I
wonder what the poor people living in Queensland and New South Wales are
thinking of Tim Flannery, the government’s climate guru, as they watching their
homes flood for the third time in as many years?
In
truth, they’re possibly not giving two shits about the Climate Commissioner of
Australia right about now. They’ll be
too busy evacuating their homes. Again.
We
were told by Mr Flannery, who I will point out has no foundations in science or
the climate in any way, but has been appointed by the government as an expert,
that:
Perth
will run out of water in a matter of years, and become a ghost town, unless
they build a desalination plant.
The
eastern cities will run out of water.
Quote:
Climate
Commissioner Tim Flannery in 2005 warned of permanent drought in NSW, thanks to
global warming:
But since
1998 particularly, we’ve seen just drought, drought, drought, and particularly
regions like Sydney and the Warragamba catchment - if you look at the Warragamba
catchment figures, since ‘98, the water has been in virtual free-fall,
and they’ve got about two years of supply left, but something will
need to change in order to see the catchment start accumulating water again....
So when the models start confirming what you’re observing on the ground, then
there’s some fairly strong basis for believing that we’re understanding what’s
causing these weather shifts and these rainfall declines, and they
do seem to be of a permanent nature…
Well, the worst-case scenario for Sydney is that
the climate that’s existed for the last seven years continues for another two
years. In that case, Sydney will be facing extreme difficulties with
water.
Tim Flannery.
We
were told that drought will be the norm, and heavy rains that fill our
catchments will never come again.
We
were told that any Australian citizen that is living on the coastline will face
the danger of rising water levels from melting polar caps in years to come.
‘Anyone with a coastal view from their
bedroom window, or their kitchen window, or where ever, is likely to lose their
house as a result of that change, so anywhere, any coastal cities, coastal
areas, are in grave danger’.
Tim Flannery.
We
were told that unless we take action, and take it now, temperatures will increase;
water levels will rise as the caps melt, and life as we know it will cease to
exist. Well, almost.
Now,
to be fair, we know that predicting the weather is a science, and one that is
not always accurate. Predicting the
impact of ‘global warming’ on the climate is clearly much, much harder.
Oh,
forgive my political incorrectness: it’s not global warming anymore; it’s climate change. Lord forbid I encourage you to think that the
planet is warming, when it’s clearly not.
Queensland
has flooded three times in a couple of years; same as New South Wales. Victoria has seen excessive water in places
that have never seen it at all. If you
speak to our men of the land; our farmers that have lived through generations
of seasonal changes, they all tell you the same thing: droughts come in cycles,
and so do the rains.
We
are, after all, a land of droughts and flooding rains.
So,
along comes the shift in name now. As I
said; no more ‘global warming’. We’re
all about climate change now.
Climate change is the new ‘global warming’.
Forgive
my sarcasm, but as I read that our reservoirs in Victoria are near to capacity,
when I see half of Queensland and New South Wales floating away again, I cannot
help but wonder what the truth really is.
For
one, it’s definitely not global warming.
Maybe it is climate change? I
wonder if the rains and storms are heavier than they have been in cycles gone by. I wonder if, when a drought breaks, the land
is so dry that it can’t take all of the water at once, and it floods. Then, I wonder if the land becomes so sodden,
that it can’t take any more, and it floods.
Sure;
things like Cyclone Yasi don’t help.
That was completely and utterly decimating, and we felt the devastation
of that storm thousands of kilometres
away, and watched it on telly from the safety of our dry homes.
Mother
Nature can be so cruel.
So
one wonders if we are causing this,
or is it just nature restoring the balance and cleansing the earth again?
If
we are causing this climate change,
do we now have to stop taking our planet for granted, and start caring for
it? Because my friends; it would be
apparent that Mother Nature kicks back pretty hard.
I’m
sure driving hybrid cars, buying appliances that are greener, planting more
trees, having less farting cows and walking and riding our bikes everywhere
will make a massive difference to our lives.
No doubt about it.
However,
when 22 million people in Australia do this, what is the impact against the 22
million people living in an Asian city the size of Melbourne that don’t?
Is
it all pointless? Pointless when
Australia is only 1.9% of the global problem?
You
could read this and think ‘why bother?’ That
would be a natural and forgivable reaction.
However, why can’t we try? We may
improve our lives a little, and at least we can say ‘we tried’.
However,
by Mr Flannery’s own admission, what we do now won’t have an impact on the
global situation for some 700 to 1000 years.
‘Just let me finish and say this. If the world as a whole cut
all emissions tomorrow the average temperature of the planet is not going to
drop in several hundred years, perhaps as much as a thousand years because the
system is overburdened with CO2 that has to be absorbed, and that only happens
slowly.’
Tim Flannery, MTR Radio, March 24, 2011
Now
in fairness, any action we take now will
make an immediate impact, I believe. It will stop the CO2 levels from
rising. It won’t lower them or eradicate
the ‘overburdened system’. It will help,
but it won’t ‘fix’ the problem.
So
far, nearly every prediction this man has made about the climate has been
scientifically disproven. Forget
scientifically; have a look at Queensland, and you’ll see just how wrong he was.
I
don’t Mr Flannery even believes the hype himself, because he purchased a
property only several meters from the tidal waters around the Hawkesbury
estuary.
According to
property searches, in 1997 Professor Flannery bought one
house on the Hawkesbury with his wife, Alexandra Leigh Szalay, for $274,000. Five years later—even as climate scientists,
including Professor Flannery, claimed evidence of global warming and rising sea
levels was even more solid—the couple bought the property next door, for
$505,000
Mr
Flannery’s response to this?
For a week,
Professor Flannery declined to speak to journalists about his properties, but
he broke his silence yesterday to tell The Weekend Australian that while
waterfront property generally was at risk, his little bit of paradise was secure for his lifetime.
Tim Flannery.
There’s
more interesting reading for you in the attached article, but I’ll show you
this little snippet:
Kevin Rudd doesn’t
believe Tim Flannery, either:
Yesterday, the
former prime minister and his wife Therese Rein put some high-profile faith in
both the Brisbane property market and its resistance to flooding by buying a block of dirt near the river in his electorate of Griffith.
So
where does that leave us? Is there a
threat to the climate or not? Is it all
as serious as we’ve been lead to believe?
Or
is it all just a political game fuelled by money, and we’re the suckers paying
for it.
Who
knows?
What
I do know though, is that I will go to sleep in my comfortable bed, cooled by
my environmentally friendly evaporative cooling, which obtains water from my
tanks, whilst my water and energy efficient washing machine and dishwasher run
through their nightly cycle, using biodegradable detergents.
I
will wake in the morning, and shower in water heated by my solar powered hot
water service, and drive to work in my economical small car. I will return home and cook steak, from cows we
bred ourselves, and prepare salad and vegetables from our own garden, and eggs
from our own chickens.
I
will watch minimal television, even though it’s an energy efficient big-screen
plasma, in semi darkness; the room illuminated by a couple of candles from the
kitchen table in the next room. I’m not
reading, so why turn on the light?
On
the weekend, I will tend to my acre of garden, sharing the cuttings between the
chickens and the goat, save clogging up the local tip refuse. I may even go
grocery shopping, ensuring I make use of my fabric shopping bags.
My
husband will tend to our cows, who are single handedly destroying the
environment by farting. We may plant a
few more fruit trees to counterbalance that, though.
What
about you?
Peace out.
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