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Parched: Australia Faces Collapse as Climate Change Kicks In
Leaves are falling off trees in the height of summer, railway tracks are buckling, and people are retiring to their beds with deep-frozen hot-water bottles, as much of Australia swelters in its worst-ever heatwave.
A man sunbathes on rocks at a beach in Melbourne January 31, 2009. (Reuter/Mick Tsikas) On Friday, Melbourne thermometers topped 43C (109.4F) on a third successive day for the first time on record, while even normally mild Tasmania suffered its second-hottest day in a row, as temperatures reached 42.2C. Two days before, Adelaide hit a staggering 45.6C. After a weekend respite, more records are expected to be broken this week.
Ministers are blaming the heat - which follows a record drought - on global warming. Experts worry that Australia, which emits more carbon dioxide per head than any nation on earth, may also be the first to implode under the impact of climate change.
At times last week it seemed as if that was happening already. Chaos ruled in Melbourne on Friday after an electricity substation exploded, shutting down the city's entire train service, trapping people in lifts, and blocking roads as traffic lights failed. Half a million homes and businesses were blacked out, and patients were turned away from hospitals.
More than 20 people have died from the heat, mainly in Adelaide. Trees in Melbourne's parks are dropping leaves to survive, and residents at one of the city's nursing homes have started putting their clothes in the freezer.
"All of this is consistent with climate change, and with what scientists told us would happen," said climate change minister Penny Wong.
Australia, the driest inhabited continent on earth, is regarded as highly vulnerable. A study by the country's blue-chip Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation identified its ecosystems as "potentially the most fragile" on earth in the face of the threat.
Many factors put Australia especially at risk. Its climate is already hot, dry and variable. Its vulnerable agriculture plays an unusually important part in the economy. And most people and industry are concentrated on the coast, making it vulnerable to the rising seas and ferocious storms that come with a warmer world.
Most of the south of the country is gripped by unprecedented 12-year drought. The Australian Alps have had their driest three years ever, and the water from the vast Murray-Darling river system now fails to reach the sea 40 per cent of the time. Harvests have fallen sharply.
It will get worse as global warming increases. Even modest temperature rises, now seen as unavoidable, are expected to increase drought by 70 per cent in New South Wales, cut Melbourne's water supplies by more than a third, and dry up the Murray-Darling system by another 25 per cent.
As Professor David Karoly, of the University of Melbourne, said last week: "The heat is unusual, but it will become much more like the normal experience in 10 to 20 years."
- Posted in
204 Comments so far
Show AllI have a friend in Adelaide. Wwith a new baby, they are having trouble keeping her alive and comfortable. No A/C in most houses.
Kitty Lady
I wish them all well. What a desperately horrible feeling not to be able to protect one's own children.
"All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace." Alexander Pope
What can be said at this point?
Perhaps now that an industrialized nation is facing such overwhelming climate impacts, the world will take notice. Not sure what we can do about it in time, though.
Maybe the rational thing is for governments and individuals to change their lifestyles and dreams for the future. Well, individuals anyway.
"All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace." Alexander Pope
And the dumbass conservative talk radio jocks I listen to at work joke about global warming at the opening of just about every show. They should take a nice long vacation in Australia.
The deniers who troll Common Dreams typically reply to certain kinds of articles about climate disruption - articles about scientific statements or research, which they can spin webs of argument to obfuscate.
They tend to stay away from articles about the actual disruption cascading around the living Earth, such as articles about acidification of the oceans.
Got any webs of obfuscation about this article?
It's bad. The small birds died out years ago, crows are seen everywhere. The grass plains have turned to dust, creeks and lakes have dried up. Fresh water fish have died in their millions, maybe never to return. In the cities the historic elm avenues are disappearing as councils consider whether there is enough water to save them. Gardens, no one has a garden anymore. The lack of nutrients from runoff means that coastal fisheries are failing.
And our carbon footprint? We are the only industrialised nation that doesn't have nuclear power.
Sorry, Morticia,
I'm with you all; it sounds like the horrible future we've had nightmares of, come much earlier than most of us thought possible. And yes, images from 'On the Beach' and 'Mad Max' come to mind.
