And So They All Lived Unhappily Ever After, Just As The Scientists Had Predicted They Would

[hatrack]

EDIT

As Australia recovers from the events of last week, we face a future of increasing average temperatures and more severe extreme events: heatwaves, bushfires, cyclones, floods. It is getting harder to accept the obfuscation and delaying tactics of the fossil fuel interests and their supporters. Some are still saying they doubt the science, even though it has been correctly predicting what would happen for 25 years.

It is a question of risk. Even if we thought there was still some doubt about the science, how much should we be prepared to gamble on the hope that it might be wrong? Nobody would get into a car if they knew there was a 90 per cent chance its brakes or steering would fail and risk their life. Few would be prepared to accept a 10 per cent chance. Even the prime minister warned people in Tasmania of the likely consequences of failing to take concerted action to slow climate change. But we don't yet have a policy response that reflects the urgency of the situation.

We now have a modest price on releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, but it should be increased to a level that would drive investment into clean energy supply technologies. We have a target of getting 20 per cent of our electricity from renewables by 2020, but we could do much more with policies to support solar and wind energy. We aim to reduce our national greenhouse gas pollution by a totally inadequate 5 per cent by 2020, whereas we should have a target that reflects the urgency of the situation. We are still exporting hundreds of millions of tonnes of coal and planning to open new large export coal mines, as if we just didn't know that the coal will be burnt and accelerate climate change. A visitor from another galaxy would conclude that we just did not understand the risks we are taking, as if we were all too stupid to have listened to our best atmospheric scientists.

We are now on the UN Security Council, an opportunity to influence global events. As well as getting our own house in order, we should be urging the world to respond. We face a bleak future otherwise.

EDIT

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/its-happening--just-like-climate-scientists-said-it-would-20130113-2cnej.html

[drm604]

1. K&R

[fasttense]

2. I fear our world will NOT act to save itself

until it is too late.

[closeupready]

11. I share that fear and pessimism.

Look at the Civil War or, maybe a better analogy is, Easter Island.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

3. very sadly KnR'ed. n/t

[hobbit709]

4. the people of Rapa Nui didn't stop cutting down their trees until none were left.

[KurtNYC]

5. It is too late to stop Global Warming. All we can do now is try to live with it.

One super hurricane every year will become 2 and then 5 and then perhaps just hurricane after hurricane.

We are living with the effects of Global warming right now: lyme disease, droughts, crop failures, extinctions, oil wars, rising sea levels, fracking, cloud seeding, short winters, non-existent Spring, baking summers and huge flu pandemic this year.

It really doesn't matter at all what Rush Limbaugh says or how many Americans don't believe in it, etc. It is here. We waited too long and we did almost nothing. It is like people arguing on the deck of the Titanic (for years) instead of just getting into the lifeboats.

[WinkyDink]

8. Don't forget non-existent winter in the NE.

[Dustlawyer]

6. When the ocean's salinity and acid levels get to the point of killing the phytoplankton, it's game

over. That is where the world's oxygen comes from. We will get to that point sooner than we will come close to running out of fossil fuels!

[WinkyDink]

9. Billionaires think they will just buy a ticket to Mars. Not joking.

"2012" (the movie) depicted their thinking.

[WinkyDink]

7. And yet, many adults will claim to want the best future for the younger generations.

[Uncle Joe]

10. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, hatrack.

[AtheistCrusader]

12. The gig was up 10+ years ago when they let it slip the pentagon was planning for

such events.

Reports even older than this one. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0222-01.htm

[riverbendviewgal]

13. just read that Greece could have a gold mining boom but at the price of the environment.

On NYT under World. I am on my tablet and don't know how to copy and paste the link. It is today's edition.

[ybbor]

14. Move along, nothing to see here...

sarcasm

[mountain grammy]

15. God gave us the sun and wind; energy without side effects!

gas, coal and oil come from underground, satan's energy with plenty of side effects; I know this sounds nuts, but if you think about it, seems like "intelligent design" to me.

[stuntcat]

16. yah.

I'm a pretty strong atheist (mostly thanks to humans' Earth-rape) but this is true. What we are digging from the depths and burning up is turning our little green slice of life into a true Hell.

[alterfurz]

17. "We'll keep doing what we do until we can't...

...and then we won't." -- social critic/global doomsayer James Kunstler