Concerns about climate change escape many, even those, it seems, who would know better

by Robert McLean

The catastrophic implications and complications of climate change seem to escape most people, even those I imagine would know better. 

And probably those I think should know better do in fact understand, but in the interests of being heard and not declared a “catastrophist”, they sugar-coat their observations a little in the hope that their voice will still be among those listened to.

Another of these contradictions arose just this month.

Early in April a Post-Doctoral researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Germany, Dr. Louise Jeffery, talked at the University of Melbourne's Carlton Connect Lab-14 seminar room about “Aviation, shipping and the Paris Agreement.”

Dr. Louise Jeffery

And it was during that conversation that she admitted that in flying from Germany to Australia and then home again after her time as a visiting fellow to the university EU Centre ends, she had used most, if not all, her personal annual carbon budget.

Carbon budgets, both personal and national, are critical if the world is to have any chance of meeting targets agreed to at the Paris in 2015. 

Some argue that even if the Paris Agreement is fulfilled, and targets met, the world still faces significant temperature increases, even rising to nearly three degrees about pre-industrial levels.

Soon after listening to Dr Jeffrey speak, I sat through a webinar organised by the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF) discussing many things, among them the  worth of tourism to the Australian economy, which to my surprise is worth more than agriculture.

A professor from the University of Melbourne was one of those on the panel and he suggested that Australia needed to look to China for its visitors as its traditional tourist base faded.

The world-wide air industry is one the major contributors to carbon emissions and the idea that we should be encouraging people to fly around the world, further damaging earth’s climate system to see something, the Great Barrier Reef, which is quickly dying because of our warming oceans, a symptom of climate 

change.

The contradiction here astounds me - international flights quickly exhaust personal carbon budgets and yet we (Australia) appear to the encouraging people to fly more often.

Personal carbon budgets are tiny as are national budgets - learn more about them by visiting “Shrink that Footprint”.

The idea of a personal carbon budget has been around for some time, but some have argued that it was idea “that never took off.”

The Guardian wrote about the idea in 2012 - read the story here: “Personal carbon allowances - a 'big idea that never took off’.”

Climate change will have such a significant impact on humanity that is demands mobilization similar to that which engulfed the world in the lead to to World War Two.

Sadly, it is not happening as we continue to waste our time on partisan discussions on “he said, she said” type fripperies while we continue to ignore a catastrophe that is already showing its hand.

Someone with influence and hitherto unseen courage must step forward bringing with them a plan that will hep humanity see the need for the introduction of a personal and national carbon budget.