Communities need to 'HARDEN UP' their resilience to major events.

"The 20th century was a very quiet period for severe weather activity in Queensland," said Jeff Callaghan. "After 2004, things started to pick up."

As a retired senior forecaster with the Queensland regional office of the Bureau of Meteorology, Jeff would know. He can recall each major event in recent and past history with precision.

Jeff is concerned that as we enter the 21st century we are reversing into an historically active severe weather century, which is consistent with trends that have been tracked through paleontology records over many centuries in this part of Australia.

Currently, Jeff chairs the committee of a new initiative - HardenUp.org - led by Green Cross Australia under the National Disaster Resilience Program. The initiative aims to raise the awareness of Queenslanders to natural hazards across the state, and mobilise people to be more resilient in the face of major events.

 

The project will be the world's first rich media severe weather online platform. Not only will it enable ordinary Queenslanders to visualise 100 years of major weather events in their local community, but also play forward to the major weather events they can expect over the next 100 years.

The HardenUp.org partnership features some of Australia's best climate researchers, including the Bureau of Meteorology, Queensland Climate Change Centre of Excellence, CSIRO's Climate Change Adaptation Flagship, and the Federal Government's Department of Climate Change Coastal Adaptation team.

Green Cross is part of Mikhail Gorbachev's global network of NGOs, which empowers communities to respond to environmental change.

 

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