Catastrophic fires are predicted tomorrow across the East Coast of Australia. Around 500 schools will be closed tomorrow. Some 400,000 people have been warned “to be ready. Thousands are evacuated. A state of emergency has been declared. 1,400 interstate fire fighters have gone to NSW to help.
For updates about New South Wales, check the NSW RFS website. For Queensland, see the QLD RFS website.
MyFireWatch has a live map updated regularly with outbreaks.
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How close and thick was that forest?
Shots from the ABC news Monday. To appreciate what happened, see the moving scene as people approach these ruins through tiny lanes surrounded by dense forest. (Full ABC segment below).
Bobin, NSW, Fire damage, ABC News
![Fires, Rainbow flat, NSW]("/s3/s3.amazonaws.com/jo.nova/photo/earth/fires/rainbow-flat-fire.gif)
Look at the trees around this house at Rainbow Flat
The backlash begins
The opportunistic greens are already crying “climate change” while firestorms rage and lives are potentially under threat
Greens playing politics with fire, say Labor and Coalition
Greg Brown, The Australian
Greens leader Richard Di Natale sparked fury from both major parties when he said the nation’s emissions policy had caused the fires that killed three people and injured 100.
Greens policies increasing bushfire threat, Barnaby Joyce says
Greg Brown, The Australian
“The problems we have got have been created by the Greens,” Mr Joyce told The Australian.
“We haven’t had the capacity to easily access (hazard) reduction burns because of all of the paperwork that is part of green policy.
“We don’t have access to dams because they have been decommissioned on national parks because of green policy. We have trees that have fallen over vehicles and block roads, so people cannot either get access to fight a fire or to get away from fires. And we can’t knock over the trees because of Greens policy.
Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack has lashed the “disgraceful, disgusting” behaviour of “raving inner-city lunatics” for linking climate change to the ferocious bushfires burning across Queensland and NSW.
Spot the fuel
Our hearts go out to those that have lost homes. But in every scene here, tree changers who never thought it would happen to them, were living with their $3000 bicycles in idyllic fire traps. How much were these folk misled by an ABC constantly reporting on climate change, and barely ever discussing fuel loads and almost never interviewing skeptics? Firefighters who recite the permitted “climate change” lines were put on a pedestal. Firefighters with data on fuel loads don’t get called.
And why was that ABC journalist wearing brand new fluro fighting gear to interview the victims?
But proximity is not the biggest problem.
If the fuel loads are too high across the state, there is no firebreak big enough to stop the embers in a Firestorm. Once a fire is generating its own weather and high-speed-wind every house would need a 10km clearing all around.
Wytaliba where two died, was badly hit
The houses are dotted among a thousand square miles of forest. A great way to live until the firestorm burns the soil, the microflora, macroflora, seeds, old growth, everything. It will take years to recover.
Wytaliba (See GoogleMaps to get close up). Arrows mark houses or shed visible in Google maps. Image: Copyright 2019 CNES / Airbus, Landsat / Copernicus, Maxar Technologies, Map data, Google.
The treechange movement has a day of reckoning coming
The forests have changed. Open canopies and scrubby undergrowth have maximized the fuel.
Hippies of Nimbin admit bush got too wild
Graham Lloyd, The Australian
Des Layer has for 30 years ridden his horses through hills now being ravaged by fire. For decades he has watched the structure of the bush change from what he says is poor logging and lax management.
Before the area became national park, Mr Layer said, he would get permits to collect firewood from the state forests. Since the national park was declared there had been no permits issued.
“It has just been building up,” he said.
Poor logging practices have changed the forest’s ability to cope with fire. First the fire-retardant edges were lost and then the high-value canopy trees. With the big trees gone, the humidity of the forest was reduced, the canopy was opened to allow palms to grow and then drop dead fronds into the undergrowth. Extended dry conditions have resulted in a tinderbox of lantana and weeds in an area that has not seen a significant fire for half a century
The forecasts for Tuesday: Embers could fall on the Opera House
With a situation this bad, it’s hard to believe there is room for hyperbole…
Sydney’s ‘ring of fire’: Terrifying map shows suburbs most likely to be ravaged by bushfires tomorrow and why embers could fall on the Opera House
Charlie More, Daily Mail Australia
Every suburb in Sydney must brace for devastating bushfires on Tuesday as 37C temperatures, 10 per cent humidity and 60kmh winds create ‘catastrophic’ conditions, fire chiefs have warned.
But fire bosses have warned ‘no area is entirely safe’ as high winds could send dangerous embers capable of sparking secondary fires towards beachside suburbs such as Manly and even the CBD, home to the Opera House.
Apologies for raising the issue of climate change, my main interest is in proving that this widespread bushfire is to be expected during times of global cooling.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/91251744
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A Gleissberg Minimum Forcing.
‘Disastrous bush fires are reported from the districts surrounding Lawson, Gundagai,Mittagong, Burrowa, Harden, Katoomba, and Penrith, Many of the visitors to the holiday resorts ara hurriedly returning to the metropolis.’
December 1901 (Trove)
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Kinda ironic that application of CO2 is one of the best means of extinguishing fire.
220
A remote fire fighting method provides for remote and early response delivery of solid carbon dioxide in capsules by means of standard artillery guns to cool the fire and displace needed oxygen from the fire, useful for fighting fires difficult to approach such as forest fires as well as fires in developed areas, such as urban multistory buildings. Projectiles of encapsulated solid carbon dioxide are produced and strategically stored refrigerated until a fire occurrence at which time they are launched as a projectile from standard artillery guns in a pattern that surrounds the windward side adjacent and outside the fire followed by a pattern of launched projectiles about one-third of the way into the fire from the leeward side such that carbon dioxide gas from said first and second sets envelopes at least a portion of the fire area and migrates through the fire, chilling it and excluding oxygen for combustion therein to arrest progress of and extinguishing the fire”….
https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/3d/4f/eb/0ece453738e9d1/US5507350.pdf
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While I’m happy to have innovative ideas suggested, this is not a good one.
CO2 is not the best medium for extinguishing solid fuel fires because it has a very short residual effect. A mild breeze – let alone a gale- rapidly disperses it and hot embers reignite. Delivery by artillery sound great but the weight of material that can be delivered by this method is minute compared to the energy being released by a fire in heavy fuels.
……. and the idea of launching projectiles into an area which also has people potentially on the ground is going to give the OH&S authorities a pink fit.
Cheers…. Peter
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Peter – Dropping tonnes of water doesn’t seem to be of much help in the current crisis so why not experiment with retardants like carbon dioxide hydrates?
If it doesn’t improve fire control then at least we have tried.
50
But but but its CO2…
On that note I hadnt heard of the ‘solid carbon dioxide in capsules by means of standard artillery guns’ sounds reasonable, unless you are an eco loon.
I totally agree with the headline of the thread. These greentards are getting what they reap, unfortunately its affecting everybody in the countryside, and in the cities where you have to breath.
How about more water bomber planes I know there is Russian one.
30
Firefighters have used water and carbon dioxide as fire extinguishing agents for decades.
“That knowledge led the scientists on a quest to see if carbon dioxide hydrates, frozen crystals made of water and carbon dioxide bonded together, may serve as promising fire-suppressing materials. ….
To test their idea, the scientists used a special reactor to produce tiny pellets of carbon dioxide hydrates in the laboratory. They compared the fire-suppressing performance of these hydrates to similar-sized pellets made of normal ice (frozen water) and dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide) after sprinkling them onto several small, carefully controlled fires. The hydrates extinguished flames faster than the other two substances”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090427091548.htm
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Fires need fuel, heat and oxygen. Reduce one and the fire intensity reduces. Water is cheap and available. We use egg-white based foaming agent to cling bubbles of water to trees and smother petrol fires. The KISS principal applies. Keep It Simple Stupid.
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“egg-white based foaming agent “
One way to make meringues, I suppose 😉
22
Good points John. A block of dry ice has a surface temperature of -78.5 degrees C.
20
Dropping some dry ice into the tank periodically would chill the water but we’d need a huge freezer trailer to carry enough dry ice to physically to throw on a fire. I like your thinking approach tho’.
I have buckets of sand on our back deck that are mixed with CaCO3 (powdered limestone) which, under high temps, breaks down to CO2 and CaO. Some UK coal mines used to throw limestone dust around the mines so it settled on every little ledge. In an explosion and fire the idea was that the limestone might become air-born and liberate some carbon dioxide. Not sure if it works. My experience says you need to really bake limestone before it becomes calcium oxide.
(We used to use calcium oxide gravel in a metal dust bin of water to make a swimming pool paint. My job was to keep stirring with a crow-bar. The exothermic reaction is quite strong. Probably not allowed to do such interesting stuff at primary schools these days.)
Keep the interesting ideas coming.
20
I sincerely hope we dont have bad bushfures, but if we do, people will finally see the dangers of letting the greens have a say in anything. We need adults to be running the country.
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Thanks Jo, for putting this all together.
I’ve lived in the bush since 1985.
O grew up as a child in the bush at research outside of Melbourne
Always in our land Australia
The risk of fire is there
Always we who live there need to minimise the risks for our own property and land.
One of the best ways of doing this is cool season burning.
The Aboriginal peoples of Australia have known this for 50,000 years
But the idiotic inner city Greenies
( Among whom is my 33 year old son 🙁 )
Ignore the facts..
And are dominated by greenist ideology !
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Put some of green politicians in jail for manslaughter!
That my bring them back to earth.
They live in their make believe world, whilst the rest of us live in real physical world suffering the outcomes of their fantasy ideologies
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The worst part is then they will unironically blame the results of their own idiocy on the boogeyman of “climate change”.
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Bill in Oz,
i am not any kind of psychologist, but apparently Carl Jung understood about this a century ago – see here:
https://preludecharacteranalysis.com/explore/thinking-vs-feeling
You (and I) seem to have a personality attribute that Jung called a ‘Thinker’, who thinks and makes decisions rationally and based on facts, vs your son (any many others) who he called ‘Feelers’ who relies on ‘feelings’ and makes decisions based on how the ‘heart’ feels.
It seems that this trait is more or less permanent (like being an introvert or extravert), so it is not surprising that you cannot change his mind. However the website above does give suggestions for how to at least talk about your disagreement with him! Good luck.
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When Joseph Banks arrived in Australia he noted that the trees had been burned up to 20 feet high. Big fires have always existed in Australia long before European habitation. Whilst the idea of repeating aboriginal burning appears ideal , that horse has truely bolted. Too frequent burning decimates indigenous species, many have to be at least 15 years old before they produce seed and the small understorey species are quickly replaced by rubbish such as wild oats.
Introduced plant species, dumped rubbish and escaped domestic plants are effectively kerosene in the bush. Ecosystems change with the introduction of new biota and genuine conservationists have managed these changes with consideration.
For example the high country, which adapted to the presence of cattle and horses. Their removal will allow the grasslands and forests to become firebombs. We need to return to the practices of managing the environment through selective logging, cattle grazing and off season fire regimes.
Another thing that is never mentioned, but I believe is pertinent to the Australian environment, is that 50% of the Australian population is either first generation or born overseas with no historical family stories of life in the bush, of no awareness of floods, droughts and bushfires. This can make them a danger to themselves and others when choosing to live in the bush and unfortunately more susceptible to the CC religion.
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Oh, and very much worth stating – the RFS in all states does an amazing job and needs to be publically thanked for the brave souls who do this hard yakka defending peoples lives and property.
What makes me seriously cranky is those who make these heroes life difficult and thier lives under threat by not allowing enough hazard reduction burning to take place. Instead of facing smaller fires, these become monsters.
In fact, the fire isnt the monster……
It had to be said.
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I’ve been saying and writing about this for years. Having travelled the Victorian High Country for over 40 years, I’ve witnessed the deterioration of the bush year on year. Making everything a national park hasn’t saved the bush, it’s made it a catastrophe waiting for a place to happen in a continuous cycle.
Our parks service bureaucracy knows little about forest management, choosing to close places off when they can’t manage things and then often leaving it closed forever. As a 4WDriver, access has diminished significantly and the Greens want everything closed off. The mega-national park that the Victorian Kremlin wants to establish will be the death of our High Country, in more ways than one.
We moved to rural Victoria knowing what it meant and we’re prepared to leave should the need arise. But while we are required to maintain our properties according to strict council rules, councils and state governments have no requirement to apply those same rules to themselves. There needs to be a class action taken out on state governments and councils for their culpable mismanagement of our bush.
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And here’s another example of just how bad things are with the Department of Environment:
Trying to learn? Is the department populated with children? Have they learned nothing or even tried to learn anything from past bushfires, Royal Commissions and those who live and work in the bush?
And Andrews has now enacted policy banning all native forest logging that will only exacerbate the problem. All this because of the Greens and the Department of Environment becoming an arm of the Greens Party.
270
California suffers from the same delusional nonsense..same effect..same result, burned suburbs.
60
People need to be familiar with the UN term “Rewilding” and what it means – its code for kicking humans out of 85% of ******all****** land, and stuffing them into crowded mega cities where they can be monitored and “controlled”.
This is the Elites occult new age belief system st work. Dangerous Dan is just happy to be the Elites bag boy for it all in Victoriastan……
410
UN Urban Agenda Habitat III in tandem with the UN ‘transformational’ Agenda, implementation by 2030, unless major push back develops, which appears to be beginning to evolve.
Destiny awaits?
Imprisoned and constrained in a deeply controlled urban hell, subject to CCTV surveillance and social credit scores, prohibited from wandering beyond your nearest ‘green space’ without permit, prohibited from all but the MSM diet. Forget independent transport unless it’s a push bike or footfall. Your eco-socialist nirvana awaits, in fulfilment of indoctrinated promises to the youth who have been enculturated to consider socialism a wondrous ideological bauble.
This is what the chant, ‘saving the planet‘ looks like.
Keep in mind, nothing will change for the eco-elite, not-a-single-thing.
Your own stupidity, rejection of free speech, embrace of safe space, political myopia, lack of curiosity, wilful ignorance of history, acquiescence to bureaucratic totalitarianism, and acceptance of the superficially comfortable, all these will land you in a place you will enjoy,
You so reap what you sow.
Oh, and by the way, the bush will still burn.
200
4 legs good, 2 legs bad…..
Nothing quite like leaving a huge amount of fuel around, watch it burn in a firestorm, then blame a fantasy condition of CAGW….never let a good crisis go to waste….
I read about Trauma-Based Mind Contr0l – whereby you create a trauma conditionm, then insert a suggestion, and once the mind comes out of the trauma, the suggestion is implanted/retained.
Are these bushfires and the MSM the desired “programming” method?
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Dystopia awaits the ignorant insouciance of the herd. Call me paranoid oblivious fools,but I am well prepared for any shenanigans.
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I love the argument for high density housing in Australia which claims we’re running out of space. Being able to keep a straight face while putting that forward takes some acting skill.
