21 October 2009

Fun and games to get government action on climate change

| emd
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[Ed] First filed here but now with more info

GetUp! and 350.org have joined forces to hold events all over the planet on Saturday, 24 October. They want governments in every country to take action to keep our CO2 levels below 350ppm (parts per million) to prevent catastrophic climate change.

Details from GetUp!’s website, where you can RSVP:
Date & Time
October 24th, 2009 @ 1:30 pm

Host(s)

Climate Action Canberra

GAMBLING WITH THE CLIMATE

A performance by comedian Rod Quantock with games, prizes, festivities and more!
Guest speaker – GetUp Campaigns Director & Canberran, Ed Coper

New Parliament House lawns
1.30pm Saturday 24 October

It’s fun, free, and everyone is welcome!
If you want to come as an individual, you’re welcome, or if your group wants to take part with us, that’s great too!
Prizes for the best dressed! Come as a polar bear, polluter or politician!

Brindabella Baby are donating a book prize for best dressed kid, and there will be others too.
So why is it so important that we keep CO2 levels in the atmosphere under 350ppm? Because we want to prevent catastrophic climate change.
We humans evolved at a time when levels were 280ppm. The current level is 387ppm. The Rudd government policy is to cap levels at 450ppm, but government policies would lead to levels of up to 650ppm if adopted by other countries.
The government’s own Garnaut Review says that if levels rise above 450ppm, Australian temperatures will rise up to 4.9C by 2100. The number of days predicted to have extreme bushfire risk will increase from current levels of 5-25 days per year, to 100-300 days per year by 2067. In Queensland, temperature-related deaths will rise from 1,747 per year currently to between 5,878 and 9,500 per year by 2100. Here in Canberra, the number of days with temperatures over 35C will increase from 5 per year (currently) to 32 per year by 2100. And if you think that sucks, Darwin will have less than 8 weeks a year with temperatures under 35C by 2100. The number of days per year in Australia with bushfire risk at Extreme is projected to rise from 5-25 days per year in 2013, to 100-300 days per year by 2067.

Bring on the nutcases who think climate change is not really happening… I’m of the opinion that is better to mitigate a risk with catastrophic consequences, regardless of the probability of it occurring.

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Gardening Girl, it’s pretty easy to get organic cotton fair trade produced t-shirts in Canberra these days. Even bands are using them for their merch stalls.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy11:38 am 23 Oct 09

GardeningGirl said :

Sorry, it’s not that I don’t care about the environment, I’m just over the whole hypocritical selective half-baked ineffectual guilt-inducing trendy ignorant industry.

Marry me.

barking toad4:38 pm 22 Oct 09

Hippies need to realise that Carbon Dioxide, CO2, is not a pollutant.

It is a trace gas that takes up 385 parts per million of our atmosphere. Hopefully it goes up. Man’s part of that is 4% of 385 parts per million.

It’s impact on climate is the equivalent of a fart in a hurricane. Man’s contribution is 4% of that fart.

Plants thrive on CO2 and from the wonder of the carbon cycle produce oxygen. Which is pretty handy for us kiddies who like to inhale. Then we exhale CO2 and the cycle continues.

Can anyone really explain why I should give a flying about an up/down of a miniscule of the fart that has no impact on anything?

Except, of course, the disaster of government intervention and imposition of a tax on something for nothing.

GardeningGirl4:38 pm 22 Oct 09

Oh goody, another event. Where do I get my t-shirt*?
*pesticide treated azo-dyed cotton shipped from China because it’s bad for me to aspire to travel using anything but a bicycle or maybe a hybrid but it’s okay for my clothes to come halfway round the world

Sorry, it’s not that I don’t care about the environment, I’m just over the whole hypocritical selective half-baked ineffectual guilt-inducing trendy ignorant industry.

Chop71 said :

Climate change solution

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23724412-2,00.html

now move on with something else please…..

Lol I suspect Flannery considers pumping sulphur into the atmosphere as a Plan ‘Z’, a calculated risk and last resort to be applied in desperation when everything is turning to s@#$, with unpredictable results based on an unproven theory. Not exactly what I would classify as a ‘solution’

Gungahlin Al2:56 pm 22 Oct 09

Yup. Unfortunately this Labor government that people elected to be better than Howard’s, seems content with being (only a little) less worse.

I left Landcare Australia as a volunteer after 10 years of providing free labour to the community because it became obvious the biggest problem we are facing in the developed world on this whole environment issue is the attitude of government and their crazy paranoid obsession they have with regards the economy.

When Rudd was asked “how come there’s more V8s in the government car fleet than hybrids?” Rudd said “I refused to do anything that will cost even one Australian job.” And here is the same problem again – we still don’t have a government on the planet that really understands the situation we are going to find ourselves in soon.

Gungahlin Al12:28 pm 22 Oct 09

“I’m of the opinion that is better to mitigate a risk with catastrophic consequences, regardless of the probability of it occurring.”

Exactly. And it has wider environmental benefits anyway, so why wouldn’t you?

What is disturbing is the decisions that some governments are making that just go and undo everyone’s best efforts. For instance, approval of two new coal based power stations in the Hunter by the NSW Government recently will increase that state’s GHG emissions by 40%.

Hysterial moonbats.

Climate change solution

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23724412-2,00.html

now move on with something else please…..

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