By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent, The Guardian, UK
The Prince of Wales has accused climate change sceptics of using 'pseudo science' and 'intimidation' to stop the world from addressing catastrophic global warming.He likened the failure to combat rising temperatures across the world to playing "Russian Roulette with the future of our children". But instead of acting, the Prince said more and more people are listening to the "siren voices" of climate change sceptics who argue that the theory of man-made global warming is simply a "sinister attempt to undermine the capitalist system". "It has been profoundly depressing to witness the way the so-called climate sceptics are, apparently, able to intimidate all sorts of people from adopting the precautionary measures necessary to avert environmental collapse," he said. "For too long we have treated the planet like a perpetual cash machine which doles out money without there ever being any need to check the bank-balance. But now, finally, the money is running out." Recent scandals have damaged the reputation of climate science. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was forced to apologise after mistakenly claiming the Himalyan glaciers could melt by 2035. And scientists at the University of East Anglia were accused of exaggering the extent of global temperature rise. Although the British researchers were cleared of dishonesty, the so-called 'climategate' saga coupled with the coldest winter in the UK for 30 years has led to a drop in the number of Britons who now believe global warming is caused by humans. A recent survey showed 70 per cent of people in the UK now believe climate change is man made compared with 90 per cent five years ago. Addressing hundreds of business leaders at St James's Palace, the Prince said scepticism is "on the rise" and called on the private sector to not only cut carbon emissions but persuade the public to take man made global warming seriously. "People have heard the climate sceptics and attempted to listen to the kind of pseudo science they are peddling. "But make no mistake the sceptics have no wider love of Nature and her crucial role. So the challenge that I would like to lay before you is simple. Will you stand up and be counted? At every opportunity will you confront the sceptics and tell them they are wrong? "Will you use the power of your brands and the power of your communications to support what the science tells us and if necessary be prepared to take risks with your reputation to ensure you are on the right side of the debate? If you don’t pick up this challenge and inspire many others, then I fear the battle will be lost." The Prince, who has been criticised by for promoting 'alternative' approaches to modern science like homoeopathy and organic farming, admitted the irony of accusing others of "pseudo science". "I who have been endlessly accused of pseudo science all my life – think of the irony of that," he said. But he insisted the evidence of "environmental collapse" is already being seen. Not only in rising temperatures but the impact on certain species like honey bees. "If we lose the honey bee, then Nature will suffer," said The Prince. "We won’t be able to grow food so easily, and it will be near-on impossible to provide environments that are resilient to whatever temperature increases we are already committed to." The Prince of Wales' Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change was set up with the University of Cambridge at the end of last year to encourage business to take a lead on climate change. Since than almost 1,000 companies have signed up, but the Prince said the general public remain unconvinced about the threat of global warming. "There is a chance, I suppose, that the massed arrays of climate scientists are wrong and that humanity can carry on blithely destroying the planet which supports us. But is that chance worth taking? Or shouldn’t we play it safe? I am sure you all agree that it is simply unacceptable to play some sort of Russian roulette with our children’s futures," he said. The conference at St James's Palace in London also heard from Lord Stern, who first warned the world of the economic case for tackling climate change. He warned that unless the world takes action to reduce greenhouse gases in the next few decades, temperature rise will force billions of people to migrate, sparking international warfare. His warnings come as the Foreign and Commonwealth Office launched a map that shows the consequences of a 4C (7.2F) rise in global temperatures around the world. The interactive map, available on Google Earth, shows the melting of the ice sheets, droughts in America and flooding in Britain.
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Community
SIS and the community- working together to achieve success
SIS supports those organizations and individuals within our community who are striving to achieve environmental sustainability.
We engage with Neighbours
Matthew Bird is a local architect who has designed unique sustainable home for a Malvern couple. The Haveli house offers an integrated framework of flexible indoor and outdoor lifestyle spaces in addition to intelligent systems suitable for a growing, working, living and entertaining new Australian family.