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Agree totally Bemused, I struggle to comprehend what the end plan is. The only certainty is if the government is involved then commonsense and logic are out the window.
Anything for that extra vote! The premier of victoriastan, supposedly a “boy from the bush” and a “labour’ man has a taste of the power and everything else is out the window. The timber mills in my area closed a few years ago now as they were not allowed access to timber. Heyfield sawmill was denied access to timber till the government bought out this union stronghold and converted a vialble private company into a $28 million public debt. Now this will also close in 2030.
When the big fires come, and they will, a well managed and sustainable environment will once again be converted to ashes.Ban cattle from the high country, they are “bad” leave horses in the high country they are “heritage” close huge areas to hunting, hunting “bad” invasive and introduced species will, can and are changing the ecology of many areas. Still lock it up and do nothing “nature” you know.
Might be time for my breakfast valium!
220
Good Morning Sambar.
My blood was boiling as I read today’s excellent editorial in The Australian (online, paywalled). After the 2009 firestorm around here and the royal commission recommendations we still have grossly overgrown roadsides (like Maroondah Hwy and our local, heavily used by tourists road) which will be death traps in the future sometime. I requested attention to the disgraceful condition of the roadside through our village and was told by a total ninny in the council office ‘Oh, we expect everyone to have evacuated’. Words fail me…I was stunned by the reply.
Perhaps it’s time we established a group to threaten class action if the neglect by VicRoads and the local council leads to loss of life, limb or property. Ditto the threat we all face everytime we have to use the Black Spur route to and from Healesville and the Eastern suburbs of Melbourne with its now very dangerous trees.
I’m ropeable about all the greenie stupidity.
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Well Annie now that most local councils have decided to declare a “climate emergency ” we will know what we’re in for.
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Oh Annie, are we, the silent majority, the only ones that can see the bleeding obvious ! As you are aware VicRoads had an aborist identify 12 trees on the Black Spur that were dangerous and had to be felled. 12 trees out of tens of thousands ! Dozens and dozens of large dead trees withIn falling distance of this major road are apparently O.K. Words fail me. Yes maybe the class action route is the way to go. How sad that court action seems to be the last option.
Royal commisions are held after every major fire event in Victoria and the recommendations are remarkably similar. Equally so the implemention of these recommendations follows the same pattern, do as little as possible as cheaply as possible then let everything fade from view. UNTILL IT HAPPENS AGAIN !
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I know someone involved with the CFA who reckons the number of trees that need removing for safety reasons over the Black Spur is in the thousands and removal would be a couple of years’ hard work. This includes all trees within falling distance of the road, especially those sitting on the high side of the road and whose roots are destabilised by the wet conditions often seen there (like a few days ago, it looked like winter with all the wet road, trees and heavy mist as we drove back from the airport; 4C at home).
Our daughter has done summer crew stints with FFMV and heard about the unsuitability of the chosen species that were sown there after the 1939 fires…a lot of these trees have reached the end of their lifespan.
RIP the poor woman who was killed by a falling tree on that road a few weeks ago and her family who were injured.
20
Don’t blame you. Every major fire here in Vic, from 39’s Black Friday onwards, has sen a Royal Commission into the cause, the actions taken to fight the fires, the aftermath and of course the chance reduction in the opportunities to diminish the possibility of future events. Two main themes recur: fuel reduction and non-closure of roads. Did you ever visit Kinglake prior to Feb, 2009 Annie? I’ll bet you did, given your locale. I know Idid. The houses were nearly invisible behind their pretty bush. Nearly every road ended in a gate, to “protect” the bush from nasty 4WDers.
One resident was fined something like $100,000 by Murrindindi Council for removing trees near his house. His was one of the few houses to survive Black Saturday in Kinglake.
Many of those who died were unable to get out due to the large rocks put in to augment the gates, blocking roads that used to go through until the Greens decided 4WDs were evil incarnate.
Every RC into fires for the last 80 years says the same things, and yet Councils and Governments continue to know best. Fine, but why pay for a bloody Royal Commission only to completely ignore its findings? Also, NSW has access to this info and they choose to ignore it as well.
As we know, the Australian bush burns. In fact, It needs to. I know that there is a romance thing about living in it. Where I live is quite picturesque, with massive Mountain Ash and tree ferns, lovely birds and not so lovely possums, wallabies etc., but I am under no illusions about it. It can burn.
Just as I understood, when I lived in Sydney, in Northbridge, and visited and stayed in Kuringai and Wiseman’s Ferry that fires were probable, and escape nearly impossible, as Sydney’s landscape offers little in the way of decent connecting roads. Your best chance was to have a boat, but how many can afford water access?
There will be an Inquiry in to these events in NSW, there will be findings. The challenge will be, will they listen? I know the Greens won’t, as their agenda is Climate Emergency. And who populates the benches at most Councils?
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I somehow have never been to Kinglake Sambar. However, I cringe whenever we drive through places like Warrandyte, Eltham, Christmas Hills and Kangaroo Ground…disasters waiting to happen. Blackburn in Melbourne gave me the fidgets too. When we were just ‘weekenders’ coming up to Marysville, we used to look out at the beautiful tree canopy below the house and decided that, no way, would we be there in high fire danger weather. People would laugh and declare that Marysville wouldn’t burn; colour me unsurprised by the 2009 firestorm. Perhaps we are mad to be living full time in the area now, but I loathe the city with being a country girl.
30
Annie I remember as a 12 year old watching
The northern horizon from our house in Research
My father taking 2 weeks off work to fight
The fires with his work mates
Completely ringed with fire !
And the relief when finally it rained just a little.
And we could relax a little.
That was in January 1960.
Just one fire ‘incident’ out of three i from those years..
40
Sorry, reply to Greebo.
10
How come my additional post is still in moderation?
10
I quote an Age news article and my post goes into moderation for more than six hours? Well, I’m happy to quote that exact same in my blog and make some pretty scathing assessments to boot.
20
Maybe. However, the consequence is the tax-payer meeting the cost of any successful claim. That’s no skin off the noses of the incompetent green/left politicians.
A better plan is to make the green/left politicians pay. Boot them out. Never let them back in. Castigate them at every turn. Attack all the news outlets that give them sustenance. Don’t buy the product. Complain regularly to your local member of Parliament. Write to the minister responsible.
Strengthen those political parties and NGOs that hold views similar to your own. Support them financially, morally, publicly.
80
The issue is that we don’t have a Liberal party in Victoria to offer an alternative. If there is a Liberal party in Victoria I have no idea who they are or who the leader is. Are they hiding somewhere, fearful to make themselves known?
80
The Liberal Party ran dead at our last election quite happy to let Labor continue its satanic pact with the upper house Greens. I think they have no money after that chap Damian Mantach embezzled all their funds but it’s deeper than that in that they appear to have no hunger to govern and haven’t as much as batted an eyelid while watching Andrews hook up with the Belt and Road initiative and engage in fatuous treaty preparations with our thirty thousand self-styled aboriginals only two thousand of which bothered to participate in the recent vote. The state Libs have effectively abandoned the people of Victoria.
120
Sam, You cannot sue the government at Local, State or Federal levels for what they have NOT done. You can sue them for what they HAVE DONE . As you can see this would become a futile exercise and one of semantics.
30
Even better, send the greenies out to do some fire fighting, also let them see how the tinder has built up under their policy and what it is resulting in.
20
Winds, made stronger by the wobbling southern jet stream.
Big temperature differentials before and after the fronts as they come through.
(Tassie and Victoria may get snow in higher elevations today)
And a dangerously high level of uncleared fuel load thanks to greenie type policies..
Let’s hope there are no ignition points.
Wouldn’t want a repeat of Royal National Park(1939, 1994, 2001), 1944 (Springwood), 1957 (Leura Blue Mts, 1968 (Blue Mts) 1977 (Blue Mts), 1979 (around Sydney) 1980 (Waterfall), 1994, 2000 (Ku-ring-gai), 2006 (Central Coast), or any others that I have missed.
200
‘Winds, made stronger by the wobbling southern jet stream.’ yes and what makes it wobble..the GSM!
20
Very strong support for my contention expressed at:
http://joannenova.com.au/2019/11/but-werent-solar-panels-supposed-to-stop-bushfires/#comment-2219007
They don’t give a damn if anything survives, even themselves. It is pure hatred for being alive!
40
Lionell, sadly guns seem to be a necessity in your homeland cities but in Australia is has only degenerated in two cities to that level.
Ideally cities would be free of guns but circumstances in too many areas of the US push the need for gun ownership.
Farms and the bush are a different matter.
The gun topic can do funny things, my “suicides?” was misrepresented by Peter as being a request for comment when it was meant to get him to acknowledge the problem of having such a permanent solution so handy.
Still the cities would be better off without guns, if politicians did the right thing by us all and put criminals in gaol.
http://joannenova.com.au/2019/11/but-werent-solar-panels-supposed-to-stop-bushfires/#comment-2218159
KK
10
You would deny the right of a rights respecting individual of the ability to protect his own life and property. Eliminating guns from the hands of such individuals will NEVER EVER eliminated guns from the hands of those who won’t and don’t respect the rights of other. This INCLUDES nearly every politician and governing elite since the first government. Government NEVER will “do the right thing” unless forced by the governed to do so.
The reason is that Government means power to force people to do what they would not be willing to do using the force of law itself crated. The force of law MEANS using guns, boot, knives, whips, confiscation, imprisonment, and extortion to get compliance.
You say only criminals will be so treated. However, it is the government who defines what is criminal. Such power over others will attract mostly those who want/need/enjoy power over others. So the government will define as criminal that which gives it the most power over others. Then very selectively enforce those laws so maximum fear of government is achieved. Crime – not so much.
This is the way government has acted since the first government was formed. It is why government is ALWAYS a dangerous servant and a deadly master. It never ever holds to the best interests of We the People.
61
Keep us weak,
chuck us in the creek!
20
“You would deny the right of a rights respecting individual of the ability to protect his own life and property”.
Hi Lionell, again I have been misrepresented.
I never said or implied any such thing and this highlights my main purpose in following this up.
The things that have been said bear little relation to my comments and have been a bit careless in that regard.
Some issues that neither you nor Peter seem to want to acknowledge is that the ready availability of guns in homes in the community comes with a down side.
Just look at the Connecticut Massacre and the Virginia Tech massacre. Then there are the “accidents” and mishaps and opportunistic suicides.
One comment that was directed at me inferred that I was “callous” while another tried to beat me over the head for not understanding that there were two types of suicides: a hard, permanent one and the other which you might recover from.
As I said I have a point. These responses seem to have been “prepackaged” with my innocuous comments giving the rather flimsy excuse for them to be aired.
The point I was going to make is that there’s a strong resemblance between this preprogrammed gun talk and the Climate Catastrophists.
Apart from the farming situation the gun issue in America bears little or no relationship to the gun issue in Australia.
Our police force may not be perfect but I suspect that overall it is more of a known quantity than the similarly named group in the U.S.
I don’t think that the needs of the USA in this matter have much relevance to Australia and the differences should be acknowledged.
We are better off without guns, but the reality is that even in Australia we have moved away from the law and order of fifty years ago that allowed us to live in gun free cities.
KK
40
Even now you would, if you could, deny the right of a rights respecting individual the right to protect his life and property with any degree of effectiveness. You cannot bring a piece of paper, a pitch fork, or a torch to a gun fight and expect to prevail. Especially if the only holder of guns are the people who refuse to respect the rights of others. Which includes almost any government and their fellow travelers, the criminals they wish to protect.
30
Lionell,
this is a further misrepresentation of my comments and position and illustrates the inflexibility of thinking I referred to.
Go back and read my earlier comments and those of Peter where he legitimately illustrates a situation he had been in where a gun was essential.
That comment received, I think, about 13 indications of support from readers. Lots of empathy.
Other comments though were formulaic and worrying, for heavens sake, why would you mention that there are two different types of suicide: one of which you can come back from??
Australia is not yet the USA in terms of mass shootings and America does not seem to have been able to defend itself from the political class so equating gun ownership with “freedom”, where has that been shown to occur.
KK
40
If everyone in a nation were rights respecting there would still be a necessity of being able to protect your life and property. However, no one in such a country would have fear of another rights respecting individual.
Yet, the borders are not air tight and there are other peoples who wish to violate rights. See the entire 20th Century and the first two decades of the 21st Century for massive instructive details.
10
YOU are misrepresenting and distorting your position by assuming the equivalent of unicorns and leprechauns will make everything OK. Please come back to the real world that actually is.
There are many people on earth who wish you and yours ill. Yet, if you live in a city, you want everyone to be defenseless NO MATTER WHAT happens. Yet, by living in a rural area you maintain YOU need to protect yourself.
From where I view the situation, Australia is disarmed and defenseless against both a predatory government and the criminal class. Your electric grid is collapsing and vast areas are being burned due to enforced green neglect. Your primary industries are being hollowed out. I suggest you are ignoring what really happens to maintain an illusion of safety that does not exist.
20
Gun Logic Part VI.
“I suggest you are ignoring what really happens to maintain an illusion of safety that does not exist.”
And by extension, if we all owned guns we could fix this?
Wondering how Canada functions,
do they “carry”?
Virginia Tech, Connecticut etc?
Life isn’t simple.
20
The inescapable fact is that gun free zones are TARGETS for those with guns and who wish to exploit that fact for their own malevolent purposes. There always have been and will always be some individuals who don’t respect the rights of others and who will be willing to violate those rights. Especially if they think they can get away with it.
Some, with religious motivations, will do it anyway. Others, as part of government, will do it too and try to use the power of government to cover up what they have done.
10
Gun Logic.
” I must argue that suicidal people are HURTING, not STUPID.
We know that there are many available methods and we know the difference between permanently lethal and recoverable methods of suicide. Pretending that removing just one method, without dealing with the hurt that is the root cause, is callous in the extreme”
Gun Logic. The world would be a better place if we all carried guns.
Don’t think so, and attributing statements and opinions to me that were never expressed by me is, as said earlier, offensive.
KK
10
If people commit suicide using guns why not cut of their hands so they can’t use guns to commit suicide? How about eliminating automobiles to eliminate automobile accidents? How about eliminating glass in windows so no one can break a window? Or maybe if you are deeply in debt, why not borrow more money to make the earlier debts go away?
See how easy it is to fix both large and small problems if you don’t have to pay any attention to the context of the problem and the real world consequences of the fix?
In fact, all problems can be made to go away with very simple solutions at the cost of causing a much larger problem. The problem is that you end up with worse problems than you started with and have gained nothing and lost much.
02
And at 5.1.1.2.1
The avalanche of words avoids relevant response and cheapens any discussion.
So similar to the warmer behaviour experienced here.
01
Perhaps a few embers will fall in Wentworth to…………….
140
too
40
” … could send dangerous embers capable of sparking secondary fires towards beachside suburbs such as Manly …”
If only Zali walked the talk, there wouldn’t be a climate emergency in Manly.
