The Angry Summer

Once again, I recommend you read a new Climate Commission report.

The Commission does its best. It produces regular reports about the state of weather and climate in Australia. These present the facts in the best possible of ways, with graphics and simple statements that even your dog will grasp. These reports are researched and produced by internationally respected scientists: the Commission's spokespeople are similarly recognised. But their words for the most part fall on deaf ears, both in Canberra and among the wider population.

The Commission has been busy. Read The Critical Decade: Extreme Weather, its latest report: http://climatecommission.gov.au/
report/extreme-weather/. Here you can study the key facts; look at a summary table or the images from the report; or watch a short video. So you have no excuse. DO IT.

In addition, you can go to http://climatecommission.gov.au/
report/the-angry-summer/ to put into context the fierce weather almost everyone in Australia has experienced over the last few months, whether it was searing temperatures, scary cyclonic winds or phenomenal deluges.

Here are three simple statements from the latter:

Extreme weather has always occurred. But due to additional greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the climate system now contains significantly more heat compared to 50 years ago.
This means that all extreme weather events are influenced by climate change.
The severity and frequency of many extreme weather events are increasing due to climate change.

Finally, a plea: would presenters at the ABC, purported to be the bastion of reliable and unbiased populist reporting in this country, please desist from asking experts questions inferring that doubt remains about evidence for anthropogenic climate change, thus accommodating further debate about this particular bit of the issue. It is wasting valuable time. Move on. Demand to know what the hell we are going to do about it.

Cyclone Oswald hits Ballina, NSW