Euroa to hear early next year about Lima-Paris 'journey'

Euroa will hear early next year about the challenge of the global community successfully making the journey from the Lima climate change conference to Paris late next year.

Professor David Karoly will discuss those challenges in the first of the Euroa Environment Public Lecture Series begins early in February.

The University of Melbourne Meteorology Professor and ARC Federation Fellow in the School of Earth Sciences is the first in a series of speakers lined-up for the Euroa series.

He will speak on Saturday, February 7, at 11:00am at the town’s Four Mill in Kirkland Ave with the title of his lecture being: “2015 watershed year for climate change: from Lima to Paris.”

The Paris conference, being organized by The United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP21 or CMP11 will be held from November 30 to December 11 next year. The international climate conference will be held at Le Bourget.

It will be an interesting discussion as the New York Times has just reported that: “Nations Plod Forward on Climate Change Accord” at Lima.

Helping us understand 'droughts and flooding rains'

Dorothy Mackellar’s poem “My Country” is the frequent refuge of climate deniers.

Their arguments nearly always look to the fourth line of the second verse that says, “Of droughts and flooding rains.” as justification of their beliefs.

It seems the words of a poem written early in the 20^th century in London by a homesick Australian carry more weight, and authority, from the science of the 20^th and 21^st century.

Such thoughts we unavoidable in reading a piece published today in the University of Melbourne’s “Voice” section in the Melbourne Age headed: “Scientists unearth Australia’s early historical records of droughtsand flooding rains”.

That story, written by Stav Psonis, discusses a world-first study by University climate researchers of Australia’s early settlement climate history.

“In the study, researchers from the School of Earth Sciences have uncovered historical weather records as far back as 1788 in southeastern Australia, completing our understanding of Australia’s natural climate variability before the beginning of official records in 1910,” Psonis reports.