Articles/Letters Time to change or expect a seven-metre sea rise Mary Gardner ‘It would be a tragedy to survive this coronavirus but succumb to humancaused climate disruption.’ Ben Santer, Scientific American March 2020
r lines Story
– always was, always will be
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The world’s temperature tells us that quick and effective action is needed on climate change. Photo Mary Gardner
Seven-metre sea rise Projections made in 2009 show that by 2040, Greenland’s ice melt will create a seven-metre sea level rise if we continue on the current path of greenhouse gas production. We barely understand the age and
Building roads begets more cars and more roads. The economics speak a simple clear message. Whatever the merits, or not, of the East Byron Bypass – it is
FROM THE INDIGENOUS PERSPECTIVE
Budgeram
Each of us is an individual world maintained within a larger collective world. For our average 72.6 years, our human bodies maintain a temperature in the 36.5–37.5°C range. The living coral polyps of the Florida Keys are reported to be 4,000 years old, and rely on seawater staying within the 23–29°C range. But what of the age and range of temperature tolerance for an entity such as the inland ice of Greenland? From April, on the Danish website Polar Portal, researchers will report the annual monitoring of that ice melt. The losses recorded so far are stupendous.
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temperature tolerances of this ice as we watch it disappear. The same is true of the sea ice of the neighbouring Arctic Sea. In Eastern Australia, we have continued heat stress for corals. The recent bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef ‘was the worst’, said Professor Terry Hughes in the Guardian. Many of these corals have barely recovered from serious events in 2016 and 2017.
costing more than $20m for 1km of road, the next logical step in road construction is a dual carriageway from Ewingsdale to East Byron Bay, which starts at about $35m, but could be $100m.
After the heat of summer, all the fire and flood, we are now in a viral pandemic and carefully monitoring our own selves. Us, the corals and ice: all sensitive, and none immune to the changes of our collective world.
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The Multiuse Rail Corridor Study, by international consultants Arcadis, states that it is realistic to reestablish the Byron–Mullumbimby rail link for $8m. This is a powerhouse project of social
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connection, economic development and fundamental environmental sustainability. The time for this idea has come. Malcolm Price Durrumbul
PLANET WATCH Seeking solutions to a heating planet Thank you to Byron Eco Park Holdings and Southern Cross Uni for supporting this new monthly column:
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