If Australians want to eat, farmers need a real climate plan

I live and work on McMartin’s Strawberry Farm on the idyllic Sunshine Coast, which my grandparents bought back in 1945. 

Kerrie and Graham McMartin fear mounting climate
change impacts will slowly destroy their property.

In our little slice of paradise, we also grow lychees, custard apples and sugar cane. You might even have eaten some of our produce.

We are a long way off from Monaco, where the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has released a report saying that global sea levels are expected to rise by up to 110cm by 2100, but this news has hit very close to home for us, and coastal communities around the world.

My dad turned one the same year that my grandparents purchased this place. He’s now 75, and suffice to say, he’s seen a lot of changes in his lifetime.

Read the story from The Courier Mail by Kerrie McMartin - “If Australians want to eat, farmers need a real climate plan.”

Rise in global sea levels could have 'profound consequences’

Scientists believe that global sea levels could rise far more than predicted, due to accelerating melting in Greenland and Antarctica.

A small boat in the Illulissat Icefjord in western Greenland,
dwarfed by icebergs that have calved from Greenland's largest glacier, 

The long-held view has been that the world's seas would rise by a maximum of just under a metre by 2100.

This new study, based on expert opinions, projects that the real level may be around double that figure.

This could lead to the displacement of hundreds of millions of people, the authors say.

• Antarctic instability 'is spreading'
• Thousands of penguin chicks wiped out
• Warning from 'Antarctica's last forests'

The question of sea-level rise was one of the most controversial issues raised by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), when it published its fifth assessment report in 2013.

Read the BBC story by Matt McGrath - “Rise in global sea levels could have 'profound consequences’.”

Earth’s Most Famous Climate Scientist Issues Bombshell Sea Level Warning

In what may prove to be a turning point for political action on climate change, a breathtaking new study casts extreme doubt about the near-term stability of global sea levels.

Monday's new study greatly increases the potential
 for catastrophic near-term sea level rise.
 Here, Miami Beach, among the most vulnerable
 cities to sea level rise in the world.

The study—written by James Hansen, NASA’s former lead climate scientist, and 16 co-authors, many of whom are considered among the top in their fields—concludes that glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica will melt 10 times faster than previous consensus estimates, resulting in sea level rise of at least 10 feet in as little as 50 years. The study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, brings new importance to a feedback loop in the ocean near Antarctica that results in cooler freshwater from melting glaciers forcing warmer, saltier water underneath the ice sheets, speeding up the melting rate. Hansen, who is known for being alarmist and also right, acknowledges that his study implies change far beyond previous consensus estimates. In a conference call with reporters, he said he hoped the new findings would be “substantially more persuasive than anything previously published.” I certainly find them to be.

Read the story by Eric Holthaus on Slate - “Earth’s Most Famous Climate Scientist Issues Bombshell Sea Level Warning.”