It’s early summer in the Southern Hemisphere. In Australia, the first days of summer have been nothing but a climate-change disaster. The recent heat wave has produced the hottest 20 days in that nation’s recorded history. Oz has started 2013 with an unprecedented six consecutive days reaching a national average of a sweltering 102+ degrees, and temperatures have hit 110.
“A record heatwave, which began in western Australia on 27 December and lasted eight days, was the fiercest in more than 80 years in that state and has spread east across the nation, making it the widest-ranging heatwave in more than a decade, according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.” Guardian.co.uk, January 6th.
New South Wales – home to mega-cities like Sydney and Melbourne – is battling about 100 signficant fires fanned by fierce, searingly-hot winds, often whipping up over 50 miles per hour. Australia’s big island, Tasmania, is also burning up. Entire communities are gone. Trees simply exploded. In western Victoria, a fire in Kentbruck is burning out of control. More than …17,000 acres… of pine plantation has been destroyed and the blaze is now threatening the community of Drik Drik.” BBC.co.uk, January 7th. While better planning has avoided any fatalities so far, folks still remember the 2009 “Black Saturday” fire in Victoria that killed 173 people and caused $4.4 billion in damage. Cooler weather finally helped slow the devastation, but clearly Australia has passed a climatic tipping point.
I’ve blogged about the drought that has devastated the mid-west and the southwest in the United States. About the wild fires in California, New Mexico, Colorado and Texas. I’ve shown my readers how extreme drought fomented the current unrest in Syria, and we’ve all see the documentary footage of dry and impoverished sections of Africa. Above we have the climatic changes that are currently decimating large sections of Australia. But the map up top tells you where the lack of water has caused and will continue to cause extreme hardship. Look at the little areas marked with circles and colored red. Red is pain… lots of it. And our grain belt is right smack in the middle of own little red zone.
How about this startling news: “[The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] announced on [January 8th] that 2012 was officially the warmest year on record in the contiguous 48 states, based on 118 years of temperature records dating back to 1895. While not every state set a record, more than one-third (19 states) recorded their warmest years, and three-quarters of the lower 48 states recorded their first-, second-, or third-hottest years on record. Ninety-five percent -- 46 states -- had one of their top 10 warmest years ever recorded, and even in the coolest state, Washington, 2012 was warmer than 72 percent of the years on record.” Huffington Post, January 8th.
Except for a few religious extremists, we seem to have gotten over whether or not there has been global warming and that our use of fossil fuels has been the principal cause. Perhaps someday, we might actually decide to take the steps necessary to stop our seemingly unbridled destruction of our atmosphere. Perhaps, but certainly not today.
I’m Peter Dekom, and I wonder what it is about facts that American policy-makers find so distasteful.
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