We’re told not talk about climate change. I suspect this is because
we might have to start wondering why we’re not doing anything about it
This
week I had a mole checked on my leg and my doctor quickly agreed it
should be removed. While I contemplated the anxiety of what that could
mean I did not sit there wondering which day it was that I got sunburned
which caused the corruption of a cell that has started to turn the mole
abnormal.
Was it from the time I spent summers working as a fruit-picker during university? Or those many afternoons down on the banks of the River Murray swimming with friends during high school? Was it the time I got absolutely burned to a crisp on an overcast day holidaying on the Gold Coast in my early 20s?
We don’t ask this because it is in essence unanswerable, but we also know that – as the advert says – every tan is doing you damage. And I know that my lack of care during my youth while out in the sun is the reason I am going to get the mole removed (and hopefully will not require much more surgery after that).
We don’t stop to ask for a specific causal event to give us proof of
the link between sunburn or a tan and skin cancer. And yet change the
topic to climate change and immediately we demand specifics.Was it from the time I spent summers working as a fruit-picker during university? Or those many afternoons down on the banks of the River Murray swimming with friends during high school? Was it the time I got absolutely burned to a crisp on an overcast day holidaying on the Gold Coast in my early 20s?
We don’t ask this because it is in essence unanswerable, but we also know that – as the advert says – every tan is doing you damage. And I know that my lack of care during my youth while out in the sun is the reason I am going to get the mole removed (and hopefully will not require much more surgery after that).
This week the fires burning in southern Queensland, though started by a vandal, thrived in conditions brought about from climate change. The summer ahead looks to be a horror one for bushfires, with the latest Bureau of Meteorology outlook suggesting most of the continent has a less than 30% chance of exceeding its average rainfall for October to December.
But were the bushfires this week caused by climate change? No – at least not definitively so.
It is quite difficult to attribute any individual bushfire or cyclone or drought to climate change, because what climate change affects is long-term trends – trends that will see more droughts and less rainfall in certain areas, as well as conditions more conducive to longer bushfire seasons.
It is much the same as with gun laws in the US. The lack of gun laws does not cause every single gun fatality to occur, but they cause a situation that makes gun fatalities much more likely to occur.
While with melanoma we grasp the long-term and act and adapt accordingly – actions that help reduce the likelihood of melanoma through “slip-slop-slap”, and adaptation required in lieu of being unable to reverse the past (ie checking moles for changes).
But on climate change we are like some old bloke who has spent his life in the sun saying sunburn never killed him, all the while ignoring the mole on his back growing larger and more discoloured every month.
Most of our politicians – and certainly our government – are not even at the stage of adaptation, let alone ready to take actions that might prevent further damage.
I had a check of my skin because this week the Labor MP Jason Clare tweeted an image of his bandaged leg after he had had a melanoma removed.
It was one of those cases where whenever you hear of anyone who has had a melanoma removed it is used as the perfect time to remind everyone to go get checked, to wear sunscreen and to do all you can in effect not to get skin cancer.
But when a bushfire or a cyclone or a drought occurs, there is conversely always the push to not politicise it, to not talk about climate change. I suspect this is because if we did so we might have to start wondering why we were not doing anything about it.
So we had the bizarre situation this week of the minister for natural disasters, David Littleproud, telling Guardian Australia in writing that “I don’t know if climate change is manmade”. He then went on Sky News and told the same thing to David Speers before in parliament on Thursday suggesting that it was all a mistake and he really does think climate change is manmade.
Littleproud is not actually one of the climate change looneys in the government, so it did smack a little bit of him seeking to placate the ignorant in his party before realising that it made him look ignorant before the entire nation.
The ALP was not exactly covering itself in climate change sunscreen this week either.
On Wednesday the Greens moved a motion which, after acknowledging the early fire season and the critical role of emergency services, called on the government to “urgently take action to address climate change and manage the risk and severity of bushfires, invest in community adaptation efforts to build resilience to climate change in moderate and high risk areas, and commit to action to progress a rapid and just transition to clean and renewable energy sources to reduce the harmful emissions driving climate change”.
In essence to act and adapt.
The ALP voted against the motion because, as senator Katy Gallagher stated, it sought “to politicise the emergency in Queensland, where 72 fires are currently burning”.
The ALP senator Murray Watt echoed these thoughts on twitter and he replied when I (and others) criticised him by referring to a speech he had made on the issue the day before.
In that speech on the bushfires his one reference to climate change was this: “It is of concern that so many bushfires of this severity are occurring so early in the year, and this should prompt further thought by all in this place.”
Yeah. That’ll do it.
It is bizarre the Cancer Council hasn’t gone with the campaign slogan of “the growing number of moles on your body should prompt further thought”.
We need to be as loud and active about combating climate change as we do skin cancer. Stop seeking excuses not to act, stop demanding definitive proof for every single incident, and look at the overall trends.
We need to use the moments when bad things happen to remind everyone that further action and further adaptation is needed unless we want to see more severe events occur more often.
Oh and also go have a mole check up.
- Greg Jericho is a Guardian Australia columnist
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