Flannery in the SMH

Tim Flannery has an article in the Sydney Morning Herald [Reg Req] blaming Sydney's water crisis on climate change - and on climate change which has already happened. According to Flannery, Earth's climate has changed twice since 1976, and each time Australia has become drier. The small rise in temperature over the last century combined with ozone depletion (which cools the stratosphere and affects weather patterns) has resulted in generally lower winter rainfall, but more importantly, there has been a rise in the frequency and severity of the el Nino weather pattern, which causes droughts in Australia. Sydney will apparantly face a serious water crisis in three years just from these effects alone, but what's worrying is that all are likely to grow more serious as the planet warms. Which means that in the long run, Sydney is either going to have to install desalination plants, or dry up and blow away.

It's rather sobering to think that climate change could already be having this sort of effect, and on somewhere so close to home.