A plea to Sharman Stone to demonstrate courage, and good sense

Reading Bill McKibben's book, The Global Warming Reader, I was inspired to follow his advice and engage with my parliamentatians and what follows is a letter written last night (February 19) and to be delivered today to Sharman Stone's Shepparton office - Robert McLean.

Federal Member for Murray

Dr Sharman Stone

426 Wyndham Street
Shepparton

 Vic 3630.

Dear Sharman,

Sharman  Stone.

 I write in the hope that I can encourage you to genuinely consider and honestly investigate the measurable changes that human activities are bringing to the world’s climate and by implication the climate here in Australia, and, subsequently your electorate.

The world’s leading climatologists have unquestionably established that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have increased alarmingly since the Industrial Revolution rising from about 270 parts per million then to nearly 400 today.

It was in 1988 that the head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, James Hansen, warned the U.S. Congress about the dangers of climate change, or if you prefer global warming.

Hansen told Congress that life on earth as we knew and understood it could be maintained, with care, if we were not to allow the carbon dioxide levels to go beyond 350 parts per million.

After that, he suggested, the world would begin to see changes in our climate, and subsequently our weather, that would eventually become uncontrollable and lead, increasingly, to events that have troubled the world in the past few years.

Positive feedback loops that are clearly understandable and which are rooted in unquestionable science threaten to even worsen events that have disrupted life for countless people throughout Australia and particularly in your electorate, as we have seen with a recent decade-long punishing drought.

Circumstances, you should note, are not going to get any better rather, they are going to worsen substantially and considering that, I encourage you to urge your party and influence the Government to build a vastly more resilient Australia.

Considering that I urge you to encourage legislation that puts the 350 ppm target ahead of economic goals; goals that are driven by the finite fossil fuels, which are the absolute villains in connection with the conditions that exacerbate climate change.

I urge you to ignore the doubters, skeptics and often misguided professors of one sort or another, and become an adherent of the certainties of nearly 100 per cent of the world’s scientific authorities and climatologists who declare that global warming is real and with unalloyed certainty that the world’s climate is changing.

The world’s climatologists repeatedly point out that what we are experiencing is, beyond argument, not natural or cyclical, but a demonstrable reality of the damage we have done to our atmosphere.

Finally, I plead with you to break with what appears to be Liberal Party policy, from your leader down, and in a demonstration of courage, tell parliament, and all Australians, including your electorate, that you now stand with those eager to prepare our country, and your electorate, to address the circumstances that are worsening, each day, as our climate changes.

Should you wish to talk with me more about this, I can be contacted at 140 Ashenden St, Shepparton 3630, by telephone at 5822 1766 or via email at: robed@sheppnews.com.au.

Thank-you,

Robert McLean.
February 21, 2012.