Turn up the heat on climate change deniers
- From Australia to Indonesia and Norway, it is clear that global warming is real and that it threatens lives and economies
The new year has started with obvious signs that global warming is not an invention of scientists, as some politicians claim. Devastating bush fires in Australia, destructive floods in Jakarta and a heatwave in Norway that has people sunbathing rather than skiing are proof of climatic conditions having been shaken up.
Yet the doubters have not changed their views, putting their nations’ economies and industries ahead of international efforts to keep temperatures from rising. They need to change their ways or the disastrous consequences of their poor judgment will be ever-more evident.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, like United States President Donald Trump, is a climate change sceptic. He refuses to accept that the fires that have claimed at least two dozen lives and destroyed nearly 2,000 homes in southeastern states are the result of exceptionally hot and dry conditions brought about by global warming.
Parched vegetation has fuelled unprecedented blazes. Still, he contends his government’s policies, criticised as unambitious and ineffective at reducing emissions, are producing a “vibrant and viable economy, as well as a vibrant and sustainable environment”.
Australia is one of the biggest per capita greenhouse gas emitters in the world; 80 per cent of its electricity is produced from burning coal, and the coal-mining industry is a major export earner.