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.

Australia Foams At The Mouth

Amazing phenomenon in sea south of Brisbane

Amazing photographs of "Crazy ocean foam ... near Sydney" like the two shown on this page are so weird that many web surfers (and some real ones) think they must be fakes.

They're real all right, but they were not taken anywhere near Sydney. They show masses of foam four meters (13 feet) deep, washed up at Yamba, a small beach and fishing resort 677km (421 miles) north of Sydney, Australia's largest city, but only 287km (178 miles) south of Brisbane, its third city.

Last week, a similar phenomenon occurred further north, at Point Cartwright, on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, just north of Brisbane.

It may be significant that Yamba lies at the mouth of the mighty Clarence River, while Point Cartwright is at the mouth of the Mooloolaba River.

A quick check shows that the Yamba photos were the work of a commercial photographer, Bill Counsell, who is more used to recording outdoor weddings. His dramatic pictures of the foam have circled the world, copied on hundreds of websites and blogs, usually without a credit line.

Counsell sold his photos to the Sydney Daily Telegraph and the London Daily Mail, and then they took off in a media frenzy, being copied globally in the press, on TV and the internet, usually without permission.

A website in Ukraine displayed the photos with captions in Cyrillic script.

"I've had an amazing response from all corners of the world, from men's girly magazines to German science magazines and everything in between," Counsell told OhmyNews International.

By Eric Shakle. Images Bill Counsell.

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Weather Warning: Limpopo and Mpumalanga

Hot and humid conditions leading to dangerously high levels of discomfort are expected in the lowveld areas of Limpopo and Mpumalanga.

Global warming hits Australia with fires and floods

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia endured bushfires, floods and record high temperatures in its drought-ravaged foodbowl in 2007 as global warming brought the nation's sixth hottest year on record, the weather bureau said on Thursday.

The crucial Murray-Darling river basin, home to 2 million people and almost half the country's fruit and cereal crop, had its hottest known year, the Bureau of Meteorology said in its 2007 Australian Climate Statement.

The mean maximum temperature of 28.6 Celsius (83.5 Fahrenheit) was almost a full degree above normal, bringing record average temperatures to the heavily populated southeast, the bureau said, pointing to climate change as the reason.

"The standout year is 2005, which was Australia's warmest year on record, but essentially all the warm years that we've had have been in recent years," climate analysis spokesman David Jones told local radio.

By Rob Taylor
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