Impact of Climate Change must be included in the Bureau of Meteorology Inquiry
Queensland Conservation Council Media Release
The Queensland Conservation Council urges the Government to ensure that the impact of climate change is a key focus within the Federal Government investigation into the nation’s emergency warning system, triggered by heightened scrutiny over announcement delays from the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM).
Dave Copeman says; “Australia is facing unprecedented challenges due to climate change, and our emergency systems must adapt to these new realities. We know that as the climate warms, extreme weather events become both more intense and more unpredictable.
“What we have seen in Cairns and the Gold Coast are clear examples of this. The inquiry is an essential step in ensuring that our emergency warning system is responsive to current challenges, but it also needs to ensure that it can handle the increased uncertainty and amplified risks posed by a changing climate.
“Climate change has been missing from the public discussion about these disasters, by political leaders and media reports, and yet the lessons for how we report and respond to these must be informed by climate science.
“We call on the Government to take a holistic approach, where the inquiry includes the impact on a changing climate into the core of emergency warning systems and response strategies.
“With it predicted that Australian households will be paying $35.24 billion every year for the direct costs of extreme weather by 2050, we must invest in more than just an improved warning system. Faster warning systems are important, but they can’t predict every extreme event, and are only part of the solution.
“We need to build greater community capacity to act together as they prepare and respond to extreme weather events. The research shows that a community’s capacity to collaborate, for neighbours to reach out and organise is an essential part of emergency response, and more effective ways to support this action needs to be part of the solution.”
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6 comments
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New England Cocky -
Clakka -
Canguro -
Clakka -
corvusboreus -
Alex Jordan
Return to home pageObviously there will have to be changes to planning laws, taking into account flood levels and making allowance for those levels to go higher in the future.
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I am reminded of my 2011 very wet year interaction with a Melbourne based Insurance person who debated possible flooding at my farm residence from a non-perennial (NP) stream in a 2m deep gully that widened out onto a flat before joining the river, about 1,000 m further down stream. The residence was:
1) 2m above the NP stream;
2) the NP stream only flowed after about 50mm of rain filled the three dams upstream;
3) the farm was about 4,000 feet above sea level and on the highest local ridge in the district about 500 feet above Armidale.
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Yet this self-important Melbourne desk jockey was surprised when I commented, ”If my farm house is flooded, then there is a lot of Victoria under water”.
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The self-censored silence from COALition pollies on climate change is being exposed by the current weather as ignoramuses (not unusual at all) but certainly contrary to the best interests of Australian voters.
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If in any doubt, remember that the 1974 (?) Lismore flood swept through the Lismore CBD about one metre (1m) BELOW the top of the telegraph poles (LOOKOUT FOR THE BLUE FLOOD HEIGHT MARKERS NEXT TIME YOU VISIT LISMORE), while the 2022 Lismore flood swept through LISMORE CBD about THREE METRES ABOVE/OVER THE TOP OF THE SAME TELEGRAPH POLES!!
All the bastards at all levels of government, bureaucracy, corporations, insurers etc., know what’s coming. They’ve been planning for it for years. And of course they know it’s getting worse, as they’ve been planning for it for years.
The plans of mice and men.
Would they spend a penny on it?
Nah, except only if deferral or discovery could affect their tenure – that of course, to them, is the only risk assessment relevant.
It’s never too late …. to let the punter sink or swim. It’s much easier then to hold them to ransom as they try to rebuild.
Call me cynical if you must. It’s an institutionalized system of risk assessment resolved by layers of lawyered loopholes and caveats.
After all one can never be a bastard whilst remaining within one’s budget.
In the spirit of Hanrahan, the prophet of gloom vivified in verse by bush poet John O’Brien in mid-1919, with its description of droughts, floods and bushfires, it’s my subjective contention that the subject of climate change and the consequences thereof are very well understood at all levels of bureaucracy and government et al, given their complete access to the pertinent information in regards to climatic trends and forecasts as the rolling leviathan gathers steam across the planet.
It’s also another pet belief that – however one languages it – pragmatically, cynically, despondently, or metaphorically surrendering, these public servants know that the forces at play are beyond any sensible capacity to ‘control’, that fires, floods, droughts, cyclones and other majestic displays of the terrible forces unleashed by virtue of the inexorable heating of the planet’s atmosphere and oceans and the consequent inevitable effects of those phenomena – given that physics is physics and thus these phenomena must obey these natural laws of science – will continue to wreak havoc and there ain’t a damn thing that can be done to alleviate or stop them.
Poor metaphor, but call it the snowball effect if you like; it’s rolling down the mountain, gathering speed and mass, to eventually obliterate everything in its path. And there’s no escape, no way of evading its trajectory.
Many years ago, more than a decade at least and perhaps longer, on the ABC RN program LNL, Phillip Adams interviewed an American academic who had an interest in both psychology and environmental matters; I clearly recall his firm view that we, the people, will do little to nothing with respect to climate change until the water is lapping at the doorstep. I’d suggest the chickens are beginning to come home to roost. Everything is too little, too late; emissions are rising, the planet’s cooking, the oceans are boiling, the icecaps are melting along with the glaciers… it’s going to get very hairy in the decades to come.
Canguro,
It’s already costing 100s, perhaps 1000s of billions, and as that money accumulates it affects spin. And the lumps of accumulation, the centrifugal force of spin, coupled with the biased spin of the preventers and beguilers will of course, as we seek control of our destiny, meddle with physics.
Physics in collaboration with fresh ideas has been tapping at our thresholds for years, yet by rote, it’s been cast out as junk mail. That pile of cast-outs, the lumps of accumulation and the biased spin of the preventers and beguilers become eccentric stuff that if ignored could turn a beautiful and essential tide wobble into the hell-ride of Icarus.
Yet from the apparent chaos, should Physics with fresh ideas be welcomed, our relationship with the moon, the world, the universe and everything might attain a balance. Foucault squared.
The majority of our fellow strayans have repeatedly voted for inaction on mitigation against climate change; we should respect democratic concensus and embrace that change.
PS, on mitigating against an ever-cooking climate, did you know that, when shopping for groceries at the supermarket, if hubby sits in the SUV with the engine running & the AC on, the missus can return from her foraging to a nice cool car?
More and more people are seemingly catching on to this easy way to beat the planetary bake.
I love seeing people finding simple practical solutions to escalating existential threats 👍
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With the rising costs of expansion, collaboration is invaluable. What do you say to a follow-for-follow on Instagram? We regularly showcase our followers’ stories to our vast audience, offering significant visibility. Check us out at https://www.instagram.com/ecococonut and let’s grow together!
Cheers,
Alex
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