Locals made their point to G20 on climate

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR
 
Sir – Residents of Alice Springs contributed to the global initiative that led to action on climate change being on the agenda of the G20.
 
Leading up to the G20 talks in Brisbane, hundreds of community groups and thousands of individuals sent personal messages that the world is moving and Australia is being left behind on climate change. Communities, institutions and businesses across Australia have already shown leadership in addressing this challenge. This will continue in spite of inaction from governments.
 
Local doctor, Rosalie Schultz said that climate change is the most serious threat to human health of this century. Urgent preventive action is needed. Weather disasters including heatwaves, droughts and floods are already killing Australians and threaten the most vulnerable. Some price rises of fresh fruit and vegetables are related to changing weather conditions, and these will only get worse. Heatwaves can impact on young kids and the elderly the most – particularly people without access to air-conditioning.
 
“That is why we wanted to send this message to G20 that climate change is on our agenda.
 
“World leaders owe it to families, local farmers and businesses to prioritise cutting pollution and harnessing clean energy, and improving health and well-being for all people”.
 
“As global citizens, climate change is clearly on our agenda of concerns. We were pleased that the leaders at G20 heard us,” she said.
 
In Alice Springs a group of concerned people met and shared their concern. This local event was part of #OnMyAgenda, a global campaign supported by the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Climate Reality Project. “Around the world people are taking action, like wind energy entrepreneurs in South Africa, and the “Solar sisters” in Uganda and Rwanda. These people are promoting a safer future, and we can do this too.” For more details check out www.onmyagenda.org
 
Dr Rosalie Schultz
Alice Springs
 

9 COMMENTS

  1. I love a sunburnt country – a land of sweeping plains – of rugged mountain ranges – of droughtsand flooding rains …
    This bunkum has to stop. It’s the climate, it changes and we as humans deal with it. The agenda of the climate gullibles would see more people living in poverty rather than use fossil fuels.
    Further – if we are to reduce our emissions, then let’s have more dams for hydro, more shale gas or heaven forbid nuclear.
    The age of seeming rather than doing is well and truly upon us.

  2. Well another (anonymous) Observer (Posted November 18, 2014 at 11:20 am), just keep your head happily buried in the sand, and the rest of us will try to figure this out constructively. It is you who is spouting the “bunkum”.
    Yes, the climate changes, and we attempt to adapt.
    However, the carbon component of the atmosphere has been growing at an unprecedented rate for many decades now.
    Many aspects of the weather and environment are now changing at rates that are very difficult for most people to adjust to without major problems.
    So we will try to slow the rate of carbon growth to give us more time to adjust and cope, while you are happily fooling yourself and others around you, cocooned in a state of denial.
    Your solutions are not rational nor well informed.
    Dams are very expensive to construct, and usually cause problems to our downstream rivers and biodiversity, amongst other difficulties. Shale gas still contributes to increasing the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and more toxins in our water supplies, amongst several other serious concerns.
    Nuclear waste will remain a costly and dangerous problem for succeeding generations for many thousands of years, and nuclear power plants cost a mint to build and manage.
    You seem to have left solar power off your list. Do you have a bee in your bonnet about renewable energy sources too?
    If you have real concerns about the plight of “people living in poverty” you should be advocating the rapid phasing out of fossil fuels, and the swift conversion to use of renewable energy sources.

  3. Bob, Bob, Bob, climate change is real and would still be real even if no people were on this planet.
    The CO2 is ensuring greenhouse effect to grow heaps of food and feed the world but the idiots want to grow trees and starve the people of the world.
    The discussions should go back to the beginning and the outcomes will be very different. Everyone wants clean energy, not just the cult followers.

  4. Bob – you need to stop watching the ABC and start to widen your research. The climate hasn’t warmed for the last 15 or 16 years. Does this mean it won’t warm again in the future, probably not.
    But even my form 4 biology class told me that carbon dioxide is needed for all forms of plant growth, so more carbon in the atmosphere means more plants.
    The shills out there spending $1 billion per day globally – think on what that money could go to: Lifting people out of poverty, creating opportunity – but no, we have the new jetsetters heading off around the world, sipping chardy to pontificate on the seeming not the doing!
    With regards to solar – yes I have a problem with it.
    We have the middle classes hoovering up more tax dollars putting solar panels on their roofs and pushing up the price of electricity for pensioners and others on fixed incomes.
    If you want solar, pay for it yourself, don’t expect the taxpayer to subsidise your lifestyle.
    Especially when we have oldies that are going to bed because they can’t afford to heat their homes, and our public hospitals are stretched to breaking point because there isn’t enough money to fund them.
    You can’t lift people out of poverty with renewable energy – coal, nuclear and hydro are the only options for baseload power at this time.
    The children doing homework by candlelight in the 3rd World TODAY don’t want renewable energy, they want the same facilities that you and I enjoy.
    It is my right to post under any damn name I please.

  5. Thank you, Another Observer.
    I have been saying that with all the solar panels going up the cost of electricity has increased to those who can least afford to pay. And Allan White from Power Water Corporation publicly stated that is not true it is due to carbon pricing.
    And then PWC have spent millions rebranding themselves, and those in poverty live without power and heating during our cold winters and air conditioning during our hot summers.
    So much for our government and their humanitarian streak. And heads of departments who are so comfortable deliberating are berating anyone who publicity displays their guilt.

  6. Thanks, Another (anonymous) Observer (Posted November 19, 2014 at 6:05 pm).
    As I mentioned, I agree that “this bunkum has to stop”. Of course you have the “right” to post anonymously, or “under any damn name [you] please”.
    But it’s a fact that you would have more credibility if you posted under your own name, at least when you have no good reason to hide your identity. People generally have more respect for the views of those who have the guts to stand up publicly for what they believe in.

  7. Another thing, Another (anonymous) Observer (Posted November 19, 2014 at 6:05 pm).
    You point out that more carbon dioxide may help to grow more plant matter. However, you also need to understand that the enormous quantities of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere since WW2 is unprecedented in such a short period.
    This carbon dioxide has its origins in plants that were fossilised over very long periods, millions of years ago. The current rate of their release outstrips, far more than ever before, the capacity of ecosystems to absorb them.
    Most of the carbon dioxide absorbed into present day plants is soon re-released into the atmosphere anyway, when the plant matter is digested by animals, or used for bio-fuel, or burnt, or decays.
    As well as needing to reduce the rate of carbon release from fossil fuels into the atmosphere, we need new, affordable mechanisms for permanent carbon storage, not just temporary carbon capture.

  8. One last comment, Another (anonymous) Observer (Posted November 19, 2014 at 6:05 pm).
    Re your comments on solar energy and the costs to the taxpayers and the poor: it is a fact that the suppliers of fossil fuels benefit from a myriad of public subsidies and tax benefits, and the same applies to the private and public operators of coal, oil and gas-fired electricity generators.
    Internationally, these subsidies to the fossil fuels industries are estimated at around $800 billion per annum. Government support for the establishment of sustainable, low-carbon producing power sources is not a bad policy option in this larger context.
    A major program is needed to replace existing coal, diesel and gas-fired power stations, as quickly as possible, with publicly owned solar power generators to meet the requirements of the masses of ordinary people.
    If we continue using fossil fuels as our predominant power sources, we are condemning most people to higher power costs, and many millions to earlier graves than they would otherwise need to expect.

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