We have been warned again and again about the danger of over simplification. Life is complex. For some reason, our national education system still fosters subjects as silos, rejecting multidisciplinary approaches when we know they are essential if we are to save what we can of the planet from ever increasing global warming. We still in Australia focus on STEM instead of STEAM. And actions by governments can work for worse rather than better.
We have to take in the terrible impact of ignorance among the politicians. Insanity is in the refusal to face the result of the destruction of bio-diversity. Look at the loggers destroying old growth forests. Protectors of forests are put in prison or fined. Or killed in the Amazon. And the pandemic appears to be letting loose those who would push for business without regulation just to recoup what they call costs. The pandemic has given us time to think.
Read City of Trees by Sophie Cunningham OAM. Stories of trees here and in USA. I named her in a previous blog mentioning her presence at the Adelaide Writers’ Festival.
Look at developers caring nothing about loss of forest, loss of connections in bio-diversity. Look at the hunger of gas and oil and coal men and all their shareholders. Profit today. Tomorrow – toxic for land, rivers, lakes, sea, atmosphere and people. When did Rachel Carson write ‘Silent Spring’? She quoted Keats ‘And no birds sing’. Why don’t we learn?
And have you heard politicians accusing meteorologists of manipulating the data? We have a Senator in Australia, a member of the Liberal National Party promoting coal and other fossil fuels who has, in his cowardly fashion, dared to use parliamentary privilege to attack the integrity of our BoM. It is for that reason I have added this information from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. Would he attack their integrity? Or just our important, reliable Bureau of Meteorology in Australia south of the equator!
From the northern hemisphere, take note of this information, In April, a report from the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation confirmed the past five years have been the hottest on record globally. The state of the climate 2015-2019 report found: sea level rises are accelerating; Arctic sea ice, glaciers and ice sheets continue to decline; there has been an abrupt decrease in Antarctic sea ice; and more heat is being trapped in the oceans, harming life there, while heatwaves and wildfires are becoming an ever-greater risk. The findings are based on computer-generated analyses using billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations around the world, C3S said. C3S is implemented by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts on behalf of the European Commission. That Australian Senator wouldn’t dare attack their integrity.
And, on our ABC Radio National’s Science Show, June 13th 2020, listen to the interview, recorded in 2011, in which Robyn Williams spoke to a great Australian, Lord Bob May of Oxford. He’d have preferred it to have been ‘of Woollahra’. From Sydney to Princeton, to the job of the UK’s Chief Scientist. Bringing physics into biology and moving from there into ecology with the knowledge of mathematics that helped to prove the essential connection between stability and complexity. He helped the UK to wake up to climate change. He also shows the problem of relying on economists! How often do they base their assertions on evidence? We need to be taking note of the ecologists, not the mining and media magnates.
The Science Show – Full Program Podcast
Vale the professor of everything – So worth hearing. Worth sharing with others.
4 hours ago · 54 mins
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Lord May enabled the UK to be far ahead of Australia regarding climate change. Thanks to our indispensable Australian Broadcasting Corporation whose capacity to inform and support all Australians in so many ways needs our recognition and reinforcement.
Sciences and Humanities 