"We have no inner spiritual life if we don't have the outer experience of a beautiful world. The more we destroy the world, the less religion is possible, the less sense of God is possible."
—Father Thomas Berry (Quote from the documentary God's Earth)
"We have made this appalling mess of the planet and mostly with rampant liberal good intentions. Even now, when the bell has started tolling to mark our ending, we still talk of sustainable development and renewable energy as if these feeble offerings would be...an appropriate and affordable sacrifice. We are like a careless and thoughtless family member whose presence is destructive and who seems to think that an apology is enough...until we stop acting as if human welfare was all that mattered, and was an excuse for our bad behaviour, all talk of further development of any kind is unacceptable."
—James Lovelock in The Revenge of Gaia
The problem
The natural environment where people use to get what they need for free is being destroyed at an alarming rate through our current economic system, population levels, and other world problems, in favour of a user-pay system to help some people get richer.
Trends supporting this view
Australian scientists tell of environmental degradation
Australian scientists claim environmental degradation does exist by claiming the number of plant and animal species are on the decline. This is the view taken in a study by the world-renowned CSIRO. According to the report published on 5 September 2012, if the rate of animals and plants disappearing throughout the planet continue the way it is going, more than half of all animals and plant species will become extinct in less than 50 years time.
The report describes the outcomes from a CSIRO global foresight project. It is titled, Our Future World: Global Megatrends that will Change the Way We Live . As the report explains:
"This report presents a narrative of the future through six interlinked megatrends. A megatrend is a significant shift in environmental, economic and social conditions that will play-out over coming decades. They are:
- More from less: Limited natural resources with rising demand.
- Going, going, ... gone?: [The] pressure on biodiversity and ecological habitats.
- The silk highway. The shifting world economy powered by developing Asia.
- Forever young. The ageing population, retirement savings gap and healthcare expenditure.
- Virtually here. The rise of online retail, tele-working and collaborative consumption.
- Great expectations. New and rising consumer and societal demand for experiences over products.
The report can be downloaded from here (alternative location).
R-wing governments blame the degradation on natural causes
R-wing governments would prefer to see the current extinctions to animal and plant species as due to natural climate change or other natural explanations. Scientists, on the other hand, claim this plays only a small role. Unnatural climate change from burning fossil fuels and other human events such as land clearing is believed to be the major contributing factor to the growing and massive worldwide extinction.
R-wing governments tend to take on the "natural cause" view if it means protecting the economy, people's jobs, the profits earned by businesses, and staying in political power. Although this view can change, or efforts to look like it is protecting the environment will occur, at around an election year.
UPDATE
1997
The Australian Federal (Howard) Government with its emphasis (or should we say "love affair") on pure economics and protecting businesses and their profits without much consideration for anything else have sold off a huge amount of Tasmania's public native forests to businesses who in turn are converting the wood to woodchips destined for overseas markets. As the profits of these businesses increase, less and less has been returned to the people and environment of Tasmania. To further reduce costs, the forest management practices of these businesses leave a lot to be desired. As we speak, the businesses have clear-felled vast areas of forests instead of selectively cutting some trees and leaving others in place while replacing the lost trees with enough native tree seedlings. And where the forest areas have been cleared, the businesses are planting fast growing pine trees. And we all know what the CSIRO thinks about this choice of a trees: the CSIRO has described the biodiversity found in planting pine trees as replacements is the same as the life found in a carpark — generally non-existent.
UPDATE
3 October 2003
With an election year looming in 2004, it is remarkable to see the Australian Federal (Howard) Government has seen the benefit of protecting fifteen sensitive environmental sites around Australia for their abundance in plant and animal life and which are considered a high risk of facing extinction. The "biodiversity hot spots" were identified by Environment Minister Mr David Kemp. More than A$100 million is expected to be injected into protecting these sites soon. (1)
UPDATE
29 November 2003
When it comes to protecting a much wider area for biodiversity identified by scientists, the Australian Federal and State Governments seem to be taking a "one step forward, two steps back" approach to the environment. More than 400 Australian biological scientists have signed an official document known as the Brigalow Declaration stating that the broad-scale destruction of native bushland through land-clearing for the sake of urban development was one of the biggest threats to biodiversity in Australia and in many areas has already become "the single biggest threat" to native animals and plants. Scientists now estimate that over 500,000 hectares is being cleared in Australia every year by humans.
The document was delivered to Australian Prime Minister Mr John Howard, and another to Queensland Premier Mr Peter Beattie where nearly 75 per cent of the nation's land clearing occurs.
Speaking on the loss of native woodlands in the ACT of which it is one of many areas earmarked for land clearing by local governments around the nation, ecological scientist Paul Sattler expressed his concern publicly when he said:
"So many of our woodlands have already been degraded by overgrazing and development pressures. Eucalypt woodlands are currently the most extensively cleared ecosystem and all clearing should stop.
'As a nation where roughly half of our threatened ecosystems are eucalypt forests or woodlands, we cannot afford to lose any more. We cannot preside over an insidious decline of these woodlands and the species that depend on them." (2)
When questioned about the reason why there is a need for clearing, many governments try to scoot around the high population, profit and other reasons by saying things along the lines of "it is to meet the economic and socially sustainable needs of people needing to purchase land".
Or to be more truthful, such land-clearing activities is more geared up towards helping local, state and Federal governments rake in more money from the people through taxes and rates and staying in office longer at around election time by supplying people with what they want or need (which is generally a roof over one's head, privacy to make more babies, a place to acquire and store more resources, be close to work etc).
R-wing governments will do something to improve its environmental credentials at around election time
Sometimes the public pressure to do something for the environment grows to such an extent that it becomes a serious election issue. When the voice of the environment is loud enough, there is a remarkable turnaround by governments, especially the R-wing types, to look like they are doing something about the issue at around election time.
UPDATE
8 December 2003
Because climate change is growing to be a major problem for world economies, the Australian Federal (Howard) Government is again trying to look good on the environmental front prior to the next election by suggesting a possible solution to the carbon dioxide emissions from coal burning. Unfortunately the suggestion has not been costed correctly and there is insufficient scientific evidence the carbon dioxide emissions can be properly locked away. The solution being suggested is to somehow capture the carbon dioxide emissions cheaply from giant coal burning stations and bury it at least 800m underground in a process known as geosequestration. Just so long as the gas does not enter the atmosphere, the Government thinks they may have found a low-cost and "permanent" solution to the greenhouse gas and climate change problem.
It is also known traditionally speaking as "sweeping the problem under the environmental carpet" among the environmentalists.
The Government is being unusually unclear about the financial costs of this solution (although this might be perfectly normal at this early stage when faced with a difficult problem while trying to maintain the system). The Government would prefer to claim to the public that the cost to capture and bury the carbon dioxide would be around A$10 per tonne. In truth, burying the carbon dioxide will cost A$10 per tonne. But capturing the carbon dioxide will cost an additional A$20 to A$50 per tonne.
Also the scientific evidence as to whether the gas can be permanently stored underground even in the event of an earthquake is lacking. Are we merely delaying the inevitable for some future government to deal with? Or should we deal with the problem properly by growing vast forests to lock away the carbon in the trunks of trees?
Again all this is an attempt to win a few more votes from the slightly more environmentally-aware "L-wing" group of average Australians at a time when the next Federal elections are just around the corner.
NOTE: The safest way to sequest carbon dioxide is by planting trees and shrubs and letting them naturally absorb and lock away the carbon in the trunks. No earthquake can suddenly release the gas as can happen in geosequestration. However, as some scientists in the Daintree rainforests are discovering, the trees and shrubs must be healthy enough to do the job properly. Otherwise the plants will actually emit more carbon dioxide than it will absorb. This is an important consideration when Australians are living in the most drought-prone and driest continent in the world. Otherwise we must look for alternative technology to solve the problem.
Scientists warn of a total meltdown of ice in the North Pole
As the Australian Federal (Howard) Government continues to focus on winning the next election in early November 2004 while doing all it can to maintain the current Westernised and capitalist system of making profit, providing jobs, and staying in power with the help of employed voters, and occasionally keeping the "L-wing" environmentalists quiet with inadequately researched and poorly-funded environmental policies, scientists are now predicting a total meltdown of the ice over the North Pole by the summer of 2080 at present-day rates of greenhouse gas emissions and computer modelling. It has happened once during the reign of the great dinosaurs in the Jurassic period, and again nearly 30,000 years ago in the interglacial period just prior to the last Ice Age. Soon the North pole will be free of ice for the third time in known history.
Perhaps there should be an annual award for the worse Government in the world that can't get their priorities right. The Howard Government would be way up there on the list of contenders. Unfortunately, the only problem is that the Americans will always end up being number 1. And under the Bush Administration, this American aim is fast becoming a reality.
UPDATE
11 May 2004
The Australian Federal (Howard) Government is going all out to win the prize by deciding in this election year to be generous in its tax cuts for high income earners and anyone else supporting the economy including those who can create a new family (i.e. add to the population levels and ultimately impact more on the environment). Over A$16 billion in tax relief will immediately be provided after the 2004 budget. Nothing like kissing the ass of the Australian people in return for a few extra votes (and a few extra babies) at election time.
UPDATE
September 2012
Scientists have revised the timeline. Melting of all the ice over the North Pole is expected to take place by 2030 using latest data and computer modelling. Should methane start to emerge from the oceans in great bursts, melting of the ice will occur much sooner than this. World ocean levels will then dramatically rise.
R-wing people says it is hopeless to save the environment, so why bother?
We discover after 26 December 2003 how some R-wing people (mainly those working for R-wing governments and the military) are trying to be a smart-arse by getting back at the environmentalists claiming their effort to reestablish native trees and shrubs on small plots of land in an attempt to restore some balance is actually making the environmental problems worse. For example, the new trees and shrubs are attracting more exotic and some native pests resulting in a more unbalanced environment in those plots of land. Take, for instance, the koalas native to Australia. These lovable (but fiesty) creatures are now coming into the new forests and decimating them through high koala population levels and their naturally voracious appetite for gum leaves.
Does this mean environmentalists should essentially give up the ghost on establishing environmental balance through the creation of new forests? No.
We have to realise that humans in Australia have cleared out vast swaths of native forests that would have provided adequate food supplies for the native animals. Combine this with the remarkably successful efforts by humans to destroy many large native animals including virtually all the predators and what we have left are a few, high-breeding types such as kangaroos, emus and koalas. The range of carnivorous animals Australia used to have and would have been capable of controlling these high breeding types have, unfortunately, disappeared from the landscape.
All we are left with now are wild domestic cats, dogs, crocodiles and a few dingoes. And unfortunately the healthy population of brown poisonous snakes are not big enough to swallow koalas and kangaroos whole. There is no choice but for humans to act as the carnivore in controlling what are fast becoming pests. But if we didn't allow our populations to expand so greatly and take over areas vital for the balance between animal carnivores and herbivores and the plants to exist, then planting trees and shrubs today would in fact be aiding in the rebalancing of our environment. Unfortunately the damage has already been done and the R-wing people are probably right in claiming the efforts of the environmentalists are making the environmental problems worse today than in the past.
But this is no argument for the R-wing people to say we should continue maintaining the economic system as we know it and do nothing more for the environment. There is still a lot we can do. We will need technology to produce vast amounts of fresh water from the oceans, reshape the land to collect and store freshwater from the rains when they do come (probably more sporadically), and start planting trees and shrubs on a vast scale using the labour of unemployed people, asylum seekers, and anyone who wants a "tree change" away from modern society. In return for their effort, we must reward these people with free food and water, a roof over their heads, and plenty of opportunity to find free time to relax, socialise and gain a proper education.
This is the only long-term hope humanity has left to save itself from inevitable extinction.
R-wing people must look at themselves first before pointing the finger at others and then claiming it s hopeless to do anything for the environment. A shear defeatist attitude. Instead of spending so much money making weapons and going to war as well as making high profits in various "non-recycling" businesses as many R-wing people would prefer to do today, the money would have been better spent in training people to do different and more environmentally-friendly jobs as well as preserving the existing animals (and native plants of a given area). Later we may be able to employe sophisticated genetic engineering to somehow bring back the lost carnivores of Australia so that balance can finally be naturally restored to its previous state. That is something we must do.
NOTE: If we don't do anything to fix the environment, it is possible the environment can slowly adapt and reach a state of balance on its own. But it is risky and fraught with danger. Before that time comes, we may have to let many more animals become extinct for a new balance to be restored properly in the natural world. The animal activists of today will hate this idea. But humans have already done the damage. Or we don't like this, we must force everyone to change the global society and our system forever in a way that will promote the re-establishing of the environment as it was many hundreds of years ago by having what we need, and learning to recycle everything. And that means the end of all wars as we know it as well as giving everyone what they want. We must give people what they need in return for restoring our environment to its original state.
Indonesia's idea of punishing people
On 17 April 2004, we learn Indonesia is rather harsh on people taking out natural resources from the environment.
As the world nations continue to support the current 'non-recycling' economic and capitalist system, the Indonesian government is faced with the unenviable position of imposing the death penalty on anyone found illegally logging the forest reserves of Kalimantan and North Sumatra. Whether this is to preserve the economic assets of the country, a genuine concern for preserving the environment, or an unofficial recognition by the Indonesian Government that human population is too high for every citizen to be properly supported by the Government and society as a whole, it is a bit hard to tell. Nevertheless, the move does send a signal to the world that something drastic is happening at this very moment as people are forced to risk their own lives to make a profit on the sale of illegal timbers to the world. Are people being greedy? Or are there people trying hard to survive and feed their families in this tough economic system?
Or maybe there is simply too many people to support and the Government can't cope? Therefore it has to act tough to stop people from selling illegal timbers.
Now hopefully one day the authorities can find a way to reward people to do the right thing for the environment and thing should improve in leaps and bounds.
One step forward (...two steps back?)
A positive step towards helping the environment began on 25 June 2004 in Australia. In a somewhat unusual move by the R-wing government to do something for the environment, both State leaders (except WA) and the R-wing Federal Government under the leadership of Mr John Howard signed an historic agreement to improve the health of major river systems. The most important of which is to allow at least 50 per cent of river flows to reach the oceans. The State and Federal Governments will provide compensation to farmers facing a curtailment of commercial-quantity irrigation as a result of the agreement.
All we need now is one more step for the Federal Governments to understand why rainfall in Australia has decreased so dramatically over the past two centuries and learn of imaginative ways to increase the probability of rain. Perhaps the drop in tree population through fire and land clearing exposing remaining ground water to the dry air might be the cause, allowing the great inland sea for creating reliable rainfall to disappear. Can water be re-established in the central part of Australia and more trees planted for rainfall to be more extensive and consistent?
Australia needs big projects like this to solve its environmental problems.
UPDATE
1 July 2004
It seems the good work for the environment has been undone once again thanks to the Federal (Howard) Government's new policy to provide mothers with a "A$3000 for every newborn entering into this world" incentive. This is presumably a ticket designed to kickstart the Australian economy for at least another 50 years if enough young workers enter the workforce doing things like hospitality, toilet cleaning, or joining the Army if you don't "fit in with society and the economy", and all on a low-income casual or contract basis of course unless you can get into the highly stressful full-time, highly paid and permanent executive positions. Combine this with a first home buyer's grant of around A$15,000, and we can be sure people will be tied down to employment for a long time and consuming the resources from the environment with absolute glee.
UPDATE
3 September 2004
Australian Prime Minister John Howard has suddenly realised the possibility that the Greens (and some independents) could join the Labor Party to ensure the Coalition does not remain in power after election day on 9 October 2004. Add to this the sensational news yesterday that a Liberal candidate in the very safe heartland of Wentworth named Mr Peter King has defected to become an independent candidate for the region because of the serious concerns he has for the environment and the latest political power shift is starting to affect the Liberal Party's reelection chances. As Mr King said:
"...it was time for policies that get serious about climate change." (4)
Actually the damage is so great that Mr Howard has had to announce today a compromise with the Greens and other environmentally-concerned voters. Mr Howard is playing his trump card by halting logging of old-growth forests in Tasmania and declaring a compromise plan to save the forests. As Mr Howard had revealed to the media:
"I think everybody would like to see old-growth logging stopped, but that should not occur at the expense of timber workers.
'I do not support throwing regional communities on the scrap heap in order to achieve a particular environmental objective. What we have to do is try and find a way through that accommodates all interests — the environmental interests but also the legitimate interests of local communities.
'What I've been doing is working on a plan which is reasonably well developed to try and accommodate all these interests." (5)
A pity such efforts couldn't have been done earlier. So what's the compromise plan? We will have to wait and see. But if the amount of paper-based election material coming through people's mailboxes are anything to go by these days, it would appear any compromise plan from Mr Howard would probably "hold very little water" so to speak given how many trees have been used up to make the brochures.
Seriously, as Mr Howard has quite rightly mentioned at the start of the election campaign, this is a question of trust. It may be true the Government can be trusted on economic matters, but there has been no substantial evidence since 1996 that the Government can be trusted on environmental issues.
It is clear Mr Howard is only interested in winning enough swinging Green votes for the Coalition on election day to stay in power and nothing more. Any other time and it will be business as usual with the environment given low priority.
UPDATE
13 May 2005
The agreement to protext 190,000 hectares of old-growth Tasmanian forests has finally been made between the Tasmanian government and the Australian Federal (Howard) Government. The agreement will not involve turning the forests into national parks or World Heritage areas. Instead, Mr Howard will provide a $250 million package to preserve about 120,490 hectares of original forests until such time in the near future when certain dire economic consequences looms for the timber industry and then it may be possible to reverse the agreement.
The sole aim of this agreement is to immediately appease some environmentally-concerned Tasmanian people by showing some key areas of high conservation value will be preserved while balancing the needs of maintaining jobs and keeping the timber industry alive and well.
The agreement won't stop timber companies applying for a license to access the protected areas. The package will be mainly to maintain current supply levels and modernise technology (i.e. reduce timber waste) for the timber companies until the money runs out.
Another problem with the agreement is the way the trees will be cut down and others preserved to give the impression it is balanced. As timber companies clear the trees, isolated islands of old-growth forests will remain. A slight improvement from the complete and utter destruction of the forests leaving behind a barren and wasteful landscape. But not sufficiently ecologically-sensitive enough to allow animals to move from one natural habitat of trees to the next searching for food and shelter. Actually the agreement does not guarantee companies will not undertake complete land-clearing. If land is to be cleared of trees, the companies are legally able to do this with almost complete impunity.
On the positive side, the poison 1080 used by timber companies, which has caused the deaths of thousands of animals, will be banned by the end of the year. And the conversion of native trees to pine planatation forests will be phased out by 2010, pleasing some environmental groups.
Australian Conservation Foundation campaign director Mr John Connor welcomes the funding. The amount was as sought by the environmental groups to protect the forests. But as Connor said:
"So the money is welcome, but it's not targeted appropriately and it's still going to continue logging in old-growth forests." (Grace, Robyn. $250m to protect Tasmanian forests: The Canberra Times. 14 May 2005, p.5.)
Australian Greens senator Bob Brown was a little more scathing of Mr Howard when he said:
"What a lost opportunity. Two parts poison to one part champagne the Prime Minister has dished up to Australians today." (Grace, Robyn. $250m to protect Tasmanian forests: The Canberra Times. 14 May 2005, p.5.)
Opposition leader Kim Beazley tried to put a positive spin on it by saying, "On balance, the agreement offers better protection for forests than currently exists." (Peatling, Stephanie & Darby, Andrew. Forests miss heritage listing in $250m deal: The Sydney Morning Herald. 14-15 May 2005, p.11.)
UPDATE
8 November 2004
The Australian people have been easily frightened by Mr Howard and his finance minister's talk of high interest rates under a Labor government as many people have already bought into the property market as an investment by renovating homes and selling them quickly in the hope of making a quick buck. With economics the deciding factor (hence the difficulty of the Greens getting into power) and the concern about an inexperienced leader for the Labor Party (i.e. Mr Mark Latham) for most Australians, and lots of advertising on television and promises of better social policies by the coalition government, Australian Prime Minister Mr John Howard has helped the Liberal/National coalition to win government once again.
R-wing governments lacking in creativity?
We see evidence on 24 July 2004 of the Federal (Howard) Government preparing to shutdown all imagination and rely purely on "rational" solutions (i.e. what makes them an immediate profit and maintains the economy) based on what they can observe works right now. In other areas of scientific pursuit where scientists write what they see is a potential link between certain poor business practices and the killing of living organisms during certain conditions as worthy of closer investigation, the governments are quick to "shoot holes" in the work claiming it is "opinionated", "lacking in evidence", "shouldn't waste time and money funding it", etc.
This is another way of saying:
"We don't have a clue how to solve the environmental and social problems of the day so the only thing we can do is concentrate on staying in power by supporting businesses in whatever form they take and operate in society in its current form. Because at the end of the day, it is the businesses that provide the jobs for people. And it is the people with jobs who are more likely to vote for us on election day."
R-wing people are fast to find anything to support their own position
New information on global climate as of 21 March 2005 has revealed a battle going on in the Earth's atmosphere between pollutants creating global warming and pollutants creating global cooling. More importantly, it is claimed current global climate models are not taking into account the pollutants responsible for global cooling. R-wing people are quick to argue the pollutants for cooling rhe planet is the true reality and so we should not worry about global warming. However, some scientists believe the pollutants for cooling is masking a more serious global warming problem from the other pollutants.
The story begins in Israel over 40 years ago when a scientist named Dr Gerald Stanhill measured the amount of solar radiation reaching the ground in 1957. This experiment was important for his country because he wanted to design efficient irrigation systems. A few years later, he repeated the experiment. Dr Stanhill made an astounding discovery: he noticed a reduction in sunlight of roughly 22 per cent in his part of the world.
Stanhill published the results in a scientific journal, but it had no effect on the scientific community. Stanhill called the phenomenon Global Dimming.
Then another independent scientist in Germany found in more recent times evidence to support Stanhill's discovery. Careful measurements suggest the phenomenon is global with all countries having a reduction in solar radiation, some more than others. For example, Antarctica had a 9 per cent reduction in solar radiation, Russia had a 30 per cent reduction, USA had a 10 per cent reduction and the UK had a 16 per cent reduction. When averaged out between 1960 and 1990, scientists believe the Earth experienced a decline in the amount of sunlight reaching the ground of roughly between 4 and 6 per cent.
In 1985, scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich analysed a database of sunlight measurements gathered on land from around the world. They concluded with some surprise that the data showed substantial falls in sunlight reaching the ground.
This is interesting. Less energy from the sun should make the Earth cooler. Yet scientists are suggesting the world is getting warmer. Is this contradicting global warming research?
Now the cause for this global dimming has been determined to originate from another kind of pollutant entering the atmosphere. The pollutant is soot, ash and sulfur dioxide from burning wood, coal, gas and oil. Scientists estimate that just 3 kilometres of this kind of pollution can reduce solar radiation by 10 per cent depending on its concentration.
The battle of the pollutants absorbing heat from the Sun and those emitting or reflecting heat and light from the Sun into space is prevalent. So what exactly is the pollution in the atmosphere doing to the temperature of the planet? Is the pollution of methane and carbon dioxide creating more heat for the planet or are the other pollutants cooling the planet and hence the dominant factor?
Some world governments — notably the US Government under the Bush Administration — wish to believe everything is okay and that the Earth could in fact be cooling down. Most scientists, however, predict the opposite.
To add to the confusion, the pollution responsible for global dimming can increase the cloud's reflective properties. As scientists are discovering, when the air is filled with more soot and dust, a greater number of water droplets form around the particles. The more water droplets there are in the clouds, the greater the clouds can reflect sunlight back into space. This would mean a cooling effect.
NOTE: Water in the atmosphere is needed to trap heat emitted from the ground into space. Water is the principal greenhouse molecule allowing Earth to stay above 30°C warmer than the Moon (lying at the same distance from the Sun but has a temperature of -15°C on the surface). The natural carbon dioxide in the atmosphere raises temperature on Earth by a further 0.6°C. The concern is how the extra carbon dioxide from human activities is raising the temperatures by between 1 and 6 degrees.
But what happens if we don't have pollution in the atmosphere?
Well, if we didn't have greenhouse gas pollutants in the atmosphere to warm the planet, the present mean temperature of the earth would drop to a permanent -19°C. In effect, we would be living in an irreversible Ice Age. Water vapour is one natural greenhouse gas pollutant contributing between 36 and 70 per cent of the greenhouse effect on earth (not including clouds), a further 9 to 26 per cent from carbon dioxide, 4 to 9 per cent from methane, and ozone causes 3 to 7 per cent.
Okay. So what happens when we reduce the pollutants for cooling the planet?
Europe is cutting pollution in the air. However some scientists believe this is the pollution responsible for global dimming. So as the pollution goes down, there is a slight reduction in global dimming. Now European temperatures are rising because sunlight is reaching the ground more easily.
And it isn't a normal increase in temperature.
The global warming effect of pollutants from carbon dioxide and methane (also called global brightening) continues to increase unabated. Scientists are facing the unenviable task of revamping their predictions for a more dramatic increase in temperature for the foreseeable future. The models should predict a temperature range difference of at least twice as much than currently published.
Martin Wild, a scientist at the Swiss institute said:
"Sunlight at the land surface declined between the '60s and '80s, and this was possibly related to increased air pollution which may have masked global warming. The dimming ended during the '80s in many locations, and the atmosphere has since become more transparent for sunlight, possibly favoured by air pollution control. The absence of solar dimming may have no longer masked the greenhouse effect in the past two decades, with the result that the full dimension of the greenhouse effect has become only evident in the past two decades after dimming has ceased." (Connor, Steve. Dim views rise in global brightening: The Canberra Times. 14 May 2005, p.B8.)
If this is true, it is possible for ice in Greenland to completely melt by 2030 (not 2080), rainforests may dry up sufficiently, more rainforest trees will become stressed in the drier conditions and thus less able to absorb the greenhouse gases quickly enough to counteract the global warming pollutants, the rainforests become a greater fire hazard, and should a fire rip through the rainforests, will accelerate global warming even more dramatically.
Earth could experience a runaway global warming effect with no sufficient plant cover on the Earth's surface in a healthier enough state to absorb the greenhouse gases. Soon more countries could turn into deserts and become inhospitable for humans to live. Droughts and famine could be a far more common sight in places such as Africa and India. And affluent countries will be forced to rely on technology to desalinate ocean water and grow food in factories to solve their immediate problems while maintaining the economy.
Does this mean we should continue to maintain the present levels of pollution emanating from burning coal, gas and oil? World governments and business professionals would love it. Scientists, on the other hand, say "No!"
Scientists predict the atmosphere will be choked with enough soot, ash and sulfur dioxide that eventually human health will deteriorate to the point where our lifespan is shortened.
