Covid-19 climate lessons

The novel coronavirus pandemic of 2020 has striking parallels with climate disruption. 

The threat was well known and catastrophic, even existential. History’s valuable lessons were ignored. Researchers were clear on what needed to be done, and how to respond. The UN had devoted a whole section to the issue, governments ran risk scenarios and national security analysts warned of the consequences. The developed world had the capacity to be ready. And to support less prosperous nations, or should have been.

When it became fatal, it was conceived by wealthy nations as a threat somewhere else, because they were insulated. Then there was the denial, the delay, wanting to avoid any economic dislocation. Modern society was good at research, solutions would appear, no need to panic. Humans had tamed nature.

Read the story from Climate Code Red by David Spratt and Alia Armsitead - “Covid-19 climate lessons.”

COVID-19 climate lessons

Pandemics and climate disruption are catastrophic, and potentially existential, risks.

Climate disruption now manifests as an emergency because the climate system is close to tipping points that could drive it to a “point of no return”, where further warming would become self-sustaining. 

Existential threats require a particular approach to risk management.

The COVID-19 pandemic provides an opportunity to understand the world’s preparedness for such a risk, and how and why the world’s response, by and large, was grossly inadequate.

This failure has important lessons for the preparedness of human society to respond to the much greater threat posed by human-induced climate disruption.

There are also important, positive lessons in the pandemic response about the capacity of society to move quickly into emergency mode.

Read the Breakthrough discussion paper by David Spratt and Alia Armistead - “COVID-19 climate lessons”.

Fatal calculations: How bad economics encouraged climate inaction

Pandemics and climate disruption are existential risks that require that particular emphasis be placed on the high-impact possibilities, not middle-of-the road outcomes. Released today by Breakthrough, Fatal calculations: How economics has underestimated climate damage and encouraged inaction, shows how economists  have ignored the real risks of climate change.  This is the introduction to the report.

At the heart of global policymaking is a concern that mitigation should not be economically disruptive or curtail future growth in production. Perhaps as a consequence, and in order to mesh with this policy paradigm, the economic methods of analysis applied to climate change have underestimated the risks and provided reasons to delay action.

The evidence is all around us. Listen to most governments and business leaders, and especially those nations with a large carbon footprint, and the climate conversation for decades has been about taking it slowly; of incremental policy change that does not rock the economic boat, cost jobs, disturb growth or disadvantage significant national industries.  With minimal discussion about the jobs and growth that will be destroyed in a hotter world.

Read the story from Climate Code Red by David Spratt and Alia Armistead - “Fatal calculations: How bad economics encouraged climate inaction.” 

Beneath the Wisteria on Saturday

Saturday’s Beneath the Wisteria falls on the same day as the AFL grand final.

Beneath the Wisteria"s
Robert McLean.

However, Beneath the Wisterians will still gather at the northern end of Shepparton’s Maude St  Mall at 11:00 am to hear a report about, and discuss, the recent national Transition Communities summit held in Melbourne.

The summit, organized by the Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV), brought together Transition  Towns representatives from many part of Australia to discuss and hear about the movements’ latest innovations.

Transition Towns founder, Rob Hopkins, spoke at the summit, via a pre-recorded video clip, emphasising the need to people to continue with the ideals of helping build resilience into their respective communities.

The movement began at Totnes, in the United Kingdom, in 2006 in response to concerns about oil shortages (peak oil) and climate disruption with the aim of creating a degree of self reliance within communities.

Beneath the Wisteria convenor, Robert McLean, represented Tatura Transition Towns at the two-day summit will discuss the event, how communities are responding to the climate challenge and building the necessary resilience.

Saturday’s gathering starts at 11:00 am, lasts for about an hour, is free, and open to all comers. Some public seating is available, but those attending are advised to bring a folding chair.

More information from Robert at 0400  502 199 or via email.

Enough tiptoeing around. Let’s make this clear: coal kills people

Coal kills people. This isn’t even slightly scientifically controversial.

‘How can journalists and editors report on the politics
of coal on one page and bushfires around Sydney in
September on another without making the connection?’

From the mines to the trains to the climate disruption; from black lung to asthma, heat stress to hunger, fires to floods: coal is killing people in Australia and around the world right now.

Yet we are once again having what passes for political debate about extending the life of coal-fired power stations and, extraordinarily, building new ones. The conversation is completely disconnected from the fact that two-thirds of Bangladesh was reported to be underwater, record-breaking hurricanes were battering the US, and wildfires were roaring in both the northern and southern hemispheres at the same time.

Read Tom Hollo’s comment in The Guardian - “Enough tiptoeing around. Let’s make this clear: coal kills people.”

A 20th Century plan for a 21st Century Australia

(Each fortnight I write a column for The Shepparton News and this one published today seemed relevant to our blog – Robert McLean)

 

People from around here will feel the impact of the recent Federal Budget, but not necessarily only in the way they imagine.

My shoulders drooped as I listened to the oft-repeated mantra of “jobs and growth” as I sensed many here would be warming up to join the chorus seemingly unaware that “less” is what we need, not “more”.

In a world seriously troubled by human-induced climate disruption, policies and budgets based on 20^th Century values and ideas will simply not work.

Rather than look back for solutions and employ ideas offensive to the planet, Mr Turnbull, and his cohort need to lift their gaze and see that the unfolding world of the 21^st Century will be strikingly different and instead of the much-cited and inappropriate exhortation for jobs and growth, our leaders should be helping create and build a community able to thrive in an energy constrained future.

Such an idea undoubtedly doesn’t fit with the ideologies of either of Australia’s major political parties with both pandering to the populist ideas and values that have hardened since the Industrial Revolution to become an entrenched societal practice.

Living here in the Goulburn Valley doesn’t provide us with any protection from climate change for the south-east corner of Australia is experiencing changes to both weather and seasons, just as is the case around the world.

With the ideologically trapped Federal Government turning its back on climate science and our State Government doing something but treading carefully for fear of breaching its limited mandate, the responsibility to actually do something now falls upon the City of Greater Shepparton.

Mr Turnbull and his cohort need a 21st
Century orientated economic plan
 and not one that is rooted in 20th Century.

That would not be unusual, for while many national governments hesitate and procrastinate, and state bodies call for yet another report, many cities have taken up the dropped batten and have introduced projects and ideas into their respective Local Government areas that will lead to resilience and sustainability, and along with that play their part in the wider reduction of carbon dioxide emissions.

And so what do we do?

Let’s begin with the city’s transport strategy, which presents us with a wonderful opportunity to think deeply and seriously about what the Shepparton of tomorrow should look like, how it should work and how the people who live here should move about.

Yes, a wonderful opportunity, one which is either the moment when we decide to create a city able to cope with the climate disrupted future or opt for the status quo and wander aimlessly down the same endless and, as time will show a rather rough road.

Courageous decisions will see a city that prioritizes and is friendly to pedestrians; encourages cyclists in the same way; introduces electric (solar charged) transit; and produces reasons about our need for sophisticated inter-town public transport (trains, light or otherwise) that eclipse any contra-arguments put by our State or Federal Governments.

Idealistic? Yes, but if we are to find our way through the troubled times ahead, it is essential we think differently and escape from the fossilized ideas of the current Federal Budget, presented as an “economic plan for the future”.