Many of the politicians fighting Australia’s election campaign talk about the economy and immigration but the world is listening for what they say about the impact of climate change.
If the rest of the world could vote in next month’s Australian election, there would almost certainly be one issue that would be raised to the top of the country’s political agenda: saving the Great Barrier Reef. Scientists say this year 93% of its reefs experienced some bleaching, and 22% of all of the reef’s coral was killed by unusually warm waters. Unheard of just three decades ago, large-scale bleaching has become a regular occurrence. Within 20 years the conditions that drove this year’s bleaching in Australia will occur every second year. A Guardian report illustrates in vivid detail the scale of the devastation unfolding beneath the surface. Over the past 34 years the average proportion of the Great Barrier Reef exposed to temperatures where bleaching or even death is likely has increased from about 11% a year to about 27% a year.
It is a constant struggle to motivate most people most of the time about climate change. The evidence accumulates slowly; despite being an emergency, it often . . . more: The Guardian view on the Great Barrier Reef: the crisis they prefer to downplay | Opinion | The Guardian
GR: Alternative energy may reduce pollution, but it has its own problems. In the desert near me, solar farms are shading and destroying native vegetation, roads and transmission corridors are spreading habitat destruction and giving access to invasive plants. As explained in John Murawski’s article, just the wind-farm survey impacts will be significant. Construction will add more damage. So what? Well, I would like to see our leaders make some proposals for cutting our energy requirements. Otherwise, we are simply creating another major industry that will see growth and profit as far more important than protecting nature.
GarryRogers Nature Conservation 