What’s black and white and green all over — climate catastrophe policy
CBS News, November 24:
Billions of hours in productivity will be lost. Hundreds of billions of dollars will be wiped from the economy. Tens of thousands of people will die each year. These are just some of the most grim predictions in the latest National Climate Assessment … (which) notes some specific warnings from the previous assessment in 2014 … have all come true … as floods, wildfires and hurricanes become more frequent.
Tim Flannery, The Age, October 28, 2006:
There will be no Arctic icecap in the next five to 15 years … James Hanson, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute, is arguably the world authority on climate change. He predicts that we have just a decade to avert a 25m rise of the sea.
Lydia Smears, Guardian Australia, September 13:
Global average sea level is currently rising at a rate of about 3mm per year.
National Climate Assessment, November 23:
Global sea level has risen by about 8 inches since reliable record keeping began in 1880. It is projected to rise another 1 to 4 feet by 2100.
Michael Bastasch, The Daily Caller, November 26:
There’s been “no trend” (increase) in the number and intensity of hurricanes hitting the continental US … over the past 117 years, according to a new study … published in Monday in the journal Nature.
Editorial, Investor’s Business Daily, November 27:
The new National Climate Assessment report … seems to suggest a coming climate disaster … of “epic, even biblical proportions”. But its forecasts … border on the absurd … The report suggests … US temperatures will be 3 to 12 degrees hotter … Such extreme numbers have never been found before in a major peer-reviewed study.
Rebecca Urban, The Australian, November 25:
Australia’s Chief Scientist has criticised the logic behind the push for young people to develop so-called 21st-century skills, arguing the nation risks going “badly astray” … (Alan) Finkel said the message was … having negative consequences for the number of students studying … advanced mathematics … “a skillset fundamental to science … to economics …”
Joseph Stiglitz, The Sydney Morning Herald, November 15:
The Trump administration is being sued by 21 children … The claim is that the administration, through its climate change policies, is violating the children’s basic rights … The judge in the case has already ruled that the “right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered society”.
Greta Thunberg,Guardian Australia, November 27:
Every Friday, I miss classes to sit outside my country’s parliament. I will continue to do so until leaders come into line with the Paris agreement … I first learnt about climate change when I was eight years old … If burning fossil fuels threatened our very existence, then how could we continue to burn them? … Why wasn’t it illegal to do this? … if climate change has to stop, then we must stop it. It is black and white.
Katharine Murphy, Guardian Australia, November 16:
Under the reworked Greens policy, by 2030, it will no longer be legal to dig, burn or ship thermal coal. The proposal includes maximum penalties for breaches of the prohibition of seven years imprisonment, and hefty fines.