It would suit me very nicely if it wasn't true but I see too much evidence around me which says it probably is real.
There's not much in common between Tasmania, south-east Queensland and the city of Adelaide but they've all set new weather records for hot and/or dry conditions in the past few weeks.
For anyone still doubting I've got a question:
Mention Scotland and what comes to mind?
Whatever you're thinking of I'll take a damn good guess that it doesn't involve the place catching fire in Winter. That's about the last thing anyone would expect. Fires, in winter, in Scotland. A ridiculous sounding concept that has actually happened in a place where being snowed in would be a more expected problem.
The blaze is nothing by Australian standards but it's a problem locals would never have thought they'd be needing to deal with and it's a sign that yes things are changing.
Smurf, I don't think there is any doubt we are in the top end or nearing the top end of a oscillating cycle of high temperatures. What concerns me is when the oscillations begin to fall back to the cooler temperatures, we will not be prepared. If there is a lot of snow and ice cover then solar will be useless, wind-power will freeze up and potentially break if too much ice load is put onto the blades. Nuclear power needs fresh flowing water to keep the reactors cool. If rivers freeze up in the dead of winter reactors will need to be shut down, when there is the most need for power I can see an enormous death toll of people. If we move away from traditional power generation we will have nothing to provide electricity when it is most needed.
I have been a champion of the green/eco cause from the first moment I heard Suzuki back in the 1960s. He didn't fear monger, he gave out practical advice as to how to have a low footprint. I have lived my whole life with low consumption and recycling. My father manufactured DC motors and spent a lot of time working to design wind generators. I have been, in the past very excited by electric cars. (Thirty years ago my father was working with someone from S.A. to develop lithium batteries for electric cars). I have been envisioning in my mind, clean renewable energy for decades. My concern now is with the current massive size of the solar panels we are creating a monster of an environmental hazard. In an ideal world I believe solar panels can last for around 25 years (?). The problem is it is not an ideal world and if we begin to get colder winters the chance of major solar panel smashing hail storms is highly likely. It happened in NSW recently.
We should always prepare for the worst that there is going to be a down turn in temperatures. We should never rely on a one sided scenario about anything, ever.
We should be working hard to clean up emissions from coal and make it more efficient. Let's put a few bob into that as well as renewables. We should be looking at creating unbreakable solar panels, there is so much we should be doing to create better power generation.
If in the event we get hotter, more people will start installing ACs. (I have resisted the urge so far) so there will be more demand for power.
There is very little common sense with the GW alarmists, they haven't set appropriate priorities.
First priority, how clean can we make the emissions from coal fired power plants clean? They use platinum to clean emissions from cars I believe, would that help?
Speaking as a long term environmentalist I am concerned that all the histrionics, rudeness and name-calling this GW political group-think go on with, might push the whole environmental agenda into reverse and create a backlash. That would be such a pity.
It might easily lose its entire support base with as simple a thing as a political test case. If the CC political group don't win then there would be a good argument to be made that the national does not support the notion of CC science. This may well be on its way....
Climate change IS the economy, Inslee pushes in announcing 2020 presidential run
Credit Jay Inslee for the targeted message everyone expected.
The Washington governor and now 2020 presidential contender tweeted his intentions to push climate, not as a fringe topic, but as his centerpiece issue.
His congressional record already paved the way for such a campaign kickoff and he’s been vocally opposed to President Donald Trump’s environmental-regulation rollbacks.
Inslee, who at an event earlier Friday made his suspected run official, doesn’t yet detail the economic downside — and upside — that climate change poses for the U.S. and how he’d fix it. But he claims that the adoption 100% clean energy will bring “good paying jobs to every community across America.” More...