Saturday, 31 October 2009 13:13 Last Updated on Thursday, 03 December 2009 23:11
The Little Mermaid to Offer Swimming Lessons in Shanghai
This article was written specifically for the Shanghai Daily who were not interested; it derives in part from "The Economic Wave". The photograph of the Little Mermaid is courtesy of Microsoft Clipart.
Denmark is due to despatch the Little Mermaid to the Shanghai Expo next year; on her return to Copenhagen will they consider re-siting the statue to ensure her tail does not hang in the water?
The Danes play host to the Copenhagen summit on climate change next month and they have always been active participants in the calls for action on environmental issues; setting an example to some of the more recalcitrant members of the process. On the other hand, Australia, like the USA, was one of the most reluctant of nations when it came to the recognition of climate change and its impact. By delaying ratification of the Kyoto Protocol these two wealthy states significantly impacted the world’s ability to take concerted, collective action on a global crisis that was already upon us. The then leaders of these two countries, John Howard, George Bush and to a lesser extent Bill Clinton deserve vilification for their actions and we all deserve an apology.
In the last few years Australia’s people and government have come to realise that the environmental consequences for Australia are already dire, just as Hurricane Katrina in 2005 finally provoked the USA’s government to act, Australia is now on board. In the last few years Australia has faced rampant bush fires, extreme drought and horrendous flooding, some of which are normal events in its unique environment, whilst others are a definite indication of climate change. Now Australia is finally recognising its exposure to the rise in sea level.
As reported in this newspaper last Wednesday (“Australia needs to gird itself for rising sea levels: report” 28/10/2009) press releases from an Australian parliamentary climate change committee indicate that 80% of its population is coastal and that a new national policy is required to counter the threat. The impact of rising sea level is not regarded as the main issue, but that the expectation of more frequent extreme events, such as cyclones, flash flooding and storm surges, are regarded as the matters in need of more immediate attention.
Whilst there is a certain logic to these conclusions, in reality they do not hold water. Planning to cope with disasters in the short and medium term will attract scarce resources and attention away from the longer term problems, thus exacerbating these more important issues many years in the future.
Try as they might, next month in Copenhagen the world’s leaders will prove largely impotent; the processes of climate change and rising sea levels are too far developed to be halted by humans in less than a century. Stefan Rahmstorf, a scientist at Germany's Potsdam Institute said, “...the sea level issue starts very slowly but once it gets going it is practically unstoppable...there is no way I can see how to stop this rise, even if we have gone to zero (carbon) emissions."
Rahmstorf estimated that if the world limited warming to 1.5 degrees then it would still see two meters sea level rise over centuries. His best guess was a one meter rise this century, up to five meters over the next 300 years. "There is nothing we can do to stop this...once the ice is on the move, it's like a tipping point which reinforces itself." (Reuters)