No policies for the warmth to come

Given the sad truth that the so-called governing majority Democrats in the United States now have given up the attempt to introduce any form of cap-and-trade scheme to limit carbon emissions, I suppose the decision of both major parties in Australia to adopt the same position makes more sense. There is little point in us making some heroic gesture to limit carbon emissions. Without an internationally agreed approach that sees the major polluters such as the US and China leading the way, anything Australia does is irrelevant in actually solving the growing problems being created by a warming planet.

It is all very depressing when you bother to think about it because the evidence of global warming keeps coming. Consider this update from the Discover website using data from the NOAA-15 and NOAA-16 satellites giving global atmospheric temperatures are measurements at multiple levels from the lower troposphere to the stratosphere. I have chosen the data for the 14,000 feet level because it gives figures for the highest temperatures on the 20 year-plus record, plus the average temperature along with those for individual recent years.

The green line is this year to date, the red the highest recorded for the day in any year and the blue one the 20 year+ average reading.

Given the increasing likelihood that there will be no internationally agreed approach to what is clearly a problem, it would have been reassuring if our political leaders during this election campaign gave us some idea of what their policies will be to prepare Australia for the inevitable warmth to come.