{"id":2050,"date":"2018-10-09T13:12:47","date_gmt":"2018-10-09T02:12:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.midlandexpress.com.au\/?p=2050"},"modified":"2018-10-09T13:13:04","modified_gmt":"2018-10-09T02:13:04","slug":"dont-be-distracted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/centralvic.com\/midlandexpress.com.au\/opinion\/2018\/10\/09\/dont-be-distracted\/","title":{"rendered":"Don&#8217;t be distracted"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Patrick Hockey, Castlemaine <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I must admit it has been frustrating to follow the letters pages of the <i>Express<\/i> in recent months and read the many letters engaging with climate change deniers.<br \/>\nClimate change denial, like belief in any conspiracy theory, does not respond to reality.<br \/>\nThe problem is not that a small element insists on denying climate change, but in the large mainstream of society that accepts the science, acknowledges the daily reports of unprecedented weather events and feels they can do nothing.<br \/>\nThere is an enormous amount we can do and of course will do as the situation worsens.<br \/>\nWhat is desperately required is more engagement by the natural leaders in the community. We need more people with experience in business and community agencies to become involved in the groups working in the community to bring about concerted action to improve the efficiency of our use of energy.<br \/>\nClimate change denial is best understood as an emotional response to the crisis but it should not be a distraction to the rest of society getting on with the task of addressing the problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Patrick Hockey, Castlemaine I must admit it has been frustrating to follow the letters pages of the Express in recent&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[181,13],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[5234],"class_list":["post-2050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters","category-opinion"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast 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