Innovative, sustainable systems and materials will also be incorporated, including:
· An underground geothermal system that passively heats and cools both dwellings; the system extracts a year round subterranean constant temperature into the buildings and therefore deletes carbon costly mechanical systems. Insulated outer walls, floors and ceilings together with double glazed windows will help thermally seal both buildings. · Structurally the rear home will be built using lightweight laminated renewable timbers, providing an efficient low cost, ‘carpenters build’ solution. Eliminating typical interior material layers such as plasterboard, floor surfaces will also reduce cost and carbon. · Solar energy, evacuated solar hot water, water harvesting, grey water and waste management systems are also integrated, providing ‘off the grid’ capabilities for both dwellings and thus reducing dependency on urban infrastructures. · The central courtyard is proposed as an innovative storm water catchment system. Water runs of a preamble slopping courtyard, collected into a proposed deep dry moat (pebble filled) and subsequently stored in an underground storage tank. This water is used for irrigation of the entire garden. · Building footprints are kept small to allow drought tolerant and indigenous planting, local to the site will help rebuild biodiversity and promote a regenerating, sustaining micro ecology. Medium sized deciduous trees will be strategically planted to encourage sunlight during the winter months and shade in the summer months. The introduction of contained vegetable and herb gardens within the site will reduce the households’ dependency on market and supermarket consumables.
SIS recommends you check out this cool website and the great work Jason Kimberly is doing to help create future environmental leaders. Become a member of Cool Melbourne they'll plant a tree for you, and the environment.
We engage with NGOs
Beyond Zero Emissions are a remarkable group of volunteers working with the aim to facilitate the implementation of the social changes and technologies that will reduce the impacts of climate change- and give our society and global ecosystems a chance of surviving into the future. Their Zero Carbon 2020 Plan is an ambitious and immaculately researched document showing how we can practically transition to renewable energy in 10 years. This poster gives a graphic illustration of the idea.
Safe Climate Australiais an apolitical science and research based organisation of community, business, environmental and scientific leaders, working to develop a comprehensive solutions framework for Australia to address the threat of global warming.
SIS was proudly involved in the 2009 fundraiser Run for a Safe Climate. www.runforasafeclimate.org
We engage with the National Climate Action Network
SIS documented the first meeting of Australia's Climate Action Groups in Canberra, January 2009
The Human Sign St Kilda Beach, May 17 2009. SIS joined LIVE.org and Bayside Climate Change Action Group and thousands of other concerned citizens to make the biggest human sign ever seen in Australia. It was seen on the news and in the press and without doubt, will be for years to come. Share with us the special video we made to commemorate the day.
100% Renewableis a national grassroots campaign calling for a national clean energy bonus scheme as the first step to 100% renewable energy in Australia. This scheme - also known as a feed-in tariff - will unleash investment in renewable energy projects from rooftop solar PV, to community wind and solar projects and large industrial scale projects like solar thermal, wave and geothermal. We believe in a clean energy future.
Hazelwood Power Station Protest- SIS documented it in 2009, marking the start of a concerted campaign to replace Hazelwood. Share the video here:
SIS supports the actions of Environment Victoria.
This year climate groups all over Victoria are supporting EV's campaign to Replace Hazelwood, the most polluting coal fired power station in the world, here in our back yard. Fast-tracking Victoria’s clean energy future is a recent report outlining the options and opportunities for replacing Hazelwood Power Station with Clean Energy by 2012.
Share with us one of the videos we made to support EV:
The Walk Against Warming is Environment Victoria's key annual public event and Australia's largest day of community action on climate change. In 2007 a record 50,000 Melbourne people participated.
SIS engages with the Global Environment Movement
This global grassroots movement (350.org) is the brainchild of Bill McKibben. 350.org aims to highlight to the world the need to return to a safe climate, of 350 parts per million of atmospheric CO2. Because a picture tells a thousand words, and breaks down the language barrier, they used images of 350 to drive home the message. SIS will be taking part in a global action in October to drive home the message- we need to make strong decisions to reduce emissions at Copenhagen at the end of the year.
Check out the fruit of the work of 350.org in this remarkable and moving video:
David Evans, Penelope Milstein, Jennifer Treacey, Jane Blaxland, Di Svendsen and Graham Ross.
SIS members and energy experts outside the Malvern Town Hall. From Left: Caroline Cotton, Ross Wilmoth, Liz Headland, Penelope Milstein, Daniel Epstein, Prisciclla Mendelsson and Ross Brierty.