The solution? We must tackle both types of pollutants simultaneously. And the only way we can do this is to get at the root problem: the burning of wood, coal, gas and oil. Humanity must now find alternative and cleaner energy sources. Or humans must reduce their demand for cars, electricity and natural gas. Otherwise human population levels will be forced to go down because of health problems from poor air pollution. Or else face inhospitable, desert-like conditions through much of the world continents. And it won't be just obesity that will kill the human population sooner than later.
The United Nations' view on the environment
UPDATE
30 March 2005
The results of a massive and most comprehensive UN-backed US$20 million scientific study on the current state of the global ecosystem, or life support system of the planet, has just been released and the news is not good.
It began a few years ago when United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan understood the importance of looking after the environment for the survival of the human race and all of life on Earth, solving poverty, and maintaining economic development.
Only one problem: Mr Annan needed the latest scientific information to accurately reveal the state of the environment today. This is where the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) comes into the picture. Launched in June 2001, Mr Annan hoped to use the information in MA to deliver effective environmental policy for the global community.
As Mr Annan said:
"It is impossible to devise effective environmental policy unless it is based on sound scientific information. While major advances in data collection have been made in many areas, large gaps in our knowledge remain. In particular, there has never been a comprehensive global assessment of the world's major ecosystems. The planned Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a major international collaborative effort to map the health of our planet, is a response to this need." (http://www.ourplanet.com/imgversn/133/watson.html)
In launching the report, Mr Annan reemphasised its importance when he said:
"Only by understanding the environment and how it works, can we make the necessary decisions to protect it. Only by valuing all our precious natural and human resources can we hope to build a sustainable future. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is an unprecedented contribution to our global mission for development, sustainability and peace." (http://www.maweb.org/en/Article.aspx?id=58)
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment work was overseen by a 45-member board of directors, co-chaired by Dr. Robert Watson, chief scientist of The World Bank, and Dr A. H. Zakri, director of the United Nations University's Institute of Advanced Studies. The Assessment Panel, which oversees the technical work of the MA, includes 13 of the world's leading social and natural scientists. It is co-chaired by Angela Cropper of the Cropper Foundation, and Dr. Harold Mooney of Stanford University. Dr. Walter Reid is the director of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.
Today, the work was completed and consists of seven summary reports and four technical volumes. The work will be repeated every 5 to 10 years to see how the ecosystems of planet Earth are fairing under human rule while people continue to exploit the natural resources.
Requiring over 1,350 authors (many of them scientific experts) from 95 countries to work in four technical expert groups to prepare the global assessment and another few hundreds more to conduct more than 30 assessments at the local level, the results of the report found that:
(i) Most of the world's ecosystems are already on the path of unsustainability.
(ii) 60 per cent of the world's natural resources are at critical levels. The resources at risk of total destruction involve all the basics of life — water, clean air, food, timber and a predictable climate.
(iii) Much of the damaged or near total destruction of the natural resources are largely an irreversible loss to the world's biological diversity.
(iv) Between 10 and 30 per cent of the mammal, bird and amphibian species are at risk of extinction.
(ii) The responsibility for the destruction of the natural resources lies squarely at humans.
Of all the ecosystem services, only crop, livestock and aquaculture production, and carbon sequestration for global climate control has increased to the benefit of a better environment. But far too many other services are creating problems for the environment. The worse ones of all are presently fisheries and fresh water, which are said to be so poorly managed that it can no longer sustain current, let alone future, demands.
Director of the MA study Mr Walter Reid summarised the reports to the media in London on 30 March 2005 in the following way:
"These [ecosystem] changes have resulted in a substantial and largely irreversible loss to the biological diversity of the planet.
Over the past 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable time in human history, largely to meet rapidly growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fiber and fuel. This has resulted in substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth."
The only hope humans have of easing the strain on the environment is to make significant changes in consumption habits, better education, introduce new and radical technologies (especially of the renewable energy sources type), and raising the price of those ecosystem services which exploit but don't help to sustain or recycle (e.g. an environmental tax reflect the true cost of providing the services to the human population).
If humans don't change their attitude and behaviour towards the environment immediately, environmental degradation will be so great that:
(i) humans dying in third world countries because of starvation will be in unprecedented numbers;
(ii) the rest of the human population will experience new and more devastating diseases;
(iii) fresh water supplies and clean air will be polluted creating massive health problems for humans such as lung cancer;
(iv) the commercial fisheries industry will collapse; and
(v) there will be dramatic changes in local climates.
Since the release of the reports, no Australian commercial television station (Channel 9, 7 and 10) or major newspaper (except The Age) would give them a mention. Only The Age in Melbourne made the reports on the State of the World front page, and the ABC radio stations and the ABC 7.00pm news in Canberra discussed the results of the report as a minor story (definitely not the first item of news) on Thursday 31 March 2005 (a day after the reports were officially released to the media in London).
The Australian Federal (Howard) Government was not entirely immuned to the report. On hearing the results, the Government essentially overlooked the reports' importance saying it is not significant enough to require changes in the Australian economy.
UPDATE
9 April 2005
Amazingly, despite the UN-backed scientific report on the State of the World, around 25 per cent of the 500 climate researchers who attended a climate seminar conducted by The Frederich Naumann Foundation in Germany were still sceptical of global warming, especially if it is linked in any way to human activity. The excuses made have ranged from:
"There are too many variables and big questions we don't know about, so why implicate humans in the global warming until these variables and questions have been understood?"
or
"The total amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (considered by some people to be at the heart of the problem) makes up less than 1 per cent of greenhouse gases (water vapour is the principle temperature controller). The contribution humans make to this carbon dioxide component through their activities is too small to have a significant effect on climate."
or
"Climate change has been going on for millions of years so why focus on human industry for today's climate change?"
to:
"I have been paid by my government too well to say anything else."
For these scientists, global warming is considered a natural event not influenced in anyway by humans. Yes, and there were people in medieval times who believed the Earth was flat too!
There are many scientists who believe there is a 90 per cent chance global temperatures will rise between 1.5 degrees and 4.5 degrees in the next 100 years. But a number of scientists are not willing to point a finger at humanity for at least some of the responsibility simply because they feel there is less information known about exactly how humans can affect the climate compared to the solid data we now have over the last few thousand years on global temperatures. For example, we know the Earth went through a series of glacial and interglacial periods — all assumed to have occurred under natural conditions. And while the information is poor about human impact on the climate, it is not worth the money and effort on reducing carbon dioxide emissions as a precautionary measure at the present time until the hard evidence arrives.
UPDATE
September 2012
The argument for natural causes in the global warming debate has lost ground in favour of human activity. Most scientists, including many conservative types, are acknowledging that global warming is due primarily to human activity.
R-wing governments influence the CSIRO through its government funding to focus on specific projects relevant to the economy
A number of ecologists once working for top research organisations has to come out of the woodworks to highlight problems in the way decision-makers in the organisations and in government don't do enough to protect the environment by funding good quality "long-term thinking" and independent scientific work in the field.
A supporter of this view is Australian ecologist Dr Huge Tyndale-Biscoe. After seeing a number of successful scientific programs devoted to the protection of threatened species come to an end and quality scientists in these programs go to waste through forced redundancies, Dr Tyndale-Biscoe expressed his concern over the direction in which CSIRO is heading. Once considered a shining example of research excellence in the 20th century for the benefit of all Australians, the 21st century CSIRO is now more concerned about short-term "commercially viable" research and consultancy work for businesses to satisfy the requirements of the Australian Federal Government.
A pioneer in the research on the evolution and biology of marsupials and who worked at CSIRO for 45 years, Dr Tyndale-Biscoe said:
"[CSIRO is] being inexorably changed from an institution that did research for all Australians to one that does consultancies for clients." (Beeby, Rosslyn. Noted ecologist slams CSIRO: The Canberra Times. 7 May 2005, p.1.)
The problem lies in too much top-down planning or administrators and governments controlling the direction of science through funding based on the premise of purely economic objectives.
Dr Tyndale-Biscoe was also particularly critical of the talent being lost (and described by CSIRO management as "surplus to requirements") due to shutdowns of key programs at CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems:
"One [scientist] has measured blook in the hormones of animals at a dilution of one part per billion; one has modelled how fast foot and mouth disease could spread in feral pig populations in Australia and one has done more than anyone else to develop ways to restore endangered species to their former habitat.
'Their combined salaries were less than that being paid by CSIRO to one communicator with no scientific background." (Beeby, Rosslyn. Noted ecologist slams CSIRO: The Canberra Times. 7 May 2005, p.1.)
In the past it used to be the scientists who held centre-stage and the administrator second when creating good science. Now the administrators are having the upper hand and telling scientists what to do. Dr Tyndale-Biscoe said:
"I think important scientific expertise is being shut out and that shouldn't be the case in a national research institution that was set up to serve all Australians [and the world].
'I think we need to ask where science is heading, and that includes questioning changes that are being made at CSIRO.
Good scientists have been told they are surplus to requirements, as if they have little value. These people have huge skills, are well below the normal retirement age, and have contributed so much to achieving a better understanding of Australia's biota and ecosystems. It is incredible to think their knowledge will be lost." (Beeby, Rosslyn. Noted ecologist slams CSIRO: The Canberra Times. 7 May 2005, p.1.)
CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystem chief Dr Andrew Johnson has confirmed only a small number of scientists have been affected by the changes at CSIRO. Dr Johnston said:
"Only a small number of people have been told that their skills are no longer required because they are not aligned to the future direction of the division." (Beeby, Rosslyn. Noted ecologist slams CSIRO: The Canberra Times. 7 May 2005, p.1.)
UPDATE
14 May 2005
CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems chief Dr Andrew Johnson has allegedly cracked down on 13 honorary research fellows still working within the division including Dr Tyndale-Biscoe himself with consequences if they spoke out against the current restructuring taking place at CSIRO following the recent damning allegations from ecologist and honorary research fellow Dr Tyndale-Biscoe at the launch of his book titled Life of Marsupials.
The media have tried to get confirmation on this but CSIRO chief executive Dr Geoff Garrett played down the situation claiming no attempt to silence research fellows has occurred and that people are free to agree or disagree with the restructuring at CSIRO and its direction.
With the media breathing down his neck, Dr Johnson agrees saying you can form your own opinion. However because unpaid research fellows are not CSIRO employees, they are not entitled to make independent comment. As Dr Johnson said:
"They [the research fellows] are guests of this division.
They are not employees of the organisation. They have been told they are not entitled to make independent comment." (Beeby, Rosslyn. CSIRO gags retired scientists: The Canberra Times. 14 May 2005, p.1.)
However he doesn't confirm the claim by an anonymous member of the research group that if you do disagree, you should "be prepared to wear it", or resign if you couldn't "live with the changes".
UPDATE
2 July 2005
Dr Hugh Tyndale-Biscoe has made it clear he no longer wishes to renew his honorary research fellowship with CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems. The official reason given was because he is concerned about the direction CSIRO is taking through the changes and the treatment of its scientists. Stopping scientists from freely engaging in public debate and cutting back on independent scientific work are among his major concerns for CSIRO. As Dr Tyndale-Biscoe said:
"It is not that the organisation has changed its research priorities; that must always happen. The issue is how the priorities are now determined.
CSIRO was such a good and successful research institution because it was grounded in the ethos of fearless scientific inquiry" (Beeby, Rosslyn. Top wildlife biologist parts with CSIRO: The Canberra Times. 2 July 2005, p.3.)
Businesses influencing the thinking of R-wing governments
A right-wing Australian think tank known as the Institute of Public Affairs has been influential in the policies of the Australian Federal (Howard) Government by writing opinion articles in various Australian newspapers demanding green groups reveal who they represent, where the funding is coming from, and what expertise they have to substantiate their claims.
As senior fellow at the Institute Mr Gary Johns said:
"Why should any government pay for predetermined, usually unsubstantiated and often unscientific advice on the environment?" (Frew, Wendy. No gold for the greens: The Sydney Morning Herald. 14-15 May 2005, p.38.)
And why should Australians pay tax to the Australian Government for unsubstatiated claims of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?
Seriously if Mr Johns wants expertise in environmental affairs and he can't quite see it through the green groups, he may be wise to take a look at the official United Nations report on the environment titled, 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment released in March 2005. If over 3,000 scientific experts aren't enough to convince him of the need to preserve our environment, he really needs to get out of his job and join a conservation group for several years before making his right-wing views known in newspapers.
And while he is at it, why not bring with him a few of his friends from Federal Government. These politicians running the country need a lesson on the environment after learning they have recently slashed funding to green groups involved in advocacy, reduced access for the groups to government, and threatened anyone donating funds to the green groups with no tax deductibility options.
The left-wing think tank Australia Institute views this move by the government as unhelpful. Executive director of the institute Clive Hamilton said:
"There is no question this is about a program to silence and possibly destroy large numbers of environment groups." (Frew, Wendy. No gold for the greens: The Sydney Morning Herald. 14-15 May 2005, p.38.)
The move marks the beginning of an era where decision-makers in government are concerned of the increasing ability of ordinary citizens to influence government policies.
The oil companies of Caltex, Shell and Esso, and the tobacco companies Philip Morris and British American Tobacco are among numerous businesses funding the Institute of Public Affairs to make its views about the green groups to help influence the government as it goes about trying to stop the green groups from having an influence. Perhaps the same should be done with the businesses and the institute?
These business connections to the institute were officially confirmed by its executive director in 2003 Mr Mike Nahan and reported in The Sydney Morning Herald.
The idea that the end of the last Ice Age was caused by natural events
One of the world's most highly respected paleo-climatologists, William F. Ruddiman, has suggested in the March 2005 edition of Scientific American that the last Ice Age nearly 10,000 years ago ended because of human impact on climate through agriculture and livestock. Evidence for his claims can be read from the article titled How Did Humans First Alter Global Climate?
So what will Mr Howard and his motley crew on the R-wing SS- "Economic" Titanic going to do now? Stick to his plan as he heads for an environmental iceberg? Or change course for a brighter future?
R-wing politicians confusing the term "sustainability"
R-wing politicians try to complicate the term sustainability in terms of various things of which all ultimately favour their economic "continuous growth" aims. The reality is the economics of manufacturing and primary industry for supplying the raw materials and creating the foods for society must be dependent on a sustainable natural environment. You don't have a "sustainable economy" by balancing the expenses and costs in a budget and the environment is just an external "thing" that may need to be considered.
The environment is the basis of life. Economics is a thing that is part of life and the environment if we choose to live in a materialistic world and money is the dominant theme for society.
Some people will talk about sustainability as a process of "maximising performance with respect to all aspects of human development". Yes, we must do our best in achieving goal(s) given the resources available. But it does not explain how to "maximise performance". To a business professional, "maximising performance" simply means working harder, taking out more resources from the environment, and selling more products and services.
The idea of "maximising performance" is an economic term often used to hide the real definition for sustainability.
The concept of sustainability had its origin in the environment. And it simply means "recycling everything that you do". In other words, it means using and reusing what you've got to achieve your goal(s).
It is very simple.
Other people may describe sustainability as researching, deciding on options, getting the public to be involved in decision-making. Sustainability is really the end result of all this human activity. When we are not recycling properly, we need to return to "sustainability". But once we work out how to recycle, can we apply the term sustainability to the outcome in the correct manner.
People will use the term for different systems such as "social sustainability", "economic sustainability", "environmental sustainability" and so on. All it means is ensuring what goes in and comes out from the systems can go back in again with no waste along the way.
Sustainability is recycling.
Some businesses are prepared to be open-minded
The voices of 23 big business leaders concerned about climate change are finally being heard. Multinational giants such as the car maker Ford, airline British Airways, the bank of HSBC, and electricity generator EdF and oil company BP all agreed in June 2005 that the evidence for climate change is compelling and urged world governments of the richest nations to take urgent action.
As world leaders from the eight richest nations prepare for their G8 summit between 6-8 July 2005, leaders from big businesses calling themselves the G8 Climate Change Roundtable met to discuss the environmental problem. It follows similar appeals from the world's top scientists.
As the multinational companies officially announced to media observers:
"We share the belief that climate change poses one of the most significant chanllenges of the 21st century.
'We agree that the science is sufficiently compelling to warrant action by both the private and public sector, and action must be initiated now." (The Canberra Times: Business joins calls for action on climate. 11 June 2005, p.19.)
The businesses are calling for a global action plan from the G8 world leaders.
Head of the environmental lobby group Friends of the Earth, Mr Tony Juniper, expressed enthusiasm for the statement as the global movement towards protecting the environment builds to fever pitch. Juniper said:
"Just a few years ago large international business and environment groups were on opposite sides of the fence. This statement shows just how far big business has moved." (The Canberra Times: Business joins calls for action on climate. 11 June 2005, p.19.)
Governments prefer to choose what's cheapest to solve climate change
Some governments have to resort to nuclear energy as the only immediate and viable solution to climate change, In fact many government will describe this as the most practical and rational solution to the environmental problem. However, a practical and rational solution in the governments' eyes simply means the lowest-cost and one that doesn't impede on progress and growth in the business world, not necessarily the best solution for humanity.
For example, increasing talk of climate change in governments is starting to see the NSW Premier Bob Carr discuss nuclear power plants instead of coal-fired power generation as the immediate and practical (i.e. lowest-cost) solution to the greenhouse gas problem.
But this isn't the only solution to climate change. The loss of vegetation and the greater difficulty in re-establishing fresh water and healthy vegetation inland because of the lack of vegetation and increases in evaporation is another side to this climate change debate.
Then we must tackle human population levels and what it means to do business in the 21st century. In other words, can we support up to 10 billion people in the world by 2050 while businesses take greater amounts of water and vegetation out of the environment as raw materials for producing products (e.g. Coca-Cola and housing) and through land-clearing without giving back to the environment?
There has to be a new paradigm of thinking and a new way of living and doing things. We are the caretakers of this planet and we must prove how responsible we are in looking after this planet because it is our life-support system. It is not for our pleasure to plunder and do as we so wish in the hope we can make as much money as we can. The planet cannot sustain this kind of thinking anymore. We now have to think in terms of our survival and think long-term for the human species.
R-wing governments try to distract the public from environmental issues in favour of their own agenda (i.e. protecting their way of "making profits" life)
On 2 July 2005, UK Prime Minister was quite rightly concentrating on more important world issues than any kind of terrorism against Western nations by Middle East Islamic fundamentalists as the Bush Administration would so much love to do. Environmental terrorism from businesses within Western nations creating such problems as climate change is considered a far greater problem for humanity. And so too is the world problem of poverty.
Already there is a real possibility Mr Blair will create a rift with the US during the G8 summit to be held later this month in Scotland. So much so that it could isolate the US while the remaining 7 nations agree in communique in getting concerted action to tackle global warming and poverty.
If the US won't take the lead on the environment and humanitarian issues, it is time other countries set the example.
UPDATE
8 July 2005
World leaders at the G8 summit have agreed to take immediate steps to curb global warming. Although exactly how is not clear. The only thing to put a big fizzer on the whole summit, apart from the terrorist attack in London, is the way US President George W. Bush tries to stick to his position.
Mr Bush knows his country is a major guzzler of oil. The US dependency on oil puts to shame many other countries. Yet despite all its money and technology, it still cannot find a clean and renewable energy source capable of replacing oil dependency. Perhaps the concern is that a renewable energy source could see people spend a lot less on energy (if any) and that would definitely be a real bummer to the business leaders and their shareholders.
Certainly various interesting ideas have been put forward by US scientists, some have been implemented such as high-efficiency solar panels, while a few have been kept secret by the US military such as radio wave to electricity conversion for the sake of stopping people discover a bigger secret.
But Mr Bush is still not prepared to set concrete targets for his nation. The economy is too important in his mind. For if the economy is okay, Mr Bush has an excellent chance of staying in power and the US military will hopefully maintain its big secret for a little longer.
Yet, at the same time, Mr Bush knows he doesn't want to be seen as a pariah in the sea of humanity wanting to seek and implement real creative solutions to climate change. To be left out on a limb would spell almost certain political and possibly economic disaster for Mr Bush and his cohorts including top US military brass wanting to maintain the status quo. So Mr Bush has kept a door open for future dialogue about the climate change issues.
Mr Bush is also trying to appease the leaders and the UN with a pledge to double US foreign aid to Africa over the next five years to $8.6 billion. Well, the US has the money so it can. But it isn't really an original solution. Let's face it, the money will help some Africans to survive a little easier in the immediate sense. But we need much more longer term solutions of a non-monetary nature (e.g. self-education in growing foods, repairing the environment, how to build homes, conflict resolution and population control) instead of forcing people to accept the economy, receive some money (in the hope it will keep them quiet), and force them to pay off debts using the money.
As G. O'Gorman of Binalong, NSW, said:
"If the enormous riches of Africa were disbursed throughout the continent, there would be no poverty there.
'Figures released by Nigeria's anti-corruption committee show $500 billion was stolen or misused during the first four decades of independence." (The Sunday Telegraph: Enormous riches (Your Say). 10 July 2005, p.88.)
Money is not the permanent solution to world problems. Mr Bush should have explained how his country intends to generate long-term solutions rather than throwing more money at the problem.
In the meantime Mr Bush has reaffirmed his commitment to continue researching new energy solutions so that hopefully the US can move away from the polluting energies without harming economic growth.
Ignoring the thorn in the side of world leaders from the US, all the leaders can do now is to present to the public and media a very positive outcome from the meeting. Well, they have to. People will ultimately have the final say if leaders can't do the right thing in this world.
Understandably, environmentalists described the agreement from the G8 summit as "utterly meaningless" according to Philip Clapp, the president of America's National Environmental Trust. As Clapp said:
"...[the agreement is] utterly meaningless, the weakest statement on climate change ever made by the G8.
'The G8 leaders did not agree on a single concrete action [apart from agreeing something must be done] to address climate change. Not one new dollar was committed by any country to develop technologies — they just told the World Bank to go do it with no new financing." (Eilperin, Juliet. Bush resists tougher action on warming: The Sydney Morning Herald. 9-10 July 2005, p.19.)
Could this agreement be an admission by world leaders they have no real solution on climate change so long as they continue to see the importance of the economy for maintaining political power? Are world leaders afraid the sky would fall on them if they decided to do the right thing?
As for the US trying to stick to its guns where it can, this is self-evident when executive director of Greenpeace Stephen Tindale said:
"President Bush is isolated from the 12 other countries who have all emphasised the need for tough targets to reduce CO2 emissions." (Eilperin, Juliet. Bush resists tougher action on warming: The Sydney Morning Herald. 9-10 July 2005, p.19.)
The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a report in June 2005 with statements from the science academies of 11 countries including all the G8 nations warning:
"It is vital that all nations identify cost-effective steps that they can take now to contribute to substantial and long-term reduction in net global greenhouse gas emissions." (The Canberra Times: It's getting hotter around the globe and this will continue: experts. 9 July 2005, p.15.)
Scientists say concentrations of carbon dioxide are now 370 parts per million (ppm) and rising. In 1958, the concentrations were 315ppm. If the concentrations reach 400ppm, scientists expect a 2 degree increase in world temperatures which they believe is the critical point where "the risks to human soxieties and ecosystems grow significantly".
This could happen in the next few years. Certainly computer simulations are suggesting a rise of anywhere between 1.4 to 5.8 degrees over the period 1990 to 2100.
The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration has added its weight to the report saying 2005 will be the warmest year since records began.
Scientists have further calculated that in order to halt global warming, carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced by 60 per cent from 1990 levels. We are talking about 1990, not 2005! The 1995 Kyoto Protocol has no hope of reaching this target. Even with the best estimates, the Kyoto Protocol will only be able to reduce the carbon dioxide emission levels by 5.2 per cent by 2010 from the 1990 levels.
Effectively the Kyoto Protocol is a waste of time. Nations have to be serious at reducing carbon dioxide emissions now and substantially beyond the expectations of any official protocol.
And the country setting the worse example to the world is the US. Scientists believe this nation alone generates 24 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions and yet Mr Bush doesn't want to ratify the Kyoto Protocol (the US would only sign to agree in principle to the idea) for a modest reduction. When the levels are combined with G8 nations, the figure is said to be closer to 45 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.
To add to the disgrace of the Bush Administration, Mr Bush didn't want to accept the statement in the draft G8 statement on climate change of "Our world is warming".
This so-called world leader from the word's richest nation is clearly contradicting the research from 2000 scientific experts which said in the climate change panel report that "...most of the warming observed over the past 50 years is attributable to human activity." (The Canberra Times: It's getting hotter around the globe and this will continue: experts. 9 July 2005, p.15.)
How much clearer do we need to be for action to be taken now?
Dr Neville Nicholls' views
Dr Neville Nicholls, the lead author of the latest 1200-page UN Report on climate change issued on 2 February 2007 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has stated that there is more than a 90 per cent probability human activities are responsible for global warming in the past 50 years (in 2001 it was 66 per cent). The study is not so much another piece of research, but rather a gathering of all known scientific literature on climate change over the six years prior to 2006 from 2,500 contributors including several hundred top-notch scientists from around the world. It is about getting consensus from the scientific community on what is really happening today. After 2 years and more than 30,000 remarks from leading scientists, the most authoritative report on climate change ever produced has made it clear the planet is heating up much faster than previously thought and that the human race will face massive changes by way of migrations and refugees escaping flooded coastal areas and low-lying islands and drought-stricken nations, huge economic costs as sea water invade fresh water supplies, and there will be flooding of coastal cities. More heat waves, more flooding and more extreme weather will be the norm.
The Report is now "unequivocal" evidence of climate change. It essentially predicts sea levels will rise between 18 and 59cm by 2100 based on the 6 years of research since 2000 into melting rates of the Greenland glaciers, ocean expansion etc (and roughly a 2 degrees increase in world temperatures). But the figures do not include melting of the ice sheets in Antarctica and Arctic regions. It means the figures indicated above are conservative to say the least. Suggestions of 20 metres is more likely and could go considerably higher if new scientific evidence emerges of a more dire outcome.
And if we don't do anything to change our fossil-fuels ways, what would be the likely temperature rise by 2100? Barry Brook, director of the Research Institute for Climate Change and Sustainability at the University of Adelaide gave us a chilling insight into the future for humanity:
"The fossil-fuel intensive business-as-usual scenario runs off the chart, with a disturbingly plausible risk of up to 6.8°C-8.6°C warming — truly 'game over' for humanity and most other life on this planet." (Selina, Mitchell. Act not to avert greenhouse grief: The Australian. 19 November 2007.)
What is most telling from the report is what happens if we could stop all global greenhouse gas emissions right now. Scientists said global warming would continue for centuries until hopefully enough natural systems are in place to reverse the trend. Based on our hopefully accurate scientific knowledge about the available natural systems, we have until 2020 to rein in our greenhouse gas emissions.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said:
"The world's scientists have spoken clearly and with one voice. I expect the world's policy-makers to do the same." (Selina, Mitchell. Act not to avert greenhouse grief: The Australian. 19 November 2007.)
