Well here we go again. Flying off into the planet-destroying cycle of increased carbon emissions cheered on by the aviation industry.
Jacinda Ardern said it so well when she was defending the NZ Government’s decision to keep borders closed until it was safe. We could so easily do the same in Tasmania. We are vulnerable to imported diseases and viruses. Even without the threat of COVID-19 our border controls have seen threats to our food crops, and our animals. We have been able to resist some, but some have slipped through quarantine. Blueberry rust, for example, has been introduced into the State and put at risk the hope of an organic blueberry industry.
So why are we trotting off to the abattoir of COVID-19 just to keep aircraft in the skies? Read Jacinda’s words again. Tourists used to flock to Tasmania just to remind themselves what has, and is, being lost in other states and other countries. Fresh water, clean air, forests, catching fish in rivers, lakes and the ocean. Food that tastes so good because it is not poisoned to tastelessness. It led Tasmania to an over expansion of tourist resources in the belief that this business plan could last forever.
COVID-19 has shown that this belief is false. It took only a few weeks to stop many occupations completely, and, if we examine what these were, perhaps we get some kind of a hint about what kind of occupations we really need to reduce in size. Aviation has been reduced to a shell of its former self because this was the most vulnerable industry, without considering the danger of flying infection to the airports. Anything transporting people across jurisdictions was also dramatically reduced. Even our government was reduced in size.
But it didn’t stop everything. Electronics stepped in to enable communications – not as well as fibre to the home would have done – but fairly well.
This meant that many people, even teachers, could work from home and, according to the latest polls, a majority of them don’t want to go back. Financial assistance and social support showed that we could manage with much, much less.
Climate change will also challenge our belief that the world as we know it can last forever. Storms, heat, floods, drought and continual drying of the atmosphere means that both the environment and the possibility of hazard free travel will not continue it the present forms. If the government listened to the science during COVID-19, and then continued to listen to it, perhaps it could extend the range of its attention to what the science says about rising carbon emissions.
What we are being asked to do is simple – to exchange one form of energy production, carbon based fuels, with renewable energy. Because our economic system is based on carbon energy it is a big challenge, but every moment we avoid making this change, and continue to push carbon into the atmosphere, brings us closer to a climate Armageddon.
Transport emissions fell this year with aviation fleets grounded.
COVID-19 has shown us a way to begin. We need a moratorium on aviation until there is an environmental alternative. Aviation produces over 2% of world carbon emissions, and up to 8% of global heating. During the COVID-19 in March and April alone, aviation emissions globally were reduced by approximately 10.3 Mt CO2. We need to quickly reduce the use and manufacture of internal combustion engines (ICE vehicles).
During COVID-19, global daily emissions from transport as a whole reduced by “declined on average between January to April by 8.6 % compared to the same period last year” because trucks, cars and other forms of transport stopped.
We buy over a billion dollars of petroleum each year in Tasmania which could be spent on making our houses more heat resilient, or changing our transport system to electric. In addition, we need to reduce our consumption of unnecessary goods and take part in producing our own food to make us safe from overseas restrictions.
Scientists are telling us that we must flatten the carbon dioxide curve and begin to turn it downwards by the end of this year, 2020. We have already lost the chance to keep our emissions below 1.5 degrees C as we promised to do in Paris. This is our small moment in time to show that we are capable of the challenge to keep the global temperature below 2 degrees C.
Let’s ditch the hype, and the market-driven need to keep travelling, and keep our eyes firmly fixed on saving what we can of the Earth, as soon as we possibly can. Let our Minister for Climate Change know that he can’t welcome business as usual and still protect the environment.
Helen Hutchinson was born on the big island to our north, wholly educated to post graduate level in Tasmania, converted to climate activism by Bob Brown in 1983, and presently trying, in as many ways as possible, to arrest our planet’s headlong rush to climate disaster.