I'm not sure, however, what having or not having nuclear reactors has to do with it. As the article says, Australians are right up there with the rest of the worst of us in carbon-spewing and other pollution, and while long distances make for higher energy use when you're trying to live a jet setting lifestyle (that is, jetting our produce and plywood all over the world while vacationing in distant climes), that's eminently changeable. Rail, locally-based economies, and using the fringes of that vast outback to generate solar energy (for all uses including desalination) would seem the logical ways to go.
For those who see nukes as the answer, see www.climateprogress.org/ today (or Rocky Mountain Institute anytime). Nukes are more expensive, slower to come on line, lower in jobs/dollar, and so capital-intensive they rule out other, more safe, ecological, economical choices. Australia has the wealth, expertise, and natural resources to move swiftly and seamlessly to conservation, solar, wind, (including offshore wind farms and sailing or sail-assisted ships) tidal power, and some geothermal and micro hydro. It's the home of incredibly old and wise indigenous cultures, and of permaculture, which has inspired a world-wide movement which will help save civilization if anything can.
I understand that many people carry emotional baggage over adopting out-of-character solutions like these, and that change is difficult. that's especially true when a few people and corporations who make money on the old ways confuse and de-educate the majority. But the sooner we stop worrying about how hard it is, and wringing our hands, and start using them to build a new society, new energy sources and new lower/slower/local lives, the sooner we can get on with the stuff of real life--births, weddings, funerals, eating, sex, and learning enough about ourselves and nature through our whole lives that instead of our elders being hapless, helpless and lost, they regain their place as the holders of the species' wisdom.
I hope none of you thought I was advocating nuclear power!!
The problem is we use just as much energy and consume just as many goods as the other "rich" industrial nations but don't have "clean" power. ;)
A solution is difficult and long term. Plant hundreds of millions of trees maybe. Stop water wastage by industry. Discourage suburban living. Stop buying things.
You and J4zonian are onto something there. Planting lots of trees does slow desertification. The best way to preserve the ecosystem is to plant the more drought-tolerant varieties of local species. Switch from thirsty food crops selected for taste/tradition to local drought-resistant species and varieties. Eat less meat/dairy. Consume less materials that require water. Suburbs are not a bad place to live for those willing to fully utilize their yards for food/fuel/materials production and/or wildlife sanctuary, and avoid daily long distance commutes. The solution isn't difficult after we change our habits. It's actually rather easy. In the USA one can eat highly nutritious, delicious and low energy food on less than $3/day. The hard part is losing our addictions to the opiates dispense by the fossil-fried elites. But after that it's a real bonus knowing that we aren't feeding those monsters. We're starving them down small enough so they can drown themselves in a bathtub.
"Suburbs are not a bad place to live for those willing to fully utilize their yards for food/fuel/materials production and/or wildlife sanctuary, and avoid daily long distance commutes."
Sorry, but suburban living requires heavy car use whether you have a garden or not. It is impossible to ever have a workable public transit system that most people can use for even commuting, much less everyday errands, in the sprawling suburban environment. We need to get people back to the traditional car-free lifestyle of the urban neighborhood.
---USAn---
Modern suburbs have the ideal density and proximity to urban cores so the suburbs can be converted to food/fuel/materials production of the sustainable type for supplying the urban core. Besides replacing all of the grass lawns with micro-farms, the suburbanites will set up garage workshops, and some will provide retail markets so no suburbanite has to drive to warmart. All of those mc-mini-mansions have plenty of extra space to house little storefronts, and cottage industries. People will walk to get most things, take bicycles, and ride free buses.
Exclusive urban arrangement doesn't work because it makes the great majority dependent on elite-controlled franken-enterprises. Then when the Repuks slither into the oval orifice, they kick in the cyclic commodity speculation bonanza to exploit the urbanites' dependence. Nix that. We have to produce our own food/fuel/materials. Here's a good template: 25% urban, 50% suburban, 25% rural. Car travel decreased by factor of ten, pedestrian travel increased by factor of ten.
"and some will provide retail markets so no suburbanite has to drive to warmart."
And how do those retail goods get to the suburbs? They will have to be trucked in, right?
In some places well designed bus circuits from sector outlets to mall to schools to commuter train to major churches on Sunday could cut the need for some car travel.
