Last night, I attended a talk in Sydney by Dr James Hansen, highly awarded scientist and author (see his new book, Storms of My Grandchildren). James has a long career of researching and defining the changes in our climate and is a world authority on this topic.
It was a full house, yet still an informal occasion, where questions were invited. James spoke about the many challenges we face, and he also spoke about some solutions, such as a new Fee and Dividend way of promoting and rewarding energy efficiency. James is among many who are seriously concerned about the global decline in public interest in climate science, while at the same time, the data is showing more conclusively that the planet is warming. His key message was that we need to reduce the CO2 levels to 350 ppm, if we want to pass on a workable planet to the next generations. To do that, James sees that we must generate our power without burning fossil fuels, primarily coal.
For the planet, he spoke about nuclear power generation, but for Australia, he could see a future using renewable options such as large scale solar thermal, because of the ideal conditions for that technology to function.
All that is well known, but one more point came out of the evening, and that was a brief discussion about the need for a "Churchill like" leader, who would engage the world and set a course for the future. And it made me think of a Winston Churchill quote that I came across last week which said “Sometimes doing your best is not good enough. Sometimes, you must do what is required.”
Dr James Hansen is a brilliant scientist, not by nature a public speaker, but he is "doing what is required". And maybe that's a question for us all, "what is it that we can do, that is required for our planet and our common future".
Image : Dr. James Hansen, of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York. Credit: NASA
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