Tim Winton: Labor hasn’t delivered on more effective nature laws. It’s not just embarrassing, it’s calamitous | Tim Winton

toI ate last spring, I was part of an exploratory trip to Scott REEF, a wonderful coral of about 300 km off the coast of Kimberly. Although I had no honor to be in such a remote and wonderful place, and watching rare and endemic marine life in the past, the moment I was made to the boat in my conviction and distress, I knew that there is something wrong.

The water was very hot. It is not a tropical warm, but uncomfortable.

Our first diving was on a coral garden at the top of the mountain of the sea. But I fought to focus on what I was seeing, because of a strange sense of the skin that came to me on the surface. When I took a breath and slipped beyond 8 meters, I retreated slightly dissatisfaction, but in the way of its reserves, I surpassed me like disturbance, and the feeling of the distress you get before you fainted.

“I just asked Dr. Bin Fitzbatrick, a marine environment scientist, while we were returning to the boat,” or is this water hot? “

The veteran naval scientist referred to the unit of the boat sonar. The reading gave it was 35c.

The next diving was in the ideal lake near Sandy Island. With the extinguishing of the outgoing tide, the pearl water grew almost transparent, like what comes out of the hot tap at home. As the current went down to the deep decrease, the thermal line was visible-you can see the most important water that collides with cooler layers. On the surface, it was 36C.

“Dear God,” I said. “It is only November. Is this just a local anomaly?”

The way Ben Qashah dropped at his feet and looked at the horizon was not at all reassured. I told myself that the tools of the boat were a little out of the ketter, at least inaccurate.

But later that day, when the sun settled in the orange sea, Ben brought satellite models to the sea temperature on his laptop. The pictures were terrible.

“You know where all this hot water is heading, right?”

She nodded her head. Leivewin is pushing south and pushing the tropical water beach along the western coast of Australia. This thermal wave is directed to our beaches.

The awe at that moment of confession is chasing me for the remainder of the trip.

In December, we heard the first reports about the whitening of coral reefs in Kimberly. In the far south, in January, The 30,000 fish died collectively On the coast of Belbra.

Last week, NingAloo Reef has started to experience a large -scale reef. Early reports were sea temperatures, 4 degrees more hot than usual.

When many talented photographers and photographers in Ninjo began documenting the hardship of coral reefs, the size of this event began to drown. For many of us who love coral reefs, or depend on it for our jobs, the shock has not yet spoken the way. Some people cling to the hope that things will look worse than they are, and that the death of coral will be minimal. Those who were studying and defending Ninjo for decades trapped between anger and sadness. Because we know that this was an expected disaster. It could have been avoided.

This is what 30 years have brought to us of denial and delay. This is what the current government policy settings produce, and what they will continue to inflict our coral reefs unless we return again from the edge of the abyss now.

These marine heat waves have become more frequent and more intense. Climate scientists predicted this, and politicians and fossil fuels rejected their warnings, but here.

This is the cost of work as usual – more heat stress, more damage, more death, and more pain.

This is not just an ocean problem. Winter temperatures in northern Washington were in the 1940s. During the summer, they were in the 1940s for several consecutive days, and the coastal city of Karnarfon, south of Ninjo, hit 50 EGP, which is terrifying.

These are not only unreasonable temperatures – they are unsafe, and they are not sustainable. We should not expect to find it politically acceptable.

We are on the right path to 3c of heating. Which means that all coral reefs will die and will become vast areas of the planet that is not suitable for housing.

the IPCC He says that if we can restrict heating at 1.5 ° C, some coral reefs may survive, fewer people will perish or have to live in misery. But to do this, we will need to refrain from any developments in fossil fuels. This means putting the welfare of humanity in the long term first. Science is clear in this – ethics must also be.

The problem is, of course, that a small group of people make huge profits, not subject to tax, of oil, gas and coal. These people, and political leaders who protect their commercial interests, all deny the responsibility for the collapse of the climate, yet their role in providing all this heat and suffering is clear and uncomfortable.

These are the people who stand in the way of our safety.

Therefore, with large elections in front of us in Washington, while we are still absorbing the bad news for this week from Ninjo, perhaps this is a moment to evaluate it.

After they confessed to the extinction crisis and the state of climatic emergency, Anthony Albaniz promised to introduce more effective natural laws. His government has not spared this promise. Failure to politics is not embarrassing political – in the real world of blood, fur and feathers, it is financial. Because without positive work, things and precious places die. This is not tragic – it is shameful.

Sadly, it is that part of this shame can be home to a league in western Australia. the It interferes at the last minute of Prime Minister, Roger CookEnsuring the extinction of new nature laws.

Wow, of course, is the only Australian country without the goal of emissions in 2030 – here, carbon pollution is more. So, no surprise Really dangerous temperaturesfor Fires and Floods They are condensed, and homes and property have become Unimaginable.

The poll shows that most Western Australians want to properly treat the climate as a case of urgency. But the Cook government is the government of fossil fuel industry, backed by local press barons, is almost before me. Despite science, they want to support the likes of Woodside For excavation and pollution for another 50 years. This is a death note for coral reefs in Australia.

After this week, our shock will turn into sadness. But although we must have this sadness, we must be sure to determine its sources and use that knowledge to make change. The elections are not our only chance to disrupt and destroy the usual business, but it is a good place to start.