Nineteen years ago, on this day, January 7th, 2006,
RISING food prices, increased bushfire risk and diminishing water supplies are some of the challenges Australia will face as the pace of global warming accelerates. The Bureau of Meteorology delivered its annual climate summary this week, showing that 2005 was Australia’s hottest year on record. The nation’s annual mean temperature for 2005 was 1.09C above the average, well above the previous record of 0.84C in 1998.
Anon. 2006. Dire warming warning; Dearer food, more bushfires, less water on way. Canberra Times 7 January.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 382ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was the Millennium Drought was still going on, and the impacts were piling up, The policy blocking from the Liberals and Nationals continuing, was continuing.
What I think we can learn from this is that there hasn’t really been any scientific debate or doubt about climate since, wow, you can, you can vary it, but the early 90s, maybe (I personally would say late 1970s).
And the messages have been clear enough, but the politicians have been able to do the bidding of the incumbent fossil fuel interests in ignoring these warnings. How so? Because they are not forced to take action that would upset their donors and, frankly, string pullers,Why? Because there is no engaged enraged civil society. Bcause people have it drilled into them from an early age that they are to “stay in their lane,” that they are to do what their lords and masters tell them to do.
Btw, we will prioritize obedience and sycophancy, because these are rewarded and anything else is punished by the passively or actively, until we’re all dead. What happened next The Bureau of Meteorology has been on the receiving end of various accusations from the nut job denialists, of course. How could they not be? The Millennium drought broke in sort of 2010. A carbon price, which was basically the smallest part of what an adequate response would look like, became politically impossible in Australia after 2012