Friday 7 December 2007

Peter Garrett brings Australia back into the enviromental fold

Over the last couple of years, Australia appears to have followed Americas lead and denied that global warming or climate change was happening. It looks like a seven year drought at home and other internatioanl warning signs may have been enough to convince enough Australians that it was time for a change.

Who better to lead this change, then Peter Garrett, former front man for Midnight Oil who is now the Labour environment minister. Midnight Oil is a band that I have followed for nearly 15 years and whom are best know known in their UK for their single Beds are Burning.

Midnight Oil tackled a whole range of issues that ranged from aboriginal rights, Geo politics and perhaps most importantly the environment. Songs such River Runs Red from their Blue Sky Mining album in 1990 tackled the destruction of the rain forest way before it was on the public consciousness.

Its going to be interesting to see how much impact such a passionate man such as Peter can make and how many compromises he is going to have to make along the way to achieve his goals.

There is already some controversy over the fact that he is not responsible for negotiating Australia's position on the Kyoto treaty, but its early days.

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