Floods are sweeping across NSW and 18,000 people have been evacuated, and rain is forecast to keep coming for til Wednesday. Flooding is described as the worst in 60 years. But that’s the point. There have always been floods right after droughts and fires — and we knew that 150 years ago.
The scandal is that in 1865, scientists had a better grip on what caused them. Today “top” climate scientists think your car causes the weather.
Top science in 2021: Solar panels and windmills could have stopped the flooding:
The multiple natural disasters Australia has experienced over the past 18 months — such as the floods currently ravaging NSW — should be blamed on climate change, say experts from the Climate Council.
“The intense rainfall and floods that have devastated NSW communities are taking place in an atmosphere made warmer and wetter by climate change, which is driven by the burning of coal, oil, and gas,” Climate Council spokesperson Will Steffen said in a statement on Monday.
“For many communities dealing with floods right now, this is the latest in a line of climate change-exacerbated extreme weather events they have faced, including drought, the Black Summer bushfires, and scorching heatwaves,” he added.
The more money we put into government funded science the more it looks like witchcraft
Does CO2 cause floods? It takes 3 minutes in the historic Trove archives to test this theory. In a surprise to Supermodels everywhere, getting CO2 back to 310ppm (even if it were possible) would return Australia to 1950, so we already know how this works out.
There were a spate of floods in Eastern Australia in the 1950’s and 1960s when La Nina’s were more common and the world was cooling. For example, in 1949 8 people were killed and 20,000 were left homeless in New South Wales by flooding. The Adelaide Chronicle June 23, 1949
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In Maitland in 1955, 25 people died, 2,000 homes were inundated and 58 homes washed away. This was only three years after the previous floods when The Hume Highway at Camden was under 30 feet of water.
NEWSFLASH: There were floods in New South Wales in 1857 even before coal fired power was invented
A quarter century before the first coal power plant was built anywhere in the world, devastating floods washed over New South Wales. There were three separate floods in 1857, “each worse than the one before”. The floods and storms were described as afflicting an area from far north of Taree down to Goulburn.
Hunter River Floods, 1857
“Five years of firewood” washed up:
What amount of property was destroyed by the flood it is impossible to ascertain. The piles of wood, which of themselves would supply the inhabitants of both East and West Maitland with firewood for the next five years, have buried in, without doubt, some hundreds of pounds’ worth of property. Many families are left entirely destitute of food and raiment. It is impossible to give an accurate description of this desolate scene.
On the Hawkesbury “Windsor was almost an island, there was no escape by dry land.” In Mudgee, the “consequences were most disastrous “. .. the rain fell in torrents… ” “Other floods occurred at Penrith, Camden, Gouldburn and Cassilis.”
Part a Floods, NSW, September 10th, 1857, Manning River, Trove, NSW. Sydney Morning Herald| Click to enlarge.
Part b. Floods, NSW, September 10th, 1857, Manning River, Trove, NSW. Sydney Morning Herald| Click to enlarge.
In 2021, among other things, cows are even being rescued from the surf on beaches, which probably makes them a lot luckier than the ones that got washed downriver in 1857.
Thoughts and best wishes for everyone caught in this natural disaster.