A Melbourne Age story on Saturday predicted climate change would
see global temperatures increase by five or six degrees this century and then
on Sunday ideas for abatement were discussed.
What was published on Saturday was without argument, as was
that on Sunday, but the latter piece was simply scary, for lurking in the background
was was a mess of unintended consequences.
On Saturday reporters Ben Cubby, Tom Arup, Adam Morton and
Nicky Phillips drew on wide scientific knowledge and research to illustrate
that climate change would bring profound difficulties for humanity as this
century unfolded in a story headed “Five degrees and hotter?”
The following day, Sunday, December 9, that same quartet of
writers asked “Can science save us?” and the proceeded to discuss a variety of
scenarios, some massively expensive, complex and requiring time we simple don’t
have, but missed the obvious – living a more restrained life and thereby
reducing hugely the need and demand for energy and a using less of our already
severely deleted finite resources.
Reaching the point where the world needs vastly less fossil-fuelled
energy and far fewer of our finite resources can be done at no financial cost and
existing infrastructure will continue to operate effectively.
It is us; humanity as a whole, who must take a step forward and
understand that it is us who have the capacity to live in a way to ensure the
stability of earth’s climate, in turn ensuring it will remain habitable for
humans.
Living a more restrained life, working fewer hours each day,
travelling less, bonding with our neighbours, building resilience in our
neighbourhoods, consuming less energy and consuming less of everything, demands
a psychological leap; a leap we must take or the privations we face; privations
that exceed our comprehension if climate change is allowed to continue unabated.
A Four-Hour Work Day is inadequate to truly
mitigate that present atmospheric challenges, but as recent history has shown
(carbon dioxide emissions were measurably down during the 2008-9 Global Financial
Crisis) when the world has a restricted budget, we spend less and so consume
less and so a dramatically shorter working day would be a truly positive step
in climate change abatement.
The challenge for the developed world is for it to willingly
surrender the energy and resource intensive lifestyle it presently enjoys and
beyond that willingly redistribute the world’s finances to give all an
equality, fairness and happiness that has never existed in a broad sense.
Various alternatives to mitigating climate change have been
proposed, but most, even those revolving around renewable energy sources, seem
to be about “business as usual”.
That is entirely an inappropriate approach as it an attempt to
address the issue form the wrong point of view – trying to preserve what exists
when what exists is exactly what brought down the trouble humanity is wrestling
with.
We need to restructure what exists and put the wellbeing a
people ahead of profit and in doing that understanding that people have much
more to contribute to society as people, rather than simply being “screw
tighteners”, from which others to profit.
