Bruce Bisset: Wake up, we're facing doom

Almost lost this week amidst the turmoil of resigning MPs, shonky gambling deals and the quashing of any reform of MMP was that man-made emissions have driven the density of atmospheric particulate matter through the 400ppm threshold.

Yes, I know, all those national political issues - not to mention yesterday's Budget - are big local stories that more-or-less immediately impact on our lives here in Godzone.

Whereas climate change is a nebulous global behemoth we'd rather not consider until the day after tomorrow, when our children can deal with it.

But since I love my kids, and can only assume others love theirs, I can't let the moment pass without trying to remind readers there are more important things in life than money and power and taxes.

Sure, how well we educate our children and the sort of society they might expect to grow up in are important.

But whether that society can survive, or even whether our children - or more precariously, theirs - get to grow up at all is a bit more primal, don't you think?

Which is why the news we've exceeded what has long been regarded as the "peak of extremity" for emissions - with no hint of curtailment in sight - should have been the lead item in every media.

Wasn't, was it. Give yourself a tick if you even noticed it.

Doubtless the Government pretended not to, since I'll bet there was only a slightly dismissive reference in passing to climate change in the Budget, with no new money and certainly no new initiatives to address it.

They're the coal-and-oil-are-good-for-us-all brigade, after all. Wouldn't want to upset voters by suggesting the end of the world was nigh while they're busy hastening that end.

Before you accuse me of doom-mongering, here's a useful analogy: we're travelling down a dead-end road well-marked as such on the map passing numerous warning signs en route but because our eyes are closed we can pretend the cliff we're about to drive off doesn't exist. Maybe we'll wake up when we're half way down - far, far too late.

And that's where we are, in fact, right now. Sorry about that.

It's not just that pm10 and CO2 concentrations have doubled since the industrial revolution, clearly a by-product of man's industry, and are now 100ppm more than the normal natural cyclical peaks for the past two million years.

Nor that the temperature rise that follows such peaks - the result of the "greenhouse" effect - is only currently tracking behind the norm because that rise has been so sudden.

No, it's that the gross cumulative effects of the past 50 years' emissions (let alone anything emitted in future) have yet to impact, so "worst case" scenarios are becoming outdated almost before they're published.

Those of us who believe the "tipping point" is already 20 years past are now trying to prepare as best we can for the hard landing we're about to experience.

We're the passengers in back, vainly yelling at the driver to apply the brakes. We don't hold out much hope, but at least we're focused on solutions, however improbable.

Or, put this down as my pro-Gaian rant for the year. I'll go back to writing about ephemeral concepts like honesty and justice and incidentals like war and famine, and you can tune back in to the dumb show and pretend you never read this.

Bruce Bisset is a freelance writer and poet.