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Byron Shire
February 13, 2025

Where is the government’s duty of care?

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Cloudcatcher Media.

2024 is now officially the hottest year ever recorded on our planet, easily beating the previous record year of 2023 as we collectively travel up the exponential curve towards catastrophe.

Australia got off relatively lightly, but the fires that just destroyed large parts of Los Angeles are an echo of what happened here in the Black Summer of 2019-20, and a warning of what is to come.

This country is particularly vulnerable to climate change, which hasn’t stopped our political leaders being spectacularly useless on the issue. On Saturday, a group of young climate activists led by Anjali Sharma wrote to the federal government demanding that they legislate a duty of care bill for those who will be impacted most by the climate crisis.

Together with seven other young students and a nun, Ms Sharma was previously the lead litigant in a class action in the Australian Federal Court, Sharma v Minister for the Environment, seeking a ruling that the government consider its duty of care towards young Australians, with regard to climate change impacts, when approving expansions of coal mines.

Anjali Sharma and Senator David Pocock at the announcement of the original duty of care bill. FB.

This case was successful, creating an internationally significant legal precedent, only to be overturned on appeal in March 2022.

How many more records?

Ms Sharma’s public letter says, ‘A child turning ten years old this year has lived through the ten hottest years on record. How many more records will be broken in this child’s lifetime?

‘We are waking up every day to news headlines of climate-related emergencies such as shattered temperature records, bushfires, floods and heat waves impacting new corners of the Earth.

‘Climate catastrophe is no longer an abstract concept or a far-off possibility – we are watching it take hold of the world we love, the world we will soon be required to create our lives within, the world we must soon lead,’ she writes.

‘We know that climate change will have a disproportionate impact on current and future generations… and yet there is no Australian domestic legislation that mandates the protection of the health and wellbeing of young people in the face of climate change.

‘The responsibility to legislate this duty lies squarely with the federal parliament.’

Alarming data

Ms Sharma’s open letter was sent to coincide with the release of the latest data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service, which informs the members of the European Union.

For anyone still paying attention in a world fatigued by constant crisis, the latest data shows 2024 was 1.6 degrees warmer than pre-industrial times, leading to extreme flooding, hurricane and fire events, fuelled by rapidly warming oceans, exactly as many models have predicted for decades.

The latest Copernicus CCS data shows the world tipping over 1.5 degrees.

Some of the 2024 extremes happened within countries, such as flooding in the south of Brazil simultaneously with a severe drought in the north. Southern California experienced flash flooding less than a year ago and is burning now.

Hurricane Beryl became the earliest Atlantic basin Category-5 hurricane on record. Massive fires forced mass evacuations in Canada. The Phillippines was hit by a record-breaking six typhoons in less than a month. Unprecedented heatwaves killed people in Saudi Arabia, India, and Greece, and there were disastrous floods from Mali to Spain, and from Hungary to Texas.

In Australia, the Labor government opened more coal mines and gas fields, while the Coalition promised they would be the greatest friend the mining lobby has ever had in Canberra. If elected in 2025, they’ll have quite a bit of competition for this dubious title with their predecessors.

Anjali Sharma’s open letter demanding a climate duty of care bill was published with the public support of a roll-call of eminent Australians from across the political spectrum including Craig Foster, John Hewson, Helen Haines, Tim Winton, David Pocock, Lidia Thorpe, Kate Chaney, Bridget Archer, Zali Steggall, Tim Flannery, Lucy Turnbull, Peter Doherty, Fiona Stanley and Grace Tame, along with a coalition of leaders from across the Pacific.

Will their voices be heard over the deafening roar of the fossil lobbyists?


David Lowe
David Lowe. Photo Tree Faerie.

Originally from Canberra, David Lowe is an award-winning filmmaker, writer and photographer with particular interests in the environment and politics. He’s known for his campaigning work with Cloudcatcher Media.


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30 COMMENTS

  1. David, this will attract many comments from the usual conspiracy theorists about climate catastrophe being a giant hoax. I won’t be one of them.

    I will ask you however, have you ever considered just once acknowledging what this government IS doing to decarbonise Australia’s energy market in the face of huge push back, largely funded by fossil fuel interests.

    “… the Coalition promised they would be the greatest friend the mining lobby has ever had in Canberra. If elected in 2025, they’ll have quite a bit of competition for this dubious title with their predecessors”. Really, you reckon?

    The world is on a dangerous lurch to the right. This cynical tarring with the same brush is aiding this unquestioning discontent. Of course the government has a duty of care – so does the media.

      • Classical liberalism on steroids, wherein lies plenty to be concerned about. Particularly interpretations of free speech that include the idea that opinion, whether ill-informed, socially harmful or known by its perpetrator to be untrue, carries the same weight and influence in society as well-researched, evidence and fact-based information.

        • Post-Modernism(wokeness) is Classic Liberalism on steroids, that’s our point. The amount of weight/influence an idea carries, is merely the summation of credence that each individual grants it. If you are asserting a collective incompetence of discernment upon the voters, you are defacto asserting their incapacity for democratic self rule.

