California's Jinxed Air Quality Measures and the Power of the Aesthetic

By Wayne Lusvardi

This week U.S. District Judge Anthony Ishii held the California Air Resources Board in abeyance from enforcing new vehicular tail-pipe emission standards for greenhouse gases until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on a related global warming case. The issue catapulted into Judge Ishii's court after a California Central Valley auto dealership and the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers sued the state. At issue is whether the rule is a de facto mandate on fuel-economy standards, which must be set by the federal government. See here.
Like the phrase from the movie and novel "Love Story," judges and bureaucratic agencies "never seem have to say they're sorry" in California for the disastrous consequences after issuing their imperious air quality rulings. Let's consider the regulation of air emission standards under the Clean Air Act starting in the 1970's. Starting in 1975 car manufacturers had to install catalytic converters. And the EPA banned the use of leaded gasoline. MTBE replaced lead as an oxygenating agent in gasoline.

But MTBE, an additive intended to produce cleaner-burning gasoline, was found to contribute to both air and groundwater pollution. Underground gasoline storage tanks had to be removed statewide afterwards and many small independent gas stations went out of business due to the prohibitive cost. The price of gasoline spiked because of mandated seasonal changes to the blend of gasoline and the lack of competition from small, independent gas stations. The clean up cost to water agencies and gasoline station owners was in the billions.

Title 24: Energy Tight Buildings (Fresh air phobia)

Or consider California Title 24 Building Energy Efficiency Standards enacted in 1978. Title 24 came into being after the "Energy Crises" of the late 1970's from the Mid-East oil embargo of 1973. Title 24 required that all new commercial office buildings be made "energy-tight" with sealed windows and re-circulating air and heat systems and modular office furniture which allowed indoor air to re-circulate over work cubicles.

Most agree that Title 24 saves energy, but it also makes people sick. Legionnaire's disease and "sick building syndrome" cases exploded after Title 24 was enacted. And billions of dollars have been spent ridding commercial and governmental building ventilation systems of (harmless) asbestos insulation (which was a factor in the disaster following the World Trade Center attacks). Other indoor air quality contaminants such as radon, formaldehyde in carpets, mold and more recently anthrax have also emerged as hazards mostly as a result of trapped air in buildings. This is also the source of the "second-hand smoke" health bogeyman.

The origin of all these toxic indoor air quality problems was not the toxic substances per se but the requirement to re-circulate indoor air with little exchange of fresh outdoor air. It violated the first law of toxicology: "the dose makes the poison." And concentrating nearly any substance indoors resulted in toxic and/or irritating exposures and sick days from epidemics of influenza.

State Energy Crisis of 2001

In 1996 the Federal EPA mandated that California reduce smog or it would impose fees on air and ship traffic, no-drive days and one-stop truck deliveries. See here. The fastest way to reduce smog was to mothball all its old, polluting power plants, which was called "energy deregulation." The problem of how to pay off the old mortgages (stranded debts) on the mothballed power plants was the real "crisis" behind the scenes of government. Regulatory agencies enacted price controls, tacked surcharges ("transition fees") on energy purchases, and erected inter-state trading barriers (spawning Enron's infamous energy congestion games such as "Fat Boy," "Death Star," and "Get Shorty").

The government hoped to induce an energy pricing fever to pay off the debts instead of having to raise taxes and risk politicians getting thrown out of office. This scheme obviously failed and the unpaid debts and unpaid electricity bills during the crisis were eventually rolled into a $12 billion bond issue. Water and utility districts, the U.C. system, public school districts, and industry were left with huge electricity bills. The three large Investor-Owned Utilities (IOU's) in California were forced to sell power at a loss nearly going bankrupt.

