THE electricity grid largely held up, and the Hunter was mercifully spared any serious bushfire damage over the weekend, but the two days of extreme heat that came to an end with last night's southerly broke enough records to have meteorologists ascribe the 40-degree-plus temperatures to climate change.
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Certainly, as we report today, more than a dozen records for minimum overnight temperatures were broken across the state on Sunday morning, including at Nobbys, where the mercury never fell below 24.1 degrees for all of Saturday night.
Saturday night was Sydney's hottest in November since 1967 and the Bureau of Meteorology said yesterday's 40-plus temperature meant the weekend was the first time since 1969 that two consecutive Sydney days had topped 39 degrees.
For many people - a substantial majority according to most opinion polls - the apocalyptic heat rolling in on hot westerlies from central Australia is proof positive of climate change, and man-made change, at that.
Others, however, will look at the weekend records and say - quite correctly - that Sydney had a similar two days 60 years ago, and a similar November night 53 years ago: the more records we collect, the more we will break.
Ultimately, however, the debate in its political sense is as much about the reaction to climate change as it is the complex chain of reactions that comprise the process itself.
In the Hunter this month we have seen an array of National Party MPs putting the case, as they see it, to continue mining coal for export, and to build a new coal-fired power station to overcome the inherently intermittent nature of renewable technology.
Many will decry the Nats as "dinosaurs" with a fossil-fuel obsession. And they may be correct.
But as more detail of the "renewable" path becomes available, opinion may yet harden against the idea of building literally dozens of pairs of dams in our rural and wilderness areas to provide us with power when the sun goes down.
The way forward, as it so often is, is likely to be through a middle path.
The conservatives will have to drop their hostility to solar and wind farms.
And the renewables lobby must be open and upfront about the limitations of batteries and pumped hydro, and the huge amount that must be spent on the grid to accommodate otherwise "cheap" renewable energy.
ISSUE: 39,477.
ISSUE: 39,477.
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IN THE NEWS:
Ian Kirkwood
Reporting journalist at the Newcastle Herald since 1987. Editorial writer, general reporter, industrial relations, industry and coal.
Reporting journalist at the Newcastle Herald since 1987. Editorial writer, general reporter, industrial relations, industry and coal.
