SYDNEY Record-breaking summer heat waves in recent months have left Australians sweating and uncomfortable and killed thousands of animals, graphically illustrating the dangers that climate change poses to the world's driest inhabited continent.
With temperatures topping 42 C along the country's eastern seaboard, thousands of indigenous flying foxes have been dropping out of their trees, dead or severely distressed. In Queensland, loggerhead turtle hatchlings have been cooked in their shells while trying to reach the ocean across ferociously hot sand.
