Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please.
I’m now using Substack as a blogging platform, and for my monthly email newsletter. For the moment, I’ll post both at this blog and on Substack. You can also follow me on Mastodon here.
John Quiggin 
Irony corner.
“Great Ocean Road flash flooding leaves beach towns to count the cost” –
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-16/flooding-great-ocean-road-victoria-wye-river-lorne/106232918
Are flash floods increasing (due to climate change)? Yes.
“The intensity of short‑duration (hourly) extreme rainfall events has increased by around 10 per cent or more in some regions and in recent decades, with larger increases typically observed in the north of the country. Short-duration extreme rainfall events (such as for hourly rainfall totals) are often associated with flash flooding, which brings increased risk to communities. This is particularly the case in urban environments, where the large amount of impervious ground cover (e.g. concrete) leads to increased flooding during heavy downpours.” – CSIRO.”
https://www.csiro.au/en/research/environmental-impacts/climate-change/State-of-the-Climate/Previous/State-of-the-Climate-2022/Australias-Changing-Climate
and :
https://www.epa.nsw.gov.au/Your-environment/Climate-change/Trends/Extreme-weather-events
For sure, we also see and notice this more because we have more people and more news. However, the objective baseline is definitely changing for the worse. Yet, we are doing effectively nothing. We are not reducing CO2 emissions on any significant scale and we are not changing what we do to mitigate problems and adapt to climate change and all its effects.
A minor but still significant point, when I see footage of an entire camping-ground flash-flooded and stranded, expensive 4WDs and caravans in waist deep water I think:
This is the kind of nonsense we should put an end to. Camping and caravanning grounds should never be placed where flooding and flash-flooding can conceivably ever happen, according to current knowledge and projected dangers. There are no reports of injuries or deaths. We might not be so lucky if these incidents are repeated too frequently.
There are two “sacrosanct” rights which need to be curtailed. These are the rights of people to do stupid, environmentally destructive things and the rights of people to make money out of over-consumption, which includes over-consumption of travel and tourism.
Of course, nothing significant will be done until it is all too late. I’ve predicted that for 20 years at least or maybe for thirty years. I am not at all a particularly smart or foresighted person. Maybe I have a few less illusions than many, a greater distrust of claims from mere authority and a much bleaker but more realistic appraisal of human nature. I read the science and I observed people and our political economy system. It was patently obvious nothing adequate was ever going to be done. It still is patently obvious.