WATCHING MARK DIESENDORF launch his new book at UNSW, for a moment I found it hard to decide whether he should be a politician, campaigner of academic. As it is, he has no intention of deviating from his academic path although he once worked for CSIRO. As for becoming a politician, a little thought disclosed that he had none of the qualifications required for the job — obfuscation, deception and inveigle.

But what about campaiger? Well, Mark is this too and his new book, which he has called Climate Action, takes him further along this path.

To start proceedings at the launch, ABC science journalist, Robin Williams, made he point that, despite the publicity that climate change skeptics get, the overwhelming scientific opinion is that climate change is reality and that human activity directly contributes to it.

This makes climate change no longer a scientific issue — rather, it is a social and political issue.

Labor — party of the old economy

Articulate Tasmanian Greens politician, Christine Milne, reiterated Robin’s sentiments and described how the political process works against change. Continually when seeking to discuss policy ideas with Labor politicians, she has come up against Labor machine politics and the party’s unwillingness to deviate from the government line or to do anything to damage its blue collar, coal mining and extractive industry workforce industry support.

Clearly, Labor is a party of the old economy despite Prime Minister Rudd’s rhetoric about climate change.

The two old parties represent the values of the extractive mentality

It’s no secret, Christine suggested, that a great many people feel betrayed by Labor which made all kinds of noises about climate change and renewable energy before the last federal election but then turned against those who voted for it on those grounds once elected. This is guaranteed to turn people, including a great many youth already partially alienated from the political process, further from it and to give renewed credence to the cliche and truism that you can’t trust a politician.

Both Christie and Mark agree that government is driven by vested interests, namely the ‘greenhouse mafia’ of the coal, oil, forestry and aluminium industries.

“The two old parties represent the values of the extractive mentality”, she said. “What we need is people, including the ‘solar generation’ of youth who believe in renewable energy, to take political action, the time is urgent an the task is great”.

Beyond individual action

One point Mark and Christine agree on is that the issue of climate change has now gone well beyond the capacity of individual action to find a solution.

“We have to vote out those proposing deep carbon cuts”, emphasised Christine.

While individuals should still take action at home to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, it is political action that now is the imperative. Changing lightbulbs, taking sorter showers and all of those other things that have been promoted ad nauseum are useful but are no longer the solution alone.

“We have to vote out those proposing deep carbon cuts”, emphasised Christine.

Greenhouse drivers

For Mark, the forces driving climate change are:

• the impacts of consumption per person
• population growth
• cultural factors that include the values and philosophy of consumer society.

Add money-hunger and vested interests, and you have trouble.

Reiterating the already expressed sentiment that federal Labor and state government schemes are “a sham”, Mark explained that solutions such as the ballot and individual action are too little too late. In the face of the power of the Greenhouse Mafia and some unions, he proposes democratic, collective social action to counter their influence.

And that’s what Climate Action is all about. It’s a campaign manual, a how-to of organising to exert influence on political, cultural and economic decision makers, including the mainstream media that is also culpable. Perhaps it is this that is one of the reasons for falling newspaper sales and for the rise of the citizen-commentator in blogs and online.

A campaign manual

To provide the information needed to practice participatory democracy and to reinforce the citizens movement around climate change politics, Mark takes the reader through he arguments, technologies and ideas that form the knowledge base on which to mount a campaign. He then delves into strategy and tactics.

First he says that it is critical to frame the issue in the campaigners’ own terms. Framing
is about how the issue is presented to the public in a context and language that campaigners choose. He warns that mainstream media and opponents will try to put campaigners’ arguments  into a box of their choosing and to frame them through labeling.

He says that campaigners need to define a campaign proposition — a summary of what the campaign is about — then state the problem, the solution and the benefit, identify who is responsible and what additional actions are needed in addition to solving the immediate problem.

Mark discusses actions that local government can undertake to address climate change. These include:

• plan local destinations, parking, footpaths, bicycle paths, roads to reduce car usewave planning approvals and restrictions on solar hot water, solar electricity, solar clothes drying
• implement home energy audits until it is done by higher levels of government
• public training workshops on home energy efficiency
• support community installation of solar and wind farms
• improve council’s own operations to make them energy efficient  and reduce the volume of emission of greenhouse gases that they are responsible for — buildings, street lighting, vehicles, waste, heating swimming pools
• join Cities for Climate Protection.

Make no mistake about it. Unlike Mark’s earlier book that described the renewable technologies that would be deployed to address climate change, Climate Action is a hands-on, practical manual of citizen action.

Diesendorf M, 2009, Climate Action; University of NSW Press, Sydney. ISBN 978 1 74223 018 4