Too Late to Avoid Warming

Some business sectors will be more affected than others. All our businesses need to build in planning to cope with less water, less predictable power and more extreme weather.

And most importantly we need to think about what impact we have and how we can reduce this. Many office based businesses don’t believe they are having much impact BUT figures from Victoria show that 30% of greenhouse gas emissions in that State come from the office sector. Offices are typically open eight hours a day and shut for sixteen but they cheerily release greenhouse gasses for all 24 hours.

Small business often thinks that their “little bit” does not matter but small business is our largest business sector and all the “little bits” add up.

People sometimes think that industry wide environmental manuals and codes of practice where each business is given a manual will be a help but unfortunately experience shows that the manuals get put on a shelf and have little impact on the business. I have seen some industry sectors where the members go through a checklist and tick things off but again this seldom changes our daily behaviour.

The problem with these approaches is that there is no ownership by the business. Behaviour does not change unless there is an overall acceptance and a system with some feedback to help people remember.

To be effective a business needs to involve their people and to look systematically at all their activities. The good news is that you can green your business and increase profits by taking small but steady steps and it is easy!

If we don’t all take action, the rate of global warming will keep increasing out of control. We do hear doubts and some well funded counter claims to confuse us but global warming is a real threat to our economies and even to life on this planet. It is caused by human activity. The gas and heat distribution in the atmosphere would be very different if it was a natural cycle. We are wrapping the earth in an insulating blanket of greenhouse gasses and we are steadily warming. The scary thing is that all the predictions we have reached so far have been reached sooner than expected because the predictions are all on the conservative side.

It is too late for the city to avoid a warming of about 1 degree by 2030 as well as a 3 per cent reduction in annual rainfall because of polluting gases already in the atmosphere. OK, so what? You might think you can live with 1 degree warmer – what is all the fuss about!

Already this apparently small change has "exacerbated" the effects of the drought and decreased snow cover, including a 40% reduction in snow depth in Spring in the Snowy Mountains in the past 45 years. This means less snow melt going into the River Murray.

The temperature change is not just an even change across the world. Weather patterns and ocean currents have changed, reducing rainfall to south-west Australia and leading to a warming of waters off the east coast of Tasmania that is occurring at triple the global rate of ocean warming. The weather is less predictable with more extreme weather events.

This information has come from many sources but the latest is the report, Climate Change in Australia, which contains the most detailed and up-to-date climate projections produced by the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology

Too Late to Avoid Warming - To learn more about this author, visit Sue 's Website.

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