Steggall defends carbon footprint: https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6063403915001
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Now if she built her bird shredder to show alliegance to green gloriousness, they could wire it to run as a fan, and blow the embers back…
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Over the last 40 years, I have watched Australia’s eastern side burn three times. The first two were the state of Victoria, and this third one is New South Wales. I can vaguely remember at least two other times NZ firefighters have “paddled the ditch” to assist but I didn’t pay much attention to those.
All these have been observations from a very safe distance — the Tasman Sea is still impervious, thankfully, and none of the embers reach this far. But every time my heart goes out to those affected and injured in both the property and physical senses and especially to those who lose family members and loved ones.
However, over those 40 years, the same analyses for the causes of the fires and the same accusations and lists of mismanagement of the forests are made preventing easier and safer control of the blazes. Then the same old same old blame game starts. I see the same problems and lack of solutions in California and we have similar in NZ, although we’re luckier in a couple of senses, being wetter and smaller, yet we suffer from similar stupidity.
Sweden, Norway and Finland have as dense and prolific forests as we do, yet they seem to have less in the way of problems. (Germany has dug most of its forests up and planted windmills so I haven’t included them.) Some of the Finnish equipment I’ve seen and read about, is rather amazing. If they can do it better, why can’t we?
You could sell strategic areas of the forests off to insurance companies with lots of Green shareholders/owners … just thinking.
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Seeing as I am sceptic, I grabbed a random sentence from what you just wrote and set out to check it against the facts.
How surprised do you think I was to discover that:
https://www.forstwirtschaft-in-deutschland.de/german-forestry/forest-facts/?L=1
It’s great being a sceptic, everybody should try it.
47
It was a joke.
You obviously missed it.
60
Maybe you shouldnt just grab everything you read on the interweb as absolute FACT ..;)
And yes sophocles was being sarcastic if you didnt get it.
On which yep NZ is a wee bit wetter but Central Otago has had 2200 hectares of bush (Im not sure if it was bush or pine plantation) go up in smoke the other week.
Also Nelson had bush fires last summer.
40
https://climatechangedispatch.com/germany-raze-forest-wind-turbines/
Won’t be long at this rate. !!
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And in Scotland
https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2018/01/02/huge-areas-of-forest-destroyed-to-make-way-for-7-wind-farms/
30
“Green” environmentalism at its best 😉
20
Thank you for being a screaming nutbag, Screaming Nutbag. It’s nice to know you can’t recognise irony (seeing as you’re such a nutbag: irony = sarcasm — go fact-check it.)
Now you have told me that you are considerably intellectually challenged (that’s a nice way of saying dumb, stupid … I’ll use
</sarc>
or another synonym for my persiflage, so that you don’t keep tying your shoe laces together and making such a buffoon (buffoonery is yet another synonym … 🙂 ) of yourself.
Consider it just part of the friendly service for which this blog is noted …
</ridicule> (that’s another synonym for irony and sarcasma — I strongly suggest you fact-check that, too.).
Too save you too much effort with all this fact checking, you’ll find irony sarcasm buffoonery persiflage and ridicule along with some others I haven’t used yet in section 856 Ridicule of Roget’s Thesaurus. …
You’ll find a few of the synonyms for stupid is section 499 Imbecility. Now, that’s not a commonly used word these days, so you may appropriately fact-check it, too. You’ll find the thesaurus offers some four or five sections for that, so you may find it productive to fact-check them all.
😛
Sheesh: Yet Another Space Cadet …
11
https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/121595/Fire-Spread-Prediction-for-Tuesday-12-November-2019.pdf
This is a ma- of the projected spree for the north coast
Don’t give any of your usual garbage about fuel loads, history etc
The is what global warming looks like
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This is what fuel loads, history etc look like.
Don’t give any of your usual garbage about global warming.
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So this is a yearly occurrence? your ignorance is astonishing, even for this site.
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As if you could get these fire conditions post-September every year! Who would think it, let alone say it?
Buzz off, koala killer.
100
I hear greenies are going around deliberately lighting fires so they can push their agenda Fitzroy. A rumour maybe…or maybe not.
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How could they, when they all live in the inner city?
37
Say PF, the absolute depths of total ignorance, and unsubstantiated arrogance.
The KNOW-NOTHING of the greenie world.. and that is really saying something !
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I’ve kept it pretty polite with this(these) PF character(s). But no more. He(they) can buzz off.
These are bad conditions, not the worst ever yet, but bad. We can expect a turnaround, but it’s a fact that in 1915 (highest mean max) and 1951 it stayed dry like this almost to Christmas. Driest in the record is a possibility for 2019, but if that meant something “global” then 1902 would be the current peak of “global” whatever. (1888 would be the global-whatever peak for Sydney.)
Using typical Australian weather disasters, inevitable in the longer term, to push their creepy agenda is ghoulish.
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The other thing there is absolutely NO ZERO pre 1800 data on this continent so who knows what it was like during the Maunder minimum.
60
South-East Australia is bushfire prone, in a land of drought and flooding rain, we cannot ignore the lessons of history just because its inconvenient for your global warming meme.
Droughty conditions lead to bushfires, its inevitable.
‘This study confirms that SEA has experienced considerable rainfall variability that has influenced past Australian societies since the first European settlement in 1788. Of the droughts identified in this study, 1837–1841 was the longest and most widespread event influencing all subregions. The 1793–1809 period was particularly wet, with periods of heavy rainfall often resulting in devastating floods on the Hawkesbury River region of Sydney.’
Fenby and Gergis 2012
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If they really were caused by climate change why don’t fires occur all the time wherever it is hot and bushy?
South Australia hasn’t had a seriously bad bushfire since the Ash Wednesdays of 1980 and 1983, the latter year also bad for Victoria. The unhomogenised hottest days occur in SA, apparently!
I remember my dad going to fight the fires near Mt Gambier in 1959.
Nothing to do with global warming, all to do with political correctness!
330
Cold in Tassie and Vic, is that the mythical AGW as well ?
You know, that little fantasy of yours that you can never provide any empirical proof for.
/PF, just a mindless zealot !
180
Well yes, in fact on Sunday we were driving through quite heavy snow between Scottsdale and St Helens at elevation about 600m.
Thankfully we were in a 4×4 which made it a bit safer…..
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Your lack of basic understanding about anything to do with weather, is becoming quite a joke, PF ! 🙂
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Except PF there hasn’t been any, head in the sand again Peter, YOU agreed there is minimal global warming yet windmills and solar panels are still your totally ineffective solutions, rather than controlled burning and fire breaks which work in every forest every time regardless of cause.
I call on the federal government to institute laws overthrowing councils rights to force homeowners into danger by not clearing. There must be a clear right to preserve life by clearing land for up to 200m around habitable or fire refuge structures and 100m around other structures.
This can be done based on the constitutional responsibility to protect citizens. In this case from their greenie councils. Since fire crosses state borders the commonwealth government has clear jurisdiction here.
Jo, please pick this up and make the call on the government to intervene and allow private landowners to clear land for fire safety.
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🙂
80
Now careful…you will give PFs handlers more work to do….
PF has a clumsy intel-like mission, to create mayhem, to soak up your time.
I havent seen anything particularly useful posted yet by our resident hard head.
And given the ongoing resistance to common sense, seems to indicate a specific planned action.
70
you have no proof, all you do is sprout idology, astounding.
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Still waiting for your evidence of CO2 warming, PF
TOTALLY LACKING, isn’t it PF !!
All you sprout is Climate Cult mantra. Idiotic. !!
100
‘you have no proof, all you do is sprout idology, astounding. << applies directly to PF!
41
It is not ideology.
It is idiocracy.
30
or idiotology.
He makes a personal internal study of it every day.
20
I gave you the math which YOU agreed was reasonable, there is little to no global warming. So how is that ideology?
I Called on the government to allow citizens to take control of their own fire safety (which is already a right) how is that ideology? Is it your claim that if a government agent told to you to go stand in the middle of the pacific highway, to be run over by the next truck, that you should be required to actually do that?
No?
Then why should any one be able to be directed by the government (mostly an illegitimate government body since in 1988 local councils were delegitimised by referendum) to place themselves in a position to be run over by the next fire? How is that different Peter?
30
People on the ground everywhere are noting the massive increase in fuel load due mainly to the locking up of land and the disallowance of proper clearing.. ie the greenie agenda..
I would take their eyes over the ravings of a wilfully blind zealot, any day !
300
A random hippie, and someone from somewhere.
You don’t even know what fuel load is.
You don’t know what are the factors which contribute to fire intensity
But you feel free to insult anyone who disagrees with you,
rearrange this saying pig, disgusting
114
Poor PF,you are an IRRELEVANT little gnat
Nothing more
Your dishonest is renowned.
NOTHING you say can be taken with even a grain of truth.
People on the ground can SEE that fuel load.
Stop your childish DISHONESTY and DENIAL.
You are like a little five year old hiding a candy he has stolen behind its back
80
“The is what global warming looks like”
You mean like no atmospheric warming over Australia for 20 years
and apart from the slight El Nino effect in 1998, none for the previous 16 years
Yep that is what global warming looks like.
A dead flat trend line !!
270
Lets get the science right…..without climate fuhrer ado, ….Why filling a double glazed window with CO2 does not work and a lot more, with our favorite astrophysicist Piers Corbyn
Climate Change with Piers Corbyn Two
810 views
•Nov 1, 2019
https://youtu.be/7hkOPkmzm2w?list=PLXx6sNYNiueuxx2D_1f4s_KxK_2xbGa3M&t=1273
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There was a further experiment done, (can’t find my link to it) .
The result was that CO2 was less effective at blocking heat transfer than normal air.
Not just “no difference” as Piers says, but measurably less effective.
The supposition was that CO2 transfers energy more effectively because of its radiative properties.
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Also, unlike water CO2 is steady. Whatever effect there is, it is a constant. But the obvious variations year to year, are great like El Nino and La Nina and even a cloudy day. CO2 does not change. It cannot suddenly produce bush fires.
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Environmental Skeptic:
Just finished viewing Piers 1 & 2.
His comment that the most effective “Climate Action” for the IPCC etc. (if their theory is correct) would be to BAN AIR TRAVEL and DECLARE WAR on TERMITES.
i.e. if AGW theory is correct (I think that saying he doesn’t think so isn’t a SPOILER).
90
So CO2 only works in one IR Band, but you idology beats science
113
What absorbs more also emits more. An equilibrium regardless of which band. Beatles or Bach.
70
Yep, all you have is your baseless AGW cult ideology , PF
ZERO evidence, and every distraction under the SUN to avoid giving any.
40
PF you keep using the word “idology” I think this means the study of idols ??
30
Good, I hope he has an influence on his brother in case J Corbyn happens to beat Boris on Dec 12 or when ever it is, if they (poms) get the act together.
30
And what difference has +1C in 100 years made? Where? So if the bushfire area was 1C cooler today, would the bushfire go away?
How can 1C be to blame for bushfires today in NSW? That’s just nonsense. If you have bush, you have bushfires. If you don’t have bush, you don’t have bushfires. It’s very simple. Gum trees and pine trees reproduce by burning. It’s all perfectly natural. What is madness is living in a house surrounded by bush and hoping it does not happen again.
And Carbon dioxide reduction is not possible. The world had carbon dioxide in the little ice age. It has increased naturally 50% as the oceans warmed. Carbon dioxide levels are totally natural and beyond our control. And besides, what has that to do with a bushfire today or all the bushfires of the last 200 years? Were they all caused by Climate Change?
It’s all fact free gibberish.
The sooner we start to set our National goals based on being a land of droughts and flooding rains and bushfires and grass fires, the sooner we put an end to this Greens inflicted tragedy. They claim it’s science. None of them are scientists. Climate Scientologists.
270
For anyone who may have just wandered in, before Europeans arrived the locals had a low intensity fire regime, having been in south east Australia for at least 40,000 years during times of global warming and global cooling.
There were less conflagrations pre European arrival because the local hunter gatherers were fire farming.
100
No, that’s mythology, ask the oracle.
sarc.
60
The oracle mythes the point on so many levels.
60
Remember when Bob Brown stated without doubt that the floods in Queensland were caused directly by coal mining?
The clear extension of that clearly stated Bob Brown piece of wisdom is that since floods involve significant amounts of rain, and rain is water and water – from both its cooling effect and the ability to restrict oxygen – is a well known enemy of fire, we can clearly conclude that bushfires are caused by lack of coal mining.
Clearly.
Because this is what Left Wing logic looks like.
There are not rational discussion points with Left Logic. At best there is misguided passion, but for the most part it is socially repressed tyrants screaming How Dare You in between waving manufactured concern about the death toll.
You are a strange, strange man, Peter, and I fear your hands may never be clean.
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So you’re ditching the models and going with faith alone.
Your claims are in complete contradiction to the CSIRO forecasts for the east and north of Australia.
21
Yep PF, you’re spot on for once.
Climatism cult ideology pervades rational forest management practices and leads to the conflagration we now witness.
Predictions based on key variables, known fuel load, and wind direction.
100
But wait…theres more…newspaper just *happens* ( what are the odds ???? ) to interview someone who went to sydney to protest a climate change “issue”. Of course, its very sad the house has been lost, it does though beg the question as to why wasnt an additional person who hasnt been travelling for climate “issues”, been also interviewed?
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6487590/nsw-fire-victims-demand-climate-action/?cs=14231
“Moments after tipping the burnt remains of his family home onto the footpath outside NSW Parliament, Aaron Crowe declared now was precisely the right time to talk about climate change.
The 38-year-old lost his two-bedroom home – which he shares with his wife and three-year-old daughter – on Friday after a fire tore through the tiny community of Warrawillah on the state’s mid-north coast.
“Mr Crowe, wife Fiona Lee and daughter Peppa travelled to Sydney on Tuesday for a rally outside state parliament demanding more resources for the NSW Rural Fire Service and to protest a bill relating to mining approvals and greenhouse gas emissions.
“Critics say the bill, likely to be debated this week, curtails the power of planning authorities to consider climate pollution regarding new coal and gas projects.
“Standing among hundreds of protesters on Sydney’s Macquarie Street, Mr Crowe held up an old compost bin from his home – which he had built himself – and tipped the charred remnants onto the footpath.
“”In this bucket is my house,” Mr Crowe told the crowd.
“NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has hit back at questions linking fires raging around the state to climate change, insisting now was not the time to discuss the issue – a sentiment Mr Crowe dismissed.
“”When’s the time to talk about climate change then, if I’m standing in the wreckage of my own house,” he said while speaking to reporters.
52
“”In this bucket is my house,” Mr Crowe told the crowd.
Its very sad that these people have been so branewashed by the eco loon, IPCCriminal, BIG Green energy, Govt troll advertising, MSM garbage lies, mantra. That leads to this. Someone should go to jail.
60
Speak English man. You’re letting your emotions blind you in so many ways it would seem.
