Essay by Eric Worrall
Preparing for the climate apocalypse…
Australians are moving to Tasmania to escape climate change, but the island state is not immune
…
Jack Taylor can still vividly remember the day when the air around him became too hot to breathe.
It was early afternoon and he was working as a tradie on a humid Queensland work site.
“It was 1:30pm — still a couple of hours to go — and the foreman just said ‘bugger this, it can’t be done’,” Mr Taylor said
“I remember coming home and recounting what my experience was and how odd it was to feel like you couldn’t breathe, you were just sweating so profusely.
…
Last month, Mr Taylor and his partner Anna Graham packed up their bags on the Sunshine Coast and moved to a small community in southern Tasmania.
…
The ABC issued a callout for people who have recently moved to Tasmania due to climate change impacts.
Here are a few of the responses:
“We moved to Tasmania after building our dream house in Esperance, WA and suffered through what seemed an endless drought, and non-stop bushfire all within close vicinity of the property. We couldn’t take it any longer and moved back to Tasmania for the climate” — Andrew, Launceston
“We moved from SE Qld here for a few reasons but also concerns over rising global heating. A cool, wet temperate climate sounded rational, but even up here in a cold, wet, forested mountain valley we’ve learned in the 7 years we’ve been here that we are well and truly on the frontlines of climate change” — Ben, Northern Tasmania
“I moved to Hobart from Brisbane due to repeated heatwaves and floods. I ran a business in QLD and was willing to start again down here” — Edward, Howrah
“The job market in Tasmania is nowhere like the other big cities in Australia. The struggle is real, but life in QLD over the last decade in summer has become unbearable. I don’t regret my choices” — Anna, Huonville
“We were sick of being hostages to air conditioning, going from home to work or shopping centres, unable to enjoy the outdoors for 8 months of the year” — Anne, Geeveston
…
Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-24/australians-moving-to-tasmania-to-escape-climate-change/105785996
Tasmania is beautiful.
People do move from Queensland to Tasmania sometimes. My cousin migrated from Queensland to Tasmania, he moved to Hobart around 30 years ago, and fell in love with his new home.
But Tasmania is sooo cold.
When we visited Tasmania in December 2023, temperatures in the lowlands were in the low 80s, the sun was shining, and the views were magnificent.
But the week we visited, all the locals were talking about the unusual heatwave.
Despite this “heatwave”, we still needed long trousers, especially in the morning and the evening. The top of Mount Wellington, which sits on the Northern edge of the state capital Hobart, even in the middle of a Summer Mount Wellington was freezing cold – near frost temperature.
Most of the time the weather in Tasmania is not as pleasant as when we visited. Tasmania has a lot of cold and rainy weather. The Tasmanian highlands are bitterly cold, even in the middle of Summer – despite being in a “heatwave”, we hit snow flurries on the highlands road back to Deloraine where we were staying, after visiting my cousin in Hobart.
Last year saw some hot weather in Queensland – but most Queenslanders stayed put in Queensland. The population of Queensland is growing faster than the population of Tasmania, because the weather is better. Just today I met a recent arrival from the Blue Mountains near Sydney – she fell in love with Queensland’s near perpetual beach weather on a holiday, and decided to make Queensland her home.
So despite the ABC’s attempt to make it look like climate change is driving a demographic shift to colder states, this is no more happening in Australia than it is in the USA. Warm lifestyle states like Queensland and Florida both enjoy strong population growth, and will continue to be a favourite destination for the foreseeable future.
Update (EW): A few more holiday snaps from Tasmania
Update (EW) George Locock pointed out I mixed up my Lyrebirds and Peacocks.
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And watch out for those devils !
😉
Devils or drop bears.. there are dangerous beasts wherever you go.
Wlaowwo wlawwo!
We moved from Sydney to Mackay in tropical Queensland 23 years ago and haven’t regretted it for a minute. Tasmania? You must be joking!
Yep I don’t understand my cousin either :-). We stayed just down the road in Bowen for a few days on a road trip in 2022, beautiful part of the world.
Hi there fellow Macktown resident. We moved from Sydney too, 13 years ago. Still need to heat my pool most of the year, though… 😎
That’s strange, most Victorians/Melbournians move North to New South Wales and Queensland to get away from the months of cold weather in the South. We did and so have a number of family members.
Quite a few of them move back again, because they don’t understand you have to do things a bit differently in a hot climate.
You have to drink lots of plain water – soft drinks or cups of tea will not quench your thirst in hot weather in Queensland. Most Victorians I know mostly drink tea or coffee.
You do have to give your body a chance to adjust to the hot weather, only using aircon on the hottest days, or you will be “hostages to air conditioning”.
Don’t try to stop yourself sweating by spraying all over with deodorant, otherwise you might die from heat stroke. There is a reason our bodies sweat.
Respect the middle of the day. As the song says, only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun.
If you follow these simple rules you’ll have a great time in your new tropical home. If you don’t it will be torment.
Some of them have been there longer than 5 years so they have adjusted to the different climate quite well. None wanting to return to Victoria. We are South Coast NSW because we didn’t want the humidity. Some say our location is one of the 5 best climatic locations in the world due to our mild temperatures and sunshine although we do have large rain events.