Incredibly a R-wing think tank in the US going by the name of the American Enterprise Institute with strong financial connections to the Bush Administration and ExxonMobile (the lobby group has received more than A$1.6 million after the oil company posted the biggest profit ever made by any US company, A$50 billion this financial year so far) wants to pay US$10,000 (A$15,000) to any scientist or economist who can repudiate the findings in the UN Report. Their argument:
"[The UN panel was] resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work." (Peatling, Stephanie et al. Bribes for experts to dispute UN study: The Sydney Morning Herald. 3-4 February 2007, p.1 (pp.1 & 6).)
The lobby group also wanted to see more essays discussing the "limitations of climate model outputs". But as David Viner of the University of East Anglia in the UK said:
"It's a desperate attempt by an organisation which wants to distort science for its own political aim." (Peatling, Stephanie et al. Bribes for experts to dispute UN study: The Sydney Morning Herald. 3-4 February 2007, p.1 (pp.1 & 6).)
In other words, anything to maintain the current economic system and method of making a profit when it comes to staying rich and powerful.
UN Environment Program executive director Achim Steiner said:
"It is critical that we look at this report...as a moment where the focus of attention will shift from whether climate change is linked to human activity, whether the science is sufficient, to what on earth are we going to do about it.
'The public should not sit back and say, "There's nothing we can do".
'Anyone who would continue to risk inaction on the basis of the evidence presented here will one day in the history books be considered irresponsible." (Borenstein, Seth. Warming will last centuries: top scientists: The Canberra Times. 3 February 2007, p.1.)
But could things get much worse?
There is a 10 per cent chance temperature rises would increase above 6.4 degrees. Unfortunately the report has not got all the information. Indeed, the report does not take into account the latest evidence on climate change over the past 12 months, including new information on the emission of methane from the oceans.
Dr Clive Hamilton of the Australia Institute acknowledges this possibility when he said:
"The science has changed a lot in the past 12 months and it is all very scary and it does not seem to be reflected in the report. Sceptics claim the science is an exaggeration but in fact it is the opposite. The science is very conservative." (Frew, Wendy & Peatling, Stephanie. Race against the clock: The Sydney Morning Herald. 3-4 February 2007, p.25 (pp, 25 & 30).)
Some R-wing people tempering their views on climate change
While a small band of hard core R-wing people running the Bush Administration don't wish to acknowledge the Earth is warming, another group of slightly R-wing people running businesses (e.g. the oil companies) and their scientists are acknowledging the warming. The only difference is that these people don't wish to see humans as being mostly responsible. Instead, these people have said they have found a natural source of methane emitting from the ocean floor in the Timor Sea. It is said this natural emission of methane has been occuring for millions of years according to the way the lifeforms in the oceans continue to exist. Because methane is 22 times more effective at trapping heat, these slightly R-wing people are arguing the Earth may be warming, but it is all natural.
So its business as usual one would imagine.
A R-wing government suddenly taking a less hard-line approach to climate change?
The Australian Federal (Howard) Government has acknowledged climate change will occur (as opposed to saying it is here and needs immediate action), temperatures will rise, and Australians should brace themselves for more extreme weather over the next 30 years according to a report released on 26 July 2005 titled Climate Change Risks and Vulnerability. By putting the time frame in a future context and saying climate change will occur anytime in the next 30 to 50 years means the Government and everyone else in the business world don't actually have to do anything right now, but we should be prepared to do certain things in 30 years time.
As Environment Minister Ian Campbell said:
"It [the report] could be painted as alarming but the reality is that these changes will happen over time. They area talking about a 30-50 year time span.
What we need to know as a nation, what the state governments need to know, what the emergency services need to know, town planners need to know, is where are these risks the most likely to occur in the short term.
We know that our climate is already highly variable, making us vulnerable to future climate change caused by global greenhouse emissions.
We need look no further than the economic and social impacts of prolonged periods of drought to understand the importance of climate." (The Canberra Times: Don't panic on climate change, warns Govt. 27 July 2005, p.1.)
The report does try to play down the seriousness of the climate change situation today. But on the positive side, it at least does face the upcoming reality. For example, the report confirms that sea levels will rise, more ferocious cyclonic weather patterns will be the norm in the northern parts of Australia, and greater floods and longer hotter droughts will appear throughout the Australian continent. So what do we do? We will have to wait for another expensive reportto come along to explain what the Government can do to curb greenhouse gas emissions, and perhaps another report to explain when the ideas will be implemented.
As opposition environment spokesman Mr Anthony Albanese said:
"It's one thing to say it's not a cause for alarm, it is another thing to say it's not a cause for action.
What this report and other reports show is that the world is headed for an environmental tsunami.
Australia needs to be part of the international efforts to combat dangerous climate change.
We need to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, we need to increase our mandatory renewable energy targets and we should have a national emissions trading scheme." (The Canberra Times: Don't panic on climate change, warns Govt. 27 July 2005, p.1.)
UPDATE
4 December 2009
Even though Mr John Howard has been voted out-of-office since November 2007, the climate change skeptics are still making a come back. No surprise where much of it is coming from — that's right, none other than the R-wing Australian Liberal Party.
It comes following a vote for a new liberal opposition leader on 4 December 2009. The new opposition leader is Tony Abbott.
Mr Abbott is trying to look like he is helping Australians towards a brighter future under his leadership. Unfortunately he has made his views on climate change very clear.
It is probably the result of his large ears sticking out so far that they cast a shadow over his face where the temperature drops by at least 10 degrees and so he can argue there is no global warming or at least not one produced by humans.
His ultraconservative and strong catholic views (he would be the type to believe a whale did swallow Jonah and spat him out) will push him to the extreme in protecting the current economy than former Prime Minister John Howard could ever do. It is probably the result of his large ears sticking out so far that they cast a shadow over his face where the temperature drops by at least 10 degrees and so he can argue there is no global warming or at least not one produced by humans.
Australia could be returning to the dark side of the force under Abbott's leadership.
UPDATE
9 December 2009
While Mr Abbott promotes more climate change skeptics to his opposition frontbench and assumes any global warming is natural and will get cooler on its own if given enough time, the important Copenhagen climate summit has finally begun.
This is vitally important meeting for world leaders. Failure to get agreement here and there would be little by way of another window of opportunity left over the next 5 to 10 years (probably none as scientists gather more information) to get it right.
Getting to the latest scientific information, it seems the scientists from the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) have made it abundantly clear right at the beginning of the summit how the current decade of 2000-2009 is shaping up to be the warmest on record. If the remaining months of 2009 continues on the trend to being above average temperatures, the decade will be considered the warmest yet. Future trends suggest this will continue and we should expect the next decade to be even warmer than the previous and so on.
Michel Jarraud, the WMO's secretary general, said in a press conference:
"The decade 2000-2009 is very likely to be the warmest on record, warmer than the 1990s, which were in turn warmer than the 1980s." (AAP. Ban adds to weight of expectation at climate summit: Seven/Yahoo News. 9 December 2009.)
Australia has been singled out by Jarraud:
"Australia had the third-warmest year on record with three exceptional heatwaves." (AAP. Australia records hottest six months: Seven/Yahoo News. 9 December 2009.)
The Bureau of Meteorology in Australia agrees with this view and further adds the last 6 months has been recorded as the warmest for Australia on record.
The aim of this summit to get a historic agreement by virtually all the major greenhouse emitters (in particular Australia, China, India and the USA) on how they will cut down on emissions and ways of weaning third-world nations away from old technologies such as kerosene lamps and into more renewable types such as solar energy.
If the agreement is reached, action will commence from 2013 (although it might be too late).
The former Australian Prime Minister makes his views clear on climate change
ABC's Four Corners televised on Monday 28 August 2006 made it clear the view Australian Prime Minister John Howard's has on global warming. He was shown in an interview as saying there is not enough evidence in the global warming debate to be concerned for Australia to move away from coal. He further adds that the public is not willing to pay extra for alternative energy sources.
Then on Tuesday 29 August 2006, ABC News reported the view of Professor Ian Lowe of Griffith University saying the Federal (Howard) Government is actively working with management of universities and the CSIRO to gag scientists in the field of climate research and in any area that might embarress the government. As a result, more and more scientists in their respective disciplines are moving overseas.
If Mr Howard isn't concerned about global warming, then why the gagging of Australian environmental scientists? Why are scientists being forced to go overseas?
As Bryan Furnass of Hughes, Canberra, ACT, said, Mr Howard might be aiming to get the economy right, but may be dead wrong on the environment:
"The industrial revolution introduced an era of fossil-fuelled increasing entropy, resulting in a sixfold growth in human population and a several-hundredfold increase in energy consumption, with consequent greenhouse-gas emissions and climate change.
The scientific evidence is now clear, that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration has risen from 280 parts per million in the pre-industrial era to 380 ppm today, with an increase of about 1 degree in average global temperature.
The era of hyperconsumption over the past half-century has accelerated these changes to the point where a further 1 degree increase in temperature is likely to trigger runaway global warming, with disastrous consequences for humankind.
As Professor Ian Lowe points out, these facts appear to be all too inconvenient for our fossil-fuel-addicted Prime Minister to grasp, since he has failed to initiate policies to effectively reduce CO2 emissions by the required 60 per cent because it would "damage the economy" ("Howard 'ignoring' climate change reality", August 13, p.2.)
Several European countries, the state of California and many multinational corporations continue to prosper after improving energy efficiency and imposing drastic caps on carbon emissions.
In Australia we have the expertise and resources to do the same, with the aid of the endlessly renewable energy radiated by our offshore nuclear fusion reactor (the sun), without messing about with dangerous nuclear fission.
The Prime Minister lays great store by "getting the economy right". Posterity will judge him harshly if in so doing he "gets the environment wrong"." (The Canberra Times: PM aims to get economy right but may get environmental wrong (Letters to the Editor). 2 September 2006, p.B8.)
The U.K. taking on a more balanced view
In a rare show of support for the environment, an economist and British Treasurer chief Gordon Brown has called for a great global effort to tackle climate change. He acknowledges humanity is reaching a critical time when "economic and environmental objectives are converging". Don't think Australian Finance Minister Peter Costello would follow a similar trend. His only concern is raking in the revenues.
Mr Brown's remarkable insight into environmental effects on the economies of the world came during a speech he made at the United Nations in front of a number of ambassadors. He warns other nations that if people do not heed the environmental consequences and do something about it, it will jeopardise economic growth in the future.
Mr Brown said:
"...environmental priorities — including climate change — have all too often been compartmentalised away from economic priorities.
'Far from being at odds with each other, our economic objectives and our environmental objectives now increasingly reinforce each other." (The Canberra Times: Treasury chief calls for climate consensus. 22 April 2006, p.19.)
His solution would involve an injection by developed nations of $US20 billion ($A27.18 billion) towards helping developing nations build alternative sources of energy and greater energy efficiency. It is not clear whether Mr Brown is referring to nuclear energy. No doubt India is heading that way. We must assume Mr Brown was talking about anything to stop the emission of more greenhouse gases.
The big question is how do we raise this money? As professor at the Columbia Business School and supporter of the "for-profit" basis, Geoffrey Heal, said:
"Someone has to contribute to these funds. If some of this could be done on a for-profit basis [with] government guarantees to take the risks away, that might be a way to do it." (The Canberra Times: Treasury chief calls for climate consensus. 22 April 2006, p.19.)
So why doesn't Australia have a treasurer like him in the political ranks? Such a slightly more forward thinking view is likely to see Mr Brown become the next successor after UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.
One can understand why the Australian Federal Treasurer Mr Costello may never become a Prime Minister himself. He may be very good with numbers, but does he know anything other than finances?
Global temperature prediction as of 2010
Global temperatures are predicted to rise by between 2 and 6 degrees by 2100. Should temperatures reach the worse case scenario (quite plausible according to current computer climate models from the scientists), carbon dioxide levels would be at the highest levels for 24 million years, the warmest for up to 10 million years, and at least 50 per cent of species could disappear (the best case scenario of a 2 degree increase may cause 10 per cent extinction based on global warming issues alone, but does not include impact by humans in response to global warming). If things get any warmer and we will return to the global temperatures seen in the dinosaur era (except it will be much drier and hence less food).
Birds and other animals are already on the move to find cooler places. Climate models predict by 2100 up to 80 per cent of species would have begun to move from their natural territories in response to global warming.
Professor Chris Thomas of the University of York said:
"We may very well already be on the breaking edge of a wave of mass extinctions. If the most extreme warming predicted takes place we will be going back to global temperatures not seen since the age of the dinosaur.
'We are starting to put these things into a historical perspective. These are conditions not seen for millions of years, so none of the species will have been subjected to them before." (Lovell, Jeremy. Warming 'will lead to mass extinctions': The Canberra Times. 9 September 2006, p.22.)
Professor Thomas was at the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Norwich, England, when he gave this disturbing statement.
The permafrosts of Siberia
Another factor not taken into account is the melting of the permafrost in southern Siberia and Canada/Alaska. Scientists have discovered an accelerated emission of carbon dioxide and methane from melting permafrost. If all the permafrost melts, it could add 900 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide on top of the current 780 billion tonnes already in the atmosphere. Could this be enough to exceed even the worse case scenario of a 6 degree hike in global temperatures?
UPDATE
18 November 2006
Latest reports from southern Siberia suggests the local residents are basking in the warmest weather at this time in more than 70 years. Russian scientists are calling it the fastest warming region on the planet. And smack bang right in the middle of it all is the permafrost — its actual melting. Animal behaviour is changing in the region. Bears and badgers have yet to hibernate (they should have begun to sleep in October and no later than early November) and migratory birds are hanging around longer than usual. Plant life is also getting confused in the weather not knowing when winter begins and autumn ends.
And all the while, the methane and carbon dioxide gases get emitted from the permafrost.
Has anyone thought about planting trees to soak up the carbon dioxide? Or have we used up too much freshwater for our agricultural sector and satisfying thirsty people populating the planet?
Results of a CSIRO study
CSIRO has gone ahead against the Federal Government wishes to release the results of a study into air samples collected in Tasmania since 1978 and preserved inside sealed metal tanks. The results clearly tell the scientists Australia's reliance on fossil fuels and coal has increased carbon dioxide emission by 70 per cent over the past 30 years and is accelerating as we speak. Not good news for the Federal Government.
Methane - the great global warmer
The menace of carbon dioxide emissions and the risk to global warming pales into insignificance compared to the sudden emission of methane deep beneath the oceans and in the permafrosts of Siberia and other parts of the world. The view of most climate scientists is that it takes only a marginal increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to trigger a much bigger climate change from another more potent greenhouse gas known as methane.
According to the latest research from scientists, the natural arse end of Mother Nature is about to rear its ugly head in the direction of humankind and all life on Earth: resulting in the sudden burst of methane gas emissions. How much will come out is anyone's guess, but it is likely the gas will have a much more significant impact on global warming than any man-made carbon dioxide emissions.
The bulk of the methane gases is thought to be currently trapped inside water ice cages under high pressure and frigid temperatures beneath the oceans along continental slopes called methane hydrate ice. Amount in ice form has been estimated to be about 10 thousand gigatons.
But now that world temperatures are increasing, a tipping point is fast approaching us according to latest computer models. Soon the oceans will be warm enough and less of the saline-poor cold water (especially those from melted glaciers) will sink and flow in deeper waters to maintain the frozen methane as the water ice on land in the polar regions melt and slows ocean current movements causing a certain amount of methane to be released as gas. If this seemingly innocent-looking gas gets into the atmosphere, it will have a more devastating effect than carbon dioxide being emitted by industry alone.
Methane is a more effective heat trap than carbon dioxide — at least 22 times.
The last relatively moderate release of methane gas occurred around 11,000 years ago. The amount was enough to effectively end the last Ice Age with temperatures rising 6 to 8°C.
Nearly 55 million years ago, the temperatures rose 20°C from what scientists believe was essentially the same process.
Now, the 21st century, we are expected to see another major emission of methane gas. How much is anyone's guess. But it will likely be substantial. Scientists were predicting a conservative increase in world temperatures of 3 to 6°C based on carbon dioxide emissions alone. The emission of methane from beneath the ocean will increase world temperatures more dramatically.
While scientists working in this area are hoping it won't happen, the human race needs to be prepared for the likelihood it will happen, and more importantly do something about it. It has happened in the past. There is no reason why it will not happen again in the near future.
The first emissions of methane according to computers models are predicted to begin from 2010, with major bursts of the gas likely to take place after 2015. Unfortunately, it will be hard to tell until the temperatures sudden increase in a matter of years. And only then we will know the methane has started to kick in.
To have a hope of getting methane to be naturally re-accumulated into the soft sediments of the continental slopes beneath the oceans, sea levels must rise significantly. In other words, if we let nature take its course, things will have to get a whole lot worse before things slowly get better again. Until then, to what extent world ocean temperatures will rise will appear to be the deciding factor on how much methane gas gets emitted into the atmosphere over the next 10 to 15 years.
And if this isn't enough to contend with, scientists are crossing their fingers that we won't have the Sun showing a sudden outburst of radiation that could temporarily raise temperatures on Earth. We are long overdue for another episode of this type.
Anyone for a good, long cold sobering drink?
Could we be too late?
Latest research suggests that even if humans could achieve the miraculous effort of zero carbon emissions now, global warming will continue for several decades as Professor Neville Nicholls, a leading expert on climate change from Monash University, stated to the media on 9 December 2009:
"It would actually take hundreds of years to return to pre-industrial levels." (AAP. Australia records hottest six months: Seven/Yahoo News. 9 December 2009.)
Our only hope of reversing the global warming trend more quickly is to start planting trees in vast quantities now to create a carbon sink larger than the carbon emissions currently taking place, and be prepared to pay land owners to manage those trees, shape the land, collect the water, grow native grasslands and bushes, and carefully manage available water supplies for keeping all the plants alive and in the most healthy state possible (i.e., as green as possible to help do the job of capturing carbon dioxide). Just as some households with solar panels on the roof can feed electricity into the main grid to earn a small income, the same must be done by land owners when growing trees to capture the carbon dioxide from the air.
The rest is up to the world leaders to start curbing carbon emissions from their nation's own businesses and invest in new technologies.
The Copenhagen Summit
Although there was a risk the summit at Copenhagen in December 2009 could fail, world leaders have acknowledged the danger of not doing anything. Something has to be done. Each nation knows they have to curb the carbon emissions. But how much, and will it be contractually binding at the end of the summit? A tentative deal was reached. Each nation did agree to a target of their own.
It would appear not as much as the scientists would like to see for the planet. In the final meeting with the heads of the nations, not enough nations would agree to a binding agreement and, in the case of China, would not agree to be monitored as the US would want. Monitoring? We can be sure the US is already monitoring China with their satellites and can probably estimate the amount of carbon emissions taking place. So why make it binding for China to be monitored? Apparently world leaders need more time to think about the situation (if they haven't done so over the past 25 years). Well, let's not do too much thinking. Time is running out.
As Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat said:
"We could have achieved more."
In fact, we really needed to have zero carbon emissions and more. A system has to be in place right now to start growing the trees as a long-term, natural and free carbon sink for the planet and perhaps temperatures will begin to cool down after 2030 (well, that's how long it would take for trees to grow and do a reasonable job). Unfortunately where profit is the driving force for nations and jobs need to be maintained in the current economy, such a system would be too hard to implement. Not enough nations have alternative technologies in place to help curb the emissions.
More time is needed.
However, you can't give too much time. Every year major businesses earn massive profits and business leaders are not serious enough to invest a portion of the profit to cutting emissions from their businesses to zero. Even the simple act of growing trees and putting a large park around the businesses is considered too hard.
On top of that you have the shareholders all demanding a share of the profit. They are almost like babies all needing to be fed at once.
World governments will have to put in a scheme to force businesses to pay. Although this will ultimately mean consumers have to pay more. Yet at the same time consumers will become smarter and choose the more environmentally-friendly technologies and the essential items they need and that will be the decider of how businesses will sell. Businesses that don't sell the right products will suffer. Those that do make a better product for the environment will be the winners.
UPDATE
20 December 2009
A legally non-binding deal has finally been settled between the US, China and India. It is not clear if China will be monitored, but whatever targets were put on the table have been accepted for now. Not enough to keep under-developed nations happy, but it is a start.
Australian voters divided over the environmental issue
The Australian elections held on 21 August 2010 had been on an electoral knifedge. Why? Because it has revealed the strong divide in the views of the Australian people. And among them are the younger voices who are deciding to take a stand on the issue. Understandable. It is their future as well.
Nearly 50 per cent of people want stability and to maintain their current jobs and businesses and hence will support the R-wing "current economy" focussed and stable Liberal Party. But at the same time, nearly 50 per cent of people are aware of the need to change by transforming the "current economy" to a "new environmentally-friendly economy" and to see more compassionate social policies for people in disadvantaged circumstances. Hence the need to support the more socially-responsible Labor Party (compared to the Liberal Party) and to give greater support for the environmentally-friendly policies of the Green party.
The remaining seats held by independents and the Green member now hold the balance of power and is more likely to negotiate better decisions for Australia, so long as the Liberals do not make excuses and block the necessary changes that need to take place.
Ice sheets are melting more rapidly than expected
>NASA scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have received startling new satellite images of the ice sheets of Greenland designed to measure the level of melting on the surface of ice sheets. On 8 July 2012, a satellite image from the NASA Earth Observatory showed a large central area of Greenland containing 60 per cent of all the ice sheets had not melted (a white-coloured area). Then four days later, on 12 July, an estimated 97 per cent of all the ice sheets in Greenland were undergoing a high degree of melting (mostly a red-coloured central area with some lesser amounts of melting represented by the lighter pink areas). While this might be due to the fact that the northern hemisphere was at the height of summer and perhaps things might go back to normal, the scientists are surprised for one good reason: they have never seen this level of melting over so much of the ice sheets in a matter of days since satellite observations began over 30 years ago. The last officially recorded evidence on the ground of similar melting occurred in 1889 with indications this unusual event probably happens ever 150 years. However, should this kind of melting in such a short period of time repeat itself more regularly over the coming years, there will be consequences for all coastal areas in terms of potentially significant sea level rises.
As Tom Wagner, NASA's cryosphere program manager in Washington said: "...if we continue to observe melting events like this in upcoming years, it will be worrisome."
The warmest period for 3 million years
On 9 May 2013, scientists in Hawaii who have been measuring the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere using an instrument located on the summit of Mauna Loa has announced the levels have exceeded 400 parts per million for the first time in 55 years of measurement. Scientists claim we are probably in the warmest period for the last 3 million years. The measurements are independently handled by two scientific teams, one from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the other from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Measurements how a steady increase in carbon dioxide over the past 55 years. Scientists blame the rise on mostly fossil fuel burning.
Abrupt changes to climate as temperatures rise are inevitable, but are we ready?
With concerns of sudden emissions of methane gas from the oceans and permafrost regions increasing by the day, scientists are telling the world that abrupt changes to climate and the likely abrupt impacts of this change to human society are imminent. It may be the next few months, or a few years, or less than a decade. We don't know yet when the tipping point will come when changes will be dramatic with world temperatures suddenly rising.
A new book, Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change - Anticipating Surprises, by the National Research Council in the U.S., provides the latest information on global warming (or climate change to the skeptics just to make it seem less scary to the public) as of 2013 on where we are at, how likely we will experience abrupt climate change, and the likely abrupt impacts to human society if we don't do anything to prepare and start combating global warming.
The National Academy Press stated:
"Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change summarizes the state of our knowledge about potential abrupt changes and abrupt climate impacts and categorizes changes that are already occurring, have a high probability of occurrence, or are unlikely to occur. Because of the substantial risks to society and nature posed by abrupt changes, this report recommends the development of an Abrupt Change Early Warning System that would allow for the prediction and possible mitigation of such changes before their societal impacts are severe. Identifying key vulnerabilities can help guide efforts to increase resiliency and avoid large damages from abrupt change in the climate system, or in abrupt impacts of gradual changes in the climate system, and facilitate more informed decisions on the proper balance between mitigation and adaptation. Although there is still much to learn about abrupt climate change and abrupt climate impacts, to wilfully ignore the threat of abrupt change could lead to more costs, loss of life, suffering, and environmental degradation. Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change makes the case that the time is here to be serious about the threat of tipping points so as to better anticipate and prepare ourselves for the inevitable surprises."
Click the link above to obtain a copy of the book.
Too many people remain skeptical about global warming
Climate skeptics often take on a narrowing view of existing scientific data or rely on observations in a particular location to help argue their own claims. For example, they will state that in the period from 2002 to 2012 the world temperatures look like it has flattened out. Therefore, the skeptics claim global warming is coming to an end and things will balance itself. The reality is, if you expand the timeframe to 1960, the global warming trend is more significant and in the last 10 years the trend is continuing to go up, albeit less now. But that's not proof that global warming will end. The other thing skeptics forget to mention is that climate change does not happen in a steady way, it comes in bursts. We have already experienced the last and most significant burst in world temperatures so far in human history. But this is not the end. We should prepare for what is likely to be the next big burst in world temperatures. The fact is this: Global warming is increasing, the rate at which will vary over time. The first decade of the 21st century has reached a particularly high level and is now increasing only slightly. The second and every subsequent decade will see global warming continue to increase but we should be prepared to see the increase come in bursts.
Are we ready to handle the next major burst in higher world temperatures? And how many bursts will it take before we take action to curb global warming?
Cold waters beneath the Pacific Oceans helping to reduce the effect of global warming — but for how long?
There is a slowing down or stalling of global warming as of February 2014. It is believed that the cold waters beneath the Pacific Ocean are being churned up and mixed with the warmer waters above due to the increased wind speeds in the atmosphere. It is essentially like a washing machine having its agitator turned up another notch as the waters move more vigorously. As the cold water mixes with the warm, the atmosphere is not warming up as quickly as expected. Scientists think this is the Earth's natural mechanisms attempting to balance the extremes in atmospheric temperature.
But as with all mechanisms, something has to give. In fact, there is a limit in the amount of cold water present beneath the oceans, Once the cold waters are moved around, they must get replaced by the warmer waters. Should this take place, it would be the beginning of the end for gulf streams in the oceans transporting warm and cold waters to different parts of the oceans to affect weather on various continents. Once the temperatures in the oceans are constant throughout, there will be no movement of the oceans. Then continents will experience extremes in cold and heat in the winter and summer, respectively.
More importantly, less cold water beneath the oceans will mean one thing: the temperature to keep methane in the hydrate ice structure can no longer be maintained. Global warming may have stalled for the moment, but something is about to kick start global warming in a big way. The sudden burst in the release of methane gas is the expected outcome. Then global warming will increase dramatically. Will it be dramatic enough to force humanity to change its attitude towards profit and the economy and instead focus more on protecting the environment? Or will it be too late? Only time will tell.
Should the goal be letting nature do all the work of improving the environment?
There is a technique to naturally restoring the natural environment to its original pristine condition.
The natural sequence farming approach to restoring formerly degraded land into fertile pastures has been proven to be highly effective through direct experience by an Australian racehorse breeder and farmer Mr Peter Andrews.