Warming? UAH for Australia:
https://postimg.cc/nM0ZQrbC
Global warming? According to the IPCC we’ve experienced less than 1C° over the last 112 years.
Less than 1.0 C° over 112 years. And we know how much adjustment has been done to that figure – cooling the past and heating the recent.
“The total increase between the average of the 1850–1900 period and the 2003–2012 period is 0.78 [0.72 to 0.85] °C, based on the single longest dataset available 4 (see Figure SPM.1). {2.4}”
https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf
0.78 C° over 112 years.
70
As a matter of FACT…
Those projections are based on actual fuel loads, actual landforms and actual history. We pay a LOT of attention to what fires have done in the past, and the projections for the next 24hrs would be identical whether we thought the current conditions were natural or not.
You have beclowned yourself yet again.
40
Whilst the Greens play the climate change blame game whilst families face personal tragedy the actual weather as predicted appears to be neither unprecedented or unusual . What is now happening though is that in order to try to motivate people at risk to take actions to try to avoid fire risk by moving out of danger to areas of safety the weather bureaus use official terms to not only highlight risk but to create motivation for people to take individual protective action. Following the devastation of the last Victorian major bushfires the bureau introduced words such as catastrophic to officially describe forecast weather conditions. The bureau had received very harsh criticism for failing to warn people that they faced these severe risks.The introduction of alarmist words to describe predicted weather conditions replaced less alarmist warnings that would describe the weather as including a total fire ban. The use of the term catastrophic is now used regularly by bureaus and politicians alike to avoid being accused of failing to properly warn people of the risks. In NSW the declaration of a state of emergency is politicians ensuring that they are getting people’s attention to act in ways that ensures the minimum number of lives are lost.
This creates an environment of high anxiety even before circumstances eventuate and enable the Greens to erroneously link these fires to policy failure of not building enough windmills and solar panels . One only has to look at historical data and news headlines to realise that these fires have been regular occurrences over the last 200 years with absolutely no correlation between CO2 and frequency or intensity. If one wants to argue the science the only clearly direct message from these fires is that if as suggested they are more intense than usual then one has to only look at the increased fuel load that has built up over the years.
The fact that 37 degrees and winds are now catastrophic reflects that this issue is about the conditions on the ground not the weather. The weather is no more dangerous than it has been many times over the last 200 years ago but the Green induced forest conditions are .
170
“The use of the term catastrophic is now used regularly by bureaus and politicians “
And if there no fire.. they risk the “cry wolf” syndrome.
130
How does a party with one seat get some much done?
But Scott has thoughts and prayers, that will work,
113
The whole green ideology is a deep putrid infection that infest every part of society.
They yap and carry on (you are a classic case in point),
They get the MSM doing the same , the MSM are 80% greenies anyway
Its all just mindless noise from the far-left.
Mr Morrison does well to IGNORE them for the most part.
100
We allow people who are elected to office to manage that about which they know nothing.
This is due solely to the vast expansion of the power of government over these many year
whilst the competance and intelligence of those in government has not increased.
It is a standing joke on the states that we wouldn’t want the people running the DMV
(Department of Motor Vehicles, a notoriously unfriendly group in most jurisdictions)to run
our forests, or our power grids,
then we turn around and give them the authority.
We have given authority over our forests and wild lands to people who do not live in them, who have no special knowledge of them,
and who have no personal exposure to issues therein. We now have a series of countries experiencing
a continuation of seasonal fires that have happened for millenia. It is also generally reported that the forests and fires were better managed 50 years ago and are out of control now.
If the watermelons who pray to climate change improve our world much more we’ll all be dead. I don’t really have any standing to
give advice to my Australian friends, as I think of you, but when you home has burned civil debate is not longer required.
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Richard:
There is no Droit Législatif (as introduced by Napoleon) to exempt bureaucrats from the consequence of their actions in Australia, and as far as I know in the USA.
The moment that lawyers realise that there are huge damages possible in group actions against bureaucrats is the moment that the tide will turn. A powerful force will be on the public’s side (for a percentage).
Of course, this will result in Governments losing revenue and politicians having the choice of doing something or of raising taxes and losing office. They will be galvanised into action almost as fast as they could vote themselves a pay rise.
80
Politicians love a press release declaring no more logging, another national park. Gets lots of votes in metropolitan areas.
But the reality is that bushland that is neglected becomes a fire waiting to happen. Ash Wednesday 1983, Black Saturday 2009, and many more dating back to 1851.
And each time we have another Royal Commission that recommends more back burning, better park maintenance, yet nothing is done.
Victoria’s Bushfires Royal Commission has recommended sweeping policy changes in response to the Black Saturday and Gippsland bushfires.
The Commission wants the Government to roughly quadruple the amount of controlled burning it undertakes.
190
Robber
Suggested
“And each time we have another Royal Commission that once againrecommends more back burning, better park maintenance, yet nothing is done.
80
The Greens are blaming the fires on the government for not shutting down our coal mines and coal fired power stations. It really is time for the Greens to be flagged as a terrorist group.
380
Citizenship question:
A house built among the lovely gum trees.
A house built among 44 gallon drums of petrol.
Which is sillier?
130
No difference, Australian bush is full of hydrocarbon fuel, mostly eucalyptus oil. Tonnes of it.
160
… and Kerosene Bush.
80
& turpentine
60
….and Spinifex Grass.
20
Yep. Trick question.
50
So how do the original fires start? 50 even 60 degrees cant start a fire. Other than already started fires kindling new ones but thats only in the same area within a few km depending on wind. I saw where QLD police are investigating some. If theres been no lightning and I havent seen evidence of cells.
20
There is only one answer. Not building the house.
The greens want you crammed into a totalitarian urban sprawl.
40
The clever/smart/lucky country is here. With surveillance, fires will be a thing of the past..
Smart City Solution
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-xGocyOJiY
00
The same lack of sensible management caused the massive flooding in Somerset UK a few years ago. They used to regularly clean out the drains, ditches and dredge the rivers in the area but the Green regulations came in and the regeneration of growth blocked the system up again. In comes the first above average rainfall and everyone gets flooded out.
Similar to Australia they got the global warming band wagon at the time but a little bit of research proves otherwise
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/18/flooding-in-the-somerset-levels-a-case-study/
140
As I remember, that was the explicit plan, to recreate the wetlands and be a bird sanctuary and make the area impossible and return the flooding. It all worked. The fact is in the Green litany, the right of people to live come last. Wetlands and swamps are far more important than farming and living and safety. It’s all about the ducks.
Yes, as has been said, the Greens should be declared a terrorist organization. They mean us harm.
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I had just been thinking about the floods in England when I came upon your comment Ross. In Catterick Village in Yorkshire there was a flood, blamed partly on poor design of the then new section of the A1 and a ridiculous replacement bridge in the village mandated (aapparently) by EU regulations. The beck through the village used to be cleared and the old bridge was arched (this went over the original A1). A new flat bridge and a ban on dredging took their inevitable course. Each heavy rain moved more rubble down the beck and then silt collected, then plants took hold, cutting yet more of the already reduced clearance. In the 2012 floods, trucks were diverted through the village from the flooded A1 and drove too fast, pushing a wall of water into local houses. Great…thanks greenies.
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I meant the original A1 was over that bridge (still a bit jet-lagged!).
30
Empathy and sympathy.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Wildland Urban Interface = WUI → Woo-E
{The term used in the USA for the areas mentioned in the post.}
Vegetation is relentless.
We live in such an area. Takes work to protect a property.
Each year that nothing is done just makes it harder to do and makes for a more dangerous situation.
If regulations do not allow tree removal and other measures, then regulations should not have allowed development in the first place.
{I guess that is what greens now want.}
This is about fuel load.
Two of the largest wildfires in North America, note the years:
1910: The Big Burn in North Idaho and Western Montana.
1950: Chinchaga River Fire in northern British Columbia and Alberta.
120
You forgot that if you build a predominately wooden house in an ares with the likelihood of fires then you are a fool.
40
I will be building a house soon, in a bushfire prone region (ie country NSW)Edge of a small town, and I have natural bush opposite.
I will use either concrete of steel frame floor, steel frame walls, and probably Colorbond exterior and roof, and windows, metal fly screens etc.
Still trying to find a suitable material for a raised (about 1.5m) deck out the back, although the plan is to put water tanks under the deck.
40
Perforated water pipe along the roof with a quick to connect to garden hose tap, steel mesh gutter guard and downpipes blocking mechanism to hold water in guttering.
Shutters on windows to protect interior from radiant heat from fire. Pedestrian door draft strips outside to stop fire embers.
Regarding deck, there are galvanised steel plank system perforated holes decking mostly used for commercial and industrial purposes, coupled to steel pipe balustrading, alternatively welded steel grating.
60
No, you can’t rely on your garden tap – if it comes to the point you really need it, it won’t be working.
You need a pump and a dam.
12
Dennis, don’t forget the steel shutters to close over the windows and doors. The other thing you should do is get a model tested at one of the labs that do fire testing.
There is a house near my village that had the fire roll over it during the big fire a few years ago that is still standing undamaged. It has stone walls almost a meter thick, the roof is pan tiles over a steel decking on a steel frame and has steel shutters and steel mesh over the gutters. I know all about it because I watched the owner working on it (it started as a ruin but it was the old family home). The fire that rolled over it was driven up the mountain side by very strong winds, so much so that the council called for the village to be evacuated. I stayed and have the photos of the fire from real close. The fire stopped at the fire break 500 meters from the village with nothing to burn on the village side the 5 firemen wiped it out.
An interesting observation. The two olive plantations in the mountain side didn’t burn, the trees were scorched but produce a crop the next year.
20
Andy I seen a few steel framed and steel clad houses burned out near Melbourne, the force of the wind and flame blew out windows and they burned from within .
We are on the edge of a range that hasn’t been back burned in about 20 years , I have firefighting equipment in place every summer but in a big firestorm I’m pretty sure I’d be wasting my time .
70
We just built a house starting two years ago. We wanted low maintenance and fire resistance. Our contractor suggested stamped concrete for the deck which we hadn’t thought of… we opted for it, and really like it. Cost was a little lower than TREX composite decking board which is popular (but pricey!) in our part of the world (western Canada). Only downside to date is the ~10% that gets snowed on is slicker than snot while shovelling because the stamping process leaves the surface smooth and then it’s coated with sealer.
Joists had to be upsized from normal 2×10’s on 16″ centers to 2×12’s on 12″ centers to handle the weight, and an extra beam was installed temporarily to support the weight while concrete was curing.
Orientation was a consideration; our deck faces east so the concrete warms up in the morning and then it’s shaded in the afternoon. If the deck faced west it would be too warm to enjoy on sunny summer afternoons.
30
ivan:
I saw a film of the aftermath of the Tasmanian fires in 1967. One area was almost burnt out but amid the blackened houses 2 wooden ones stood in good condition.
Partly because the homeowners took precautions as they looked ahead (not that common) and also because the (water-based) paint blistered and insulated the wood. DULUX had a chemist working on intumescent coatings for years. (I know because she tested them in our laboratory (one of the few with a gas ring) and that was a signal to be elsewhere from the acid fumes.
Still, if I was building “a home among the gum trees” it would be concrete, preferably with earth banks for thermal insulation as well.
50
Interestingly, one of the very few houses to survive in Marysville in 2009 was a friend’s wooden cottage, recently repainted. Another friend there had a house built of concrete blocks…these disintegrated in the firestorm.
When we rebuilt we went for a concrete waffle slab (slight slope) and our builder put extra deep reinforcement for the very large posts. The walls are Timbercrete and the roof is Colorbond. We also put in a good water tank, to add to the underground store. There is more I’d like to do but money is limited.
Just lately the wind has brought down more rubbish from trees; it is a never-ending problem…
60
I’ve read where the mother of all fire catastrophes, Peshtigo 1871, was intensified by the amount of wood-leavings from the massive timber industry. Of course, it was concurrent with Great Chicago and other fires in the region, so that the main factor does appear to be weather. By mid-October you simply don’t expect such explosive conditions, heat+drought+high winds, around the Great Lakes.
But Peshtigo happened, a combination of fuel loads and freak weather not known before or since. No doubt a generation grew up learning from the experience, just as a generation grew up in WA learning from the experience of 1961.
The problem now is that the very worst people, the kakistocracy, see advantage in natural catastrophes, and when koalas fry because of green mismanagement they have the refuse media of the world at their disposal to fit emotion to agenda. A chain of tightly urbanized surveillance states surrounded by fire-and-feral prone wilderness is their dream for us all.
The biggest problem with globalists is not that they are evil, but that, like their shabbier commie predecessors, they are the most colossal bunglers.
130
Mosomoso, hope you, your neighbours and property are safe from present fire danger.
70
We’re pretty right so far. The stronger NW winds are predicted for the region south of here. Still, we’re ready to evacuate.
Two things I’ll say for aging hippies, at least the ones around here: they have large, happy, stay-together 1950s style families…and they make a great fire brigade.
110
I’ve just taken in a young family from Dargan, they were advised to get out. Lovely people, but naive.
30
It always comes back to highlight the Greens backed regulation.
https://www.beefcentral.com/news/qld-landholder-hit-with-record-1m-penalty-for-making-fire-breaks-too-wide/
40
I’ve never seen so much smoke in the sky; symbolic of half a century without accountable government.
Maybe this is repetitious, but.
This fire catastrophe has been caused wholly and solely by bloody mindedness at Local and State government levels.
Any sane, rational analysis of the Victorian Fire Tragedy should have been all the confirmation needed that something was wrong, but no, it seems that a similar catastrophe was needed in NSW.
Surely they’ll fix it now and stop making it impossible to protect yourself from inevitable fires.
Won’t they?
And the politicians will tell us that California has nothing to do with our situation.
KK
110
There’ll be the usual mutterings and claptrap about ‘lessons must be learned’ and then back to greenie bullying, unless they are finally and properly held to account.
90
Re lessons to be learned. Don’t expect the results you’re hoping fore.
Example: Clinton has blamed her loss on an ever-changing cast of characters — Russia, WikiLeaks, James B. Comey and Bernie Sanders. Now she has put the blame on a new scapegoat: millions of bigoted white nationalists.
Just like the psychologists doing studies of climate deniers *sic; they don’t know, they don’t ask, and they come to the wrong conclusion because they can’t understand a different opinion exists.
60
If only Canberra went car free last week we wouldn’t be having the bushfires …
Canberra’s first car-free day should be 22nd September 2020, Conservation Council ACT says
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-11/canberra-first-car-free-day-could-be-september-22-2020/11690512
Wait.
Canberra could be like 3rd world African country Togo- just 2 cars per 10,000 people – every day of the year -to stop bushfires!
https://www.firstvehicleleasing.co.uk/blog/5895/which-countries-have-the-most-and-least-cars-per-person/
Oh … wait …
“In the area you have selected (Togo) the wildfire hazard is classified as high according to the information that is currently available to this tool.