Joe
Joe and others in this discussion:
It’s good to talk about these changes, but every time I see this “suburbs have to change” discussion develop it becomes clear some people are projecting all evil onto the inhabitants and structure and simple existence of suburbs. Let’s not do that. It won’t get us anywhere. Solutions will emerge, as we all—those in suburbs, cities and beyond the sidewalks alike—change our lives. The cure for projecting is understanding—our own histories as well as our collective history, motivations and effects. And action doesn’t hurt, either. There are some good suggestions there, and it’s counterproductive to say what won’t work and what’s wrong with brainstormed ideas in a suburb far far away. Don’t like the idea? Come up with your own. Then go out and make it work where YOU live.
Given free choice, in the context of mature, informed, relationship-based security, people are endlessly creative, as the appropriate technology movement proved before it died of neglect and paper cuts. Rather than continuing to think and feel in violent terms and war metaphors and standing in this circular firing squad (mea culpa) why don’t we start reducing the size and power of corporations to the point where they can paddle like cute ducklings, harmlessly around in the bathtub?
Which reminds me, I have to sign off now to go build a house for the egg-laying ducks arriving at my semi-suburban house next month. Can't wait--one more step toward homesteading independence. Not to mention... ducklings! How can you argue with that?
Morticia,
Your position on nukes wasn't clear. Glad to know you're with us. And yes, it can be difficult and long term, especially since we've waited so long to make the big changes needed, all the while Nature, our real wealth, was in retreat.
But… people who have the internal and external resources (psychological, intellectual, physical, social, ecological and other) to allow, even embrace change when it’s necessary will not have trouble with the changes we need to make, all of which can improve our lives, health, communities, economy, politics and relationships to each other and Nature. Car companies in the US fought long, hard pitched battles against seat belts, air bags and catalytic converters, spent millions or for all I know, billions trying to destroy not just the other side’s arguments but the other side. And when they lost, they simply started to market those things as if they were their idea in the first place, and they started to MAKE MONEY ON THEM! Renewables, cycling, gardening, enjoying home and neighbors, playing instruments instead of stereos…all can be welcome changes.
Hard? Yes. Unless we make it easy, which is entirely within our grasp.
I'm sorry to hear that, I visited Melbourn way back in '85. I remember a green city that was very clean and welcoming. How are the local critters handleing the drought?
I doubt very much that nuclear energy would help matters much, not until we figure out how to extract all the energy out of uranium and leave no waste behind at all.
"Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children."
Ancient Native American Proverb
The global warming denial might be genuine, as in "they actually believe it". The delusional Masters of the Universe and political leaders are showing up with big bright signs on their foreheads that say "I am an Idiot"... like Blagojevich, and Bush2, and the GM bosses and the Bankers.
They believe they can do no wrong. These are the "smartest guys in the room" after all. The financial crisis is mostly a result of greedy delusional bankers and corporate humps.
And with their delusions, and positions of power, they have tilted the world towards collapse - financially, and climatologically. The reality of climate change is showing up in Australia and in the Arctic, lots of places.
The radicals and conspiracy theorists were right, but it is a sad recompense.
P.S. - "recompense" and "climatologically" ARE real words - I checked because I am humble enough to think I might be wrong.
Someone has put up signs all over where I live in New Orleans that read "Think that you might be wrong."
URGENCY OF REVERSING THE BUSH WAR ON THE ENVIRONMENT:
The unprecedented war on science and distortions of scientific data by the Bush administration to impede vital environmental reforms underscore the dangerous control that special interests had exercised over them. Evidence linking carbon pollution to warming has long been as close to certain as science can be. Its causes, consequences, and mitigation requirements have been documented by many dedicated environmental organizations including The Union of Concerned Scientists.
Special interests argue that the current warming trends follow historic warming cycles, and hence reflect natural weather patterns--but they omit obvious differences: The earlier warming trends developed at slower rates which permitted the ecosystems to adapt. Morever they resulted from temporary natural events, which allowed transitions back to normal temperature patterns--by contrast, the current warming patterns result from artificial causes that will only intensify unless mitigated.
By all indicators, global warming will self perpetuate as the melting ice sheets absorb rather than reflect heat, as the melting permafrost releases more CO2 & methane, and the list goes on. Inundation of low lying areas, spread of tropical diseases to temperate latitudes, sea life destruction from changing ocean chemistry, & currents, are only some potential consequences.