High Costs, Only Aesthetic Benefits

All of the above cases of draconian environmental regulatory failure wouldn't sound like something out of a Greek tragedy if they had accomplished healthier air quality as advertised. However, asthma and other respiratory maladies have continued to increase despite a 70% or more decrease in air pollutants in the past few decades. See here

The more recent effort in California to reduce greenhouse gases and pollution from a "dirty coal" plant in Utah is another example of chasing green power windmills. The apparent concern about the Utah power plant in question is not real health impacts, but wealth and aesthetic impacts on the tourist economy due to the haze around Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Zion, Canyonlands and Arches national parks. See here.

California Jinx

All great empires have used the power of aesthetics, such as the Mayan pyramids as depicted in the current movie Apocalypto, and more recently in the architecture and public works of fascists Hitler and Mussolini (see: Frederic Spotts, Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics). Apparently what drives California environmental policies is the sheer power of aesthetics and public spectacle extended to the visible environment. While proven health benefits never seem to materialize from such aesthetic environmental policies the costs are great and the side effects are paradoxically dangerous to human health.

It's as if California were jinxed. However, California's record of environmental regulatory jinxes reminds us that no one person or organization, is smart enough to foresee the unintended consequences of coercive actions far removed from where people live and work. As sociologist Peter L. Berger has written: "Policies that ignore the indigenous definitions of a situation are prone to fail."

Power of Aesthetics

Judges, government policy makers, and regulatory enforcement agencies aren't inclined to spend resources listening or modifying their rules: they think they know what's best already. This is especially the case of the "knowledge class" in academia, the legal and regulatory systems, advocacy organizations and the media which continue to make scapegoats of oil and energy companies for the misguided policies of government environmental agencies. Politicians aren't about to take a realistic look at the disasters such policies wrought because the power of aesthetics hold sway over crucial voting constituencies. California even has a governor whose career has been in producing such powerful aesthetic images.

When the U.S. Supreme Court or the Federal U.S. District Court convenes to consider another round of clean air regulations for California let's hope they realize that such are not the rational response to a body of evidence. They are an act of faith driven not only by vested interests but by sophisticated vested ideas fueled by a secularized invisible religion in a utopian rationally planned life.





GLOBAL COOLING MORE LIKELY

Note!!! The information contained within in this website is written in layman's terms so that the general public can more easily absorb it.

As a retired Paleoclimatologist I can state that Earth's climate has been warming very slowly, a natural and normal progression, as we are currently in an Interglacial period (between ice ages). An Interglacial period is a geological interval of time with warmer global average temperature that separates glacials or ice ages. Our current Holocene interglacial has persisted since the Pleistocene, approximately 11,500 years ago. Superimposed on this very long climate change cycle is a number of smaller ones caused by small variations in the energy output of our Sun, wobbles of our Earth as it spins on it's axis and the eccentricity of Earth's orbit around the Sun.

However there is now growing evidence that the interglacial warming has revered itself but I'm not sure if the reversal signals a return to a long term Ice Age or another shorter Little Ice Age. Typically an interglacial period lasts approximately 11,500 years, so anecdotal evidence would point to a return of a long term ice age. However as the Sun is at an 8000 year high as far as activity it's a tough call. Personally I lean towards another "Little Ice Age".

However as an objective true environmentalist with no political ax to grind I stand firmly against the current junk science, Marxist whackjob political, media and pop culture craze of man induced harmful global warming and ozone depletion. It's a total and utter fraud partially based on scientists within government and academia garnering a livelihood on earmarked global warming taxpayer funded research giveaways by federal and state governments. Basically they tell the government what they want to hear to keep the $$$ rolling in. Long gone are the days of objectivity in science. There is also a sinister political and socio economic motive driving the harmful man induced climate change (global warming) crowd.

No matter what you read in magazines, newspapers, on the internet, hear on the radio, see on TV: There is absolutely no credible evidence that can be independently verified that harmful man induced climate change (global warming) is occurring. The same goes for harmful man induced ozone depletion.

