“And the ice will refreeze”
So quipped George Megalogensis on the ABC’s Insiders the day after an Abbott government was elected.
In The Weekend Australian [7-8SEP13] Chris Kenny reprised his days as a Liberal staffer when Abbott and Minchin decided to make changes to Turnbull’s climate policy.
The result of that was Abbott elected leader by 1 vote and the Liberals began to cleverly deny the climate science with a policy that ensures global heating will be worse.
In the same article Kenny uses some of that sophistry to make much of the supposed plateauing of temperature increases.
He fails to note that average glacier thickness is declining. Between 1960 and 2005 some 14 metres was lost.
Three separate studies identify where the heat is going. 93.4% is being sunk into the oceans.
The Tasmanian climate is like that of many islands, maritime. That is it is governed by the ocean.
Some Tasmanians may have noticed the warm autumn and winter and the early spring.
Like the ice melting nothing will stop the oceans warming. The heat absorbed by the ocean is beginning to enter deeper layers.
That ocean heat is the main driver of ice melt in Antarctica. Much of Antarctica’s land is currently below sea level exposing large areas to the impact of warmer water. That is recognized as a major driver of the collapse of West Antarctic Ice Shelves and now the major glacier system of Pine Island Thwaites glacier complex.
In this election people voted without considering the science, the impacts of the physical and chemical changes wrought by the CO2 added to the atmosphere, not that they were assisted by any factual analysis from the Murdoch press.
However, when will did they consider the science when deciding their vote?.
Currently the climate instability and associated impacts are driven by the emissions made 3 to 4 decades ago.
About as much heating value again is in place now; unavoidable and inevitable.
At what point in this period will those who are in denial change or die?.
Will it be simply the evidence, the impact of climate-related disasters or that the Liberals become completely dated; leaving the Australian economy a relic in a world of sustainable energy and new products.
Currently many micro parties have emerged and without change to the electoral system we are likely to see them remain.
Whilst their suite of issues don’t include addressing global heating they could deal away the opportunities.
And of course there is the electorate who put the issue of an underpinning stable climate at the back of their mind whilst they consider their job prospects or education and health, unable to see that they are inseparably interlinked.
There seems little doubt that many unique environments along with lower income Australians will have to suffer before the electorate in the lucky country realizes that what they have to do needs to be done but that the opportunity to do that at a lower cost has passed.
Strange, because the cost of the emissions trading scheme is low and gives the best opportunity for a low cost solution.
phill Parsons believes it will have to get much worse before the fat and happy of the Lucky country awaken. They will look for someone to blame.
