A VICTORIAN dairy farmer is at the forefront of a social media campaign, urging the Liberal Party to reject a push to downplay global warming.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported a group of Western Australian Liberal MP’s are expected to call for further examination of the evidence on climate change, at the party's Federal council meeting in Melbourne.
WA Liberals Dennis Jensen and Chris Back are backing the call by the party's federal regional and rural committee for a review of the evidence "underpinning the man-made global warming theory".
Environment Minister Greg Hunt is likely to have to step in and fight off the motion, and assert the Abbott government accepts climate change is real.
Gippsland dairy farmer Marian Macdonald said an open letter was now being circulated through social media, calling on primary producers to support Mr Hunt.
“We know each other through social media, we also know each other through the Climate Council and we have also come together for the Earth Hour cook book,” Ms Macdonald said.
“It was driven by the shock surrounding the WA Liberal’s motion, because we are all seeing climate change impacting on our farms – it’s there, as plain as the nose on your face,” she said.
Ms Macdonald said dairy farmers were the canaries in the coal mine, of climate change.
“The impact of extreme weather is very easy to see in the well being of our cows and how much milk they make,” she said.
“Drier seasons have even shifted the time of year calves are born.”
The letter, attached to an on-line petition, said:
“Aussie farmers are on the front line of rising temperatures and more extreme weather, so global warming is a priority issue for rural, regional and remote Australia.
“Hot days have doubled in the last fifty years and heatwaves are longer, hotter and more intense.
“Climate change is already worsening drought conditions in south-west and south-east Australia and droughts are likely to worsen in many parts of the country without deep and rapid cuts to greenhouse gas emissions.”
Mr Macdonald said she hoped the letter would send a strong message to Environment Minister Greg Hunt, that farmers supported his stance on climate change.
“Farmers are practical people and need some practical action, to solve this problem, not only for them, but for everyone around the world.
“A lot of farmers support Greg Hunt and hope he will find it adds to his confidence, in going hard and representing Australia in Paris and asking for carbon reduction.”
The open letter would be presented at the Council meeting, in Melbourne.
“If you are charged by a paddock in a bull, you don’t just sit down and wonder if the bull is real,” Ms Macdonald said.
Mixed cropper Peter Holding, from Harden, NSW, said change was happening, with drier autumns.
“We used to get an average 50mm of rain a month and that made it relatively simple to farm,” Mr Harden said.
“Now, we’re getting dry autumns and you can’t get the crops without careful moisture conservation.
“It’s getting worse, at a rate I wouldn’t have thought possible.”
