Emergency response needed for more than floods
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With the military on the job and perhaps the post-1945 Marshall Plan on her mind, Queensland premier Anna Bligh has designated recovery from the floods “a reconstruction task of postwar proportions.” The words are deliberate: ‘”I want people to understand how big it is, and how long it might take,” because the machinery of government needs to be reshaped. The premier goes on to “hope and pray that mother nature is leaving us alone to get on with the job of cleaning up and recovering from this event”. Yes, but … we also need to leave Mother Nature alone, and stop loading the atmosphere with carbon emissions, so that more extreme climate events which are part-and-parcel of a warming planet do not tumble down upon us with increasing frequency, as they have around the globe in the last year. That will require action and a commitment of resources at a scale far beyond the failures that have so far constituted Australia’s climate policy. On Sunday, The Age editorialised that: “We respond well to an emergency, but global warming is an emergency too.” Is it too dramatic to apply the same language and level of action to climate as to flood recovery, in order to prevent an emergency that will make the recent floods look like an early skirmish in a much large historical event? Cables released by WikiLeaks in December report a confidential discussion with US embassy officials in Canberra, in which Australia’s Office of National Assessments deputy director Heather Smith warned that decreased water flows from Himalayan glaciers will trigger a ”cascade of economic, social and political consequences” in south-east Asia by 2030. According to the cables, ONA also “… predicts global temperatures to rise 2 degrees by 2050 and 4 degrees by 2100.” This is not idle speculation. Queensland’s flood planning also uses a factor of 4 degrees by 2100. Analysis by leading European research institutes show that if even if all of the promises made by all nations so far to reduce their carbon emissions were fully implemented, the world by the end of this century would be 3.5 to 4 degrees warmer. And promises are not outcomes. So we really are heading towards a world warmer by 4 degrees or more. The last time it was four degrees hotter, there was no ice at either pole and sea levels were 70 metres higher. An average 4 degrees across the world mean temperatures about 6 degrees higher on land not adjacent to the ocean. In Australia, it is hard to imagine that people or agriculture would survive anywhere but close to the eastern and southern coast, and in Tasmania. In September 2009 a conference at Oxford examined a 4-degree world, and many of the findings have just been published by the Royal Society. Professor Kevin Anderson, director of the UK Tyndall Centre for Climate Change, warns that only about 10% of the planet’s population — about half a billion people — would survive if global temperatures rise by 4 degrees. Others concur. And research suggests that rainforests will disappear, and climate feedbacks in a rapidly warming Arctic region could trigger the release of vast methane deposits in a nightmare scenario. Ninety per cent of the world’s population unable to survive? This seems unbelievable, a scare campaign, not possible. If only. As threats increase, so too can denial because the necessary response is a game-changer that unsettles comfortable habits and intellectual predispositions. A climate emergency can now be seen clearly on the horizon, unless we take emergency action, because even the current level of greenhouse gases is enough far beyond a safe boundary for the planet. In an emergency, partisan politics and the culture of compromise are cast aside. The threat is our highest priority and we allocate resources sufficient to solve the problem. It requires community mobilisation and a rapid scaling up of capacity. Critical targets are not compromised. This is what Anna Bligh is talking about in Queensland, it is what happened after Cyclone Tracey, and in the many cases where we perceive a future threat and act to prevent or prepare for it, in war and in peace. Our society not only responds to emergencies, but works hard to prevent them. We have a culture of safety and standards for buildings, machines and infrastructure that encourage safe use to reduce accidents and emergencies. In the home, at work and at school, we learn and reinforce safe practices. Where the threat of fire, flood or cyclone are high, we aim to build to standards that will allow infrastructure and people to survive and be safe till the emergency is over. Work-safe, child safety, road safety, swimming and pool safety … What is missing is climate safety: acting to build a world in which we and future generations can live safely in a biologically diverse natural world. Yet climate change is already dangerous, and the hour is late. Restoring a safe climate means the world very quickly building a zero-emissions economy without fossil fuels, and reducing the current level of greenhouse gases. It is a vast undertaking akin to a post-war reconstruction, but we have the technologies and the economic capacity. What we presently lack is an honest conversation about where we are headed, and the political will to build the solutions that are already available to us. *David Spratt is co-author of the book Climate Code Red. |
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15 Comments
How true!
