Senator Andrew Bartlett
Monday, January 17, 2005
 
The risks of major climate change
A fascinating and worrying program has been put together by the BBC’s science program, Horizon, detailing more evidence about serious and rapid climate change. It says that sunlight measurements show that the amount of solar energy reaching the Earth’s surface is falling.

A good summary of this phenomenon, called ‘global dimming’ is contained in this entry on Barista’s Blog. This is well worth a read, and also goes into detail on the impact of emissions and vapour trails from aircraft, including studies done of the changes that happened during the 3 days after Sept 11, 2001 when all the aircraft in the USA were grounded.

I’m sometimes concerned by the apocalyptic attitude that some green activists take and the occasional lack of adherence to scientific evidence. However, that is nothing compared to the willingness of many Governments to ignore the strong scientific evidence which is there about many environmental issues. Nowhere is this more evident than the climate change issue, where the scientific evidence is overwhelming.

If we don’t address this very soon, then most of the other environmental issues, whether its locational ones like the Great Barrier Reef, the Daintree, or Cape York, or behavioural ones like the environmental damage and inefficiency caused from meat consumption, poor house designs, or transport systems, will be negated.

When you have some long-standing environmentalists such as Professor James Lovelock advocating rapid expansion of nuclear power generation, despite the real problems with disposal of highly toxic waste, because of the imminent threat posed by climate change, you know it’s serious. (Please note, I am not advocating nuclear energy, just pointing out that others are – a suggestion that is described as “dumb” by some other climate scientists).

There are few issues more frustrating than watching the total disregard of the Australian and US governments for such a pressing global issue.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Monday, January 17, 2005
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