Floods in Australia

Last September, Juli blogged here about floods in Pakistan.

Currently, it’s Australia’s turn.  About a month ago there were floods in the central west of New South Wales: I have a personal connection with them, because my youngest son started at a new job in Dubbo when those floods were at their peak in that town.  Now there are floods in Queensland over a much larger area, caused by Tropical Cyclone Tasha.

One important effect of the Queensland floods has been its disruption of coal exports from Queensland to East Asia (Japan, South Korea and China).  Coal is one the major exports from Australia, with more than half of the coal coming from the parts of Queensland disrupted by floods.  Most of the rest goes through Newcastle, NSW – my home town in Australia, and the largest coal port in the world, with more than 90 million tons of coal going through the port each year.

Of course, coal mining is becoming controversial, because greenhouses gases from the burning of fossil fuels (including coal) are a major factor in anthropogenic climate change, i.e., global warming, and global warming is causing increased severity and frequency of tropical cyclones such as Tasha, which is disrupting the coal supply chain in Queensland at present.

Works on the current floods in Queensland would be classed in 994.3072, following the instructions at the Manual note at 900, “Use 930-990 for events that are important enough to affect the general social life and history of the place, regardless of any discipline involved.”  The number 994.3072 is built by adding to the base number 9 the notation 943 Queensland from Table 2, following the instructions at 930-990, and then adding notation 072 from 994.072 [Australian history] 2007-, again following the instructions at 01-09 in the add table at 930-990.

Works on the coal industry in Australia would be classed in 338.27240994.  This number is built by adding to 338.27 Products [of extraction of minerals] the notation 24 from 553.24 Bituminous and semibituminous coal (which has a note, “Class here comprehensive works on coal”), then adding notation 09 Historical, geographic, persons treatment from Table 1 and notation 94 Australia from Table 2.

Interdisciplinary works on global warming are classed in 363.73874 Greenhouse gases, where there is a note, “Class here interdisciplinary works on greenhouse effect (global warming).”

Comments

[Steve-O]

Third paragraph is speculation and not proven and mostly pushed by parties with a specific interest to be gained.