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Nature_and_Environment.7
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{Nature_and_Environment.7.524}: Nancy Davison {nmdavison} Fri, 03 Jun 2011 17:59:29 EDT (3 lines)

Newsweek's latest article on how prepared are we for climate change.

www.newsweek.com/2011/05/29/are-you-ready-for-more.html

{Nature_and_Environment.7.525}: Julien Peter Benney {taite} Sat, 04 Jun 2011 08:41:24 EDT (27 lines)

The way rainfall has changed in Australia, especially Western
Australia, since 1967 (look at the decline at
“http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_nccObsCode=139&p_display_type=dataFile&p_startYear=&p_c=&p_stn_num=009628”
and the increase at
“http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_nccObsCode=139&p_display_type=dataFile&p_startYear=&p_c=&p_stn_num=011003”)
I have always been aware of the problems of climate change.

However, besides deliberately refusing to be taught to drive, I know
there is little I can do personally to deal with Australia’s utterly
appalling greenhouse gas emissions. What I can do, and try my best to
do given my problematic temper that is very prone to rant both in
speech and writing, is to try to convince people, especially people
abroad, that there are exceedingly sound reasons why Australia’s per
capita carbon emissions should not be the highest in the world, but
the lowest by a very, very large margin. I am well aware that present
cultural and political trends are likely to mean that Australia
retains environmentally-unfriendly technology even as countries in
Europe and Asia switch to carbon-neutral technology, and that because
of its peoples’ greater hospitality and generosity migrants and
workers will still prefer to go to Australia rather than a much more
sustainable country like Denmark or Sweden. My knowledge of how
ecologically absurd such a situation is makes me think a completely
new strategy has to be developed by countries whose people have
greater environmental awareness (actually reflecting far more
selfishness and less empathy) to really reduce emissions where
reductions are needed rather than where cultural and demographic costs
are very high.

{Nature_and_Environment.7.526}: Nancy Davison {nmdavison} Sat, 04 Jun 2011 15:20:44 EDT (2 lines)

Is it really the highest in the world? Higher than the US? that's
amazing.

{Nature_and_Environment.7.527}: Julien Peter Benney {taite} Sun, 05 Jun 2011 01:42:29 EDT (15 lines)

It is: about forty percent higher than in the US. In reality,
Australia’s per capita carbon emissions should be, I have calculated,
about 1 to 4 percent those of Eurasia, the Americas and New Zealand.

The root of the trouble is that Australia’s surfeit of natural
resources leaves it politicians powerless and its well-financed and
ultra-comfortable suburban population totally passive. What is needed
- and has been proposed - is a total cap on income of mining companies
put totally to dismantling the car and coal industries of Australia
and replacing it with an absolutely first rate mass transit system to
cater for every single journey in Australia without a single molecule
of greenhouse gas emissions. This is something that should have been
achieved by 1990, but never will be as things stand unless Australia
is made into the kind of pariah state we associate with Cuba, Iran,
Libya or Sudan.

{Nature_and_Environment.7.528}: Nancy Davison {nmdavison} Sun, 05 Jun 2011 15:04:06 EDT (1 line)

So the spoilers are everywhere, aren't they?

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