Climate change in the Antipodes

bred a beautiful herd of poll Hereford cattle to pass on to son Ben. Colin always looked at the positives during his year of illness and reckoned he had a lucky life.

As was his wish his family buried him at Yabba Cemetery where he can look across the valley at Stonroy and keep an eye on things! A job well done Colin, you will be greatly missed by Jean, family and many friends.

Climate change in the Antipodes Dennis Nicholls NDA 60/62

An open letter to several Australian Newspapers.

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology tells us that Australia has passed 1.4 degrees C of warming since 1910 and is perilously close to the 1.5 degrees C of warming that world leaders dread. The Black Summer of the last fire season here demonstrated why. The death toll from the extreme bushfires was 33, low compared to severe bushfires of the past and probably due to early evacuation; but a recent letter sent to the Commonwealth Government by medicos and academics stated that some 3,000 Australians had died from bad air pollution during the fires; the air pollution in the nation’s capital, for a number of days, was worse than that of Delhi. Environmental Justice Australia claims the figure is higher; at 5,000, but both are many times the road toll for 2019. ‘Extreme’ bushfires - as the extreme heat generated causes the pyro cloud (pyrocumulonimbus cloud) formed above these bushfires, causing smoke and cloud to pierce the tropopause and tending to form dry lightning which exacerbates conditions on the ground. These pyro clouds have been increasing in number annually since the 1980s, a graph demonstrates this as a steep rising curve with 2019 having the most so far. Yet, our current Commonwealth Government wishes to bring about a “gas led recovery” from the current financial downturn. This is suicidal. Or are we attempting to increase our per capita emissions of CO2, at 15.4 tonnes p.a., to exceed that of the US, at 6.5 tonnes? It is the intension of Joe Biden to reduce the emissions of the US, so we are likely to surpass the US on the way up!

Dennis Nicholls, Canberra.

For the full paper on Global Warming and its effect on the climate in the Southern Hemisphere please see the Alumni website. www.shuttleworthalumni.co.uk .