Often overlooked is the fact that, the same measures needed to mitigate global warming would be necessary even if it were no issue. Conservation, alternative energy development, anti- pollution refinements, etc are essential for other vital environmental reforms such as air and water quality, reductions in toxic waste generation, land preservation, etc.
Contrary to right wing assertions, measures to reduce greenhouse gases could only improve our economy by lessening our trade deficits, and improving our security by reducing our dependance on foreign oil. We could also regain some of our lost world respect that has resulted from our rejection of Kyoto while arrogantly contributing disproportionally to carbon pollution. With our participation in international efforts, China & India could no longer use our non-compliance as an excuse for their non-participation.
The environmental and social damage from our indifference to carbon pollution can only worsen if the new administration allows the same influence and manipulation from special interests as the previous one had.
Good points.
Joe
You've cited a list of needed environmental reforms that is sweeping in scope, unfortunately that's overwhelming to most. And most activists address that by focusing on a narrow component. But they might instead focus on the root of all the problems, the elites and their greed, and their class war aggression against the people and everything else. Instead of demanding "clean air in sector A" we can demand the people shift their exchange/association away from the elites and ostracize them from the society. This solves all problems in all sectors.
theinitiate
Wow, Australians may be the next immigrants. How many will the U.S. take. I wonder if when they start leaving their country in droves, if that wil be the wake up call for the deniers. Like the Irish who had to leave Ireland because of famine from potatoe blight, the Aussies will not have food or water resources either. Let's see what the anti-immigration idiots say then. Will they still be obsessed with protecting our borders or will they hunker down and start shooting aussies too?
This is just the beginning...
As an Australian, I can report the article is accurate. Last night I saw that one vineyard had lost 80% of its grapes because of the lack of rain. January was the driest month on record and one State reported less than one millimeter of rain. The heat wave that is currently running is well nigh unbearable. Of course, in America, extreme weather events are also occurring.
Australian may well have a high rate of greenhouse gas emissions but given our small population (twenty odd million) what we generate is a drop in the bucket compared to America or China or India.
Anyway, don't worry. When Netanyahu gets control of Israel, global warming will be the least of our worries. Why? check:
www.dangerouscreation.com
Perhaps, all that will be left in Australia in 50 years time , are the Aborigines.
PK
Yes its a terrible year, and yes global warming is here.Where I live on the east coast its lush and beautiful and we have had no rain.Why because I started planting trees and more trees years ago, creating a rainforest with plenty of undergrowth.I have been called a nut but I am now reaping the benefits,walk unto my property and its at least 10 degrees cooler than the norm.This country is no place for open pasture lands and green lawns.Ozzies need to wake up.
Amazingly, there are still those who deny what is or should be fast becoming obvious to all. And those lunatics that believe its all some gods will. Bush surrounded himself with people who actually believed that it didn't matter what we did to the environment as their jesus was coming back any day now.
My sympathy to all Australians and Tasmanians- at the risk of sounding flippant, you'd all be most welcome here in Canada, though at the moment its minus 15 here (but sunny.) And lots of water. Frozen solid just now, but lots of it.
Hang in there mates.
We must change our lifestyles, especially the hyper-rich. It may be too late.
Many forms of governance have come and gone. Americans and capitalist apologists have made fun of communism and socialism. Capitalism on the other hand is off limits and not funny. It is dead serious about making a few pharaos and a whole lot of suckers, while destroying all humanity and all types of other government in the process.(yes I know, who the f^%$ am I right?). It does not take a rocket scientist to know two things: Greed is not sustainable, and nature does not care about your comfort and lifestyle. And for those of you who do not "believe" in evolution, I hope you live for the next 50 years so you can stick around and see natural selection at work.
You're right, Frangelica- unfortunately for most, it will be the survival of the richest.
Hi saltmarch
I respectfully disagree. When survival is at stake, money will mean jack shit. It may come to be that nature will settle the score by sheer selection. Most rich people if they do not come from a long line of rich people are not what one would call physical specimens. When life becomes really unbearable and society starts to break down, their present advantage (capital) will quickly mean nothing as it is only an advantage in a human social context. Physical prowess and natural selection which I suspect is already happening in some of the poorest, most populated and polluted parts of the world will once again be a real advantage.
