Saturday 15 January 2011

Of to Australia next Week

I'm of to Australia next week for a family visit. In previous trips to Oz I have stayed in Sydney with my sister Ann then gone up to Tweed Heads to visit my other sister, Cath. Tweed Heads is on the New South Wales and Queensland border, only about 100km south of Brisbane. Recently though Cath has moved to Tasmania so I will not be getting anywhere near the flooded areas. How ever I received a photo taken in Tassie a day ago showing that even there flooding has occurred. Nothing like on the scale seen in Queensland and just recently in Brazil. The images from Queensland and Brazil show just how delicate the balance between nature in it's benign and destructive moods actually is. Some say it is all down to climate change while others put it down to weather patterns that throw up these huge climate anomalies purely at random. I can thing of such dramatic events even in my own experience. The winter of 1947, the long hot dry summer of 1959, the winter of 1963 when it snowed for months on end. Then 1973 when the BBC weather forecast consisted of three words, Hot, Dry, Sunny. The forecaster just moved then around the map. Even last year the cold and snow we had through out December were most unusual. What ever is causing the unusual weather the world seems to be having doesn't take away the pain and suffering of those people directly effected.

The question still remains. Do we spend billions to counter the possible effects of possible climate change, something that might not happen or do we sit back and hope the 'once in a generation' side in this argument are right. I wish I knew. But it's not my problem. I'm too old to still be around when the worst case scenario turns up which is a shame because I would like to have found out which side are right. Possibly that is the problem, most people, who are in a position to take the expensive action, that is the politicians, feel they are in the same position I am and don't want to spend money they wont see any benefit from. And because they would get voted of at the next election.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glad the recession and unemployment has not affected you!
Have a great holiday, we'll miss your local blog.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
retired driver Peter said...

Enjoy your break. Maybe we will get to know a bit about Australian buses

David said...

Been here 3 weeks and haven't been on a bus yet, sorry.