About three months ago, a National Party Senator made a statement that stuck in my mind somehow. He said that Climate Scientists were "living in a Pollyanna World" by recommending strong greenhouse gas reduction targets, claiming that "Jobs are on the line - you've got to be practical".

Now, technically, the Senator has used the wrong word. "Pollyanna" means "overly optimistic" - and I don't think climate scientists are being optimistic at all when they push for emissions reductions. They state that we have to radically transform our society, at significant inconvenience and cost, or have even greater transformation, at even greater inconvenience and cost thrust upon us in the future. This is not the kind of statement that comes out of an overly optimistic mindset.

The senator is right when he says that jobs are on the line. A failure to deal with climate change - to either reduce its impact or prepare for it - will cost vast numbers of jobs in the agricultural and tourism sectors. Also, jobs will be lost in sectors that support these - which includes the whole economy, including mining.

The senator is also right when he says that jobs are on the line - a Carbon Reduction plan will cause some industries to slow down. If nothing else, it will reduce the demand for carbon-based energy, so some coal miners and oil drillers will lose jobs, or fail to get them in the first place.

We are caught between a rock and a hard place.

Or perhaps we should get a bit pollyanna about this - we are faced with a great challenge and opportunity. Although Australia owns huge reserves of coal and natural gas, we also own huge reserves of non-carbon-based energy.


  • We have the world's largest deposit of Uranium, in South Australia - largely untapped, with other huge deposits in Western Australia and others states.
  • We have the world's largest deposit of solar energy - also largely untapped.
  • We also have large reserves of tidal and wind energy.


Deficient battery or hydrogen cell technology makes it hard to tap the last two and trade them globally. Pollution and Politics makes it hard to tap the first one. It follows that Australia should do everything possible to promote research in how to overcome these issues. How better than to promote aggressive carbon reduction? If successful, it would spur research into how to make batteries light and effective, how to make solar power more efficient, and how to make nuclear power cleaner. It would make buyers of nuclear power more willing to accommodate the wishes and political views of sellers. Even if Australia didn't invent a single iota of these new energy technologies, they would still increase the value of the resources we're sitting on.

In addition, this would create tens or hundreds of thousands of jobs in the energy sector.

Australia's richness as a country with non-carbon-based energy resources might make it a very powerful player in history of 21st century politics. A global carbon reduction plan would only help that.

So what is the senator so worried about, then?