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Does Baja California Need an Environment Czar?
#13 - 0--admin--Does Baja California Need an Environment Czar?--2007-11-29 08:12:25
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Australia apppoints Ex-rock star singer to Save the Environment
by Burliegh Sullivan
As the Baja Trash continues to pile up, Australia is leading and not waiting around for change. Prime Minister-elect Kevin Rudd named his Cabinet on Thursday, choosing a former rock singer as environment minister.
Rudd's center-left Labor Party swept to power at general elections last Saturday, ending more than 11 years of conservative rule under outgoing Prime Minister John Howard, whose party also announced a new leadership team on Thursday.
Rudd said his team represented new and strong leadership for Australia on his key themes of education, economic strength, employment and global warming -- an issue he considers so important he announced the creation of a whole ministry for it.
-The new Cabinet, including Rudd as prime minister, would be formally sworn in on Monday, Rudd said.
Peter Garrett, a former conservation activist and onetime member of the rock group Midnight Oil, had been Labor's spokesman on climate change while in opposition. He has been an Australian Labor Party member of the House of Representatives for the seat of Kingsford Smith, New South Wales, since October 2004. He was appointed as Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment & Heritage, Arts in December 2006.[1] He was lead singer of the Australian rock band Midnight Oil from 1973 to their disbanding in 2002. He has served as President of the Australian Conservation Foundation, and was awarded the Order of Australia (Member General Division) for his contribution to environment and the music industry in 2003.
Garrett was educated at the Australian National University in Canberra and then at the University of New South Wales, where he graduated in arts and law respectively. He was a rock singer and environmental activist before entering politics. He became lead singer of the successful Australian rock band Midnight Oil in 1973. As well as its great musical and commercial success, the band became well known for its commitment to environmentalist and left-wing causes, and was particularly critical of United States military and foreign policies during the 1980s.
Garrett served as president of the Australian Conservation Foundation from 1989 to 1993 and 1998 to 2004. He also joined the International Board of Greenpeace in 1993 for a two-year term. He served as adviser and patron to various cultural and community organisations including Jubilee Debt Relief, and was a founding member of the Surfrider Foundation.
Midnight Oil had a history of making political statements through their music and performances. At the closing ceremony of the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, the group performed before Prime Minister John Howard and a television audience of hundreds of millions, wearing black tracksuits bearing the word "sorry." This referred to the Howard Government's refusal to apologise to Aboriginal Australians for the former policy of removing of Aboriginal children from their families.
In 2000 Garrett was awarded the Australian Humanitarian Foundation Award in the Environment category and in 2001 he received an honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of New South Wales. He left Midnight Oil in 2002 to concentrate on his environmental and social activism, effectively spelling the end for the group. He has since ruled out any future musical projects, stating that his musical career was always exclusively bound to Midnight Oil. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2003.
Following the Asian Tsunami of Boxing Day 2004, Garrett and the other members of Midnight Oil reformed for two gigs as a part of the fund raising event WaveAid. On 7 July 2007 Garrett presented at the Australian leg of Live Earth.
Clearly, the appointment of Peter Garrett brings lots of attention to Australia and the environment. In fact, to this writer, appointing an Environment Czar demonstrates that the government is focused. And with our Baja Trash piling up on top of all of us, would Baja California benefit from appointing a Rock Star Environment Czar?
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