Tag Archives for disasters

The government has pledged over $800m to fight natural disasters. It could be revolutionary — if done right


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Paul Barnes, UNSWTo help Australia adapt to climate change and manage the disasters that come with it, the federal government this week pledged A$600 million towards establishing the National Recovery and Resilience Agency, and $210 million for the Australian Climate Service initiative.

The sizeable investments make sense, as Australia’s threat landscape has changed. Climate change, drought, land clearing, urban growth and other activities have significantly increased the chances of natural hazards and disasters Australia-wide. All of which are costly to recover from.

The new organisations could deliver revolutionary benefits to Australia by better aligning policy and practice in a more agile way that matches the complex set of threats we face.

There are, however, issues that warrant attention. It’s not yet clear how the government plans to bring together Australia’s best experts — including policy thinkers, emergency managers, researchers and practitioners — to address the complex, evolving threats. Currently, it seems the role of universities has not been adequately defined.

Australia’s recent disasters

The 2019-20 bushfire season was arguably the most extreme in living memory. It started earlier than what might normally have been expected and made history for its severity and widespread damage to life, property and the environment.

Bushfires weren’t the only natural hazard Australia dealt with during this period. Insurance claims from hailstorms, flooding and bushfire damage for the 2019-20 period exceeded $5.19 billion.

A man and woman use a kayak to travel up a flooded street.
The March floods in western Sydney peaked at a staggering 12.9 metres.
Shutterstock

Then came the severe flooding across New South Wales in March, which peaked at 12.9 metres. As of March 23, policyholders had lodged up to 11,700 insurance claims associated with these storms.



Read more:
The world endured 2 extra heatwave days per decade since 1950 – but the worst is yet to come

While these recent disasters were unprecedented in their scale and impact, we can expect disasters in the future to worsen due to climate change, from longer heatwaves to intensifying cyclones and a range of cascading and cumulative impacts on society.

This is why the federal government’s announcement this week is extremely important.

So what will these initiatives do?

The new organisations are in response to recommendations from the recent bushfire royal commission, and as part of next week’s federal budget.

The National Recovery and Resilience Agency will be led by former Northern Territory chief minister Shane Stone, and brings together the responsibilities of the national agencies in charge of flood and bushfire recovery.

Its job is to oversee $600 million that will go towards new programs for disaster preparation and mitigation. It’ll focus on minimising disruptive impacts on communities and assist in making them ready to face future disasters. It will also administer the $2 billion National Bushfire Recovery Fund on an ongoing basis.



Read more:
Sydney’s disastrous flood wasn’t unprecedented: we’re about to enter a 50-year period of frequent, major floods

A key enabler of this is the National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy, which is currently getting updated after its first release in 2015. The new strategy will be released later this year, and should be vital in underpinning the direction of the new agency.

The government must ensure the strategy provides guidance that matches the goals of the new agency – in particular that of building resilience. It’s important to recognise that while disaster response is generally similar across the board, the effects of disasters vary depending on the community, urban and physical features, as well as socioeconomic levels and access to services.

And the Australian Climate Service initiative will, according to Environment Minister Sussan Ley:

help provide an environmental road map in our planning for infrastructure, housing and basic services like power, telecommunications, and water [and in] anticipating and adapting to the impacts of [a] changing climate.

Together, the benefits of both new organisations have the potential to be revolutionary.

They — along with a new national research centre focused on hazard resilience and disaster risk reduction (announced in July last year) — may be the largest realignments in disaster management policy and practice for a generation.

But how they’re implemented and coordinated will, ultimately, determine this.

There’s more to do

A potential issue with the Australian Climate Service Initiative that might limit its effectiveness is its emphasis on the roles of the Bureau of Meteorology, CSIRO, the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Geoscience Australia.

This collaboration means the initiative has access to huge amounts of data, information resources, and links to the National Environmental Science Program and Great Barrier Reef Restoration and Adaptation initiatives.



Read more:
‘We know our community better than they do’: why local knowledge is key to disaster recovery in Gippsland

But we shouldn’t forget many Australian universities have considerable relevant expertise at their disposal, too. Not including the network of expertise and experience of universities means we may be shooting ourselves in the foot.

