Eastern Australia January 2020 - burning and fires - the influence of climate change

NSW Rural Fire Service fire ground map

Summer in Australia each year brings the bush fire season with hot weather, low rainfall and high humidity matched with regular electrical storms with more lightning than precipitation. Over meteorological history, the peak period in Australia has tended to be around late January to February for bush fires. Increasingly however this high risk timeframe has come earlier and now commences at the end of Autumn in the preceding year. Temperatures have been hotter at earlier points in time and rainfall has become less dispersed over the land and more concentrated within the period when it does fall. Droughts or floods are the obvious, extreme result.

This measure of impact is the actual influence of climate change in its earliest form at around 1.3C to 1.4C temperature increase. Climate change does not mean that the planet will suddenly be a tropical hothouse as those whom deny human-induced change constantly state, but rather the extremities with weather are now amplified many times over.  This provides an early window into how severe the changes will be if the current inadequate or lack of action continues.

                                                                         Shutterstock

2020 - the year ahead

                                                                             Shutterstock

As 2019 draws to a close and the new year beckons, it is timely to reflect on the year past and the challenges coming in the year ahead. Above all else there are two which come to mind immediately being first, the economy (defined both international and domestic) and second climate change - which continues apace. These two challenges are inter-related in any case and deserve a holistic set of solutions which a range of governments seem unable or unwilling to address.

Solutions for the environment need to encompass an array of issues including energy generation policy and distribution networks, materiels usage and life cycles (across all manufacturing sectors), further development of renewable energy and reduction in fossil fuel reliance and of urgent attention, climate change adaptation for food production and general living. Without all of these matters being addressed concurrently, life for human beings on this planet will become increasing difficult with a potential 4C temperature increase now a viable possibility.

As far as the world economy can be viewed, the two major influences are Brexit and the US/China trade war. Brexit may be less pronounced than first thought as the European Union has already advised that it intends to press ahead with a Free Trade Agreement with the United Kingdom as soon as Brexit is finalised. The US/China trade war has led to repeated renegotiation and has not, as yet, eventuated into a complete trade suspension and is mainly a tit-for-tat use of tariff measures. Around the world however low wages, low inflation, low productivity and low interest rates are closer to stagflation than recession.

On the international relations front, 2020 will begin with the ongoing matters from 2019  - Brexit, the US/China trade conflicts, some scale back in the Syrian war due to the likely success of the Assad Government in finally winning the civil war and the ongoing internal violence in Afghanistan and Iraq. China will continue to press its claim to the South China Sea and North Korea, although quiet at present may resume some further missile tests.

Happy new year !

Saint Nicholas - the original Santa Claus

Saint Nicholas - defender of the faith

Shopping centres have live dress-up versions for children to have their photo taken with; large inflatable dummies are available as Christmas decorations; and streets are festooned in reindeers, sleds and a large, jolly, laughing man with a beard dressed in a red outfit. Santa Claus. Otherwise known as Saint Nicholas.

Who was the real Saint Nicholas ? He is considered to have been the Bishop of Myra, located in modern day Turkey, but a Roman town in the late third century AD. During this period, he was imprisoned during the Great Persecution in 303 AD and was only released when the Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan. Nicholas was known to be the defender of Church doctrine and not so easily dissuaded from his faith. He died around 343 AD however over the centuries since, his fame has grown to the extent that it has become independent of the Christian origin. He is known as the patron to many groups of people from sailors, orphans and prisoners but especially children and the fables record his generosity with gifts and miracles he performed. During the Middle Ages, his image assumed a distinctively European deity form with both Roman and Norse characteristics.

The oft-used picture of Saint Nicholas as a bearded man dressed in a red, fur-lined coat  from the North Pole is a very recent one from the 19th Century originating predominantly in North America. This image has migrated back to Europe and been accepted as the cultural norm. He was closer in fact to the one portrayed above which also to an extent is more of the Romanticist portrayal.

At this time, perhaps the strong, committed example of Saint Nicholas has an application well beyond the Christmas season.