Wednesday, February 06, 2008
FLANNERY INSPIRES SONG, RAIN
Tuneless Australian band The Cat Empire become Geothermic popsters:
Last year - inspired by Tim Flannery’s The Weather Makers and a speech by Australian Conservation Foundation president Professor Ian Lowe on global warming - Riebl, 26, wrote a song called No Longer There explicitly addressing his concerns about climate change.
He began corresponding with Professor Lowe, and when Al Gore came to Australia in 2006, Riebl was one of the 85 people selected by the ACF to join his climate workshop.
Riebl began writing No Longer There soon after, coming up with the vocal hook: “What would you leave behind, if you’re no longer there?"
Answer: despite Tim Flannery’s predictions, a hell of a lot of water. And yet more still arriving:
Six weeks’ worth of water has been dumped into Sydney’s dams over the past seven days, the Sydney Catchment Authority says.
While its official figures, released each Thursday, are not due until 3pm, the authority predicts dam levels will hit about 63.5 per cent - a 2.5 per cent increase over last week.
More impressively, that figure is up from 36.9 per cent last year - in the month Flannery predicted the dams might be empty. There’s probably a song in that.
UPDATE. Further north - in a region Flannery last year claimed would see only temporary water increases - rainfall has been so abundant that restrictions will soon be lifted:
From Saturday, Gold Coasters will be able to wash cars, boats and houses, water gardens, fill children’s play pools and top up backyard pools on any day they want.
Sunrise ecogiggler Melissa Doyle - “my three-year-old has never played under a sprinkler” - ought to move there. Let the children play, Melissa!
(Via Skeeter)