CLIMATE CHANGE puts the problems of pollution and other threats into insignificance.

Our civilisations and our world and all it's wildlife and natural beauty is under threat from climate change

Climate change does not appear to be caused by pollution nor terrorists.

Climate Change is caused by the way our earth revolves around the sun, the earth's tilt, and the wobble around that tilt.

Climate change is very bad news. The more we understand it, the more we come to realise the potential damage climate change can do.

The damage caused by climate change is estimated at any where from millions being displaced by rising oceans, to a final death toll of around 5/6 of the entire human race as result of food shortages. The seas are expected to rise by as much as seven metres/yards according to some climate change models, with cities like Miami being underwater and 50 kilometres from the nearest landfall.

How can things warming up a few degrees with climate change have such devastating consequences?

Take Australia as an example. I live in a town that relies on a large lake, that lake is fed only by rainfall over an area of only several square kilometres / miles, which feeds underground rivers which then run into the lake - there is no other water supply. Over the last twelve years that we have lived here, the rainfall has dropped very noticeably and the lake has dropped noticeably. We are talking about an area close to the coast that had very high rainfall, now having very little rainfall; from constant 24 hour rain for days and months on end, to a spatter of rain every now and then. Our town is now worrying about running out of water. The effect of climate change is quite noticeable, but our lake will preserve us for a few more years. Obviously, farmers can't grow crops without rain, so although we may be able to survive climate change for a while, the shortage of food will become more and more apparent.

In the bigger picture, Australia's food bowl - the Darling-Murray basin - is no longer going to be allocated water for agricultural purposes. Climate change has meant that there is insufficient water left. With the climate change causing Australia's food bowl to dry up, 70% of our food dies along with it. The climate change is killing our country's major food producing areas.

To focus this climate change picture to the coastlands of Australia. The effect of climate change is expected to be devastating rainfall and massive storms with great winds, along with rising sea levels. So anyone living near the sea is likely to be either displaced or drowned. The climate change is also having results that appear unpredictable, for example, Sydney gets lashed by massive down pours and wind gusts, but the rain isn't falling in their dam catchment area, which means that Sydney's water supply is still going down. Melbourne is on extreme water restrictions, again no rain in the catchment areas the dams were made in. Although most people are thinking of climate change as a slow process, the fact is that if Greenland loses it's ice cap quickly, the effect will be a rapid alteration to the ocean currents, causing things to happen much faster. The advance sign of a rapid meltdown brought on by climate change is expected to be fractures in the Greenland ice sheets - such fractures, being several metres wide and kilometres / miles long and deep, allows warm water to enter the base of the ice sheets, melting and fracturing them much faster. If the seas rise suddenly, the ports are lost for importing food from overseas and we end up looking at most of these people along our coastal belt possibly dying.

The other scenario of slow rising oceans means that ports can be built higher up and allow food to be imported, but eventually, as our food was also our big export earner, the time may come when our dollar wont buy the food we need. On another note, Western Australia may be able to supply enough wheat to keep us going here in Australia. Certainly though, our food situation becomes more fragile, if anything attacks the Western Australia crops, such as the new wheat rust, our food supply would be devastated I think.

There is talk of the food producing areas moving further south as a result of the climate change. When people talk of this they are referring to the temperature needed by food crops and animals to survive. Unfortunately, there is no evidence to suggest that the south ward land is being spared by the drought. So the climate change may improve the temperature for growing crops in the south lands of Australia, but the water wont be there to grow them.

If we go to an even bigger picture of climate change, sudden rises in sea water will mean exporting countries will lose their ability to export, as their ports go under water as well.

It is also necessary to realise that the areas that may be habitable at the start of the climate change may be different to the habitable areas during and after the climate change. The climate change has been postulated as lasting for about 300 years. So there may be no single area capable of supporting life on an ongoing basis over that 300 year period.

In terms of the effect of climate change on temperature, it appears that the further north in the world you go, the more the increase will be. The upper part of Australia will be one of the last affected in a big way, while the southern part may escape the big rise.

The confusing element from my perspective, is why, when the sea levels are rising, the oceans are warming, rainfall is getting less for us where I live. You would expect the rising water and rising temperature of climate change to increase evaporation and therefore increase precipitation ( rainfall ), but this isn't what I am observing - in fact the opposite is occurring here and throughout Australia's food bowl.

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