Senator Fielding accidentally produces a little light relief in the international climate change policy debate

I opened my browser yesterday morning to find the Herald-Sun giving a few online centimetres to this:

A CROSSBENCH senator who doubts the science of climate change says he may back an Australian Government plan to let developing countries propose their own cuts to carbon emissions.

Mirth immediately took over for several minutes.
What on earth is Steve Fielding talking about? Any idiot can tell that a matter of government foreign affairs policy which will not require legislation to implement does not need endorsement from the only Family First party member to make it into federal parliament.

The man and his constant need to be in the political limelight is a national embarrassment.
The only consolation is that published print versions of his opinions will quickly disappear into the recycler's maw or landfill, while digital versions on the Internet will eventually lead to data mining results like this from Personas which actually appear to reflect his lack of credibility:

TECHNORATI SEARCH: STEVE FIELDING IS A CREDULOUS DOPE STEVE FIELDING IS A VEXING SUBJECT
STEVE FIELDING IS JUST A MEDIA TORTE
STEVE FIELDING IS RENOWNED FOR HIS PUBLICITY STUNTS
WHETHER HE CAN SPELL OR NOT, STEVE FIELDING IS AN IDIOT

River deltas sinking across the globe except in Australia and Antarctica?

A study was published in Nature Geoscience this month on the vulnerability of river deltas and finally there was some guarded good news for Australia in relation to flooding and rising sea levels.

Many of the world's largest deltas are densely populated and heavily farmed. Yet many of their inhabitants are becoming increasingly vulnerable to flooding and conversions of their land to open ocean. The vulnerability is a result of sediment compaction from the removal of oil, gas and water from the delta's underlying sediments, the trapping of sediment in reservoirs upstream and floodplain engineering in combination with rising global sea level. Here we present an assessment of 33 deltas chosen to represent the world's deltas. We find that in the past decade, 85% of the deltas experienced severe flooding, resulting in the temporary submergence of 260,000 km². We conservatively estimate that the delta surface area vulnerable to flooding could increase by 50% under the current projected values for sea-level rise in the twenty-first century. This figure could increase if the capture of sediment upstream persists and continues to prevent the growth and buffering of the deltas.

Worst hit will be Asia, but heavily populated and farmed deltas on every continent except Australia and Antarctica are in peril, it says according to SBS World News.

Revenge of the wrinklies!

Sometimes cyberspace produces an antidote to life's little irritations.

This time it threw up a bit of sweet payback for all those bluidy undisciplined televised Federal Parliament Question Times since November 2007.

These pics are from a campaign by industry body Aged & Community Services Australia which can be found at Kevin 87. There are lines and wrinkles here enough for all those insults offered to voter intelligence and failure to grasp the national health care nettle. Pity there's no pics of Pyne and Abbott.

Growing old is manda-
tory; growing up is optional. ~Chili Davis

Are national economic concerns winning out over global environmental crises?

World leaders are gathering in Pittsburgh USA for a G20 summit, which officially commences on 24 September 2009 with an aim to review the progress made since the Washington and London Summits and discuss further actions to assure a sound and sustainable recovery from the global financial and economic crisis.

Two days have been set aside to cover this topic and calls to commit to further government intervention in international banking and commerce.
If recent media coverage cited on www.g20pittsburghsummit.org is any indication, then the minds of world leaders are firmly fixed on their national economic woes.

It is easy to suspect that global warming will continue take a backseat to the global financial crisis, despite the fact that a UN meeting on climate change is taking place tomorrow ahead of the G20 summit.

It is a real possibility that very little progress will be made this week towards the Copenhagen agenda on climate change, despite the Rudd Government's reported behind-the-scenes work on the legal framework for a new climate change treaty, and ways to finance poorer countries' efforts to adapt to a low-carbon world, could become a crucial contribution in breaking the impasse on a greenhouse treaty.

Immediate national economic imperatives appear to be winning the hearts and mind battle at the expense of addressing very real environmental crises.
Yesterday The Guardian reported:
UN chief Ban Ki-Moon and negotiators say that unless they can convert world leaders into committed advocates of radical action, it will be very hard to reach a credible and enforceable agreement to avoid the most devastating consequences of climate change.

The Australian has an online poll underway which asks the question:
Do you expect any concrete progress to be made at the November climate change summit in Copenhagen?

Most of those who have taken part in this poll so far (pictured) are not optimistic about the possibility of concrete progress.

Indeed many people are becoming very cynical about global and government response to climate change. On the NSW North Coast this has manifested itself in a number of ways, including this black humour view of Yamba's problems at the mouth of the Clarence River:
* When asked what strategies were in place to provide support in the event of a major flood of West Yamba, one SES worker is reported as to have said "We'll stand on the edge of Yamba Hill and toss life jackets to people as they float by". [Climate Change Australia,Clarence Division, Submission on Draft Sea Level Rise Policy Statement by the NSW Government,March 2009]