The Ozone holes in the atmosphere in the Arctic and Antarctic regions are naturally occurring due to meteorological effects, the holes expand and contract with the change of season. The meteorological effects consist of high velocity stratospheric level winds that peak during local winter and act to destroy ozone. Also there is less UV radiation from the Sun due to the inclination of Earth's axis during hemispheric Winter.....

The record cold of the decades of the 1890's, 1940's, 1970's, 1980's and most recently the bitter northern hemisphere winters of 2000-2001, 2001-2002, 2002-2003 argue against man induced harmful global warming. Also Winter 2000-2001 and 2004-2005 in Siberian Russia as well as Winter 2004 in Antarctica was the coldest in recorded history. And let's not forget that January 2004 in Boston, MA was the coldest in 111 years. Grand Forks, ND set it's all time record low of -44 deg. below zero F, Fosston, MN also at -50 deg. below zero F and Saskatchewan Canada saw minimum temperatures fall to -62 deg. below zero F, all in Winter 2003-2004.

But what is the point of the above paragraph? It is to demonstrate that for every short term global record warm weather event that is heralded in the media as an example of global warming, there is a counter balancing global record cold weather event, usually ignored by the media.

The Warminista's point to each and every regional warm event as proof positive that harmful man induced climate change (global warming) is occurring. At the same time they just ignore regional cold events or I should say that they used too. Their new tactic now is to conveniently blame every regional cooling event as also proof positive that harmful man induced climate change (global warming) is occurring. So they have a win-win situation.

As follows are more cold weather anomaly's in the winter of 2006-2007, 2005-2006 and 2004-2005 that you probably have not heard about in the U.S. media.

.....On January 15, 2007 Lancaster, CA broke their monthly record, coming within one degree of their all-time record low temperature. LANCASTER TEMPERATURE OF 03 DEGREES TODAY SET A NEW MONTHLY RECORD FOR JANUARY. THE COLDEST ALL TIME RECORD FOR LANCASTER WAS 02 DEGREES SET DECEMBER 24 1984.....

.....Snow showers fell across portions of the central peninsula of Florida east of U.S. 41 and north of S.R. 50 during the Tuesday evening-Wednesday morning period November 21-22, 2006, including the Orlando metro area. The snow showers were the earliest ever observed on the central peninsula and state and reported since European settlers arrived. On the morning of November 22, 2006 Archbold which is located on the south central peninsula region observed a minimum temperature of 28 deg.....

.....It snowed in downtown Los Angeles for the first time in modern times on Saturday February 18, 2006.....

.....During the first two weeks of February 2006 all of Alaska with the exception of the panhandle region was in the grip of extreme below zero temperature. Inland area temperatures repeatedly dropped into the -50 to -65 deg. F below zero range.....

.....During the first week of December 2005 the coldest minimum temperatures ever observed so early in the season chilled the lower 48 states, with the exception of the Florida Peninsula. Below zero daytime readings dipped deep into Colorado and Kansas, with night time sub zero readings into west Texas. Frozen precipitation fell at Corpus Christi and Brownsville, TX and into northern Mexico S-SW of Brownsville and Del Rio. Some north and central Plains region areas saw minimum temperatures in the -20 to -30 deg. below zero range.....

.....November 2005 was the coldest in the last 30 years in the northern Great Plains, Mid West and Great Lakes regions.....

....During Southern Hemisphere Winter 2005 Russia's Vostok base on the ice cap of East Antarctica set the new all time coldest minimum temperature on Earth of -132 deg. below zero. The previous record was -129 deg below zero......

.....Tuesday was even colder than usual at Russia's Vostok base on the ice cap of East Antarctica. The high of -101 degrees was fully 25 degrees below average for early May. The low was -104 degrees, or about 15 degrees below average.....

.....Monday April 25, 2005 a 31.9 deg. minimum temperature is observed in central Florida. Two other locations observed 32 deg. I've been keeping track of temperature in Florida since 1965 and this is the latest 32 deg. minimum temperature during that time period.....

