Mark Dreyfus (MP, Isaacs) Searching for answers over disastrous Australian floods

Remarkably this article ignored the obvious - the role of man-made global warming.

I sent the following comment to The Age in the hope that it might be published uncensored: "

Mark Dreyfus' analysis completely ignores the Elephant in the Room of man-made climate change.

Mark Dreyfus and his Parliamentary colleagues must be referred to The Age editorial of 16 January 2011: "Australian weather is believed to be particularly sensitive to climate change. Like Victoria's fires, floods are part of a natural cycle. La Nina, the periodic oceanic cooling phenomenon, is far more directly to blame for the weather Australia is now experiencing. But it would be shortsighted not to take into account the role of global warming in these catastrophes. Professor David Karoly, from Melbourne University's School of Earth Sciences, says while individual events cannot be attributed to climate change, the extreme weather patterns are in line with scientific predictions that a warmer world will mean more severe droughts, more fires and flooding rains... So far, our political leaders have postponed making difficult decisions about the need to tackle climate change - such as setting a carbon price - because of fears they will be punished by a sceptical electorate. A great effort is required, with no immediate return guaranteed."

Australians, people, business and Government, must start listening to the scientists. While one cannot attribute any one specific flooding event to climate change (just as you cannot firmly attribute a specific case of lung cancer to smoking), the empirical reality is that man-made global warming has been associated with a huge increase in flooding in recent decades (as indeed predicted by the climate scientist models) (for many science-informed views on this simply Google "man-made climate change and flooding") .

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