An Inconvenient Truth
I had the pleasure of seeing the AIT presentation given live earlier this week. While I’ve seen the film {one of those doco’s I dragged Avalon to at the cinema despite her better judgement, and she loved it}, got the DVD, book, screen saver and reminders about “twelve things to do”, it was really good to see the pitch given live.
Phil Tate from NZ Post has gone through the official training, and is now on a mission to bring AIT to the wider community. I personally find it shocking that for all the information there has been on this topic over the last few years, we still get lost in the ‘it’s only a sun spot cycle’ debate. What utter claptrap. Plus it offends my sensibilities as an Astrophysicist. Having also just watched a TED session showing iceberg collapse, this was very timely for me. Phil’s iteration of the presentation has some useful NZ focus.
So what did I learn? Well, don’t move to the west coast of NZ. It’s going to get wetter, with more rainfall, which is also likely to be more unpredictable. And that’s the nub of things, this isn’t about ‘global warming’ its about climate change. Things are going to extremes, and it’s going to be a long while, or take something we really don’t want to happen, for this to self-correct. See James Lovelock’s material on Gaia for a reasoned perspective on this, which does involve nuclear power and not all having to live in grass huts as some of the green movement would like to make out.
Meanwhile the east coat of NZ, is likely to get less rainfall. That’s not so good either with the large Wairarapa farming community suffering badly already from the, it has to be said, brief droughts we’ve had the last couple of summers.
We’re better off than the Aussies though. They have been coping with a protracted drought in the Murray Darling basin for years now – and this one of the main grain growing regions. I can see environmental refugee’s making their way to NZ from Aussie in the not too distant future. Already you have limits on the length of time you can take a shower for in some Aus cities, and forget being able to water the garden for half an hour.
Much as I may have reservations about the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) as being a way of just taxing people, and not actually tackling the problem, it’s quite clear that the economic impact of a drought in the farming communities is huge compared to changing a few of our habits and thinking about our personal environmental impact.
And we’re much better off than the folks in the paradise that is the Maldives. Their Govt. is on the look out for a new country.
Straight as that, I kid you not.
Unfortunately I missed the Q&A, having other work interrupt me. Still I look forwards to seeing the full presentation properly in the near future.
Take action, do something now. This isn’t one of those problems that ‘someone else’ is going to solve.
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