Serepax

Because the world needs more overwrought candour.

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Closeness = action

Contrast these two snippets of news:

Demand for water in Melbourne and elsewhere is expected to outstrip supply within 15 years. To counteract the shortage, Melburnians will be asked to conserve more water.

Melburnians already beat a target for reducing water use by 15 per cent before 2010 — the average household now uses 22 per cent less than during the 1990s. Under the proposed strategy, that voluntary target would rise to 30 per cent by 2020.

- From The Age.

The Federal Government is being warned Australia can no longer remain outside the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

The United Nations conference on climate change that ended in Montreal yesterday decided to extend the protocol's life beyond 2012 and commit to further talks.

Environment Minister Ian Campbell says the agreement to develop something further is recognition that Kyoto is inadequate.

- From the ABC.

Why is it that water conservation is occuring but action on greenhouse gas emissions is minimal? It's not simply the entrenched economic interests of energy producers - most businesses would be well served by using green energy and less of it. The real problem is that the fear event - global warming - is too far away. While many scientists claim warming is already occuring, I'd argue there isn't the level of immediate fear that existed during, say, the now almost forgotten ozone hole crisis. Of course, the ozone problem had a comparatively simple solution (banning ozone-depleters) when contrasted with rethinking tried-and-true energy infrastructure.

I wonder if a major reason behind the inability of environmentalists to gain much traction on climate change - despite becoming amongst the most adept users of fear in the public sphere - is that people need to see physical proof. We're all doubting Thomases - if you claim that extinctions are becoming widespread, show me a endangered animal, preferably furry and cute. But climate change is so big, so slow and so diffuse that the galvanizing immediacy of fear has little to no impact. All environmentalists can do is draw links between an unusually wild storm and exhaust gases coming out of a car, which is a tenuous link for the man on the street.