Panic now: Drought breaking rains could raise emissions! (One drought was twice as good as all those renewables!)

This is an idea surrounded by layers of dumb. Like an onion, but not that smart.

Firstly, rejoice, nice big rain is falling, and Australians are Pretty Happy About That. But, oh no. Who knew, all along — the drought we thought was so bad was actually helping cool Australia. Golly, droughts cripple our agriculture industry and therefore reduce our agricultural emissions. It follows then (if you are crazy) that when the rain comes back that will raise our emissions.

But wait, there’s more. This rain is falling on Conservatives:

Mike Foley, Sydney Morning Herald

Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions are likely to rise if there is a break in the intense drought in eastern Australia, sinking the Morrison government’s goal of lowering emissions in the short term.

Yes, and in a world not obsessed with political power games, when rain falls, green stuff grows, sucking down the CO2. Nevermind.

The agriculture sector did most of the heavy lifting in emissions reduction in the year ending May 2019, falling by 4.2 million tonnes to 67.4 million tonnes. It reduced the sector’s greenhouse contribution by 5.87 per cent, compared to the electricity sector’s 1.15 per cent reduction.

So all the billions we spent to be the World Leaders of Renewable Installation per capita produced a tiny 1.15% reduction in electricity emissions. That’s it?

“That big drop in agriculture was twice the emissions reduction that came from the record rollout of renewables. But it’s all built on the suffering of Australia’s farmers under drought,” Climate Council senior researcher Tim Baxter said.

And the emissions reduction from electricity was built on the suffering of electricity consumers.

Oh the dilemma, should we kill off our agriculture sector or our electricity supply?

“A break in the drought could push our emissions so they are again trending upwards,” Australian National University Climate Change Institute Professor Mark Howden said.

Professor Howden said while Australia’s emissions were “almost flatlining”, when the drought finally broke livestock emissions would likely rise by 4 million tonnes a year.

And therein lies the hard truth. All options are bad. All reductions are difficult.

And if the Sun controls our climate, all options are also a total waste of time.

Since CO2 affects the weather every day now, obviously, this is climate change rain.

No one seems to be saying that though.

Knowing Australian weather, a flood is just around the corner.

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