Susceptible to calamity

The Australian: Susceptible to calamity :

"Allen and Hoffman's findings are a stark reminder that the planet could become increasingly violent and unruly as climate transit gathers strength. Furthermore, studies of past climate transitions suggest that they can be rapid, perhaps within decades rather than centuries. These considerations point to a requirement for a radical rethink of where and how we live in urban areas. Urban design codes need to be recast to counter:

* Enhanced heat island effects.
* Flash floods from violent storms.
* Storm surges combined with rising sea levels.
* Wild fires gutting homes and polluting catchments.
* Loss of habitats along with rising tree loss from winds.
* An increased incidence of disease and insect disturbance."

Everytime there is a climate disaster the climate scientists and biodiversity experts try and remaind us we have to look after ourselves and we have to think more logically about this. This article is very good at explaining where we need to put our thinking and why we are still in denial. We are discounting the fact we have a problem. We are told it's not really a problem, but look at Aceh, Sri Lanka, New Orleans, Queensland, melting ice caps, bleached coral reefs...we do have a problem. It is no use pretending that we don't. We have to approach it logically and dispassionately because we have to make more decisions than where our bananas are going to come from. I love Australians because they just roll with the punches, get in there and get it all sorted. We have 300 million dollars worth of damage to our banana and sugar cane industry. People's whole homes and livelihoods are soaked and ruined and we join the growing number of people around the world who are living in chaos. We have an enormous amount of people living in devastation and we keep pretending it is not something we can do something about. On a small scale if your chook shed kept being knocked over, attacked or swamped by rain, you would change things. You would sit down and think about where to put it, what to build it from and how to improve conditions for your chooks. The planet is dishing us up some great stuff to deal with. We need to look at it and work out what we can do. Visiting this kind of stuff on other people shouldn't even be on our agenda. Trying to use all our resources and thinking powers to deal with these awful climate problems is something we need to pick up as a challenge and thank you climate scientists for constantly reminding us there is a problem.