Before i write this post, i want to ad, that i haven't read all of this thread. The simple reason being is that many of the posts are pointing to different sets of evidence that all seem to contradict each other.
Now let me put forward a few observations. Climate change, or whatever you call it may or may not be happening. It depends on what scientist and what scientific body you are reading. It seems, from a layman, that the plethora or conflicting information, mis-information or whatever is just too much and many people give up on trying to keep up with the facts - whatever the facts may be. In other words, there is too much conflicting and confusing information for an average person to judge what is true or not.
But lets put this in perspective. I come from a rural background and i know and watch the weather. It's in the blood for any rural person to understand the local weather. I just happen to have also spent quite a few years in Asia too (I'll come to the reason why i added that later). I have also spent about 20 years in Canberra. So basically, no matter where i live, i watch and absorb the local weather.
So anyways, lets have a look at the patterns that i have noticed in 35 odd years of watching the weather in various arts of the world. Lets start with canberra.
When i first moved to canberra, the winters were much colder and were longer compared to what we are getting now. There was more foggy days here 20 years ago and many mornings there was a real pea souper which wouldn't lift until about noon. Plus, the fog was so thick that you couldn;t see the other side of the road/roundabout. That was about 20 years ago. We do not get as many foggy cold mornings now.
I recall many consecutive mornings where it would get to -6 and ice was so thick on your windscreen. Those mornings are not as frequent now.
Plus, i recall the spring rains which used to come in September. We used to have days where it would rain day in and day out and it would be good steady and heavy rain for a good few days. I cannot recall when we last had consecutive days of rain. Also, thunderstorms are getting rather rare in Canberra now. I recall many a good thunderstorm previously rolling over the mountains - but now, we may get about a small handful of ones that don't give us much of a bang as they used to give.
Those are basic observations of the differences in Canberra in 20 years.
Lets look at typhoon region Taiwan. Typhoon season is generally Sep/Oct and you'd be "lucky" to get maybe 3 or 4 typhoons in a season. Now, the typhoons seasons have moved so typhoons are now in Nove and some even pop up in Dec/Jan.
As a worker in Taiwan, one would be excited about an approaching typhoon as that means you are told to stay at home but you must buy up food and supplies as everything is shut when the storm hits. I recall being excited about twice a year in being told to stay at home. So i'd stiock up on Taiwan beer, and being the storm watcher i am, would sit under shelter on the top of my building and watch the typhoon while drinking beer. People thought i was just a crazy foreigner. Anyway, there are now more typhoons hitting Taiwan and at greater frquency and at a higher power too. In fact, some of the later ones when i was there were so strong that i wouldn't even dare to be at the usual typhoon watching location (but i still had my beer though). Plus, there seems to an increase in days now where it is possible to get over a 1 metre of rain in a day. This seems to be happening more often now.
So lets go back to Australia and look at some of the beaches. I am a semi regular at Stockton as it is family tradition to go there and spend some time there each year. So i know the famous Stockton beach very well. I recall that it used to be much bigger and had more sand on it - now the water is getting closer and the beach seems to be disappearing. So something is happening to one of my favourite beaches and i have noticed this change int he 25 odd years of holidaying there each year. Even the locals say that the water is getting closer to the war memorial there and the the beach is disappearing. So there is change there.
Who knows if the changes above are related to climate change, cows farting too much, too many SUVs or even some international conspiracy on scaring people - but for whatever reason, something has been happening to cause these changes. Sure these observations only occur over a 20 year period which is not even a blink in the eye of the history of our planet, but never the less, they are still changes. They could be related to El Nino or whatever the other is called, but who knows. But even so, somehting is changing.
So don't you think it is time to seriously look as to why these changes are occuring. Afterall, if you had an IP which was slowly, i and i mean very slowly sinking in the dirt, then wouldn't you want to know why it was sinking in the dirt so that you could understand and then try and prevent it - if you could.
The changes i describe above may be just a regular long term pattern that we don't fully understand but they are still changes. I do not understand why some people bury their head in the sand on this issue as though njothin is happening. Something is happening, be it climate change or world patterns of whatever, so lets have a serious discussion on it. If something is happening and it is later proven to be man made or man inflicted, then don't you think you, or we as a society, should be looking at it - just in case.
Let me ask one final question - i think many of us here save money for the so called rainy day, that is, we always put money aside for when we need it so we are not caught short. How about we commit to getting some knowledge and do scientific study now just in case this climate change is man made. Do you want to be see human society caught short in 100 years time if we are wrong today?
Just a thought.
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