Prominent Aussies call for a post-pandemic plan
Media personalities, leading scientists and academics, business and civil society leaders, former politicians and famous artists, including legendary rocker Jimmy Barnes, have signed an open letter urging all Australians to take action in the face of major threats to humanity’s future.
The letter, from the Commission for the Human Future has been signed by more than 200 prominent people.
Signatories come from all walks of Australian life, and include household personalities like Bob Carr, Stan Grant, Quentin Bryce, Rhonda Burchmore, Cheryl Kernot, Marcia Langton, Peter Doherty, Tim Costello and First Dog on the Moon.
The letter calls “on all governments, industries and people to join together” to develop “a concrete plan for surviving and thriving the mounting dangers that beset humanity”.
“The coronavirus crisis, with its economic and social impacts, can be seen as a dress rehearsal for what awaits us,” the letter reads.
“Unless we take unified preventative action urgently, we will continue to be caught napping by ten catastrophic threats, including destructive changes in climate, serious shortages of water and other critical resources, pervasive pollution, the growing danger of nuclear war and the mass extinction of species.”
Chairman Professor John Hewson said the commission aimed to kick start a national conversation on the threats humanity faces and how they can be addressed.
“The list is long and deadly: climate change, nuclear war, water and food shortages and of course pandemics,” Prof. Hewson said.
“We are calling on all Australians everywhere to join our call for action. Because we need to act and we need to act now.
“The coronavirus is a dress rehearsal for what awaits us if governments continue to ignore science, the physical world and the demands of several catastrophic threats such as climate change.”
The letter can be signed at https://humanfuture.net/
Have you signed the letter? Do you think the pandemic will force governments to get serious about issues like climate change and water security?
It is all very well to put that together and ask, but it incorporates too many complex questions.
The obectives need to be listed in priority to begin with.
Perhaps this needs to be done state by state, however, as we have seen with the Coronavirus the states do not agree with eachother.
Open the borders the NSW Premier cries a few weeks ago!
Perhaps the first priority is to close the borders and combate the virus; employ people to care better for the undergrowth of our bushlands to care for the villages and towns that live in the bushlands, not to mention care for our wildlife.
People that have never done this before could be taken on board and taught and not left for a few to try to combate the raging fires.
Perhaps some of our criminals could start to learn responsiblity to the community and come on board to clean out the undergrowth of our bushlands for a start.
As per usual a lot of politicians are chasing their own agendas.
As with a world war the politicians have to be on the same side for this massive task. I can never see the US applying this to the task, I can see Australian politicians do this though as they have a deeper love for their country.