The Doha climate talks have come and gone, and it is all business as usual.
Dr Pep Canadell of the the Global Carbon Project has crunched the numbers. 'Emissions are the highest in human history and 54 per cent higher than in 1990 (the Kyoto reference year).'
And yet it seems the outcome from Doha was full steam ahead, particularly with coal, despite dire warnings from the World Bank that if we don't turn down the heat we face clear threats to our great God the Economy. In fact the world as it now operates could just go bust, in a way that would make the GFC seem like a walk in the park.
Researcher Ann Scorbet has some startling figures for Australia alone. She states that delays in acting on climate change will cost Australians $5 million per week by 2020 as we struggle to catch up. The Stern Review in 2006 warned that unchecked climate change could cost the world $3.68 trillion. We could either deal with it now or face a cost at least 20 times greater.
Emeritus Professor Ian Lowe has warned that Australia should cease exporting coal. Gasps of disbelief and cynical laughter may greet this pronouncement. But failure to do so is tantamount to continuing to sell asbestos, despite knowledge of its lethal nature. There may be immediate financial gains, but immeasurable costs in health, lives and sustaining our environment and the world, long-term economic implications of inaction aside.
Paul Gilding, former CEO of Greenpeace sees adaptation to a sustainable energy as the disruption we have to have. Somewhat more optimistically in his book The Great Disruption, he proposes that the climate crisis will transform the world's economy. Despite the fact that it looks increasingly like we will never reach a global agreement, Gilding says that business and the world will shift to renewables at the 11th hour.
This may be wishful thinking. The scientific consensus is that we are heading, not for the almost manageable 2 degrees, but to 5 to 7 degrees of warming unless we completely disengage from polluting energy within two decades. Yet world governments are dithering with inadequate or counterproductive responses, and vested interests are fighting like hell to keep mining and selling coal and fossil fuels.
And although it is the youth of today who will suffer the consequences, a recent survey by Mission Australia says concern for the environment has dropped, trumped by concern for the economy.
On the other hand, awareness is growing, and sceptics are looking out of tune with reality. Infamous denialist Lord Monkton, who has been sponsored by Gina Rinehart to give talks in Australia, was ejected from the Doha talks for impersonating a delegate while disputing the science, claiming there has been no global warming for 16 years.
Psychologically, humans use avoidance and denial when confronted with undesirable or untenable realities. Like the myth of the ostrich with its head in the sand, this creates an illusion that all is fine but leaves us vulnerable and exposed. We are merely shutting our eyes.
Despair is another option that can seem to make things easier: nothing can be done, my effort doesn't count, others aren't doing enough, so might as well just party like hell, drink, make as much money as possible or give up and fall into a numbing depression.
There are healthier, more helpful ways to respond. In taking some deliberate action we reduce the sense of powerlessness and the crippling state of depression.
This action can take many forms. We can reduce our personal emissions (consumption of electricity in Australia has actually declined in the past year). We can become informed, inform others, and reduce wastage. We can withdraw investments from coal and polluting industries and invest in green industry. We can pressure politicians and the electorate to act.
Former PM Kevin Rudd asserted that climate change is the greatest moral challenge of our times. It is also our greatest moral responsibility. We are on the threshold of an enormous catastrophe. We can choose denial or despair, or take moral responsibility for all our actions to reduce emissions and losses. We owe this to the future.
Lyn Bender is a Melbourne psychologist. Her Twitter handle is @Lynestel