CLIMATE CHANGE HITS AUSTRALIA FIRST, AND HARD
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-australia11-2009apr11,0,5613275.story
Los Angeles Times
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Floods, fires, droughts, disease, extinctions and a dying Great
Barrier Reef may be a hint of things to come globally.
April 11, 2009

In the 1959 Gregory Peck classic “On the Beach,” humanity's last
holdouts in the aftermath of a global nuclear war huddle in Australia
and wait for the inevitable atomic wind to carry the rest of the
species away. When it comes to today's real-world climate crisis,
though, Australia is going first, not last.

As Times staff writer Julie Cart reported Thursday, Australia appears
to be experiencing the effects of climate change earlier and more
dramatically than most of the other inhabited parts of the globe. A
Southern Hemisphere continent that was already a land of climate
extremes has become more so in recent years. Even as the tropical
north is deluged by flooding and warmer ocean currents are spawning
more powerful cyclones, the parched south and interior have turned
into baking dead zones. The results: vast brush fires, killer heat
waves, increased tropical diseases, ruined crops, loss of livestock,
severe water shortages and quickening species extinction.
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