Germaine Greer on the Queensland floods

I'm still waiting for an enterprising television channel in Britain to set up a weather news programme, which simply does what it says on the tin - tell me about the weather in my own area in micro-detail each day and give me weather-related stories from all around the world as they happen.

Weather and environment-related stories are increasingly part of mainstream news agenda as it is - the Queensland floods being the latest case in point, following on from our own white winter.

We have family friends up the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, and hopefully they're holding onto a piece of dry land right now. The devastation we've seen on our screens is something to behold but as usual with television it's difficult to get a real feel of the situation from images alone. That's where the writer comes in.

Germain Greer's piece in today's Guardian is worth a read. It is a fine combination of reportage and polemic.