Australia has been hit with many natural disasters in the last few years. Cyclones have devastated coastal areas on both the east and west sides of the continent. Massive fires have destroyed hundreds of homes and taken many lives as have the enormous floods. Who can forget the inland tsunami of a couple of years ago that swept through homes and wiped out an entire town in Queensland. Then the floods in New South Wales and Victoria that saw more devastation quickly followed.

Each year the situation worsens and massive temperatures over the summer of 2012-13 are just as bad. Homes are being destroyed in a massive fire burning out of control right now in Victoria and the damage bill will be great. But that does not just include money. These fires destroy more than property as animals cannot escape the flames. Native fauna and farm herds are burned to death or suffer extreme pain while lingering in the burned out ruins of their bushland.

Many fires have burned through National Parks where the native fauna normally have safe refuge so what can humans do about it? It is obvious that the effect of climate change is devastating to many countries and the insects are also suffering. Oceans are warming beyond what life therein can tolerate and recent survey of school fish normally seen around Australia shores demonstrated that they are moving south closer to Antarctica. This is put down to the warming coastal waters. That condition is also taking a toll on the Great Barrier Reef.

It would take a blind or seriously dumb person to deny global warming with so much evidence now available. The call went out over 20 years ago that this would be the effect of overpopulation and the burning of fossil fuels. Even today not many are listening or taking anything from the signs. Money is the ruler and huge coal mines are still being opened up in this country and elsewhere for export to China and India, two of the biggest polluters.

Years ago a clever man designed an engine that could run on water but he received death threats and was literally overlooked because the big oil companies have the ear of governments. The situation is little changed and when one sees scenes of smog so thick that visibility is reduced to almost zero, as in places like Beijing, then one wonders why? Why is the rush to wealth more important than the future of our planet or the lives of our grandchildren?

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