Ita reveals the business case for acting on climate change

YOU cannot unboil an egg. I know the expression is supposed to be “you cannot unscramble an egg”, and you would think that that would be more appropriate in a discussion about Cyclone Ita, but we have 22 boiled eggs in the fridge right now at home in Port Douglas.

If a Category 5 cyclone is bearing down upon you and you do not know if your kitchen will be unusable, or when the power will go out, or for how long, boiling eggs is a good precaution.

If, however, the cyclone peters out to a Category 1 cyclone when it finally hits, and all you get is fallen branches, not fallen trees and roofs gone, then you have 22 boiled eggs in the fridge which you would very much like to unboil.

Because, as one of six children of an Anglican clergyman, waste is not an option.

I only mention the eggs because they are a small example of the consequences of a major cyclone.

Of more import, of course, is the cost to business –particularly tourism and all the businesses that depend on it.

Also of great import was the media coverage.

We were glued to the media coverage, in between taking outdoor furniture indoors, taping up the windows, roping off large pot plants and the like.

Yet never once did I hear the words “climate change”.

The response to extreme weather events by climate-change sceptics and business-as-usual climate-change deniers is now down pat: “Well, you cannot assert that the climate is changing on the basis of an isolated event (insert event: cyclone. storm, bushfire, flood, drought). We have had these things before, you know.” And scientists will generally agree.

But this mantra has to stop.

For a start, with cyclones you can confidently say that every cyclone will now be more severe because of global warming. The oceans have warmed in the past 50 years. Cyclones get their energy from the heat of the ocean.

A lot of these things have exponential effect. A little extra heat means cyclones will be a lot more powerful. A little extra wind velocity means a lot more destruction. The power of wind is a cube function of its speed. Doubling the speed results in eight times the force. Trebling the speed equals 27 times the force.

So the difference between a Category 3 and Category 5 cyclone 500kms off the Australian coastline is enormous. Once a Category 5 is tracked, as was the case with Ita, very costly preventative measures get set in train, as they must.

My guess is that most people in Port Douglas blew between two and four days of their lives on cyclone preparation and returning to normal. Most businesses blew at least a day’s trade.

So there can be no more business as usual. Climate change has to be a major concern of business, particularly small business. Big business has the power and resources to adapt. Small businesses suffer badly at best or go broke at worse.

Cyclone Ita is a good case study. Most of the physical damage was done at Cooktown – some roofs blown off and so on.

It was a great backdrop for TV with a sub-text of: this was as bad as it got, so no cause for alarm.

But the great economic damage was done in Port Douglas and Cairns. The airport was closed and flights cancelled. All tourist tours were canncelled for two, three or four days depending on the trip. Restaurants and pubs closed. Shops closed.

Of course, there were some benefits to stores selling cyclone-prevention material – but not a genuine offset.

Climate change must be a matter of concern for small business. Yes, we know that Australia on its own cannot affect the global climate, but we can and should influence world opinion as we did with the bans on fluorocarbons. Those bans stopped the depletion of the ozone layer and prevented much cancer-causing radiation hitting the earth.

The world co-operated then and we should co-operate now. The voice of small business should rally on this. Much of big business likes a high carbon economy and it does not care about the consequences

Another thing Cyclone Ita tells us is that the “populate the north” campaign is severely misguided. Nearly all cyclones in northern Australia pass over the coast harmlessly in unpopulated areas. We should keep it that way.

Cyclone Ita showed something else. In the aftermath of the cyclone, the forces of evolution were evident.

Tropical species – particularly in the 100-million-year-old Daintree — took the cyclone without damage. After that period of time all the cyclone-susceptible species have been wiped out. Introduced eucalypts from elsewhere in Australia took a hammering.

And on the human front, all the successful behaviours (taping windows, turning fridges to high, filling wheelie bins with water) – things that evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins calls memes – are passed on from one generation of cyclone preparers to another.

Meanwhile, the modern 24-hour every-second cycle news media is out of its depth. How can it cope with a cyclone, with all the potential for newsworthy fast-moving death and destruction, moving at such a glacial pace that every element of the story is hammered repetitively to the point of tedium? How can it cope with all the bot-boiling lead-up only to be confronted with the displeasing reality that when the really newsworthy event hits, necessity demands that the camera crew not be there, but tucked into the cyclone shelter?

