World must face the truth on Climate Change
As the world discusses mitigating climate change at the UN climate conference in Cancun, starting today, what is really needed is for the world to face the truth, which may then foster our capacity to act……
Do we have the mindset to save the planet? UN Climate Change Conference In Cancun, The Age Lyn Bender, November 29, 2010 Where were you when you first realised that climate change was happening? Were you caught up in the horror of the worst bushfires in Victoria’s history on Black Saturday 2009?
Or moved by images of distraught parents in the aftermath of record monsoons that had flooded Pakistan? Or did you know sooner when Hurricane Katrina submerged 80 per cent of New Orleans? ……..As the world discusses mitigating climate change at the UN climate conference in Cancun, starting today, what is really needed is for the world to face the truth, which may then foster our capacity to act……
Avoidance is a response summoned to defend against reality. It takes a lifetime to grasp mortality. The death of the planet leaving a dead legacy to future generations is inconceivable. Perhaps that is why concern about climate change has waned since 2007.
The 2010 Lowy Institute report says that the priority that Australians give to tackling climate change is at its lowest since the question was first asked in 2007. Now, 53 per cent of respondents said it was very important, down from 75 per cent in 2007. A large majority (72 per cent) agreed Australia should act to reduce emissions even before a global agreement is reached. A majority were prepared to pay $10 or less to solve the climate change problem and 25 per cent were not prepared to pay anything at all…….
2007 was the year in which a tsunami wave of concern swept the climate sceptical party from many of its seats and installed the Rudd government — on a promise of attention to “the greatest moral challenge of our time”. Three years later no constructive action or plan is in place in Australia.
How can this be when there are truckloads of evidence regarding our imperilled planet? Without radical remedies Earth is on a path to becoming uninhabitable or hostile for most species other than, ironically, jellyfish and cockroaches.
It can be difficult to imagine a different way of life. Eventually we change either because disaster strikes or we cannot dispute the facts any longer. Former US vice-president Al Gore states we risk moving from denial to despair. We mourn, rage, plead, panic and bargain; with God or science. We seek Faustian pacts with risky technological solutions, such as geo-engineering a cloud of sulphur dioxide. We propose nuclear energy, with its unresolved waste solution. We promote “clean coal” and cling to the burn, bury, extract, grow and consume paradigm. But of necessity we must reduce emissions and ultimately adapt to a new model of sustainable, renewable life on Earth….
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1.This month.
The Road to War brings a sharp focus to why it is not in Australia’s best interest to be dragged into a war with China which will almost inevitably go nuclear very quickly. The filmmaker has interviewed some of Australia’s senior foreign policy analysts who have vast experience behind them in analysing what really is going on here as the United States rattles its sabres with China. And sets us up to be its proxy, like the poor Ukranians have been fed into the Meatgrinder. So America can remain the Top Dog. The Road to War reveals how the United States through its spy base at Pine Gap and by stationing six nuclear capable B52 bombers in the Top End (without permission from the traditional owners) is making Australia a prime nuclear target if the current war of words suddenly melts down into full scale war.
The Road to War shows the implicit connection between Carbon emissions (the US military uses a whopping 70% of America’s annual petroleum to move its armies and vast War Machine around the globe to its 800+ military bases..but under a loophole wangled at Kyoto, the US military does not have to report its C02 annual emissions). The Road to War starts screening at selected cities and regional centres in March. See the trailer end for details.
Antinuclear 
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