After spending nearly 25 years understanding the way nature restores land when given adequate time, Mr Andrews has developed a simple yet powerful technique to accelerate the process. It means he has figured out the reproducible steps for consistently and successfully getting nature to do the work of bringing fertile soils to any seriously degraded piece of land. His evidence of success can now be seen on his property at Tarwyn Park in the upper Hunter River catchment area.
However the key to the success of his technique is having a supply of water from somewhere, whether from occasional floods or from a permanent creek or river. Once the water is available, Mr Andrews claims you should only have to spread the water out from its source and let nature do the work and only helped along occasionally by planting native grasslands, bushes and trees to help reduce water evaporation and unwanted weeds. Then eventually the carbon content through biodiversity in the soil increases and with it greater fertility of the soil to grow more plants.
After successfully restoring his own property, Mr Andrews has been explaining the results and methods to Australian government and businesses as well as farmers willing to listen to his approach. Among his supporters include his close friend and billionaire Gerry Harvey who owns a farm of his own and has allowed Mr Andrews to apply his knowledge to Harvey's property.
However since Mr Andrews is not a trained scientist with solid and reliable data to show on paper, he has discovered the obstacle of bureaucracy working against him. While it doesn't take much for local and national governments to direct CSIRO scientists to investigate his work, it seems there is another issue at play: the question of economics.
The problem with Mr Andrews' technique to land restoration is how there is virtually no-cost to anyone other than some work on the land in the initial stages (if required) to control water flow and direct water accordingly to appropriate areas. After that, it is possible to let nature do all the work of restoring the land into fertile pastures given adequate time.
To companies in the business of selling super-phosphates to farmers in bulk where food is produced for the people living in the cities and exported to other countries as needed to maintain the economy, this is not good news. Mr Andrews' approach, if applied on a large-scale, could affect the profit of some big rural companies and this could mean a loss of jobs.
In the current ferocious economic climate, losing jobs is the last thing State and Federal Governments would want to see.
So in order to maintain the almighty economy in its current form, the NSW Department of Primary Industries has set up free seminars in selected country towns geared up for local commercial farmers. These seminars are designed to not mention Mr Andrew's natural and virtually no-cost technique to regenerating land fertility and instead wow the farmers with the government's newfangled technology and technical details acquired after testing soils across NSW and explaining to farmers superphosphates do provide a benefit to the land. But where the land is still showing signs of degradation, it is recommended farmers improve their management of the land such as some form of cropping rotations, less stubble burn off from old crops, and do more soil analysis to see how the land is coming along over time.
The seminars all seem to make perfect sense to commercial farmers wanting to maximise their land's capacity (i.e. use the entire property) for growing a crop and making a profit from the crop's sale in the shortest possible time. Sometimes a few farmers will look a little further into the future and decide to grow one type of crop in one year, and another type of crop in the following year as a means of applying some basic crop rotation methods. Maybe the farmers will occasionally turn in the soil containing the old stuble for natural decomposition or let the farm animals feed on them (e.g. sheep). But rarely if ever would farmers take a really long-term view of their farming practices and decide to allow a portion of their property to be restored by nature using Mr Andrew's technique for a minimum of 5 years to help create more biodiverse and natural fertile pastures (and so avoid erosion and salt build-up in the soil).
It seems we all have a lot of learning to do.
It is either that, or we are all up the creek on the issue.
A greater amount of ice is melting in Antarctica than expected
Another unexpected scientific finding has emerged in May 2014 (how many do we need before we can be fully carbon neutral in our economic activities?). This time the ice sheets over Antarctica has been recently mapped by a European satellite and the results show twice the anticipated rate of melting of the ice over what is described as the west side of the continent compared to the last survey conducted some years ago. It is now said to be melting at 134 billion tonnes of ice per year, and it is irreversible. That's right. There is absolutely nothing we can do to stop it. On the east side of the continent where it is thought to be more resistant to melting due to the colder land mass underneath, it is already revealing weak spots where the melting could accelerate. For the moment, the rate of melting for the east side has only marginally increased from the last survey. But if further unexpected readings should take place, the complete melting of Antarctic ice in about 1,000 years will occur much sooner. And even before then, should much of the ice on the west side of the continent melt within this century (most likely if further unexpected rates of ice melting keep coming with each survey conducted over the continent), sea levels will rise by at least 3 metres. This is the region where ice (mainly from Thwaites Glacier) will melt completely. Of course, ice sheets in other parts of the world will not be immune to global warming. Greenland will contribute its own melted ice to the oceans. Finally, the last massive ice sheets to disappear will be on the east side of Antarctica.
Data obtained from ESA
Greenland is showing similar unexpected results for the scientists, suggesting the continent is much more vulnerable to global warming than previously realised. The land mass beneath Greenland's major ice sheets is deeper and, in some cases, well below sea level. This means the conditions for ice to melt will be very similar to the west side of Antarctica, and possibly irreversible as well. Should the ice in Greenland melt, sea levels will rise by at least 9 metres. Combined this with the melted ice from the west side of Antarctica and we can expect over 12 metres.
Scientists are trying to be as conservative as they can with the data they are receiving, giving only a best case scenario to keep most governments happy and avoid panic selling of properties along the coastal regions by the general public (and probably to keep their government-funded jobs). This may explain why the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated last year a highly conservative figure of 3 feet (or 0.91 metres) in sea level rise by the end of the 21st century. But as Pennsylvannia State University glaciologist Richard Alley pointed out, the Panel "did not run the worst-case scenario."
Expect more unexpected results in this field in the coming years.
NOTE: If all the ice in Greenland and Antarctica melts, sea levels will rise by 200 feet (or more than 60 metres). Any other ice in the world will probably contribute an extra few more metres to the sea levels. Should we reach this point, the Hollywood science fiction film Waterworld directed by Kevin Costner will be looking like a realistic scenario in the future.
Megafires on the rise in the more drier continents of the world
Frequency of fires and their intensity are increasing in places such as central and northern Africa, southeastern Australia and the southwestern and southern areas of the United States. These are the places experiencing a decrease in the average rainfall due to global warming. As a result, a new term has now entered the scientific vocabulary: megafires.
Megafires are the clearest signs yet of increasingly drier continents on the verge of an irreversible collapse of natural plant life in an environment that is clearly heading toward becoming a desert. The process of getting there is called desertification, and we are already going through this process in Australia as well as other nations on this planet.
In places where even moderately wet and/or thick forests used to dominate, global warming can not only see a reduction in rainfall, but as the forests continue to grow as best they can in these conditions, fuel levels on the ground and in tree canopies reach dangerously high levels. In the drier and hotter months of summer, fires occur. Over thousands of years, the trees in the forests try to adapt to the fires. But when the fires arrive more frequently and become more intense, known as a megafires, the trees thin out, and size of new trees are reduced and fail to reach full maturity and, in the last stages, all their seedlings in the soil and in the canopies are destroyed. This means a tipping point is reached when trees can no longer recover by any natural means. Until cooler conditions and more rain return, this is effectively the end of the forests. The only thing that might remain after the trees are gone would be the grasses. But even these hardy plants will eventually disappear as the fires continue to increase in frequency and intensity (probably more so and at a quicker rate in great grassland regions). Eventually the final point comes when the environment collapses permanently and everything turns into a desert.
The only way to stop this problem over the long term is to curb global warming. Unfortunately it will take too long (too many mostly R-wing politicians and some L-wing politicians wanting to reduce costs are focused on maintaining the economy). The only hope we have got is for humans to find ways to bring back fresh water in vast quantities to dry areas in order for plants (specifically trees) to grow again with the assistance of humans (we will have to do the planting ourselves for a quicker restoration of the environment). This would mean a radical change in the way we do things in society. No longer can we be relying on the economy for the money to support people doing this. The economy will have to provide something else to help the people to restore the environment to a reasonably respectable level (whatever that might mean).
The new non-economic system will have to emerge from the ashes of the old economic system.
Sure, people in the current economic system will do all they can to try to find short-term and generally low cost solutions right now (assuming the public accept the increasingly drier conditions and regular fires as a normal part of the 21st century because we don't know what it was like in the past), such as reducing the area of destruction of fires by using fire to fight fire. This essentially means reducing the fuel load on the ground during the cooler months of winter and early spring through controlled burning. But this is not going to solve the issue permanently. While global warming continues, fighting fire with fire (and if the public can help out to reduce fuel loads in their properties and bordering outer suburbs of cities) will only help marginally. Lightning strikes and arsonists will create the bigger problem. Eventually these fires will reduce the size of natural and any man-made forests until only a few forest regions exist near the outskirts of cities where people have the greatest control.
Even if the forests somehow don't burn to a crisp in a megafire, the drier conditions will see vast swathes of remaining forests die off due to increasing heat stress and the inability to absorb carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for food because the leaves will close up the pores that allow the carbon dioxide to be absorbed as the way of reducing water loss. Trees will starve to death.
There is no other way to reverse the global warming effects. Or else plenty of people will have to learn to live in a desert environment in these drier continents of the world by the end of this century. No choice. And then people will realise how expensive it is to buy food and build homes. But the question remains: will the lunacy continue with the rich pretending everything is okay and can afford to purchase the remaining resources and hope the people will be preoccupied with jobs to support their economy? Or will the people make the decision on behalf of all governments around the world of what needs to be done?
If people do make the decision, it will have to be done very soon. Because once too many trees fail to absorb carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and there is not enough water to help with the photosynthesis process, the amount of carbon dioxide emitted back into the atmosphere from dying trees and other plants in the drier continents will eventually see a runaway greenhouse effect. Talk of melting ice in Greenland and Antarctica taking up to a couple of centuries is expected to occur much sooner (most likely within this century). And sea levels will rise dramatically and faster than any government had anticipated or could predict from current climate models (and there are fewer scientists around to do this job while the cuts to the budget of scientists become a common theme in each budget announcement, especially while R-wing governments remain in power).
The decision to save this planet will have to be made by ordinary people in cities and in rural areas, not by the politicians.
United Nations' backed IPCC Report on Climate Change November 2014
In a highly conservative update on the IPCC Report on Climate Change released in October 2014 on global warming utilising the latest climate models and making the assumption that such models are following a steady and predictable increase in world temperatures based on current carbon dioxide (and possible some other heat-trapping molecules such as methane and water) contributions from man-made activities, scientists warn of global temperatures rising to 4°C above current average temperature levels (i.e., 2010) by the year 2100. If this prediction proves to be true, the temperature reached by the end of the 21st century is considered the warmest the Earth has experienced for 800,000 years. Such a conservative increase in the world temperature will already create considerable economic challenges for all developed and developing nations through more unpredictable and extreme weather conditions, with some countries experiencing the longest droughts in known human history, while a few other nations will experience extremes in hot and cold, wet and dry, throughout the four seasons in one year (e.g., Europe) leading to mini-Ice Ages in the winter, heavy floods in the spring, and very hot and dry conditions in summer and autumn. Indeed, the expected high economic costs resulting from global warming has seen the report recommend that all nations should begin to make the transition from fossil fuels to more renewable energy sources (or, dare we say it, nuclear energy, if humans prove to be so lazy and profit-driven enough not to do anything until the very last moment and then decide nuclear energy is the only quick solution) before the end of the century.
Of course, all this assumes unexpected natural bursts of methane gas from the world's permafrost regions and under the oceans do not suddenly put out-of-kilter all climate models for which the scientists rely on to make the above predictions based on current trends and available observations.
UPDATE
20 January 2015
Methane gas bursts from permafrost regions and under the oceans are seen as the biggest concern for scientists at the present time. However, not mentioned in this discussion are man-made leaks of methane, mainly from natural gas plants derived from fracking underground rock shale using the injection of a liquid at high pressure. No more than 3.6 per cent of all methane extracted underground are allowed to leak into the atmosphere when all the numbers of these plants across the United States are combined. Any attempt to exceed this methane leak threshold will make natural gas more polluting and a far worse global warming substance than the extra carbon dioxide emissions from coal and oil burning. Many natural gas companies claim the leaks are less than 1 per cent. Independent scientists in the United States with highly sensitive instruments to measure methane in the atmosphere at ground level and at various locations across the United States are showing the methane gas leak problem to be a lot worse. For example, the percentage of methane leaking from all the combined plants in Utah is estimated to be 11 per cent. In the Los Angeles basin, the leaks have reached 17 per cent. Colorado is another state having problems staying under the 3.6 per cent threshold. It is likely natural gas could be making the global warming problem worse than oil or coal.
Animal life in the oceans will collapse by 2300 due to global warming and ocean acidification based on computer modelling in 2014
At present trends in the emission of carbon dioxide, scientists understand that the oceans (principally the southern oceans with their deeper and more choppy seas ) are absorbing some of this extra carbon dioxide. When carbon dioxide and water react, a weak acid is formed. The principal reaction being:
CO2 + H2O ⇌ H+ + HCO3–
It is the H+ that is making the oceans acidic. Unless chlorophyll and the eneryg of the sun can help to convert carbon dioxide and water into glucose for creating plant life in the reaction:
CO2 + H2O + energy from the sun and chloryphyll ⇌ C6H12O6 + O2
it seems the more carbon dioxide there is in the atmosphere, the more acidic the oceans will get.
The only other alternative is to use technology to heat the weakly acidic solution to just below the the boiling point of water and somehow achieve this for millions of litres of ocean water per second before pumping it back into the oceans (and probably lasting for many centuries). Then perhaps we can reverse the equilibrium between carbon dioxide and water, and with it the possibility of extracting the carbon dioxide coming out of the heated ocean water and store it in more appropriate places (e.g., in the trunks of trees).
However, the increasing temperature of the atmosphere and oceans will also see sudden bursts of methane gas get released from the oceans and permafrost regions. This will raise world temperature much more significantly than carbon dioxide and beyond the standard rate of increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere scientists are relying on today in their computer modelling. In places where forests are already dry in summer, things will get much hotter and drier. Forests fires will be more intense and widespread, reaching temperatures capable of destroying the next seedlings of these trees. As the forests disappear and get burnt, leaving behind a desert, an accelerated rate of carbon dioxide emission will take place (i.e., the runaway greenhouse effect). This in turn cycles back to the oceans as a greater amount of acidity.
The only hope of controlling the methane levels is perhaps through some kind of combustion process such as
CH4 + O2 --> CO2 + H2O + energy (heat)
Which is basically the same reaction that takes place inside the body called metabolism. In other words:
C6H12O6 + O2 --> CO2 + H2O + energy (heat)
The only slight problem with the combustion approach is that more carbon dioxide will get released and this somehow needs to be stored somewhere (preferably not in the oceans).
To really understand how important it is not to store carbon dioxide in the oceans, scientists have conducted an experiment in 2015 (and reported by ABC science program, Catalyst, on 24 March 2015) in the oceans underneath the ice in Antarctica. What the scientist were trying to figure out is what happens to krill populations when there is a 0.4 drop in the pH of current ocean levels, as expected to occur by 2100. The result should be cause for concern. Apparently, 50 per cent of krill eggs will not hatch in those acidic conditions by 2100. If current trends in the carbon dioxide levels continue by 2300, more than 95 per cent of the eggs will not hatch. Then there would not be enough krill to replace the existing adult population and support all other animals in the oceans. So by 2300, the food chain in the oceans will collapse and a significant numbers of species living in the watery environment will other become extinct or face a significant population downsize.
Then humans will not be able to find hardly any fish (and probably no whales for the Japanese to eat too), assuming we have not over fished this natural resource by 2035.
If humans are silly enough to allow for this global warming to continue unabated, very little land will be available to grow plants and retain enough clean freshwater supplies. It means the increasing human population will eventually collapse due to insufficient food supplies. Or else the cost of food will be too expensive to produce inside glasshouses in the desert thanks to the cost to manufacture and maintain the technology to extract freshwater from the oceans. Massive taxes on people to somehow support the remaining population in the cities and eventually high employment will see the economic system collapse. People will fight for the remaining resources, unless rules for mass euthanasia be allowed for old people to pass away more quickly.
In the end the human civilisation as we know it will drop in population size and face a new world order, or else we will perish.
This appears to be where we are heading. And no, we do not need supercomputers to model everything to tell us what will happen.
How much clearer can the scientists get? The big elephant in the room known as global warming is really a global problem affecting everyone. It will loom ahead as more important than terrorism or any other other topic the politicians like to talk about.
Climate change conference in December 2015
The big "carbon dioxide" emitters — United States, China, Australia, Russia, India and other nations — showed a rare moment of solidarity with other world nations (especially small island countries) to not only acknowledge human activity is the primary cause of global warming, but also their carbon emissions need to be reduced significantly (or balanced by some means) over the next 50 to 100 years to help keep the average global temperature rise of no greater than 2°C (and preferably 1.5°C or less).
Over 40,000 people participated in the conference, held in Paris in November/December 2015. From farmers, business professionals, shareholders and politicians, many people gave their input, expressing both concerns and emerging solutions, to hit the message home of how important it is for world politicians to come together and acknowledge to the public that we must tackle global warming right now, and, more importantly, to actually do something about it through more significant efforts at the national and local levels in each country to curtail the rise in world temperatures. The United States, for instance, has promised to reach zero net carbon emissions by 2050 or sooner (if possible). Other nations may take longer, looking at around 2100 to have the emissions stopped or balanced by other technologies (or rebuild the natural environment) designed to soak up the emissions. Whilst a few states and nations, such as California and Germany, are looking confident in meeting the net zero carbon emissions target by 2025.
Whatever the promises, we see a growing number of businesses and their shareholders making choices on where to invest their money and which products and services to focus on to ensure we head in the right direction. Famous names in the business world such as Sony and Coca-Cola have appeared and given their pledges to change their business practices to help combat global warming. At last, the momentum is turning as more and more people want to do the right thing for the environment and life on Earth, mainly because consumers (e.g., the shareholders, and even the average mums and dads who are looking at their superannuation investments) are swaying big businesses to see the economic sense to move to less carbon-intense activities.
All it required now were the politicians in other countries to get onboard and see the benefits of the change. Now that the economic case has been put forward and the momentum has shifted due to new thinking by investors, the politicians are happy to look like they are doing the right thing. The only nations to express some hesitation is mainly from Saudi Arabia (since the only export commodity it has of value to many nations is oil) and India (the shear numbers of poorly educated people and limited technologies will take longer to meet certain emission targets). Nevertheless, even these nations are acknowledging something has to be done to control world temperatures.
The conference may not have mandated the end of fossil fuels (it still requires world leaders and business professionals to make official pledges of what they will do to contribute to a solution). However, as more and more shareholders of major companies and people managing super funds look towards investing in companies that can find new technologies to help dramatically reduce the carbon footprint, the direction for businesses, especially the major ones, is miraculously getting clearer and clearer by the day. Following where the money is going appears to be the driving force for businesses, and finally the politicians (although we hope some common sense and knowledge had played a part as well) in determining where they should be standing on the problem and to show to the world what happens when world leaders finally do reach an agreement.
If it were not for the money, the change probably would have occurred much earlier (perhaps in the 1990s or earlier). We can only hope the decision to make the concerted efforts by all nations to do the right thing was not left too late. We are yet to see the sudden bursts in methane from the oceans and permafrosts to cause sudden jumps in world temperatures. We have 90 years to cross our fingers and hope this will not happen. Until then, the public and scientists are hoping the rise in temperatures will be gentle and constant and eventually go down sometime after 2100.
February 2016 the hottest on record, and the question of basic science research to help create new industries
The latest temperature measurements for the Australian continent have shown February 2016 to be the hottest on record (copy of article available here). Leading climate scientists have looked at this data and are now confident that the El Nino is not entirely responsible for what we are seeing.
This is not the most worrying aspect. CSIRO chief scientist Alan Finkel admitted on ABC's QandA program on Monday 14 March 2016: "We are losing the battle [on climate change]." He said all our current efforts by humans (certainly within Australia) to cut down carbon dioxide emissions through changes in human behaviours including new farming practices and trying to be more power efficient in everything we use is not helping. It is too late. Whatever is causing the temperatures to increase, humans have to come up with more drastic solutions than anything we have on the table.
And what could be contributing to the high temperatures? Is this "big elephant in the climate room" actually coming out from deep beneath the oceans and in the icy soils in Greenland and Siberia?
Yet despite such a frank admission, the chief scientists and other scientists in the management positions at CSIRO and the current Australian Government have looked at the latest funding for scientific research and have decided it is best to sack over 100 climate scientists. Instead the government is in favour of research that can provide an immediate economic benefit, whatever that might be. It means any research on basic science research, such as finding new knowledge in the fundamental areas of physics (a classic example would be to understand what are gravitational waves and whether they have any links to radiation), is being left on the back burner. Yet incredibly the government fails to see basic science research as a key factor to true innovation for any progressive society facing great challenges as well as building new industries to support any economic system. As an example, if we did not have quantum mechanics (an example of a basic and somewhat esoteric area of fundamental physics), people would not benefit from mobile phones, computers, MRI machines in hospitals and so on. If somehow we could continue this basic science research, who knows where we will be in the next 10 to 50 years from now? For example, if scientists could see a link between gravity and radiation and prove it through an experiment, maybe people can benefit from building large metal spheres to a high degree of precision as a means of controlling the gravity environment inside and with it the inertial forces exerted on the human body.
Just imagine it? Basic science research on, say, Albert Einstein's Unified Field Theory designed to show a link between the gravitational and electromagnetic fields could result in new transportation vehicles that would allow people to travel to much faster speeds? And if there is an electromagnetic propulsion concept that would allow for exponential acceleration to make the distances in space much shorter, industry and society could benefit from it with access to new resources on other planets so that we won't have to mine the materials on Earth and decimate the environment in doing so. We would not have to add more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere in applying this electromagnetic technology. And protecting the existing fertile food bowls of the world and focussing on rebuilding the environment and ensuring climate and our existence is guaranteed will help untold numbers of future generations to enjoy a brighter future and one that is filled with hope, especially for the young.
Unfortunately the funding for such basic science research is simply not there. Even if we already know how to test the new ideas behind certain types of basic science research, some governments (and probably also the U.S. military) can't or will not want to see the benefits of this kind of research being conducted.
Money is, unfortunately, controlling too much of the direction of science and where humanity must go through such research work (as well as how the planet is used and the methods employed to extract certain resources), much to our peril and for the future of humanity on this planet. Until we balance this situation, the question of how quickly we can change our position and solve world problems will soon be asked. The answer will likely frighten many people: not fast enough.
And now that methane gas is likely to be exacerbating the higher temperatures and will only get worse, much worse, over the next few years compared to what we are experiencing right now, the slow rate of change by humanity to solve problems will be so much more obvious to more and more people as time goes by.
Humans still have a lot to learn.
Fracking techniques increase the frequency of earthquakes
The results of a ground-breaking study published in March 2016 suggests that the more fracking that is employed by companies to extract oil and gas in certain areas, the greater the risk of earthquakes and in greater numbers. The earthquakes don't increase immediately. It usually requires time for the companies to drill and fracture the bed rock and do it in numerous locations within a confined and small region. But when they do, the researchers of the study are noticing a link in this activity and the number of earthquakes occurring in the region.
The earthquakes are not yet massive enough to cause problems to people on the surface, but it is unclear to the scientists how the severity of the earthquakes will change over time. However, if the earthquakes — coming in greater frequency in a region of heavy fracking — are able to weaken the Earth's crust further beyond the man-made efforts, there could be more serious consequences for people living on the surface. Could it ever reach the extreme and worse case scenario like we have seen in the 1997 movie Volcano starring Tommy Lee Jones?
Published in Seismological Research Letters, a report titled, Hydraulic and Seismicity in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin has demonstrated a link, for the first time, between hydraulic fracturing (also called fracking) for oil and gas and earthquakes. It is known the process of fracking creates an underground mini-earthquake designed to open up fissures. Once the oil or gas is extracted, waste materials may be injected, thinking this will stabilise the layers of rock. What wasn't predicted, however, is that after the fracking is performed and done in a number of places within a certain region, the earthquakes of the natural variety will suddenly increase in numbers and will get worse over time with the more fracking done in the same region.
The researchers of the study "compared the relationship of 12,289 fracking wells and 1,236 wastewater disposal wells to magnitude 3 or larger earthquakes in an area of 454,000 square kilometers near the border between Alberta and British Columbia, between 1985 and 2015" as stated in their press release. They "found 39 hydraulic fracturing wells (0.3 percent of the total of fracking wells studied) and 17 wastewater disposal wells (1 percent of the disposal wells studied) that could be linked to earthquakes of magnitude 3 or larger."
The researchers do acknowledge the small percentage involved. However, it doesn't take much to cause more problems should one or a few of these fracturing wells damage the bed rock deep underground to a point where it weakens the crust. The potential for worse things to come is certainly there and humans need to take heed of the warning signs.
As the researchers stated:
"It is important to acknowledge that associated seismicity occurs for only a small proportion of hydraulic fracturing operations. However, considering that thousands of such wells are drilled every year in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin, the implications for hazard are nevertheless significant, particularly if multiple operations are located in close proximity to critical infrastructure."
Actually, the problem the researchers are finding is that the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin uses less water during fracking operations to replace the oil and gas extracted underground than their American counterparts in the central U.S. Indeed, the mecca of all frackquakes, in the state of Oklahoma, is using more water and yet somehow the number of natural earthquakes in the state has increased in the past few years from just 2 or 3 tremors every year to a whopping several hundred earthquakes per year. Does this mean the Canadian experience of frackquakes is revealing a more serious problem than its American counterparts? Or is it the fact that the water does nothing to hold the rocks together other than fill the void left behind by the extracted gas or oil and, therefore, the frequency and severity of the frackquakes are the same?
As the researchers explained:
"[I]t is possible that a higher-than-recognized fraction of induced earthquakes in the United States are linked to hydraulic fracturing, but their identification may be masked by more abundant wastewater-induced events."
Of greater concern to the researchers is not only establishing a link between fracking and earthquakes in the region, but rather how the amount of fluid (or type of fluid) pumped into the ground during fracking is independent on the size of the earthquake.
Gail Atkinson, a professor of earth sciences at the University of Western Ontario, wrote in the press release in support of the study:
"More than 60 percent of these quakes are linked to hydraulic fracture, about 30-35 percent come from disposal wells and only 5 to 10 percent of the earthquakes have a natural tectonic origin. [And] if there isn't any relationship between the maximum magnitude and the fluid disposal, then potentially one could trigger larger events if the fluid pressures find their way to a suitably stressed fault."
Now, in Oklahoma (and in Texas), seismic studies have finally shown a correlation in the number of earthquakes and the amount of fracking in the state. Prior to fracking, California was the place for having the highest earthquake risks. With fracking now in the thousands across the two states, people in those states are facing an uncertain future as they join California as having the highest earthquake risks in the United States.
