water levels rise at alarming rate in victoria, page-19

pallys

I don't need to be a climate scientist to answer your first question. All that is needed is clear minded logic. Civilisations develop when and where people are freed to some degree from the need to spend most of their time obtaining food. Drought makes food scarce. People need to spend most of their time obtaining food to survive. Therefore no time left over for civilisation duties.

Your second question is a little strange. Perhaps you have been misinformed at some time. "Climategate" is about sneaky thieves stealing personal emails and ignorant journalists misrepresenting them. The thieves who "doctored" this material have never been caught and the journalists who misrepresented the emails were not scientists and possibly didn't know any better. Peer reviewed science is always subject to update and revision. This is the nature of science no matter what the field.

Some say that the science on AGW is "in" but I personally prefer to describe the science in less limiting terms. Plenty of substantiated science has indeed been peer reviewed and published so in that sense it is "in". However there is always more to come.