Like death, we refuse to think about climate change

From today's Melbourne Age.

Our attitudes to climate change are becoming like our attitude to death: we know we must face up to it one day, but right now we'd prefer to think about something else.

This may explain why the media's coverage of a potentially breakthrough report from the government's Climate Change Authority focused on environmentalists' criticisms of it rather than its actual content.

Similarly, why focus on the world's two biggest greenhouse gas emitters, China and the United States, using the G20 meeting in Hangzhou to ratify the Paris climate change agreement – thus encouraging other countries to do likewise and raising hope the deal will come into effect this year – when you can speculate about conflict over the South China Sea and foreign investment?

Forgive me, but I'd never make a card-carrying greenie, righteously condemning any proposal to act on climate change that's less than heroic – as both the Paris agreement and the climate authority's report on the policies we need to ensure we deliver on our commitment, most certainly are.

Read the comment piece in today’s Melbourne Age by Ross Gittins - “Climate change like death, an inevitability we must face.”