Peacock
Oops, thanks 🙂
Gezundheit
People move to Tasmania for cheap housing, and people move from Tasmania to Queensland for some decent weather. People move from Victoria to anywhere to get away from a lunatic government in Victoria.
And who wouldn’t want to live in the home of radio 7HO!
Tasmania, the Staten Island of Australia.
There the Climate Caterwaulers go again; confusing weather with climate.
People also move to Tasmania to be inconspicuous in public.
Mainly people also born with their knees facing backwards.
The last Census was in 2021..
It tells a completely different story..
Most people are moving TO QUEENSLAND.. where it is sunny and warm.
I have visited Tassie many times, because my parents (ex-pommies) moved there in the 1990s when Dad retired, to be away from the crowded Sydney region… and because my younger brother had a job and kids down there.
Nice in summer, for sure, great food festival ! 🙂
But the one time I went there in winter.. brrr… I was very glad to get back to the Hunter region in NSW.
It’s simple really, people prefer warmth, 66% of people live closer to the equator than Sydney
and why ~ 90% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the US – Canada border.
Life-threatening cold winters without ready access to fuel oils, gas for heating & transportation.
So a few former residents of the hotter states of Australia have moved to Tasmania, but what are the actual numbers and what percentage of the overall population have done so? The reality is that it’s very low, but the increasingly desperate climate alarmists will pounce on any bit of trivia and try to inflate it to seem like something significant. If Australians were really so concerned about intolerable heat waves, they’d be moving to the northern parts of North America which has plenty of space from Alaska across to Labrador and few effects from heat waves.
Proof people can be made to believe anything. Our message needs to be plain and simple so anyone can understand it. CO2 can not cause catastrophic global warming.
Harold The Organic Chemist Says:
The concentration of CO2 in dry air at the MLO in Hawaii is currently 425 pmmv. One cubic meter of this air has mass of 1.29 kg and contains a mere 0.83 g of CO2. This small amount of CO2 can not not absorb enough of out-going long wavelength IR light emanating from the earth’s surface to cause any heating of such a large mass of air.
We don’t have to worry about the trace greenhouse gas CO2. We need to inform all the people that CO is no menacing molecule as claimed by the IPCC,
We try to follow your last sentence but mostly all we get is fingers in ears and a chant of lalalala.
You have a typo: CO2……
“Last year saw some hot weather in Queensland”
Its called “summer” 🙂
This “winter” it snowed in Queensland 🙂 (apparently a semi-regular occurrence.)
Another reason –
A brother and his wife lived and worked at various places in Europe, including owning a farm house in Normandy. They returned to Oz and eventually settled in Tasmania.
During a phone call one day I asked him – “Tasmania wouldn’t happen to look like Normandy would it?”
He chuckled and said “It does, you know”.
I’ve traveled the globe, called a number of climates home, and find the SunnyCoast QLD the most reasonable climate… not too cold, not to hot, just right… most of the time
The “mumma-bear” of climates…
Like much of the NSW and southern Queensland coastal regions.. 🙂
Its tough.. but someone has to live here. 😉
“I’ve traveled the globe, called a number of climates home, and find the SunnyCoast QLD the most reasonable climate… not too cold, not to hot, just right… most of the time”
That’s the way it is in my little corner of the Pacific Northwest, Whidbey Island. Summers are sunny and warm, except when they’re cool. Fall and Winter are dreary and mostly overcast, but the weather is pretty calm, apart from wind storms. We don’t get heavy downpours, rarely get below 20F in the winter. And on my property, have not seen a single mosquito, or fleas on any of my pets, in 23 years.
Weather does not equal climate change…
As a Tasmanian, I know many Mainlanders that have relocated to Tassie to take advantage of the temperate climate (the most livable climate in ALL of Australia). They are not CLIMATE CHANGE REFUGEES.
The vast majority of Tasmanians and relocated Mainlanders live next to the Coast – where temps rarely fall below 6C (42F) overnight or 30c (86F) during summers.
Mainlanders are shocked when we occasional get an extra warm day 35C+ (over 95F).
.
But … their biggest struggle is the last and most devastating season of the annual calendar – WINDY.
It can start as early as the beginning of spring and last as long as mid-summer – depending on the Southern Annual Mode.
On the flip side … once WINDY abates Summer through Winter are delightful as Temps gradually ease.
Maybe this is an Aussie thing? I recall in the late 1980s, I was on a business trip from Melbourne to Launceston for a client planning meeting. At lunch with the client staff there was an interesting discussion with two items I remember: 1) They were happy to be living in Tasmania because they were safer from “the bomb”. 2) Some noted their children were not planning to have children of their own because they assumed their lives would be ended shortly by “the bomb”. So it sounds like “the climate” has replaced “the bomb” in the psychology even though, unlike the “the bomb”, it’s not a real threat.
Conflating weather with climate, yet again.
As for the title, a more realistic one would need a revision:
“Aussie
ClimateStupid Policy Refugees are Moving to [Tasmania/insert destination here]”In the late ’90s, I was quite worried about what I was hearing and reading about anthropogenic global warming.
Then, I discovered Tasmania’s answer to Anthony Watts – John Daly.
http://www.john-daly.com/