.....Sunday-Monday April 24-25, 2005. A record breaking late season snowfall has occurred in parts of Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Snowfall totals of up to 12-24" have been measured.

.....Sunday April 17, 2005 a 31.8 deg. minimum temperature is observed in central Florida.....

.....Greater Havana, Cuba, dawned rather chilly Monday morning April 4, 2005. At the Jose Marti international airport south of the city's center, the temperature dipped to 50 degrees whereas the average daily low during April is 70. A minimum temperature of 31.6 deg. was also observed in central Florida.....

.....Late season chill has descended on southeast Europe. At the same time, moisture streaming in from the Mediterranean has produced snow over parts of Turkey. The mountainous terrain over central Turkey has had a few inches of snow. Even in the capital city, Ankara, the snow managed to accumulate as temperatures were just below freezing and the snow was briefly heavy.....

.....The snowfall at Cleveland Hopkins airport for the day is 6.4 inches. This brings the snowfall total for the 2004-2005 season to 105.3 inches, which breaks the all time record for the snowiest season at Cleveland Hopkins airport, which was 101.1 inches in 1995-1996.....

.....The coldest March night on record occurred across the Netherlands this past Thursday night. Sub-zero readings were recorded across the country. Marknesse fell to an overnight low of -5F. Such cold weather capped a week of heavy snows which buried some parts of the country under 20 inches. This winter has been the snowiest in the past 50 years for the Netherlands.....

.....Snow-covered palm trees in the Mediterranean, travel chaos on the continent and a rise in heating costs are the results of an unusual European cold snap.....

.....In some parts of The Netherlands snowfall was up to 20 inches, the highest levels recorded for March in the past 20 to 25 years, the Dutch meteorological institute said.....

.....Italy's port city of Genoa was paralyzed by a blanket of rare late winter white stuff that caused traffic chaos as far away as Milan, in one of the coldest starts to March on record, meteorologists said. Authorities closed Genoa airport, shut city schools and ordered buses off the roads as a blizzard blanketed the Liguria coastline. Milan also got a rare covering of snow during the morning, as did the nearby cities of Turin and Parma. In Turin, the thermometer fell to a record 17 Fahrenheit overnight, while Rome suffered its coldest March for 18 years.....

.....Heavy snowfall and below-freezing temperatures across most of northern and central Greece this week have cut off dozens of mountain villages, blocked roads and led authorities to close some schools.....

.....In Spain, renowned for its warm winter sunshine in parts, palm trees in the Mediterranean city of Barcelona have been topped with snow and Madrid has seen its heaviest snowfall for about 15 years.....

.....One of the worst winters in decades continues to bring heavy snows and cold air to Afghanistan and Pakistan. In Pakistan, over 300 people have died from the series of heavy snowfalls in the past few weeks. The heavy snows have stranded over hundreds of thousands of people in Kashmir.....

.....Monday dawned with bitter cold in much of central Quebec, Canada. At Lac Benoit, for example, the early morning low was -48 degrees. Near Manouane, -46 degrees was registered early Monday, and the -43 degrees registered at Bonnard was a full 30 degrees below average.....

.....Heavy snowfall in Indian-controlled Kashmir has claimed more than 100 lives, and dozens were still missing Monday, the BBC reported. The snow created avalanches over villages south of Srinagar, destroying homes and killing about 70 people. Indian soldiers and medical personnel were searching for survivors Monday in the region, where 15 feet of snow has fallen since Friday.....

.....Snow this week has once again whitened northernmost Africa. In Algeria, the city of Constantine lay under seven inches of snow early Wednesday. A few weeks ago the same region was hit with 24-26" of the white stuff.....

.....In far northern Norway, the town of Kautokeino set consecutive lows of -27 and -26 degrees Monday and Tuesday. These were followed by afternoon highs of -12 and -10 degrees. In February, an average day here would have a low of 0 and a high of 13 degrees, so the weather has been considerably colder than usual.....

