It’s not one of the greatest days God has created but one gets the feeling that such decisions may not be left in His hands anymore. It’s gloomy and squally and the rain has begun to fall in a steady pattern as I write.
Wild weather has reigned across the country all summer, fires floods, heavy weather of all kinds and it is not hard to reconcile the facts of the matter with what climate scientists have been telling us for a while now; increasingly intensive weather patterns will be a more regular occurrence due to the effects of global warming.
I was always a global warming sceptic. For years I sided with the wack jobs and the unqualified, self appointed weather “experts” who would have you believe that the rising average temperatures which were being seen year after year were nothing more than the natural adjustment to the climate which has been the pattern since this rock was formed. Now I still believe some of this is true. The average temperature has gone up and down through the ages and it is to be expected. But real climate scientists, the folk whose job it is and spend a lifetime studying the weather patterns have been saying for a long time now that we have to change our ways and while some are certainly listening, many are not or have switched off from their previously positive views of what these experts have to say.
I suppose my own view was first altered by an informative article which was written a few years ago which stated that climate sceptics, much like moon landing conspiracy theorists are for the most part, not even experts in the field they are talking about. Of course this isn’t the case for all sceptics but the fact of the matter is that the scientists who do study these things are in the majority when they say the weather is changing and the human footprint on this fragile planet is causing it.
My feelings were also assuaged by the fact that the weather in Australia has been decidedly off key for a number of years now, what with massive bushfires burning every summer, flooding in Queensland for the fifth time in as many years, it really does make you think that things are changing for the worse. Of course there have always been bushfires in Australia and floods are far from infrequent but the unusual intensity of these weather patterns is certainly food for thought. Much of what the “real” climate scientists have been telling us will occur for years now is appearing in bold, stark reality, right before our very eyes.
It is amazing to me that on the verge of a change of government, the man who is likely to be the next Prime Minister of this nation is running a very strong campaign to abolish the recently established “carbon tax’, which of course is the first step in creating an emissions trading scheme and is already and established practice in Europe. China has also just announced the introduction of a Carbon Tax. Yet in Australia we appear to be going backwards.
Of course a carbon tax will not solve the problems associated with global warming but to paraphrase a famous Chinese proverb, “A journey of 1000 miles must start with a single step”. A reverse in the trends we are seeing will take decades but we must start somewhere. Political capital should not be spent destroying something for the sake of being elected. We have been lead down that path way too often. Alas, I fear the same will happen again with the carbon tax.
We are too reliant in this world on those who make money off others and unfortunately that will never change. Those movers and shakers who control the lives of the rest of us through bending fortune to their own will shall always lord it over the rest of us. The sad fact is that we are killing the planet, our home and we need to do something about it.
Concern about the environment is not a new phenomena. I can remember as a boy those who would rail against the pollution caused by factories and such and this may have been the first realisation for many people that the way we live is, in the long term, unsustainable. Even if you don’t believe in global warming, surely a level headed person would have to agree that pumping noxious gases into the atmosphere minute after minute, day after day, year after year can’t possibly be good for the earth.
Where will it end? Who knows and it is likely I won’t be around to see the worst of it for which I am thankful. But for those who follow me on this fragile biosphere, I can only hope that enlightened leadership, better than that which is transposed upon us now, will evolve and we will be on our way to giving this earth, of which we are the guardians, every chance it needs to thrive and prosper until the end of days.
Wild weather has reigned across the country all summer, fires floods, heavy weather of all kinds and it is not hard to reconcile the facts of the matter with what climate scientists have been telling us for a while now; increasingly intensive weather patterns will be a more regular occurrence due to the effects of global warming.
I was always a global warming sceptic. For years I sided with the wack jobs and the unqualified, self appointed weather “experts” who would have you believe that the rising average temperatures which were being seen year after year were nothing more than the natural adjustment to the climate which has been the pattern since this rock was formed. Now I still believe some of this is true. The average temperature has gone up and down through the ages and it is to be expected. But real climate scientists, the folk whose job it is and spend a lifetime studying the weather patterns have been saying for a long time now that we have to change our ways and while some are certainly listening, many are not or have switched off from their previously positive views of what these experts have to say.
I suppose my own view was first altered by an informative article which was written a few years ago which stated that climate sceptics, much like moon landing conspiracy theorists are for the most part, not even experts in the field they are talking about. Of course this isn’t the case for all sceptics but the fact of the matter is that the scientists who do study these things are in the majority when they say the weather is changing and the human footprint on this fragile planet is causing it.
My feelings were also assuaged by the fact that the weather in Australia has been decidedly off key for a number of years now, what with massive bushfires burning every summer, flooding in Queensland for the fifth time in as many years, it really does make you think that things are changing for the worse. Of course there have always been bushfires in Australia and floods are far from infrequent but the unusual intensity of these weather patterns is certainly food for thought. Much of what the “real” climate scientists have been telling us will occur for years now is appearing in bold, stark reality, right before our very eyes.
It is amazing to me that on the verge of a change of government, the man who is likely to be the next Prime Minister of this nation is running a very strong campaign to abolish the recently established “carbon tax’, which of course is the first step in creating an emissions trading scheme and is already and established practice in Europe. China has also just announced the introduction of a Carbon Tax. Yet in Australia we appear to be going backwards.
Of course a carbon tax will not solve the problems associated with global warming but to paraphrase a famous Chinese proverb, “A journey of 1000 miles must start with a single step”. A reverse in the trends we are seeing will take decades but we must start somewhere. Political capital should not be spent destroying something for the sake of being elected. We have been lead down that path way too often. Alas, I fear the same will happen again with the carbon tax.
We are too reliant in this world on those who make money off others and unfortunately that will never change. Those movers and shakers who control the lives of the rest of us through bending fortune to their own will shall always lord it over the rest of us. The sad fact is that we are killing the planet, our home and we need to do something about it.
Concern about the environment is not a new phenomena. I can remember as a boy those who would rail against the pollution caused by factories and such and this may have been the first realisation for many people that the way we live is, in the long term, unsustainable. Even if you don’t believe in global warming, surely a level headed person would have to agree that pumping noxious gases into the atmosphere minute after minute, day after day, year after year can’t possibly be good for the earth.
Where will it end? Who knows and it is likely I won’t be around to see the worst of it for which I am thankful. But for those who follow me on this fragile biosphere, I can only hope that enlightened leadership, better than that which is transposed upon us now, will evolve and we will be on our way to giving this earth, of which we are the guardians, every chance it needs to thrive and prosper until the end of days.
Strange Notations From a Laborious Life 