Considering security through a traditional prism

“Ignorance is no bliss,” Malcolm Turnbull told Federal Parliament just today.

Professor Michael Kelly -
'energy equates
with civilization'.

The Prime Minister made that observation while talking about national security; security seen through the traditional prism of violence emanating from terrorists, aggravated groups or individuals.

Strangely there appears to be an inordinate amount of ignorant bliss, wilful or otherwise, within his coalition cohort about climate change and that, a disrupted climate system is, according to many around the world, the greatest security threat we face.

Interestingly, although seemingly unrelated, a speaker at the University of Melbourne set about to relieve some of that ignorance.

Professor Michael Kelly from the University of Cambridge talked about “Lessons from technology development for energy and sustainability” – security was not mentioned in the title of his lecture, but it was implicit throughout his address.

Using innumerable charts and graphs, Professor Kelly illustrated his observation that “energy equates with civilization”.

Sadly, the faces of the more than 100 or so people at Monday’s lecture did not include those of Australia’s decision makers, rather the nodding heads of the usual cohort of those who attend such events.

Professor Kelly mentioned the collapse of civilization in Syria, which was ignited by droughts, emanating from climate change and then worsened by a competition for energy.

Optimism appeared inherent for Professor Kelly, but the facts he presented carried a somewhat different message, illustrating that ignorance is no bliss and showing through facts, rather than opinion, that renewable energy lacked the capacity to meet the world’s energy needs.

Some in the room were uncomfortable with the professor’s conclusions that civilization as it was needed to draw its energy from nuclear power or other traditional fossil fuel resources.

The professor reinforced his argument that civilization equates with energy by illustrating how it had prospered since the seemingly bottomless bounty of energy in fossil fuels had been unlocked.

The professor was a generous fellow, who welcomed questions about his evidence and whose fact-loaded presentation demonstrated there was no bliss in ignorance.