What’s more, the National Recovery and Resilience Agency intends to provide accredited training for people working in disaster recovery. The deep training and development expertise of universities is a perfect fit for this goal.

To really embed the benefits, we need to break down historical silos between national, state and local agencies. On-the-ground efforts for disaster risk reduction, emergency management and response, and the broad social aspects of recovery are largely state and local government responsibilities.

Crisis response planning and action is a team-based sport, so getting the federal, state and local governments — and the private sector — involved will help streamline the application of the new disaster policies and protocols embodied in the announced changes across the continent.



Read more:
National and state leaders may not always agree, but this hasn’t hindered our coronavirus response

We saw this type of team-based effort at a national level when the emergency national cabinet was established to oversee collaborative decision-making in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s joined-up thinking that enables rapid and more complete decision- making.

In short, we need better collaboration. How we can work together and utilise all our capabilities and capacities are questions that need to be at the forefront of national thinking.

This story is part of a series The Conversation is running on the nexus between disaster, disadvantage and resilience. You can read the rest of the stories here.The Conversation

Paul Barnes, Research Fellow (Disaster & Urban Resilience), UNSW

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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When climate change and other emergencies threaten where we live, how will we manage our retreat?



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Christina Hanna, University of Waikato; Bruce Glavovic, Massey University, and Iain White, University of Waikato

Despite living in dynamic environments and facing an uncertain future due to climate change, New Zealanders generally expect their land and property rights will endure indefinitely.

But little stays the same. As last week’s offshore earthquakes and tsunami alerts reminded us, our coasts and the people who live near them are vulnerable to a range of hazards. Such risks will only increase as sea level rises due to climate change.

The government has announced that the Resource Management Act will be replaced by three new laws, including a Managed Retreat and Climate Change Adaptation Act. The writing is on the wall: planners and communities need to prepare for change.

For those living in highly exposed places, managed retreat may be necessary to save lives and secure public safety.

These “managed retreats” — from low-lying shorelines vulnerable to rising sea level, areas that flood regularly and unstable or exposed land — may be a bitter pill to swallow. Especially so in the midst of a national housing crisis and a global pandemic.

But the impacts of climate change are already being felt, and will compound natural hazard risks well into the future. Some existing developments are already proving untenable, exposing people and the things they cherish to severe harm.

So it’s imperative to include the option of managed retreat in adaptation planning for the most at-risk communities.

Empty and overgrown road and fields
Once a suburban hinterland, Christchurch’s earthquake ‘red zone’ now lies empty and abandoned.
Author provided

What are managed retreats?

Basically, managed retreats involve the strategic relocation of people, assets and activities to reduce risk.

For obvious reasons, retreats require difficult sacrifices for individuals, families and communities. The process can involve a range of mechanisms, including providing risk maps, official notices on land information memorandums (LIMs), development restrictions and financial incentives to relocate.

Planners and academics have been calling for a national managed retreat strategy, and the law change provides a unique opportunity.



Read more:
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Aside from compulsory acquisition powers used to deliver public works, Aotearoa New Zealand may be the first country to develop specific legislation for managed retreats. The world will be watching with interest.

Managing retreats that are sensitive to the dislocation of people from their homes, livelihoods, landscapes and culture is challenging. Developing the new legislation will involve difficult decisions about why, when, how and where retreats take place — and at whose cost.

Putting people first

Just how these retreats will be managed, however, is yet to be determined. Our latest research examines who manages retreats and how. It’s a timely cue to examine the broad policy options and planning implications.

The proposed legislation presents an opportunity to transform land use patterns
in Aotearoa New Zealand. But as we have seen in Canterbury, Matatā and elsewhere, the way managed retreats are handled matters greatly to the people affected.

At present, local managed retreat interventions are risky – professionally, politically, financially, culturally and socially. The necessary planning frameworks and resources are seldom available to support effective and equitable outcomes.

