Congratulations ‘Mr President of Climate Change Sceptics’ on your very informative factual letter of, dare I say it, undisputable evidence of data on CO2 emissions etc and flood events.
Mr President take comfort, I believe that your committee of so-called sceptics embraces the majority of Australians.
Mr Oakeshott was spot on when he was recorded as saying that the over 55s are the greatest humbug – as rigid opponents of most climate change philosophies bandied around and of those who plan many insidious political changes surrounding this subject as early as this year eg Carbon Tax and Murray Darling Basin Plan, just to mention a couple.
Mr Oakeshott, all these people whom you refer to, have been around for that much longer and have witnessed more wet years with widespread flooding, droughts, heatwaves with above normally accepted temperatures, severe hailstorms, unusual cold events including snow in mid-summer in some country areas. This age group in particular are acutely aware of the historical vague nature of our weather with graphical information passed down through the generations of past massive seasonal changes.
The most predictable thing about our weather is its unpredictability.
The floods mentioned by our President are just but a few of these extreme wet times in our history intermingled with as many droughts without exception.
Luckily now most towns and cities are spared devastating flooding by the formation of levee banks.
These weather events are, without doubt, cyclical on a revolving basis in give or take 20 year cycles. How about in 1883, during a wet time, 19 inches of rain in 24 hours was dumped on the Maree area (driest area of Aust), washing away the original railway line. I wonder did the cows’ gas emissions contribute to that one? In the 1860s and last six years of 1880s dreadful lengthy droughts killed off 80 per cent of sheep and cattle in South Australia in particular.
CO2 emissions initiated by man’s activities were at close to zero levels at that stage; cattle numbers were diminished by drought so what do they blame for it ?
So much historical weather information is illustrated in most old outback pubs in Australia, with photos and stories covering the events. Take a look at the Longreach Hall of Fame some time where so much weather data is shown.
Of course, Qantas airlines was started in 1920 by a few influential forward thinking people primarily so that towns and station people, when floodbound in particular, could be reached by aircraft with essential food supplies; and other such reasons.
Dust storms were prevalent during the 1940s – ongoing drought years associated with heatwave summer temperatures, mostly.
We experienced one widespread dust storm in 2008, also during the ongoing drought, and heh, the ill-informed were all screaming climate change has caused this dreadful situation.
Don’t start me on bushfires in our over regulated system of not allowing the clearing of buffer zones around towns, houses, minimal controlled burning, back burning etc … gotta be climate change as the root cause of fire, eh?
Just the last straw! A couple of days ago Bob Brown said in an interview that mining caused the flooding in Queensland – and he or his party holds the balance of power in Govt ???
The only science which you can rely with any degree of confidence is based upon the past. If you want to know what is going to happen in the next 50 or 100 years, take a look at the last 50 or 100 years and therein lies the answer.
Keith Dunlop
