Floods and storms: we ain’t seen nothing yet

Is Australia, as a society, happy to sacrifice 50,000 of its citizens a decade merely so we can operate petroleum vehicles and burn coal? Are we happy for our politicians to consent to so many deaths merely so they can avoid taking the hard decisions, the right decisions?

We can argue ad infinitum whether the Queensland floods, the Victorian floods or cyclone Yasi were, as individual events, an outcome of climate change or freak occurrences. That is not the point. The point is that the scientific predictions are in clear agreement that the more carbon we release, the faster the planet warms, the more the atmosphere churns and the greater the evaporation and rainfall events that result.

We need to understand that those who advocate or practice inaction would have us risk more and greater disasters, and a heavier financial and human toll. In a society such as Australia’s, this is not acceptable.

It is time to heed the warning which the floods and storms are sounding.