A World of Extremes

It seems quite surreal to me that we are here in Melbourne having survived a record-breaking heatwave – temperatures which I’ve never experienced in my life before (over 43C!) leading to power outages across the state as mass airconditioner use drags the grid to it’s knees- while at the same time our friends back in the UK report the great British snow-in.

It’s an unfortunate aspect of the human condition that we tend draw conclusions from the most innocuous of coincidences. There’s a hurricane in the US, must be global warming! (In fact hurricane incidences are lower than they were historically) That said, a hundred-year heatwave here in Oz and a decades record blizzard in the UK and you start to wonder if the statistical likelihood of these extremes occuring at the same time can really be put down to random coincidence.

I’ve heard it said, though I couldn’t quote you where, that climate change will result in more extreme weather. When you witness the disruption caused by these events, power outtages and buckled rails/cancelled trains here, mass transport breakdown in the UK, you have to conclude that the immediate consequence is that we need to address the resilience of infrastructure regarding extreme weather. Maybe this would be a good target for the multi-billions being rashly spent by world governments in an attempt to simulate ailing economies?

Although in the case of Australia, I think the first item on the overspend agenda should be a public service marketing campaign to teach Australians the value of insulation for the cold and the heat. Most Australians tend to believe that insulation just makes things hotter while at the same time they are ‘load shed’ from the electricity grid because their airconditioners are guzzling more power than the available generation capacity. Aircons in Californian-style weatherboard homes? Not much use Bruce.