One of my favourite lines in an article on the climate crisis is by American science journalist Sharon Begley: “If a rich technologically advanced nation won’t put its own house in order, then developing countries have a perfect excuse to do nothing.”

She also wrote in the same article: “For those who fear that the greenhouse will arrive – and no responsible scientist denies that possibility – it seems imperative to take immediate steps to mitigate it.”

Great lines. Written 30 years ago.

Begley wrote them in the same 1989 Newsweek magazine that reported on the fall of the Berlin Wall.

It is astonishing how little has changed.

The Guardian view on Extinction Rebellion protests: of course they’re an inconvenience | Editorial Read more

In the same article she noted that car companies like Ford were strongly opposing any moves to introduce emission cuts that targeted the industry – “it would throw industry into a tailspin and have minimal environmental impact”, one spokesperson suggested. This week the Guardian found that car manufacturers have “been pouring millions of dollars through industry bodies into lobbying efforts to challenge attempts to tackle global heating in the past four years”.

And in the 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall that nothing has changed is a damning indictment on our political and media systems.

But it would be wrong to blame only those in power 30 years ago, for what we have seen this week is that blame can be well and truly passed down to the following generation of political leaders.

Gen X is as guilty as the much-maligned baby boomers.

As a member of that most cynical and sarcastic generation, who spent our youth mocking baby boomers who preached revolution and then sold out into the Me Generation as soon as a high-income tax cut and four-bedroom home with a two-car garage was dangled before their eyes, we must acknowledge that the answer to the question of “Are we the baddies?” is yes.

All that cynicism has mostly been translated into complacency.

Our media discourse this week was flooded with comments by 40- and 50-year-olds wondering who the Extinction Rebellion are trying to convince: “I’m all for action on climate change, but ... ” and “Don’t they realise you catch more flies with honey?”

We thought we were Rage Against the Machine but we are really FM Easy Listening.

Thirty years of inaction. Thirty years of waiting. Thirty years of playing nice.

If you think that strategy has worked, then you probably think the Queensland Labor party is a progressive government.

You can understand the reaction to protesters by arch-conservative Gen Xers like the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, who it appears sees a day without stripping people of their civil liberties as a day wasted. But when you see notionally progressive Gen X leaders like the Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, rushing through legislation to prevent these protests you have to wonder not only what is the point of the ALP, but whether my generation is worse on climate change than baby boomers.

Palaszczuk tweeted that “everyone has the right to protest in this state” but then added the caveat: “It’s when extreme protesters using dangerous devices put at risk our emergency services & hinder people going about their daily business that it oversteps the mark.”

Forget that there is zero evidence that anyone in the Extinction Rebellion movement is using dangerous devices, but if hindering people going about their daily business is the new standard, then protest in the state has effectively become something allowed only in cases when it is neither seen nor heard. Which, it seems, would suit Palaszczuk just fine.

It is rather disappointing that she is so eager to embrace laws that Joh Bjelke-Petersen and any number of conservative autocrats would embrace. After all she had to battle oppression and malevolent forces all through her youth to get to the point of *checks notes* taking over the safe parliamentary seat her father held for over a decade.

Still, at least her opposition to climate change protest is not one that will see her alienated in the ALP. This week, federal MP Joel Fitzgibbon suggested Labor should adopt the LNP’s Paris agreement target of a 26%-28% cut in emissions from 2005 levels. That cut in reality is closer to 15% once you take into account carry-over credits and dodgy accounting, and which is massively short of the minimum 45% cut that scientists argue is needed.

It is rather disappointing that Fitzgibbon is so eager to capitulate to the government. After all he had to had to battle oppression and malevolent forces all through his youth to get to the point of *checks notes* taking over the safe parliamentary seat his father held for over a decade.

Look I get it – it is annoying to have your day disrupted. But don’t come at me with arguments that amount to basically doing what has been done for 30 years and expecting anything real to happen.

The problem is it has been easy to ignore climate-change activism and as a result ignore the issue completely. Nonviolent resistance is about resisting, not just being nonviolent.

And it is about provoking the inevitable overreaction by those in power – the same overreaction that occurred during civil rights and anti-Vietnam war protests. An overreaction that saw the New South Wales and Victorian police demand bail conditions on protests so onerous you would assume they were dreamed up in a Palaszczuk-Dutton group chat.

Play Video 0:53 'The arrests make a point,' say Extinction Rebellion protesters in Australia – video

Thankfully those like the ALP’s Mark Butler quickly condemned Fitzgibbon’s suggestion, and others in the party have criticised Palaszczuk’s new laws, so perhaps there remains some hope for it (but, as Richard Marles would suggest, prepare to be disappointed).

This week also came a report from the IMF that suggested even with a $111 carbon price, Australia would be unable to meet its Paris target. When the Gillard government introduced a carbon price seven years ago it was just $23.

That is the price of inaction.

At some point we need to get angry, but if your anger is directed at those protesting rather than at parliamentarians then I suspect you have consigned yourself to expecting nothing to change.

That’s fine, but own it. Realise if you are annoyed by them it’s because you have become more annoyed by protest than a lack of action. Don’t pretend to still be seeking change when your anger is directed at those trying desperately to make up for the past 30 years of wasted cynicism and complacency.

Play Video 3:48 Australia's climate wars: a decade of dithering – video

• Greg Jericho is a Guardian Australia columnist