U.S. Department of Defense is concerned about global warming
A comprehensive study into the effects of global warming on people's lives has been undertaken by the U.S. Department of Defense in Washington. Their number one concern is the connection between global warming and security of nations from people seeking new places to live.
The Defence researchers, with support from their top chiefs in the Pentagon mainly in the Navy and Army forces, expect rising sea levels and further drying up of African and Middle East countries to see an influx of more refugees entering other nations, especially Europe and the United States. With terrorism fresh on the minds of U.S. authorities just from the Syrian civil war today, the security concern is probably a valid one.
Yet despite all the signs of being worried, USAF chiefs are not leading the charge to express their concerns for global warming compared to their Navy and Army counterparts. In fact, they do not seem too particularly concerned to the point where it would be willing to share to the world its own important discoveries made in the late 1940s that could help radically change society and significantly curb global warming. As a case in point, we know the USAF are working on electromagnetic vehicles based on the Abraham-Lorentz formula in places such as the highly classified test facility known as Area 51 in the Nevada desert. The fact that such technology gleaned from at least one foreign crashed vehicle in the late 1940s is available and there is evidence from civilian observers that some glowing vehicles have made test flights at night over this facility, it goes to show that the USAF is still not yet serious enough to assist humanity by making the revelations known to the world about these foreign objects and to supply the necessary technology to help with the transition to a cleaner and better society for everyone.
It would appear the USAF are more interested in letting its defence counterparts in the Navy and Army express their concerns for global warming while quietly continuing their own secret work behind the scenes.
It is no wonder the world is where it is today. Too much patriotism and protecting ones own interest for the sake of a few people wanting to be the first at everything and enjoying whatever power and profit certain aspects of the new technologies can provide and made to look like independent new human discoveries through selected U.S. research companies working for the USAF is contributing to the world problems we see today.
Environmentally-friendly plastic toys for children
More than 2 billion children exist in the world as of 2017, and a large proportion of them need toys to develop their creativity and rational skills, and improve their socialising skills should the toys require other children to be a part of the playing process. As children become teenagers and eventually adults, toys need to be re-used by other children. Only problem is, not enough of the toys are getting re-used. And with many toys able to fall apart and break, the mountain of plastic ending up in landfill is creating a sizeable environmental problem. Not anymore. A bright idea by an Australian student has recommended using natural materials such as sugarcane or corn to create bio-degradeable and/or recyclable plastics. A great idea.
Bioplastics need not have to be restricted to toys. Any kind of plastic can be made from sugarcane products. As sugarcame.org stated:
"With volatile oil prices and growing concerns about greenhouse gas emissions, the chemical industry is looking for renewable alternatives to diversify its sources of raw materials. Sugarcane ethanol has emerged as an important ingredient to substitute for petroleum in the production of plastic. These so-called “bioplastics” have the same physical and chemical properties as regular plastic (the most common type is known technically as PET) and maintain full recycling capabilities.
Benefits of Bioplastics
- Renewable. Sugarcane polyethylene replaces 30 percent or more of the petroleum that would otherwise be used to manufacture the plastic.
- Lower carbon footprint. Each metric ton of bio - polyethylene produced avoids the emission of 2 to 2.5 metric tons of carbon dioxide on a lifecycle basis.
Use of bioplastics is still developing. But a number of leading companies have established themselves as major players in this emerging area."
Expect bioplastic to end up in more products you buy in the coming years.
Military tests in the 20th century are coming back to haunt humanity
Further environmental problems are emerging thanks to some adults incessant need for power and greed leading to certain world wars.
A disaster in the Pacific ocean is definitely looming for life in the water and any predators that depend on these aquatic creatures for food (including humans that eat seafood).
During the 20 or so years between 1950 and 1974, the U.S. Air Force (USAF) have tested a number of nuclear bombs at Bikini Atoll and the lesser known Enewetok Atoll (all part of the Marshall Islands). By the end of the tests, the military could only muster a rough and quick attempt at hiding the highly concentrated radioactive plutonium underneath an 18 inch thick concrete slab at the latter location. Bikini Atoll may be more well known for the infamous nuclear tests performed there, but fewer people are aware that twice as many nuclear tests and even bigger hydrogen bomb tests were carried out at Enewetok Atoll. There is probably a good reason not to mention the location. The contaminants are in greater amounts and not properly encased inside a sealed concrete container. Rather, the soil beneath the concrete tomb is about the only thing that is keeping the radiation in the contaminants from reaching the outside world. Might be okay in 1974. However, with the limited long-term thinking capabilities of military people and their governments and the desire to hide a problem as quickly and cheaply as possible, scientists are now noticing the soil is too porous. Water is seeping in. And as sea levels rise due to global warming, ocean water is slowly but surely bringing out more of the radioactive material and diluting it in the ocean. Not a good sign. Cracks in the concrete covering can be seen where more of the contaminants are seeping out and being washed away.
No one is prevented from reaching the site at Enewetok Atoll despite the U.S. military and government banning civilians from visiting the radioactive landfill. Amazing considering twice as many atomic tests (43 in total, compared to around 22 atomic bombs at Bikini Atoll) had occurred there. Very few people are aware of how this deceptively pretty location is hiding a dark and dirty secret. The low lying nature of the atoll is facing inundation by the Pacific ocean as sea levels rise. Before the end of this century (if not sooner), it will be permanently covered by water. Then more of the radioactive contaminants will enter the water. Not long afterwards, much of the Pacific ocean will have enough contaminants to increase rates of cancer among humans living in and around the Pacific rim, especially if they eat seafood.
Unless this is a new cynical approach by the U.S. government and military to reduce human populations more quickly, it seems hardly anyone is doing anything to fix the problem. Unless, of course, doing nothing in the hope that 24,000 years will pass for plutonium to be less of a problem is the solution, because this is the half-life for the radioactive element. Somehow we think waiting is not a good option.
Much talk has been made by humans to discuss whether there are any long-term negative impacts of global warming. Some people think nothing negative will come from it other than get hotter (and more unpredictable weather, until eventually the land turns to a desert for the weather to be a consistently hot and dry nature). So long as humans can access air conditioners and can walk down to the supermarket to buy food and water, it seems like some people see it as an opportunity to profit from the situation (e.g., doctors will have a bonanza of new patients to pay for their health problems and more research money to solve cancer from the governments). Okay, well leaving aside climate change, we now have radioactive contaminants to add to the environmental mayhem. We definitely have a problem. Because if we don't solve this nuclear contamination, far bigger problems will come to haunt humans for a very long time. And we are talking about intergenerational problems such as genetic mutations and higher incidence of cancer becoming a more common part of human life.
One thing is certain. Sea levels are expected to rise and the atoll in question will be inundated. This is not a fanciful thought. It will become reality. The question humanity should be asking is, what exactly are we going to do to protect the environment, not to mention the health of all living things that rely on the Pacific Ocean thanks to the silly work of military and old world governments who do not know how to bring genuine peace and hope to everyone on this planet?
Placing food crops undercover
As global warming kicks in, those areas where there is reasonable plant cover are still facing more unpredictable and harsher weather conditions ranging from heavy flooding rains and hail stones, to stronger winds and hotter conditions. Forgetting about those areas turning into a desert with fewer and fewer trees, bushes and grasses to keep the moisture in the ground, anywhere on the planet that can grow reasonable quantities of crops will need to be increasingly protected from the weather elements. Farmers in Queensland, Australia, are looking to Canada to provide cheap, strong structures with covers that can be automatically removed and put on within a couple of minutes to help protect the growing crops against the increasingly unpredictable weather.
The first city in the world to run out of water
Speaking of areas turning into deserts, certain cities in very dry areas are increasingly facing problems of finding enough fresh water to keep the people in those cities surviving and at an affordable cost.
Well, the unthinkable has began as of late January 2018 with news that the city of Cape Town in South Africa will receive the unenviable title of being the first city in the world to run out of fresh water. The dam for supplying the city's fresh water is below 27 per cent at a time the country is facing a century long drought, only made worse by global warming. As a result, the executive mayor of Cape Town has been forced to give the most severe warning yet to citizens and prospective visitors that the city will run out of water by April (or will reach 13 per cent levels considered by the mayor to be the moment when water supplies must shut down). Afterwards, people will be forced to pay for bottled water, or water brought in from other parts of the continent (or world). Or else the alternative is for South Africa to start building the world's biggest desalination plant powered by solar and wind technology. Plenty of jobs here for those looking for money to pay for food, water etc.
While some cities will continue to face severe water shortages, other cities will receive extreme rainfall, such as those in Europe (e.g., Paris) before eventually going the other way and become a desert at high enough world temperatures. This is the reality of global warming. And it won't be long before the warm ocean currents in the Atlantic will stop flowing as enough freshwater from Greenland enter the salty ocean. When this happens, the extreme weather events in Europe will only get worse. Later the weather will become predictable in terms of extremely cold and dry conditions. If any ice forms on Europe, this will melt in the summer to create considerable flooding, and about the only time Europe should be harvesting the fresh water before it is lost to the oceans.
Greenland ice melting at an alarming rate
Further observations of glaciers and vast ice sheets in Greenland is revealing another disturbing finding. It is well-known to the scientists that the world's second largest ice sheet covering 82 per cent of Greenland has started early in its melting process. No surprises here. What is not being realised until now is how the rate of melting has accelerated in the last couple of years. Among the factors affecting this rate is the fact that the oceans now have the highest temperatures ever recorded. Another factor to affect the rate of melting are the number of humans on the planet and their affect on climate change as they use up certain resources without adequate recycling. What all this tells us is that nothing is ever linear and simple in the way the rate of change works in nature. When something starts a particular process, it tends to cascade and get much worse over time before we reach rock-bottom. Well, if things continue at the non-linear rate as we see it today, we should expect much, if not all, of the ice sheet in Greenland to melt by 2050 (if not sooner). Should all the ice melt, sea levels will rise by 7.2 metres. That is the guaranteed amount, and there are no compromises here. But bear in mind that no event ever occurs in isolation given the widespread nature of global warming. Everything is interconnected. So if one place melts, you should expect other places to experience a similar event. For example, if Greenland's ice sheet completely melts, you should be prepared to see a lot more ice to melt in places such as Antarctica, and then the rise in sea levels from Greenland will only multiply.
The only thing that is stopping sea levels from rising significantly right at this very moment in time is the way enough ice on the ocean surface is able to keep thermal expansion of the oceans at bay. Take away the ice, and the oceans get warmer. Then thermal expansion becomes the bigger reality behind sea level rises. Add the melted ice and we already have the makings of an economic catastrophe as world governments struggle to find enough money to re-build society and maintain the economy as sea level rises significantly.
Humans need to do far more to help the environment than we have ever done before. Unfortunately, even if we all do the right thing now (e.g., 100 per cent recycling, use only electric cars, grow our own foods, have solar panels on people's homes etc.), it will be a long time before Earth will return to cooler, wetter and more predictable weather patterns as we have witnessed prior to the 19th century. In other words, sea levels must rise, and it will be significant no matter how we look at it. So to put it mildly, it is too late to do anything to stop sea level rises. The best thing we can do at the present time is prepare for the expected changes along the coastlines where people live, start establishing new incentives for people along the coast to do more for the environment before they can move inland and use up more resources to help them build more houses and all the associated infrastructure people will need, and force all businesses to go totally green in every aspect of their operations and manufacturing. There will be no choice in this matter for the survival of the human race.
But if we don't do anything to fix up the environment right now, you can be assured of one thing: all ice will melt throughout the world, raising sea levels by 7.2 (for Greenland) plus 61 metres (for Antarctica) or 68.2 metres. However, we must also take into account the effect of thermal expansion from a warmer ocean because the water molecules are pushing each other apart from the extra radiation they emit slightly to give us the temperature of the water. Without tidal forces from the Moon, expect sea level rises to be no less than 95 metres (the estimate given by the U.S. Geological Society). Add the tidal forces and the unpredictability of thermal expansion because we don't know how high temperatures will reach and sea levels could reach as high as 200 metres. As for air temperatures, in many places it will continue to rise well beyond 60°C as massive amounts of methane gas trapped in ice beneath the oceans and in the permafrosts of Russia and elsewhere are released. But exactly how much the temperature will rise, no one knows. The exact amount of methane trapped as ice throughout the world is still not known. What we do know is that there is a lot of methane locked away, and much of it is ready to come out as world temperatures rise. Should enough methane escape into the atmosphere, the planet will experience tremendous warming. If the Earth and our activities cannot slow down the temperature rise from the last methane emission, more methane will come out, temperatures rise again, and the process repeats in what is called the runaway greenhouse effect (just as the planet Venus had experienced hundreds of millions of years ago) until eventually all life on Earth is extinguished. Death will not come straight away. There will be a number of hardy, technologically-reliant, humans left behind to "hold the fort" so to speak. A number of crawling insects will find places to escape the heat. However, without other lifeforms such as plants to provide food for the humans (or even enough insects on the human menu), let alone counteract the serious effects of climate change by absorbing enough carbon dioxide, as well as adequate fresh water supplies, humans will evnetually become extinct — a fitting end to all our stupidity.
The year we must change our ways: 2030
In a UN report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in early October 2018, climate scientists have given a deadline to implement the changes to our world economies if we are to avoid a more catastrophic temperatures rise above 1.5 degrees (assuming carbon dioxide is the only thing to increase the temperatures). The deadline has been set for 2030. After that year, scientists cannot guarantee they can do anything to stop what happens next unless a new world order begins and people are directed to rebuilding the environment. Should the temperatures rise above this level after 2030, our inadequate recycling measures and not enough new and healthy trees and other plant life and our inability to preserve enough fresh water supplies means more places will turn to deserts, and droughts will become too extreme and prolonged, causing nations to resort to importing foods from overseas or else face a massive economic cost to world governments affected by the environmental changes. As for some other nations, severe flooding will probably bring an economic toll of its own to bring down these nations before eventually facing the drier and desert-like conditions. Eventually the cost to fix the problem will be too great unless there is a global effort to come together and completely transform our way of life. But unfortunately, the way of life for most people is to maintain what they know and think is best. Each country will continue to do its own thing, which is mainly to make a profit in the easiest way possible (even if it means continuing in the non-recycling ways when selling products and services). And it assumes people want to buy those products and services. And as a result, the changes will not be quick enough. After 2030, extinctions of animals and plants will rise dramatically, cost of living will increase far greater than most people can afford, human refugee crisis will be extreme and affect all rich nations, and so on. If human populations continue to rise, the environment would simply collapse. Not enough trees can grow and will die. Animals will struggle to cope with the heat if not the excess flooding in some places. They will die in greater numbers. Our food supplies will dwindle unless we resort to eating insects. As for the food supplies in the oceans, anyone eating this will experience a shortened lifespan now that the plastics in the oceans and other contaminants are in such phenomenal numbers that many marine life will be affected. And as soon as we eat the seafood, micro-sized plastics enter our bodies. Harmful chemicals from the plastics get released to affect living tissues and cause an increase in the levels of cancers for many more people. The health costs to the governments will spiral out of control. Taxes must be raised to much higher levels, but few people will support it. That will be the time when the economic system will collapse if people don't work together for the common good and set things right.
While some will question this 12-year deadline claiming that people have mentioned these sorts of things in the past with no catastrophic affect to life on Earth (even if plant and animal extinctions are occurring as we write this) and our way of life seems unchanged, and with human populations continuing to increase with no apparent ill-effects to the economic system, things are likely to be different after 2030. In the long history of the Earth, temperatures have been more than 10 degrees higher than today at certain times and yet we are still here. However, the things that have helped to bring temperatures down were time and adequate growth of plant life to absorb the carbon dioxide and for the oceans to re-absorb enough of the methane and lock it away as hydrate ice. As for us, we were small enough to stay protected underground and/or in the trees, populations were smaller, and we were not requiring too much food and water. And if we stayed near protected water supplies to make it easier for us to survive and stay cool, we could survive these periods of heightened global warming. Today, things are different. Humans are a lot bigger in size and we don't have time to wait for hundreds of thousands or even millions of years to bring back balance. Population is increasing far too rapidly. The cost of controlling the environmental degradation because of our greed and too much focus on maintaining power is going to get far too great. We don't have enough renewable solutions in place to allow true savings to be achieved in the long term and so allow the money to be directed at fixing up the environment through shear human power and more ingenious technological solutions.
There has to be a deadline. It may not be precisely 2030, but it will come. Who knows? It could be sooner should the level of methane come out of the oceans in a great burst and in a matter of years temperatures will far exceed the 1.5 degrees climate scientists are warning about today, or it may occur soon after 2030, say 2040. It does not matter. There is a limit the Earth can handle all our human activities. Go beyond that limit and things will get too expensive and too difficult to reverse the situation. Something will have to be done, and it is better to do it sooner rather than latter.
In the meantime, despite the sense of urgency to change our ways according to the UN report, a number of the American government agencies supporting the Trump administration find it more important to choose words to avoid putting the public on edge or potentially cause social chaos and a collapse of the current economic system. Originally "global warming" was changed to "climate change" earlier this century, and only a few short years ago the term "extreme weather" was preferred. Now they don't want to use any term. Better to say nothing and assume there is no such thing as a change in climate. Then came Hurricane Michael. It hit Florida and people are forced to say for what it is — global warming. Why? It is because they have realised the storm is getting bigger. On top of that, sea levels are rising and causing more areas in Florida to get flooded. Seeing the situation firsthand (as creatures we do not act on what we can imagine the future will be, but must rely on our eyes first, except by then it could be too late), the authorities have chosen a different term to describe sea level rises. They prefer to call them "nuisance flooding". In other words, they may not be able to deny the rise in the water levels, but feel it is temporary event and more an economic nuisance. Eventually everything will go back to normal (with enough taxes etc.). In the meantime, the necessary changes to the economic system to avoid a point of no return proceeds too slowly. We are woefully inadequate in our solutions. Not enough business investments and government policies to support the businesses to move into the right areas of research and implementing the renewable solutions on a mass scale is slowing the process of inevitable change. Profit and maintaining political power is stifling the changes we need right now.
When will certain people learn enough is enough?
Ominous warnings of drastic climate change beginning sooner than expected
It is becoming a regular news event as each summer passes. As of 2019, weather experts are stating the unusually high temperatures and prolonged nature of the hot weather are not only breaking all January records in Australia, but for all times since records began. It is not looking like this is a one-off event. The breaking of all records is now an annual event, which means the time for tackling global warning has to start right now, not in 2030.
Something has happened, but we do not know what it is. Has there been a burst of methane somewhere on the planet? Nobody knows.
Scientists are now predicting temperatures will increase by 1.5 degrees in the next 12 years, but this is conservative. Any methane emissions could force the temperatures to jump much higher than this in the coming years. We can only hope it hasn't and the carbon dioxide is the culprit. Scientists are not sure yet. However, given the way the positive feedback system of nature work, it would not be surprising if the period for the next 1.5 degrees increase occurs in 9 years, or even less. Things will start to accelerate and so amplify the warming effect. That is how it works. This is now a very risky time for humans.
Already atmospheric and ocean currents are showing signs of slowing down. Differences in cold and warm air and water between polar and equatorial regions is getting smaller and smaller. The higher temperatures is evaporating more water from the oceans and falling more heavily in some areas where the low pressure systems are hanging around longer than expected, causing unexpected floods. Where the humidity is not there, other places are drying up and facing a massive risk of bushfires of greater severity and high temperatures. Europe will face the consequences of a slowing and an eventual stopping of the Atlantic ocean currents. Winters in Europe will be incredibly cold, followed by great floods in spring and incredibly hot temperatures in summer. In Australia, the El Nino events will be more extreme and prolonged, and fewer El Nina events to provide the rain. In North America, they will experience similar conditions to Europe, except it will be more severe in the winter time. And countries in the equatorial regions will be virtually unliveable during the day. And all the while, mass extinctions of animals and plants will march on.
And all the while, certain Australian politicians are still debating on whether climate change is real, and instead are considering whether to build new coal-fired power stations just to reduce power prices for consumers instead of tackling the very cause of climate change and seeking better long-term solutions to the problem.
Already there is talk among Australians that the next Federal election will be fought on climate change as people begin to move away from the two major political parties if they don't have proper policies in place to tackle climate change. The general ineptness of the leaders in the main parties in not being able to do anything constructive and far-reaching with real vision as needed to create a brighter future for all Australians is getting up the proverbial nose of the people in a bad way. Extreme right-wing views start to come out and blame all the problems in the country on a high population created by immigration and insufficient jobs. There is just no real long-term and sweeping policies coming out of the main political parties designed to change our economy to a truly carbon-neutral system, and moderating our thinking with new jobs in the new industry, and at the same time solve the climate change issue. All Australians can see is the revolving door of new Prime Ministers and more of the same "jobs growth" and "supporting your economy" rhetoric that clearly does not work unless the environment is placed at the centre and on a pedestal of a truly healthy society and economy. If you don't, the current economic system with its antiquated carbon-emitting energy solutions and old business practices will collapse and all it will achieve is more environmental problems and a bigger recession the likes of which Australians have never seen yet. We simply cannot afford the cost to the economy to fix the environmental crisis by leaving it later and later. It is getting beyond a joke now. Something must be done, and it has to happen way before 2030 comes around. Nature does not work to human scheduling and timing. It does not care what year humans decide to do something to fix climate change. Nature does what nature does.
It is time people work with nature, not against it.
More people are demanding to see political action on the environmental front. Forget profit and the financial balance sheet. If the two major political parties do not take heed of the warning signs, a major change is on the horizon for political leaders as people may decide to do the unprecedented thing of choosing only those independents and certain Greens candidates who are talking serious about climate change and willing to make drastic changes to the Australian economy.
Already enough businesses are choosing to invest in renewable energy technology without incentives or policies from the Federal government.
Less people are interested in seeing new coal fire power stations getting built. A groundswell of discontented voters (or economic terrorists in the eyes of R-wing climate deniers) is building and getting ready to cause havoc on the political scene. There is a willingness among the people to create changes the likes of which Australia has not seen since the days when this continent was colonised by white British men and women.
Will this be enough to finally see some drastic action on climate change begin in Australia and possibly lead the world in doing the right thing? If so, don't be surprised if other changes will take place, such as choosing to start a new chapter in Australian history and rekindle the republic debate. Perhaps the date when Australians finally do take action on climate change could become the new date for Australia Day (not based on the British invasion of the Australian continent, but when the people truly work together as one on a major problem). That would be the day when Australia would finally grow up and lead the world in solving real problems. Less reminiscing of the good old days. Time to take the reigns of future action into the hands of all Australians. Start looking to the future and turn it into something positive. That is what more and more Australians are looking for.
And all because people do care about the environment. Not like the political :"old world economic" dinosaurs that still want to live in the past and unable to change even if their lives depended on it.
These are now interesting times, and it will only get more dangerous as time passes.
Politicians will need to take heed of the warning signs, if not in climate change, then certainly among the average voters on the street and those who are younger.
Increasing numbers of young Australians registering to vote — but can they change the political landscape?
Young people have learned that the only way to change what we are doing now is to vote the political party with the right policies. Any politician with a strong environmental credential and effective leader and policy maker would do well to advertise this fact, so long as older voters have well-paid jobs to think about the younger generation
The younger generation is preparing for a massive change, but it will not come with the next election. Too many older people are lope-siding the votes as a greater percentage of the population get older. Unless these people are happy and have jobs or a healthy and effective retirement fund, the chances are that many older people will be thinking about themselves and their financial future. Or else something has to wipe out enough of these older people (the coming of the zombies?). The only other option is a new system of voting that can bring back balance across all the age groups and restrict numbers to the largest number of the smallest age-group. Or else there is going to be a problem, especially in Australia, in the coming years.
Already the problems are emerging as too many people are in need of jobs that pay in order to survive. And who can blame them? We have created the economic system and see no other way to achieve the goals that need to be done on this planet. As people get older, they become the least creative bunch, as they are oblivious to any other way to live and survive. They are not even able to see the possibility of new jobs when moving into the new economy of renewable energy solutions, let alone jobs that are stable and well paying. They cannot see beyond their immediate needs and the importance of paying off a mortgage. Too many people are afraid of one proper change for the better. The change must come from young people who will get involved in different areas and essentially ignore the current economic system. Some of the young people will start a new non-economic system to help re-build the environment. While others will venture out to the stars and learn the real way to live, and return to force change on Earth when they show what is possible.
The young people must take the reigns of power themselves if the planet is to survive the current onslaught from the older and richer generation of people who are afraid to change.
UN issues dire warnings of mass extinctions in the next couple of decades
A report published on 6 May 2019 by the UN's Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has predicted dire consequences for life on Earth. A conservative estimate of a million species are expected to become extinct because of human activity causing global warming. The animals, despite their smaller sizes, are not coping outdoors with the heat. Those that live in the water and underground have a better chance of survival, but not for other animals and anything else dependent on these animals for its survival. For example, the Australian koala, which must sleep and forage for food in the dwindling canopy of dying gum trees, will face extinction in the next couple of decades. Add to this the loss of the Great Barrier Reef, and the economic loss to Australia through tourism will be felt sooner rather than later.
One of the 145 scientists from 50 countries who contributed to the study, Professor Josef Setteler, said:
"This loss is a direct result of human activity and constitutes a direct threat to human well-being in all regions of the world."
And in a rare move, the report was endorsed by China, Russia, and the United States, and thereby showing the world that global warming is the most pressing issue of modern times for all humans and life as a whole.
The report makes it clear that humans must undergo a complete and radical societal change. If we are to maintain the economic system of expecting people to earn money and purchase things, everything must be fully recyclable. Anything that emits carbon dioxide must be curbed dramatically and for nature to be able to balance the situation. And that means new jobs must be established and paid for to look after the environment, starting from the farmers who grow the food on the table for nations. Beyond that, for those countries that have insufficient fresh water to even begin this process, the time has come to consider building desalination plants in order to transform the environment to a more sustainable and productive state.
The need for dramatic changes to the way we do things in society is supported by Sir Robert Watson, chair of the IPBES. He told the media his understanding of transformative change in the following way:
"By transformative change, we mean a fundamental, system-wide reorganisation across technological, economic and social factors, including paradigms, goals and values.
"The member states of IPBES Plenary have now acknowledged that, by its very nature, transformative change can expect opposition from those with interests vested in the status quo, but also that such opposition can be overcome for the broader public good."
If we do not make the fundamental effort within the next few years to change everything we do, a new world order will have to commence where money is no longer the currency. Food and water will be seen as the new currency for everyone. It is as simple as that.
As for the causes for the current extinctions taking place, greenhouse gas emissions is one aspect. However, the biggest threat to the lives of other animals is primarily to do with the clearing of trees from land, and the draining of wetlands for farming purposes when supporting the shear numbers of people living in concrete jungles called cities. By implications, this also raises another important issue as to whether our human population is too large to be considered sustainable in its current form given what we know is happening to the planet.
The latter is a concerning thought for those wanting to maintain the status quo, especially the rich and powerful and for those in business that want more people/consumers to maintain the profits. To these people, there iks no such thing as too high a population.
