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We can now realistically expect 450 ppm atmospheric CO2 by about 2030 (i.e. in about 20 years’ time assuming 3 ppm CO2/y, or earlier due to positive feedbacks) with a change in temperature (ΔT) 2oC above that in 1900. Above 450 ppm CO2 there is intensification of existing conditions (all Arctic summer sea ice will have gone by 2015, massive hurricanes, storm surges, droughts, mega bushfires, coastal and inland flooding, food shortages, huge mass mortality) plus increasingly major damage to coral reefs – including Australia’s Great Barrier Reef - which will be dying due to ocean warming and acidification above 450 ppm CO2 - with increasing damage to already stressed fisheries and agriculture with consequent mass starvation. [9]. This is inexorably happening due to inaction of governments around the world who are simply ignoring top scientific advice in the interests of short-term business profits. Yet it doesn’t have to happen if appropriate actions are urgently taken as summarized below in the 1-page Climate Emergency Facts and Required Actions statement of the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group (please send to everyone you can). [10]. Climate Emergency Facts and Required Actions. Just as we turn to top medical specialists for advice on life-threatening disease, so we turn to the opinions of top scientists and in particular top biological and climate scientists for Climate Change risk assessment and Climate Emergency Facts and requisite Actions as exampled below (for detailed documentation of everything below see the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group website). Professor James Hansen (top US climate scientist, head, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies): “We face a climate emergency”. Nobel Laureate Professor Peter Doherty: “We are in real danger.” Professor David de Kretser AC (eminent medical scientist and Governor of Victoria, Australia) “There is no doubt in my mind that this is the greatest problem confronting mankind at this time and that it has reached the level of a state of emergency.” Dr Andrew Glikson (palaeo-climate scientist, ANU): “The continuing use of the atmosphere as an open sewer for industrial pollution has … raised CO2 levels to 387 ppm CO2 to date, leading toward conditions which existed on Earth about 3 million years (Ma) ago (mid-Pliocene), when CO2 levels rose to about 400 ppm, temperatures to about 2–3 degrees C and sea levels by about 25 +/- 12 metres.” Major Climate Emergency Facts. 1. Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration has increased to 387 parts per million (ppm) as compared to 280 ppm pre-industrial and is increasing at about 2.5 ppm per year with average global temperature about 0.8 degrees C above the pre-industrial. 2. Man-made global warming due to greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution from carbon dioxide, methane and nitrogen oxides is already associated with major ecosystem damage (Arctic, ocean, coral reefs), melting of glaciers and Arctic sea ice, sea level rise, methane release from melting tundra and positive feed-back effects accelerating GHG pollution and warming. 3. Consequences of atmospheric CO2 concentration increase and warming to current 387 ppm: major ecosystem damage; current species extinction rates are 100-1,000 times greater than previously; to over 400 ppm: “new territory” not seen for millions of years with acute dangers from positive feedbacks; to over 450 ppm: major damage and death to coral reefs and associated fisheries; to over 500 ppm: major loss of ocean phytoplankton, ocean life, cloud seeding, the Greenland ice sheet and densely populated global coastal regions due to massive sea level rises. Climate Emergency actions urgently required. 1. Change of societal philosophy to one of scientific risk management and biological sustainability with complete cessation of species extinctions and zero tolerance for lying. 2. Urgent reduction of atmospheric CO2 to a safe level of about 300 ppm as recommended by leading climate and biological scientists. 3. Rapid switch to the best non-carbon and renewable energy (solar, wind, geothermal, wave, tide and hydro options that are currently roughly the same market price as coal burning-based power) and to energy efficiency, public transport, needs-based production, re-afforestation and return of carbon as biochar to soils coupled with correspondingly rapid cessation of fossil fuel burning, deforestation, methanogenic livestock production and population growth. [10]. It is not necessarily too late – but time is certainly running out. What has happened to my State of Victoria this week – and indeed is still happening with massive fires still raging to the north and east of Melbourne – will be repeated elsewhere in forested areas around the world on the back of a steadily increasing background of increasing global temperature. Please inform your fellow citizens and political representatives to heed the pleas for action coming from biological scientists and climate scientists as outlined above. One very effective way you could act would be by sending the 1-page Climate Emergency Facts and Required Actions statement of the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group (see above and reference [10]) to everyone you can.
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 Dr Gideon Polya, MWC News Chief political editor, published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003), and is currently writing a book on global mortality ---
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References. [1]. A.L. Westerling, H. G. Hidalgo, D. R. Cayan, T. W. Swetnam , Warming and Earlier Spring Increase Western U.S. Forest Wildfire Activity, Science 18 August 2006: Vol. 313. no. 5789, pp. 940 - 943
(DOI: 10.1126/science.1128834; see: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/313/5789/940 ). [2]. Dr John Holdren (2008), “The Science of Climatic Disruption”: http://www.usclimateaction.org/userfiles/JohnHoldren.pdf . [3]. NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS): http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/ . See also IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, Summary for Policymakers: http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf and Chapter 5, “Projecting Australian climate change”, The Garnaut Climate Change Review (2008): http://www.garnautreview.org.au/chp5.htm . [4]. Professor David Karoly quoted by AAP via TVNZ, New Zealand “Southeast under strain from heatwave” (2009): http://tvnz.co.nz/world-news/southeast-under-strain-heatwave-2457490 . [5]. Professor Douglas Paton et al, quoted by Dani Cooper, ABC, Science online (2009): http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/10/2487088.htm?site=centralvic [6]. Professor Will Steffen, Dr Brown and Trish Harrup quoted by Cathy Alexander, “ Expert predicts more mega-bushfires”, Channel 9 News (2009): http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=749141 . [7]. Professor David Karoly and Dr Greg Holland, interviewed by ABC Lateline, “More severe weather forecast, David Karoly warns”: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25033531-421,00.html . [8]. Statement of the June 2008 Manning Clark House Conference: “Imagining the Real Life on a Greenhouse Earth”, 11-12 June, Australian National University, Canberra: http://www.aussmc.org/Climate_joint_statement.php . [9]. Dr Gideon Polya, “Global warming, climate emergency” course notes, U3A (2009): http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/global-warming--global-emergency-course . [10]. Climate Emergency Facts and Required Actions, Yarra Valley Climate Action Group (2008): http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/climate-emergency-facts-and-required-actions .
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