Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull labels coal opponents ‘delusional’

(My Prime Minister has offended me - coal is the absolute villain in worsening climate change and so rather than endorsing it, Mr Turnbull should be doing all he can as our leader to take this country off its diet of fossil fuels. Experts for all parts of the world have told me, or at least through various lectures, conferences, seminars and books, that coal is one of the prime causes of climate change and rather than singing its praises, Mr Turnbull and his cohort should be doing all they can to prepare Australians, and so the world to live with a climate of the like humanity has never experienced. His endorsement of it is little more then aiming at short-term political gain. Yes, I feel offended and insulted, and so we should be doing all we can to remove him and his coalition from power - Robert McLean)

Malcolm Turnbull has mounted a defence of coal-powered
 electricity, saying those who think the resource doesn't
have a future are "delusional". 

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has mounted a defence of coal-powered electricity, saying those who think the resource doesn't have a future are “delusional".

Addressing the Liberal National Party state convention in Brisbane, Mr Turnbull hit out at the state Labor government's "reckless" plans to ensure Queensland's energy supply is carbon neutral by 2050 and said Australia had an interest in ensuring the future of coal.

Read Evan Schwarten’s story in the Melbourne Age - “Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull labels coal opponents ‘delusional’."

"Despair is not an option" - Tim Winton

- by Robert McLean

“Despair is not an option,” Tim Winton said in reference to climate change.

The Australian author has aligned himself with the Australian Marine Conservation Authority and is now an advocate for Saving the Great Barrier Reef.

Tim Winton - "Despair
is not an option".

Talking about climate change and the threat it poses to the reef, Winton said, “We’ve heard a lot about warming oceans in the past couple of decades, and it’s always sounded so distant and technical.

“Even to me a 2-degree jump in sea temperature sounded harmless. But that was before I saw what it meant. That’s when it got personal, when it literally hit me where I live,” he wrote.   

Equally, despair is not an option when faced with the reality of Australia becoming even more deeply embedded in the military-industrial complex.

The Turnbull-led Australian government panders to populist ideas and values when announcing an expensive plan to build ships in South and Western Australia.

The $1 billion infrastructure upgrade in those states, more it is understood in South Australia than Western Australia, further weds us to the idea that this society can become richer and stronger by putting Australians to work by building  what are, despite rhetoric to the contrary, little more than killing machines.

And if they are not directly involved in the actually killing, then they are are vital part of the infrastructure that has the death of the other as its aim.

However, I do despair as the political justification to spend immense amount on military hardware after frightening the population with myths of threats from the other is deception on an incomprehensible scale and delusional, both on the part of the practitioners and those upon whom myth is being prosecuted.

Rather than wasting money on machinery that is confrontational in its very nature and both destructive to both the people and property, and, of course, the environment, we should be spending our cash, no investing our cash, creating an infrastructure that takes Australia closer to what will soon be a pressing need to exist in a low-energy and carbon free way.

War ships and the like are contrary to what will be needed if Australia is to have any chance of adapting to the rigours of climate change.

Have we gone mad? New report illustrates we are becoming increasingly delusional

H

ave we gone mad? A new report released today explains why contemporary climate change policy-making should be characterised as increasingly delusional.

David Spratt.

As the deadline approaches for submissions to the Australian government's climate targets process, there is a flurry of submissions and reports from advocacy groups and the Climate Change Authority.

Most of these reports are based on the twin propositions that two degrees Celsius (2°C) of global warming is an appropriate policy target, and that there is a significant carbon budget and an amount of "burnable carbon" for this target, and hence a scientifically-based escalating ladder of emission-reduction targets stretching to mid-century and beyond.

A survey of the relevant scientific literature by David Spratt, "Recount: It's time to 'Do the math' again", published today by Breakthrough concludes that the evidence does not support either of these propositions.

The catastrophic and irreversible consequences of 2°C of warming demand a strong risk-management approach, with a low rate of failure. We should not take risks with the climate that we would not take with civil infrastructure.

There is no carbon budget available if 2°C is considered a cap or upper boundary as per the Copenhagen Accord, rather than a hit-or-miss target which can be significantly exceeded; or if a low risk of exceeding 2°C is required; or if positive feedbacks such as permafrost and other carbon store losses are taken into account.

Effective policy making can only be based on recognising that climate change is already dangerous, and we have no carbon budget left to divide up. Big tipping-point events irreversible on human time scales such as in West Antarctica and large-scale positive feedbacks are already occurring at less than 1°C of warming. It is clear that 2°C of climate warming is not a safe cap.

In reality, 2°C is the boundary between dangerous and very dangerous climate change and 1°C warmer than human civilisation has ever experienced.

In the lead up to the forthcoming Paris talks, policy makers through their willful neglect of the evidence are in effect normalising a 2.5–3°C global warming target.

This evidence in "Recount: It's time to 'Do the math' again" demonstrates that action is necessary at a faster pace than most policy makers conceive is possible. Decades of procrastination mean there is no longer sufficient time for an incremental and non-disruptive reduction in emissions. 

Ian Dunlop - global leaders
guilty of" wilful denial".

Only a whole-of-society rescue plan, understood as action at emergency speed outside of the business-as-usual political mode, can provide hope of retaining a livable planet for ourselves and future generations.

In a foreword to the report, Ian Dunlop, the former Chair, Australian Coal Association and CEO, Australian Institute of Company Directors, says that: For the last two decades global leaders have been guilty of willful denial regarding human-induced climate change, none more so than in Australia. Despite much rhetoric and endless negotiations, human carbon emissions continue in line with a worst-case scenario.

Unfortunately the years of procrastination have cut off options to solve the climate challenge with a graduated response – emergency action is now inevitable if potentially catastrophic and irreversible impacts are to be avoided.

Such views are dismissed as extremist by political and corporate incumbencies, and by most activist NGOs and investors. However, there has never been an honest official acknowledgment of the real climate challenge; as a result realistic solutions have not been forthcoming.

Climate change is happening faster and more extensively than officially acknowledged and sensible risk management requires far more stringent action. This paper explains why. Download "Recount: It's time to 'Do the math' again".