It means R-wing people who want to keep the economy going at all costs because of the benefits it brings to them (i.e., money, wealth and power) will have to face a decision: either humans survive by making changes now, or humans must face extinction as well.
It is no wonder more and more people are favouring legislation to support euthanasia, especially for older people. It is probably the kindest thing we can do for them given the circumstances. An Australian Royal Commission into the abuse of aged persons in nursing homes and home carers is revealing the stresses of the shear quantity of old people in nursing homes where nurses and other younger people who are getting poorly paid are frustrated by the amount of work to look after the frail and elderly members of our society and the limited support from society. In some ways, a number of these elderly people are paving the way to see to it that euthanasia is accepted in society if this is the typical thing they can expect to see in the coming years.
Humans (especially the older ones and those in positions of power and wealth) really do need a major shake-up of the system.
Sea levels rise faster than expected
It will not matter at the present time if climate change is halted today. It is cold comfort to know we have tipped the balance in favour of melting ice sheets at a rate that is concerning many glaciologists and climate change experts. A report released in July 2019 has revealed the latest findings of Antarctic ice sheets, with special emphasis on the most unstable Thwaites glacier. Covering an area the size of Florida, this glacier has weakened so much in recent times that it is on the verge of collapse. Other ice sheets on the southern continent are likely to become unstable, but Thwaites glacier is the one to watch, and scientists are in the box seat watching the scene unfold before their very eyes. Forget the current average rise of 3.3 millimetres per year, according to NASA. They believe that if this glacier collapses, sea levels will rise a minimum of two feet within a few years. This may not seem very much, but it will probably be enough to cause a massive refugee crisis in Bangladesh. Whereas, a large proportion of people living on the coast will already be making hasty plans to sell up and move inland to higher ground. Mass human population movements across the globe will begin soon.
Things will not stop there. Once the Thwaites glacier goes, more glaciers and icesheets will collapse and melt. The process of sea rise will accelerate, essentially in unexpected jumps rather than a gentle long-term increase.
In the meantime, Robert Larter, a Marine geophysicist at the British Antarctic Survey has stated the amount of ice flowing out of this most unstable glacier region in Antarctica has nearly doubled in the last 30 years. Just in the period between 2009 and 2017, 35 gigatons of ice per year has melted. A lot more ice still remains but it is becoming more unstable, and already what has melted since 2009 has contributed 3 per cent of the current rate of sea level rise. Of course, this will jump much higher once the Thwaites glacier collapses. As Larter said:
"If you have collapsed a whole glacial system then you’re creating a new front on the other glacial systems that were bordered to it. Things certainly won’t stop there."
A scary time lies ahead for everyone on this planet, perhaps more so for those living near the sea, but it will affect everyone eventually.
Loss of animal and plant species is inevitable
More people are coming to the realisation that extinctions are inevitable. There may be little we can do to stop the inevitable other than retain biological samples of the genetic code of the animals and keep them in deep freeze and hope they can be revived when the conditions are cooler and more hospitable for them. A number of the extinctions today do relate to species that are too restrictive in the niche areas they rely on for their survival. For example, some critically endangered migratory birds require certain wetlands in a specific area to exist for their feeding and breeding grounds. If those wetlands get inundated by the oceans or humans create new housing developments, there is a high risk the species will not cope with the stress and die.
For certain Australian mammals on the critically endangered list, very exacting conditions are required in terms of cooler weather and access to a specific type of tree to make a home. But if humans try to help in some way only to cause too much stress during handling to protect the species, the animals will die. Bad enough that too many trees are suffering from insufficient freshwater supplies and are getting burnt in bushfires or cleared by humans. It could get too hard to protect all the endangered species as the planet warms up and human population increases.
Throughout the history of life on Earth, the conditions on Earth have changed in favour of those species that are more adaptable.
However, today, even for the most adaptable species on the planet we call humans, they will face pressures due to their high population levels and rising world temperatures. Only those with the wealth will use whatever technology is available to keep themselves alive.
It would be wise for the rich people to learn to look after other people and the environment if they wish to continue making profits from their business through hopefully well-paid and happy consumers. Or expect the biggest recession in history to come soon, and one that we may never recover from at all.
For all other reasonably adaptable species, it will depend on how well they can find solutions to adapt to the hotter and drier conditions, or whether humans will affect even these other species because humans are selfish enough to want to survive and "use up the natural resources".
Some billionaires call for change to protect the environment and solve climate change
There is something magical about passing the point of becoming a billionaire where people start to have a conscious and suddenly realise all the wealth in the world will not solve world problems. It requires other people to contribute to a solution as well as set a sensible level of wealth for everyone. For those business people striving to become the next billionaire (even with hundreds of millions of dollars under their belts), they might think this is crazy. Not so for some socially- and environmental-conscious billionaires.
By the end of June 2019, billionaires George Soros, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, and members of the Pritzker, Gund and Disney families have called for action to solve environmental issues and the ongoing climate change concern. To find the money to support this aim, the billionaires have published an open letter recommending "a moderate wealth tax on the fortunes of the richest one-tenth of the richest 1 percent of Americans — on us". An extraordinary statement. If this has arrived on April Fool's Day, everyone would have laughed at the suggestion. As it did not fall on this date, the only other possibility is that the letter is more of a stunt to encourage American voters to go for the Democrats at the next election. Others are not too sure. Maybe there really is a turning point taking place in the American business community as some billionaires may have seen the "light" and have decided to show true leadership on the environmental and climate change fronts.
The letter was addressed to all "2020 Presidential Candidates". As the letter stated:
"America has a moral, ethical and economic responsibility to tax our wealth more. A wealth tax could help address the climate crisis, improve the economy, improve health outcomes, fairly create opportunity, and strengthen our democratic freedoms. Instituting a wealth tax is in the interest of our republic.
The next dollar of new tax revenue should come from the most financially fortunate, not from middle-income and lower-income Americans"
Crash course on understanding climate change
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In the meantime, we see L-wing and R-wing people in the world creating and showing more movies to make the less-educated public think it is okay to have a warmer planet or a colder planet to support their personal position on the climate change debate. For example, The Day After Tomorrow (2004) would suggest that global cooling is on the cards and it would be better to warm the planet further to stop the ocean cooling down too much and creating a massive ice storm. Whereas any movie that can show the need for global cooling, such as The Thing (1982) to stop a parasitic alien organism from coming out of the deep freeze in Antarctica, would certainly serve left-wing views to avoid global warming.
Unprecedented methane emissions commenced in August 2019, and Australia feels the effect in the summer of 2019-20
The equivalent of an environmental sh*tstorm has well and truly hit Australia with thick smoke, dust storms, and bushfires engulfing large areas of south eastern Australia.
It began in August 2019 with unprecedented emissions of methane and carbon dioxide (together with some nitrous oxide) from the permafrosts in Canada through higher temperatures and man-made underground release of the greenhouse gases through excessive hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, taking place in Alaska by the U.S. (at around 90 per cent) and Canada (around 10 per cent).
So great is the rate of emissions in the Arctic region at that time that the scientists have become seriously worried. The latest data has been published on 16 September 2019 in the Engineering and Technology Management journal. A graph shows a slow increase in the methane emissions between 1994 and 2018. Yet there were no enough efforts by humans to stop the trend. Then, in 2019, a dramatic increase in the rate of methane emissions took place near Barrow, Alaska. Over the last few decades, methane emissions have been steadily increasing, reaching 2,000 part per billion in 2017, but then the graph suddenly jumps up to 2,040 parts per billion in a matter of a couple of months starting August 2019 with no end in sight. Using the Barrow Atmospheric Baseline Observatory in Canada, scientists from the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) have raised fears of an expected collapse of the biosphere in the next 10 years as the signs of a major methane bursts is likely to occur sooner than predicted by other scientists. Already the effects are being felt in Australia and Chile at this time. Australia is particularly bad as it has a greater amount of extremely dry and built-up natural fuel loads on the ground. And this is why Australia is facing the biggest bushfires in recorded history.
There is still hope for humanity. It would require all nations (including the United States, Saudi Arabia, Australia, China, and Russia) to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions at a rate of 7 per cent per year for the next 10 years. But while Saudi Arabia, the United States and other fossil-fuel dependent nations deny the science of climate change and prefer to maintain their economy and/or move very slowly in the transition process to a more sustainable energy source, scientists are certain humans will not be able to make the change in time. It requires the planet to collapse and force a global financial crisis the likes of which no one has ever seen before all nations will agree to sing the same tune for a totally renewable energy approach.
As a result of this latest scientific data, a number of climate change denying politicians are doing all they can to stop the above latest science data on the state of climate change from reaching the public and in meetings to get nations to agree on a carbon dioxide reduction consensus amount.
Unfortunately for the politicians, the public cannot be sheltered from the climate change effects. Mother nature has a way of breaking the secrecy that some politicians want to create.
In Australia, bushfires have become the biggest and most ferocious at a level that is unprecedented in human history. Enough firefighters in Australia are certain climate change is amplifying the drought period. Scientists have joined in saying Australia will face a mega-drought under climate change that will last for more than 50 years, if not for longer.
With the bushfire events in Australia taking place on a grander scale, overseas tourists are well advised to travel to other countries (unless they are happy to see smoke as a new tourist attraction and enjoy breathing in the new fresh country air Australian style). One would have a better chance of seeing more life diversity in the Sahara desert than what is left of Australia. Vast swathes of forested areas in the Blue Mountains and in the Victorian Alps and coastal regions, not to mention Kangaroo Island in South Australia, are going up in smoke.
When it is all over, Mr Morrison and various Australian business owners will rely more on the locals to help get the businesses back off the ground. Forget Bali and all the rest. Please make a visit to your local bush-ravaged town and spend big on any businesses that are open.
In previous bushfire seasons starting in late December or around January, the total amount of land that normally gets burned is usually in the few hundreds of thousands of hectares. In 2019-20, the figure has jumped to more than 5.8 million hectares by 5 January 2020 (8 million hectares, or the size of Italy, by the end of 6 January 2020, and 12 million hectares by 31 January) with more land to be affected as temperatures jump up again after 5 February 2020. While it is considered terrible for the authorities to see dozens of homes get destroyed in certain years, more than 3,000 homes have been wiped out in this latest bushfire season (which started earlier than expected in August 2019), more than 1 billion native animals destroyed, and at least 33 people have died in this 2019-20 bushfire summer season.
Firefighters, both volunteers and experienced paid professionals, are convinced this is more than just a period of extended drought that is causing this. There is another factor at play here. Temperatures have risen by a few degrees to break all records and that is only if the sky is clear. People are not yet feeling the full brunt of what is effectively the start of serious long-term global warming and its impact on the drought period as smoke from the bushfires is blanketing the worse of the high temperatures over much of south-east Australia.
Something has changed. Does this mean a recent burst in methane levels has occurred? Apparently it has already begun in the northern hemisphere and detected at least in one localised region near Barrow, Canada. The gas is slowly accumulating and circulating in the atmosphere. It is just a matter of time before we feel the effect. Or has it already begun?
Yet Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his government continue to think that this is a one off major event and everything will return to normal. Just wait for another cool day to come and business will continue as usual with aims of selling more coal to India and China later in 2020 (the meetings to discuss the trade in this resource have been postponed but not cancelled). The main focus for the government is to maintain the current economy and try to look good on the world stage. It thinks that the Australian people will be happy and forghet the climate change situation by seeing a decision to deploy more than 3,000 Army reserves to assist in the fire fighting efforts and evacuating civilians from affected areas in what is considered the biggest peacetime activity for the Australian defence force in history. Morrison may have finally decided not to wait for State governments to request help, but we are far from solving climate change. He will make his own contribution in the way he thinks is sufficient to solve the immediate problem. A good choice to be doping something, except it is a little too late. It may help in the here and now moment of dealing with the unfolding bushfire calamity and in assisting people in this difficult time. However, the real help should have come in April 2019 followed by a long-term plan to combat climate change. Firefighters and climate scientists had warned of the impending disaster. The climate models were sufficiently accurate to explain what was happening. The bushfire period is getting longer. The job of reducing fuels loads was getting overwhelming. Australia is a very big place. And now conditions have dried up far more than expected, and the people are experiencing the aftermath through bushfires.
One would think that at the very least something to tackle the upcoming (not right in the middle of) bushfires would have been an excellent starting point for the Morrison government. Talk of leasing additional high volume water-carrying DC-10 Air Tanker aircrafts from the United States as early as April in readiness for the upcoming fire season was recommended to the Morrison government at the time. Yet, incredibly, nothing was done. Too expensive apparently. It would eat too much into the surplus that the Federal government was hoping to preserve and meet its election promise to the Australian people. Now, more than 1,700 homes have been lost, people have died, and more is to come in what is considered the longest bushfire period Australia has ever seen.
From the way the media has portrayed the Morrison government's handling of the situation, it seems all Mr Morrison could do was visit some coastal towns and presumably listen to the concerns of some residents (but quickly ignoring those who were angry with him and his government and especially for not listening to the advice of real experts on the ground and by scientists). He then claimed to the media that he understands the situation well. Has he? Just to make matters worse, Mr Morrison has an unfortunate facial expression. From the way his lips sit, it makes him look like he has a smirk rather than a genuine concern for the well-being of the people. He is unaware of this and tried to improve the situation for his own government by being more forward in doing something without waiting from State governments to say what they want. In a televised speech to the nation from the highly filtered and air-conditioned comforts of Parliament House on top of the hill in Canberra on Saturday 4 January 2020, he and his Defence minister announced a bigger role of the defence force to assist in the disaster. The strange smirk look of Mr Morrison was again visible as his Defence minister spoke. When it was his turn to make any other announcements, no long term plans to tackle climate change could be seen. The titanic that is the Australian economy must continue in its current form and nothing will ever change it. Money is way too important. And just to emphasise it, within hours of the speech, the Liberal Party representing the Federal government as led by Scott Morrison, and with his approval, decided to release a 50-second advertisement to tell the public how wonderful the government is in providing all this assistance, as if it hoped all would be forgiven by the people for past failings in policy-making and leadership. Just to rub it in some more, the importance of the economy was made evident with a donation button below the advert to encourage Australian people to financially support the Liberal Party. Not to help the firefighters and people who have lost their homes. Not even to begin the transition to a carbon-free society with ambitions of replacing coal with solar, wind, geothermal and other sustainable energy sources. It seems more a case of trying to recoup the costs of spending all this extra money to provide the defence force assistance (as if the Federal government resents spending extra money) because the government is more concerned about keeping its promise of a small $5 billion surplus in the budget to prove to people how well the government can manage taxpayers' money and so hopefully stay in power at the next election.
Mr Morrison may claim he understands what the people are going through, but there is no evidence to show that he does with long-term policies designed to tackle climate change, no matter how small he thinks Australia's contribution to the problem might be. Australia's contribution could be around 2 or 3 percent of the world's emissions from burning its own coal to support the Australian economy, but it is also Australia's contribution in selling more coal to the rest of the world that is at stake here too. Because other nations have yet to find an alternative energy source to make their transition to a renewable one does not mean Australia can do what it likes with impunity for the sake of profits. Australia should see the situation as an opportunity to get smarter and find solutions to replace the coal and export to other nations.
When it comes to the bottom-line for Australia, it is cheaper for the Morrison government to do nothing. Power and greed is the prime motivation for the government.
The only saving grace for the Morrison government is that hopefully the bushfires will be far less severe over the next two to three years. Perhaps enough time for the memories of the Australian people to fade and continue voting the Liberal Party into power. But if the skies clear and people discover exactly how high temperatures are getting in summer on a consistent basis, it is unlikely people will forget.
On 6 January 2020, Mr Morrison tried to fire back at his critics for his poorly timed and ill-advised video that he authorised. Attempts by the frustrated and angry Prime Minister to see the video as just an education campaign to explain his latest decision and show how wonderful the Liberal Party is in helping the Australian people rather than any form of political advertising is not helping to change people's minds. If the video had been anything like what he said, there would not have been a donate button included with the package. Unfortunately Mr Morrison is unable to concede this aspect as changing the context in which the video was presented. He cannot see that it is no longer a video to inform people of his decision. As soon as Mr Morrison authorises to have people donate money to the Liberal Party, he has effectively began to advertise. There is no other way to see the video. The lack of careful thinking about what he did shows Mr Morrison was on the back foot throughout much of the disaster that was unfolding across at least four states. When he saw the public's resentment against his government, Mr Morrison felt rushed to find a quick solution. And when he did find something, he went ahead to promote and advertise this fact. He did this so quickly that he forgot to inform the very person who was co-ordinating the fire services across those states of the decision—NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons. Later Mr Fitzsimmons expressed his disappointment at the Prime Minister for not informing him in front of the public. When asked by the Nine Network to clarify his statements, Mr Fitzsimmons said:
"All I can say I wasn't aware of it. I found out about it via the media reports. We then spent a fair bit of time with the military liaison trying to understand what the details were. We are still working through that and made progress last night."
On hearing this, Mr Morrison tried once again to cover his mistake by claiming he had informed at least his Liberal state counterpart and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian of his decision. Apparently he did this within minutes of announcing his decision to the media. Still the criticism continued. Then Mr Morrison was able to get his Defence chiefs to accept the responsibility for not informing Mr Fitzsimmons of the decision. Again, not enough people were convinced by this latest explanation. Indeed, while the Defence chiefs had their hands tied behind their back and had to toe the government's line, a spokesperson for the Australia Defence Association tried to set the record straight by stating on its Twitter account:
"1) Party-political advertising milking ADF [Australian Defence Force] support to civil agencies fighting bushfires is a clear breach of the (reciprocal) non-partisanship convention applying to both the ADF & Ministers/MPs."
In the face of such criticism at home and abroad, Mr Morrison decided to "disconnect" from the critics and focus on the legal requirements in having to include at the end an authorisation by MPs who make a video and have them posted on their social media accounts for the world to see. In that way, he believes it cannot be seen as an advertisement. As Morrison said on his social media account:
"The video message simply communicates the Government's policy decisions and the actions the Government is undertaking to the public. The same practice is rightly employed by the Leader of the Opposition and the Labor Party. This is required and standard practice in Australia."
Except the only slight problem for Mr Morrison in his situation is the existence of that rather unfortunate donate button linked to the video and to the Liberal Party. There is absolutely no way one can dress up the video to make it look like anything other than an advert. As the government knows, perception is important. If people see the video and the donate button as advertising, the government has failed to create the right perception. And if it cannot find a way to create the right perception, why bother making the video in the first place?
Instead of finding someone else to take the blame or relying on legal frameworks to justify the video's existence and anything else associated with it, why not just own up to the responsibility that Mr Morrison was only there to make his government look good to the Australian people and maintain the budget surplus at a time when his leadership had failed during an important and serious crisis moment? As he and much of the Liberal Party normally does, they don't have to do very much other than to increase trade with other nations using the existing resources it can dig out of the ground and let others (or market forces) take care of the problems. The Liberals can sit back (in Bali, Hawaii or some other location), and if they have to come to Parliament to do some work, it is mainly to find ways to save money and cut back on essential services and later gloat to the public around election time about how well it can balance the books and create some kind of a surplus, as well as show how much of an expert they are in fudging the spreadsheets so it can look like it is meeting its target in the Paris Agreement by 2030.
Is this indicative of what the Australian people and the rest of the world can expect to see from the Morrison government when the crisis of climate change really hits the planet?
Or how about the government do the one pleasant and surprising thing no one would see coming of actually taking the initiative in solving climate change by making useful long-term policies to help businesses know which direction to go? That would make front page news, and make the government "look good" for all the right reasons. And while it is at it, why not start putting in the necessary R&D money for businesses and the CSIRO to help Australia and the rest of the world move away from coal altogether? Then people will start to take notice of all the right things the Australian government is doing on the world stage.
Following another announcement in the afternoon of 6 January 2020, Mr Morrison was careful to avoid any further criticism of him and his government. A reporter asked Mr Morrison if the budget surplus was the priority to help explain his handling of the fire crisis. With his mind now properly on the job, Mr Morrison kept a focus on the "human costs" and the need to help people. Not before, but now yes. A sensible decision. As Mr Morrison said:
"We're not focused on the financial cost, we are focused on the human costs and ensuring we can do everything we can, as quickly as we can, to support that recovery effort."
The Morrison government will provide $2 billion to the disaster recovery efforts and 20 service centres (e.g., Centrelink) to assist those affected and in need of immediate income to survive and pay debts. Morrison describes it in business terms as "investing in the people of Australia".
It is a pity this investing does not include those people who are finding solutions to climate change.
And now a big test for Morrison to see if he has invested enough into the emotional bank balance of the Australian people as U.S. President Donald Trump expects Australia to join as part of the coalition force to deal with Iran's retaliation on at least two U.S. military bases.
But given how likely the events will unfold on the international stage, one Sydney Morning Herald reader summed it up what the situation is looking like and the outcome we will likely face:
"When two supposedly male world leaders start to show to each other "how big is my penis" actions on the world stage, it usually does not end well. A mess really. And I can hardly vouch Trump as the guy to step back from the brink of war.
If a war should ever start, who would come? Apart from America, Australia being a good arse licker to the US would join, and perhaps the Saudis too. But what would be the outcome? Iran is a more formidable opponent compared to the "piss in the park" job with the former dictator of Iraq. It will be a slightly more protracted war. But at the end of the day, with Russia not rushing to the side of the Iranians, the Iranian leader and his military force are very much on their own. That is why the Iranian leader made a point that he was not expecting a war to take place following the retaliation. He knows he has no chance when it comes to a direct conflict situation with the U.S.
If a war should ever begin, then one can imagine the US causing far more untold infrastructure damage to Iran and a serious impact on the Iranian military. That country would be sent to the dark ages very quickly. Is there anything Iran can do to the US? Hit a few more military bases (maybe some actual deaths of American soldiers). More likely Iran will try to target Israel in a desperate, but failed bid, to bring it down (it will probably join the US but the country will go on). The only real damage Iranians could do is the quiet guerilla tactic of getting a handful of Iranian supporters to act as terrorists and start bringing down the oil fields in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and anywhere else the US depends on. If there isn't another 9/11 situation occurring again, you can be sure the high prices for oil will see a major impact on Western economies. Perhaps a good thing in the sense that it may force the US, Australia and other nations to wean themselves off oil and onto renewable energy sources.
In the meantime, the burning oil in the Middle East will help raise world temperatures and push it over the critical threshold and into dangerous territory for humanity, more so than any non-nuclear war in the Middle East.
And all because we have two males in a position of power who want to show the size of their penis rather than their brains.
What a comforting world we live in.
If we ever wanted to find a good reason to have more women in a position of power and having more creative solutions to solving problems, this would have to be it."
At the end of the day, it would probably not matter if Australia participated in the war. The US would win anyway. However, a war of this nature might be the much needed impetus to force all Western nations to properly go totally renewable in its energy supplies. We just hope such a war will not also cause irreversible climate change to take place and destroy all life on Earth.
In the meantime, we hear the usual war rhetoric from a military commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard just to make Iran less of a target for the U.S. This comes as Iran has shown to the world that nearly a third of its missiles (or 4 out of 15 missiles) failed to operate in the retaliation effort, and it could not determine the difference between a civilian passenger plane and a possible attack from the U.S. after it managed to accidentally bring down a Ukranian passenger plane as it was trying to leave Iran. Not exactly the high-tech, reliable and accurate machinery one would expect of the Iranians to win any war with the U.S. Still, the Americans will have to always be on high alert while it remains in the Middle East.
The Trump approach
U.S. President Donald Trump wants to be optimistic and see a positive future (don't we all?). He doesn't want to hear the doomsayers in the climate change debate. Fair enough. So what is he going to do? He believes the solution to climate change is to plant a trillion trees in the United States to counteract the continuing emissions from coal and gas. So long as the trees are there, it is business as usual using the non-renewable energy sources.
There is a big assumption here. It assumes the trees can grow healthily and there is time for this to happen. Furthermore, healthy trees requires freshwater. In other words, there has to be enough freshwater to keep the trees growing and doing their job of absorbing the carbon dioxide. Otherwise, insufficient water supplies and the trees will emit more carbon dioxide.
Someone has to be around to look after the trees.
Exactly how will the trees be grown? Who will look after the trees and how will people be compensated for their time and effort? And why stop at the trees? What about the food and human waste? What kind of organic waste digesting system should be developed to extract the methane from this process for powering transport vehicles and using the remaining materials as fertilisers on the farm? And how do we encourage nature to produce more freshwater for us? Or do we need to artificially produce this valuable liquid in the initial stages through massive desalination plants?
Or what about natural carbon dioxide sequestering systems such as growing more seaweed to drive down the amount of carbon dioxide dissolved in the ocean waters?
And instead of burning more coal to make steel, why not burn old tyres to generate the same energy? Or can we not build all the necessary renewable energy sources on a vast scale to provide all the power to melt steel when fashioning new products?
And why does the Western nations need to be in the Middle East protecting its oil supplies? Are we not smart enough to make the transition to a totally renewable energy society? What are we waiting for?
What we need to solve climate change is a much bigger and more holistic solution. That is the kind of thinking Trump needs to be doing. Miraculously growing some trees will not be enough on its own.
Humans must change
It is too late. Even if all nations could suddenly curb and put a stop to carbon dioxide emissions this time tomorrow, world temperatures will continue to rise for many decades to come before eventually it slows down and reverse itself. According to this Australian climate change report, a temperature rise of 4.4 degrees from present day 2021 temperatures is expected by the end of the century (and that's conservative and assumes no unexpected methane bursts occur), and Australia has to at least double the reduction targets set by the Federal coalition government (currently set at 26 to 28 per cent). In fact, all targets set by other nations, even the most ambitious is not enough. And talk of zero net emissions by 2050 is too late, but better than nothing. Eventually with enough reduction, things can be reversed, but it will be a long time. And while we wait, there is the risk of methane bursts to sudden put all our estimates of temperature rises for the end of the century out of kilter, and then we have to question whether we can reverse the temperature rise. It isn't just the carbon dioxide that we must reduce. In the meantime, sea levels are expected to rise. Slowly at first, but will quicken in major burts as major ice sheets break off and melt. Combine this with the Covid-19 pandemic that will continue for years to come even if the vaccine is distributed to everyone because of how the economy demands people to get back to work at close proximity to everyone else and the cost to control the virus and stop outbreaks is costing money to the governments, we have reached what could well be the end of our economic tether (or will be very soon). What we have been doing since the industrial revolution has never been sustainable or helpful to the environment. Yet we went ahead and did it for the sake of profit thinking we had unlimited resources and could pollute as much as we like. Not anymore.. Profits have been too much the driving force leading to a dramatic change to the environment in a growing number of areas on the planet. And much of it has not been good. Some places might be better. For example, Europe will face the wrath of the high temperatures in the next few decades, but as experts have said, Europe will initially be wetter (and colder in winter, and hotter in summer) before it eventually reverses and everything dries out.
