Subject: Warming dilemna - mums post..
Just a post my mum could not get thru normal media.... Subject: Warming dilemna Peter Lea tells us (Inquirer Dec 27-28) we have to chose between human welfare and the welfare of the environment. Does not the welfare of the environment ineluctably involve the humans within it? He adds, that "For millenia, humans have adapted to climate change". Indeed they have. As a prehistorian, I know that my colleagues have shown that, in Australia, extreme arid phases involved human population decrease, the concentration of usage around reliable water sources, and the virtual abandonment of whole swathes of terrain within previously well-used parts of the centre and west of the continent. Is this the sort of "adaptation" denialists envisage for our continent? I notice that most of those who do not regard rising temperatures as a worry live in the cooler portions of the globe - northwest Europe, or the eastern or southern coastal belts of Australia.