If there were any doubts at all about Climate Change and humanity’s part in creating it, simple risk management would call for action on the off-chance that the scientists are, in point of fact, correct. If they are wrong and we act unnecessarily we’ve spent some money, cleaned up our environment and created infrastructure that in all likelihood would have been needed anyway.
If they are right and we do nothing, then we will have committed this and future generations to an apocalyptic nightmare on a scale heretofore unseen on this, our only planet. http://t.co/15mdNFoOAm
There IS no Plan(et) B.
We are currently performing an uncontrolled experiment on our biosphere. Scientists have been warning of the probable (sure, they’re only 95% certain but that’s good enough for me) consequences for over three decades and there has been pitifully little concerted action to address this issue. We think ourselves as being intelligent beings – has anyone heard the expression that you shouldn’t shit in your own nest? Well that’s exactly what we have been doing. Is this kind of behaviour indicative of major intelligence? I would say not.
To continue on with business as usual in the face of the kind of evidence that has been brought to bear by Climate Science beggars belief. To have instituted a price on carbon only to have politics dictate to a new government that that price be removed just to prove a point is utter madness.
To wind back programs which are working and are not just price neutral but giving back, like those being promoted by the CEFC, is not just stupid but fiscally irresponsible. To attempt to remove a frank and fearless advisor in the form of the Climate Change Authority ranks as contempt for future generations – perhaps they are considering doing this simply because they ARE frank and fearless. As for getting rid of the organisation that was charged with the task of providing information to the general public on Climate Change – the Climate Commission – well, we all know how THAT ended. www.climatecouncil.org.au
History is likely going to judge Tony Abbott and his cronies very badly indeed and, who will they have to complain to about that, certainly not the millions of Australians who desperately want a future in which their children can grow up to enjoy the same or better opportunities than they had as children. In Australia, we currently have a price on carbon, yet, for ideological (read illogical) reasons alone, our government is hell-bent on removing the very market-based system that almost all economists say will help wean us off fossil fuels.
Well, it looks like something might finally be happening, economic growth appears to be slowly decoupling from carbon – the naysayers said this couldn’t happen and that we would have to be dependent upon fossil fuels. Will it be fast enough? I don’t know, only time will tell and our children and grandchildren will be the ones to bear the brunt of the effects caused by not moving fast enough. We are also seeing accelerating uptake from institutions divesting from fossil fuels – the early movers have been religious groups and local government as they are the ones who will have to pick up the pieces. Soon this trend will accelerate as no-one will want to be left with investments that are worthless. Can you say ‘stranded asset’??? Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, using information that has recently been confirmed by the IPCC’s AR5 report, predicted that over 80% of current fossil fuel reserves will need to go unburnt.We have a very limited ‘carbon budget’ – 1,000Gt – and we have used over half of this already and are still, albeit slower now (an increase of only 1.1% last year remarkable-renewables-touch-emissions-brake), burning it faster each year.
Yet these rogue companies – yes, they ARE rogue – continue searching for even more reserves while knowing that most of their current reserves will need to stay in the ground. In fact, they are using the perceived ‘benefits’ of a melting Arctic to drill in this heretofore pristine and inaccessible part of the globe – ‘benefits’ that come from burning their products in profligate amounts, enriching their lives but very few others. Fossil fuel companies recognise that Climate Change is a very real danger yet continue with business as usual. Surely they could use their vast wealth to assist in the transition to a low carbon economy, one that will come anyway with or without them, and so help to make themselves relevant in the 21st century.