Talking the truth of climate change

Despite the overwhelming consensus amongst climate scientists about the effect humans are having on global climate, all too many of our political leaders and the wider community are unwilling to face the evidence and take action to mitigate the worst impacts of our warming planet.

With so much misinformation on the issue in the public conversation, community organisation Futuring Orange have recruited local experts for a series of talks to present the facts around climate change.

Climate Behind the Headlines has featured speakers from Charles Sturt University and the Department of Primary industries’ Climate Branch.

“The reason we came up with that title was that on the subject of climate change, often the headlines or the newspapers are the worst source of information and quite often misleading,” said Kate Hook, who has been coordinating the sessions.

“We at Futuring Orange Feel quite lucky that we have experts right here in our community at Charles Sturt University and from the DPI, so we wanted to create opportunities for the public to get straight up facts about climate change directly from the experts.”

The first in the series of three talks focused on the basic facts of climate change; what it is and why we know it's happening. The second, held last Wednesday, looked at the future impacts of climate change.

Associate Professor at Charles Sturt University, Dr Andrew Rawson, has spent the past 25 years working in the area of climate change. He teaches a masters program on the topic covering the basic science of climate change right through to policy implications

“What we are trying to do here is cut through all of the — excuse the phrase — all the BS that gets put out there in the papers and by politicians and shock jocks and the like. We want to cut through all of that and get the truth out to the general populous,” said Dr Rawson.

“This particular series is really aimed at trying to tell people about the scale of change, tell people about the processes involved, that they are real… there is a massive scientific consensus on these issues; we've been watching it monitoring it now for decades and it is panning out exactly as we said it would and projections into the future are pretty dire.”

Despite the science, Dr Rawson said there is a lack of political will to face the problem. Solutions are within our grasp, he said, although it requires significant economic change.

“To be able to deal with the problem we need to modify quite a significant component of our economy… it is quite doable of course and doable with a very small amount of implication for most people, it just needs the political will to do it,” he said.

“The technology is there to make the changes; we just need the will. We have to get the message out there.”

The third and final in the Climate Behind the Headlines series will be held at the Parkview Hotel at 5.30pm, 4 December and will look at just what we can we do about climate change to mitigate the worst of its impacts on the global environment.

Visit futuringorange.com or find them on Facebook for details about Climate Behind the Headlines and other current projects.