The dilemma facing our politicians

David Leigh

Tasmania’s State Premier has suggested that Forestry Tasmania is best placed to determine whether plantation trees are better than nature’s own forests, despite the world’s experts… …What if the scientists are wrong, what if facts are misleading and climate change is not the pressing concern expressed by thousands of informed souls globally? This argument reverberates like a Swiss Yodeller’s song, through the mountains of Tasmania and is used, by our politicians, in support of current forest mismanagement. More importantly Mr Rudd and Mr. Bartlett, what if the Yodellers are wrong and the scientists are right?

ONE wonders what papers David Bartlett is referring to, when he states he has read plantation timber is better for carbon sequestration than native forest. World news has stated that natural forest, especially old growth – a term, which appears to have vanished from our vocabulary – sequester three times the carbon originally contemplated. Tasmania’s State Premier has suggested that Forestry Tasmania is best placed to determine whether plantation trees are better than natures own forests, despite the world’s experts.

A recent BBC study, conducted by Sir David Attenborough, using data from every part of the planet and with the combined processing power of millions of computers, has shown a two-degree Celsius rise in southern hemisphere temperatures by 2020 and a four to six-degree rise in Arctic temperatures over the same period. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/climateexperiment/

The same report shows that by 2050 the arctic circle is expected to rise 10 degrees Celsius, with the Antarctic around 6 degrees. Global mapping shows the expected temperatures throughout the period, country by country.

Whilst this is only one experiment, it does confirm what the IPCC states in its report, that climate change is not a myth and it is happening much faster than originally thought. Why is it then, that Tasmanian politicians are still dwelling in a ‘world is flat mentality’ as the rest of the globe embrace the grim future facing all of us.

Current forestry practices must stop immediately, if any of us are to have a future. It is no longer the case of our children’s inheritance but our own impending doom. Only today, another report shows that 84% of the world’s primate population face extinction, due to deforestation http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7541192.stm mostly from Asia, where wood chipping and clear fell practice have devastated forests.

We can see evidence on TV with the Beijing Olympics. Pollution is out of control in the region and China, according to the report, is one of the worst offenders of deforestation crime. Surely Mr. Bartlett, surely you are not so blinkered, if so one wonders what you are doing running this state.

Kyoto Kevin spruiks daily of what must be done, although not until 2010. That gives us 10 years to avert catastrophe as the polar caps, already in serious decline, vanish and sea levels engulf most of the earth’s habitable land mass.

What if the scientists are wrong, what if facts are misleading and climate change is not the pressing concern expressed by thousands of informed souls globally? This argument reverberates like a Swiss Yodeller’s song, through the mountains of Tasmania and is used, by our politicians, in support of current forest mismanagement.

More importantly Mr Rudd and Mr. Bartlett, what if the Yodellers are wrong and the scientists are right?

David Leigh.