No, this isn’t the weather channel. It’s just been on my mind a lot recently.
It’s easy to see how the weather is one thing that affects all of us, and it’s something you don’t really think about when it’s nice outside. When it gets bad is when you’re confronted by the fickle nature of our Earth, and how dependent we are on pleasant, or at least bearable, circumstances.
Well, this isn’t news to my Australian friends, but for those of us up north, they are getting hammered right now. A years-long drought in Queensland has just ended in a disastrous fashion, flooding has swept through the countryside and an estimated 500,000 head of cattle have perished in the torrential rains.
This is a weather disaster, and it makes my griping about a typical cold Ohio winter seem stupid. Yeah, the cold saps my spirit and the short winter days get me down. But I have nothing to complain about, really.
Thousands of Australian farmers who have lost their livelihood do. It’s the difference between crying over a splinter in your finger and having your hand violently amputated.
I do wonder what role the heating of our oceans and atmosphere are having on the above calamity. It’s certainly having an effect on the phenomenon below.
This would be the potential brewing disaster of the melting of the Antarctic ice sheets, I’ve been tracking this story for a little while. It seems the ice sheets down there are coming apart, slowly but surely. Why should we care? Because if the ice actually melts, a lot of coastal real estate is in trouble. And the majority of human population lives close to the coast.
Look, the Earth has gone through changes in climate over and over again, some in recorded history. An excellent example is the warm climate in Europe during the Middle Ages, followed by the Little Ice Age. So to believe in an absolutely stable climate on Earth is akin to believing that the moon really is made of cheese.
Much like friendships, family, and a good life, our weather and climate really aren’t things to be taken for granted.
Unfortunately, we only realize in retrospect how nice life was before those fine things were altered or removed.
For the foreseeable future, the Earth is our home.
We can’t take anything for granted.
The weather especially.
The Interstellar Valley 
I work in an industry which actively addresses climate change through on the ground programs helping the people who need it most. I quit my better paid more prestigious job to do this. Why? I love my family. Anything that threatens my family needs to be dealt with. This is what i tell people when i talk to them. Climate change will hurt your family, maybe not today but soon. So we need to deal with this threat like all others. Just a pity it isn’t a more visible thing otherwise people would act.
LikeLike
I’m intimately involved in far north Qld risk management, have been for 20 years, and I’m just baffled by these stock losses.
Did none of these farmers, when they were laying fence lines, or placing the landfill from dams and building ever think “what happens to my cattle if this paddock floods?”
“could I move this fenceline to add some high ground to the top paddock?
Could I build a hill with some fodder, or a safe haven for my cows (which are my responsibliity and my livelihood)?”
Don’t believe that this was an unprecedented event. This is north Queensland.
It floods.
And the death of 3-500,000 head of cattle is a preventable accident….
LikeLike
You learn something new every day. I’m always surprised by the people who drop by here; people from all over. Good hearing from you. Yeah, you have a point. When I was a kid a lived on a farm, but we had hills. Always did, so we never had a problem with our cows being able to get to high ground during heavy rains. But if I lived in flood prone land, or pastured in such, I’d probably do as you suggest. We live by the Ohio River here, and it floods as well. But it’s only been in the past 20 years or so that the government stepped in and said “look, if you live by the banks of the river, we are going to cancel your flood insurance if you don’t build out of the flood plain, or have a house with a tall foundation to mitigate high water.” Gotta take Mother Nature into account. Always.
LikeLike