Some communities exposed to hazards and climate perils also face the risk of maladaptation — paradoxically, their vulnerability is increased by inaction or misguided efforts.



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Who manages retreats and how?

Our research distinguishes three approaches to making policy for a spectrum of possible retreats. Broadly speaking, these are:

  1. government control: using legislation, standards, policies and regulations, central or local government may restrict certain developments or compulsorily acquire property to enforce retreat

  2. co-operative managed retreats: collaborative decision-making and negotiation between government agencies and affected parties, using instruments such as opt-in buyouts, relocation subsidies or land swaps

  3. unmanaged retreats: individual choices influenced by factors such as loss of insurance cover and other market changes, decisions not to invest more in a property or to sell it (potentially at a loss), or to remain in place and face the risk.

Using our framework, we consider the risks and implications of each form of retreat. We draw on decades of lessons from international practice in disaster resettlement and planned relocation.

Getting the law right

Fundamentally, we argue that facilitating co-operative managed retreats is preferable. This means people and communities are embedded in the retreat strategy design, decision-making and delivery.

Necessarily then, flexible, collaborative and fit-for-purpose policies and practices are important. To manage expectations around at-risk, transient and marginal land, regulation of new development or land use is also required (such as placing time limits on consents).



Read more:
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Managed, co-operative and unmanaged retreats each have a role to play. But their associated practices and policy interventions must be strategically planned. To promote public safety, justice and equity, co-operation must be a central focus when managing the relocation of people.

Aotearoa New Zealand has an opportunity to foster long-term resilience in the face of climate change and many other land use challenges. Determining who manages retreats, how, and who pays is important work.

The shape of the new legislation — the processes and outcomes it encourages — will influence the lives and well-being of current and future generations.The Conversation

Christina Hanna, Lecturer, Environmental Planning, University of Waikato; Bruce Glavovic, Professor, Massey University, and Iain White, Professor of Environmental Planning, University of Waikato

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The bushfires are horrendous, but expect cyclones, floods and heatwaves too



Bushfires are not the only weather and climate events set to ravage Australia in coming months.
Dave Hunt/AAP

Neville Nicholls, Monash University

Public attention on the disastrous bushfire crisis in Australia will rightly continue for weeks to come. But as we direct resources to coping and recovery, we should not forget other weather and climate challenges looming this summer.

The peak time for heatwaves in southern Australia has not yet arrived. Many parts of Australia can expect heavy rains and flooding. And northern Australia’s cyclone season is just gearing up.

The events will stretch the ability of emergency services and the broader community to cope. The best way to prepare for these events is to keep an eye on Bureau of Meteorology forecasts.

Fires and other extreme events will test emergency services this summer.
Darren Pateman/AAP

Let it rain

2019 was Australia’s driest year on record. Since early winter the Bureau of Meteorology has correctly predicted the development of these widespread dry conditions.

But relief may be coming. The latest bureau outlooks suggest more normal summer conditions from February to April. If it eventuates, this would include more rain.



Read more:
How to monitor the bushfires raging across Australia

The arrival of drought-breaking rains is notoriously hard to predict – in the past, they have come any time between January and May. Global warming is also complicating seasonal climate predictions.

We all hope the rain arrives sooner rather than later, and eases the fire situation. But rain will bring other risks.

Continental-scale droughts such as that experienced over the past few years are often broken by widespread heavy rains, leading to an increased risk of flooding including potentially lethal flash floods. The decade-long Millenium drought that ended in 2009 was followed by two extremely wet years with serious flooding.

A similar situation was seen in Indonesia in recent days when very heavy rains after a prolonged drought produced disastrous floods and landslides.

Indonesian rescuers searching for missing people after a landslide in West Java, Indonesia, triggered by heavy rain.
EPA

The flood risk is exacerbated by the bare soil and lack of vegetation caused by drought, and by bushfires that destroy forest and grassland.

Australia’s north may be particularly hard hit. The onset of the tropical wet season has been very much delayed, as the bureau predicted. Over the last three months, some parts of the Australian tropics had their lowest ever October-December rainfall. But there are some suggestions widespread rain may be on its way.

