Film Festival was 'illustrative, educative and alarming'

Illustrative, educative and alarming would probably best describe the three presentations delivered at Saturday’s Swanpool Environmental Film Festival.

More than 150 people enjoyed three movies – “A Smarter Country”, “Surviving Progress” and “Chasing Ice” – and listened to a trio of speakers.

Ray Thomas, who has been working the Lurg Hills for some 19 years, is doing what he can to ensure the survival of a host of species through the linking-up of previously unconnected pieces of bushland.

Mr Thomas, whose presentation was entitled, “There is no big picture without a lot of little pictures”, told people about the Regent Honey Eater Project.

A biophysical scientist and futures specialist associated with the Charles Sturt University, discussed “Eating our future delights: Trade and biodiversity decline”.

The third speaker, the University of Melbourne Professor of Climate Science with its School of Earth Sciences, David Karoly, talk about “Climate change: Where are we now and where are we heading”.

The first two speakers were illustrative and educative, and definitely thought provoking, but while Prof Karoly’s address was all those things, it was, beyond that, alarming.

Prof Karoly discussed the failure of world governments to restrain global carbon dioxide emissions, pointing out that they were actually increasing despite several world events at which the reverse was promised.

There was broad agreement that the world needed to limit its emissions to the extent that global temperatures would not exceed pre-industrial levels by more than two degrees.

Prof Karoly point out that to do that – not exceed two degrees above pre-industrial levels – the world would have to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions to zero.

The achievement of what Prof Karoly sees as imperative would take us into a way of life that those in the developed world simply wouldn’t understand.