If we wait long enough, ocean levels will rise high enough to inundate all of central Australia, and the only benefit there are highly humid and semi-tropical like conditions for eastern and south east Australia. Well, at least it will be a change from the hot and dry summers and intense bushfires prior to the ocean rise.
There will be new opportunities to do better and a chance to rebuild the natural environment in some parts of the world.
But if major coastal cities and towns go under water, guess where the people will move? And with it the demand for more resources to rebuild everything. Can the environment cope with the influx of climate change refugees (and deniers) moving to higher ground?
The time for change has to be now. And the change has to transform our current society to one that is driven to protect the natural environment and to reward people working in that environment with many free perks and benefits (such as a small mosest home and plot of land, free food grown on the land, etc.). But actually physically doing something on the land to reverse the trend in our climate, we don't have to wait and endure the high temperatures before things eventually go back to normal. We should be able to avoid the worse that climate change has to offer. But if humans still continue with the charade of making money and continuing with doing things the old ways, there is little we can do to protect much of life on Earth. And then we can only hope the methane bursts are not significant. Certainly, we can start to learn how to swim, because the ocean levels will rise, and significantly once it gets into the accelerated phase.
We cannot wait until 2050, or even 2030 for a significant transformation of society to take place. But humans have been waiting and farting around so much just to make that little extra profit from old work practices and technologies that it doesn't really matter. We must remain positive though.
In the meantime, the first major methane burst will occur any moment now, and we have nothing to mitigate or minimise the impact of this calamitous event. There is evidence that small amounts of methane bursts have taken place in the permafrosts of Siberia and other places, which may explain the small spike in record temperatures for 2019. But this is nothing. The bis one is yet to come. We need to do more than just completely stop all man-made greenhouse emissions. We actually have to start implementing on a large-scale the solutions we need to reverse climate change. Methods of totally recycling all our waste and absorbing as much carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and oceans as we can are just the beginning. Net zero emissions has to be part of our vocabulary, and action must start right now.
If not, it is likely a new society will have to form and lead the way to re-build the environment and ensure the support from the economic system is there. And all nations must do their part. No more excuses about the science of climate change. There is no debate.
This is our only hope.
Revealing how little the Australian Prime Minister is aware of the severity of the problem from the latest science data (reminds some people of the way scientologists choose not to listen to people outside the Church of Scientology), the best Mr Morrison can do to appease the growing discontent in his government is to make a quiet announcement on an Australian morning talk show that he will set a new ambitious target of 42 per cent reduction in carbon emissions produced by Australia. Not a 42 per cent reduction in coal exports (which allows certain other nations to continue polluting). For the Liberal conservative party, this is seen as an "ambitious" target (and likely many of its members will be celebrating quietly on this major milestone). However, with the latest scientific results at hand, it will barely make a dent on the climate problem unless there is a policy to end coal exports and begin a massive drive to develop the latest and best renewable energy solutions (and export them to other nations, as they too need the help to make the transition). Where the bloody hell are we in making this happen?
Mr Morrison (who appears to have reached the equivalent of an Operating Thetan VIII level in Scientology based on his comments and beliefs on climate change and his position of power and so-called leadership to influence his colleagues in his government and so force them to tow his preferred views) appears to be taking the matter slightly more seriously (as there are greater numbers of people outside his Scientology-like view on the environment who are angry and control who stays in power), but much more needs to be done in 2020 and beyond.
Unfortunately some rains in Australia have re-appeared to stop the bushfires by 14 February 2020 and this is enough to see R-wing politicians having again another "disconnect" from the climate scientists (very similar to the way Scientology tells its members to "disconnect" from what it called "suppressive people" who don't support or believe the Church). They prefer to go back to debating the issue of climate change and whether it exists while still trying to give the go-ahead for some businesses or state governments to build new coal-fired power stations in the state of Queensland as the R-wing people view the taxpayers' money (like donations from members of the Church of Scientology to their supreme leader, of which many still struggle to earn enough money from the jobs they do for the Church) as being theirs to use as they please. Forget what the majority of Australians want.
Many Queenslanders are like R-wing politicians. Profit is high on the agenda. And boy do those people know how important jobs and the conomy are. Any kind of job will do, but not an imaginative lot to create new industries to better support the natural environment. Jobs that mine coal is fine. Burn fossil fuels? No problem. And then the people living in that state wonder why the drier months are so incredibly hot and the bushfires have sprouted in places where no bushfires had occurred before.
It doesn't take a genius to work it out.
As for other people supporting the religion of the current economic system and earning money to pay their mortgages and get rich, it would not be surprising if other people in Australia will have short memories and continue with life as usual. We are creatures of habit, not change.
Until the major methane bursts take place to raise world temperatures well beyond the 5 degree mark (and by then, ice sheets will break off and melt and ocean levels will rise more dramatically), nothing will be done by most people to repair the environment and go totally renewable. At least not in the short term. The Scientology of the current economic system must go on without fail.
Either that, or we need to watch the movie Titanic to get an idea of what happens to an economy when it hits a bit enough iceberg heading its way, all courtesy of climate change.
World maps of the future free of ice caps reveal a solution to Australia's bush fires
The National Geographic has provided some helpful world maps of what each continent will look like when the oceans rise after all ice caps have melted and the effect of thermal expansion has been accounted for (due to a warmer ocean). It is not all gloom and doom so long as the population of humans remaining at this time have a sudden change of heart and want to repair the environment and there are enough seeds and freshwater to grow new trees and other plants. The maps do indicate potentially new opportunities for those willing to grab them.
If there are to be any losers in this new waterworld environment under global warming, it will be those who have supported and benefited from the old economic system of making money and having their businesses and homes near the old coastline. A lot of the investments made here will be lost. Better to sell up fast and move inland to re-coup some of the investments.
In the case of Australia, we can say goodbye to all coastal Australian cities, but hello to Canberra. Yes, that most unlikely of cities will suddenly fall into favour for much of the Australian population as a good place to live. The other place that will be good to live is Tasmania. However, there is a bigger and more positive picture to be had when we look at the map for the Australian continent. Apparently, the ocean will find a corridor to inundate central Australia and re-create the once famous inland sea that made Australia wet and lushes during the last Ice Age. It means that even in the hottest months, Australians along eastern and southeastern areas of the continent will finally benefit from more moist conditions. And that means one thing: the air coming from central Australia will no longer have to be hot and dry and cause Australia the kind of grief firefighters had to endure during those terrible bushfire seasons. Instead, the air will be laden with the humidity needed to increase the probability of rain over the Blue Mountains. At last there is a way out of the drought-like conditions. Perhaps climate change cannot quite come quick enough for the Australian people.
In North America, the biggest impact will be around the eastern coast, with Washington, D.C., experiencing a new coastline at its door step. Forget Florida. That state is way too low. Expect the alligators to migrate north to keep the Americans entertained and on their toes from these critters. Also, the area around New Orleans is also way too low and flat. The oceans will engulf this area with ease.
Asia will experience significant changes to its coastline. China will probably benefit the most from the changes with its large landmassremaining high and dry to help maintain its billion or so people. In fact, the capital city of Beijing will end up either very close to or just in the oceans as a new coastline reaches the city and may become the new holiday seaside destination for many Chinese people. Otherwise, we can imagine the Communist government mobilising the Chinese population and large-scale machinery to build the new Great Wall of China to push back the oceans and so keep Beijing dry and protected. There will be not much left of the Philippines other than a smallish island to house a more concentrated population of people. Expect this region to be a melting pot of social tension between neighbours. Indonesia will lose a lot of land, but fortunately there are enough high places to keep the people surviving and practising their Muslim religion in the hope God will be good to them at this time. Forget Hong Kong, Jakarta, Singapore, and Bali as a good holiday destination unless you are into underwater deep sea diving and willing to explore these cities under the oceans. Bangladesh is a goner, and a fair bit of the Western coast of India will experience a dramatic change to its environment as the oceans encroach the continent. Still, India will have enough landmass to keep its billion or so people more or less surviving and hopefully with enough food. Japan will also lose some land, but surprisingly there are enough mountainous regions for the Japanese people to migrate inland and stay high and dry.
Europe will face some dramatic changes, mainly in the northern regions. Sweden is expected to face the brunt of most of the water invasion compared to the other Scandanavian countries. So too will much of northern Germany. We can also say goodbye to Amsterdam and the Netherlands in general. All their efforts to re-claim land will be wasted as the oceans will be too high to push back. There will be a place called England, but not as we are familiar with today. A lot of the eastern and southern coastlines will go under, and the oceans may even reach London. Perhaps this city will allow the residents to walk down to the beach to enjoy a bit of surfing. One other positive to be had for the English people is knowing they will live further away from France. Given the tensions between the two nations in the Dark Ages, finally the people will enjoy having more water separating the nations than ever before, and the rest of Europe. That will definitely make the Brexit supporters even happier in this part of the world. And those people who are still keen to swim across the English channel in the hope of achieving a personal milestone will have a much bigger challenge ahead of them—that is, more water to swim. As for Africans looking for a way to reach the European continent, the Mediterranean sea will look bigger. Africans at this time would be better off making the trip across the sea of Gibraltar as this will be the closest point for the two continents. As for Russia, this will survive and, in fact, will enjoy more water rushing in from the Black Sea to re-fill and create a massive new Caspian Sea.
Africa will experience significant encroachment of the water from the north as Egypt and its famous Egyptian pyramids go under, as well as the western side of the continent. A little loss of extra land around the eastern side but generally not so bad. If you live in central Africa, you will be doing particularly well in a world free of ice caps. As for Saudi Arabia, some extra water will definitely invade the peninsula from the north, but overall the country will survive. Perhaps the only place the Saudis will face some problems will be the city of Dubai. After spending big in this place, it seems much of the city will go under. So too will Iraq and the city of Baghdad.
In South America, all low-lying coast regions will go under the oceans. Buenos Aires, Rio De Janeiro, Georgetown, Lima in Peru and other major towns and cities will no longer exist. The Amazon river will no longer be freshwater. Much of the Amazon basin will have the Atlantic ocean entering this region in a big way. Fortunately there are enough high places for much of South America to remain dry and keep the population more or less surviving fine.
Finally, looking for a place to really enjoy the cooler conditions? Come to Antarctica. There will be lots of islands to enjoy the balmy weather. Have a swim in the oceans. The Great White sharks will be waiting and ready for a good fresh meal.
The current economy as we know it must come to an end
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists have summarised all the scientific data on climate change and looked at the way the United States, Russia and certain rogue nations seem more preoccupied with developing nuclear weapons thinking it will bring greater security. It is in their honest opinion that we are closer to reaching doomsday for humanity than we were in the 1990s during the Cold War. Back then, a symbolic clock was used to show how close we were to midnight for the end of the world and that was 19 minutes to midnight. Fortunately, the Cold War ended and we averted a possible nuclear war. On 24 September 2020, the clock was unveiled again. This time the clock has been set to 100 seconds to midnight. Without the climate change science data, it would have been anywhere between 40 to 15 minutes before midnight. With climate change dangers added, it has pushed the clock to almost midnight. It is the clearest indication scientists can give in a language the general public can understand of just how dangerous climate change is to life on Earth. The start of a methane burst emerging in Alaska is already revealing the imminent moment when a bigger methane emission is about to be unleashed. Action needs to be taken now. And that means the current economy as we know it cannot remain as is. Relying on non-renewable energy sources is not going to help.
Again, R-wing people continue to think the scientists are scare-mongering. Funny they should say that considering it is the R-wing politicians who are the experts in putting fear into voters in order to get voted into power. So the next thing to suggest from the R-wing people is why not invest in carbon capture and sequestration as the answer, Then we can continue burning more coal and fuel. As if such technology is reliable and foolproof, all it takes is one natural disaster and the carbon can suddenly be released in far greater amounts to put life on Earth in the face of extinction. How about doing the work properly of transitioning to renewable energy solutions that does not emit carbon? Far safer for the planet.
If fear is the deciding factor about who to trust on the climate change debate, can rely on the scientists far more than all the R-wing politicians put together.
Free public transport?
If humans are going to tackle the problems of excess carbon dioxide emissions from human activity, then why not offer free public transport on electric trams and other similar vehicles? Far fewer carbon dioxide emissions (once they have been constructed). Let governments pay the workers to make all this happen from the savings made in not having to spend billions of dollars upgrading the infrastructure of cities to handle more cars.
That appears to be the direction taken by the authorities in Luxembourg in 2020 and following the trend of the Estonian capital Tallinn in 2019.
And if not, you can be sure the public will find ways to reduce costs. Solar panels are probably a classic example. Once the investment is made, there is no more paying of electricity. People are more self-reliant on electricity generation that they need, and less burden on the main electricity suppliers. Perhaps not good for the suppliers looking to make a profit. But all this talk from politicians that we cannot make the transition to provide base power for industry will pale into insignificance once we take out the residential part of the electricity generation. Let the main power companies focus on industry. Once they realise they are not there to power every single home, but only companies, it is amazing how much easier the power generation becomes and the easier it is for the power supplies to consider alternative energy solutions and make the transition seamless once the decision is made.
Such attitude to lower costs (even free) should extend to the foods people eat. There is a cost to the health care system in eating bad foods that make humans fat and create other health problems. The government's solution is to either pump more money into the public health care system or see it collapse and force people to pay for everything in a private health care system (and get insurance) or else suffer and die (or doctors will make that decision for you). The latter is the direction the United States has gone. However, if a simple policy change is made to inject money into food production of the healthy kind, while ensuring farmers are well-paid to produce the food in the healthiest way possible, right up to the price consumers see in the supermarket (which is either very low cost or even free for very low-income earners, then it will be remarkable to see how many people will choose to buy the cheaper and healthier foods. Add to this mix cheaper memberships to gyms and other physical activities, and you can be assured the health care costs will come down substantially. Even despite the large proportion of people in the old age bracket, many of them will still be active and healthy right throughout their lives. It will only be a small proportion, either due to genetics or environmental impacts, that some older people may need extra care. But at least with a reduced health care burden by so many people can carers, doctors, nurses and everyone else in the system happily provide a quality solution to these people, at a far lower cost and still have enough money from the government to pay these people providing the care with the money they need to survive.
If you want people to make the right decisions and transition to the society we want, you must target what it is that's controlling their decision: money.
Likewise, any business that blatantly causes damage to the natural environment and does nothing to fix it need to feel the financial pain of paying more to the government at a rate that will encourage the business to change its ways very quickly, or it will find itself on the brink of bankruptcy.
What is the solution?
The solution to the environmental degradation (now accelerated by climate change) is actually quite simple, but surprisingly difficult to implement on a large-scale. It is because the solution does require massive changes to the current economic system and our social world order. Unfortunately for those people who benefit from the old system (mainly the rich and powerful), they do not want to see this happen. All manner of denial must be employed on the science of climate change in order to maintain their way of life. Profit is way too important for them. Yet what has to be done to properly solve the environmental problem is not rocket science. It is all common sense, and practically anyone can do it right now if we so choose. It just depends on whether we have the desire and motivation to do something on a grand scale and not worry about how much things costs (if necessary be more creative in the way we reward people in achieving this environmental goal rather than talking financial all the time), and the passage of enough time to see the improvements occur in the environment.
In case readers are still not sure what to do, here is a summary:
- Obviously, action must be taken to preserve the environment. That's already a given knowing how much the environment has been degraded and is affecting the climate in ways that is already starting to affect the survival of humanity. Much of our time on this planet has been spent supporting our artificial system of making us rich and powerful and thinking the environment has unlimited resources to achieve this goal as well as give us what we need to survive. Even when the environment can be seen going down the proverbial toilet as we speak, it is still treated as a second class citizen in the face of its rich financial sibling of the current economic system. Not anymore. All this will have to change in the 21st century. We must put the environment first and make it productive and able to grow food (as well as generate renewable power etc.) where people live, and do it as soon as possible. We do not have any more time to waste. Anyone involved in rebuilding the environment and getting it back to the original conditions prior to our interventions (e.g., cutting down trees) must be supported, whether financially or through a new world order that does not emphasise the importance of money. Rather the things that we need and the essential tools to achieve the goal will be seen as a more effective reward system (e.g., fresh food, quality water, eventually your own roof over your head, plenty of opportunities to socialise, to think, to play, and just be yourself etc.). And best of all, anyone can join this new system. Astronauts, cleaners, carers, and even the poor and destitute can become part of the true human family of looking after the environment and growing the food and freshwater naturally as we should for all times. Any unnecessary delay in achieving this crucial goal for the environment will only make it much more difficult and expensive to support the human population. And this can only mean one thing: it will lead to further extinctions of all animals and plants on this planet, including eventually humans through wars, heat stress, starvation and thirst, and disease. At the very least, we will certainly experience the biggest recession in living memory and one that we may never recover from if we continue the way we are going on this planet, and that will mean many people will suffer greatly because of it.
- In third-world and developing nations, human populations need to be kept to a sustainable level at all costs, or else the people must be put to work to repair the environment immediately. However, even in developed nations, climate change is affecting the ability of the natural environment to grow and support the people of those nations. Population levels in developed nations are quickly becoming unsustainable unless we rely on overseas supplies (until those overseas nations struggle to produce what they need). Soon every nation will be forced to find a way to grow food and adequate fresh water. Those developed nations that develop new technologies for this very task must be distributed to third-world nations as a gift (or in return for surplus of certain foods that cannot be grown in a developed nation) to help with this mammoth task of fixing up the environment and supporting the people.
- The human population must be mobilised to support what will effectively be a two-tier system for the 21st century and beyond. It is likely a new world order will begin to support this new system. One of the systems is a re-birth of the old economic system and getting it back to its original roots of why it existed in the first place many thousands of years ago. It will be more focused and have a grander purpose beyond making money (with real leaders that know what to do and will achieve it). The aim of this system will be to support the environment, and that includes building new recyclable technologies, and ensuring the technologies are available to everyone on this planet at the lowest cost possible. In other words, obscene profits, pure power, and the temptation for the rich and powerful to become corrupt, will be removed from the system. The second system is the one that will actually do the work of rebuilding the environment and supplying excess foods and in return receive many benefits (such as access to the latest technologies and repairing existing ones) from the other system.
- People will have a choice which system to work in. No more getting exploited by greedy employers in the old economic system. That will come to an end. The workforce will see a massive change. Those who lead the people in both systems will learn to treat people with respect, show love, and ensure we all have what we need to survive. It will not be a return to slave labour. And to make sure of it, both systems will introduce no more than 4 days and 6 hours of work per day, with rewards to work less and less as you meet minimum contributions and the systems becoming more self-sustaining and capable of running on their own with minimal maintenance. Furthermore, you will also have choice when to work. Too hot in the middle of the day? No problems. Start very early in the morning or in the evening. And working less hours does not mean less pay. You get everything that you need with no restrictions, especially if you need a little more (e.g., you are pregnant, have a sickness and need to recover, work a little extra harder and need to repair muscle tissue, etc.). People will have choices, but how much they wish to contribute will determine how long it takes to receive long-term rewards, such as your own small home to live in. Certainly everyone who contributes to some extent to the system to help repair the environment, even just digging a hole and growing a tree, will be rewarded amply with fresh grown food and access to freshwater. In the environmental system, people will live in communal areas in the initial stages and provide a minimum contribution that lasts up to 5 years. If this minimum contribution is met, a reward of a new small and sustainable modest home is provided and a plot of land of a reasonable size that is manageable by at least one person (or a small family). The land will be close to a freshwater supply. There will be access to shared equipment to shape the land and maximise collection of freshwater, as well as distribute some of the water over land to begin growing the natural grasses and renew the soil to have the necessary biomass for growing other plants. Decisions on where to grow trees to provide the necessary microclimate and prevent water evaporation will be made by the land's new caretakers, which by then will be fully educated on concepts such as wind breaks, companion planting, protecting water from excess evaporation, recycling organic waste, and even an eye on aesthetics to create a natural looking, simple, self-sustaining, and great to look at garden etc.
- To provide freshwater in adequate quantities needed by the environmental system, the new economic system will be responsible for providing this by artificial means (i.e., massive desalination plants dotted along the coastand powered by renewable energy sources) until such time as the environment can take over the work naturally and freely in a couple of hundred years.
- In the renewed economic system, people should work from home, or move to an area close to the place of work and other essential amenities. This significantly reduces the need for cars and public transport to get people to where they need to be. In some cases, it may be best to abandon houses altogether (or pass them on to the grandparents in their retirement). Homes will need to be shared or swapped. People will make use of high rise apartments in the centre of the city if it makes a difference in staying close to everything they need and work in the new world order. In fact, the idea that humans actually own anything will be questioned. When we die, we already relinquish what we have. There is no such thing as owning something for eternity. If you wish to have and keep something of value to you and helps in your work for a lifetime, you must contribute a minimum amount to the system. Only then will you be rewarded with your own tool or equipment, or whatever it is you need. Otherwise, it is better to share what we have. The economic system will ensure things are replaced with better tools or parts provided to help repair things and keep them going, or else they will be recycled and re-built to become better tools for future generations on the land.
- For those living in the country or who want to work on the land, a massive effort must be made to collect and preserve fresh water supplies, re-shape the land to further enhance this water collection and preservation technique, allow natural grasslands to return to pristine conditions, and grow adequate trees and bushes to retain more moisture in the ground for longer. Governments will also need to pay farmers for the cost of achieving this work and the long-term royalties/dividends in investing and maintaining trees as they perform the task of absorbing carbon out of the atmosphere. If not, a new non-economic system of rewarding people on the land will be implemented. In other words, no money is exchanged. Instead more essential and needy rewards will be provided freely and generously.
- As part of the reward system for people working on the land, farmers who own land must be prepared to give parts of the land to individuals or small families to rebuild the land using an available freshwater supply. Again back to the idea of sharing what we have. No one really owns land permanently. The priority is to grow trees, shrubs, vegetables and fruit in as much quantity and quality as possible. A small home will be provided to the assigned caretaker of the allotted land (anywhere between several acres to 25 acres depending on the land itself and how capable the new caretakers will be in working and managing the land) and built using renewable resources. Farmers can decide how much of their land they would like to set aside for this cause while receiving extra rewards for doing so. Farmers can also determine how large the land parcel to give themselves should be for the same purposes based on how easily they can manage the land and re-build it on their own, or with some help from other people.
- For children receiving an education in either system, there is no need to burden the environment with more fossil-fuel dependent transport systems to get children to schools. Education in developed nations can be done digitally, and accessible from home or at schools within walking distances of where children live. The internet and web-based software technologies should be used as the fundamental backbone for delivering the most visually stunning presentations covering all of our human knowledge and to teach the skills needed to do anything, including rebuilding our environment.
- In the renewed economic system, there must be a cap on the amount of profit earned by any business. Too much profit and the business must donate to support the new environment-building system, or help other businesses to provide the support needed for the new society of that system, which in turn will support the environmental system. There must also be a line drawn in the sand for those businesses that can cause significant damage to the environment. Essentially the more damage that a business does to the environment, the more it must pay a higher company tax rate. However, with the environment now in dire straits, it is unlikely a higher text rate will be enough. The aim in the new world order is for businesses to do the right thing for the environment or closed its doors. or pay compensation above and beyond a much heavier tax rate to repair the damage done to the environment. We can no longer afford to support businesses that damage the environment and cannot 100 per cent recycle everything that they make. This very harsh financial approach ensures that the activities performed by any business and the way profits are used afterwards are changed to benefit all of society and the environment in the long term. People in both systems will automatically be seen as the shareholders of the businesses. If there is to be any reversing of this "capping of profits" trend, businesses must show clear evidence of their ability to transform their own practices and choice of materials for producing products to a point where everything can be easily recycled without any waste, and any damage to the environment has been repaired to very close to its original condition. Then, and only then, can the cap in profits be removed as a reward for those who do the right thing.
- There must be a cap on human population, as horrible as this may sound to business professionals (who need consumers) and governments (that need consumers and voters). The environment can only support so many people on a given area of land. Maybe a little more if resources can be brought in elsewhere so long as the transport systems of the future are carbon-neutral. Otherwise, exceed the numbers and disaster awaits those who continue to live on the same piece of land. The only way we can ever allow populations to grow again is if the land is rebuilt to support the environment and is productive enough to grow all the food and provide adequate freshwater to support a larger population. But more likely the population will reach a steady and sustainable state. The idea of continuous growth and fettered population sizes will no longer be tolerated in the new world order. That is how it should work in real life.
- New recyclable, renewable and durable technologies must be developed and implemented as quickly as possible. It means old fossil fuel technologies must transition to electrical forms generated by renewable energy sources, and any solid in-the-hand products reaching the end of their life should be designed to be fully and completely recycled and so allow new and more durable products to be produced.
- To minimise energy usage in building recyclable products, all products should be made of the most durable and toughest materials. Otherwise any products that do not have a long-life must be easily recycled, and nature should be the key to minimising the energy required in recycling these products. So the choice of materials will be critical here. For example, more wood and paper products (if replenished by the growing of more trees) might be preferable if we know the products will only last for a short period of time (e.g., as packaging). Anything shorter in lifespan usually means food, and fortunately this can be recycled by nature using anaerobic digesters. Otherwise, anything that is valuable and needed to survive or work for a very long time must use the toughest and most lightweight recyclable materials.
- Everything we purchase or create should be shared. Highest priority are those working on the land. While people need food and water to survive and, therefore, should not require sharing of those resources if there are adequate amounts, any surplus food and water produced on the land should be shared with other people (and even other animals that need to survive too). Homes, cars, and certain other products (unless there is an absolute need to own the product for work or to achieve something great for society) should be accessible by as many people as possible. For example, if people need to live closer to work in another town or state, consider the idea of home swapping with someone else. However, as a reward to those who contribute a minimum amount to the system, there will be opportunities to own certain things outright for their entire lifetime. These are the things that they consider is needy and helpful to their own lifetime work. Want your own electric car or truck? Fine. Need a laptop and software to test new ideas, write down new (or improve on existing) knowledge and share with others, or whatever? That is fine too. Whatever tools you will receive will be replaced automatically when they reach the end of their life or where things naturally break and cannot be repaired. These will be provided free in the new world order, and of higher quality with each improvement. Old items will be fully recycled to become better products.
- A much broader set of "education-based" programs will be televised for the adults to teach them to look at things longer term. It will cover much grander and hidden patterns of the universe as noted by great artists and religious leaders to help show a greater meaning to life and the universe. We should not be bound by our materialistic things all the time as the only way to cope with life and the inevitable time of our death. Sure, there will be plenty of practical programs to learn how to grow food, new ideas to rebuild the environment, and more good news of people in the renewed and more focused economic system in the 21st century of doing the right things. But there is much more to life than just getting rich and having everything we want in life. To further encourage this kind of long-term thinking from the L-brain adults (once called right-wing individuals), the young people will participate in flights to the stars and return with a wealth of information about other civilisations and how they live, especially the advanced ones. We will see how they recycle everything they produce and observe new ideas from them. At the same time, any communications between the young humans and aliens will hopefully provide greater insights into the purpose of this universe and why we are here. This is the sort of thing we will get educated on. It is time we give people hope that there is more to life, and that it goes well beyond the moment of our death and our planet. The balance of the Universe and its grandeur ensures we all go through the cycles of life and death as a normal part of the experiences we must face while we are here and achieving something of benefit to other people and life generally.
