Antinuclear

Climate emergenecy statement published in “The Age” 23 June 2016.

More than 20 prominent Australians have called for emergency-scale action on climate change in an open letter to the new parliament, published in “The Age” on 23 June.

Signatories run across the political spectrum, and include business leaders, scientists, a former Australian of the Year and a Nobel Laureate.

Climate emergency petition

Ian Dunlop, a former Chair of the Australian Coal Association and former CEO of the Australian Institute of Company Directors says:

We are out of time for gradualist policy. We need courage rather than procrastination from our aspiring leaders. Emergency action is a call increasingly being taken up by leading scientists and responsible leaders around the world as extreme events escalate.

The statement reads:

• At the Paris climate talks, scientists and people from low-lying island states set 1.5ºC of warming as a red line that must not be…

Anote Tong, former President of the Republic of Kiribati

Climate change poses the most significant moral challenge to the global community and an existential threat to the future of many communities worldwide. With the projected rise in sea levels by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of up to one metre within the century, the most vulnerable coastal communities and low-lying island states — several of which are in Pacific — face the real possibility of their islands and communities being submerged well within the next hundred years.

Recent events and the experience of the most vulnerable island communities clearly indicate that climate change is already seriously affecting the low-lying island communities in the Pacific. Cyclone Pam, which hit and seriously damaged the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu in March of 2014, also veered north on a path never previously witnessed to hit the islands of Tuvalu and the southern island of the…

Climate change isn’t the only consequence of carbon pollution from fossil fuels. If driving global temperature rise wasn’t enough, increased carbon in our atmosphere is also behind the rapid acidification of our world’s oceans.
But what exactly is ocean acidification? And what does it mean for marine ecosystems and for humans? The answers can be complicated. But before we get into the details, here are some quick facts that show why ocean acidification is a really big deal for our planet – and why we need to keep dirty fossils in the ground:

Ninety-seven percent of the Earth’s water is in the ocean. And the ocean covers more than 70 percent of the planet’s surface.

Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, oceans have absorbed an estimated 525 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The Great Barrier Reef is bleaching rapidly due to climate change and ocean acidification…