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Media And Main Parties Ignore Climate Change – The Elephant In The Room? As weather records tumble across Australia the major parties and most of the media seem intent on ignoring the huge problem of man-made climate change. By Peter Gardner - 5th September 2013 - Back to News The last twelve months have been the hottest on record, it was the warmest winter in Victoria since records began and the warmest start to spring in many locations. Experts have predicted an above average bushfire season for much of the country including East Gippsland.
Tim Colebatch and Peter Hannam writing in the Age stated "Australia's record warming comes towards the end of an election campaign from which global warming has gone missing. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott never mentions it, although in every speech he promises to repeal the carbon price intended as Australia's contribution to the fight against it. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who once called climate change the greatest moral issue of our time, rarely mentions it on the campaign trail..."
In effect neither of the main political parties has the political will to even attempt to face, let alone try to solve, this problem. As James Hansen, the world’s most well known climate scientist has said "governments are in the hands of the fossil fuel industry." Hansen and others have noted that if we are to avoid a low level runaway Greenhouse effect it is imperative effect that we wean ourselves off fossil fuels as quickly as possible. Such an effect would make large parts of the planet unliveable. As wind solar and perhaps geothermal energy are the only technologies that can be applied immediately it is time to bring on the ‘solar revolution’.
There are a number of minor parties and independents for whom climate change is the most pressing problem facing humanity. They are advocating a range of policies to tackle the global warming problem. They too have gone unnoticed in the media in a boring, ‘dumbed down’, presidential style campaign.
Peter Gardner, campaigning in Gippsland as a ‘climate emergency’ Independent has called on voters to send a message to the major parties that they can no longer ignore climate change. In this election it is the ‘elephant in the room’ and whoever is elected the problem will not go away. It will gradually get worse with intermittent severe weather events – heat waves, storms, floods, droughts and related bushfires – predicted to become more frequent and damaging by up to ten times.
Source: http://gippsland.com/ Published by: news@gippsland.com
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