There is essentially no doubt that global climate patterns have begun to change over the last few decades. Laying out all the evidence for this is not easy, there’s so much of it. There is also no question that the changes we have seen are dangerous to economic and ecological systems worldwide. Recent events provide factual evidence to begin with:
New Orleans was all but destroyed by one of the largest hurricanes ever seen in the Gulf of Mexico. Severe storms like this have been increasing in frequency, as for example Cyclone Yasi this year following Cyclone Larry a few years ago.
Western Europe experienced repeated widespread flooding throughout most of the last decade. While the lower Rhine has flooded periodically, the wider scale of the 2000s Europe floods were almost unprecedented.
Australia saw one of the worst, most prolonged droughts on record in the same period. The usual drought-breaking rains and flood were more severe than usual; we were almost completely unprepared for these events, as we were for the intensity of the Black Saturday bushfires.
Pakistan was hit by floods so massive and widespread that the Indus Valley landform has changed, leaving large areas of the country still under water. Pakistan is not like Bangladesh, it has no record of such destructively severe floods. If New Orleans was arguably the first city to be all but destroyed by climate change, low-lying Pakistan is the first country.
These things have happened, they are historical facts and, to the best scientific knowledge, are at the extreme edge of at least the last 3000 years. Glaciers have receded. Sea levels have risen. Temperatures continue to rise. CO2 levels, and emissions, continue to rise. It is possible, even easy, to measure these changes and there is now no mistaking it. Climate change is here, now, since well before the last federal election or the one before. So what do you suppose is causing it?
Michael Evans,
Armidale
