Carl Joseph

Environment woes hit prime time

Finally it’s happened. All it took was a report from Sir Nicholas Stern, dubbed the “Stern Report.”

Actually, it’s taken a whole lot more than that. Decades of long haired hippies chaining themselves to trees, the banning of CFCs and the sudden increase of phrase “climate crisis” appearing in the popular press.

Over the last few weeks I have noticed that environmental topics have been making a more prominent appearance in the media (television, paper, online and radio.) Then today, the Stern report was delivered and the climate topic made headlines in all the media. It even hit the lead story on some news programs.

Tonight, the Ten network opted to broadcast an episode of Futurama called “Crimes of the Hot.” In this episode, the Earth’s polar ice caps begin to melt causing disaster accross the globe.

Much to my surprise, Al Gore makes an appearance in Kyoto as the “The Inventor of the Environment.” A quick Google, and I realised even more to my surprise that this episode was first broadcast in 2002. Quite a while ago in popular press terms. Gore also performs the voice himself in this episode.

A further link exists between the show and “An Inconvenient Truth.” A movie that the professor shows was featured in the Al Gore movie.

“Earth in the Balance” by Al Gore was published in 1992 and the Kyoto Protocol first opened for signatures in 1997. That seems like so long ago. It’s such a shame that it has really taken this long (plus some) to get to a stage where this important issue has hit the common consciousness.

So long, and I feel that Australia had such an opportunity to jump on this early on. We could have now been presenting the world with solutions to this issue. New technologies and best practice for renewable energy. Instead, we’re still debating about renewables vs nuclear.

Well I’m glad it’s now in the prime time. With the International Day of Action on Climate Change happening this Saturday, the story might at least stay in the headlines for a little longer. The Walk Against Warming is the Australian event aiming to promote further awareness around this issue.