Thread: Climate Change and our Land of Fire, Flood and Drought.

...and it's not just happening in the Himalayas. It's happening at home.

NATIONAL

"For the first time since records began, the country’s mean temperature in January exceeded 30C (86F), according to the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM), which said daily extremes – in some places just short of 50C – were unprecedented."

Australia's extreme heat is sign of things to come, scientists warn | Australia news | The Guardian

TASMANIA

"Today Tasmania is burning. Its fires are so large that a firefighting team was reportedly called out in New Zealand to investigate a heavy smoke haze that turned out to have drifted across 2,500km of ocean from the Tasmanian fires. Firefighters are confronted with 1,629km of fire front, with fires having consumed 190,000 hectares, or 3% of Tasmania’s land, with authorities warning there is no sign of the fires abating for several weeks, and the potential for catastrophic consequences still a distinct possibility."

"Climate change isn’t just happening. It’s happening far quicker than has been predicted. Each careful scientific prediction is rapidly overtaken by the horror of profound natural changes that seem to be accelerating, with old predictions routinely outdone by the worsening reality – hotter, colder, wetter, drier, windier, wilder, and ever more destructive.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/05/tasmania-is-burning-the-climate-disaster-future-has-arrived-while-those-in-power-laugh-at-us."

Tasmania | Australia-news | The Guardian

QUEENSLAND

"After eight days of heavy monsoonal rain, authorities in the north Queensland city of Townsville had no choice but to open the floodgates of the Ross River Dam, deliberately flooding about 2,000 homes."

https://www.theguardian.com/australi...cord-downpours

https://www.theguardian.com/australi...fter-bushfires

VICTORIA

"Melbourne heatwave: city expecting 44C as Victoria faces hottest day since Black Saturday"

https://www.theguardian.com/australi...black-saturday

I don't think anyone is 'kidding themselves' .. I just believe that for every sensationalist headline that purports to confirm 'global warming', there's a tidbit of historical data out there to provide a counter argument that it's the same weather as the past 200 odd years of knowledge .. that almost everyone seems to have forgotten.

You were right on with the comment re "short memory" and The Oils.
The thing forgotten tho is that at least in this country, we've had extreme weather events since recorded settlement.
Most of those events were in the 19'th and very early 20th century that had a far worse impact on those early settlers than what impact we get today on our lives.

Look up Federation Drought to see how much worse that one was on the lives of those trying to earn a living back then, compared to how much less it impacts lives now.

200 years of knowledge totally down the drain! .. "Short memory" alright .. but not in the way you used the analogy!

Originally Posted by AK83

I don't think anyone is 'kidding themselves' .. I just believe that for every sensationalist headline that purports to confirm 'global warming', there's a tidbit of historical data out there to provide a counter argument that it's the same weather as the past 200 odd years of knowledge .. that almost everyone seems to have forgotten.

You were right on with the comment re "short memory" and The Oils.
The thing forgotten tho is that at least in this country, we've had extreme weather events since recorded settlement.
Most of those events were in the 19'th and very early 20th century that had a far worse impact on those early settlers than what impact we get today on our lives.

Look up Federation Drought to see how much worse that one was on the lives of those trying to earn a living back then, compared to how much less it impacts lives now.

200 years of knowledge totally down the drain! .. "Short memory" alright .. but not in the way you used the analogy!

Two centuries is nothing in the history of climate, which is not the same as weather. I don't see any room for doubt that climate change is real and is being worsened by human behaviour. The facts are in, the debate is over, and its now all about how we respond.

The world is buggered and will slowly get worse....there is a chance we might slow it down but off course that would need co-operation at many different level around the world.

I do my bit where and when I can....

The Earth was colder than it is now for most of the planet's history. But it will continue getting warmer at least until about 2300 and probably much longer, with the oceans rising by up to five metres. The carbon humans have released into the atmosphere in recent centuries will still be there for at least a thousand years, causing much hotter temperatures and other harmful effects.
Seawater will move inexorably inland as Australia shrinks, with Northern Australia including Darwin inundated and the ocean creeping south to recreate the inland sea of our past. We humans will retreat to the higher ground of a much smaller Australia. Many of our Pacific Island neighbours will have gone underwater, as will huge swathes of Asia, Africa and the other continents. Bangladesh, Miami and other low-lying places will disappear and heat will make Karachi, Kolkata and other places uninhabitable.
Extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, fires and typhoons will become commonplace. A five degree temperature increase could slash food supplies by 50%. Drought will destroy many of the world's current breadbaskets. Food supplies will fail and many people will starve or die of heat stress. Dehydration will cause fatal chronic kidney disease.The coolest months in the future will be warmer than the hottest months now. Most places then will be like Bahrain now. The European heat wave of 2003, with a four degree rise above normal, killed 2000 people a day, and that temperature will become normal in many places in the future.
Melting ice will release many frozen plagues, some prehistoric, for which we have no immunity. There are already confirmed deaths from anthrax released by melting permafrost. The malaria parasite reproduces 10 times faster for every degree rise in temperature. For example, the 1918 flu epidemic killed 100 million people - 5% of the Earth's population. As the carbon dioxide in the air increases, and smog worsens, people lose cognitive ability and die. Already, about 10,000 people die every day around the Earth from burning fossil fuels.
We are heading for the sixth major extinction event in the Earth's history. The mass extinction event 250 million years ago, caused by climate change produced by rising greenhouse gases, with five degree warming, wiped out 97% of life on Earth.
Climate change is already one of the main causes of the current record number of refugees and that trend will continue with huge numbers of people forced to move to seek food and higher ground. Many, many people forced from their land in Asia and the Pacific will sail leaky boats towards Australia, seeking refuge.
So, that should be more than enough scary stuff to show that climate change is very serious. We've already screwed up badly and now the question is what are we willing to do to try to reduce the future damage to our planet?

Climate Change: What Happens after 2100? - Our World

When Will Climate Change Make the Earth Too Hot For Humans?

SABC Education - Will Climate Change Destroy the Earth?

10 myths about climate change | WWF

Originally Posted by DiscoMick

........The facts are in, the debate is over, and ......

Good, so why are we still debating?
Getting a bit sick and tired of being bombarded by this crap anyway in what seems like every second thread on this site, by the same poor souls petrified of what may or may not happen in the future.

Originally Posted by biggin

Good, so why are we still debating?
Getting a bit sick and tired of being bombarded by this crap anyway in what seems like every second thread on this site, by the same poor souls petrified of what may or may not happen in the future.

Because 'we' collectively have our heads in the sand.

The thread title is pretty clear I would have thought LOL.

...Of course one doesn't have to read it. ...but then if one doesn't, one would have their head in the sand too.

Originally Posted by biggin

Good, so why are we still debating?
Getting a bit sick and tired of being bombarded by this crap anyway in what seems like every second thread on this site, by the same poor souls petrified of what may or may not happen in the future.

Debating it on a Land Rover forum changes nothing (maybe one or two attitudes ?) but some people like the sound of their own voice (OK text in this case).




Colin