Warning: the following contains nothing whatsoever on cow burps.
Climate change is a two-sided coin. We act on climate change and climate change acts on us.
We looked at the former in last week’s ToT, how we act on climate change. And the current outlook is very grim. A backward slide is underway. Coal and gas use is rising dramatically, both locally (more gas drilling being demanded in Australia as energy costs increase) and internationally (Russia’s war on Ukraine and reductions in Nord Stream gas). Action on climate change has rapidly reversed.
But worrying about the future of climate change perpetuates the current failure to help those impacted now: lives and homes lost, people displaced, food and energy shortages. The focus on causes has drowned out impacts. So, this week we look at the opposite viewpoint, how climate change acts on us.
This lacuna is surprising, given that Australia is a world leader in damage from climate change. We’ve got disasters all around us: heatwaves, bushfires, droughts, floods, winds, storms, human and animal deaths, crops destroyed, ocean temperatures and seas rise, reef failures, urban heat islands, cloudy skies, higher humidities, virulent and contagious diseases.
We are under attack on all sides, but are not prepared for the immense damage that climate change is having right now; what are we going to do when it gets far worse?
The scientific response
Exemplified by an unedifying exchange in early 2016. Larry Marshall, head of CSIRO, announced a reduction in climate change research staff, and some projects, in favour of increased attention to ‘mitigation and adaptation’. All hell broke loose, he was criticised from all sides, but he was cost constrained by the Turnbull / LNP government’s antipathy to funding science and CSIRO.
On global climate change he was blunt: "That question has been answered, and the new question is what do we do about it, and how can we find solutions for the climate we will be living with?" Amongst those outraged was Professor Andy Pitman, Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science at UNSW, doing research with CSIRO, who says: "among the most ill-informed statements I have ever heard from a senior executive."
Marshall countered that CSIRO would continue to support climate measurement in Australia, whilst increasing research into mitigation and adaptation: "No one is saying climate change is not important, but surely mitigation, health, education, sustainable industries, and prosperity of the nation are no less important.” CSIRO continues to lead the way in addressing climate change. You can read more of this scientific storm about real ones here.
The political response
Do politicians have any proactive policies and plans in response? Nothing. Nada. Empty set. Pineapple donut. It’s all reactive hand wringing or distractions in diametric directions: the crimson-right refutes that the events are influenced by climate change in any way; and the green-left argues for ever more draconian measures to reduce the climate change they believe caused them.
Whilst floods devastated much of eastern Australia this month, the Greens, supposedly climate change champions, were banging on about stage three tax cuts and a muted Voice. And the Nationals revived three-word slogans: ‘axing the T-bone’ and ‘ending the BBQ’, and ‘cow ….’ oops, almost broke a promise.
Disaster response is the responsibility of the states, who have been bungling it with uncoordinated reactive plans, such as raising Warragamba Dam. The federal Labor government*, in power for barely two minutes, has been consumed with budgets, a Voice, integrity and cleaning up the LNP’s nine years, but has been actively promising money this week. A coordinated plan awaits, so here is first draft.
A six-point plan for mitigation and adaptation
1. Expand the research into mitigation and adaptation
Fully fund the CSIRO for both measurement and action. Fund regional institutes to expand their current local research: cyclones in Cairns and Darwin, floods in western NSW and QLD, fires in rural Victoria and NSW, heatwaves in Perth and so on. Research is King and Queen.
2. Make a masterplan for the ‘country’
Using ‘research’, make a land use plan for the entire country, using the indigenous idea of ‘country’. Map it, understand it, make a binding national plan: areas to retain biodiversity and prevent species loss; areas to retreat from fire, flood, storm, or environmental damage; circumscribe the spread of cities, towns, and villages. The plan would take aeons, but let’s start now to atone for 234 years of haphazard mismanagement in the name of ‘property wealth’. Enforcing the entire Murray Darling Basin plan as originally planned would be a good start.
3. Re-make all planning codes for future proofing, not backward looking
Using the ‘country masterplan’, restructure Local Government Areas (LGAs) to represent ecological areas; remake the planning codes for cities, regions, towns, and villages for local independent, resilient infrastructure. Identify areas of excessive risk, and possible mitigation through sensible and sensitive retreat. Equitably relocate people and buildings under threat from fire, flood, or storm.
4. Design mitigation systems for fire, flood, and storm
Using ‘research’, design buildings and infrastructure with better resilience, to adapt where retreat or relocation is not possible. Rewrite regulations for resilient buildings that are dry in floods and wet in fires. Devise a flood mitigation programs that respects indigenous ideas.
5. Establish and equip a national Civil Defence Force (CDF)
Use the expertise of the defence force to create a professional ‘Civil Defence Force’, or CDF, to better coordinate train and control the CFS, RFS, SES and other acronymed volunteer emergency services organisations. This means removing offensive submarines, and countering local jealousies, but we can’t continue to ask more of trained volunteers, and untrained professional soldiers.
6. Design emergency equipment to meet emergencies.
The CDF will need to best equipment: emergency hospitals like The National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre (NCCTRC), designed and based in Darwin after the Bali bombings; emergency shelters like those donated by the Minderoo Foundation after the fires; naval ships that can react like the HMAS Melbourne in Darwin, and HMAS Choules and MV Sycamore in Mallacoota. There are so many inventors in Australia that could contribute to resilient recovery resources.
If you’re asking, my costing for the six points is close to 3.95 nuclear submarines, ex GST (half-price).
Tone Wheeler is an architect / the views expressed are his / contact at [email protected]
*I hate the ‘presidential-style’ naming of politics in Australia. It is not the ‘Albanese government’ in particular, since Albo has a collegiate style giving ministers full rein in their portfolios, instead of Scomo taking them away. Literally.
