The doom we never mention

Markus' article is lost to me in the mists of time, but I wrote this letter to the editor of the Canberra Times back in August 2012. Things have changed for the worse since then. These days, if I were brave enough, I'd write the last sentence with "probably" in place of maybe.

Markus Mannheim ("The doom that we never mention", Forum, August 25, p1) sounds as defeated as me on climate change. Why no talk of it?

Clearly exponential growth into a finite world doesn't go. It's cheaper to deal with it earlier; it's not at all controversial in climate science; it's not controversial outside the English-speaking world. But it is here. Climate change is insidious in human timescales.

I ask people: if Queensland floods every five years, can it survive the cost? People understand this. Do pollies or the press? I'm sure they do, but politics and commerce and the short term win out. I expect we will be too late; maybe we already are.