Fossil fuels are the root cause of climate change and the Scott Morrison-led LNP Government is doing all it can to maintain/continue/worsen our addiction to those climate-damaging substances, despite what it says and its latest advertising campaign.
That’s the beginning of the equation — it continues as climate change brings upon us rising temperatures, enriching the Earth’s troubles and among them rising sea surface temperatures that lead to a multitude of troubles.
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, the largest living organism on Earth, has already suffered severe bleaching caused by rising sea temperatures and further bleaching is predicted, risking this wonderful natural attraction and economic resource.
And last year, 2021, was the fifth warmest year on record.
It’s a pretty simple sum — more fossil fuels, and the lifestyle they allow means more carbon dioxide emissions, more damage to the atmosphere and subsequently the weather, and the Goldilocks-like weather that has allowed us to thrive is gone.
The result of the equation points to a somewhat questionable future for us.
What’s all this got to do with those of us here in Shepparton.
Well, some might say “not much” and others “nothing”, but understanding that simple sum and working, quickly, to mitigate the causes are, in its own way, as important as our next breath.
However, don’t be misled, don’t be deceived; for the federal seat of Nicholls, the seat in which we are constituents, has a voice in Canberra; a voice that has a say in a government that cares little about the safety and wellbeing of the world community, and that’s you, me, your family, friends and neighbours, and the countless people you don’t know and never will.
But this is about more than people, as climate change is already impacting species we rarely think about or know.
Only a few weeks ago I talked with a woman from the University of Liverpool who is studying the impact climate change is having on seabirds and she and her team have discovered that increasing sea temperatures are causing a “divorce” among the usually monogamous wandering albatrosses.
Hunting areas that had been reliable for centuries have moved, because of climate change, north or south, depending on where the colonies of wandering albatrosses are, and subsequently mates, because of the extreme distances they are forced to fly, spend unusual amounts of time away from the nest and frequently return with a reduced catch.
Their nest-bound mate becomes disillusioned, questions the hunting skills and so quality of their chosen mate — divorce among these usually monogamous birds often follows, impacting on breeding and survival of their young.
Natasha Gillies, and the university research team which she is a part of, has speculated about what impact climate change is having on other species and although those considerations are limited to the animal and insect worlds, it’s not difficult to extrapolate those reasonings to the human species.
Writing recently in The Age, reporter Mike Foley quoted The Bureau of Meteorology’s annual climate statement, which said 2021 was the wettest year since 2016 while last November was the wettest on record.
“Parched rivers and dams,” he wrote, “welcomed the rain that has rolled across much of Australia in the past two years, after intense drought from 2017 to 2019.
‘’But such is the underlying influence of global warming that despite two consecutive years of cooling La Niña weather patterns and the fact that 2021 had nine per cent above average rainfall, it was also the 19th hottest year on record,” Mr Foley reported.
Further evidence came from a councillor with the Climate Council, Professor Will Steffen, who said 2021 notched up the warmest La Niña on record.
‘‘What was remarkable to me is how strong the underlying warming trend actually is,’’ Prof Steffen said.
‘‘It was only the coolest year since 2012 and this means that it was only a blip amid a very strong warming trend”, he said in The Age story.
Mr Foley’s story ended with a warning from the Climate Council’s director of research, Martin Rice, saying we are: “In a more energetic climate, we are experiencing black summer fires, more powerful storms, intense rainfall and major flooding, storm surges riding on higher seas, and unprecedented coral bleaching.’’
Writing a chapter in Tom Doig’s book, Living with the Climate Crisis: Voices from Aotearoa, the editor-in-chief from New Zealand’s Stuff magazine Patrick Crewdson said: “Averting disaster requires fundamental changes to how society operates — our energy usage, our transport systems, our diets, our economic incentives. The power to achieve that change rests with our governments.”
Our present government, despite its rhetoric, is ignoring the climate crisis or at least “kicking the can down the road”, and so the responsibility falls upon us to think seriously about who the next federal member for Nicholls will be, for we need a representative who, beyond anything else, will push to have our government act urgently on the climate emergency.
And yes, two plus two equals four, and more fossil fuels means ever-worsening climate systems and subsequently weather with which we are wholly unfamiliar, and so unprepared to live and thrive with.
Rob McLean is a former editor of The News.