Tim Flannery's Atmosphere Of Hope

The majority of scientific evidence suggests that over the last century humans have begun to have a discernible influence on the world's climate, causing it to warm. There is substantial evidence to indicate that significant global warming will occur during the 21st century. The purpose of this paper is to dramatize the impact climate change could have on Australian society if we are unprepared for it. In discussing the future of the planet, climate change, caused by increased abundances of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, has been a serious cause of concern. Several studies have suggested that climate change can lead to mass-fatality disasters, international migration leading to tensions and conflict, resource shortages, infectious disease, terrorism and rising-sea levels and drought causing immense economic nuisances, all of which have the potential to harm Australia’s national security.

Professor Per Peterson from the Department of Nuclear Engineering says, “It's difficult for me to see how we can transition away from fossil fuels and not use significant amounts of nuclear energy” (Phillips, 2012). Many argue that renewable sources of energy such as solar and wind should be implemented instead of nuclear energy as they too produce no air pollution. However, modern society requires a reliable ‘base load’ of electricity which renewables are not equipped to provide. In Australia there are limited sources that could potentially supply a suitable ‘base load’. They include coal and gas (which produce CO2 emissions) geothermal, hydro (which is limited due to the lack of water), developing technology and nuclear energy (Krieg, 2014). Renewable sources of energy also prove to be a problem as they are too fickle to provide base load power to a nation, as they depend on intermittent things such as weather and seasons, whereas nuclear power is available constantly whilst being a cleaner source of power.

The mining business is where the greater part of Australia’s economy originates from. Conservative politicians are unwilling to accept climate change, for the reason that they favour society’s values and aspects to be unchanged. A case which supports this notion is Australia’s and the United States rejecting to join other countries in partaking in the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol aims to unite countries to set limits on their greenhouse gas emissions, to suppress the destructive effects of climate change. The United States expresses that it will not participate in the international treaty due to; absence of sufficient supporting scientific evidence, large developing countries such as China or India aren’t partaking in the movement and reducing the greenhouse emissions would mean loss in their economy. Therefore, Australia and the United States will be more reluctant to adapting accepting climate change as it will negatively affect the industries that both countries originated from and have thrived on (Vanderheiden,

This New York Times Bestseller is very informative and influential which was imperative because most of our population does not understand the significance of climate change and our world dying out. With the knowledge and help of several other

I have researched about climate change in Australia and take this as an example for the same situation of other countries. Australia is a unique and diverse country in every way – in culture, populations, climate, geography, and history. It is home to more than one million species of plants and animals, many of which are found nowhere else in the world, and less than half have been described scientifically. However, Australia is an exceptionally large polluter. It is the highest per person greenhouse gas polluter among all developed countries, the 15th highest overall polluter and our emissions are still rising. Most of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions come from the burning of fossil fuels for energy about 72%. When oil, gas or coal burns,

This will allow me to collect qualitative data about each community in order to determine how they view climate change and what solutions they pose. In total, I plan to survey about 20 individuals in both Larrakia and the Charles Darwin University. These interviews will last 45 minutes to an hour. I will, with permission, record each interview with a tape recorder in addition to taking handwritten notes. A challenge that may occur during the interviews is the amount of knowledge the participants have on current sustainability laws and programs in Australia. They may not be well versed in such policy matters. Additionally, depending on what the students at the university are studying, they will have varying knowledge on climate change and policy. To alleviate this problem, I will provide a brief overview about the different initiatives Australia has taken to combat global warming before each interview.

Countries around the world have agreed that to avoid potentially dangerous climate change, global warming stay below 2 degrees C. This means that every country, including Australia will need to significantly increase their efforts to reduce emissions. Currently, Australia’s per capita emissions are among the highest in the world, however, there has been recent progress in decarbonising its economy. For example, greenhouse gas emissions have remained stable while economy size has almost doubled. (Pathways to deep carbonisation).

These last two election cycles have demonstrated the importance of climate change in relation to politics and the american people. What is unfortunate is that what seems to be a very crucial and real problem in our human survival, according to scientists, is being debated by people who do not have the scientific credentials to even discuss the science behind the reality of climate change. Those behind the skeptics, have funded a successful campaign against the reality of the facts and have introduce doubt into the sciences.

In Hans Blix's essay, Nuclear Power and the Environment, Blix suggests that nuclear power should be the main source of power to meet the constantly growing energy needs of the world. He discusses why fossil fuels should be discontinued due to their environmental impact as well as renewable energy sources and how they can not meet the growing demand for energy. Blix makes a strong, persuasive argument for the use of nuclear power through his use of statistics, his discussion of the alternatives, as well as his refuting of the common misconceptions about nuclear power.

Mann, Michael E. The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars : Dispatches from the Front Lines. New York: Columbia UP, 2012. Print.

Consequently, there are many people who not only agree with his view, but also oppose his opinion, especially some ways of combating on climate change. There are not only mentiond criticisms above, but also various attacks on him; for instance, Marcaial Langton criticizes he is a racist due to the stance that Australia’s first people are the enemies of nature in environmental campaing ideology (Harrison 2012). With the exception of temporary condenmnations, Andrew Bolt and Robert Fenwick Elliott has widely criticized Tim Flannery. A journalist, Andrew Bolt, attacks Tim’s point of view about particularly extreme climate change and supporting nuclear energy. Andrew does not accept that a significant amout of evidence may happen are very alarming

According to (Yaxley, 2017), politicians like Tony Abbott refuse to accept climate change is real. As he claimed that it is having more positive affects than negative. He continued to dismiss the argument by saying that scientific truth should be decided by facts rather than truth. In addiction, he belittled climate change's affects by calling it a mere theory and that the policy is not worth the risk. And other liberal politicians such as Craig Kelly, agreed.

Let’s not hang around the thought of a swiftly melting iceberg here: climate change is happening, and we’re causing it. The evidence is overpowering. Scientists usually stand-in this level of agreement for claims like “Water is real” and “air is real” yet here we are, the climate change ship has now left prt, and lots of people on shore are still debating whether boats can actually float. Countless people, even high profile members of the society, believe that burning and exporting coal is a virtuously good thing to do for Australia; but as robust evidence suggests, that’s not the case at all. In fact it’s downright opposite of the truth, we are conditioned to believe so. Each year, Australia exports coal worth 50 billion dollars to china – the world’s largest coal consumer. This leads people to believe coal is good for Australia – It earns money.

Within the past few decades, there has been no political or public discussion as heated and controversial as the debate over climate change. Climate disputes can be traced back all the way to 1837, when Louis Agassiz proposed a theory claiming that Switzerland had once been covered with large ice sheets, and have become a big part of the international scientific community since then (Archer and Rahmstorf 2010). Today, climate change is not only a scientific issue, but it has grown into an economic and political issue as well. The rising amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, most of which has been added through human activities, has caused a climb in the average temperatures around the planet. This can have huge effects on the future

In his 2015 article, titled “Climate change realism: If we can’t stop climate change, can we adapt to it? Let’s find out,” Edward Paul Lazear, professor at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and writer for the Hoover Digest, takes a pragmatic and somber stance on solving climate change. While many scientists and climate change activists look to reducing carbon emissions as the primary method for abating climate change, Lazear views these notions as unrealistic, indicating that “without major effort and a good bit of luck, we are unlikely to control the growth of emissions enough to meet the standards that many climate scientists suggest are necessary” (78).