YOUR SAY: Where are leaders with vision to improve environment?

In response, our federal government minister for the environment had been sent on a mission to convince our UNESCO (United Nations, Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) partners, that we have nothing unusual happening here because other coral reefs around the world are also experiencing similar signs of decline and therefore it should not be listed as 'endangered' ... and she won her case!

So, are our marine scientists correct in calling it for what it is, or should we just let everyone believe that it is not really endangered because it is a common international phenomenon?

Can we really say that a reef which has taken 6000-8000 years to form, and over a span of 25 years has lost more than half of its corals, is not endangered?

Why would our federal government work so hard to contradict its own scientists? Maybe this is because the discussion in our government's eyes, is less about science and more about short-term economics.

No doubt in the mind of our myopic leader with his background in marketing, while we still have a golden egg in our northern tourism industry pulling in more than $6 billion in tourism each year and supporting an estimated 60,000 jobs, it needs to be promoted with positive publicity.

Calling it 'endangered' could conflict with its (short-term) future as a source of revenue.

However, with continued avoidance of this issue along with our government's denial of the major contributing factor in the issue, climate change, by 2050 it will serve no further tourism purpose other than as a monument of neglect as it will be all but gone along with our current leaders who will be happily retired octogenarians by then, content to let others deal with the environmental mess to which they have so blithely contributed.

Where are the leaders with vision?!

IN OTHER NEWS:

It is not just the penguins who are going to be affected by climate change ('Climate change could devastate penguin colonies, US warns', August 5).

If we fail to significantly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions this decade, we risk activating tipping points in the natural world that will see irreversible climate and ecological breakdown.

The end result will be an uninhabitable planet circa 4 degrees warmer within our children's lifetimes.

We know that the key driver of climate change is the burning of fossil fuels.

The fossil fuel industry needs to be shut down as quickly as possible.

We have zero years left to procrastinate if we want a liveable planet.

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