Opinion: Blaming cyclone on global warming doesn’t stack up

The last time a major cyclone hit South East Queensland the world’s scientists were warning of global cooling, writes Matt Canavan.

Erosion at the Palm Beach surf lifesaving club after the Great Gold Coast Cyclone of 1954.

The last time a major cyclone hit South East Queensland the world’s scientists were warning of global cooling. In 1974 Cyclone Wanda hit Brisbane, and its aftermath caused one of the biggest floods the city has ever seen.

Later that year, Time magazine published a front-page story titled “Another Ice Age?”

The scientific environment is different today, with scares about global warming replacing global cooling. Even before the cyclone’s impact the Climate Council has been online scaring everyone about Cyclone Alfred saying that “The relentless burning of fossil fuels means we’re witnessing a rise in extreme weather events that impact us all.”

The claims of the climate alarmists do not square with the historical record. Since cyclones began to be named in the 1950s, five cyclones have hit South East Queensland. Cyclones are more frequent in the tropics, but Cyclone Alfred’s track towards Brisbane is not uncommon.

And Australia-wide there is a clear declining trend in cyclones. From 1970 to 2000, Australia was hit by an average of 12 cyclones a year, six of them severe. Since 2000, the average has just been nine cyclones a year, with just four of them severe.

In 2014, scientists published in Nature magazine estimates of a longer trend in Australian cyclonic activity using the carbonate concentrations in stalagmites. They found that “the Australian region seems to be experiencing the most pronounced phase of tropical cyclone inactivity for the past 550 to 1500 years”.

The declining trend in Australian cyclones is curiously not mentioned by those who scream the loudest for us to listen to the science.

None of this is to minimise the impact that may be felt by the people of South East Queensland in coming days.

Let us pray that the worst of the predictions is avoided. But if the worst does happen what the people of Brisbane will need is help not a political lecture. Just as the nation did in 2011 and 2022, I am sure the vast majority of Australians will pull together to help Queenslanders clean up any mess and rebuild anything that was destroyed.

These events have devastating impacts, but we should turn down the doom dial sometimes and just focus on getting through them. The most devastating cyclone to hit South East Queensland in living memory was the Great Gold Coast Cyclone of 1954. This was before cyclones were given names, and it hit Coolangatta on February 20, 1954.

Damage from the Great Gold Coast Cyclone of 1954

Back then we did not have the warning systems we have today, and our houses were not as well built.

Tragically, at least 26 people died from the event.

Thankfully, and despite what you might hear from the climate fearmongers, natural disasters cause much fewer deaths than they used to. In the 1920s, a shocking 500,000 people a year died, on average, due to natural disasters. In the 2020s, fewer than 40,000 people globally a year die from natural disasters, and just 12 a year in Australia. This 90 per cent reduction in deaths is despite many more people living in disaster prone areas. We should count our blessings that we live in the fossil fuel era which helps keep us safe.

The reason people survive now is because of science and, ironically, the science that has allowed the more effective use of fossil fuels. We use coal to make stronger steel and concrete to build stronger buildings that withstand even category 5 cyclones. Gas is used to make plastic pipes that allow for the better drainage of stormwater.

When we hear the refrain to “listen to the science”, it is often to only listen to some scientists, like the climate scientists. The people chanting this rarely want to listen to the civil engineering scientists or the petroleum scientists who know how the modern world works.

We just lived through a period like this during coronavirus. We were told to listen to the experts. But that just turned out to be an excuse to listen to the narrow field of pandemic modellers, whose models turned out to be hopelessly wrong. Governments and the media ignored and belittled other scientists like physician Jay Bhattacharya who pointed out early the futility of society-wide lockdowns to control an airborne virus.

Some still persist with the panicked and blinkered perspective on Covid. The Bureau of Meteorology’s latest warnings about Tropical Cyclone Alfred implore us to “stay COVID-19 safe and pack a mask”. Almost no one is wearing a mask in Brisbane anymore and it is not clear how a cyclone would increase the risk of Covid.

Maybe we should drop all the dramatic political posturing. Instead, let us pray that people stay safe and then let us help anyone impacted in the aftermath. That should keep us busy enough.

Matt Canavan is an LNP senator for Queensland

Kirra Surf Club in the Great Gold Coast Cyclone of 1954