A CHANGE IS GONNA TO COME

Last week, in the midst of Adelaide's record heatwave, I spent a day with a south coast farmer whose family have worked their patch of country for three or four generations. Over the years they've seen pretty much everything - droughts, floods, fires, the works. But after the experience of the past 5 years they are having to radically rethink how they look after the farm and how they keep water up to their stock. They will need - at considerable cost - to install a whole new regime to secure their water supply and keep the farm going.
One of the key points about climate change is not just the computer predications about gradual global warming by a degree here or there, or sea level rises over decade or three. The other dimension to climate change is that our seasons will turn ever more unpredictable. So even when farmers get a year of 'average rainfall', the rains come in a brief flurry, followed by several dry months which means there's no decent growing season for crops or pastures.
At the same time, this more erratic climate hits us with more frequent and severe events like floods and storms and sudden bursts of wild weather - including extreme temperatures and winds, akin to those that drove the current fires in Victoria.
Everyone suddenly wants answers to questions about natural catastrophes. People want to know how we can learn from what has happened. All the usual responses are there - who to blame, what went wrong, why did this happen and so on.
No one can say for certain that the severity of the weather that fuelled what happened in Victoria was due to man-made climate change - although some commentators are ready to beat that drum. Given the huge grief process that's unfolding - with all the natural numbness, anger, despair etc - trying to fit in a public argument about the role of climate change does seem premature.
That said, you have to wonder, at least in private.

THOREAU'S LATEST LEGACY

Almost every week somebody seems to mention an intuition about changes in seasonal patterns. (In my part of the world it's usually about rainfall - or the lack of it.) Occasionally people even have stories of plants and animals that appear affected by climate change. As well as this anecdotal stuff there is, of course, some serious science now being employed to micro-monitor the impacts in ecosystems. But for a very different take on the climate question check out this wonderful - if somewhat disturbing - story in the New York Times. That original tree-changer old Henry Thoreau is often lauded for his philosophical postures and contemplative prose. But as this tale reveals, his ideas were cantilevered off a lavishly detailed knowledge of the natural world.