Cheers
A very good point. Perhaps it will be all those "uncivilized savages" who know how to live off the land who will become the fittest to survive. Wouldn't THAT be poetic justice?
One would hope so. It does not even have to go that far. Imagine that water, will become scarce and rich people will start hoarding it or buying it up. They even may pay those who protect them in "water" or whatever valuable resource they "own". However pretty soon there after the ones doing the "protecting" will just cut out the middle man and gut the rich asshole that hired him in the first place.
Property is just as illegitimate under capitalism as it was under monarchies. Collaboration, and collectivism or death that will be natures decree.
I totally agree with you on the poetic justice aspect.
We are all children of the last ice age(s). Most of the groups that made it had no idea what "profit" was...
Check the big chart Al Gore got on a forklift to show us, and ask yourself, "Self, what weather phenomenon could defeat and reverse such a temp/CO2 spike?(as were the last three)".
I am not a climate denier, but I think what we are
now experiencing is WEATHER. Climate change is over
a longer period of time. If we had a cool summer,
I would not say that it is the proof that climate change
is false.
Do you also self diagnose and treat yourself when you have a medical condition? Because that is exactly what you just did in the context of dismissing people who are much smarter than you (in the previous case an MD, and in the second a climate scientist). Unless of course you think it is all a large scientific conspiracy.
I was going to write exactly the same thing. It is wrong to use this extreme weather event (which isnt that unusual in the sthn states of oz) as a scare campaign to try to get your message across. That is what the sceptics do and it is dishonorable.
I live near Sydney and this summer has actually been slightly cooler than recent years. A fact backed up by the bureau of meteorology. Indeed this has been used by more than one denier in the tabloid media to validate their rantings on global warming. Havent the storms recently in the US and UK also been used by the deniers as "proof" of their position?
There is plenty of data out there to back up an argument for global warming and we dont need to sensationalise and invent stories to try and scare people into believing us. It wont work anyway people will see it for the fraud it is and then it will taint your whole message even the truthful bits.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_disasters_in_Australia_by_death_toll
This page will illustrate that heatwaves are far from unknown in sthn Australia. Indeed out of the top 32 disasters by number of deaths 10 are heatwaves.
CBS reports "A killer winter storm responsible for 19 deaths and loss of power to 600,000 homes and businesses has barreled across the Southern Plains and Midwest." Braith, you make a good point about weather and climate. The comments on the original site (The Independent) are worth reading for a more balanced view.
Climate change = more severe weather. Hotter where it's hot, colder where it's cold, drier where it's dry, and wetter where it's wet. Don't remember the flooding rains that nearly wiped out crops in the Midwest last summer? As for Australia, a 12 year drought sounds a lot like a long-term change, rather than just 'weather'. Also, have you not forgotten about the horrible heat waves Europe have suffered through in the summer, killings tens of thousands? Or the rather nasty head wave in Arizona last year that forced the city of Phoenix to set up air conditioning centers all around? You're so ignorant that you point to a WINTER STORM IN THE DEAD OF WINTER as evidence there is no global warming. Eventually the climate patterns will shift even more, with currently wet areas drying up and currently dry areas being flooded every year. Enjoy the cold weather while it lasts, I'm sure the summer will be quite a scorcher.
Winter storm in winter - heat wave in summer - so what's your point?
Actually, the fact that this storm was a freezing rain event, not a snow event as would have been more likely in the past, is evidence of global warming.
The warming of the climate in the US, particularly winters, is completely obvious to anyone over 50 years of age. The winters here in Pittsburgh are like they used to be in Washington DC, and the DC winters are now like Atlanta used to be. I assume you can pretty much grow coconut palm trees in Atlanta now.
---USAn---
History shows that people/cultures who migrate, live and grow into desert areas, or into areas otherwise balanced in a precarious climate, soil and geological combination, often fail quite spectacularly... and often for the same reasons they had initial success. The laws of evolution hold fast here: cultures, like species, that cannot change as fast as the environment around them, fail and die, or migrate out, supplanting, conflicting and/or integrating with the cultures they find along the way and in their new residences.
I was just talking to a friend about relatively minor climactic changes that were largely responsible for the French Revolution and the subsequent Reign of Terror. Two years of no growing season in France due to a mini ice age (only two years!) immediately prior to and concurrent with the comparatively tame rumblings of large scale social change pushed the masses into full scale revolt.