.....An impressive cold wave persisted over much of the Balkan Peninsula Friday. Night-times this week have been especially frigid over the region owing to clear skies, light winds and, in many places, a thick snow cover. In Serbia, Sjenica registered consecutive lows of -17, -21, -21, -19 and -20 degrees F. Monday through Friday whereas February's mean daily low is 23. Bitola, Macedonia, dipped 11 to 14 degrees below zero each of these five mornings.....

.....Cold rains and mountain snows fell early this week along the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The latest bout of wet weather boosted rainfall at Beirut, Lebanon, to about six inches since the start of the month. Snow fell low enough to blanket ground down to at least 1000 feet, thereby whitening the hills from Lebanon south into Israel and the West Bank, and also to Amman, Jordan.....

.....Northwestern Canada's Yukon Territory has been much colder than usual so far this February. The first six days of the month in Dawson, for example, registered a minus-40-degree average temperature with this mark 28 degrees below the mean. Tuesday to Wednesday were even colder than usual in northwestern Canada's Yukon Territory. Wednesday, the temperature dipped to -55 degrees in Old Crow and -52 degrees in Dawson; these marks were 25-30 degrees below average for early February. Earlier in the season the same region was struck with -60 to -65 deg. below zero F temperatures.....

.....The weather has waxed wild over southeastern Australia early this week. It began hot (it is mid summer, after all), but cooled dramatically following a strong cold front Tuesday into Wednesday. Take Melbourne, where Tuesday saw 99 degrees early in the afternoon. Thereafter, rainy southerly winds ushered in a chill that held temperatures between 45 and 50 degrees right through the day Wednesday. Rainfall was 2.9 inches as of Wednesday evening. The shift in temperature was even more striking inland: Griffith, New South Wales, reached a blistering 107 degrees Tuesday yet, at the same time Wednesday, the temperature was only in the lower 50s! Melbourne is on the same latitude as Washington, DC. This is a tremendous cold anomaly.....

.....Over eastern Argentina and southwestern Uruguay, a late-week blast of mid-summer heat clashing with a strong cold front sparked widespread torrential rains powered by thunderstorms. Two-day rainfall was 6.4 inches at Dolores, Argentina, and at least 6.3 inches at Carrasco, near Montevideo, Uruguay. Rainfall was 3-5 inches over greater Buenos Aires, Argentina, where Monday morning was chilly and windswept 55 degrees with 45-mph gusts. Elsewhere in Argentina, rains behind the strong cold front made Sundays an unusually cool afternoon at Neuquen: the high was 59 degrees versus an average high of 89.....

.....The 4-12" of snow that fell in Corpus Christi and Victoria, TX a few days ago occurred on the same latitude as the Tampa Bay area. Snow and sleet eventually also fell all across the Gulf Coast to north Florida.....

More here





Life’s too short to be ‘carbon neutral’

Measuring everything we do by how much carbon it produces is a contemporary form of penance in today's Britain.

Carbon calculators have become the moral barometers for our age. Plug in what you have done - run a car, heated the house, taken a flight - and the result will tell you the amount by which you need to atone. No Hail Marys are required, just a tenner for the plane, or twenty quid for running the car. Nonconformism is not an option. Tony Blair first refused to apologise for his long-haul flights, but he soon repented and offset the carbon from his family’s holidays.

As a measure of virtue, the pluses and minuses of the carbon calculator indicate a peculiar moral blindness. It apparently doesn’t matter what the flight was for: whether a drug trafficker or a conman travelling to do a deal, or a violinist flying to give a concert or a man to see his sick mother, each and every plane journey is judged in the same way. The worthiness or otherwise of people’s activities gets pushed into the background, and the focus shifts to the numbers of carbon dioxide molecules admitted into the atmosphere.

