Guest essay by Eric Worrall

h/t Clarky of Oz; According to Michael Mann, Australia could soon be so hot and dry Australians will be forced to become climate refugees.

Hot and dry Australia could join the ranks of ‘climate refugees’

By Swati Pandey,
Reuters January 15, 2020

By Swati Pandey

…

“It is conceivable that much of Australia simply becomes too hot and dry for human habitation,” said Mann, who is director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University.

“In that case, yes, unfortunately we could well see Australians join the ranks of the world’s climate refugees.“

Climate refugees, or environmental migrants, are people forced to abandon their homes due to change in climate patterns or extreme weather events.

Mann, the recipient of last year’s Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, is on a sabbatical in Australia where he is studying climate change.

…

“It’s possible to grow the economy, create jobs, and preserve the environment at the same time. These are things that all Australians could embrace,” Mann said.

“They just need a government that’s willing to act on their behalf rather than on behalf of a handful of coal barons.“

…

Read more: https://news.yahoo.com/hot-dry-australia-could-join-221006927.html

Mann is right that Australia has climate refugees, but most of them are heading in the wrong direction. Tropical Queensland has climate refugees, just like Florida in the USA. Our climate refugees are southerners fleeing the miserable weather, crime and lunatic green energy heating bills in the South to retire in the tropical North.

While parts of Australia have experienced severe drought over the last 20 years, according to the CSIRO the Northern monsoon has substantially increased, bringing record rainfall to parts of Australia’s far North including some of our inland desert regions (see the rainfall map at the top of the page).

If global warming were to expand the tropical belt, pushing the Monsoon rains south, Australia would likely receive more rainfall overall, not less, though some extreme southern regions might need to capture and pipe in water from the North – a proposal which has been on the drawing board in one form or another since the 1930s.

But nobody in Australia expects politicians and government to act quickly to solve important problems; they’re mostly too busy blowing tax money on expensive vanity projects to provide resources to solve Australia’s water supply problems, like questionable high speed rail projects, more solar panels and wind turbines, and upgrading that big Tesla battery.