Parched: Australia faces collapse as climate change kicks in

[ensho]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/parched-australia-faces-collapse-as-climate-change-kicks-in-1522529.html


Leaves are falling off trees in the height of summer, railway tracks are buckling, and people are retiring to their beds with deep-frozen hot-water bottles, as much of Australia swelters in its worst-ever heatwave.

-snip-

Ministers are blaming the heat – which follows a record drought – on global warming. Experts worry that Australia, which emits more carbon dioxide per head than any nation on earth, may also be the first to implode under the impact of climate change.

At times last week it seemed as if that was happening already. Chaos ruled in Melbourne on Friday after an electricity substation exploded, shutting down the city's entire train service, trapping people in lifts, and blocking roads as traffic lights failed. Half a million homes and businesses were blacked out, and patients were turned away from hospitals.

-snip-

"All of this is consistent with climate change, and with what scientists told us would happen," said climate change minister Penny Wong.

Australia, the driest inhabited continent on earth, is regarded as highly vulnerable. A study by the country's blue-chip Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation identified its ecosystems as "potentially the most fragile" on earth in the face of the threat.
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are people already leaving Aust.?

[SpiralHawk]

1. "This is a fact-based lib-rul conspiracy. SMIRK." - Rush 'Draft Dodger' Limbaugh (r)

"We republicon homelanders don't need no steenkin facts to mess up our bee-liefs and shit. Since overpaid chickenhawk republicon propagandists like me get paid beaucoup megabucks to advocate that America should FAIL, and to spout corporate crony propaganda, there is no way any kool-aid drinking republicon homelander should pay any attention whatsoever to these facts.

"Stay right where you are fellow Homelanders, in THE Propaganda Ass-imilation POSITION. SMIRK."

- Rush 'Draft Dodger' Limbaugh (r)

CAPTION: republicon homelanders ASSUME THE POSITION

[closeupready]

2. People aren't going to change their ways - there is too much money

being made in fossil fuel production. I do believe we are all simply going to continue destroying the ecosystem and environment well past the point of no return. I'm very pessimistic. We will lose much land to the sea - Venice, Amsterdam, some of the low-lying island states, much more than that, too. Agriculture will be disrupted, and many will go hungry, unfortunately. I just don't see any reason whatsoever to be optimistic. The change we need to make now is RADICAL, and that simply won't happen.

[canetoad]

3. No, as far as I know

people are not leaving.

Being right on the spot in Melbourne, it certainly was a shocker last week. However, we regularly have days when the temp reaches 42 or 43 C. The difference was that this lasted for most of the week.

As for the power outages and rails buckling; there is much to suggest that since privatisation of public transport and electricity supply (under conservative governments), there is not the required amount of maintenance carried out on ageing infrastructure. Interestingly, Connex who runs Melbourne's suburban trains, by the second day of numerous cancelled services, took the tack of blaming the unions for over-active fault finding on trains resulting in them being withdrawn for safety reasons.

[ensho]

4. gads, sounds like here. everybody fighting over the money

doing good, safe work be damned.