- A significant amount of money spent on Defence need to be re-directed to other projects designed to protect the environment, produce food, mass-produce new renewable energy solutions, and improve education for all citizens. The days of seeing much of the budget of a nation (or an open chequebook) spent on defence activities will be long gone as the environment will take greater precedence compared to anything else. Indeed, any improvements to the environment will mean greater security for all nations because when people have what they need to survive, there would be no need to fight against others or the environment. Everyone will be happy knowing they have what they need. That is the key to true security.
- For those who are profit-motivated and believe greed and making obscene amounts of money is okay, a special "obscene profit" rehabilitation program needs to be implemented to teach the rich and powerful to be more balanced in their thinking, and even to denounce profit altogether when it comes to preserving the environment. Like a drug and the way some people become drug-dependent and get a high on the substance, the same thing also exists for those who value money. Money is a drug. People can and do become obsessed by money. Like a drug, people cannot seem to get away from money. They are too money-dependent. So, like there are drug rehabilitation programs designed to get drug-affected people to go "cold turkey" and free from the drugs they have taken, the same should be done for the rich and powerful. By going "cold turkey" in a financial sense means joining in the new non-economic system of protecting the environment and seeing firsthand what is more important: food/water or money? Is it the people who do great things no matter how trivial or simple it may appear, or the profits made in a company? When one is hungry and thirsty, people quickly realise what is more important. And they will choose the right path, even for those who have benefited from the current economic system. Nothing changes people quicker than an empty belly and no money to get them through life in the usual way.
These are the essential steps to fixing up the environment.
Of course, the only caveat on achieving the above steps is that we must control our desire to be rich and powerful. A tough task indeed since R-wing people, mostly males, will do anything to control the current economic system and keep it maintained under any cost.
Then again, look at the alternative. Should the people of an economic system fail to achieve any of the above steps and the environment is allowed to degrade further, we must face extinction together with the plants and other animals trying to carve out an existence but cannot do so because of our selfishness. Or else, a new world order must take place where the re-building of the environment must be given the highest priority. What do you prefer? To be rich and powerful, only to make you feel more insecure about your future and that of humanity as a whole? Or do we learn to live within our means, share what we have, and knowing we will all be secure and have a bright future for everyone in a new world order?
We have a choice, but in reality if you want to live and for the generations to come, you really have no choice. You must do the right thing for the environment. That is the true bottom-line for humankind.
More details
We cannot afford the profit motivation of companies to apply devious practices of maximising profit and not paying appropriate tax in the country in which they operate.
The G20 summit held in Brisbane, Australia, in November 2014 has made it clear how world leaders of developed nations are concerned by a number of international companies moving part of their operations overseas and arbitrarily raising the costs of running those operations in other nations in an attempt to reduce the amount of tax the companies have to pay to the governments of those countries, resulting in the overall profits for the entire operations going up. If those businesses are also operating in a manner that damages the environment, less money is available to repair the damage. Those profits must be curtailed through appropriate paying of tax where the businesses have been operating. Damage more of the environment and the tax paid must increase together with appropriate forms of compensation to fix up the damage done. However, do the right thing of going carbon-neutral and showing the corporate responsibility of repairing the environment and helping those in the new system to do this work, and the taxes go down significantly.
In the new and re-built from the ground up economic system, a lot of effort will be made to stop companies moving profits offshore. Wherever the companies operate will be required to pay their fair share of taxes (in Australia, this is 30 per cent, which is expected to drop to 25 per cent in 2018, but in the new world order, that tax rate will vary dramatically in a way that motivates business professionals to do the right thing, or else face collapse of the business as a necessary economic adjustment).
As for employees of collapsed businesses, they will have a choice on how to survive. They will not be left on the streets to defend themselves. In the new system, if there is a mortgage, this will be written off in return for sharing/swapping the assets with others and getting people to where they need to be when working in the new system and achieving the objectives of the new world order.
We have to remember that numerous companies and their customers are responsible for contributing to this environmental problem, especially if the products are not well-manufactured and researched properly to have the right materials. Therefore, the economic solution requires a two-prong approach.
Focusing on companies as the first stage to solving this climate issue, it is important that we give these companies a clear avenue of where they must move into if they are to be seen as "doing the right thing". The way to do this is not by penalising them with extra costs such as paying more taxes (e.g., a carbon tax) unless they are blatantly disregarding their responsibilities to the environment and making no effort to improve themselves, but rather through a powerful incentive. What kind of incentive are we talking about? Well, the G20 summit has provided us with an important clue. As we have mentioned earlier, we know these companies love the idea of reducing the company taxes they have to pay to governments. In that case, how about governments legislating that these companies can benefit from paying a lower company tax rate so long as in return they show evidence they are reducing carbon emissions and helping the environment?
It is either that, or taxpayers must pay these businesses to get their products and services to be more efficient and reduce carbon emissions. This is usually through the higher prices consumers have to pay to purchase the products. So long as the pricing is within what the market can bear and the products are valuable enough that consumers want to purchase them, fair enough. If not, this is already the incentive for companies to change. And, indeed, as people will have choice on where to contribute their efforts in the new world order, fewer people will be able to support the businesses by paying a higher price. Either the companies must collapse and governments must impose measures to encourage businesses to do the right thing, or get out of the business altogether.
As for governments, they need more taxes paid to have the money to do things and so increase the likelihood of staying in office for longer at election time. Unfortunately, there is only so much tax that can be raised to help everyone in the coming years (too much taxes paid and voters quickly take out unpopular governments from office at the ballot box, or create social riots should people have insufficient money of their own to afford the basic necessities of life). As people move into the new system of rebuilding the environment and no longer work to earn an income but receive the rewards of the environment by way of food, water, a roof over their heads, and an improved social system, the government will have even less tax. The unemployed, the homeless, and those struggling to earn enough income will be the first to move into the system. Older, able-bodied people will join them (and likely to receive their own plot of land immediately). For everyone else, rewards with clear and well-defined timeframes will show how easy it will be for anyone to have their own piece of land and a small home to work from and rebuild the environment in their allotted area. They can work with people in neighbouring plots of land to find efficient ways to achieve the goal. They can use their creativity and have access to equipment to achieve their work for the new system. There is nothing stopping them from re-building the environment.
Creativity will also be a necessary currency for companies in the new world order. Companies will have to become more innovative and use some of their profits to conduct high level research and development projects as part of the companies primary aim of finding ways to reduce carbon emissions and in return be rewarded by governments with a lowering of the company tax rate. The more the companies reduce their carbon emissions, the higher the reduction in the company tax rate.
As for the consumers, they will need to become creative too. The solutions they will find must be supported by businesses and the government. It isn't just being more efficient and effective in saving energy, or expecting consumers to accept nuclear power, coal-fired power stations and all the rest. If people actually want renewable energy sources, that is what it should be provided by businesses and the government. Everything has to be 100 per cent fully recycled. Purchasing low-powered and durable appliances, installing solar panels on roofs, and growing trees and food on the land will go a long way to addressing the climate problem. The choice of products and services used by consumers is the powerful motivator for businesses to find the right products and services.
These two approaches should be sufficient to solve the economic issue relating to global warming if everyone in the world do the same thing as well.
But if there are any restrictions or slowing down of this process, including efforts by governments or businesses to force consumers to pay for products that are not changing and improving the health of the environment as well as other nations still focussed on making a profit, more drastic action is required.
Is it time to apply a more drastic approach to saving the environment?
It appears the above approach is not drastic enough. The environment has been damaged too much. Have we already reached the point where more drastic action is needed now?
Prior to this moment in human history, whatever improvements that were taking place in business and the incentives from governments to move everyone in the right direction proved to be insufficient to save the environment in many parts of the world. Furthermore, not enough nations were onboard with the idea of fixing up the natural environment and getting it to do the job of controlling the carbon dioxide levels for temperatures to remain low enough to prevent massive bursts of methane from coming out of the oceans and permafrosts on land. What we are seeing, and confirmed by independent scientists, is that thousands of species are already disappearing forever thanks to humans unquestionable ability to perform their non-recycling activities on the land and in the oceans, resulting in the raising of world temperatures. As the planet warms up, all living things, including plants (and most humans who are not rich), will experience greater stress from those businesses and individuals involved in extensive land clearing for agriculture and housing developments, expanding human populations (mainly to support the economy and provide more customers for businesses to make a profit, and more voters for governments), depletion of fish stocks to feed the human population, a dying Great Barrier Reef from warmer waters and higher global temperatures, fewer animal and plant species, and rising sea levels.
Among the consequences of these environmental changes are an increase in the number of people starving in third world countries where conditions are drying up due to land clearing, poor knowledge in sustainable farming and rebuilding the natural environment, and climate change. In other parts of the world (primarily in Europe), flooding is usually more significant (before eventually drying out) resulting in massive landslides should fewer trees and shrubs be present to take up the water and keep the soil together. And in return for this we allow a small percentage of people to get rich from these changes as they develop the land for housing or other human activity and later sell it to people, control and monopolise food production etc. And now the United Nations with its completed 2005 Millennium vc Ecosystem Assessment report and the latest IPCC report of April 2007 has provided the most compelling evidence yet for the environmental degradation in virtually all the critical areas needed to sustain life on this planet, including human life.
Do we need more evidence to show we must act now to preserve the environment? The evidence should already be clear (unless you are living in a green and leafy man-made suburban environment for the rich and powerful). It is vital we all look after the environment, and to do it now. Without the environment we would have no economy. And no economy means people will be sent back to the stone age (if they do not become extinct through war, diseases, starvation etc.).
It would be hard to find a rational and sensible scientist anywhere in the world foolish enough to declare openly that there is no such thing as environmental degradation (as well as global warming), unless he/she is being paid heavily by R-wing governments to say the opposite (understandable given the alluring power of the economy to make people rich, almost like it is a drug for the rich which they cannot go cold turkey at any time through any sensible environmental advice).
Unfortunately, if we are going to solve the environmental problems, people must learn to wean off the drug of money. The environment can no longer afford maintaining an old-style of an economic system focused on pure profit. Money is not the solution. It is the creativity of people working to improve the environment and provide fully recyclable products that will be solution to all world problems.
Why we have come to this point
It comes down to the climate deniers, the environmental degradation deniers, and anyone else supporting the old economic system for the sake of profit. Sure, in the 1990s, people would have conveniently put down the environmental degradation to temporary natural climate changes (e.g. volcanoes). At the beginning of the early 21st century we still had a substantial group of people supported by certain governments, businesses and R-wing people thinking the changes are due to natural mechanisms, while a bigger group argued it is triggered by unsustainable human practices. Now, after 2012, what was previously debatable is now unquestionable: humans are having a significant impact on the environment in ways we are only beginning to realise the consequences.
Now the biggest concern of all is the expected bursts of methane ice coming out of the oceans and permafrosts regions such as Siberia. We have no idea how much worse the situation will get. And when it happens, it could be too late.
No doubt the Earth will do its best to balance this through a massive rise in the ocean levels (probably exceeding 70 metres for any massive bursts in methane into the atmosphere) over a very long time scale (we are talking about thousands of years). Eventually sea levels will drop if we are lucky to be around by then. In the meantime, we can only hope for a miracle at this stage for enough methane to be kept locked away into its hydrate ice structure under sufficient pressure and low temperatures deep beneath the oceans (and somehow the methane will not emerge from the permafrosts). Otherwise we will have no choice but to go through the process of letting nature handle the unexpected higher global warming trends through its methane emissions thanks to our efforts to warm the planet. Until the methane is restored to pre-21st century levels, the higher temperatures will wreak havoc on the continents of the world with extreme weather and massive extinction to plant and animal life. Humans may survive, but not without extensive use of technology to keep the population cool and grow adequate foods inside massive buildings as the only solution.
Yet we still have a few R-wing people continuing to argue natural causes for climate change.
It is true mountain building in places such as the Himalayas has seen a natural change in climate resulting in drier conditions covering much of the Middle East, the Sahara and parts of the Mediterranean coast of Europe. But in reality, this process has been accelerated by humans cutting down remaining trees, exposing valuable freshwater supplies to the hot sun and wind, and eventually it evaporated and turned the land into a desert. Any chance to restore the land to something resembling a habitable zone has been lost and only technology can provide some hope of bring back what was lost thousands of years ago.
Despite our efforts to blame it on mountain building, there is too much evidence today of other places where the land was too lushes and green for too long in more recent times to consider the degradation to be caused entirely by natural events. Take for instance the Amazon rainforests of Brazil. The loss of trees there is not by natural attrition or purely the act of God. And how can one forget the natural resources in the seas off the Galapagos Islands. Who is fishing in these waters? In these two examples, no mountain building can ever explain the damage taking place here as rainforests get cut back nearly 50 per cent, whereas the waters around the Galapagos Islands is seeing a massive reduction in sea urchins and other marine life, not to mention deformed sharks suddenly swimming around with their fins cut off. And unfortunately fins do not grow back. Sharks are not trees. Losing a fin is like losing a hand, and with no technology to re-grow it back. As for other marine life, there is no signs it is being replenished naturally or by some other means. When we look at these two examples in detail, it is clear it is not due to natural events. We are talking about humans having a significant impact on the natural environment. Whether it is because of profit, or high populations needing to survive, it is clear humans are playing a massive role on the environment.
Since 2008, too many scientists are of the view that humans are responsible for the serious damage we are seeing in the environment. The damage is so serious, it is not clear whether humanity has gone too far and possibly done itself in. If not, we are perilously close to pushing our life support systems to near collapse. Yet incredibly the destruction of the environment continues at an alarming rate as if politicians and the business community think there is nothing to worry about, or are trying to convince the public there are greater issues to worry about such as terrorism (while somehow keeping afloat and moving at full steam ahead the titanic of a beast we call the "economy" even if it has hit a few icebergs along the way, including the big one called global warming).
What is not understood is that terrorism in its current form will pale into insignificance (or will get ten times worse) when we see how without the environment, we would not have enough fresh water supplies and natural foods to keep humans alive. We would effectively starve to death or, more likely, see people fight to survive in a form of terrorism we can only begin to imagine. And if people cannot live in certain places because of rising sea levels and drier regions incapable of growing food and people of other nations are unable to open up their borders to helping these people because of a concern for terrorism, far greater terrorism will come. And that will be true hell on Earth as we have not yet seen (and probably involving nuclear weapons if certain people find ways to access this technology). No law and order will ever control the flood of terrorism (short of World War III and the annihilation of humankind) should humanity destroy the environment. If we do not solve the problems now, this is the kind of future we may have to face.
However, before we ever get to this point, terrorism and other issues has to be seen as secondary issues in the face of our much bigger problem of how to look after our environment. There is still much we can do now to improve the situation and avoid a hellish future. Remember, people can have all the money and power in the world, but destroy the environment and nothing can save humanity. Only looking after the environment can we permanently solve the issue of terrorism and all other world problems. It is as simple as that.
To be safe and certain we are not reaching a critical state of total degradation of our environment and the ultimate extinction of the human race, humans must learn to protect the remaining natural environments, lower human population levels in areas where the environment clearly cannot sustain the numbers, fully recycle all wastes, reduce carbon dioxide emissions by moving from the fossil fuel age to the electromagnetic age where electricity is generated from natural renewable sources (wind, solar etc.), lower the emphasis on making huge short-term profits, provide alternative jobs for people to do (and if necessary relocate and train them) and efforts must be made to create large scale changes to the land to help restore the land to its former glory where it can affect climate change on a global scale once more for the better (not for the worse) such as re-establishing large inland seas, planting vast amounts of trees and undergrowth and much more.
For example, the very hot dry winds coming out of the deserts of central Australia during the hottest summer months have the destructive ability to dry out plants and make bushfires more intense and dangerous to control. All it takes is an isolated electrical thunderstorm to start a fire through lightning, and the fire can quickly move across the land, destroying everything in its path. However, if Australia could re-establish a large shallow inland sea in the centre of the continent, the wind will carry moisture to south-eastern Australia. When it rains, mainly in the Blue Mountains, the rivers flowing west will be replenished. Rural communities trying to establish new environmental corridors can utilise the water from the rivers to keep the trees and bushes lushes and healthy and so doing their bit to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for the global community. And all the while, an abundance of food can be grown in these moist and cooler conditions.
This is the kind of grand scale thinking people must make if we are to save the environment and ultimately the economy from facing irreversible collapse.
This is the time when society must truly support people on the land. We need to help them rebuild the environment to its original and pristine state and so help control global warming while food is produced. And if they are paid well (not always in monetary terms, but through free food, water, housing, certain tools we can own, and extra time to do other things), it might even encourage other people from the cities to move to the countryside to do their bit for the environment in return for certain rewards. Perhaps it is time to start a new system for organizing humans to achieve a clear goal: our survival and the maintenance of life on Earth in general. Who knows? One thing is certain, we cannot afford to wait for a solution to come around, or expect technology to provide all the answers. We must be doing things now, for ourselves and help the natural recycling systems to do their work for us for free. We need to do this now or else the entire population will have to be mobilised to perform important tasks to improve and protect the environment if there is a risk the environment cannot rebuild itself given any amount of time because of our actions. Either that, or we all join the next world war and destroy ourselves, which would be the next best thing for the environment given the way things are going at the moment.
Maybe we can avoid the latter approach by enticing people to see the value of looking after the environment. Perhaps one of the things to entice people to do the right thing is the idea of eating chocolate.
Could the loss of Cacao plants through out the world and the risk of more expensive chocolate in the future be enough of a catalyst for people to combat global warming?
Do you like eating chocolate? Can you ever see yourself living without a bit of chocolate in your life should it disappear from the supermarket shelves? Well, that could be the reality very soon as global warming kicks in and raises world temperatures.
A Business Insider reports the likely disappearance of the cacao plants by 2050 should the trend in global warming continue on its expected trajectory. It is enough of a concern to see business leaders involved in producing chocolate products fund scientists at the University of California–Berkeley to find ways to genetically toughen up the cacao plants to help better handle warmer and drier conditions. One of the businesses showing greatest concern (after realising profits are expected to go down in the next 30 years) is Mars, Inc. The makers of Snickers and M&Ms is working with the scientists toward a long-term solution.
Caceo plants are particularly sensitive to variations in temperature and loss of moisture in the ground. They only grow within a 20 degree band north and south of the equator in rainforest conditions. Should rainfall amounts reduce and temperatures rise, the cacao plants struggle to survive. Should the conditions get dry and hot enough, the plants cease to exist on the planet. As the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration stated, the planets need rainforest-like conditions, or "fairly uniform temperatures, high humidity, abundant rain, nitrogen-rich soil, and protection from wind."
Realising its profits are on the rocks, Barry Parkin, Mars' chief sustainability officer, said the company was "trying to go all in" in its efforts to support sustainability and combat climate change. As Parkin put it:
"There are obviously commitments the world is leaning into but, frankly, we don't think we're getting there fast enough collectively."
On a more global scale, the prospect of people losing their favourite sweet could be enough to see much greater changes worldwide in controlling world temperatures.
Will it be enough to see a worldwide movement towards curbing global warming? We will soon see.
How do we rebuild the environment?
Now that we are at the crossroads, humans have a choice. Either follow the R-wing pessimistic view that as populations expand and more males get themselves into a position of power and wealth and doing all they can to retain that power and wealth, controlling the populations from demonstrations against the authorities, showing off how big their dick might be by threatening other nations of a nuclear war. and enjoying what is available by way of remaining resources and luxuries, only to see our civilisation collapse and become extinct once we destroy the environment, or else we can head towards a more L-wing/centralist creative and compassionate solution. For a clue on the latter approach, we only need to make it a priority to rebuild the environment.
If we need any inspiration on this aspect, we should listen to pioneer land restoration expert Peter Andrews. Formerly a racehorse breeder, Mr Andrews is credited in Australia with the success of converting highly degraded, salt-ravaged land into fertile drought-resistant pastures. His tried and tested approach developed through experience in running his own property at Tarwyn Park in the upper Hunter River catchment area has put him at odds with the Australian authorities and was once ridiculed by others in his local community thinking he had gone bonkers. But now leading politicians, international scientists and businesspeople are seriously listening to his approach.
His technique, known as natural sequence farming is simple. Yet it has been proven to be highly effectively and successful in transforming formerly degraded land into fertile pastures within a matter of 5 to 10 years. Already scientists from the CSIRO have been looking at his results (so long as they are not locked into any economically-driven research or strategy that the Australian government wants to adopt or move towards, such as genetic engineering).
Mr Andrews' technique is essentially as follows:
- To control erosion by slowing down the speed of the water flow during floods using logs, rocks or anything by way of an obstacle;
- To spread the water out into flat pastures to help remove salt and, together with the soil, provide a solid foundation for growing plants;
- To let weeds provide the initial ground cover as a crucial step to stopping excess water evaporation;
- To plant native grasslands, bushes and trees that will eventually compete and reduce the number of weeds in the long term;
- To occasionally cut the native grasslands as a source of natural fertiliser and mulch to help provide additional organic matter (or higher carbon content) in the soil,
and the microbes will do its job of improving the fertile quality of the soil.
The result is a more drought and bushfire tolerant environment and productivity increasing at least tenfold from a once desert-like environment.
The most critical steps in Mr Andrew's technique are:
- stopping further erosion by going upstream of the river or creek and reducing the speed of the flow of water (especially during floods) and spread the water out over as much flat areas as possible (by re-shaping the land and/or placing logs in the way of the flow); and
- letting the plants provide the necessary cover to help reduce water evaporation. Later other plants will grow through and compete with the unwanted plants (or weeds) to provide a much more productive and healthier natural environment to do its job of either growing foods and/or taking out carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and controlling the climate.
By doing these two critical things, any desert-like environment can become green again.
This has to be the lowest-cost solution available to us in restoring the land to its former natural beauty. It is the only way to return the capacity of the land to full natural food growing conditions and in abundance and health when it is an issue of survival for all life on Earth. Neither can we allow major companies such as Monsanto to stop people from keeping and planting heritage seeds and any seed that can grow again and again. All plants must be able to reproduce naturally and with assistance from the insect and rest of the animal kingdom. Otherwise society will need to spend megabucks in phosphate fertilizers from companies to get anywhere near the same fertile land and later farmers exploit the land for profit. And this does not include the vast amounts of money needed to build the technology to extract freshwater from the oceans and distribute it to begin this process properly. Or else farmers have to move to locations where rainfall is more plentiful (leaving behind a desert-like environment), which seems to be the recommendation by the Australian government.
However, if we stick to the same plot of land and apply the above technique to restoring the land to its pristine condition, we have a chance to contributing to a much greater reduction in carbon emissions into the atmosphere so long as adequate fresh water supplies are retained on the land.
Forget about the Kyoto Protocol in getting businesses and governments to do the right thing. It began in 1997 and finally came into force on 16 February 2005, but yet many major polluters of the world are continuing to "fart" around with their economic emissions and still choose not to fully ratify the protocol for various reasons. Why? Economics and making money is too great of an allure to ignore, and the benefits of being rich are too much to forego. There are enough humans who are too obsessed by power and greed and there seems to be little we can do other than start a worldwide revolution by ordinary citizens for a new world order to commence.
Yet somehow the change must begin. We cannot afford to continue going the way we are at the moment. It will have to start by ordinary citizens on the ground, especially in developed nations. This is not something we should let politicians and businesspeople argue until the cows come home. We do not have time to muck around here. Somehow we must find a way to encourage the cows to come home much quicker, and one way to do it is to provide the green pastures right now. If you do not provide the incentives and rewards to fix the environment now, the required outcomes for a positive and guaranteed future for all humankind will unlikely ever be reached.
Seriously, the work we do for the environment should not be a question of money; it is a question of survival. Our effort should be provided free to ensure we have healthy air to breathe, and enjoy fresh food on the table everyday. We must be grateful for the simple things such as natural and wholesome foods this planet produces for us. This is our reward. And it should be low-cost or free to everyone. Certainly free for those who work the land and contribute to rebuilding the environment. A free home of your own as well. And you return the favour with your time to managing the land and taking care of the plants and ensuring their full productivity. That is all we should require of anyone to protect the environment. Bu efficient and creative in achieving the work, and you will have more free time. Another reward for those working on the land, Everyone else in the economy can pay for it. But at least they will see the benefits in terms of much lower prices and of greater health benefits for the basic commodities they have come to enjoy in the cities.
As for those individuals in the business community willing to sell anything without replacing or restoring the resources and ensuring wastes are properly recycled, they will need to reconsider their purpose in society. If they don't, they will collapse as consumers make the decision with their pockets of what is important. For example, people will choose long-term sustainable (or ethical) investment choices, and not just purchase certain products and/or services. This means choosing businesses that take an ethical stand on looking after society and the environment. Why? Because it isn't just the ability of businesses to sell any product it wants in great numbers which matters, it is also the cost of paying legal compensation for the damage businesses do to society and the environment, not to mention the likelihood of public hostility towards those businesses that are not sustainable.
As Margaret Mead said:
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has." (8)
Otherwise we will have to look closely at our desire to be rich and selfish through our wants. For example, do we really need to have three cars per family, and a similar number of televisions and air conditioners in every room of the house? And do homes need to be built as big as an apartment block?
Dr Joe Baker, awarded a prestigious Clunies Ross Lifetime Achievement award for his pioneering work on marine pharmacology and his lifetime contribution to environmental sustainability and preserving national heritage listed areas, said on 29 April 2005 in Melbourne:
"I think we are using too much space and energy in our lives. We're losing the ability to distinguish between our wants and our needs.
We are becoming very selfish and need to stop and think about the habits we've developed as a convenience society." (Beeby, Rosslyn. Rare honour for former Canberra scientist: The Canberra Times. 30 April 2005, p.3.)
It is true. As responsible citizens on this planet, we must curb our desire to have what we want. Or else the consequences would be far too devastating for us to contemplate should we choose to continue sticking to the current ways of doing things. Who knows? More people may struggle to survive and soon leaders of these people will appear and use any weapon to get what they need and want.
If wars do not kill us, then diseases and famine will as the natural ecosystems collapse under the weight of our stupidity and greed.
Actually we may not have much time before something irretrievably breaks in the natural environment and humanity and the rest of life on Earth (except perhaps for the insects) may be the ones to face certain extinction (and don't think for a moment our technology will save us).
Are we willing to sit back and let our environment go down the proverbial toilet as we get richer? Or must we start an environmental revolution on par with the French revolution to wake up leaders to the reality of our predicament today?
The choice is up to you to make.