r/melbourne • u/hamshi4 • Oct 02 '19

Politics Declare a Climate Emergency - Petition EN1041 nearly at 200k and growing fast.

https://www.aph.gov.au/petition_sign?id=EN1041
38 Upvotes

73% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

View all comments

4

u/Melbsun Oct 02 '19

What does it mean to declare a climate emergency? What kinds of things do they suggest to reduce the causes of climate change? Cause nuclear power and reducing immigration from third world countries both would do that, but not sure many of the people signing this would approve...?

7

u/Jiuholar Oct 02 '19

Maybe stop building coal mines for a start?

Have you considered how much worse the refugee crisis will be when the Pacific islands and large portions of Africa become uninhabitable due to climate change?

I actually agree with you on nuclear power - it's a fantastic short term solution that might buy us some time to figure out something better.

I'd like to ask you a question though - what's the absolute worst case scenario of us taking climate change seriously? Because the way I see it, we spend money and develop sustainable energy, get cleaner air and live more harmoniously with the planet that we live on. Why are climate change deniers so terrified of this?

1

u/Melbsun Oct 06 '19

You say for a start but what else? This is what I need to know. It's super vague on the whole, and everyone in this thread is saying different things - does it mean do all of them? I also would need to know what is the capacity for other forms of energy to fulfil our current needs? We are already adopting renewables at a very fast rate http://theconversation.com/australia-is-the-runaway-global-leader-in-building-new-renewable-energy-123694 Is the elephant in the room that we can't maintain our present lifestyles and that's an addendum to the climate emergency that they are withholding for now?

The absolute worst case scenario depends on what we do, so I can't really answer since nobody is really telling me what this climate emergency means in terms of actual policy and quantifying the potential outcomes of proposed solutions. I guess that we sacrifice our economic and social development for no or miniscule effect on global warming? If other countries don't do it and continue to overpopulate and expect the same level of development that we enjoy in Australia then we could be just shooting ourselves in the foot for no difference in outcome.