Contributed by Ugly

A report just released by the Climate Council shows that Australia is faced with worsening droughts, and this is putting our water and food security at risk.

The report is called Deluge and Drought: Australia’s Water Security in a Changing Climate. The connection with global warming is clear. This is affecting weather patterns, and if left unchecked, the impact will be devastating the report says. More frequent extreme weather events such as bushfires and floods, as well as drought are a grave concern.

Yes, there is a connection between drought and flooding. Rainfall becomes less regular and takes the form of occasional and damaging flash flooding. Furthermore, most of the rainfall will fall in the extreme north and west, which are becoming less prone to drought than the rest of the country.

Less available water will mean that agriculture will suffer, and urban water supplies run low. Eco systems around Australia will be devasted. The southern part of Australia will be the most affected.

The Murray-Darling Basin, known as “Australia’s food bowl,” has seen a 41 per cent reduction in “streamflows” since the mid-1990s, while water systems in Western Australia’s southwest have declined by about 50 per cent.

Melbourne is the city most vulnerable to a water shortage.

Australia’s south-east had seen a 15 per cent reduction in rainfall in late autumn and early winter, and a 25 per cent decline in rainfall in April and May over the past 20 to 30 years.

“Most of our [rainfall] comes from the ocean, so we are exposed to big-scale changes, and the tropics are expanding,” Professor Will Steffen, one of the report’s seven co-authors, said.

“That is the ultimate explanation for why these fronts in the Southern Ocean are now being pushed a bit further south, and so that means that we are getting less rainfall across the southern part of Australia.

“We’re getting fewer good autumn breaks than we did before, due to the warming of the Indian Ocean.”

The politicians who are deliberately refusing to take the necessary action and allowing this to happen are much worse than a disgrace. These people are guilty of criminal behaviour and deserve to be held accountable for it.

Where once they may have denied that climate warming is a reality, most of them know accept that is happening, but insist that it isn’t so bad and doing too much about it will harm the economy.

If truth be told, they want to keep the dollars coming into their party organisations. In other words, they are selling Australia’s future to help their mates and and their own gain.

Luckily there are other Australians, and in growing numbers too, working hard to force through change and putting the pressure on politicians who are not moving.

Younger Australians are in the vanguard of those acting against the fossil fuel industry. Older ones are in there too. Growing numbers of farmers are seeing first-hand what is happening to the land and adding their voice to the call for change.

The falling cost of alternative energy sources is making them more attractive, and the more they are taken up, the less carbon is emitted into the atmosphere.

With temperatures predicted to continue soaring, it is expected that more Australians than ever before will need to invest in air conditioning units to maintain a comfortable temperature in their homes. It is, of course, important to note that air conditioning systems can indeed be powered by renewable sources of energy. You can learn more about installing an air conditioning unit including the renewable forms of electricity that can be used to power an air conditioning system by reaching out to the best electrician malvern has to offer.

Nevertheless, unless enough is done the damage to ecosystems and the health and well being of humans will be severe. It will reach a point where the economic and social damage will be so extensive that it is no longer tolerable, and change will be forced through from below. Bad politicians and their backers will eventually be cast aside.

Hopefully, permanent damage will not have gone too far, and the suffering can be reduced by enough action, before it gets to this.

The Climate Council warns that “Dealing decisively and effectively with climate change cannot be put off any longer.”

Image from the Climate Council: This reveals the emerging pattern of rainfall across Australia