These are the facts
18.08.2009
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Fr Sean McDonagh has a disturbing forecast about
Climate change in Australia.
One cannot say of any single weather event, whether it be the Big Wind in Ireland in 1839, or the damage which hurricane Katrina did to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast of Mississippi in 2005, or the current heatwave and bush fires in Victoria, Australia, that it is caused by climate change.
What one can say is, that severe weather events which heretofore happened once every 50 or 100 years will happen now more frequently. For the past number of years scientists have been warning that climate change will bring higher temperatures to Australia and less rain. This will cause further record heatwaves and forest fires.
More heatwave conditions predicted
Even before the percentage of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere increased, Australia was one of the driest continents on Earth. Its vegetation dominated by oil rich eucalyptus trees has meant that forest fires have happened frequently in the past. On "Black Friday" in 1939, 71 people were killed by forest fires. In 1983 a forest fire on Ash Wednesday destroyed a huge amount of property and killed 75 people. Nevertheless, there is a growing consensus that climate change is making forest fires more frequent and more ferocious.
Gary Morgan, the head of the government-backed Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre, believes that climate change and droughts are altering the nature, ferocity and duration of bushfires. Scientists, such as Melbourne Professor David Karoly, said that the current heatwave with temperatures reaching 45 degrees centigrade was unusual but that it will be much more frequent within the next 10 to 20 years.
Research by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and the government-backed science organisation CSIRO predict that the number of days when bushfires might pose a severe risk in South-Eastern Australia could almost double by 2050 under the worse case climate change scenario.
Commenting on the current bush fires which have claimed the lives of over 200 people to date, Bob Brown, leader of the Green Party in the Australian Senate said that it is a sobering reminder of the need for this nation and the whole world to act and put tackling climate change as a top priority.
Heatwave conditions in 2009
In late January 2009, the Australian Open Tennis Tournament was held during the hottest weather ever recorded for any major sporting event. Novak Djokovic sensationally pulled out of the quarter final with heat-related problems.
Climate change is also affecting rainfall patterns in Western Australia. From 1829, (when weather records began to be compiled), up to 1975 winter rains were reliable in the area. This meant that farmers could plant winter wheat and be certain that the crop would get sufficient rains for it to thrive. However, since 1975, the average rainfall has dropped by 15%. Again it is probably too early to say why this is happening but more and more climatologists are pointing the finger at climate change.
Water is crucial
The city of Perth, the capital of Western Australia, is also suffering from a serious shortage of water. With the decrease in winter rains, Perth has to draw on ground water reserves known as the Gnangara Mount to meet its water needs. After 30 years of 'mining,' this water reserve is at a critically low level, causing water experts to believe that there is a one-in-five chance of a 'catastrophic failure of supply.' They are now planning to build a desalination plant to provide fresh water for the city at the cost of A$350 million. Even with this huge expenditure, the proposed plant will supply 15% of the city's current needs. So it would seem that because of climate change the future of this city is in the balance.
It would be quite extraordinary, if the severe weather patterns and habitat changes which climate change is bringing about, made areas of Australia uninhabitable for humans.
Fr Sean McDonagh is the author of several books on ecology, the latest being Climate Change.
