A well-known Logan City businessman has joined a growing number of people speaking out about the impacts of severe weather and the very real issue of climate change.
Sirromet Wines at Mt Cotton has been hit with fires, floods, frost and hail this year, with yet another bout of extreme weather damaging the fruit yet again.
Viticulturist Mike Hayes told MyNewsFeed it is clear to him that climate change is real and needs to be addressed because it will only get worse.
“The recent hail storm tore through the vines and badly damaged the fruit,” Hayes said.
“Just a few weeks later we are seeing yet another extreme weather event as a result of climate change, and this one will likely lead to mould, and will mean the end to this year’s crop.”
He said 2021 will be a very challenging year for Sirromet because the crops had been damaged by the rough weather, and he’s not sure what the 2022 harvest will bring.
Sirromet is best known for producing two varieties of wine: Moscato Giallo, a white grape variety that originated in northern Italy, and Shumbersome, a red grape variety that comes from the south of France along the French Riviera.
Hayes said his vines had been ravaged by the latest heavy rainfall.
“The hail was that ferocious it hit the buds for next year, so I won’t know until the winter time (July 2021) what the effects will be for the 2022 harvest,” he said.
“But look, for the people who think that climate change doesn’t happen, or that it’s false, these weather phenomena are going to become more erratic, they’re going to become unpredictable and the severity could increase tenfold as years go by.”
Hayes said while climate change occurs naturally, he also believed that humans were adding to it through carbon emissions.
“We can’t just keep pumping trillions of liters of CO2 into the atmosphere,” he added. “We’ve got to find renewable energy and sustainable agriculture.
“We’ve got to train our farmers, and more importantly, we’ve got to train our consumers and everybody has to start today.”