Nothing is beyond the purview of this method of appraisal. One company, Climate Care, suggests giving carbon offsets as a gift to loved ones. ‘The perfect gift for the person who has everything - offset some CO2 on their behalf. We will send you a certificate with a personalised message that you can send to your nearest and dearest.’

This includes weddings - presumably so that the couple don’t start out by living in sin. With an online payment, you can gift the newlyweds peace of mind by offsetting their nuptials, including the guests driving or flying to the church, then heating the reception hall and running the disco late into the night. At the other end of the life-cycle, you are advised instead to go for a woodland burial with biodegradable coffin instead of carbon-dioxide producing cremation.

Everything that emits carbon is something to apologise for. The human good that has been added to the world - from a new relationship, to a new land-speed record - is apparently of little account. We are cast not as people trying to do things, aiming towards goals and objectives, but as organisms producing a certain amount of global warming substance. As a motto for life, this is ‘first, do no harm to the atmosphere’.

‘Carbon neutral’ is the desired state of Nirvana, and many are starting to take on carbon neutrality as a kind of ethos. Today, Britain’s high street giant Marks and Spencer has announced a £200m, five-year plan to become carbon neutral; the G8 held a carbon neutral summit; bands produce carbon neutral albums; the City of Newcastle aims to be carbon neutral soon; and schools and colleges in both the UK and USA are working on offsetting their carbon. Tellingly, the New Oxford American Dictionary chose ‘carbon neutral’ as its word of the year in 2006, commenting ‘It’s more than a trend, it’s a movement.’

This way of looking at the world pollutes the social environ - the space in which we should be thinking about what we want to do and why, and judging the things we have done. The aim becomes not ‘I want to do something worthwhile’ but ‘I want to emit no noxious substances into the atmosphere’, which is a dull and flat way of viewing human existence.

We should chuck out the carbon calculators, and try to focus on more meaningful ways of judging our activities. Is a school a good school? Is Newcastle a vibrant and fun city to live in? Was a flight a good use of our time? Did a summit yield important agreements? The question of whether something is a ‘waste’ should hang on whether or not it yielded important results, rather than on some indifferent totalling of the amount of energy consumed.

If society requires solutions to a problem such as global warming these should be as large-scale and administrative as possible, dealing with methods of energy production, housing insulation, appliance and vehicle manufacture. These approaches are likely to be more effective than everybody giving a donation to Climate Care each time they sneeze. More importantly, it would leave us free to think of more interesting and meaningful ways of holding ourselves and others to account.

We’ll be carbon neutral when we’re dead, but till then we have places to go and people to meet.

Source






AUSTRALIA'S "DROUGHT"

This is the drought that was supposed to be caused by global warming. It's been raining several times a week for months where I live (Brisbane, Southeast Queensland) at the Northern end of Australia too. So it's global cooling now? Don't hold your breath! The first picture below shows flooding in Tasmania and the second shows flooding in South Australia, the third is from Queensland:







Tasmania:

A torrential downpour caused havoc across the state yesterday, leaving parts of Hobart almost a metre under water. Traffic in Hobart's northern suburbs was plunged into chaos for several hours in the afternoon as major roads were transformed into rivers, with overflowing drains spewing torrents of water into the paths of vehicles.

Some motorists -- particularly those in 4WDs -- opted to battle through the waist-deep water along parts of the Brooker Highway before police closed the road, while others abandoned their vehicles after they slid off the road or began to fill with water. Civilians were spotted attempting to direct traffic as fleets of tow trucks and council crews battled to restore order under the stormy skies and wet conditions, which were the consequence of a monsoon raging in the Northern Territory.

Swollen suburban creeks also streamed across onto the roads and footpaths. Hobart's rivulet was a torrent of white water and fire trucks and police cars dotted the city as a spate of security alarms were set off. A Tasmania Fire Service spokeswoman said firies had attended more alarm calls in one 24-hour period than they would normally attend in three weeks. Firefighters attended 53 fire alarms activated after flooding caused electrical faults. Electrical faults caused a fire in the substation under the Island State Credit Union building in Victoria St, Hobart, and at the Tasmaid Pura Milk factory in Lenah Valley and Cadbury Schweppes at Claremont.

