What we are seeing today in SA is a repeat of the 'worst in a century' conditions

-      Robert McLean

Conditions considered as bad as those that drove the 1983 “Ash Wednesday” bushfires in South Australia and Victoria return as I sit here to write.

Today it is extreme temperatures, high and shifting winds and a country-side left parched after the nearest hottest year on record that has destroyed homes and disrupted the lives of thousands.

Firefighters today said the cause was not their prime concern rather it was protecting lives and property.

In 1983 the cause was faulty power lines, arson, and negligence after years of extreme drought.

Firefighters and equipment from three states, South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales was being used to combat what is happening in South Australia.

Within twelve hours in 1983, more than 180 fires fanned by winds of up to 110 km/h caused widespread destruction across the states of Victoria and South Australia.

“Years of severe drought and extreme weather combined to create one of Australia's worst fire days in a century,” it was then reported.

Michael Mann with his famous book, "The
Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars".

Interestingly those fires became the deadliest bushfire in Australian history, until the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009 and so in 1983 we had the “worst in a century” until that was bettered (I use that advisedly) just five years ago and now conditions considered “as bad as Ash Wednesday” are back.

Surely we have the intelligence and the courage to admit that what we are seeing confirms the reality of climate change and so demands that we, as responsible people with an immediate liability (for ourselves) and a broader and deeper intergenerational concern, must act, changing our behaviour in how we use energy and consume.

In the midst of this Michael Mann, the fellow responsible for the famous “hockey stick” graphic that clearly illustrated the advance of climate change has written on Scientific American.

Mann’s story, headed: “Earth Will Cross the Climate DangerThreshold by 2036” says many reassuring claims about climate abound in the popular media, but, he says, they are misleading at best.
“Global warming continues unabated, and it remains an urgent problem.” Mann writes.