This means that there is greater than aa 50% chance of encountering weather that could support a significant wildfire that is likely to result in both life and property loss in any given year.”
http://thinkhazard.org/en/report/243-togo/WF
Nope. No cars, solar panels, windmills or carbon (sic) taxes will not prevent bushfires in Australia or Togo.
40
Travis:
How about if we moved the Canberra Greenies to Togo?
20
No, make them live in the middle of the driest most overgrown brush available in Australia…give up their soy-latte urbs and suburbs.
10
Annie:
No good. The problem with Greenies (inner-city or north central coat of NSW) is that they DO NOT think ahead.
When the fire comes they will be complaining about a shortage of soy-milk (is there such a thing?).
Remember the SHIP OF FOOLS where the complaints when stuck in the ice (from ignoring the Captain) were about running out of the ingredients for peanut butter smoothies.
(Also remember that once free of the Greenies the Russian Captain freed the ship made port a week ahead of them.)
20
Wearing my engineer’s hat I have to put a lot of the blame for the destroyed housing housing at the feet of the various councils planning departments. Who in their right mind allows people to build inflammable houses in an area that is likely to burn? It is possible to build fire proof buildings and those should be the norm in forest areas, not the tin clad wood construction depicted in the video. Also it should be mandatory to have adequate clear space round the dwelling – lack of that space I blame on the local councillors and their green advisers.
Australia is not the only place such stupidity abounds, California has set the standard for that.
90
Building a fireproof house is hard albeit not impossible. If I lived in the bush and for peace of mind I would build an underground nuclear bomb shelter under the house with lots of supplies to last out several days if necessary. However, it’s all moot as I would never live in the bush in the first place.
50
But if you did live in the bush there are builders of shelters you describe available in a number of people capacity dimensions.
10
Yes I know. I looked at them out of interest in 2013 when there were major fires around Sydney. Some are built above ground and others below ground. Worthy of serious consideration if one lived in the bush.
10
Is “peter fitzroy” a fake account created by someone here to take the piss out of the $CAGW$ meme by asinine parodies?.
I just think of Poes Law when I read its posts
I could ask it..if it is legit that is…if its off the grid and sold the car..but I know how the game is played.
It will never answer..
Its all about looking cool reposting stuff and not actually doing anything..or thinking too hard about anything..
Welcome to the decline.. 🙂
51
Unfortunately, it’s not unique. It’s becoming more common almost everywhere. Even some presenters on Sky News are pushing the “blame the fires on climate change” crap.
Enjoy the decline.
60
No he is real enough and like me uses his real name , his Facebook account which I’ve looked at shows he’s firmly brainwashed to all the lefty organisations and news sites .
Supporter of Getup, greenpiss, greens etc etc .
80
PF is an asset, and very sure has handlers.
This is why you only get a one way information flow and is impervious to common sense, as PFs mission appears to be disruption and misinformaton, not actual learning.
Its pretty amateur stuff.
70
I come from a family of three children. When we kids took exception to decisions our parents made, we complained that we should be allowed to vote on family decisions. My father agreed. He gave my younger sister one vote, he gave me two votes, he gave my older brother four votes, he gave my mother eight votes, and he gave himself 16 votes. At the time, you have no idea how mad it made me when an issue arose and he would say “let’s put the issue to a vote.” Now as an adult and a parent, you have no idea how much I appreciate his wisdom and his approach to decision making. My father was not out to exploit the family for his personal gain. He loved his children and had their best interests at heart; but he was smart enough to know that children often make bad decisions because they are ignorant of factors that might bring them harm. The “greens” of the world are like children–they know what they want but they know almost nothing about how to achieve their goals. Like myself as a child, the “greens” want to impose their “feel-good” beliefs on the world. And like my father, it’s way past time for the adults to tell the “greens” to pound sand.
190
The same can be said about much of the ALP and some in the LNP. We have far too many “children” in politics. It’s no wonder the ALP and Greens want to lower the voting age.
130
Yep & when you watch parliament they all seem to be “swiping” their iSpys & not really paying attention.
APH must be a hot-bed of cyber studs!
I wonder what the emoji symbol is for the “Yoga Room”?
/sarc.
50
how did you manage without parents?
26
Tsk, GA.
Even for you, thats a poor taste comment….
30
You poor test tube baby, GA.
Explains the lack of brains.
30
Gee Aye, I did what you have managed to endlessly postpone–I grew up.
50
The Greens don’t run the country.
The people who *do* run the country,
– sold off our gold reserve for 1/4 what it would be worth today
– sold off our gas supplies to China and Japan at locked-in prices that are a fraction of what we Australians have to pay for gas ourselves
– privatised the airports, thus cutting off a good chunk of government income
– privatised the electricity bodies, resulting in a tripling of the retail margin, gold-plating of the transmission and all-around rip-off prices to the consumer
– keep peddling anti-science nonsense and supporting coal despite the fact that new technologies produce electricity more cheaply and the coal industry is dying
– transfer $million$ to Angus Taylor’s family bank account in the Cayman Islands to pay for water that doesn’t even exist, let alone belong to them.
As you can see the adults aren’t in charge. We are run by backwards-thinking incompetents and fraudsters, liars and cheats.
59
“keep peddling anti-science nonsense “
I thought you said the Green weren’t in power ?
Make up your tiny little mind !
51
“sold off our gold reserve for 1/4 what it would be worth today”
$5 billion in 2011.. Gillard Rudd.. Labor
“sold off our gas supplies to China”
$50 billion deal 2009… Gillard Rudd.. Labor
“privatised the airports,”
Discussions started 1994 Keating.. Labor
“privatised the electricity bodies”
Kennett in Victoria
Greiner in NSW
“transfer $million$ to Angus Taylor’s family bank account “
And into the ABC/Gruniad conspiracy theories.. well done.. 🙂
70
Greens , particularly the watermelon variety, have had a very strong faction in the Labor party since the 70s. To claim that they originated with, and only expert influence through, the Party bearing their name is patently dishonest.
30
Used to ride dirtbikes through the fire trails in mountains near where i live. Council turned Green and, concrete blocks with heavy steel cable. They locked out the whole mountain. Fire trails disappeared. Thick dense bush. Mega fire waiting to happen. Thanks De natalie.
70
fires…never let facts get in the way of cool brain dead zombie memes.
.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/nasa-detects-drop-in-global-fires
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4874420/
40
Take the time to research UN Agenda 21/Agenda 30 and how our governments are imposing the many conditions and restrictions without asking the people what we want.
80
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Thursday_bushfires
It has been ever thus.
But the woke deny history and refuse to learn from it.
60
Even if you use Green logic and Australia had dynamited all the coal power plants in 1990 and we only had windmills, what difference would that make to bushfires today? It is impossible to understand the Green argument that government is responsible for making the bushfires happen.
What is obviously true is that it is Green influenced Federal, State and Council governments which has created a truly disastrous situation.
We have run out of water, despite the giant unused desalination plants. We have a very fragile power system, despite the ten billion a year spent on creating the world’s most expensive electricity. We have no new dams in fifty years while wasting $100-$200Billion on Green fantasies.
And we have done nothing to improve the country or make it safer or better for anyone. All because of a mad belief that nature is kind and gentle and Flannery’s Gaia Earth Mother will look after us, the Green religion. When in fact it is humans versus the planet in a primal struggle for survival, except for the inner city Greens who have never seen a cow or been on a real farm and go to the gym for exercise and think electricity comes from a plug in a wall and avacadoes migrate South for the winter.
When will we be free of the Green fantasists? Especially communist lawyer Bandt who openly sees Green nonsense as a means to an end.
210
I like it; THE GREAT MIGRATION OF THE AVOCADOES. Could we get David Attenborough to do the commentary?
60
It’s terrible. Avocadoes arrive Green and black and soft and whole and happy and unbruised. Then they go to restaurants where they are without warning senselessly smashed for the pleasure of the indulged inner city Greens. Oh, the humanity! And these people complain about horse racing? Hypocrites.
110
I think once the australian people realize they have been sold a pup, it will get ugly.
At that point the occult Elite will have to either start a war as a distraction, or implement full blown martial law to keep a lid on peoples’ righteous anger….even then the Elite may get purged….
50
Agree. The extreme left will not give up and in fact are becoming more and more violent. So when enough of the rest of society wake up things will get very ugly indeed. It could be prevented if the likes of Morrison dealt with the extreme left (including the Greens) more directly instead of brushing them under the carpet as though they will eventually go away. They will not go away. If necessary they will crash and burn this nation before they give up their hatred of the West and everything Australia currently stands for.
30
“The extreme left will not give up and in fact are becoming more and more violent”
And to think that this is being funded by social security monies.
30
I consider the ABC extreme left in some cases so we are all funding it. Go figure. It’s past the time for selling off the ABC.
50
According to your logic, it’s OK to pi55 in the water supply if somebody else is doing it, too.
37
Don’t lie.
Offensive violence and self-defensive violence are not morally equivalent.
30
Here Bolt talks to a real expert on bush fires and he provides the facts and data and highlights the critical lack of proper reduction burns.
Yet we still have donkeys like the Greens yapping about their delusional CAGW fantasies. What a con and fra-d, and our clueless media and particularly their ABC promote this Green garbage again and again.
David Packham thinks our forests have at least 10 times the load compared to Aboriginal Australian times and this will take many years of controlled burning to fix.
Here’s Andrew’s interview with David Packham yesterday.
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/fuel-buildup-so-lethal-that-were-looking-at-1000-deaths/news-story/d36fe3bd6e095e13a637c3fa26b85e2c
50
In the field of bushfire science, there is no-one more qualified and more credible than Packham, Underwood and Phil Cheney.
10
There is currently so much climate porn the ABC, the Guardian and the Greens are all experiencing multi-orgasms.
40
Gawd! What a rhree-way!
20
It was noted yesterday that their ABC presenters were the only channel to not wear a poppy , didn’t want to upset a minority group presumably but shows a total lack of respect for what the day is all about .
110
Nov 11th is the day the ABC give remembrance to both the Whitlam Government and Ned Kelly – Australians sacrificing their lives to keep the Western World free just do not rate.
40
What an awful mocking tone. Did your cat die Jo?
114
What a childish post, did you step on your pet toad, GA?
90
Gosh Yes.
And yes, that’s also the translation from the original Scots.
20
In moderation is the following. Probably moderated because I forgot to add any other text. Mods if this one goes through don’t bother about the other.
http://joannenova.com.au/2019/11/new-study-settles-it-global-warming-and-the-pause-was-driven-by-changes-in-cloud-cover-not-co2/#comment-2214663
http://joannenova.com.au/2019/10/shrinking-stevenson-screens-cause-global-warming-and-peeling-paint-long-grass/#comment-2212391
17
Nappy change time for GA !!
50
Andrew Bolt discusses the barking mad Greens and their delusional nonsense about weather events.
Will these disgusting donkeys ever wake up?
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/greens-go-mad-blame-scott-morrison-for-climate-and-fires/news-story/112ef7e6e57f69de1023dba0751819b1
50
Everything old is new again. Check this article from 1898.
Manning River Times and Advocate for the Northern Coast Districts of New South Wales (Taree, NSW : 1898 National Library of Australia http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article171615813
The Heat Wave.
A JULKUE number of deatlm occurred in South
Australia, Victoria, and in this colony from heat
apoplexy last week — the heat having been unpre
cedented. About 20 deaths have been caused in
South Australia alone, and the death rate in public
institutions has increased at an alarmW rate.
The temperature in Melbourne last Thursday was
100 degrees in the shade, 108 degrees at Adelaide,
and at Hobart on the some day 106£ degrees.
Bush fires of a destructive nature were raging
near Hobart on Thursday lost in all directions. Mr.
Henry Dobson’s suburban residence, theLangley
Hotel, and some old penal establishments at Port
Arthur, were burned down.
Persons have fallen dead in the streets of Mel
bourne and Adelaide, and others have been seriously
eunstruck.
At Gundagai last week the thermometer in the
shade was 108 degrees on Tuesday, 103 on Wednes
day, and 106 on Thursday !
60
And when you consider the great heat of 1896 in the east just two years prior, and the scale of the Federation Drought – which even Kidman could not ride out – it just seems incredible that there are those who act surprised by some “new” climate.
We have no way of comparing the heat and drought of the early 1790s (when monsoon failure killed millions in India and the new colony of Port Jackson was close to failure) or that sharp drought of the late 1830s which actually dried the ‘bidgee with any recent disaster. But we know enough of the other spring fire years such as 1951 and 1980 in Eastern Australia to know that conditions such as now have to come round.
The great stunt of the GeeUppers and “activists” is to get the disaster while it is fresh and treat the past disaster like an old faded photo left in a drawer. It’s Cinerama+Technicolour versus black and white Kinetoscope.
Well, the GeeUppers and stunt-pullers will have themselves a great time with this drought, just as they did with the 2010 flood. They will never run out of extremes on this continent of extremes and because no two disasters are alike they will go on claiming that the latest is unique, unprecedented etc.
So we go on giving them the thing they hate: history. The New Man at Year Zero hates history.
80
Nothing new under the sun.
40
Let’s see what Carol Sparks, Mayor of Glen Innes has to say
316
“between a hotter, drier climate”
No warming in Australia in 20 years.
Yes we are in a dry period, that is because of the cold SSTs around most of the North, North-East and South of Australia.
Seem this person has drunk the Climate Cuckoo Kool-aide where real data doesn’t matter.
Of course she is going to say the council has done the right thing.. she’s a politician.
“and by scientists.”
Real scientists have been saying that land needs to be clear more often,
Climate models are not real science, and they are the only place where warming by increased atmospheric CO2 exists.
120
Only somebody dishonest would use the record 1998 El Nino as their starting point for measuring a temperature trend.
27
WRONG again, that is a count-back, incompetent nutcase.
We know the 1998 Event was the only warming in those 38 or so years back to 1979.
20 years of NO WARMING
and before that El Nino
16 years of NO WARMING
Thank you SOOO much for pointing out that single warming event.
You seem to be on the REALIST side now.. well done.
50
Be fair, SN, you should use the plural “everybody dishonest” instead of “somebody dishonest” for this site.
Oh, and none of them no the difference between climate and weather either.
210
And HONEST person would produce empirical evidence.
But you are NEVER honest, are you PF.
Its one big LIE/FARCE from you.
You STILL think the current WEATHER is actually “climate”.
You poor confused little boy. !
Snow in Tassie and Victoria, PF is that “climate” too, PF ?
50
Youve been triggered…I wonder which words are they?
10
‘… the link between a hotter, drier climate …’ said Carol Sparks.
Even a cooler and drier climate will produce bushfires, its all about relative humidity.
70
sort of el G. It is also about the dryness of the vegetation.
18
So you don’t understand that Australia has regular DROUGHTS ?
You are really quite DUMB, aren’t you GA. !!
40
She says in her best victimhood mode;
“The anger is real.
The anger is justified.
Because this disaster was all foreseen and predicted”.
