We talk a lot about the cost of living, but, with Valentine’s Day looming next week, we need to talk about the cost of loving.
New research commissioned by the Australian Retailers Association has found 700,000 fewer Aussies will be shelling out their hard-earned this year to buy a Valentine’s gift for a loved one, compared to last year.
In terms of the overall spend, the Roy Morgan data predicts Valentine’s expenditure will be down 4.1 per cent compared to last year, although will still account for a not-insignificant $465 million at retail checkouts.
The finding that cost-of-living pressure is impacting the most frivolous of discretionary spending is hardly the most surprising research you’ll see this week.
That honour belongs to a study from the University of WA, which was published in the Nature Climate Change journal, and dramatically claimed the planet has already exceeded the 1.5-degree warming threshold.
That threshold represents an increase in global surface temperature from pre-industrial levels, and the consensus in the scientific community is governments must act to keep any increase below 1.5 degrees or risk severe environmental consequences.
So, it’s kind of a big deal that we may have already gone past that threshold without realising it.
While humans may have miscalculated the extent of global warming, according to the UWA research, ancient sea sponges did not, and it was studying the chemical composition of a handful of sponges deep in the Caribbean Sea that prompted a rethink.
The scientists were able to use the predictable growth patterns of these sponges as a proxy for 300 years of ocean temperature data, which suggested global warming started as much as 70 years earlier than previously thought.
To sum up how these findings were received by the wider scientific community, it’s instructive to circle back to the top of this column.
Imagine a bloke giving his wife a mop for Valentine’s Day — sure, technically it’s useful, but the implication is she could be doing more work around the house.
Now, imagine that, instead of a mop, it was a toilet brush, and you’re pretty much in the ballpark of how some in the climate change community have welcomed the UWA research.
Turns out, scientists don’t love being told that years’ worth of previous research must be thrown out the window, and critics have questioned the validity of using a handful of sea sponges in one corner of the ocean as a proxy for global temperature.
Others have pointed out that it ultimately has no impact on the 1.5-degree threshold, which is based on the time when reliable surface temperatures were first recorded.
Such criticism is reasonable — after all, rigorous examination is the cornerstone of the scientific process.
But to dismiss it entirely makes about as much sense as Australia spending $465 million on Valentine’s Day.