          I see many here, including yourself, promoting an ecclesiastical authority of soothsayers with an envisaged god-like Gnosticism, to enumerate a singular, or at most, a restricted number of highly adjacent concepts, deemed kosher, and to pursue heretics to their excommunication, or even destruction. This, I assume, is to bolster the rule of a noble elite of experts?

          If one is to rail against an order, it is wise to study that which preceded it, lest one may live out Animal Farm by insisting on a neo-feudalist arrangement, ultimately, to one’s own peril.

          • Restricting people’s access to information is a form of mind control. Voting is pointless if there is only one allowable thought (or a handful of similar thoughts) per subject (predetermined outcome).
            Kings used the Church to do this before Classical Liberalism (far-right extremism), liberated everyone from feudal rule.

            ‘Woke’ is about returning people to feudal rule with a class system (straight/white/male at the bottom), with all-knowing nobles dictating what the truth is going to be today (fact checking) and what people’s place will be in life (diversity hiring). Anyone that gets in the way is a ‘fascist’ attempting to ‘repress’ everyone.

            ‘Wokism’ is derived from Liberalism via human nature. ‘Libertarianism’ is derived from Liberalism via philosophical logic. Neither are functional in practice, as they both rely on the false concept called ‘Tabula Rasa’. Would you like to know more?

        • Then, besides God, who is qualified to reliably discriminate evidence based facts that are objectively untrue? Weight can not be assigned accurately if an omniscient determination can not be made.

          • Jesus !
            It’s called SCIENCE Christian,
            not your version of half remembered primary school leaflets, about fluffy clouds and evaporation being the answer to the collective atmospheric pollution engendered by the ‘industrial revolution’ burning billions of years of accumulated solar energy that was stored in petrochemicals.
            God has no part in it , or anything else.
            Cheers, G”)

          • God doesn’t really solve the problem CS, as he/she has been a little reluctant to make themselves explicit. Some claim to find the truth in ancient “sacred” texts but for every scholar there’s a different interpretation almost.

            We can only do our best and search for self-evident truths and reasoning. A capacity no doubt in us from evolutionary forces that we should cultivate not wilfully indulge in self delusion.

            “Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,
            The proper study of mankind is Man.
            Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
            A being darkly wise and rudely great:
            With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
            With too much weakness for the Stoic’s pride …”

            Alexander Pope: An essay on man (and woman)

    • Seriously Lizardbreath you are as gullible as anyone
      You believe whatever you like ..but don’t discredit
      Others for having a completely different point of view
      On this Madness..
      The list of Scientists who do not support the climate
      Hysterical is extensive…but somehow their views are false because they are dissenting from the scam !
      Incidentally the Forrest fires in California are releasing more carbon into the atmosphere than all the gasoline- Powered cars in America. Welcome to the consequences of progressive environmental policies !

  2. ALP message to the nation –
    Duty of Care in approving fossil fuel adventures – Not having it
    Climate Trigger – Not having it
    Federal EPA – Not having it
    Fossil fuel projects boosting – Yes Siree, we HAVING plenty of that thank you very muchly

    Sheeple, ‘It’s Time’🕛, Stop🛑 voting for the reckless and dangerous Lab and LibNat fossil fools. They won’t change until they are forced to change.

    • Sheeple, it’s time to stop listening to these purist lecturing Green rants from old mate Joachim, he and his green brethren can pontificate as much as they like, it will go nowhere, a political party has to be in Govt to achieve anything, and that means getting over 50% of Aussie voters to vote for you, even then getting your legislation into law is not easy. The Greens can’t get into Govt, neither the Coalition nor Labor will tolerate their extremism and intolerance they are both reckless and dangerous. There is only one option at the coming election, if Australia is to have a better future and an orderly transition to renewables, resulting the lights staying on, is to be achieved without massive job losses, a majority Labor Govt MUST be returned to finish the job it started.

      • Yes keith, the reclkess and dangerous Labor political party in governmentt, delivering exactly what their fossil fuel paymasters instruct them to do. Its what happens when political parties merrily pocket 💲’shundredsofthousands, ‘donations’ 🤣.
        Only a Greens💚 Govt will save Australia from the BAU LabLibNatFossilFuelIndustry led climate and environment destruction. Vote 1 for climate, environment, Vote 1💚 Greens!

  3. The Bureau of Meterology does not, as far as I am aware, look back more than 2 or 3 decades to determine weather records. The summer we are having right now, is according to a gentleman in his 90’s not that bad.
    Living in the Northern Rivers puts us in subtropical weather conditions. A humid, wet summer is the norm for where we live.
    All of the recent, happened in the past 3 years, volcanic activities has a direct affect on our weather.
    Our planet is still forming and changing its self, who are we to say differently, the tectonic plates between Africa and Asia are, according to Scientists, breaking apart we will end up with a 5th continent.
    Do not believe all the rhetoric of the Greens. They are not who they say they are.

