If you people have read the news you will know that here in Victoria, the southern part of mainland Australia we have had bush fires of unprecedented fury. The unprecedented bit is because every 50 years or so we have drought--we did--- still heve--- so far this year we have had 1.4 ml of rain. This was a part of the country that had jokes made of the constant rain and drizzle. For the last 12 years this has not been so. We have had the longest drought in the history of this state. Then we had a week of temperatures above 40 degrees. The hottest ever. Then a few days in the high 30s--- then a day when the temp reached a record 48 degrees. As a result the bush literally did explode when fires broke out, some from lightning, some from human carelessness or intent. The gum trees are full of oil and their leaves get burned and then they become embers, which , on the gale force winds I forgot to mention, became a fire front over 30 k wide. There is nothing that can deal with this. People tried, some survived in bunkers, though not nearly enough, others stayed and burned, or ran and were burned in their cars.
Now the point of this story is that these conditions were different and more extreme than ever before. Records have been broken, and it may all happen again next week, and definitely next year. The change is the drought and the extreme weather regarding drought, excessive heat and wind-speed.
There are not many of us here in Victoria who do not believe that at least some of this is due to Climate Change. We are like the canaries in the coal mine. We are living in Climate Ghange.. and a week or so ago 209 people died in it.
