![[Report] A bushfire which started on August 15 has destroyed nine hectares of bushland in the Bouddi National Park. A total fire ban had been declared for the Central Coast on the day.](https://coastcommunitynews.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/bushfire-pretty-beach.jpg)
Forum –
Already we dread hot summers, we dread bushfire season, we have increased flash flooding events, and we see the effects of storms and rising oceans on many nations around the world.
The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Report has shown that we have less than 10 years to cut global emissions in order to avert the worst impacts of climate change and stay under two degrees, which may enable us to prevent run-away global warming.
Australia is behind other major Western nations on our commitment, which currently would lead us to a three-degree temperature rise.
The government may soon announce a commitment to zero emissions by 2050 but this is too little too late.
To have a chance of staying below two degrees, global emissions must be halved by 2030 and we must achieve zero emissions by 2040.
This is not impossible, if we take the threat seriously and fully commit.
This should not be a party-political issue.
It is an issue of survival for future generations and all of humanity.
We must all demand that our governments bring their full resources to bear on this existential issue.
Email, Sep 13
Rafaele Joudry, Narara
Ah yes, climate change.
The climate is always changing. Uluru once sat at the bottom of a sea. Australia was once joined to PNG by a land bridge. The next ice age is predicted to arrive in 1,500 years time. Ice ages come and go, glaciers form and then melt over time.
The emissions of which you speak are Carbon Dioxide, CO2.
Carbon dioxide is plant and tree food. The trees and plants that give off the oxygen humans need for life.
The percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere is 0.04%
The percentage of that 0.04% which occurs naturally is 95%.
The human CO2 content in the air is thus only 0.0016 percent.
Australia’s percentage of that is miniscule.
Coal-fired power stations produce reliable, always available, and affordable electricity to keep our heavy industries going, our mobile phones charged, our computers and tvs working, and when it’s 45C our aircons purring away.
Solar and wind don’t work well enough, now, to replace coal.
Sun doesn’t shine and wind doesn’t blow, off goes our electricity.
USA has nuclear power. Mention nuclear power here and the sky falls in.
Nuclear power makes a lot of sense for Australia. We have thousand of square kilometres of basically wasteland that is geologically stable, perfect for storage of the relatively small amount of waste generated by modern nuclear power plants. In fact the left-wing god Bob Hawke advocated creating a nuclear waste facility servicing global needs. The revenue generated from such a facility would be enormous, but rabid greenies were horrified. Obviously there is a vested interest in promoting unreliable renewables as an alternative to coal.