The floods in Queensland have been much in the news recently; my home town of Toowoomba has been devastated by a flash flood after a heavy fall on saturated ground, and now Brisbane, where I was a student, is bracing itself for severe flooding.
Is this the result of global warming? I have no way of knowing, but it is said that the effect of global warming will make extreme weather events more common. If you need information that this is happening, you need only look at the following statement on the University of Queensland website:
UQ Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Michael Keniger said flood levels reached the one in a century flood level by 8am this morning and by midday had almost reached the 1974 mark.
In other words, the one-in-a-century mark has been surpassed twice in less than forty years.
My thoughts are with those friends and strangers who have lost family, friends, livelihood or possessions in this tragedy.
But finally, to put things into perspective, there are also floods in Sri Lanka which have displaced 200000 people from their homes, and floods in the Philippines which have affected one million people.
I could not presume to assert a direct link between one episode, even though devstating and horrendous, and the wide issue of global warming. It may be indicative of a general movement and malaise. And as Sri Lanka shows we can often find others who are as badly or worse hit through similar tragedies.
Cathy and I had certainly been concerned for Marie.
Of course one instance like this doesn’t prove that global warming is happening, although it is certainly consistent with this hypothesis (i.e. doesn’t disprove it). My uneducated guess is that a wide-ranging survey would provide better evidence.
Last I heard from Marie, she said she had been passing her local food shop when she noticed that they had milk back in stock. So things are getting better.