If Freddie Mercury was around now he could just change the words and have a whole new sales boom with:
“Find me, find me, find me, Somebody tooooo Blame.”
KK
40
It should be noted that Carol Sparks is a Green and was a member of Bob Brown’s anti-Adani convoy
Not to be trusted, EVER !
120
These ostriches will never admit the truth. As I’ve been saying for the last two weeks, areas burnt which have never historically had fires.
Instead lets quote random hippies from Nimbin, or anything from the Australian as if that is authoritative for science or reality
These are the worst fires on the North coast. look at the maps
https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/fire-information/fires-near-me
look at the now updated projections
https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/121595/North-East-Fires-Prediction-1000.pdf
You don’t like change, you don’t like reality, and you don’t like me
111
There are LOTS of areas that haven’t had historic fires, PF
As you are well aware, there is absolutely NO empirical evidence that human CO2 has affected the global climate in any way whatsoever.
Fires happen, PF, and current WEATHER conditions are conducive to big fires, especially when there is SO MUCH fuel load about.
stop your childish attempt to link them to your brain-washed FANTASIES.
50
“authoritative for science or reality”
Don’t worry , PF
NOBODY will ever quote you as having even the tiniest bit of authoritative for science or reality. !
Still waiting for your empirical evidence of warming by atmospheric CO2, Pf
(Not models, not propaganda pap/rhetoric)
Waiting, Waiting !!
And that other question you keep avoiding.
In what way has the global climate changed in the last 40 years that can be SCIENTIFICALLY put down to human release of CO2?
Waiting , Waiting.
50
Councillor Carol Sparks
https://greensoncouncil.org.au/glen-innes/
20
I chose a quote where she stated the history of the fire location. Has being green anything to do with that? Were the council workers green? Was the previous fire green?
08
Your manic DENIAL of the greenie “fuel-load” agenda is getting quite hilarious, GA 🙂
Please keep going.. who are always good for comedy and FARCE ! 🙂
60
The management and control were GREEN.
50
Carol Sparks needs to have a closer look at the science she references.
She sounds like a apologist for the greens.
Well, now! That’s a doozy Carol.
You’d best hand in your 20 year medal, Carol. It’s nothing more than a medal for failure.
60
writes the chickenhawk.
08
Another empty dried-leaf comment
No evidence.. NADA.
REAL science is very much against even the possibility of any warming by atmospheric CO2
We are STILL waiting for some scientific evidence FOR this nonsense.
Never forthcoming, is it GA.
40
🙂
10
Perhaps you and Carol Sparks need to take a deep breath and listen to a real expert:
https://youtu.be/E6RrgBrb6R8
David Packham was part of the CSIRO Bushfire Research Group which was internationally regarded and had published many papers on bushfire behavior and smoke characteristics.
00
According to this, it appears she is a Green
https://www.gleninnesexaminer.com.au/story/5747663/new-mayor-has-an-open-door-policy/
“Just over a month into her office, the town’s first Green and first lady mayor is working hard to reduce worryingly high levels of domestic violence, and help youth.
“Last week, Cr Sparks attended a country mayors’ meeting in Sydney, where she discussed the urgent need to recruit more doctors, as well as converting plastic waste into energy.
“I’m for social justice and the environment,” she said, “and I am concerned about climate change and the effect it has on our lands.”
“But, Cr Sparks explained, while she’s a Green, she’s not a party politician. As a councillor, she swore an oath to put the community first.
30
Yup, so maybe they didnt do *enough* hazard reduction burning……had anyone considered that?
If the greenies in “the authorities” have been calling the shots, that is a real possibility.
Nice appeal to authority….very left wing play book.
Is this mayor a left winger?
50
When the fire burns so hot it changes the weather, everything in its path will burn, even grounds where some fuel reduction has taken place.
The way to manage forests is to ensure the fuel load doesn’t build up enough to feed a firestorm.
A smattering of “well managed” spots does nothing to stop a firestorm. We could manage (perhaps) a few spots of high-load if they were set in a carpet of low-load.
150
In those videos you can actually see how much debris is on the ground, burning.
Its bizarre that people can continue to deny what is clearly visible to the eye. !
80
Yes, but it does little to diminish the 1-1000 odds of a catastrophic fire, as you demonstrated in your reference yesterday.
17
Gees, I thought you would be out there pretending to fight fires, like the other day, PF!
No evidence that has been any chance in the probability of fires.
We have a drought caused by COLD SSTs around Australia,
And a wobbly jet stream causing dry blustery westerly winds.
Just the conditions fires like, happens every too often,
and has in all of Australian history.
Absolutely no evidence either of these is anything to do with increased atmospheric CO2.
Nothing but highly bioased model projections.
If you pretend to have the empirical scientific evidence. then produce it !
(and no, models and propaganda rhetoric are NOT evidence)
We are STILL waiting.
What is a major problem is the large amounts of base fuel load available to the fires this year..
and that can be laid fairly and squarely at the feet of greenie agenda councils.
50
That’s part of it. However, there’s more.
Land management authorities have been captured by the green/left myths and the purveyors of anti-science.
The total area of National Parks, nature reserves and UN World Heritage Areas has been significantly increased over the last three decades. The land management authorities have not been capable of managing that increased area. They’ve failed. Hence large fuel loads have built up. Fire trails have been overgrown and not maintained. Fire breaks are not constructed. Forests are not cleared. Cool burns not undertaken.
Add to that, the “lock-out” in the various State forests where controlled logging once took place, where the forests were managed by people who knew what they were doing, and none of what we’ve seen in Eastern Australia over the last couple of weeks should come as a surprise.
It’s got nothing to do with climate change.
It’s got everything to do with incompetence of politicians and the general public’s inability to hold them accountable.
20
If you drive past a week after a fire burns through scrub, you’ll find that there are heaps of dead leaves on the trees, killed by the fire but still on the trees. I’ve seen fires go through a burned out location two weeks after the first fire, there’s still plenty of dry leaf to burn.
60
you can’t manage the whole forested area unless you are going to train and employ a huge number of people to respond to the half dozen days a year suitable. Oh and you’ll be burning a large number of buildings to achieve this too.
07
Forested areas can be managed.
You put fire breaks where there is vehicle access and traversable country.
You burn sections of the forest each year on a rotation basis.
You burn in winter so the fire isn’t so hot and doesn’t get away on you.
There should be no risk of burning buildings to achieve this.
70
Yes agree Greg,
When logging was allowed, the companies were responsible for
1. Fire Breaks
2. Scrub undergrowth clearing
3. And Fire fighting & equipment
4. Access cleared roads
Fraser Island was a good example. No large bush fires there until after logging was banned!
You can selectively LOG & maintain low fuel loads with logging.
Even though most pollies won’t go near this subject!
60
see photo above for no risk
08
Photo shows scrub all around.
WOW do you really consider that “low risk”. !!
You sure took the wacky tablet this morning GA !!
60
Gee Aye.
Seriously?
Get real, man.
20
GC made the no risk claim which is clearly ridiculous in many circumstances
03
For proper fire management…
“There should be no risk of burning buildings to achieve this.”
Nothing ridiculous about it.
20
which excludes many areas
03
And what does the fire do to your timber resource? You can not sell ash
this is NSW forests fire management plan
It includes controlled burns, slashing etc.
/level of understanding displayed here never ceases to amaze
011
If you take the timber out, it isn’t there to burn, DOH !
Also the clearing of trail for removable of timber forms fire breaks.
Sad you really have zero comprehension, even about things you pretend to do.
Your level of understanding is below zero.
And we are still waiting for empirical evidence of warming by atmospheric CO2.
Still waiting
Still waiting
Nope.. nothing !
30
OK; two things.
You’ve never seen a control burn before.
You’ve never walked through where a fire has gone through.
It doesn’t burn the timber. It burns the deadwood on the floor; sometimes not even that.
And a control burn, you can walk around the fire and watch it.
40
Any sort of burn releases “carbon”, don’t you know. Any excuse to not burn.
Also, we have set aside such enormous tracts for national parks in the past 30 years (just look at NSW and Vic maps) that it would take an army of workers to reduce fuel loads to safe levels, and everyone would complain about the air quality.
We have too much national Park area, not because it all holds any irreplaceable significance, but just because.
10
“it would take an army of workers to reduce fuel loads to safe levels”
They are called “Green” jobs, aren’t they ?
I’m sure that inner city Greens would be clawing to get those jobs.. right !! 😉
10
Mayor Carol Sparks is an angry one isn’t she.
If she does have 20 years of rural-fire fighting experience, she didn’t learn much from it.
We have a dry winter most every year. It’s not until storm season starts that the fire risk goes down. But if the storm season is late, or an area doesn’t get the storms for whatever reason, then bush fires are almost guaranteed.
Carol should know this.
This statement:
“For decades the link between a hotter, drier climate, land-clearing, excessive irrigation and increased fire risk have all been attested in scientific papers.”
Is nonsense. She’s a fire expert, but she refers to science papers on atmospheric physics to defend her area burning? Doesn’t make sense. Just stick with the fire mitigation methods and leave the science reference out of it. You don’t know where those papers where written and you don’t know what they say. This is an appeal to ignorance pretending to be science to take the pressure off herself.
So; “For decades…” I’m sure fires happened before this time-frame, and mitigation methods were employed.
“the link between hotter” and fires? Well dur. We’re talking about fires here Carol, and why your town had such a huge loss.
“drier climate” Yes, the climate of your location should be known to you. Do you regularly get droughts? do you regularly get fires? Deal with that, don’t go blaming the whole Earth warming 0.6C in the last century for your failure to deal with bush fires.
“land-clearing” is good, it turns a bush fire into a grass fire.
“excessive irrigation” the only way this can be bad is if you’re talking about grass fires. Nothing else makes sense.
“and increased fire risk” Ummm, Dur! again? But what’s causing the increase in risk? Could it be the increase in bush density and the lack of fire breaks?
“have all been attested in scientific papers.” which should be basic common sense. In this particular case, what have the science papers got to do with anything?
Don’t try to lower the temperature of the world to stop a fire from breaking out. Just deal with the fires in your area. Adapt, mitigate, make safe. You know, all those work place health and safety ideas that get hammered into us at work. Do That!
50
Sheesmad.
11
The lie is in the claim that HR (hazard reduction) is supposed to render country immune to fire, like some kind of once-in-a-lifetime vaccination. It does not. The KNOWN FUNCTION of HR burn is to reduce fire intensity to the point that it becomes easier to control……
It is easier to control because the rate of spread is less and firebreaks far more effective. When we discussing CONFIRMED incidences of wind-carried embers creating spitfires 6-7 kilometres from the fire front, it is not surprising that fires jump relatively small previous burns.
Anyone denying this is either woefully ignorant or deliberately being dishonest to support a political argument.
The simple reality is that high fuels create high intensity fires that will jump many kilometres. That is why every major inquiry into Australian bushfires has found that the area that we are currently burning is inadequate…… Limited “strategic” burns are not enough.
40
“20 years” does not make you an expert on fires any more than 20 years as a Private soldier makes you an expert on international relations.
She could have been making sandwiches for all we know (a necessary job, but hardly qualifies you as a fire expert).
50
Adam Bandt’s rant
“Well, a government has to be held to account for what it has done for the last six years,” he said. “And if a government has done something that has contributed to making catastrophic fires, like we’re saying today, more likely, then that they need to be held to account for that.”
So the world’s temperature has changed what in the last six years? 0.1C? Maybe? Now how has that 0.1C ‘contributed’ to catastrophic fires and is the fault of the Australian Federal government? This is illogical, absurd, insulting and utterly uncaring nonsense. As usual from the communist Green Gnome Bandt.
00
Adam Bandt’s rant
“Well, a government has to be held to account for what it has done for the last six years,” he said. “And if a government has done something that has contributed to making catastrophic fires, like we’re saying today, more likely, then that they need to be held to account for that.”
So the world’s temperature has changed what in the last six years? 0.1C? Maybe? Now how has that 0.1C ‘contributed’ to catastrophic fires and is the fault of the Australian Federal government? This is illogical, absurd, insulting and utterly uncaring nonsense. As usual from the communist Green Gnome Bandt.
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Land clearing contributes to apocalyptic fires exactly how ahh gee ?
71
Should have posted further up at 29
31
Go educate yourself Robert. I’m not your google.
310
“I’m not your google.”
No, you are totally devoid of any knowledge of anything.
You and your buddies would be the very last people I would ever go to for reliable HONEST information.
50
Using your famous distraction techniques again leaf .
“I have had so many requests from my legions of fans to post more blogs. No really, there are a surprising number of people out there that read and re read my pastes… I mean posts … and check in to see if I have added anything new.
So today’s, and possibly this year’s, new post should satisfy those fans. Basically it is this link about scientific theories.
Yep, this is another placeholder in case I need to move someone on from their argument by distraction. You know the one where they write, “it is only a theory”. Amazingly, people still try to slip that one into an argument. They are often the same people who distract with, “it is only a model”, without understanding that their lives would soon come to an end without models.”
40
Did he seriously write that?
It was satire surely?
20
Its not rocket science. If you have councils who allow the building of “life-style” houses deep in the bush, and you have the CFA advising everyone to evacuate at the first puff of smoke, you are going to get a lot of undefended, undefendable houses burning down.
As a South Australian CFS life member, my concern is the risk that too few resources are being spread too thinly as too many volunteers are sent to defend undefendable houses and too many volunteers are sent to defend defendable houses that should have been defended by their owners. In many instances these people are just as competent as the poor volunteers who are expected to fill in the gaps in their absence. The NSW fire service should been spending more time advising people on how to protect their own homes – and then encouraging them to stay and defend it themselves instead of grandstanding over “catastrophic” conditions. In a sense the catastrophic conditions are catastrophic due to their own negligent policies.
We always found that it was possible to defend a house from ember attack before the fire front arrived as long as there was someone competent with a modest amount of fire fighting equipment and preparation. The fire front tends to pass quickly so, again with preparation and equipment. a home owner could shelter as fire front passes and then put out any remaining fires after the fire had passed. All it required was a defendable home, some preparation, and a will on the part of the home-owner. We seem to now have the attitude – its insured we’ll just rebuild. And then, perhaps I am too cynical, count the massive and perhaps unnecessary cost of the fire damage and use it to lever more money for the fire services. I feel for the volunteers, but there is a whole load of dishonesty and culpability in the bureaucracy and the District Councils.
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A Crooks
A seriously good post.
40
Went looking for the story of the ice cores from Antarctica that revealed a 20 something year plus drought in the Middle Ages and found this bit of interesting info .
http://www.antarctica.gov.au/news/2014/antarctic-ice-cores-tell-1000-year-australian-drought-story
40
Back in the early days, people would clear the bush around farms and their houses because they didn’t want their house burnt down. It’s not rocket science.
