The Guardian view on climate change: a global emergency

Climate change is an existential threat to the human race. This may seem an absurd or alarmist statement, since we have been conditioned by unparallelled growth to expect that there are no catastrophes that are insurmountable. Even apocalyptic science fiction deals with bands of survivors who have, by definition, survived. And we always imagine ourselves as among the survivors.

The Amazon rainforest in Brazil. ‘The deforestation of
tropical regions, is doubly dangerous, because
it converts carbon sinks into producers of carbon.’

But the threat is real. The latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tells us that there are only a dozen or so years in which to change our economies radically if we are to keep the effects of the warming already under way to manageable proportions. That would require the countries of the world to live up to the most ambitious of the goals of the Paris climate change agreement, and keep the rise in average global temperatures to 1.5C above preindustrial levels. A rise of even half a degree above that, to 2C, will have effects that are very much worse. Already this seems much more likely. All corals will disappear, as will many insects and plants.

Read the Opinion piece from The Guardian - “The Guardian view on climate change: a global emergency.”

When it comes to electric cars, we just need someone to turn on the lights

In the 1880s, the idea of electric street lights seemed absurd. If you had to light the streets, you did it with gas. Gas lamps were a fire hazard, smelled terrible and were barely an improvement on total darkness. Apart from that, they were fine.

A Tesla car recharges. The Tesla Model S75 RP has
 lower emissions when charged on the national
electricity grid than a Toyota Corolla.

With the perspective of time, we see a failure of imagination. We forget how the arguments stacked up to our forebears.

Read the comment piece by Alan Finkel in today’s Age - “When it comes to electric cars, we just need someone to turn on the lights.”