Coal powered air conditioners rattle through suburbia, shops and malls. All doors are wide open to invite possible customers in. People and pets are advised to stay indoors in the land of the great outdoors. Livestock are precooked on treeless paddocks. Wildlife will have to manage somehow. The media disseminates images of beaches with jolly beach bodies cooling down before racing back to their ac suv to carry them to the next cool location."The globally averaged temperature over land and ocean surfaces for 2014 was the highest among all years since record keeping began in 1880." The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA
Houses seem to be built for another geographical region, but not Australia. After 100s of years they have not come to terms with the climate, let alone unhinged catastrophic climate change.
" ..You see the same housing design from Hobart to Emerald to even Darwin, and that's madness... Australia's houses are poorly adapted to extremes of temperature. Houses with little shade, green space or surrounding trees, and with dark roofs and low ceilings, mean that the only way to cool them is to turn on the air-conditioning", Dr Hanna, Ecomagazine
Whatever the seemingly temporary dwelling is, just bang a legionnaires disease dripping air conditioner on it and 'she'll be right'. Should there be a blackout it is always handy to blame possum for dark malls and melting businesses where nothing goes without electronic gadgets.
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| Stay cool Bellingen |
"Historically in Australia, more people die from heatwaves than they do from any other type of natural disaster," Professor SteffenLeaving the habitable planet option behind, out of control fires rage over the country. While the climate is "getting out of control", Australia chooses to stick its head into the hot beach sand and tolerate the increasing emissions of greenhouse gases.
"About 10 per cent of fires are lit by
children." Dr Janet Stanley, Monash University, abc
Images:
'Stay cool' Bellingen CBD, where local motorists turn the park into a car park
Blackout, eu
Heatwaves, blackouts and infrastructure breakdown, CSIRO
Hot and bothered: our health under climate change, ECOS
Urban areas see more heat waves, environmental research web
More readings on the 'life style' of bankruptcy
Henry Miller, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, 1945
