It's the C-L-I-M-A-T-E, you idiots!

Findings in the United Nations GEO 4 report released on 25 October 2007 have huge implications for Australia.

Index to full report:
 http://www.unep.org/geo/geo4/media/index.asp?

 

These findings tell us that climate change is occurring faster than originally anticipated and that we have all talked for too long without doing anything significant about addressing either root causes, mitigation or adaptation measures.

 

The CSIRO informed us only a few months ago that the NSW North Coast could expect higher temperatures, changes to rainfall patterns, less surface and underground freshwater, more severe storms, stronger flooding and seawater eating into some of our populated coastal areas.

Not in two hundred years, not in one hundred years, not in fifty years, but anytime from now on.

 

Yet Howard, Costello & Co. want to focus on the supposed financial tsunami which will overwhelm us if Labor's industrial policies come into play. Almost as an afterthought yesterday the Prime Minister released a promise of renewable energy funding which only plays catch up to where Australia's fledgling renewable energy industries should have been a decade ago.

 

Brief one-liners on the environment from local Nationals candidates do nothing to instil confidence in any future Coalition response either.

 

Federal Labor may not have covered itself in climate change glory so far in the campaign, but at least it has consistently recognised the urgency of our position and is likely to be able to successfully carry off a true national response to the now almost unavoidable climate change impacts we can expect.