Further south, drought-breaking rains can also be heavy and widespread, leading to increased flood risk. So even when the drought breaks and rains quell the fires, there will likely still be bouts of extreme weather, and high demand for emergency services.

Cyclones and heatwaves

The tropical cyclone season has been much delayed, as predicted by the bureau, although there are now signs of cyclonic activity in the near future.

Cyclones often bring welcome rains to drought-affected communities. But we should not overlook the serious damage these systems may bring such as coastal flooding and wind damage – again requiring intervention from emergency services.



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And we are still a month away from the riskiest time for heatwaves in southern Australia. We’ve already had some severe heatwaves this summer. However they usually peak in the middle and end of summer, so the worst may be yet to come.

Lives have undoubtedly been saved this summer by improved forecasting of high temperatures and better dissemination of heatwave information by state and local governments. But after an already devastating early summer of fires and heat, warning fatigue may set in amongst both warning providers and the public. We must ensure heatwave warnings continue to be disseminated to populations at risk, and are acted on.

Shop staff clean up storm waters after Cyclone Debbie hit iQueensland in 2017.
AAP

Be thankful for weather forecasters

The recent experience of farmers, fire fighters, water resource managers and communities illustrate the value of the service provided by the Bureau of Meteorology. Greatly improved weather and climate forecasting developed over the past few decades means communities can plan for and deal with our highly variable weather and climate far better than in the past.



Read more:
It’s only October, so what’s with all these bushfires? New research explains it

Recent drought, fires and heatwaves – exacerbated by global warming – have been devastating. But imagine if we only had the limited weather forecast capabilities of even a few decades ago, without today’s high-speed computers to run weather forecast models, and satellites to feed in enormous amounts of data. How much worse would the impacts have been?

These forecasts have allowed heat alerts to be disseminated to vulnerable communities. Detailed information on weather conducive to fire spread has helped fire agencies provide more targeted warnings and direct resources appropriately.

An air tanker makes a pass to drop fire retardant on a bushfire in North Nowra, NSW, as fires spread rapidly.
Mick Tsikas/AAP

Never before have weather forecasts been so readily available to the public. Here are ways you can use them to reduce risks to life and property during an extreme event:

  • Listen to ABC local radio for emergency updates and detailed Bureau of Meteorology forecasts
  • load your state fire service emergency app onto your phone and check it regularly. Or check out the information online, such as at the NSW Rural Fire Service’s Fires Near Me website
  • check the bureau’s website for climate and weather forecasts
  • download a short-range rainfall forecast app such as Rain Parrot onto your phone. These apps use the bureau’s radar data to make short-range forecasts of rainfall for your location, and notify you if rain is coming.

Global warming is already lengthening the fire season and making heatwaves more intense, more frequent, and longer. It is also increasing the likelihood of heavy rains, and making droughts worse.

We must keep adapting to these changing threats, and further improve our ability to forecast them. And the community must stay aware of the many weather and climate extremes that threaten lives and property.The Conversation

Neville Nicholls, Professor emeritus, School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment, Monash University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australia needs a national plan to face the growing threat of climate disasters


Robert Glasser, Australian National University

We are entering a new era in the security of Australia, not because of terrorism, the rise of China, or even the cybersecurity threat, but because of climate change. If the world warms beyond 2℃, as seems increasingly likely, an era of disasters will be upon us, with profound implications for how we organise ourselves to protect Australian lives, property and economic interests, and our way of life.

The early warning of this era is arriving almost daily, in news reports from across the globe of record-breaking heatwaves, prolonged droughts, massive bushfires, torrential flooding, and record-setting storms.

In a new special report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, I argue that Australia is not facing up to the pace of these worsening threats. We need a national strategy to deal specifically with climate disaster preparedness.



Read more:
Explainer: are natural disasters on the rise?

Even without climate change, the impact of these natural hazards is enormous. More than 500 Australians – roughly the same number who died in the Vietnam War – die each year from heat stress alone. The annual economic costs of natural disasters are projected to increase to A$39 billion by 2050. This is roughly equivalent to what the federal government spends each year on the Australian Defence Force.