Professor Markus Reuter is a distinguished academic and Chair of Sustainable Technology at Melbourne University, chief executive technologist for Ausmelt Ltd (Melbourne) and an engineer with extensive experience in the global metallurgical and recycling industries, especially in Europe. He recently wrote to Malcolm Turnbull outlining a vision for green metals production, urging for Australia to take ownership of its mineral and energy resources and for innovation in energy infrastructure (renewable) and manufacturing. Professor Reuter argues that the metallurgical and mining industries might be incentivized to lower their ecological footprint by harnessing renewable energy for their processes and to maintain and create a sustainable long term manufacturing industry by value-adding to future products (e.g. transport) instead of simply exporting minerals. Here the focus should be especially on light metals such as aluminium and magnesium (and titanium) for light-weighting low carbon footprint transport applications (e.g. Holden and others); but also on silicon, one of the bases for solar cells to start creating an industry that will help supply the future Australian and Global eco-cities with renewable energy.
At a local level, Prof Reuter is adamant that we should re-examine packaging in order to reduce waste to landfill, suggesting that consumers could successfully pressure retailers to adopt sustainable practices. "Supermarkets own the packaging they supply with products. The consumer ought to have the right to return all packaging (e.g. trays, (pizza) boxes, plastic wrappings, old batteries, etc) to the store to deposit in designated bins" he says. I agree- such a move would quickly transform the packaging industry.
Dr Donald Payne came to renewable energy via fusion energy and astrophysics. Dr Payne works in the department of physics at Melbourne University, chairs the Direct-Use sub-committee of the Australian Geothermal Energy Group and is a scientific director of EnergyCore, a geothermal energy company operating in Australia. EnergyCore holds the only Australian licence for EarthLinked direct geoexchange technology, which involves circulating refrigerant through 30-metre copper loops and allowing the Earth to evaporate it in winter & condense it in summer. The technology can be used in the home for heating, air-conditioning and hot water. I have visited one of the installations at a home in Stonnington- this is an amazing technology!
EnergyCore was a finalist at this years Banksia Environmental Awards in Melbourne.
Andrew Perry has devised his own formula for living sustainably. Its called R2O, standing for Reduce, Renewables and Offset.
Andrew has a website www.r2ochallenge.com and on it you can trace his journey toward sustainability and download check-sheets for Reducing, Renewing and Off setting.
The best part of this easy to follow formula is that it is staged with some actions just to get you going and more challenging ones to move on to.
James Porteous is managing editor of Ecos, regarded as one of Australia´s most authoritative magazines on sustainability and published since 1974 by the CSIRO. A marine scientist by background, James has had a broad international experience in sustainability. Prior to Ecos he worked for the prestigious research journal Nature, with lowland gorillas in West Africa and in Asia on post-tsunami reconstruction initiatives. James is also a non-executive director of Good Environmental Choice Australia and hosts The Climate Change Report on 94.15FM.
Charlie Goldsmith established Cassette, his rapidly growing design and printing company in 2000 with the environment in mind. He is proud to be at the forefront of adopting green technology and green printing and all of Cassette’s services are entirely carbon neutral. NoCO2 Certification means that the company has completely removed its climate change impacts.
Andrew McClelland is a co-initiator of the Inner South Transition Towns group in Melbourne. Through the Transition Town movement Andrew aims to inspire people within their local communities to further transform their thinking, beliefs and actions to enable a sustainable future on this planet, in which life is celebrated and connectedness is the norm.
Andrew lectures in psychology at Deakin University, focusing on the psychology of behaviour change at a community level, with particular regard to climate change. He is also working with the Sustainable Living Foundation, the St. Kilda Eco Centre and The Future Canvas group to accelerate the transformation of Melbourne as a Transition City. In his spare time, Andrew is completing a PhD in Psychological Medicine at Monash University.
Professor Markus Reuter is a distinguished academic and Chair of Sustainable Technology at Melbourne University, chief executive technologist for Ausmelt Ltd (Melbourne) and an engineer with extensive experience in the global metallurgical and recycling industries, especially in Europe.
