Guest essay by Eric Worrall

More green jingoism – President Macron of France is apparently now leader of the global climate effort, but for some reason Macron doesn’t qualify as enough of a climate leader to make it to the title of the article.

Climate change is World War III, and we are leaderless

By David Shearman

Posted Tue at 5:05am

“World War III is well and truly underway. And we are losing,” writes environmental activist Bill McKibben, so when Malcolm Turnbull implied that the insurgency that demolished his government was based on climate ideology, what lessons are there for Scott Morrison?

As a child in Britain during WWII, I lived in a street of mothers and children. Every father was away fighting. Each house and garden was surrounded by a metal palisade fence.

One morning the fences were gone, mother was delighted. Then a horse and cart came and took away every metal cooking pot and pan, some treasured, but mother smiled at her sacrifice. It was difficult for me to understand.

She had responded to the call from Lord Beaverbrook, Minister of Aircraft Production, for the women of Britain to: “Give us your aluminium. … We will turn your pots and pans into Spitfires and Hurricanes.”

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Britain was a united and cohesive community. Young and old worked daily in small ways for the common cause. But most importantly, in the free world, two countries — Britain and the US — had leaders in Winston Churchill and Franklin D Roosevelt who could explain the need for duty and sacrifice.

Their like is yet to emerge today, and indeed the Western world is bereft, perhaps apart from French President Emmanuel Macron, who explained to Congress and the American people that secure borders are irrelevant to this threat, and all of us are world citizens needing to act in concert. “There is no Planet B,” he said.

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Dr David Shearman is the honorary secretary of Doctors for the Environment Australia and Emeritus Professor of Medicine at Adelaide University.