Fire and flood is growing more frequently and is more intense as the atmosphere gets warmer.
Just 1.1 degrees of warming produced the unprecedented Black Summer fires (and smoke) and the past two years of unprecedented flooding in eastern Australia, including here on the Coast.
We know these events were caused by global warming because they were just a small part of a global pattern of unprecedented fires and floods.
These have increased in frequency and intensity in lock-step with rising global temperatures over the past 50 or so years.
The science is clear.
The fires and floods won’t stop increasing in frequency and intensity until we stop warming our atmosphere.
There has been much talk about the transition from fossil fuels to renewables over the past 30 years of IPCC meetings, and we now have a national plan to get Australia to net zero by 2050.
Does that mean we will be safe from the worst consequences of climate change?
Unfortunately, no.
Firstly, because despite 30 years of UN climate meetings agreeing that urgent action is needed, the rate of global greenhouse gas emissions is still rising, not falling.
Secondly, we have already emitted all the greenhouse gases needed for 1.5 degrees of warming.
We aren’t there yet due to the time lag between emitting the gas and the earth reaching a new stable temperature, and the shading effect of smog over the industrial parts of the northern hemisphere caused by burning of fossil fuels.
Finally, loss of summer sea ice area in the Arctic threatens a series of feedback loops and tipping points which will result in runaway warming which will continue even after the global community achieves net zero emissions.
That is why only a national emergency-level response to the threat of global climate chaos is appropriate now.
We need to replace our ageing and expensive fossil fuel generators with wind, solar, battery and hydro and build a grid which is fit for purpose.
We need to do it now.
We then need to build at least another 100 per cent of renewables to power the EVs, heat pumps and new green industries.
Fortunately, we have all the tools and technologies available to us right now to make this transition.
Off-shore wind has been proposed for the NSW and Victorian coasts as part of this mix, including off our Central Coast.
Some public comments have suggested these wind turbines will be an eyesore.
My opinion on this is firstly, the wind turbines will be at least 10km offshore and secondly, I would much prefer to look at turbines in the far distance than at a conga line of rusting coal ships.
Other comments have suggested that the turbines will be a hazard to sea birds, sea mammals and fish.
Surveys of actual bird kills have shown that each turbine kills fewer birds than the average domestic cat (and only a fraction of those killed by the average feral cat) and the threat to sea mammals and fish from ocean warming, ocean acidification, disruption to ocean currents and death of our coral reefs from global warming is massively bigger than the threat from the proposed turbines.
I have spent the past 20 years studying climate science and consequently I have spent the past 15 years as a climate and environmental activist.
The good news is that I won’t have to spend the next 15 years doing it.
That’s because we don’t have 15 years left.
Either we will have stopped emitting greenhouse gases, or we will have passed critical tipping points and it will then be too late to try.
Time is short and there is much to do.
Our governments are being bombarded by the fossil industry lobbyists and their media campaigns telling them to delay, and they are hesitating.
Now is the time to make your voice heard loud and clear.
Email, Apr 26
Geoff Cameron, Narara