Australian Farmers 'in denial' on climate change
Pastor Dale Morgan
Australian Farmers 'in denial' on climate change*
May 20, 2008 10:21am
Article from: AAP
NEARLY 40 per cent of rural people are uncertain about whether climate
change is happening and are pinning their hopes on the weather returning
to normal after the drought.
Most people who live on the land question the link between the 11-year
drought and climate change, a study by the Government's Bureau of Rural
Sciences finds.
"There is some denial that climate change is happening ... in order to
maintain hope," the study said.
It also found a high level of uncertainty - rather than rejection -
around the notion of human-induced climate change.
The study - called Climate and Industry Adaptation - interviewed 148
people from four rural communities, along with community representatives
and business managers.
Of those, 35.5 per cent said climate change was happening while 38.5 per
cent thought climate change was probably happening, but felt unsure, or
thought it was not affecting their area.
Nearly 15 per cent said they didn't know and 11 per cent said climate
change was not happening.
"Nearly 40 per cent of the interviewees expressed some degree of
uncertainty about whether or not climate change is happening," the study
said.
"There was a tendency for this group of people to attribute the current
drought to a natural cycle and to express the belief that there would be
a return to normal or good years once the drought broke."
There was general consensus among the scientific community that
human-induced climate change was taking place, the study said.
This would lead to warmer weather, changed rainfall patterns and more
extreme weather events in rural Australia.
The bureau says many scientists believe climate change is a key factor
in the drought.
But some rural people were yet to be convinced of this, which posed a
problem for adaptation, bureau executive director Colin Grant said.
"A longer-term risk management approach to climate change assumes a
level of understanding and acceptance of climate change that was
generally not demonstrated in this study," the study found
The bureau is an independent scientific group within the Department of
Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.