The “Room for Debate” blog at NYTimes.com is debating whether or not man-made global warming is responsible for the recent dust storm that enveloped Sydney and Brisbane. This submission by Gregory E. Webb, senior lecturer in the School of Natural Resource Sciences at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, stands out:

It seems to be very popular to attribute virtually any modern climatic phenomenon to “climate change,” or more properly, “anthropogenic global warming” (climate has been in a continuous state of change throughout the numerous glacial cycles of the last two million years). However, there is little scientific justification for attributing recent large dust storms in Australia to climate change that relates to human CO2 emissions.
Australia historically is a very dusty place. It is the driest continent on Earth, excepting Antarctica, and much of the continental interior represents a classic subtropical latitude desert. It has been suggested that more sediment leaves the Australian continent as wind blown dust than is transported to the oceans by rivers. Historical records of that dust have been studied in deep sea sediment cores in the Pacific and Indian Oceans and in glaciers in New Zealand. Major dust storms are nothing new to Australia.

The rest here.