Climate Leadership is a voluntary group of Brisbane-based professionals committed to promoting strong, front- line environmental leadership.
Our key people are Richard Cassels, Joan Cassels and Ken Hickson (see 'About Us') and our networks include many other community leaders.
In November 2011 the Australian Federal Government passed legislation that will price carbon emissions. This is a profound moment for Australia and the whole planet. For more information on this exciting development, see "THE news" section of this web site.
We take a broad view of "Climate Leadership' as including the whole movement towards more sustainable living. Human-induced climate change is the culmination of many generations living unsustainably, to the point where our own life-support sytems, as well as global systems like the climate and oceanic circulation patterns are being affected.
The move to a sustainable and low-carbon lifestyle is requiring a transformation as least as major as the Industrial Revolution. This is an extraordinarily significant moment in the history of humankind, and indeed of Planet Earth. What is exciting is the huge burst of creative innovation and new ways of thinking in all leading businesses, most governments, and many idividuals. Huge rewards await those who can get there first! The consequences of not "getting there" in time are most unpleasant to contemplate.
Human-induced climate change is a technical, social and political challenge. It is perhaps the most conspicuous example of the "Tragedy of the Commons". It is indeed serious business if you,like millions of others, live near the coast line. However it is also merely a symptom of the underlying challenges facing humanity- overpopulation, overconsumption and inequity. And this is where the real focus must shift once the mechanics of the first lines of defence, namely climate mitigation and climate adaptation strategies, are in place.
Climate Leadership promotes and supports individuals who are leading the change to more climate-friendly ways of living and doing business. Climate Leadership can provide speakers on a wide range of environmental topics.
Climate Leadership is based in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Our views on climate change are:
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The Industrial Revolution is based on burning coal, gas and oil.
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Over the last 200 years this revolution has brought unprecedented prosperity to nations that industrialised their economies.
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The world's fossil fuel deposits and the carbon they contain took millions of years to accumulate. In 300 years we will have burned them all, releasing into the atmosphere huge amounts of the carbon they contain.
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Burning these “fossil fuels” both creates pollution and produces “greenhouse gases”, gases that heat up the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans as a greenhouse does. After 200 years of burning these fossil fuels, we have reached a point where we are affecting the Earth’s climate.
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Contrary to abundant misleading information*, there is no longer any scientific doubt that our greenhouse gas emissions are heating up the planet and destabilising the world's climate systems. There is absolutely no doubt that we have to act urgently to reduce grenhouse gas emissions. There is however still vigorous debate in the scientific community about the exact way in which this undeniable global impact will interact with the many other dymanics of the world's climate system, particularly when trying to predict local scenarios.
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Other effects of our excessive greenhouse gas emissions include the oceans becoming more acid, the proliferation of many harmful toxic chemicals as by-products of burning fossil fuels, extreme weather events and sea levels rising significantly, flooding many coastal cities and communities.
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Another problem with the fossil fuels is that the "easy ones" will run out soon- oil and gas within 60 years, and coal within 100. Then the temptation will be to turn to the so-called "unconventional" fossil fuels- shale gas and tar sands oil, whose extraction is very costly, has very low energy return on energy spent, and is fiendishly "dirty". Apart from their enormous environmmental costs, their extraction exposes the operators to incomprehensibly large legal suits in the future.
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A third problem with fossil fuels is that as they become rarer,the methods used to extract them get more and more dangerous, for example drilling at huge depths in the ocean, mass drilling of gas wells through aquifers, massive introductions under ground of "fracking chemicals", amd moving extraction to countries with unstable political systems.
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By moving to energy sources like solar, wind and geothermal, we move to sources that will last for billions of years, will create less pollution and will have much less effect on the climate.We also desperately need more research and development of new clean energy sources.
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Changing to these new energy sources has a cost for our economy, but it is more than repaid by savings on the enormous future costs of coping with climate change. The sooner we do it, the less it will cost. If we don’t do it now, we will pass on to our children an unmanageable problem.
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The greenhouse gases we have already produced so far will stay in the atmosphere for hundreds of years,in some case for thousands, and will heat the earth by at least 2oC.This is already enough to have serious effects on the world’s climate.In fact our present trajectory has us on course for a hellish FOUR degrees of warming.
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There is strong evidence to suggest that if we don’t make the change within the next 10 years, the world’s climate system will have passed an irreversible “tipping point”, reaching 4-6oC more than now. This would be catastrophic for many parts of the world.
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It is still possible, and not too late, to change to clean and long lasting energy sources. It is possibly humanity’s greatest challenge ever, requiring global cooperation. However never before have the nations of the world been so connected with each other, and never has humanity had so much knowledge and ability.
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There is now an international race, for example between China and the U.S.A., to develop clean and long-lasting energy sources, with huge profits for the countries that achieve them first.
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The key steps to make the transition to a clean energy economy are to set a price on carbon and to invest in clean, renewable energy and other sustainable technologies so that people have genuine alternatives to fossil fuels as fast as possible.
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The key battleground is the space between our two ears
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Australian politicians are divided between courageous optimists who believe we can move to clean energy,stabilise the climate and join other world leaders in developing a low-carbon economy, and frightened pessimists, mostly older males, who believe Australia cannot afford to stop polluting. To some extent the division is between those taking a long-term view and those focussed only on the short term. Here is your choice: are you a short-term "Planet Fracker" or a long-term"Planet Fixer"?
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Acting on climate change is only part of a much bigger p[icture. To quote Naomi Klein:
"Climate change isn’t “the issue.” In fact, it isn’t an issue at all. Climate change is a message, one that is telling us that many of our culture’s most cherished ideas are no longer viable".
"Climate change supercharges the pre-existing case for virtually every progressive demand on the books, binding them into a coherent agenda based on a clear scientific imperative".
"In the rocky future we have already made inevitable, an unshakable belief in the equal rights of all people, and a capacity for deep compassion, will be the only things standing between humanity and barbarism. Climate change, by putting us on a firm deadline, can serve as the catalyst for precisely this profound social and ecological transformation".
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* You can find an excellent and scientifically rigorous examination of over 100 "Climate-change-denier" theories at www.skepticalscience.com.
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