I really enjoy those things which technology and society have to offer - cheap transport, a safe society, creature comforts… the list is endless. I want my children and theirs also to be able to enjoy similar safety and diversity.
However, it is way past the time when a real response to climate change shold have been developed and implemented by all political parties, professional and business organisations across the land. We are gambling our world, and that of our descendents on an entirely irrational hope that all the issues will mysteriously just go away.
Alternatively, have two old Aussie phrases somehow taken hold of our collective noggins? “She’ll be right” and “I’m all right, Jack” are not the way to plan for a happy and prosperous future.
Can’t agree with you about our approach to safety, but get the point you are making.
Anna however seems to think that 20 new coal mines and 40,000 gas wells poisoning our ground water, do not have any flow on effect on the intensity of climate events. While ever government policy is shaped by corporations, there will be no response to climate change.
It may be true that 90% of the world’s population couldn’t survive if the global temperature rises by 4 degrees but it’s inevitable that people will make adaptations to the ongoing increase in temperature, one of them being a decrease in the birth rate throughout the world (especially in hard hit countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh). As it becomes obvious to even the most strident denialist that the planet is warming and is becoming an increasingly difficult place to raise children, the natural inclination will be to have fewer children. Raising children will be increasingly difficult in many countries and I suspect a very large number of people will decide not to bring children in to the world, other than one or two they can look after and for company in the older years.
Humans do many stupid things but it’s unlikely that we’ll go on procreating as if nothing’s happening.
Congratulations again for Crikey as the only main-stream media outlet running serious commentary on the relationship between climate change and extreme natural events
So Crikey has joined the MSM (Rod, above).
This will be the cause of much confusion, because Crikey denizens often rail against that same MSM in support of Crikey. Ah… progress! Recognition! Gotta love it.
David Spratt, you may mean well (just like the people who put the fear of god into us also do) but you take a very wise statement from Bligh;
“hope and pray that mother nature is leaving us alone to get on with the job of cleaning up and recovering from this event”.
and then go on a rant that has nothing to do with the reality of this statment and only serves to push your own barrel…or rather book sales.
Have you ever lived in QLD during a La Nina?
Are you aware that next month is likely to see the big cyclones hit the QLD coast?
What Ms Bligh is saying here is REAL and CURRENT and BASED on solid scientific models and if ‘mother nature’ behaves as it does in this usual weather pattern we may see many more people who are already homeless suffer much more. There may well be a lot more rain to come as the wet season is not over yet.
I have lived through floods, droughts, bushfires, cyclones it is terrble stuff. So you can tout that 90% of the worlds populations will have nowhere to live and work hard to scare us all to death with your concepts but will that help the QLD people get through the rest of the wet season?
And what pray tell has what you have written really got to do with the emergency response to these floods and the Premiers statement?
Plenty of nonsense here given that carbon is not the root cause of your perceived problems (plenty of high river levels in times of relatively lower atmospheric carbon, LOL). Rains occur in the wet season, with and without wind (i.e. cyclones); as a result streams and rivers flow and low flat areas flood - filling in the remaining available spaces between bricks, mortar, steel and asphalt if present. In Brisbane, a key post-1974 requirement had to be the ‘74 flood level as a minimum RL specification, which was ignored by Governments, bureaucrats, and speculators. Of course, these latter groups contain significant carbon, so I suppose that is the problem to which you allude.
Lisacrago, what is this crap about “… Are you aware that next month is likely to see the big cyclones hit the QLD coast?” This is ‘science’ is it?
Yes Hugh, it is called the “weather” and the “wet season” and it is not over yet.
If you are totally unfamiliar with the seasonal weather patterns may I suggest you educate yourself.
Since it looks like you can use a computer to abuse people why not use it to educate yourself.
