Conservation Comment: Back to normal is not ideal

The islands of Kiribati are disappearing with rising sea levels. The people are under pressure to relocate. Photo / Getty Images

In northern England there is an expression, "There's now't as weird as folks."

This perhaps goes some way to explaining as to why homo sapiens can accept some facts and evidence and the next minute vilify scientists who bring an inconvenient truth.

These days we have the ability to talk into a small device in our hands and talk to and see in real time a loved one on the other side of the planet.

A hundred years ago to suggest such a possibility would have you laughed at and ridiculed. It is very disconcerting that people who are quite happy to accept the science that has brought the cellphone to their pockets can deny other science as some sort of plot to take over their lives.

If we can accept the science of this sophisticated technology, why can't humans get our heads around the science and urgency of climate change? Post-Covid talk is all about getting back to normal, instead of continuing to improve the carbon reduction gains made during the lockdowns.

Getting back to "normal" has been the catch cry of politicians, economists, financially struggling hospitality businesses, and travellers missing their families. This normal is creating a future normal of even worse storms, floods and wildfires.

I recently heard an interview with a writer who'd found a story of a teenager who had escaped the Holocaust with enough evidence of what was happening in Auschwitz. But, despite this evidence, no one would believe him because it was so beyond belief - at that time. Climate change evidence seems to have the same effect on people. Normal is how things should be and what we are used to. Normal is comfortable.

Now, even with the evidence we are tripping over daily, many people still find the fact that climate change is here and will hugely influence the future viability of agriculture, transport and the economy, hard to imagine.

Goodbye past normal, hello the changing, unpredictable normal. Well, not so unpredictable, as in the 1980s climate scientists were beginning to get a fair idea of what climate change could bring.

I'd suggest that the "Normalists" should transport their minds 30 years into the future, likely to be beset by worse weather than we've been seeing at present, and ask themselves whether they should be doing more, much more, now, to catch up with 40 years of procrastination.

When you look at many people's reactions to the daily weather disasters - floods in Bangladesh, forest fires in Portugal and 40 degree temperatures across Europe - they book a holiday on the other side of the planet.

Flying is a bit like the "butterfly effect" (where a butterfly in the jungle flaps its wings and sets off a chain reaction that causes a cyclone in the Bahamas) where flying's carbon emissions sets off a chain reaction that changes the climate. Come to think of it, that metaphor is more believable than a butterfly in the jungle.

Perhaps, while relaxing on a beach, they let their mind wander to the beaches on a coral island in the Pacific, with palms overhead, such as Kiribati. Except that Kiribati's beaches are disappearing with rising sea levels.

Have a nice global warming.

John Milnes was Green Party candidate for three elections, founder member of Sustainable Whanganui, and is a parent and grandparent.