Climate change will dramatically increase the frequency and severity of many of these hazards. The number of record hot days in Australia has doubled in the past 50 years, and heatwaves have become longer and hotter. Extreme fire weather days have increased in recent decades in many regions of Australia. Shorter and more intense rainstorms that trigger flash floods and urban flooding are also becoming more frequent, and sea level has been rising at an accelerated rate since 1993.

Australians are already exposed to a wide range of the hazards that climate change is amplifying. Almost 4 million of our people, and about 20% of our national economic output, are in areas with high or extreme risk of tropical cyclones. Meanwhile, 2.2 million people and 11% of economic activity are in places with high or extreme risk of bushfire.

Chronic crisis

As the frequency of extreme events increases, we are likely to see an increase in events happening at the same time in different parts of the country, or events following hard on the heels of previous ones. Communities may weather the first few setbacks but, in their weakened state, be ultimately overwhelmed.

Large parts of the country that are currently marginally viable for agriculture are increasingly likely to be in chronic crisis, from the compounding impacts of the steady rise of temperature, drought and bushfires.

The scale of those impacts will be unprecedented, and the patterns that the hazards take will change in ways that are difficult to predict. Australia’s fire season, for example, is already getting longer. Other research suggests that tropical cyclones are forming further from the Equator as the planet warms, putting new areas of eastern Australia in harm’s way.

This emerging era of disasters will increasingly stretch emergency services, undermine community resilience, and escalate economic costs and losses of life. Federal, state and local governments all need to start preparing now for the unprecedented scale of these emerging challenges.

Queensland as a case study

Queensland’s recent experience illustrates what could lie ahead for all of Australia. Late last year, a major drought severely affected the state. At that time, a senior manager involved in coordinating the state’s rebuilding efforts following Cyclone Debbie commented that his team was in the ironic situation of rebuilding from floods during a drought. The drought was making it difficult to find water to mix with gravel and to suppress the dust associated with rebuilding roads.

The drought intensified, contributing to an outbreak of more than 140 bushfires. This was followed and exacerbated by an extreme heatwave, with temperatures in the 40s that smashed records for the month of November. Bushfire conditions in parts of Queensland were classified as “catastrophic” for the first time since the rating scale was developed in 2009. More than a million hectares of bush and farmland were destroyed – the largest expanse of Queensland affected by fire since records began.

Just days later, Tropical Cyclone Owen approached the Queensland coast, threatening significant flooding and raising the risk of severe mudslides from the charred hillsides. Owen set an Australian record in dumping 681 millimetres of rain in just 24 hours – more than Melbourne usually receives in a year. It did not, however, diminish the drought gripping much of the state.

A few weeks later, record rains flooded more than 13.25 million hectares of Northern Queensland, killing hundreds of thousands of drought-stressed cattle. As two Queensland graziers wrote at the time: “Almost overnight we have transitioned from relative drought years to a flood disaster zone.”

Time to prepare

We need to begin preparing now for this changing climate, by developing a national strategy that outlines exactly how we move on from business as usual and adopt a more responsible approach to climate disaster preparedness.

It makes no sense for the federal government to have two separate strategies (as it currently does) for disaster resilience and climate change adaptation. Given that 90% of major disasters worldwide are from climate-related hazards such as storms, droughts and floods, these two strategies should clearly be merged.

One of the prime objectives of the new strategy should be to scale up Australia’s efforts to prevent hazards from turning into disasters. Currently, the federal government spends 30 times more on rebuilding after disasters than it does on reducing the risks in the first place.



Read more:
Properties under fire: why so many Australians are inadequately insured against disaster

Australia should be leading global calls for urgent climate action, not just because we’re so vulnerable to climate hazards, but also for traditional national security reasons. We are the wealthiest nation in a region full of less-developed countries that are hugely vulnerable to climate change. Shocks to their food security, economic interests and political stability will undermine our own national security.

