So Copenhagen is finally over. Years of wishing and hoping but not much actual effort are to be replaced with a statement which ‘seeks to limit’, ‘promises the most vulnerable’ and ‘hopes for a binding treaty’. Sounds like more wishing and hoping to me or at best, too little, too late.
Why am I suddenly so pessimistic? I have just read the survey of beliefs of Australians in today’s Sydney Morning Herald. It contains many surprising (at least to me) findings but perhaps the most revealing are these two- only 42% of Australians believe in the Theory of Evolution but 63% believe in miracles.
Whilst it would be hard to find a credible scientist who does not believe that Darwin nailed it 200 years ago, the majority of Australians, almost all of who studied Evolution at school, refuse to believe that for which there is ample evidence, even within the DNA of their own bodies. Yet none of us has witnessed a bona fide miracle but the majority believes them to occur. Go figure!
What’s this got to do with climate change? Think about this- very few scientists of note still do not accept man-made climate change as fact, yet many of us with lesser, or no, qualifications to make an informed decision on the matter still refuse to believe the obvious.
If the World is to avoid climate change it will not be because the average Joe and Mary or their representatives, our political leaders, have taken the bull by the horns. It will be up to the scientific community to come up with solutions, largely off their own bat. Hopefully there are nutty professor types out there now, in garages and backyard sheds or grossly underfunded laboratories, working away on new techniques to get us out of this mess.
Or perhaps we are waiting on a miracle or some sort of sign. A partridge in a pear tree?
