I remember seeing ‘An Inconvenient Truth‘ when it came out in 2006 – I was in my final year of primary school.
Probably in part due to my parent’s reactions to it, it left me feeling deeply unsettled. Towards the end of the film, a huge list of countries who had ratified the Kyoto Protocol was projected up onto the screen. Unfortunately, Al Gore had some bad news for Australians:
“There are only two advanced nations in the world that have not ratified Kyoto, and we [the USA] are one of them. The other, is Australia.”
Thanks to Kevin07, about a year later we joined that list. We were well past being fashionably late to the party, and probably verging on being irresponsibly late, truth be told – but at least we showed our face. “We’ll just come for one drink, it’d be rude not to.”
So why after all that heel-dragging are we still dragging our heels 14 years later?
Right now, I couldn’t tell you. There are a lot of places to get qualified opinions on the topic, and this isn’t yet one of them. What this blog is, is me starting from the start and educating myself as thoroughly as I can in the science, technology, infrastructure, policy and psychology surrounding anthropogenic climate change.
We all have a basic understanding of what the problem is (the world is getting too damn hot), and I would say that most of us even have some understanding of the foundational science. But I know that even as someone who has paid close attention to the environmental news cycle for the better part of 10 years, and has enough interest in the topic to spend their spare time learning about it, there are a multitude of gaps in my understanding.
I don’t expect many people to find this blog, but if you do, I hope you enjoy playing along at home. Please feel free to drop me a line with any recommendations on books, articles, documentaries or other resources you think might be helpful.
The most valuable learning experience is to talk with experts in the field, so if you in any way fit that description (and have a spare 10 minutes in the midst of COVID-19 lockdown), I would love to speak with you – just shoot me an email to jonte.shaw@gmail.com. You can also find my contact details on the ‘About’ page.
Here we go!
Jonte. 