Facing 2030: Coping with Climate Change

By Peter J. Dwyer

Currently, the human race is living in troubled times, exemplified by the issue of Climate Change. The following pages attempt a reflection on this to explore how do we make sense of its strange effects? To do this we need to take it seriously and resist the temptation to consign it to the Too Hard Basket.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: Feb 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781504320986

Peter J. Dwyer

Associate Professor Peter Dwyer was Senior Consultant in the Youth Research Centre at the University of Melbourne, conducting research on youth pathways in education in Europe, Canada and the United States. He retired in 2000, and was made an Honorary Fellow. He has since published two new books, a memoir Life Journeys (2006), and Recovery – Towards a New Future (2010), a detailed study of the current global crisis.

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IISBN: 978-1-5043-2097-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-2098-6 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 02/26/2020

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FACING 2030

Coping With Climate Change

A sunset over a fire Description automatically generated

Author: Peter J. Dwyer, Research Sociologist, retired Honorary

Fellow, University of Melbourne, Australia

CONTENTS

1   FACING THE FUTURE

Introduction

The Passage of Time

When Times Get Hard

Summation

2   THE HUMAN CLOCK

3   THE CLIMATE HOAX

4   BECOMING CUSTODIANS

5   THE MINDSET ISSUE

6   THE GALILEO EFFECT

7   DREAMING LESSONS FOR CUSTODIANS

   Bibliography

1. FACING THE FUTURE

Introduction

Currently, there has emerged a widely-held view that the human race is living in troubled times, exemplified in particular by the issue of Climate Change. The following pages attempt a reflection on this to explore how solutions can be developed to the problems we face. Hence the title of this opening chapter - Facing The Future. After this Introduction, the chapter is divided into sections. The first section is titled The Passage of Time, and makes use of historical material concerning life on the planet Earth. The second section, titled When Times Get Hard, examines the kind of decision-making process that is needed to resolve our current differences about the problems. The final section of this opening chapter presents a list of the problem-solving elements flowing from the previous sections. Six further chapters then expand on the ideas uncovered in the Introduction.

We cannot ignore the fact that towards the end of the year 2019 there was an escalation of the dramatic climatic challenges taking place across the world. For example, in addition to the persistent melting of the Polar Ice-Caps, higher-than-usual temperature differences between the two sides of the Indian Ocean led to dramatic climate contrasts: flooding and landslides in East Africa, which killed dozens of people and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes; while thousands of