Malaysian Insider: 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 heat wave.On Friday, Melbourne thermometers topped 43°C on a third successive day for the first time on record, while even normally mild Tasmania suffered its second-hottest day in a row, as temperatures reached 42.2°C. Two days before, Adelaide hit a staggering 45.6°C. After a weekend respite, more records are expected to be broken this week.
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.
More than 20 people have died from the heat, mainly in Adelaide. Trees in Melbourne's parks are dropping leaves to survive, and residents at one of the city's nursing homes have started putting their clothes in the freezer. "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….
Australian Outback: Mount O'Connor, a mesa between Alice Springs and Uluru. Shot by Gabriele Delhey, Wikimedia Commons, under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2
1 comment:
Everyone is saying that we need to do something about climate change, but no one is considering the economics of the problem. There are many ways in which the problem of global warming can be turned into a positive opportunity. In John Hewson's - former opposition leader in Australia - blog (http://www.openforum.com.au/content/carbon-economy-0) he discusses this dilemma of how to combat the inevitable loss of employment and other economic and social impacts which will occur due to climate change.
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