Let them eat cake? How shall we arrange it on the platter around your head?
It simply does not matter what kind of climate change we are talking about, or what we name it: it will take very little change, in relatively short durations, in climactic terms to change the face of human society beyond recognition.
From the south-east coast......another hot one today. Never seems it's going to end. Have not known a summer like this in my 45 years. Chill?
According to wikipedia (take it with a grain of salt) Astralia mined 258.5 million tonnes of coal in 2000/01 of that 193.6 tonnes was exported. Also 85% of Astralia's electricity is produced using coal. I don't know how much carbon dioxide 285.5 million tonnes of coal produces but you would think it would be a lot. It sounds to me like Astralia is digging their own grave and it would be in their own best interest to change and change quick.
Indeed. We are also the most heavy polluters in the world per head.
Our useless politicians keep saying that because we are only a small country and therefore our total emissions are low compared to giant countries like the US and China that our per capita emissions dont matter and we should do nothing until the big countries do. They say that even if we reduced our carbon emissions to zero it would have no real effect on the worlds climate unless the big countries did it too. Therefore they say we dont have to do anything.
Shameful I say and typical of the fat cat class and their weasely ways of spin and dishonesty that they use such arguments.
I think Australia should set an example and show the way for the rest of the world. We have ample supplies of all kinds of renewables that could be developed and then the technology exported to the rest of the world. We could have wind farms and solar farms in the desert. Massive amounts of tidal and wave power are just waiting to be harnessed on our coastlines. There is ample sites for geothermal and other ground based forms of energy. We once had a world leading industry in renewables here but it withered on the vine or went overseas because our governments are too in thrall of the big coal and mining companies to give a toss.
We in oz will suffer and rightly so we have squandered our chances and ruined the best country on earth. We deserve to suffer.
"I don't know how much carbon dioxide 285.5 million tonnes of coal produces..."
About 1040 million (1.05 billion) tonnes if pure and burned completely. Oxidation of 285.5 tons of carbon to CO2 would take 285m*(32/12) tons of oxygen for a total of 285m+761m = 1056 million.
---USAn---
Climate change - localized changes in climate.
Global Warming - a generalized warming trend.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/feb/02/heavy-snow-extreme-weather
“The heaviest snow for two decades moved into Britain on a freezing easterly wind last night after gathering strength over the North Sea. Falls of up to 10cm (4in) are predicted initially on the south-east coast and inland as far as London before the storms head north. The Met Office said it was classifying today's expected snowfall as an "extreme weather event.
…
“People across the country were warned to avoid unnecessary journeys, with below-freezing temperatures dropping even further in many areas because of wind chill. The snow follows a relatively mild spell after the three-week freeze in early January which saw lows of -13C (8.6F). The previous coldest winter was in 1995 when -27.2C was recorded at Altnaharra in the northern Highlands. Bookmakers have cut odds against 2009 being the coldest winter on record from 12-1 to 8-1 but a counter-trend is also seeing betting on a hot summer. Rupert Adams of William Hill said: "Punters seem to be confidently optimistic about that and we have odds of as low as 6-1 on temperatures topping 100F."
So take your pick, weather patterns can be used to argue for and against climate change. It just depends on which weather event you choose.
Like the recent cold spells in the US, if you check the climate statistics they are not at all remarkable compared to the past - just media hype brought on by the prevalence of extremely mild winters over the past decades. Few or no daily record low temperatures were broken - something that used to occur one or tow times a year at most locations couple times a year. In contrast, daily record highs have become commonplace.
I really have trouble believing that a 4 inch snow in England, or a -27C (-16F) low temperature in the far northern Scottish highlands would have been at all remarkable a couple decades ago. So the hype surrounding this cold snap itself is evidence of a rapidly warming climate.
---USAn---
Yes you are right, scientistd from all over the world have conspired to test your expertise in climate science. And they have all infiltrated the media to spread the hype.
If you know anything about the media you would know that corporations have decided that without morons to buy their shit, they are as good as doomed (global warming tends to have that effect on morons). Hence they allow a presentation (what you call hype) on television. Again, my point about the doctor (see below) applies to you too. Since you are such an expert in climate science, why stop there? On to medicine, or even string theory.