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Climate change
OpinionComment
Martin Williams
Martin Williams

Opinion | Climate change: as the Titan disaster shows, there’s no ignoring basic science

  • The cavalier attitude towards warnings about the submersible’s seaworthiness in the run-up to its implosion is reminiscent of our blasé response to the increasingly alarming signs of a warming Earth
  • Recent record-breaking heatwaves and other weather events must spur us to act

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Wayne Pridelson rests at a Salvation Army cooling centre in Tucson, Arizona, which on July 26 set a new record of 40 consecutive days of 100-plus-degree-Fahrenheit (37.8 degrees Celsius) temperatures. Photo: AFP
Martin Williams
Climate change has been prominent in worldwide news this summer, notably as we have just lived through the hottest week since records began. Given a series of global warming events, alarm bells should be ringing, along with efforts to change our ways. Instead, the response has been a collective “meh”.
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Our approach to climate change has parallels with a subject of recent headlines – the Titan submersible disaster. In both cases, humans are facing challenges arising from basic physics – pressure greatly increasing with depth, in the case of Titan; and, more heat trapped as we add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. And, in both cases, there has been a cavalier response to the challenges, never mind what actual experts say.
The result was predictable and instantaneous with Titan: the design and materials were simply not up to withstanding pressures of up to 400 atmospheres – equivalent to about 2,500kg of force pressing in on every square inch – as it descended to around 4,000 metres below sea level. There had been abundant warnings from people with a wealth of experience in deep-sea submersibles.

While the results of climate change are more complex, they are also broadly predictable. And, in this case, we are responsible for the challenges as well as how to deal with them.

Of course, before dealing with these challenges, it’s important to acknowledge they exist. One long-standing issue with climate change is denial that it is even happening. To me, that’s akin to not believing water pressure will rise as a submarine descends. At its heart, climate change is based on rising emissions of gases that trap heat from the sun, in turn causing increasing temperatures.

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Too many people seem unable to grasp the concept, perhaps as they have been bamboozled – gaslit – by well-funded attempts to deny that climate change is happening or is important.

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