Burning issue
IF you are anything like me then we are both completely flummoxed, befuddled, bewildered, confused and probably even over it.
I’m talking about global warming and whether it is a fact or whether we are merely panicking over what may well be a thousand year or so cycle that we are yet to recognise.
The Coalition parties definitely seem to think it’s all just a hoax and only this week they declined to enshrine the Paris Agreement carbon reduction targets in legislation. They have also reinforced their commitment to coal for the next few decades. Many in the government ranks are also in favour of reducing subsidies for renewable energy.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in a report released on Monday demands nations phase out all coal-fired power by mid-century and leave most fossil fuel reserves untapped to avoid dangerous global warming.
Australia’s mining industry and the Morrison Government have rejected the notion, saying our coal is low emission coal.
Who’d have thought that, low emission coal, surely they jest?
In fairness to the Coalition I’m not too sure whether Labor or the Greens have any substantial thoughts on the matter either.
If you tap “global warming” into Google it will take you to 24.8 million articles and a further six million purporting to tell you the facts.
Well I am going to put my hand up and confess that it’s all too confusing and I just can’t get my head around the debate.
Having said that, do the facts actually matter? And should we even bother to consider if we are being subjected to the biggest propaganda campaign since Dr Joseph Goebbels tried to convince everyone that Adolf was a really nice sort of guy who meant well.
My research has left me with brain overload. My eyes glaze over whenever global warming is mentioned.
I have reached what I think is a reasonable stance on the subject: can it possibly do any harm for the human race to try to be more environmentally considerate?
What exactly is the downside of us polluting the atmosphere less, leaving forests standing, running cars on some sort of biofuel or electricity, low energy light bulbs, no plastic bags, recycling without using high temperature incinerators or investing in solar, wind, geothermal or any other renewable sort of power.
To me, all these seem to be admirable for our future.
If we talk about power alone, long-term renewable energy, it — after the initial capital investment — will always be more readily available, cheaper and with less impact on the world than any finite fuel source.
So bugger it, I suppose I’ll now have to call myself a “Greenie,” although I’m not sure that I’m at all comfortable with the thought. I do have problems with the Greens: Wind farms I say, the Greens say no way, too much noise and visual pollution.
I think, well what if we put them in the sea and before you can say compromise some Greenie accuses me of killing the “lesser spotted Siamese dugong” known to visit the area once every 378 years.
Corangamite Shire councillors last week voted to deny planning permission for the Bookaar Solar Farm, a project that would be the largest of its kind in Australia if realised. Pathetic.
Would they rather one of the Federal Government’s proposed nuclear plants? We need to commit to renewable alternatives and the self interested, touchyfeely sentiments of a few objectors should be taken for what they are — the inability of some to embrace change and people’s innate propensity to say “no” if given the opportunity. We want to see desalination plants, recycled water from Werribee, wind farms up and down the coast, a solar tower at the back of Bannockburn and a Bookaar Solar Farm. We elect governments to make not only day-to-day and year-to-year decisions on our behalf but also I would like to think to invest in our future. The planet, whether warming or not, has undeniable been raped and pillaged, particularly over the past couple of hundred years and it is time to say enough is enough. We want our leaders to invest in the future and commit to something positive. I would suggest renewable energy first and the first step could well be buying every household solar panels for hot water generation. Cost about $12 billion, a mere trifle, compared to the human and planetary cost associated with a lack of commitment. I feel positively evangelical.