    • Marianne, the fact is we are supremely lucky to have the climate of Northern Rivers NSW and SE Qld. I certainly recall the heatwaves when I grew up in western Sydney. But it is dishonest to deny that the northern hemisphere and other parts of Australia are increasingly having higher summer temperatures. The demise of olive growing conditions around the Mediterranean already illustrates long term changes.

      If you are wrong, the consequences for every species on the planet will eventually be lethal. We could reach a point in destruction of our environment which cannot be mended. Is it worth the risk of just doing more of the same? Societies will likely tear themselves apart as life on the planet becomes seriously harder. If we cannot co-operate now to stop the rabid use of resources and continued pollution, how will it be when water becomes scarce?? Who are we to say to the next generation: “She’ll be right.”

    • Poor dear Marianne,
      I am afraid you have been deluded, as we have climate records going back for thousands of years.
      There are numerous methods that concur, showing the climate fluctuations.
      Surely you have heard of the numerous ice ages , do you think our knowledge of these are dependent on the Dept. of Meteorology ?
      Do some research, Cheers, G”)

  4. Good call Marianne.

    On record doesn’t include newspaper reports from the 1930’s and 1800’s; in these times it is recorded hotter.

    Yes, a couple of decades doesn’t cut it.

  5. Mother Nature was able to successfully handle the effects of erupting volcanoes & other disasters prior to the Industrial Revolution but after that the gaseous emissions are increasing exponentially & overcoming nature’s ability to cope. It’s so easy to understand so why do people deny it? We must discontinue fossil fuel use. O.K., Australia’s emissions are insignificant in the world but we are among the worst offenders per capital.

  6. Marianne, “The Bureau of Meterology does not, as far as I am aware, look back more than 2 or 3 decades to determine weather records.”, for your information our BOM has over 100 years of weather records.

  7. Never let a good crisis go to waste, so with the Californian fires the Echo trots out yet another climate hit piece.
    For balance here is a quote from Nicole Shanahan , RFK Jnr’s vice presidential running mat from California.
    ‘For all you climate change doomsayers , California has been out of drought since 2022 we have had record rainfall yet the California Dept. of water resourses , big city mayors and the govenor have failed to use that water to increase ground hydration and strengthen fire emergency services , they looked the other way despite warnings from universities , fire departments , farmers and consultants offering actionable plans , it is mind boggling negligence ‘
    Add to this the Governor has reduced funding to the fire dept. by 100 million

      • Barrow, your man the Donald has already been invited to visit Los Angeles but all he can do is spit out insults from the comfort of his home. Oh, apparently he knows better on how to put out the firestorm, despite the fact that the Santa Ana windstorm render firefighters as observers.
        The crux of the problem is allowing the expansion of people and development into firezones, it invites catastrophe.

        • When the President goes somewhere, they have to shutdown all air traffic for hours, including all the fire fighting aircraft. That’s what happened when Biden went there. Trump is more considerate

  8. Is it possible you clowns are still trying to denigh the bloody obvious ?
    We are now incontarvertibly past 1.5 deg. Warmer Globaly, the effects are inconveniently, undeniable and deadly. The horrors of the latest Jewish atrocities are helping the Murdoch propaganda machine keep busy deflecting the public’s attention from the truth, which is the World is past it’s viable ‘ use by date’ and the full consequences of this catastrophic pollution has yet to be felt,
    All the while, Australia is busy exporting unbelievable exponentially increasing quantities of fossil-fuels, the effects of it’s burning will in all probability be hardest felt here where it originates in the lowest lying continent with burgeoning incidence of uncontrollable fires with a dead Murray/Darling and a skeleton of a Great Barrier Reef.
    Will you clowns ever see what is happening before your eyes ?
    There are none so blind, as those who will not see.
    G”)

    • 2024 was the 3rd year of record coral growth.
      Are you comparing the current temperature with the temperature at the end of the little ice age (1850)?
      Are you using the numbers from temperature stations that had continuous concrete building around them throughout the 20th century(heat island effect of urban sprawl)?
      Or are you using the reconstructed data that uses temperature proxy data (Climategate Scandal) to hide the higher temperatures of the 1930, and the drop in temperatures during the 1960s and 70s?
      Most of Australia is 330m above sea level.
      No, we are not impressed by your ability to selectively notice weather anomalies to convince your self of a socially acceptable narrative

      • CS, “2024 was the 3rd year of record coral growth.”, oh really.
        Stop parroting nonsense from The Daily Septic.
        Try reading published scientific research – Australian Institute of Marine Science ( AIMS ), ‘Long-Term Monitoring Program
        Annual Summary Report of Coral Reef Condition 2023/24’, published 7/8/2024

        • When there is a down turn, they say to focus on the short term. When there is an up turn, they say to focus on the longer term. Straight out of the book ‘How to lie with statistics’.
          Dr Peter Ridd explains what they have been up to, such as including the fossilised coral in the hinterlands as ‘dead coral in the reef ecosystem.’. Never underestimate what people will do to keep the government funded gravy train rolling.

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