They call Australia the Lucky Country, with good reason. Generations of hardy castoffs tamed the world’s driest inhabited continent, created a robust economy and cultivated an image of irresistibly resilient people who can’t be held down. Australia exports itself as a place of captivating landscapes, brilliant sunshine, glittering beaches and an enviable lifestyle.
Look again. Climate scientists say Australia — beset by prolonged drought and deadly bush fires in the south, monsoon flooding and mosquito-borne fevers in the north, widespread wildlife decline, economic collapse in agriculture and killer heat waves — epitomizes the “accelerated climate crisis” that global warming models have forecast.
With few skeptics among them, Australians appear to be coming to an awakening: Adapt to a rapidly shifting climate, and soon. Scientists here warn that the experience of this island continent is an early cautionary tale for the rest of the world.
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I’ve always been troubled by a lack of marsupials in Michigan. This will be good.
OneGyT on April 9, 2009 at 2:18 PM
Racists.
Grafted on April 9, 2009 at 2:18 PM
right, and what do you think Australia’s chief export is, why coal to china of course!
rob verdi on April 9, 2009 at 2:18 PM
Sweet, more women with DD chests.
I’m so ready for climate change to happen.
todler on April 9, 2009 at 2:19 PM
Australia is a pretty harsh place. Highest concentration of poisonous animals to go with the constant droughts. Thank goodness the earth is cooling. I don’t know how I’d fare if Wisconsin suddenly looked like the Outback.
BadgerHawk on April 9, 2009 at 2:21 PM
Really, so we will have drought, AND mosquito-borne illnesses? So let me get this straight. Global warming will cause the ground to dry up from lack of rain. This is drought. But it will also cause lot of rain water to sit around all over the place, thereby allowing mosquitoes to breed. Do these people read their own copy?
BTW, I shoveled 4 inches of snow off my driveway yesterday, April 8. They keep promising up global warming, but dude, they keep shafting us.
keep the change on April 9, 2009 at 2:22 PM
Bigger boobs? I just started my SUV idling again.
marklmail on April 9, 2009 at 2:24 PM
So all the girls will get bigger boobies?
Global warming rocks.
lorien1973 on April 9, 2009 at 2:24 PM
Dammit! Everyone had the same joke!
lorien1973 on April 9, 2009 at 2:25 PM
So what’s the problem, then?
Vashta.Nerada on April 9, 2009 at 2:26 PM
Another article that proves that the AGW faithfull don’t care about accuracy or truth.
1) Even the guys who write the climate models claim that they can only be used at the global level. Regional or even local forecasts are beyond their ability. (They believe that if you average together enough bad data, you can get good data.)
2) The geologic record shows us that warm periods are also wet and good for life.
3) A continent known for long and fierce droughts, going back hundreds of years. Has a long and fierce drought, and from this we are supposed to draw conclusions about the future???
MarkTheGreat on April 9, 2009 at 2:27 PM
Don’t understand why they settled on Australia. Why not the Sahara Desert?
Christian Conservative on April 9, 2009 at 2:28 PM
Yeah, all we’ve got in America are ‘possums.
zmdavid on April 9, 2009 at 2:29 PM
Know what they called Death Valley before global warming? Happy Fun Time Valley! True story!
TheUnrepentantGeek on April 9, 2009 at 2:31 PM
?!
Cooling is worse than heating. They can go on and on about speculation about climate change, but most likely the drought is due to the cooling.
Really, the only bad thing about warming is the rising sea levels — with cooling you get reduced food production, glaciers, longer freezes, and less evaporation (less precipitation).
Count to 10 on April 9, 2009 at 2:35 PM
We’re all marsupials now
cntrlfrk on April 9, 2009 at 2:37 PM
Actually, I’m pretty sure it has more to do with the temperature ranges than the availability of standing water. But, this is what DDT is for.
Count to 10 on April 9, 2009 at 2:37 PM
I wasn’t being serious when I said I was glad the earth was cooling. I live in Wisconsin.
BadgerHawk on April 9, 2009 at 2:40 PM
They can’t have it both ways. They can’t predict a tropical environment which requires lots of rain, then predict a desert environment, that requires almost none, and do so with the same data.
keep the change on April 9, 2009 at 2:42 PM
Gee, their current obsession with temperatures in Oz couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that it is summer down there, could it?… Nahhh, they would never attempt to cherry pick their stories, that wouldn’t be journalistic.
….hang on a sec……
TASS71 on April 9, 2009 at 2:44 PM
and even that isn’t a certainty. with increased evaporation/precipitation you might also expect
increased snow fall and ice in the higher altitudes and in the normally colder areas leading to thicker year round ice packs.
oldernwiser on April 9, 2009 at 2:45 PM
Soooo, we’re all going to be surrounded by hot women and the most beautiful beaches on the planet?
