The first priority of any government should be to safeguard the people it serves and provide for their future well-being, their safety and security. In recent times, national security discussions in Australia have been focused almost exclusively on issues such as terrorism, migration, cyber and energy security, and largely in…
Author: itdunlop
Climate Change – will the financial system survive?
One of the few bright spots in an otherwise dismal global response to the escalating climate crisis has been the preparedness of financial market regulators to force their regulated institutions to face up to the implications of climate risk. In so doing, they have been acutely aware of the lessons…
The Net Zero Emission Illusion
As the need for serious action to prevent runaway global warming becomes critical, it is not surprising that efforts from the denialist lobby to prevent that action intensify, albeit in more subtle form than the blanket refusal of yesteryear to even accept that a climate problem existed. Around the world,…
Earth Day 2021: Australia falls further out of line with the world
It is entirely appropriate that President Biden launches his global climate summit on Earth Day 2021. Earth Day began in the US in 1970, triggered by massive pollution across the country, and the need to fundamentally change concepts of industrial development if society was to prosper, rapidly leading by the…
Net zero emissions by 2050: Leadership or climate colonialism ?
Floods – Funafati Tuvalu How fast does Australia need to reduce greenhouse emissions to play its fair part in responding to the global climate emergency?One answer jumps out: “Net-zero emissions by 2050”. Suddenly almost everybody is clambering aboard this train: State governments, big business, investors, mining companies such as BHP,…
Submission to the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements – Bushfire Royal Commission
Preamble Thank you for the opportunity to make a submission to the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements. The 2019/20 Australian bushfire season was unprecedented in terms of the intensity of the fires, their areal extent and their impact on the Australian community . Initial attribution studies confirm the…
In a 3-degree warmer world, Australia will be utterly transformed. The Prime Minister knows, but refuses to say so.
By David Spratt and Ian Dunlop The first duty of a government is to protect the people. There is no greater threat than climate disruption as the world heads to 3 degrees Celsius (3°C) or more warming, possibly by mid-century, yet the Prime Minister is unwilling to explain the implications….
Have we a government fit for purpose, or the greatest danger to our national security?
The current bushfires are unprecedented in terms of their extent, intensity, fire season length, economic and social impact. They are, without doubt, intensified by human-induced climate change. However, they are not unexpected; this is what the climate science has been telling us for years. Likewise with the drought. The fact…
A call to the Australian people – demand serious action on climate change before it is too late.
After three decades of inaction, human-induced climate change is the greatest threat, and opportunity, facing this country, far outweighing the issues dominating our domestic political discourse, such as the US/China impasse, a faltering economy and religious freedom. The world faces the same threat. Climate change now represents an existential challenge which, if not addressed as a genuine emergency immediately, will destroy human civilisation as we know it within decades. Immediate, in that the actions we take today, particularly expanding fossil fuel use thereby increasing global carbon emissions, are locking-in that outcome.
A local mayor can see we face a climate emergency. Why can’t the PM?
Despite soaring rhetoric about Australian values and the absolute priority of securing the future of the Australian people, it is crystal clear that the Federal Government, the Opposition and much of our corporate and media leadership have absolutely no understanding of the greatest threat facing this country, namely human-induced climate…