May I suggest you start by going to ‘Google’ and type in Cyclone Larry.
That’s lovely science fiction.
Not quite what the AGW authority says.
IPCC projects reduced rainfall in central and southern Queensland.
Extreme rainfall events in Australia: “Commonly, return periods of extreme rainfall events halve in late 21st-century simulations. “
IPCC Global Climate projections: 0.2C/decade from 2001. Data reference Hadcrut.
HADCRUT global temp trend 2001-2010: NEGATIVE 0.032/decade
http://www.woodfortrees.org/data/hadcrut3gl/from:2001/trend
To use alarmist logic, if this trend continues, we’re heading for global cooling!
So IPCC says reduced rainfall, fewer extreme rainfall events and warming of 0.2C/decade is projected for an AGW world.
Real world data is not an emergency.
It’s fascinating to see all sides muddying the waters while they furiouslyset about the important task of attacking their opponents for — - muddying the waters.
Why is the levy not being levied on the coal subsidies? After all they are behind so much of the Co2 whilst even today they line their pockets with cash. It seems that once again Gillard is happy to cut the solution (renewables) to look after her mates! It goes to highlight her ingrained denialist beliefs. Had she really seen what is happening she woud have doubled or even tripled the grants to get us all out of this hell, so to speak.
Miro, I assume you do understand that Australians’ (by current world standards) profligate life styles derive largely from our mineral exports, and without the income from those exports — - which heavily SUBSIDISE the living standards we enjoy — - voters wouldn’t be all that happy? It’s not merely a question of what governments ‘should’ do, but rather what they can do, and the extent to which unilateral Australian decisions would make much difference anyway.
I don’t suggest this is a desirable situation, merely that you simply wishing what you deem the right decisions will be carried out does little more than distract attention from how difficult doing anything effective actually is going to be. So if it makes you FEEL better, by all means continue to blame it on Gillard, her ‘mates’, or even the Martians; but don’t delude yourself into assuming that your ‘plans’ would make any real difference.
Others may be climate denialists, Miro, but even IF your interpretation of them is correct, do you really think being a reality denialist is any better?
“This is what Anna Bligh is talking about in Queensland, it is what happened after Cyclone Tracey, and in the many cases where we perceive a future threat and act to prevent or prepare for it, in war and in peace. Our society not only responds to emergencies, but works hard to prevent them. We have a culture of safety and standards for buildings, machines and infrastructure that encourage safe use to reduce accidents and emergencies. In the home, at work and at school, we learn and reinforce safe practices. Where the threat of fire, flood or cyclone are high, we aim to build to standards that will allow infrastructure and people to survive and be safe till the emergency is over”! [David Spratt]
• Sadly, pompous career politicians among the regular visitors to Israel didn’t bother to take notice of the Israeli building standards. Noted for the predominantly elevated multi-storey structures on the pillars which supported matrix of the reinforced concrete beams and columns. Forming a skeleton-like-structure, swiftly risen above, before the hollow-blocks to fill the void. Thus no-load-bearing walls which could take any route and even modified subsequently, just as no-load-bearing doorways and windows.
Patently, no solid concrete slabs, apart from the ground level carpark-area and a bomb-shelter below. Yet instead of the solid concrete slabs which resonated noise throughout the building, Israelis formed matrix of the hollow-blocks on the flat formwork in contiguous rows, lightly encased subsequently with the reinforced concrete topping. Poured during simultaneous casting of the reinforced concrete beams between the rows of the hollow-blocks.
Forming a ceiling below and the above floor’s substructure for plumbing and electrical installation, buried with a layer of sand. Where on that sand’s surface finally being run heating/cooling reticulation when designated, before floor-tiles accomplished the job.
So how that compares with the matchboxes disgrace proliferation downunder? Forsaken inhabitants of which being subjected to the recurrent floods, devastating cyclones and bush fires, if not for ferocious white-ants to consume their livelihood first.
Leo Braun, are you trying to turn neutrals into being opposed to Israel? If not, stop while you’re only behind.