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I am sorry about the long gap in my tracking of the still acceleration gamut of extreme weather worldwide. Every week, if not every day, brings yet more grim news of death and destruction from billion-dollar climate catastrophes. (From Watersheds, flooding, and pollution – Look around you, right now — you are in a watershed
This has been a summer with no precedent in #Perth. Today is the city’s 10th day at or above 40ºC so far this season, which is a new record for summer. This is also Perth’s 5th consecutive day over 40ºC, breaking the previous record of 4 in a row. pic.twitter.com/GF9uiIQya5
— Ben Domensino (@Ben_Domensino) January 22, 2022
South Australia sourced an average of just over 100 per cent of the electricity it needed from renewable power for 6½ days leading up to December 29 last year – a record for the state and perhaps for comparable energy grids around the world.
Australia is finally having a hot summer. Today even Crikey’s Worm had something to say about it:
Australia equalled our hottest day on record yesterday — the mercury reached 50.7C in Onslow, WA at about 2:30pm, the BBC reports. Usually the temperature in Onslow is 36.5C around this time of year, WA Today adds. It comes just days after the EU’s satellite confirmed the last seven years have been the hottest on record — heatwaves are just one of the several dire outcomes the IPCC say humanity will suffer from if we do not act on climate change.
Australia, as one of the world’s biggest per-capita emitters of greenhouse gas emissions, is breaching human rights — that’s the conclusion of the World Report 2022 from Human Rights Watch, who said our government’s climate policy is actively unstitching our human rights record. It’s the first time there has been a Climate Change Policy and Impacts section as part of the organisation’s annual assessment.
Queensland’s emissions target of a 30% reduction by 2030 would be “[blown] out of the water”, an expert has told Guardian Australia, if the Lake Eyre basin is opened up to fracking to extract gas. Origin Energy got the green light in late December to explore the area — which is one of the last major free-flowing desert river systems — but fracking could see 199m tonnes spewed into the atmosphere every year. The government says the lease is for “exploration only” at this stage.
Followed by Argentina, the hottest place in South America, Australia yesterday had the hottest place on our only planet (almost ever!). If we don’t do something serious to stop the continuing progress of global warming, we haven’t seen anything yet.
Unfortunately, Scott Morrison and his LNP Coalition Parliament are doing all they can to keep the fossil fuel special interests that sponsor them in business when they actually need to be shut down to help resolve the still escalating climate emergency. Vote Climate One’s Traffic Light Voting Guide will help you remove your local LNP member or camp follower, or to ensure that your preferences don’t go towards supporting the election of one of their clowns.
