Ecowatch, seem to be reporting any of this outside of Australia itself. The end result being that many people whose lives aren't being directly impacted by Climate Change at the present time are still blissfully unaware of the exact nature of the existential threat that the issue poses to all life on the Planet, and not just those in the Global South, where the worst of its effects are currently being experienced. Back in December, for example, Ecowatch published an article which revealed that no fewer than 143 million mammals appear to have perished in the Australian Wildfires, and that is by no means the full number of casualties so far.
The tragedy is that all this was predicted more than three decades ago by the Australian Rock group 'Midnight Oil', whose hit single 'Beds are Burning' advocated the return of the Australian outback to the First Nation Aboriginals who had lived in harmony with the land and its other inhabitants for more than forty thousand years before the arrival of the Europeans. Indeed, 'Midnight Oil's unflinching advocacy of Aboriginal Land Rights, First Nation Peoples and the social inclusion of disenfranchised indiginous groups generally, probably cheated them of the mainstream commercial success that so much of their music truly deserved; particularly in the gasoline addicted United States, where other contemporary Australian bands working in the same musical genre, such as INXS, were permitted to achieve international super star status by the corporate controlled and fossil fuel linked commercial music business.
Meanwhile, all but a handful of mainly non mainstream, anti-corporate and largely Alt Media journalists and commentators, such as Amy Goodman of Democracy Now and Kate Aronoff of 'The New Republic', have failed to notice that, in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. Presidential election, while Team Trump were still even more in denial than they are now, Joe Biden had already appointed a number of key players linked to the investment giant Blackrock to important posts in his incoming economic team. This included his choice of Brian Deese, a former adviser to Barack Obama and global head of sustainable investment for BlackRock, to be his director of the National Economic Council. For readers who are not in the know about Blackrock, the organisation has for decades been a major investor in ExxonMobil, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, and BP, to name but a few. Although Blackrock has taken major steps in an attempt to clean up its image, many in the Environmental Movement believe that in practice this has been little more than 'greenwashing'; and Deese's appointment may constitute a major threat to the Biden Administration's ability to make good its promises when it comes to taking appropriate action on Climate Change.
For those of you who have missed my blog posts in recent months I have been tied up with the final draft of my new book on 'Legendary London'; a couple of films which I am in the process of editing, and one or two other things besides. My decision to remain temporarily silent on this blog was also influenced by a series of developments in a long running story on Local Government and Planning; which I first wrote about for 'The Brighton Reporter' back in August 1998 and which I have been reluctant to comment on, or be seen to comment on, for legal reasons. Something that I shall be writing about in detail on this blog in the coming months; now that I feel that it is appropriate for me to do so. Similarly, events in Wuhan at the beginning of last year led to my decision, in the immediate aftermath of Professor Devi Sridhar's announcement on Twitter that what was then being referred to as the 'Wuhan Peneumonia Outbreak' was likely to lead to a possible Pandemic due to the threat of cross-border transmission, to curtail my 'Voices from the Hive' newsletter.
Again. the legal complexities of being accused of inciting others to take part in demonstrations, and thereby act in breach of potential Lock Down restrictions, which at that point were only under discussion, was the deciding factor in all of this. The fact that the government has yet to announce exactly when and how the current restrictions are likely to come to an end is perhaps an indication that my decision on this front was a wise one indeed, especially when one takes into account to what extent many of the Pro-Trump rallies and demonstrations we have seen taking place on the other side of the Atlantic in recent weeks have been acting as 'super spreader' events. So, expect more posts from me here once again in the weeks to come, but don't expect me to comment on anything that is likely to result in my arrest or the threat of legal action from third parties linked to either law enforcement or local government; especially given the situation with COVID-19 running riot through the prison system.