No military alliance, deployment of troops or new weapon system will adequately protect Australia from this rapidly escalating threat. The only effective “forward defence” is to reduce greenhouse gases globally, including in Australia, as quickly as possible. Without far greater ambition on this front, the scale of the disasters that lie ahead will overwhelm even the most concerted efforts to strengthen the resilience of Australian communities.

This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared on The Strategist.The Conversation

Robert Glasser, Honorary Associate Professor, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Unnatural disasters: how we can spot climate’s role in specific extreme events


Sophie Lewis, Australian National University

These days, after an extreme weather event like a cyclone, bushfire, or major storm, it’s common to find people asking: was it climate change?

We also often hear people saying it is impossible to attribute any single weather event to climate change, as former prime minister Tony Abbott and the then environment minister Greg Hunt said after the bushfires in New South Wales in 2013.

While this may have been true in the 1990s, the science of attributing individual extreme events to global warming has advanced significantly since then. It is now possible to link aspects of extreme events to climate change.

However, as I describe in an article co-written by Susan Hassol, Simon Torok and Patrick Luganda and published today in the World Meteorologcal Organization’s Bulletin, how we communicate these findings has not kept pace with the rapidly evolving science. As a result, there is widespread confusion about the links between climate change and extreme weather.

Evolving science

The science of attributing individual extreme weather events to climate change dates back to 2003, when a discussion article in Nature raised the question of liability for damages from extreme events. The idea was that if you could attribute a specific event to rising greenhouse gas emissions, you could potentially hold someone to account.

This was soon followed by a 2004 study of the 2003 European heatwave, which caused more than 35,000 deaths. This analysis found that climate change had more than doubled the risk of such extreme heat.

Brussels residents gain some respite from the 2003 heatwave, the event that launched the science of climate attribution.
EPA Photo/Belga/Jacques Collet

These early studies laid the foundations for using climate models to analyse the links between specific extreme weather events and human-induced climate change. Many studies since then have focused on putting numbers to the risks and likelihoods of various extremes.

Attribution science has now evolved to the point where it is possible to analyse extreme events almost as they happen. The World Weather Attribution project is an example of an international effort to sharpen and accelerate our ability to analyse and communicate the influence of climate change on extreme weather events.

This project examined the major flooding in France and nearby countries in 2016. The floods – which forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes and caused damage estimated at more than a billion euros in France alone – were made about 80% more likely by climate change.

Lost in translation

The communication of this science outside the research community has, with a few notable exceptions, not fully reflected these scientific advances. This confusion about the state of the science comes from many sources.

The media, politicians and some scientists outside this area of research still often claim that we can’t attribute any individual event to climate change. In some countries – including Australia – the causes of specific extremes can be seen as a politically charged issue.

In the aftermath of an extreme event such as a fire or flood, it can be seen as insensitive or overly political to discuss the human-induced causes of loss of life or property. The views of political and media leaders can be influential in shaping public opinions about extreme climate events.

It doesn’t help that confidence and uncertainty are widely misunderstood concepts outside the scientific community.

Another part of the problem is that for a long time, many scientists themselves repeated this message because of the complexity of the climate system. All extremes take place in a naturally variable and chaotic climate system, which complicates event attribution.

Attribution scientists have the greatest clarity and confidence in attributing heat events that occur over large areas and extended time periods. For example, two separate studies found that the 2013 extreme heat in Australia would have been virtually impossible without human-caused climate change.

Rainfall events are trickier. This complexity can create confusion about the extreme events that are better understood, and lead to missed communication opportunities.

The need for better communication

Understanding the precise causes of recent extreme weather and climate events isn’t just an academic pursuit.

Extreme event attribution has become a research avenue with important benefits to the public. Society’s beliefs about which events are caused by climate change will influence decisions about how to adapt to those changes. Poor decisions in this area can jeopardise infrastructure and human health.

For example, if we dismissed the link between climate change and the 2003 European heatwave without scientific analysis, we would be poorly prepared for protecting vulnerable people from heat stress in the future under further global warming.

Any assessment of future climate risk and preparedness requires a scientific basis. It should not be based on opinions formed from personal perceptions, media reports, or politicians’ comments.