Having seduced the audience into the prospect of mayhem, the television media cannot deliver at the critical time because it is at the mercy of the very thing they are reporting, so they must scurry for safety and blame it all on nature.

But the story must not be one of humankind helpless before the force of nature.

We have now contributed to the strength of some of these forces. We must recognise that and lead, join or cajole the world into doing something about it.

In the meantime, does anyone have a recipe for the palatable use of boiled eggs.
CRISPIN HULL
This article first appeared in The Canberra Times on 15 April 2013.

4 thoughts on “Ita reveals the business case for acting on climate change”

  1. So global warming allegedly caused you to boil 22 additional eggs? Catastrophe.

    You state: “For a start, with cyclones you can confidently say [cyclones] will now be more severe because of global warming.”
    How can you say that? The latest IPCC report states quite the opposite:
    “confidence in large scale changes in the intensity of extreme extratropical cyclones since 1900 is low… Over periods of a century or more, evidence suggests slight decreases in the frequency of tropical cyclones making landfall in the North Atlantic and the South Pacific… Callaghan and Power (2011) find a statistically significant decrease in Eastern Australia land-falling tropical cyclones since the late 19th century …”

    The Bureau of Meteorology also finds : “Trends in tropical cyclone activity in the Australian region (south of the equator; 90–160°E) show that the total number of cyclones appears to have decreased to the mid 1980s, and remained nearly stable since. The number of severe tropical cyclones (minimum central pressure less than 970 hPa) shows no clear trend over the past 40 years.” http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/climatology/trends.shtml

    You state: “Much of big business likes a high carbon economy and it does not care about the consequences…”
    The IPCC and the Bureau of Meteorology agree that the consequences of a high carbon economy in the last 100 years have been fewer and less severe cyclones. So the net consequence of a high carbon economy has been fewer cyclones, no warming for the last 17 years and 22 boiled eggs. Whooha.

    A recipe for the palatable use of boiled eggs? Eat them, they’re perfectly palatable. Or here are 22 boiled eg recipes – one for each of your boiled eggs. http://www.latimes.com/features/food/dailydish/la-dd-recipes-hardboiled-eggs-easter-20130326,0,4028493.photogallery

  2. Sorry, but this is one of the more sillier things I’ve ever read. The IPCC even concedes global warming isn’t causing worse cyclones and hurricanes so you cannot “confidently say” they are getting worse. As for your boiled eggs, for god’s sakes devil them! They’re fantastic!

  3. Mr hull,

    Just read your article and wonder whether you know that the ipcc and the australian met bureau both say the severity of cyclones is actually decreasing and not increasing as you assert in your article.

    Am I missing something?

    Regards,
    Peter

  4. Dear Crispin,

    Firstly I would like to thank you on your courage to buck the current government in regards to climate change. I’ve been a horticulturist for 25 years and have been quietly watching the subtle changes anthropocentric warming has brought to our fair planet. I’m pleased you and yours survived Ita’s blast, no matter she slipped in power before landfall the truth is it’s going to get worse, even in our own lifetimes so those that need preparing had better get used to the idea. And as for hard-boiled egg recipes, I’ve a ripper to share:

    EGGS IN FRIED CHILI SAUCE

    ingredients:
    1 medium onion
    oil/margarine/butter
    about a teaspoon (to taste as this stuff’s HOT) of sambal olek
    1 can peeled tomatoes
    1 chicken stock cube
    salt to taste
    and… 6 hard-boiled eggs.

    Of course, for 12 eggs simply double the rest of the ingredients!

    method:
    Fry thinly sliced onion in hot oil/margarine/butter. When onion changes colour reduce heat to low. Add sambal, peeled chopped tomatoes, crumbled chicken stock cube and salt to taste.
    Simmer 5 minutes stirring continuously. Add shelled eggs and simmer for another 5 minutes. Turn eggs and chili occasionally. Remove pan from heat. Cut the eggs neatly in halves with a sharp knife, arrange on a platter and pour over the chili sauce.

    These go nicely with chicken and rice plus perhaps some Asian vegetables and a nice glass of something red. Do be wary it’s easy to make this dish too fiery so do be careful unless you like things HOT…!

    Thankyou again for this article on climate change, maybe it’ll open a few deniers eyes just a crack and thankyou for your writings in general.

    Kind regards and happy eating,

    Bill Hall
    Canberra ACT.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *