When told by a doctor that one’s health is deteriorating as a result of stress, poor diet or smoking, most rational people accept the need for changes to reduce the risks. Some may seek a second opinion. Only a few will keep going until they eventually find a doctor who will assure them that their health is not declining or that if it is, it is caused by something beyond their control. Many people don’t find it easy to change their lifestyle even when they know the consequences. After all, the real consequences are probably many years away.
Our responses to climate change have followed a similar pattern.
The diagnosis was largely confirmed in the late 1980s after many years of research. In Australia our foremost scientific organisation, the CSIRO, ran conferences in 1987/88 where their climate change predictions were aired for all to see. Just imagine what we might have achieved if some modest changes were instituted 20 years ago!
At the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 a “warning to humanity” was issued by almost sixteen hundred of the world's most eminent scientists from 69 nations and including more than half the Nobel Prize winners. The document said that “fundamental changes are urgent”, but humanity, or at least our leaders, weren’t listening.
The scientists repeated their warning in even stronger terms in the lead up to the 1997 Kyoto summit, calling for “massive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.” The best our leaders could manage was a meagre 6% average reduction target for the developed countries by 2012 which won’t be achieved anyway.
But worse was to come. Vested interests and governments around the word, including Australia, sought to marginalise scientists who continued to issue warnings. Scientists at our own CSIRO have been censored numerous times over the years. The few scientists that questioned whether climate change was caused by humans were given unprecedented exposure in an attempt to muddy the waters in a debate that should have already been well and truly decided.
Denial is no longer possible now that the health of the patient is clearly declining. But it seems that changing our behaviour is just as difficult as for the workaholic to slow down, the junk food junkie to eat healthy or the smoker to quit. But it’s not just our lives that are at stake here - it’s the future of human civilisation, hardly a trivial matter. We owe it to future generations to finally heed the scientists’ warnings.
This was originally published in the Fraser Coast Chronicle on 12 June 2007.
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