World Cup of Polllution

Australia has been eliminated from the Soccer World Cup, again. As I looked at the points table for Group C, I wondered how these nations compare in terms of greenhouse gases.

Here are the scores:

Not only does Australia pollute more per person than any of these nations, but the average Australian pollutes more than a French person, a Dane and a Peruvian combined.

These other nations are better at soccer and better at taking care of the planet.

And it's not just group C. It turns out that Australia is the highest polluting nation at this World Cup at 25 tonnes of greenhouse emissions per person.

Next worst is Saudi Arabia at 18 and Russia at 15. Hardly anyone even has half the greenhouse emissions of Australians.

Grab a bag from Bank Australia (for free)

Bank Australia is helping out Queenslanders with free calico bags, ahead of the state phasing out single-use plastic bags from this weekend.

At long last the state government is making shops be responsible and stop giving out single-use plastic bags. Shops will still be able to sell re-usable bags.

Bank Australia is an ethical bank that avoids lending to coal gas and oil companies - and even gives a percentage of its profits to community groups doing good things for our environment.

So to help people make this positive change, the bank is giving away these free calico bags. You don't even have to be a customer, though I do recommend being one - they have such great interest rates, and ethics.

Are we Scienceblind?

The book Scienceblind is about the intuitive theories we have about the world, why they're often wrong, and why we sometimes hold on to them despite overwhelming scientific evidence.

You might imagine I headed straight for the climate change chapter. Actually, I read the introduction first. But then straight to Chapter 7.

Climate and weather

Turns out that we really do confuse weather and climate. In surveys done on hot days, people are far more likely to agree that climate change is happening.

Should one day's weather in one tiny speck of the planet really change our mind about whether the entire planet is warming year after year, decade after decade? Probably not. But it does.

What can we feel?

The thing about intuitive theories is that they are based on what we perceive. We can't perceive this month's global average temperature and compare it to similar months over the last 3 decades. We sense today's temperature - right here, right now. So that's the data we use. Not very scientific.

Another thing we perceive is that serious climate change must lead to serious behavioural changes. The more fearful we are of such changes the more we are inclined to deny that climate change exists, or deny that it is serious.

So what's the solution

Often people don't know what it is they a rejecting. A study in which people were given the following description were found to be more accepting of global warming.

Earth transforms sunlight’s visible light energy into infrared light energy, which leaves Earth slowly because it is absorbed by greenhouse gases. When people produce greenhouse gases, energy leaves Earth even more slowly - raising Earth’s temperature.

A second solution is to inform people that 97% of scientists agree that human carbon emissions are causing climate change. People tend to think this figure is around 60-70%.

Finding out that the science community is practically unanimous resulted in people being more accepting of the reality of climate change and also more willing to take action.