Frequency of extreme weather events warrants climate change epithet

E

xtreme weather events rarely warrant the epithet of climate change when considered in isolation.




Dorothea Mackellar - many
 climate change doubters
escape to and draw comfort
from her 1906
 poem, "My Country".

The attribution for responsibility is quickly pinned on climate change immediately frequency and severity are entered into the equation.

This century, not yet even 15-years-old yet, has seen Australia peppered with extreme weather events, including devastating bushfires, floods and cyclones, and yet we have government that invariably seeks comfort in the Dorothea Mackellar poem, “My Country”.

Mackellar, who was not climate scientist and during a bout of homesickness in England early last century wrote:
 

“I love a sunburnt country,

A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.”

That simple, but moving poem is often trotted out to explain, or justify, why Australia is being repeatedly assaulted by extreme weather events, almost as if a lonely and homesick poet of 19 new more early in 20^th Century than our highly trained scientists of the 21^st Century.

Just as we have seen a preview of the extreme weather ahead, it’s now argued in a Huffington Post story that “Texas Flooding Could Be A Preview Of Future Extreme Weather Events”.