A community responsibility

Changes in extreme weather and climate events are the primary way that most people experience climate change. While scientific discussions around global average temperatures are useful for understanding the wider issue, you don’t experience “global average temperature”. Yet we all have some direct experience of extremes.

We argue that scientists need to communicate accurately the scientific links between extremes and global warming, so that people can make informed decisions about actions to limit the risks posed by these events.

We propose several simple guidelines for clear communication around extremes:

  • Lead with what the science does understand and save the caveats and uncertainties for later. For example, start by explaining the impact of global warming on heatwaves and then discuss the specifics of an individual event.

  • Use metaphors to explain risk and probabilities. For instance, discussion of global warming as “loading the dice toward more rolls of extreme events”, or
    “stacking the deck” in favour of extremes, are examples of accessible language.

  • Avoid loaded language like “blame” and “fault”.

  • Use accessible language for conveying uncertainty and confidence. For example, scientists often use the word “uncertainty” to discuss the envelope
    of future climate scenarios, but to the public, “uncertainty” means we just don’t know. Instead, use the word “range”.

  • Try to avoid language that creates a sense of hopelessness. For example, rather than calling further increases in some extreme weather “inevitable”, we can discuss the choice we face between a future with increases in extreme weather, and one with less.

These guidelines may also help the public evaluate the accuracy of reporting about weather extremes. If the link between an extreme event and climate change is rejected outright without an attribution analysis, it probably doesn’t represent the evolving science.

Conversely, if an extreme is presented as evidence of climate change, without discussion of nuance and complexity, it is equally unlikely to reflect up-to-date attribution science.

If scientists get better at communicating their work, and readers get better at assessing what’s accurate and what’s not, we will all be better informed to make choices that can hopefully stave off a future with more extreme weather.

This article is based on an analysis published today in the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Bulletin, led by Susan Hassol and Simon Torok.

The Conversation

Sophie Lewis, Research fellow, Australian National University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Rats: Disaster for Islands


The link below is to an article that reports on the problem of rats for many islands around the world and the environmental disasters they bring to islands.

For more visit:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2013/jul/04/rats-islands-wildlife-south-georgia

Climate Change: Bringing on Disasters


The link below is to an article reporting on suggestions that climate change may bring on volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis.

For more visit:
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/climate-change-is-set-to-shake-the-earth-20120228-1tzr2.html

EARTH HOUR: A COLOSSAL WASTE OF TIME???


Earth Hour is to be held this Saturday (March 28) between 8.30 pm and 9.30 pm. All you need to do to take part in Earth Hour is simply turn your lights off for the hour between 8.30 pm and 9.30 pm on March 28.

Earth Hour began as an annual event in Sydney in 2007, when an estimated 2.2 million buildings switched off their lights for an hour. This year Earth Hour is going global for the second year and is giving people the opportunity to ‘vote’ for either the Earth or global warning. By switching off the lights for an hour a person can ‘vote’ for fighting global warning.

Organisers of Earth Hour are hoping some 1 billion people will ‘vote’ for the Earth and hope to be able to give world leaders 1 billion ‘votes’ for the Earth at the Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen 2009. The conference is the forum in which world leaders will determine policy to supersede the Kyoto Protocol on Greenhouse Gas reduction.

For more on Earth Hour visit the official website at:

http://www.earthhour.org  

However, is Earth Hour a colossal waste of time? What is really being gained by turning the lights off for an hour once a year? All other electrical devices are still on and a lot of people go for alternative lighting devices that also pollute the environment. Other than awareness of global warming (which I would suggest everyone knows about now and either believes or does not believe – turning off some lights won’t change anyone’s mind on global warming), what does Earth Hour really achieve?

The following Blog post makes for interesting reading:

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/earth_hour_crashes_to_earth/

Am I against reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions? Am I against reducing Global Warming and other associated disasters? Am I anti-environment? The answer to those questions is no! I’m just simply saying Earth Hour is little more than tokenism by most people who are against the Rudd government Greenhouse Gas Emissions reduction policies and other policies that actually aim to make a difference.