The Climate Debate
Nothing has become more divisive and fraught with rhetoric than the Climate Change debate, and it doesn’t matter whether you agree or disagree. The debate has become so heated it is more about defending a position than facts, and this only takes us further away from rational solutions. There are solutions, but they will take a longer term vision than our systems’ 3 year political vision.
I come at this debate from a Property Development perspective and as such you may automatically think I would be a climate sceptic, but I’m not. I’m not that smart. I don’t know anything about climate change. I am not a scientist and I don’t claim to be. And this is the core of the problem, the debate has become more about being right and denigrating the other side, than real facts and rational comprise to achieve outcomes.
Here is what I think –
The climate change debate has brought a halt to infrastructure investment, dams or power, as there is no political will to enter into these debates
It seems you have to either be a climate sceptic or a climate believer…whatever happened to the middle path?
We can’t keep pumping crap into our eco-system and expect it won’t have consequences for future generations. We have to change.
But we can’t just stop burning coal or building dams or creating infrastructure for the future prosperity of our children
I simply cannot understand why we cannot have the debate around a long term transition, in small achievable steps, from our current fossil fuel usage, to renewables. For example let’s talk about coal. We cannot simply not build anymore coal mines or coal fired power stations, this is economically impossible. But why can’t we step through Carbon capture to clean coal technology, to supplementing with solar power, to eventually full conversion of existing plant to Solar Power. This might take 30 years…so what? Let’s make a start.
With a long term vision strategy in place, major infrastructure investors can position themselves and their capital to achieve the required outcomes, and this will provide certainty and stability in our economy which is at the heart of a prosperous nation.
…anyway, rant over.
