Raising the issue of the role of climate change in extreme weather events is always a delicate matter for families battling grief over lost homes and emergency service teams managing the aftermath.
But that doesn't mean the rest of us can't have a discussion about the issues. If not now, when?
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| Malcolm Turnbull visit burned out homes in Tathra on Monday. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen |
Unlike Abbott, though, Turnbull is not a denier of climate change, having taken personal efforts to school himself in the issue with scientists from the University of NSW well before becoming Prime Minister.
So, it's surprising to hear Turnbull on TV on Monday, in rebuttal of Greens' leader Richard Di Natale that climate change was behind Sunday's fires, saying: "We have an environment which has extremes. Bushfires are part of Australia, as indeed are droughts and floods."
Fears of asbestos contamination restricted residents coming to see if their home was destroyed by fire to a bus tour of the NSW south coast town.
"[A]s you know very well, you can't attribute any particular event, whether it's a flood or fire or a drought ... to climate change," Turnbull said.
Labor leader Bill Shorten said on Tuesday there were legitimate questions to ask about the impact of climate change but opted to avoid inflaming the discussion just now.
“I understand there is a debate about climate in this county,” he said during a visit to Tathra. “On a day when 69 houses have gone, it is not a debate I will start.”
Actually, the science of attribution is advancing fast, and extreme heat - and with it, days of high fire risk - is among the clearer climate signals.
As Andrew King of Melbourne University and David Karoly - now head of the CSIRO's climate centre - noted Australia is actually at the head of the pack when it comes to joining the dots between extreme weather and global warming.
To be clear, it's not a case of saying Sunday's fires near Bega (or south-west Victoria) were sparked by climate change. Rather it's a matter of probabilities.
"While we can’t say climate change caused an extreme event, we can estimate how much more or less likely the event has become due to human influences on the climate," King and Karoly note.
Whether the Tathra fires are deemed large enough to examine for attribution (and the chance that Adelaide, Hobart, Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane should all hit 30 degrees so late in the season as they did on Saturday) will be up the scientists to decide.
But fire authorities across Australia know the bushfire season is getting longer. So, too, is the frequency, intensity and duration of heatwaves.
Add our fire-prone eucalyptus forests - with many species needing fire to regenerate - and it's no wonder Australians have particular cause to fear climate change.
"Nature hurls her worst at us ... always will and always has," Turnbull said.
The worst, though, will in some cases get more extreme, and pretending otherwise is not leadership.
Links
- Malcolm Turnbull disappointed Greens linked Tathra bushfires to climate change
- 'I'm furious': Tathra councillor says now is the time to talk climate
- Di Natale doubles down on blaming climate change for fires
- Tathra losses unlikely to have been worsened by lack of planned burns
- Bushfire in Tathra wipes out 69 homes, residents still unable to return to NSW south coast town
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