That takes me to a note received recently from a friend, former CSIRO climate scientist, retired professor from the University of Melbourne’s School of Earth Sciences and now a member of the Climate Council, Professor David Karoly.
He told me the weather forecast for this summer was in, and it was “not pretty”.
Prof Karoly first came to Shepparton in 2011 to give a lecture about climate change in the auditorium at the university’s Graham St Department of Rural Health.
He has been back to the Goulburn Valley several times since, twice for events organised by Shepparton’s Beneath the Wisteria and once as a guest speaker at the Tatura Transition Towns film festival.
The professor has also spoken, some time ago, with previous members of Greater Shepparton City Council.
In his latest email, Prof Karoly said: “We’re facing hotter, wetter and more chaotic months ahead in Australia, with heatwaves, powerful cyclones, bushfires and flooding possible.”
It follows what the Bureau of Meteorology confirmed earlier this month as our hottest spring since 1910.
“Robert,” he wrote, “you, and I know this isn’t a fluke.”
“It’s the reality of a warming planet, driven by climate pollution from burning coal, oil and gas.
“But too many people still aren’t connecting the dots between extreme weather and climate pollution — and part of the problem lies in how it’s reported.”
Prof Karoly said we needed journalists to spell out the link to climate pollution when reporting on extreme weather events.
He said, along with Climate Councillor Greg Mullins and the Climate Council media team, reporters were being encouraged to explain to their readers that this summer was shaping up to be hotter, wetter and more chaotic.
That was point one of his note. The three others were:
2. Climate pollution from digging up and burning coal, oil and gas has overheated our planet, and rewritten the rule book, making history a poor guide for what’s next.
3. We face higher risks of compounding disasters — multiple extreme events hitting at once or in quick succession.
4. This era of climate-fuelled disasters is endangering Australians and stretching disaster and emergency management.
He then added: “While this summer’s outlook may feel daunting, there is hope.
“Every action to cut climate pollution today creates a safer future for our kids.
“Every conversation, every article linking extreme weather to climate pollution, matters.”
My adulation of Prof Karoly began when I heard him speak at the university’s week-long ‘Festival of Ideas’ in 2009 and soon after I asked him to come to Shepparton and speak about what I had heard at the festival.
He immediately agreed but asked for patience as he was, at the time, deeply involved in work with assessment reports with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
It was worth the wait, as about 70 people heard him speak as he explained the climate issue, no holds barred.
Prof Karoly recently co-authored an article on The Conversation with the University of Melbourne’s Associate Professor in Climate Science Andrew King.
“The year 2024 was the world’s warmest on record globally, and the first calendar year in which global temperatures exceeded 1.5°C above its pre-industrial levels,” they said.
“The official declaration was made on Friday by the Copernicus Climate Change Service, the European Union’s Earth observation program.
“It comes as wildfires continue to tear through Los Angeles, California — a disaster scientists say was made worse by climate change.
“This record-breaking global heat is primarily driven by humanity’s ongoing greenhouse gas emissions, caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
“The warming won’t stop until we reach net-zero emissions.”
Aiming to escape the heat, I walk early, and passing a few days ago through our city’s CBD, I spotted a homeless fellow asleep in a shop doorway on a piece of cardboard and couldn’t help wonder how he coped while many of us enjoyed our air-conditioned comfort.
38°C