We can help to save the blue planet - one deed at a time

The American River in Sacramento, California, where drought, over-allocation of water and climate change combined this year to make temperatures too warm for some baby salmon and other fish to survive. Giant water chillers were installed in some fish hatcheries. AP

It's difficult to talk seriously about global warming and about the means to ameliorate the process to head off the disasters predicted.

Political adherence prevents people who otherwise have the requisite science and math skills from acknowledging that human activities are causing global warming despite the fact that 97 per cent of climate scientists (e.g. IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change) have come to that conclusion. Among the other 3 per cent are some whose doubts are honestly derived. That's to be expected as science, properly done, is tentative and measured in its conclusions and encouraging of contrary opinion. That contrary opinion, however, must be based in fact.

Far more nefarious are the efforts of some scientists, often with little expertise in climate science, to disseminate doubt and controversy where little or none exists. Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway, both professors of History of Science, spells out in detail how a handful of scientists - physicists with no medical experience - employed by the public relations firm for big tobacco companies, acted to obscure the truth about the relationship of smoking and cancer. Now the same cast of characters - the same physicists - employed by a consortium of fossil fuel companies, is doing its best to invent false controversy to discredit the scientific conclusion that global warming is caused by greenhouse gases, i.e. human activity.

We are beginning to see the impact of global warming. The seas are rising. The tidal surge in Miami now results in seawater overpowering the sewerage system and flooding the streets. Some low-lying islands in the South Pacific are threatened with actual disappearance.

As the earth warms, the combination of cold air and warm water generates storms. Cyclones are becoming more frequent, more powerful and more devastating. Australia and California are seeing longer fire seasons. Droughts are becoming more prolonged and commonplace. Meanwhile, snowfalls are greater in some parts along with consequent spring floods.

Animals, not freighted with political adherence, are responding by their movement from former breeding grounds northward as ocean temperatures change. Fish populations on both US coasts have altered their patterns with resulting decline in the economic fortunes of some fishermen and unexpected improvement for others.

A recent prediction - only slightly tongue in cheek - held that continued climate change and its associated alterations in living patterns would shift the temperate zone so that Anchorage, Alaska, would become the new San Francisco. Little consolation, as the air might be warmer but the winter sunshine would still be only four hours.

Beyond acknowledging the actual facts of global warming there looms the question of what can we, you and I, do about it. Instead of the tendency toward helplessness and thereby inaction, we need to realise our capacity to effect change where we can.

Some things we do already and take for granted. Clothes are often air dried. They can also be washed in cold water. If we shower ourselves just two minutes less we save $150 in utilities and 4600 gallons of water. We can drive more slowly. It saves lives and fossil fuel. If our merchants and we agree to avoid single-use plastic bags we avoid both petrochemical use and pollution of our seas.

As individuals, we can become more informed, reading critically the climate science information.

As citizens we can get together and petition our MP, and our Government to choose investment in solar and wind power over fossil fuel exploration in our national parks or our seas. Solar takes advantage of our geography and will, with help from Chinese solar innovation, soon be cheap enough to be the start of a new business enterprise providing jobs that help us and help to preserve the planet.

As members of groups dedicated to our stewardship of Earth, we can alter the present course for all our benefit.

Margaret Mead said it best: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."