Australia: A Climate Changing
23 Jun, 2009 01:17 pm
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Reduce text sizeDroughts and Fires. Severe Heatwaves and Epic Flooding. Not only a picture painted by climate scientists of a future climate changed by global warming, but a current trend worsening in Australia.
The LA Times recently reported that a warming Australian climate could be a “harbinger of change” to the rest of the world. What scientists say we have ahead of us if global warming is not prevented, such as Severe droughts and Fires, are already rife in Australia as climate change warms their already hot environment.
Climate scientists warn that Australia: condemned by prolonged drought and increasingly deadly bush fires in the south, monsoon flooding and mosquito inflicted fevers in the north, declining wildlife population, collapse of agriculture and killer heat waves, epitomizes the “accelerated climate crisis” that models have forecast.
“Australia is the harbinger of change. The problems for us are going to be greater. The cost to Australia from climate change is going to be greater than for any developed country. We are already starting to see it. It’s tearing apart the life support system that gives us this world.” Claims paleontologist Tim Flannery, one of Australia’s most vocal climate spectators.
Many Australians feel they already have a death toll connected directly to climate change. 173 people died in the countries worst ever wildfires in February 2009. A royal commission has been called upon to decide weather global warming contributed to the savage bush fires that destroyed whole towns and a quarter of Victoria’s wildlife. A further 200 people died in a heatwave a week before the fires, that saw 4 days of temperatures at 110 degrees and higher as well as 100mph winds. The heat buckled the steel structure on a new 400 foot Ferris wheel and warped train tracks. On the hottest day, more than 4,000 gray headed flying foxes dropped dead out of trees in a Melbourne park.
“Something is happening in Australia. Global warming is no longer some future event that we don’t have to worry about for decades. What we have seen in the past two weeks moves Australia’s exposure to global warming to emergency status.” Said firefighter Dan Condon of the Melbourne Metropolitan Fire Brigade in an open letter.
Australia is not an innocent party on global warming. 80% of its electricity still comes from Coal power stations. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says climate change is high on his agenda, but many here are disappointed by his pledge to cut overall greenhouse gas emissions by only 5% by 2020. All eyes will be on Australia in the coming years. It may well show a bleak future for the rest of us, unless we act now to prevent further global warming.
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| [1] | Comment by Skip To The End
- 16 Jul, 2009 12:55 pm Here is a diagram of the temperature increase in Australia over the past decades http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/trendmaps.cgi?map=tmax&area=aus&season=0112&period=1970 |
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