There are catergories of land where you can’t build a house due to being flood prone. I’m not aware of such categories for ‘fire prone’. This is partly because when most towns were orignally built near forests back in the 1800s, they didn’t have restrictive clearing practices, and many nearby forests were also periodically logged. In fact some areas of forest were specifcally set aside near country towns for wood supply; these were never imagined to become fire traps which couldn’t be cut down.
I also know that during the 1990s-2000s when much former state forest was transferred to the National Park estate, and logging was much reduced, no allowance was made for forests close to townships which areas were formerly logged. Nor was any buffer allowed for, which were formerly logged close to towns.
The Greens wanted a continuous National Park corridor from Victoria to Queensland, but not once in any of their presentations did I see anything about fire risk, or new ‘fire corridors’, or how this proposal would affect nearby towns. They just pretended fire doesn’t exist, as when all the endangered species were wiped out in a Canberra bushfire at a reserve set aside some years ago.
Fires and Greens don’t mix. They just assume their wonderful estate with so much spiritual nourishment and carefully protected species is some king of eternal wilderness utopia which would never just burn down to the ground, along with the nearby towns alongside it.
70
Also, when land owners are restricted to about one third of fallen material from the ground in any one year, and Greens related organisations buy properties and allow them to become overgrown and unmanaged potential for wild fires exists.
40
what a different headline Bandt gets, compared to McCormack yesterday, on “Breakfast”!
wow -Bandt points to the role of CC in fire crisis! that’s settled, then:
AUDIO: 9min34sec: 12 Nov: ABC Breakfast: Greens MP Adam Bandt points to role of climate change in fire crisis
Presenter: Hamish Macdonald
Guest: Adam Bandt, Greens climate change spokesperson and member for Melbourne
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/greens-mp-adam-bandt-points-to-role-of-climate-change-in-fires/11695624
paraphrasing:
ABC’s Macdonald asks do you have any specific evidence that suggests the PM and Deputy PM are putting lives at risk (NOTE HE DOESN’T ASK DO YOU HAVE ANY SPECIFIC EVIDENCE THAT THE CURRENT BUSHFIRES ARE CAUSED BY CAGW).
Bandt’s proof: we have been told for decades if we don’t keep coal in the ground blah blah…
Bandt says he spoke to a woman over the weekend who lost her house. she wanted the country to know she is a victim of the climate crisis. that this is something that people living in these areas have seen coming for a very long time (and) Bandt urges people who haven’t seen it yet to watch ABC 7.30 report last nite. it had a grand-mother saying the biggest worry for her is climate change, because she has seen it coming for several decades because she lives in the area (PARENTS OF AARON CROWE IN JO’S YOUTUBE LINK FROM 7.30 REPORT, WHOSE HOUSE WAS SPARED).
everyone Bandt has spoken to says this is not like anything we’ve ever seen before. there’s things the govt could do that would make us safer, but they’re not doing it.
ABC’s Macdonald: Barnaby Joyce says…
Bandt has listened very closely to what the fire authorities have been saying and I have not heard them say (fuel load) is their PRIMARY problem. (QUICKLY MOVES TO “FORMER”) but when you listen to what the FORMER FIRE CHIEFS (EMERGENCY LEADERS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE) have been saying, they are saying this is UNPRECEDENTED. it’s not even summer.
ends with Bandt’s personal plea to NSW govt. today, they have a bill scheduled for discussion to make global warming worse, by expanding coal. pause the debate.
note the top headline of the following segment. only Howden (Climate Change Institute) and BoM/CSIRO are actually quoted in the piece, claiming the bushfire season is getting longer, but the sub-heading re “fire chiefs” surely suggests they are claiming the same:
VIDEO: 3min19sec: 11 Nov: ABC 7.30 Report: Why Australia’s bushfire season is getting longer
Fire chiefs have described the bushfires engulfing parts of the country as unprecedented. The obvious question is why these fires have been so severe, and more generally, why bushfire season in Australia is getting longer and more intense.
Paul Farrell takes a look at some of the science around bushfires in this country.
TRANSCRIPT:
PAUL FARRELL: The fires across northern New South Wales this weekend have so far burned more than 850,000 hectares.
To put the size of this fire alone into perspective, the devastating Black Saturday fires in Victoria in 2009 were about half that size, burning around 430,000 hectares.
MARK HOWDEN, CLIMATE CHANGE INSTITUTE: What seems to have happened is that those bushfire seasons have extended.
So they’re starting earlier, finishing later and so, the traditional idea of a bushfire season probably seems to have gone out the window in Australia, as it has in other places like California…
PAUL FARRELL: The topic that has generated the most controversy is discussion around the link between climate change and bushfire intensity…
According to the CSIRO, Australia’s climate has warmed by just over one degree since 1910.
MARK HOWDEN: One degree might not sound like much, but one degree makes a huge difference when you’re thinking about the Earth’s system.
PAUL FARRELL: A joint report by the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO found that climate change is contributing to a longer fire season.
GREG MULLINS, FORMER FIRE COMMISSIONER (OMITTED EMERGENCY LEADERS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE): We’re coming into what I think is the most dangerous fire season, dangerous build-up to a fire season I’ve seen since 1994.
PAUL FARRELL: Last week on 7.30, former fire chief Greg Mullins had a stark warning that already appears to be coming to pass.
GREG MULLINS: Climate change is real, it’s making it a more dangerous planet for everybody, but particularly in Australia.
It is going to be harder and harder to fight these fires and we need a national response to this.
MARK HOWDEN: So what we’ve seeing is an increased number of fires, increased severity of those fires, increased area burnt as well as increased fire season.
And they are all of the sorts of things we anticipate under climate change and unfortunately, the projections are for those to get worse.
https://www.abc.net.au/7.30/why-australias-bushfire-season-is-getting-longer/11694958
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This was uploaded by ABC about 2 hours ago.
I’ll link to the sciencey-looking chart frame, but feel free to rewind and watch the whole thing.
https://youtu.be/SPAjtVeRPQE?t=90
Narration: “Bushfire conditions have worsened in these locations.”
This is accompanied by chart of “FFDI” computed at several locations. The ABC don’t actually explain the diagram because their goal is to scare not to inform. Presumably the locations in blue got better, and the ones in red got worse, according to this FFDI metric. There’s 19 blue circles and 15 red, so more locations got better than worse since 1973, but most of the ones that got worse are near higher populated areas.
What is FFDI anyway? A summary of two different fire danger indices, one developed in Canada, one made in Australia, is described by CSIRO here. Quote:
Isn’t that convenient? Start with the assumption that the fire damage and deaths must be blamed on global warming, and then choose a metric which uses temperature, humidity, and soil moisture as the main factors and does not include the actual fuel load which seasoned fire fighting veterans have been saying was the problem, nor several other factors that exacerbate fires.
Then what significance do the red dots of doom have on the FFDI circle chart? If you move 10km up the road from a red circle and recalculate will that location be blue? These could be the only locations where 46 years of data was available, so how would anyone know the spatial variance and noise level?
So not only is this metric totally insensitive to the factor that is the chief suspect, but compared to the index developed in Canada it is ignoring several other factors too, and on the few factors it does use it is at least twice as unstable in presence of noise in the inputs as the Canadian FWI metric. This must make it less reliable at indicating fire behaviour. It’s a dumb metric. They’re not even using the best metric available – even though the CSIRO knows about FWI and had already applied it to studying Australian conditions 10 years ago. Potentially a case of Not Invented Here syndrome?
Brilliant chartsmanship from the ABC.
20
AUDIO: 1min48sec: BBC Newshour: Australia bushfires: What happens next?
Councillor Mark Greenhill, Mayor of the Blue Mountains, outside Sydney describes what it’s like to be in the midst of the fires…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p07tmrbk
I heard the above on “Newshour”. BBC brought up the political argument raging over the connection between the bushfires & climate change. that has been edited from the above shortened video.
why might BBC choose to interview this particular Mayor? well, apart from the fact he is Labor, and he is against raising the Warragamba Dam & coal seam gas, there is this:
18 Oct: BlueMountainsGazette: Blue Mountains Council to urge state and federal governments to declare climate change emergency
Blue Mountains mayor Mark Greenhill will call for the state and federal governments to declare a Climate Change Emergency at the next council meeting.
Earlier this year Blue Mountains City Council became only the third council in NSW to declare a Climate Change Emergency. Since then, council has lodged successful motions at the Australian Local Government Association and the Local Government NSW Annual Conferences, calling for similar actions from state and federal governments…
“Australia is one of the most vulnerable developed countries in the world to the impacts of climate change. We must protect our communities, and the environment, from these impacts,” said Cr Greenhill.
“We urgently need leadership from all levels of government on this issue. The state and federal governments declaring a Climate Emergency will send a clear message to all, that as a society, we need to take meaningful and coordinated action to transition to a low carbon economy.”
Council continues to support and advocate for initiatives that address climate change, including adopting a target of becoming carbon neutral by the end of 2025…
and this, where SMH omits to mention Carol Sparks is a Green and was a member of Bob Brown’s anti-Adani convoy:
11 Nov: SMH: ‘Don’t … bring the politics into the fire’: what people in the thick of the bushfires are saying about climate change
by Josh Dye, Jenny Noyes, Helen Pitt, Lucy Cormack, Kate Aubusson, Rachel Clun, Anna Patty
Mayor of Glen Innes Carol Sparks: “I think that Michael McCormack needs to read the science, and that is what I am going by, is the science,” she told the ABC. “It is not a political thing — it is a scientific fact that we are going through climate change.”…
***Blue Mountains council mayor Mark Greenhill:“I think it’s highly irresponsible to seek to shut down conversations about the impact of climate change when the nation is confronting a really serious bushfire threat in which climate is clearly a factor.”…
10
forgot to paraphrase Greenhill on the Newshour clip:
BBC: where do you lay the responsibility in terms of the responses to (the bushfires)?
GREENHILL: our summers have been breaking heat records for 15 yrs. a couple of summers ago, not far from where I am now, we recorded 47C. we are talking about extreme climate impacts in australia, and there needs to be a mature and rational discussion about that in our nation.
10
“it is a scientific fact that we are going through climate change.”…”
And yet the AGW apostles that come here cannot present one single bit of scientific evidence
It most certainly is NOT a fact, barely even an assumption, a baseless hypothesis.
There is actual very little, if any, empirical science to back the brain-fart that is called AGW/’human caused global climate change’
50
A little bit of chemistry for those who wish to bear it.
The Halon family of fire suppressants (1301, 2402, etc) carry a bromine atom into a fire in order to disrupt the OH radicals and thereby suppress the fire by interrupting the combustion chemistry. Halons number represent a formula of sorts. The first number is the number of carbons in the backbone chain. The second, is the number of fluorine atoms in the chain, the third is the number of chlorine atoms, and the fourth number is the number of bromine atoms. Ie, 1301 is 1 carbon, 3 flourine, zero chlorine, and 1 bromine atoms.
OK. What this means is that the carrier gas or liquid is simply a means of delivering a bromine atom into a fire. It is the bromine that kills the fire by chemically inhibiting the flame chemistry reaction.
This can be replicated by dissolving a “hot tub bromine tablet” in hot water, then diluting that mix into a larger volume of plain water. The water becomes the transport agent for the dissolved bromine. Typical hot tub bromine tablets are 63% bromine and 27% chlorine in makeup. Call it a “poor man’s Halon”.
The doped water is the equivalent of Halon. It makes the water dozens of times more effective in killing a fire.
Do not breathe the fumes when spraying on a fire. All halogenated substances produce halogenic acids as by products of combustion. Not healthy. But, then, neither is being burned up. So, avoid the combustion cloud and stand upwind if possible, but do know that by delivering a halogen into the fire, the water required is likely only 10 % to 20% of the volume required without the bromine. You use 80 to 90% less water to kill the same fire.
Hope this might be useful to someone out there. I know it is kind of geeky, but I researched and applied fire suppression alternatives to the Halons for many years. Bromine matches the bond energy in a fire better than anything except Iodine. Chlorine works, but isn’t as effective. Iodine is too expensive and rare. Bromine is plentiful and cheap.
Nothing works more effectively than bromine. That’s why the Halons were developed.
50
killing a fire can be done 4 ways
1. Remove the fuel
2. Remove the oxygen
3. Cool the fuel/fire below its ignition temperature
4. Interrupt the combustion chemistry process.
Methods 1 and 2 are usually not possible.
Method 3 is what fire departments do by spraying water on the fire.
Method 4 is what Halons do when applied to a fire. They act as catalysts to “catch and release” OH radicals within the fire and thereby prevent the fire from sustaining itself. The bond energy level is key. Bromine breaks the OH bonds at about 70 Kcal, Then it reacts again and again within the fire so long as sufficient energy is available to sustain the blocking reaction and sufficient distance is available to be effective. Halon 1301 usually suppresses a fire at only 1% to 2% actual interaction concentration by volume, the rest is simply blown away and is ineffective. Too much distance between the OH radicals and the bromine to make a reaction possible. But that 1 to 2% is very effective.
Iodine reacts at about 54 kcal, but not terribly relevant because it is much rarer, more expensive, and more difficult to deliver.
Bromine is cheaper, more available, more soluble in water, and very effective. Fogging or misting the doped water is best, but any means of delivery is better than none.
20
Oh. Just a warning. Do Not Ever think about using perfluorocyclobutane as a fire suppression agent.
PFCB can break down and linearize into PFIB (perfluoroisobutylene), one of the most toxic things ever known.
1 PPM is lethal.
Do Not ever try this. Yields depend on temperature and catalysts, but very dangerous to try. Don’t do it.
PFCB is harmless. PFIB isn’t. Don’t go there.
10
So , can you clarify what total final volume of treated water you get from one hot tub tablet ?
5 ltrs, 50 ltrs, or more .?
00
A 250 gram bromine table has about 165 grams of bromine in it. This is near the 6% concentration of bromine in Halon 1301 in 1 cubic meter of air.
So, you could inert a 1 cu meter fireball or flame retard some 100 sq meters of combustible material. your choice.
Be aware that the Br creates HBr when burned with combustible/flammable materials. Don’t want to breathe that for long if at all.
Its better to establish a fuel free zone around structures and wet down roofs and such. Prevention is better than fighting it out.
The Greens are almost as dangerous as the fire. They precipitated the fuel overload that feeds the beast.
10
A 250 gm tablet. ???..really…that sounds huge !
How many litres of water would that treat to make a useful extinguishant for say an undergrowth fire.
EG.. could it prep a 1000ltr pallet tote ?
10
OK Boomer. Do you know what ‘unprecedented’ means?
It is not just that fuel loading is high. The climate is changing and with it the probability of such events occurring. Every scientific organisation in your country has said exactly that. It doesn’t help that you have a Prime Minister and Deputy in active denial. Thoughts and prayers won’t help. Now is exactly the time to talk about long-run policy decisions to minimise the risk of future events.
111
The climate is always changing, but at this time the climate change hoax is being exposed by climate stability.
90
put your head back in the Sand
012
Take yours out of the sand, GA.
