Years of reports and warnings by scientist aren’t enough to convince our governments; but an economic report that outlines die consequence if we don’t act to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere has started excellent public debate. On the back of Al Gore’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth”, we then have turned awareness into a public response avalanche. Al Gore outlines that: “Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb” and it is that level of drama and passion behind this film that has been needed to turn heads, to enable people to stop ignoring rising evidence and get on board about the world that we borrow from our children. It is our responsibility to manage this world today and hand it in a functional state to our children. Trouble is, we have just used and consumed without an understanding of the consequence, trusting that the earth has the capacity to absorb our abuse.
Al Core clarified the physical consequences and through a book and movie. He has set the plot; he made it real and tangible for us all to image the future. Stern brought the economics into focus. The potential for “the greatest market failure we have seen”; to compare with the great depression. It is a collapse of this magnitude that we can avoid in the near future by our actions and investments in corrective activity and greenhouse gas reductions today. I urge you to use the supplied links to “An Inconvenient Truth” and the “Stern Report” web sites and understand the issues.
It seems that most countries now recognise that climate change is a serious and urgent issue. I am amazed, as an Australian, how our countries Prime Minister (John Howard) avoided taking any action during his two terms. Finally, with a threatened loss at this year’s election unless he demonstrates clear and effective action to curb greenhouse emissions in Australia, he seems to have obtained environmental empathy. He was the one, along with President Bush, that has the dubious pleasure of being the two industrialised nations to stand outside the other 160 countries that have embraced it. They will both I hope suffer that political backlash at the very least. In the future I am sure Leaders such as Howard and Bush; given that they had the information available; will be seen as criminal in their inaction. Whilst we have barely forgotten of the Nazi holocaust against the Jews, the impact of climate change has the potential for a much greater holocaust against the whole human race. Inaction in this case has greater potential of impact than the World War activities of Hitler. Inaction to mitigate the impacts and damages of climate change may well make it into the realm of liability, unfortunately probably evidenced after these two men have left the planet.
There are many other governments of course that need to take action, and the Government of Indonesia is another one that fails to take decisive action against land clearing and burn off activities in the Palm Oil industry. One impact which we yearly suffer from in Singapore. As citizens of this world, it is time we took action against belligerent, ineffectual governments as we now do to industries that pollute and deface our surrounding environment. I urge everyone to take the environment to the polls as one of the most important ways to caste effective action and make environmentally dormant governments obsolete.
The Earth’s climate is rapidly changing. It is the result of increases in greenhouse gases caused by human activity. Most climate models show the likelihood of a rise of between 2 – 5°C in global mean temperatures (if the current levels of greenhouse gas increase are maintained). The scientific community have predicted this will be reached between 2030 and 2060.
An increase of 5°C globally would be equivalent to the difference between temperatures during the last ice age and today. 2°C increases are predicted to kill our Great Barrier Reef in Australia and all the other tropical reefs now in existence. To make the issue more compelling, new studies imply that warming could be greater than the 5°C limit outlined in the stern report.
This drama and forbidding outlines the potential penalty of non-action. It is not just at a government level, but a personal and community level that action is required. For we can take action today that will reverse this increasing trend and stabilise the climate change at perhaps 1°C or very little more. But it will take commitment. Personal and community commitment is required. As I have outlined above political action is required. Vote for a future you are proud to hand to your children. On a personal level, start with analysing your impact. Go to one of the following sites and undertake an assessment:
SafeClimate calculator
http://www.safeclimate.net/calculator/index.php
or Carbon FootprintsTM calculator
http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.html
or BP’s calculator
http://www.bp.com/extendedsectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9008204&contentId=7015209
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