AND
NOW FOR THE WEATHER
Some people do
weather.
My mother is nearly 94 and she does weather.
I live down south in temperate Melbourne, she lives up north near sub tropical Brisbane
in an Aged Care Center. We communicate at least once a week over the phone and
invariably when I ask how is she doing, she replies with a comprehensive
weather report. In fact, she has always done that.
I moved to Melbourne in 1970 from Sydney.
She and my father were living on the Central Coast of New South Wales about 50
miles north of Sydney at the time and whenever I called them, mum would always
give me a rundown on how hot, cold, warm, mild, wet, dry, stormy or fine the
weather had been up there over the past few days.
I am not much into weather myself and I must
admit, to my shame, there were occasions when I lost patience with her and
pointed out that I wasn’t phoning her for a weather update. To no avail,
because the next time I called she would again start off the conversation with
a weather report!
Not as if my mum is dotty – her mind is as
sharp as a razor, even if her body is failing. She just does weather.
Which brings me to the subject I want to
talk about: weather.
Melbourne has just enjoyed another unusually
cool summer, with the rare hot days broken up by regular cool changes and the
odd shower. On the other hand, most other parts of Australia experienced the
hottest temperatures on record, raging bushfires, fierce cyclonic storms, bucketing
rain and floods.
Now you would have to be Blind Freddy not to
notice something is going on. Obviously there is a cause behind these extremes.
Despite the mounting evidence put up by scientists confirming global warming,
melting ice caps etc., as well as mankind’s contribution to polluting the
planet and its atmosphere, the climate skeptics refuse to acknowledge that this
could be a contributing factor to our crazy weather. Hello, is anybody home?
One of their arguments is that the
scientific data is not reliable or conclusive enough to justify taking
assertive action and cutting back on fossil fuel emissions and introducing
other environmentally friendly alternatives. Why? Because it will be costly and
the influential mining industry will not be happy.
Even if the global warming advocates are
wrong, as the climate skeptics claim, what have we got to lose by substituting
dirty energy with clean energy? In the short term, no doubt there will be some economic
pain as the old ways give way to the new.
But surely this is a small price to pay to
clean up the mess we’ve made, regardless of its impact on the climate?
However, what if the climate change
advocates are right and mankind’s collective greed, ignorance and shortsightedness
are impacting our weather, causing catastrophes, death and untold economic
damage and hardship? Have the skeptics put a cost on that?
What are the climate skeptics going to tell
their children and grandchildren if they’re wrong?
Duh, wasn’t our fault. The scientists are to
blame. They could not provide conclusive, categorical and absolute evidence
that they were right and we were wrong!
No one seems to have bothered to ask them
about what irrefutable scientific evidence they can provide to support their arguments. Curious.
These people, in my opinion, have been given
too much press and credibility. Their arguments are vacuous, simple-minded and
self-serving.
Maybe it is time we all (including me)
decided to do weather. Not just
talk about it. But take a stand in supporting the measures to reduce carbon
emissions, regardless of their impact on costs. If, over time, the number of
natural disasters are reduced as a consequence, or the scale of their
destruction is diminished, at the very least, it would be a great return on our
investment.
Oh yes, maybe it would mean our children and
their children would have a better world in which to live.
Let’s clean up our act as well as our
planet.
No comments:
Post a Comment