The “omnibus bill” to be considered in the new federal parliament includes a proposal to effectively abolish the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.

The new legislation will remove ARENA’s power to make grants, thereby saving the government $1.3 billion.

Cuts such as these are being presented as our moral duty to the next generation, saving them from the perils of rising debt levels.

According to the Prime Minister, budget repair is a “fundamental moral challenge”.

Meanwhile, the Great Barrier Reef bleaches in an acidifying ocean and average temperatures continue to climb.

But there is no whisper, now, of the moral challenge over climate change that Malcolm Turnbull once embraced (and lost the leadership of the Liberal party over).

That moral challenge is not just in the too hard basket; it is now being dismantled, piece by piece.

Australian renewable energy research and development is second to none. ARENA has funded projects that developed the most efficient solar photovoltaic and solar thermal technology in the world.

Its abolition will pull the rug out from under a fledgling industry that is not only creating jobs but helping us meet a challenge even more urgent than fiscal responsibility, which is to ensure we hand over a planet still fit for human habitation.

This is not an abstract, far-off moral duty. The effects of global warming are coming much faster than many scientists predicted.

We’re talking about profound effects on children alive now and their children, not future beings we can hardly relate to.

Last week, 150 of Australia’s leading scientists wrote to the Prime Minister urging him to put the brakes on coal exports and support alternative clean energy sources.

Their letter barely registered in all the hustle and bustle as newly-minted politicians - among them strenuous climate deniers like One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts - settled in to their offices in Canberra.

The fossil fuel-belching omnibus is revving its engines, but there is still time to save ARENA. A link to a petition organised by Solar Citizens is on the BCCAN website.

A note in the interests of scientific accuracy: The dish in the picture accompanying my recent column on NASA and the Earth Station in Carnarvon, WA did not track the Apollo 11 spacecraft in 1969.

While in earth orbit, all Apollo spacecraft were tracked by the FPQ-6 Radar antenna and Unified S-Band data acquisition antenna, both situated at the now razed to the ground NASA Carnarvon Tracking Station.

The OTC Dish in the picture is still standing at a site nearby and now houses a museum that showcases Carnarvon’s role in the space race.