Fire crews used pumps to stem rising waters at Cadburys until contractors arrived. Crews also assisted with flooding at various locations across the city. Police radio rooms were inundated with calls from concerned citizens, although few accidents were reported.

Businesses, particularly those in Derwent Park, worked madly to mop up their showrooms and offices. Jack Mekina, owner of Mekina Technologies on Derwent Park Rd, said he and surrounding business were facing large clean-up and damage bills. "The whole showroom is swimming in a metre of water, it's running like a river. I've been here seven years and have never seen anything like it," he said.

Ten patients had to be moved from the Old Repatriation Hospital in Davey St to the Royal Hobart Hospital as parts of the building flooded, and Woolworths in Campbell St also closed due to flooding. Sport was also disrupted, with major events including the cricket at Bellerive and racing at Elwick called off.

The massive downpour was the climax of three days of showers across the state. While the south of the state was worst hit yesterday, the north was also wet, particularly on Friday and Saturday. As much as 55mm of rain was recorded at Quarmby Bluff in the 24 hours to 9am yesterday, 45mm at Port Davey and 44mm at Strathgordon.

Bushy Park Roadhouse owner Gaylene Fenton was taken by surprise when her business was flooded on Friday, along with nearby houses. "There were frogs and worms in the shop and water everywhere. I've never seen so much rain," she said. The shop needed lots of cleaning before it reopened the following day, as well as help from the fire brigade to pump out the water, but she said at least local farmers were happy. "We desperately needed the rain and the farmers are happy. It's just a pity it had to come all at once," she said.

Source

South Australia:

Unsealed roads devastated by flooding across South Australia's outback could be closed for days as crews attempt to repair bitumen roads, remove debris and mud and rebuild concrete floodways.

Families and a busload of tourists are stranded in the Flinders Ranges town of Hawker, 400km north of Adelaide, after it was cut off by heavy flooding over the weekend. The State Emergency Service expects the road to Quorn to be opened later today. "The roads have literally disappeared so where there was a floodway there is now a hole of three or four metres," a spokesman for the state Department of Transport told ABC radio.

The Bureau of Meteorology reported that 150mm of rain fell within 48 hours in Hawker, seven times the January average.

Mayors of towns hit by flooding have also called on governments to provide relief funding for businesses and homes damaged by water. "It may well be that we have to approach the federal Government for a state of emergency type funding to do this," Whyalla mayor Jim Pollock told local radio.

Source

Queensland:

The drought broke across large tracts of western Queensland at the weekend as a monsoon low delivered rain pastoralists have been waiting nearly seven years to see. But the rain was moving northeast towards the Gulf of Carpentaria last night leaving southeast Queensland still in a dire drought, according to the Bureau of Meteorology. The huge system defied forecasts on Saturday, moving east from central Australia and dropping record rainfall on parts of Queensland's far west.

All roads to Bedourie were flooded and the town cut off, after 169mm was dumped late Saturday night. "It's gone from drought to flood," said weather bureau senior forecaster Jeff Callaghan. "Bedourie only had 65mm of rain all last year." Another 28mm fell yesterday, according to the bureau.

The bureau issued flood warnings for the Paroo and Bulloo rivers and Georgina and Eyre creeks. Winds up to 90km/h accompanied the rain. Other west Queensland towns receiving significant rain were Boulia, 77mm, Thargomindah, 68mm, and Birdsville, 39mm, according to the bureau.

The only hope for the parched southeast to receive anything more than a few storms over the next few days was the monsoonal system's unpredictability, Mr Callaghan said. "You get this incredible rain all around Queensland except for here, it's amazing," he said.

Source

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is generally to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

Comments? Email me here. My Home Pages are here or here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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