I don't normally blog about this kind of political stuff but those of you who know me well will also know that short of becoming a tree-hugging hippie I'm fairly passionate about climate change and other environmental issues. Recently I've been wracking my brains about how I can make a positive change to the world, trying to figure out what needs to be done to slow down the race towards higher global temperatures and sea-level rises that seems to be occurring for the sake of an easy life and fast cars. I figured that there are two things that need to happen.
Firstly, the general population needs to be educated. And not just about the doom and gloom statistics of coastal areas being underwater in one hundred years, crops failing due to dought and plagues of disease-ridden insects converging upon our happy homes. People need to know that it can be okay. They need to know the best and worst case scenarios and what positive action they can take to ensure we head towards the best-case rather than the worst.
Secondly, governments need to take action. They need to implement policies, introduce taxes, ensure that the costs of making positive environmental changes outweigh those of doing nothing. The Australian government hasn't done much in this respect so far and that is probably because they aren't pressured to do so by the public, which could be because the public doesn't fully understand climate change, or if they do, they feel overwhelmed and that there is nothing they can do about it.
Which is why I was really pleased to see one of Australia's top environmental scientists (I was getting ready for work so I actually missed who it was) on DumbRise this morning presenting a piece on Climate Change for Dummies. From what I could gather (whilst flitting through the living room with my toothbrush in my mouth) it was real basic stuff, such as what is a greenhouse gas and how does a greenhouse gas contribute to global warming, but this is great stuff, because this is the kind of TV show that the majority of the population watches, and these are the people that can make a change, the people that have a car for every person in their household, people that drive their huge fuel-guzzling 4WD round the corner to the newsagent, people who get a fleet of plastic carrier bags in the supermarket and then throw them all away when they get home, people that drive their kids to school, leave the TV on all day and lights on all night, people who can make very minor changes in their lives and together make a difference to the future of the world. Let's hope this is the beginning of something.
By the way, for those of you that don't know DumbRise is my "pet" name for Sunrise, a morning TV show a little bit like TVAM, or Good Morning Britain or whatever the ITV show is called now, but not as good. And that's the best morning TV show I can find on Australian terrestial TV. There is no equivalent of the BBC News Breakfast Show and it's been driving me crazy for the past few years. Hence the rather cruel nickname.
The Possibility of Slowing Down
1 week ago
5 comments:
I think it depends on the kind of gas you're talking about - let's face it, in general gas is better out than in. Unfortunately as yet there seems to be no way of getting out of the atmosphere once it's in there. I think the world is becoming somewhat bloated. And you know what that can lead to...
Oh yeh, and watching Ab Fab last night reminded me that the ITV morning show is called GMTV. I've obviously been away from UK too long. Not that I ever watched it when I was there.
We have got truckloads of uranium here - why sell it, when we could use it in nuclear power plants. Australia currently produces 78% of its electricity from coal. The Australian Coal association reckons Australia has very clean coal... anyone who has played with a lump of Australian coal will know that it is not clean :-) So all we need is Montgomery Burns to come and build a plant or 2 (and a Homer or 2 to run em)
I could never understand why Australia didn't have more nuclear power - or any for that matter. But it seems that nuclear does not mean nuclean. According to Greenpeace nuclear power is risky at every stage of development and is not clean or safe. And it's expensive, even more so than wind power. They say that the only solution lies in renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power.
There is a paper to this effect which can be downloaded at http://www.melbourne.foe.org.au/documents.htm
Haven't read it but it looks quite interesting.
And Dan, I think the human race is turning out to be a very bad tennant but let's hope we don't end up with an empty house in that respect or that would be no fun.
Although, of course, a few less people might be nice.
Someone get me off my bloody soap box now. See, this is why I don't blog about political or environmental issues!
Of course asking Greenpeace about nuclear power is a bit like asking them if whalemeat is a tasty treat... (or Microsoft about Linux).
Of course we all know that Global Warming is just a theory and hasn't been proven yet...
(What me winding you up??? ...never!) :-)
oh and gas... well if we (and all the other animals in the world) were able to keep all the gas in then that would likely lower the greenhouse gas emissions substanstially.
Not to mention the rainforest plants, what with all that methane they're producing (I never knew plants could fart).
Incidentally, I wonder how much greenhouse gas is produced by that whaler-bashing ship of Greenpeace's.
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