You did say Australia, right?
Ummm, mosquito-borne fevers, drought, monsoon flooding, economic collapse and killer heat waves? Yeah, I’ve heard of this place. It’s called Africa- I’m sorry, I meant to say America. Turn on the news since about, well, 1800 or so.
Browncoatone on April 9, 2009 at 2:46 PM
Put another shrimp on the solar reflecting wind and bicycle powered warming plate!
LibTired on April 9, 2009 at 2:47 PM
Where have you been? Of course they can predict 2 opposing catastrophic possibilities from the same data. They have been doing it for over 100 years! Global cooling, global warming, global cooling, global warming, etc., etc., ad endless freakin’ nauseum.
TASS71 on April 9, 2009 at 2:47 PM
That’s exactly what I first thought when I saw this headline (except Maryland instead of Michigan). I’m bored with deer, kangaroos would be much more fun to watch.
Joe Caps on April 9, 2009 at 2:49 PM
Picky,picky,picky,
thomasaur on April 9, 2009 at 2:54 PM
Slightly OT, I watched Bjorn Lomborg on public TV the other night.
While he acknowledged that GW exists, he did claim the supposed results are extremely misleading and one-sided.
For example, he claimed the doomsday predictions that GW will increase heat related deaths by +2000, but claims everyone ignores that it will “Save or Create” 20,000 cold related deaths.
Also claims a fraction of the money proposed to be wasted in CO2 reductions with minimal effect over the next 100years could be spent simply helping people adapt.
As much as GW makes me hurl, the guy had some level headed ideas. Apparently not on the full-blown government take-over bandwagon.
cntrlfrk on April 9, 2009 at 2:58 PM
His book was quite good.
BadgerHawk on April 9, 2009 at 3:00 PM
Because, of course, dust bowls are a novel phenomenon, never before seen in human history…
obladioblada on April 9, 2009 at 3:16 PM
This is why global warming is good. Down jackets can be such an impediment to scientific discovery.
Greg Toombs on April 9, 2009 at 3:18 PM
I vote that the large breasted women also have to speak with an Australian accent.
Vashta.Nerada on April 9, 2009 at 3:28 PM
I couldn’t concentrate on the article…I was too busy letting my lawn mower run for a few hours for no reason…
ClassicCon on April 9, 2009 at 3:35 PM
Just wait for the Lord Humongous to come to power on a message of Hope, Change, and free petrol.
Nosferightu on April 9, 2009 at 3:40 PM
Hey, they forgot the hordes of bouncing blonde beach bunnies whose boobs, by the way, are getting bigger.
Can’t wait.
Mark V. on April 9, 2009 at 4:07 PM
They’re against that too. It kills babies or something. I mean like, after they’re born, when they pretend to care about them.
TheUnrepentantGeek on April 9, 2009 at 4:07 PM
I vote that if they speak, they have to be topless.
lorien1973 on April 9, 2009 at 4:09 PM
One of the top five reasons I joined the Navy was to see the world, especially Australia. Then I got assigned to a ship that was “capable” of carrying nukes, so we never got to go there.
But all I had to do was wait for Australia to come to me.
This AGW crap is GREAT!!!111eleven!!
connertown on April 9, 2009 at 4:13 PM
I can go with that compromise.
Vashta.Nerada on April 9, 2009 at 4:13 PM
“Wildfires”? I though those fires were proven to be arson…
pseudonominus on April 9, 2009 at 4:17 PM
I live in a suburb of St Louis and August of 1954 temperature rose to 115 degrees. Had about 3 or 4 days like that. No air conditioning and as a young couple we did splurge and bought a fan.
Herb on April 9, 2009 at 4:19 PM
And then there’s Fined for illegal clearing, family now feel vindicated
roux on April 9, 2009 at 4:31 PM
What! When I visited Australia I went on a ship that was not only capable of carrying nukes it was a nuclear ship! What a crappy rule, when did they do that. Just to make it worse for you all the stories you hear about Australian women are true…every damn one of ‘em.
Oldnuke on April 9, 2009 at 4:52 PM
Actually there is a marsupial in Michigan and elsewhere in the US. It’s the opossom, Americas’s only indigenous marsupial. ))))
However, there have been mysterious sightings of kangaroos all over America, since the 19th century. A relict population? Escapees from zoos?
http://www.socyberty.com/Paranormal/Phantom-Kangaroos-in-the-USA.30997
Mister Ghost on April 9, 2009 at 6:32 PM