Apple CEO Tim Cook announced on Twitter yesterday that Apple is donating funds to support fire fighting efforts in Australia.
For the last two months, bushfires have been burning across Australia due to one of the worst droughts in history and record-breaking heat waves. More than nine people have died and more than 800 homes have been destroyed.
Our hearts are with those impacted by the Australian bushfires and with the courageous volunteer force fighting the unprecedented blazes across the country—please stay safe. Apple will be donating to support relief efforts.
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) December 26, 2019
MacDailyNews Take: We pray the firefighters will be able to get a handle on these disastrous wildfires ASAP!
I hope Tim sent a hearty aloha 🌺 to prime minister Scott Morrison after he left the country during these devastating fires to go to Hawaii on holiday.
(Ten years ago, the now-PM criticised the Victorian bushfires commissioner for leaving the HQ for dinner during an especially bad blaze.)
I am suse that acquisitive stockholders silently seethe with Capitalist outrage, even of they are Christians, that Cook gave away their hard-earned money.
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/hippieheretic/2019/03/jesus-was-a-socialist.html?fbclid=IwAR09NBP9rZI-l1gbrjEPkbN5rSCB1c4P7g5UEfnsLFJE2RVKR6uhN3BoOO0
The article in the above link is titled, “Christ Was a Socialist.” It quotes revealing Scriptural passages to make a good case for.
What? $5.5m profit every hour means whatever they donated is mere pocket change.
More specifically our PM went to Hawaii to have a butler serviced holiday.
Now I appreciate MDN’s prayers and Apple’s donations but that doesn’t really cut for a country on the front line of climate change. Our government is led by climate change denier (who brought a polished piece of coal into parliament).
This is what we’ve experienced in the past two years:
In 2017 these are some of the records that were set:
In the Northern Territory they experienced the highest maximum average temperatures on record. They also experienced the highest mean maximum temperatures on record.
In the state of Queensland they had the highest winter maximum average temperatures on record. Brisbane had the hottest summer on record.
Moree in northern NSW had 54 straight days of over 35 C.
Sydney New South wales capital had the hottest summer on record.
Melbourne the Capital of Victoria had 15 days straight of +30 C in Spring. Normally they experience temp’s in the high teens for that time of year.
In South Australia five locations broke Autumn (Fall) temperature records.
In Western Australia they experienced their highest winter maximum average temps on on record.
OK that was 2017. In 2018 the following took place:
As a snapshot 260 records were broken and none of them were for cool or cold temps. We also had our second driest June on record and the highest winter average maximum on record.
In the Northern Territory they had the highest maximum temperature on record.
Queensland had the highest average maximum July temperature on record.
Sydney had the highest July day on record. This year we broke that record!
Canberra the Australian capital had the driest June on record.
Victoria had the driest June on record.
South Australia had the third warmest July on record.
In Western Australia they experienced the highest maximum temperatures for July.
The most up-to-date stat’s I have for 2019 are as follows:
Australia’s hottest start to any year extended to a sixth month for day-time temperatures even as conditions moderated in June, while rainfall continued to be very much below average for large parts of the country.
Average maximum temperatures for the first half of 2019 were 1.78 degrees above the 1961-90 baseline used by the Bureau of Meteorology. That pipped the previous record set in 2005 and that data goes back more than a century.
The unusual heat was widespread, with states such as Victoria posting its warmest January-June for both mean and maximum temperatures.
In NSW, mean temperatures – which track day- and night-time readings – were 2.14 degrees above the 1961-90 yardstick, beating the previous record set a year earlier by more than 0.3 degrees. Minimum temperatures set a record too, while maximum temperatures were second-warmest.
In the capitals, Sydney’s start to the year was also the hottest in records dating back to 1858. The average day-time reading so far came in at 25.0 C degrees, eclipsing the 24.8 C average set in 2016.
Melbourne’s readings are a little harder to assess because of site changes. Still, the adjusted data indicates the Victorian capital’s temperatures are “very close to a record” for all of the mean, maximum and minimum gauges.
These figures are up October 2019 and summer is around the corner and it’s projected that more records will be set. The country is experiencing the worst recorded drought ever. In many place they are experiencing their eighth consecutive years of drought.
And where I live on the NSW central Coast the December rainfall is 2 mls. instead of 68!
So in sum if you want to focus on one of the “canaries in the coal mine” then just look at Australia.
Please note that I haven’t updated these statistics for the rest of 2019 and that should be a doozy.
As I said prayers and donations are fine but more action is needed to prevent a projection of these conditions lasting for 70 percent of the year. Oh, and for the record these conditions were predicted by Australian climatologists in 2005. The 70 percent figure is a projection for 2050 if the world doesn’t limit temperature increases to 2.5 degrees C. Frankly, at the current rate of inaction I reckon we’re royally screwed.