Climate Change Case Study: Australia [fires, drought and dust bowl conditions happening right now]

With few skeptics among them, Australians appear to be coming to an awakening: Adapt to a rapidly shifting climate, and soon. Scientists here warn that the experience of this island continent is an early cautionary tale for the rest of the world.

"Some places are pretty close to being bloody unlivable anymore," Cocklin said.

"When you start talking about places where 45 degrees [113 Fahrenheit] is commonplace, that raises the question of 'Can you really live in that?' "

SHOOT: It might be a little late to say 'Climate Change is a reality' when you find the place where you live has become unlivable. This is the point of all the warnings and warranted alarmism. To say things are steadily getting worse, what we should we do. Instead a lot of very stupid people decided they were better off debating the issue and muddying the waters. For whose benefit?

clipped from www.latimes.com Reporting from The Murray-Darling Basin, Australia -- Frank Eddy pulled off his dusty boots and slid into a chair, taking his place at the dining room table where most of the critical family issues are hashed out. Spreading hands as dry and cracked as the orchards he tends, the stout man his mates call Tank explained what damage a decade of drought has done . Photos: Climate change in Australia Climate crisis down under "Suicide is high. Depression is huge. Families are breaking up. It's devastation," he said, shaking his head. "I've got a neighbor in terrible trouble. Found him in the paddock, sitting in his [truck], crying his eyes out. Grown men -- big, strong grown men. We're holding on by the skin of our teeth. It's desperate times." A result of climate change? "You'd have to have your head in the bloody sand to think otherwise," Eddy said.