Recently, i was at a major supermarket in Brisbane and I overheard an employee who was stocking milk say to his colleague, "There's not much here. Are we ordering less, or what?" His friend groaned and replied, "Ummm, did you miss the floods? The major dairies are all gone."

My Husband works in a fruit and vegetable shop in the city, and he has been getting customers angry at him, because the shop doesn't have a certain type of lettuce, or snow peas. Most of the stock in the shop was coming round about routes to get past closed roads, and the major Brisbane fruit market has stopped functioning. The retailers and wholesalers have figured out a temporary, but inconvenient system.

It has been covered by the all the news outlets. How can people be surprised? And how on earth can they blame the retailer for not being able to source stock?

The freaky weather that is impacting our (MY) food supply is a strong La Nina event. For the last few decades we have had regular La Nina events, but they have been considered moderate. the last strong one was 1988/1989. So we've had dry years, interspersed with moderate years. Now, we are finally having a wet year. Incidentally, 1974 floods occurred during a La Nina event.

No one of my generation (i'm 28) or possibly even my mother's generation has ever experienced widespread food shortages. (I've been hungry before, but because I was broke, not because there was nothing to buy.) This year is going to be a hungry one. Queensland's main food regions (vegetables, grain and beef and dairy cattle) were hit by flooding, and now the rest of the state, where much of our fruit is grown, is going to be flattened.

Straight after the floods in Brisbane, I had the eerie experience of walking into a major supermarket and the shelves were empty.

We all found ourselves self rationing. We didn't want to buy more than our fair share.
If there is only a bit of something, you didn't want to be the one to take the last bit.

My sister was shopping for her house warming dinner and wanted to make bbq ribs with salads. There were hardly any salad veg, and definitely no meat, milk or bread. Any thing that the shops rely on regular deliveries of was gone. She changed the menu and we had a lovely sit down roast dinner. When food is scarce then old fashioned food is the answer. We had silver-side with roast potatoes, pumpkin and onions. There was also a vegie cous cous for the strange vegetarian. Peasant fare, cheap to buy, stores well and easy to cook.

I feel an anxiety, like I need to get out there and start planting more food in my garden. I feel like I should be stockpiling. Is this intuition? irrational anxiety? or a reasonable reaction?

rain lovely rain

Ok, I understand that cyclones are bad, but i have to thank Cyclone Hamish. The perceived temperature here has dropped, there is a cool fresh breeze that smells of wet earth and soft misty gusts of rain. sigh.
Brisbane weather satellite image

Help

I haven't posted about the fires in Victoria or the other freak weather events happening around the country. This is mainly because I have been feeling overwhelmed and a bit helpless.
If you are feeling like I am, visit this site to get information on the many different ways that you can do something to help people affected by the fires. You can also donate to the Premier's Disaster Relief Appeal to help those affected by the North and North West Queensland floods.

Day of Action Encircle Parliament

Tomorrow is the first sitting day of parliament. There will be a protest to let the Australian government know that we want more action on climate change. People from all over Australia wearing red and carrying red banners, as a symbol of the climate emergency, will join hands around parliament house, Canberra.

I will be there in spirit, wearing a red shirt.
I wish everyone the best of luck. I don't expect it will be covered by the mainstream news, but I will be checking out You tube.

Hey, Kevvo, 5%? Not good enough, Mate!

More info here

Soap Box Rant

This post by Jerry Coleby-Williams, showing the effects of the recent king tide in Brisbane, Australia, (my home town,) got me thinking about rising sea levels and global warming in general.

Jerry commented that even if we were at 0% carbon emissions today, sea levels would continue to rise, due to a kind of delayed reaction to the carbon already in the atmosphere.

People smarter than I am, (here and here) say a global temperature rise of at least 1 degree C (1.8 degrees F) is inevitable, and that unless we do something right now, temperatures (and by inference sea levels) are likely to keep rising.

Mark Lynas in his book Six degrees: Our future on a hotter planet (Published 19 March 2007 by Fourth Estate, HarperCollins) gives a blow by blow account of the possible effects each degree of warming would have on the planet and on us. I recommend this book, although it has scared the pants off me! It is written so that the general public can make sense of the myriad scientific studies into climate change, with out their brains turning to mush.

We should reduce our personal emissions as much as it is in our power to do, right now, as well as lobby for stricter carbon emissions policies. Hello, Kevin? 5%, not good enough, mate.

People, like my family, who are looking at buying property, should consider future global warming impacts when deciding where to buy. We need to seriously consider that 2 degrees will happen in my lifetime and my grandchildren may face worse.

For example, sub tropical and tropical areas, (all of QLD) while experiencing long periods of drought, will experience periods of extreme storm activity. Cyclones may travel as far south as Sydney. The inland and southern parts of Australia will be subjected to increasing desertification. All coastal areas will be subjected to rising sea levels. See here and here for maps that show areas that may be inundated by rising sea levels.

That really doesn't leave much inhabitable land in Australia. I won't tell you where we have decided to buy, otherwise everyone will want to move there, driving land values out of our reach! ;)

Global warming may affect decisions on where to live in other ways, for example:

• Increased spread of diseases, like malaria, dengue fever, cholera and so on. A lot of diseases need certain conditions to survive, such as warmth, humidity, overcrowding and poor sanitation infrastructure.
• Food shortages. Global warming will change where crops can be grown, the amount of area available for growing crops, as well as the growing seasons, the types of crops able to be grown and the way important food crops are distributed.
• Water shortages. Increased severity and occurrences of drought will affect availability of water. Areas affected by floods and cyclones will experience problems with the quality of water, due to salinity, or compromised sanitation and sewerage systems.
• Civil unrest/Terrorism/War. Governments will not be able cope with a lot of the problems caused and/or exacerbated by global warming, this could lead to civil unrest, riots and even war. Social and economic problems will most likely increase worldwide, contributing to increased terrorist and criminal activity. Consider anecdotes about the behaviour of civilians and officials after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, to realise what an increase in natural disasters could lead to, even in supposedly "developed" nations.

I am not trying to be excessively morbid here. I would just like to explain some of the reasons I feel that caring for the planet is so important.

In order to avoid these outcomes we need to reduce our impact on the planet as much as we possibly can:

• By reducing our personal dinosaur juice addiction,
  
• by not succumbing to excessive consumption, and
  
• by being as self reliant as possible. (By self reliance, I don't mean rely only on yourself, we will always need family, friends and community. I mean don't rely on the government/mega corporations/science to fix, or change anything. Rely on your own instincts, judgement and skills, don't be an environmental lemming.)

Ok, ok, I'll hop down off the soap box now. :)