Try providing some actual evidence.
Forgot, you don’t have any do you, leaf
No atmospheric warming in Australia for 20 years
40
Oh look, I thought it was GA, but it was PF
Never could tell Tweedledee and Tweedledumb apart.
10
Oh, Peter, how brilliant of you to comment so scientifically.
Clearly, you believe your religion. Good for you. How sad your belief is misplaced.
Now, run along and pray to Saint Greta, Saint Gaia, and Saint UN.
The rest of us will get along just fine without you.
70
“The climate is changing “
Sorry, you are WRONG.
NO atmospheric warming in 20 years.
Drought is being caused by COLD SSTs above and below Australia
30
” policy decisions to minimise the risk of future events.”
Only putting strong bush clearly regime into effect will make any difference.
Nobody with any ability for rational thought thinks that CO2 causes warming or that closing down a couple of small coal fired power stations will make any difference.
31
Unprecedented means it hasn’t happened before. If I say something has happened before you say not like this. Then I say like this and you say not exactly like this…at which point I am expected to give up. Do you learn that at GeeUpping school?
In fact, really bad spring fire seasons are to be expected in eastern Australia, and occasionally they will be catastrophic as in 1895, 1951, 1980, 2013 etc. They do not duplicate one another, they cannot. But they are a result of spring, drought and westerly wind patterns common in spring between Vic and the horse latitudes. Where I live, mid-coast NSW, normal fire peak is September and in exceptional years it extends past the spring equinox, as now. (However 1895’s August fires were the result of sudden and extreme late autumn/winter drought after good growing years prior to the Fed Drought. 1895 remains our driest winter, though ground conditions were likely not so bad as now because of thriving timber industry and surviving canopy.)
But GeeUppers hate to contemplate history. The New Man at Year Zero just hates history. Well here you will get history.
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Yes, Simple Simon, the Climate is getting Colder.
Models are not evidence. Reality IS.
Nice try at an appeal to authority. Mob Rule isn’t science. Just a power grab.
70
“Hiawatha Designs an Experiment”
http://holyjoe.org/poetry/mientka.htm
30
Haven’t heard that name for 65 years.
30
found the longer version of BBC Newshour’s interview with Blue Mountains Mayor, Mark Greenhill:
AUDIO: 53min: BBC Newshour
two Australian states struggle with a ‘catastrophic’ bushfire threat…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w172wq5176yyjt3
paraphrasing:
at 16min30sec (segment itself begins at 14min): BBC’s Razia Iqbal: the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, hasn’t answered the questions about climate change, but the Deputy PM, Michael McCormack, has clearly stoked quite a lot of anger, dismissing climate change as the concerns of raving innercity lefties, who are ignoring the views of rural Australians. I wonder what your view is of that?
Greenhill: well, I’m in a regional area of Australia. mentions earlier bushfire event, says even then, 6 years ago, the climactic conditions were just unusual. says he guesses he would probably call himself a leftie…but I’m not the innercity. you just have to be a rational person… it doesn’t take a genius to work out there are climactic issues at play; as a nation we need to have a policy reaction to that…any govt that isn’t alive to the realities of climate change is not responsible. we are going to reduce our emissions in our city to zero by 2025. these things can be done.
20
Greenies INFEST/INFECT basically every local council in Australia.
60
Parissites.
30
unattributed. no doubt theirABC will be covering this 24/7:
12 Nov: AP: Winter already? Snow, deep freeze from Rockies to East Coast
CHICAGO: An arctic air mass that brought snow and ice to an area stretching from the Rocky Mountains to northern New England on Monday was poised to give way to record-breaking cold temperatures.
In mid-Michigan, three people were killed in a two-vehicle crash that the Eaton County sheriff’s department attributed to heavy snowfall. And in Kansas, the highway patrol reported that a truck lost control on an icy highway and slammed head-on into another truck, killing an 8-year-old girl in the other vehicle…
“This is an air mass that’s more typical for the middle of January than mid-November,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Kevin Birk. “It is pretty much about the coldest we can be this time of year (and) it could break records all over the region.”
Winter doesn’t officially start until December 22 this year…
According to Birk, the lows on Tuesday could drop into the single digits or low teens in Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa, with highs climbing no further than the low 20s. The forecast high of 21 degrees (-6 Celsius) for Chicago would be a full seven degrees lower than the previous record set for Nov. 12…
One area where the low temperatures was particularly concerning was in central Wyoming, where officials were searching for a 16-year-old autistic boy who went missing wearing only his pajamas on Sunday, prompting a search that included certified human trackers, helicopters, dogs, and planes…
https://apnews.com/7da90e2dc10d4dd18be63e4f3c8f0e9c
30
all over the FakeNewsMSM, with a minor push-back in the final para.
12 Nov: NBC: AP: The most destructive hurricanes are hitting the U.S. more often
Big, destructive hurricanes are hitting the U.S. three times more frequently than they did a century ago, according to a new study.
Experts generally measure a hurricane’s destruction by adding up how much damage it did to people and cities. That can overlook storms that are powerful, but that hit only sparsely populated areas. A Danish research team came up with a new measurement that looked at just the how big and strong the hurricane was, not how much money it cost. They call it Area of Total Destruction.
“It’s the most damaging ones that are increasing the most,” said study lead author Aslak Grinsted, a climate scientist at the University of Copenhagen. “This is exactly what you would expect with climate models.”
Looking at 247 hurricanes that hit the U.S. since 1900, the researchers found the top 10 percent of hurricanes, those with an area of total devastation of more than 467 square miles (1,209 square kilometers), are happening 3.3 times more frequently, according to a study in Monday’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences…
“Their result is consistent with expected changes in the proportion of the strongest hurricanes and is also consistent with the increased frequency of very slow-moving storms that make landfall in the U.S.,” said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration hurricane scientist Jim Kossin, who was not part of the research.
Other experts weren’t so convinced, however. Colorado State University hurricane scientist Phil Klotzbach says his review of the most powerful storms to hit the U.S., using barometric pressure, shows no increase
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/most-destructive-hurricanes-are-hitting-u-s-more-often-n1080326
10
It is quite amazing how 1C in 100 years has translated into an End of Days scenario, even 0.1C in a decade can do?
Who would have though that in the 20th century the very low temperature made bushfires unlikely if not impossible and considerably smaller? Is there no end to what 0.1C can do? Still, that’s Green Science for you.
40
Odd that most of the really big fires were when CO2 and temperatures were much lower than now.
1851 Black Thursday…. 5 million hectares burnt
1938 Black Friday…. 2 million hectares burnt
1944 Victoria…. 1 million hectares burnt
1961, WA bushfires…. 1.8 million hectares burnt
1974/75 NSW bushfires.. 4.5 million hectares burnt
1980 Waterfall bushfire… 1 million hectares burnt.
1984/85 NSW bushfires.. 3.5 million hectares burnt
2003 Tenterden WA….. 2.1 million hectares burnt
2003 East Vic alpine.. 1.3 million hectares burnt
2006/7 Great Divides Vic.. 1 million hectares burnt
2009 Black Saturday Vic… 450,000 hectares burnt.. lots of property loss
2011 Carnarvon WA… 800,000 hectares burnt
2019 to date (11/11/2019) in NSW and Qld… 700,000 hectares burnt
71
33% lower in 1851 but hardly lower in 2003,2003, 2006/7, 2009, 2011
And temperatures the same for these years. We do not know if the country was
colder in 1851 or even the 19th century up to 1909 because the BOM has the records.
Who would have thought bushfires were triggered by 0.1C? And I thought 70% of them were lit by people?
30
Yep, I meant to put quotation marks around that part 😉
20
I wonder how many people are aware of the tangled mess many of the now burning areas have become?
And the climbing creeper vine weeds now covering the treetop canopies?
50
Any new environmental river flow releases underway?
50
Could one have the fires in Queensland have been started by the Army?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-12/gold-coast-hinterland-bushfires-believed-to-be-sparked-by-adf/11694280
10
WOW, look at this picture of a home that didn’t get burnt
Look at the fuel load all around the place. How lucky were they.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/image/11694432-3×2-700×467.jpg
from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-12/gold-coast-hinterland-bushfires-believed-to-be-sparked-by-adf/11694280
10
That’s lottery ticket stuff Andy , or if I was Fitz I’d say that photo clearly shows no ground cover and has been burned in a fuel reduction two months ago !
00
I have posted at least 3 locations where arson is being considered, including Glen Innes, yet ABC has reported none of them. but when ADF is being accused, ABC immediately jumps in!
meanwhile –
12 Nov: news.com.au: Greens senator calls opponents ‘arsonists’
Greens senator Jordon Steele-John has refused to back away from calling Labor and coalition senators ‘arsonists’ during a fierce spray on climate action.
by Matt Coughlan
An enraged Jordon Steele-John, who represents Western Australia, let rip in the Senate on Tuesday during debate on the federal government’s proposed laws cracking down on energy companies.
“How dare any of you suggest that in this moment at this time it is appropriate to be prosecuting a piece of legislation with the aim of propping up coal,” he told the chamber.
“You are no better than a bunch of arsonists – borderline arsonists – and you should be ashamed.”
Despite objections from Labor frontbencher Murray Watt, Senator Steele-John refused to withdraw his comments, insisting they were true.
“For Senator Steele-John to refer to members of this chamber as arsonists on the very day that we are told by fire chiefs that we are seeing conditions that this country has never seen before is beyond offensive,” Senator Watt said…READ ON
https://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/greens-senator-calls-opponents-arsonists/news-story/80843ee64061fbb3bb3975cb476f37d2
40
this woman hosts yet another CAGW-infested program being aired on 4RPH (Radio for Print Handicapped), which has ABC veteran, Spencer Howson, on the board.
LinkedIn: Irena Bukhshtaber, PhD researcher: recruitment & AI, Speaker & Trainer Social Media & PR, Membership Strategist, movie, TV critic
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Education:
RMIT MA Comms 2001-2008
RMIT BA Journalism 1991-1996 ETC
Host of the ***Green News Show
Radio 4RPH Brisbane
Nov 2017 – present
Science and Technology
I’m a member of the 4RPH marketing committee and developed and host “the Green News Show”, which is a half hour weekly program of ***curated climate change and environmental articles that cover education, science and green living tips.
Community Leader
Qld Community Alliance
Civil Rights and Social Action
https://au.linkedin.com/in/irenabee
***curated climate change and environmental articles means, in reality, reading pieces from The Guardian, The Conversation etc., plus last night something from Mamamia. don’t know if it was this piece, but a friend says the piece did refer to a CAGW concensus of “97 percent of scientists”, not even “climate scientists”:
11 Nov: Mamamia: Australia, our backyard is burning: Now is precisely the time to be talking about climate change
by Jessie Stephens
As our backyard burns, our Prime Minister Scott Morrison has borrowed a platitude from President Donald Trump’s phrasebook. He’d like to send “thoughts and prayers”.
At a time like this, it’s difficult to think of anything more useless…
But as we look at the images of smoke-filled skies, towns draped in apocalyptic red, and raging flames as far as the eye can see, it’s difficult not to think: We were warned.
This is precisely what we were told was going to happen.
It’s been 30 years since climate change first became news.
It’s been 13 years since former American Vice President Al Gore released the documentary An Inconvenient Truth.
There’s been papers and conventions and summits and guidelines by the United Nations and a furious teenage girl from Sweden yelling in the faces of (predominantly) men who refuse to pay attention to what is right in front of them.
Just last year a United Nations report told us that we had 12 years to make “massive and unprecedented” change to global energy structure. We were told there would be more wildfires and more drought. Things were only going to get worse, we were explicitly warned, if changes were not made…
Then, on Monday morning the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, the second most powerful man in the country, Michael McCormack told ABC Radio that climate change is a bogus concern held only by “raving inner city lunatics.”…
***Climate change, a phenomenon agreed upon by no less than 97 per cent of ***scientists around the world, affects temperature, dryness, wind speed and humidity – all which contribute to bushfire risk…
According to The Guardian, the temperature (let’s remember that summer hasn’t even started yet) has been “unusually warm and dry”…
https://www.mamamia.com.au/bushfire-nsw-scott-morrison-climate-change/
more examples of Mamamia’s CAGW-infested articles:
Mamamia: Climate change articles
https://www.mamamia.com.au/tag/climate-change/
20
Former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce has suggested two people who died in the NSW bushfires “most likely” voted for the Greens as he criticised the party for arguing that climate change policies and unprecedented fires were linked.
can get lower than this
08
Read #37
30
what a strange world you live in.
07
At least its not a fantasy anti-science La-La-Land like yours, PF
50
Hot toomas.
Bikpela smoke.
40
Youve triggered again PF….
I like the faux rage…very 1970s Gough….
40
Poor muppet is permanently triggered. 🙂
20
“can get lower than this”.
No doubt it Peter, Greens are like that as you know.
50
can get lower than this”
You have been for the last 2 years at least.
Ranting on about unsubstantiated garbage
Using the plight of koalas to push your heathen AGW religion/agenda.
Do you DENY that people living in a dangerous bush situation are almost certainly Greens voters
Truth really does hurt you, doesn’t it, PF.
There is absolutely ZERO evidence that policies trying to get REALIABLE electricity have had any affect on the climate
Barnaby is totally correct is everything he said.
60
Two people die, (3 if you want to be precise) and the best a politician can do is blame them for possibly voting green?
And you (plus your cowardly virtue signalling green thumbs) support that.
1. The greens are not in power, stop blaming them.
2. To link a death to a voting preference is disgusting.
this has got to be your worst effort yet.
Are you a psych0path?
19
Green agenda infect society
Stopping clearing, stopping logging, closing down activity in forest that would lead to decreased undergrowth
Stop trying to deny that the greenie agenda has played a major role in the intensity of these fires.
And stop trying to distract from presenting actual empirical evidence of warming by atmospheric CO2
Barnaby’s comments were no worse than your slimy attempts to link deaths of koalas to your imaginary “climate change”
That was truly disgusting, and had NO TRUTH to it,.
Which part of Barnaby’s quote was incorrect, PF ?
Which part of the TRUTH do you hate so much ?
You are a very dishonest person, PF.
50
And yes, the Greens ARE in power in many local councils.
Your continued denial is farcical.
60
Agenda 21, Agenda 30: Sustainability.
Paris Agreement.
Socialism masquerading as environmentalism
40
How true. The whole irksome, squalid agenda.
Coming back to bite them.
40
” is blame them “
You read into things you want to , don’t you
Answer the question !
Do you agree that these people living in these dangerous bush situations are most likely Greens voters
A yes or a no.?
I expect your usual manic evasion of truth.
30
Actual words
[said Barnaby]
So Bandt is doing exactly what you accuse Barnaby of doing, but WITHOUT any foundation of truth.
WHY aren’t you going after Bandt for his lies, PF !!.
60
So you are a psycho
08
Mirror, mirror on the wall ….
50
Avoiding the TRUTH , hey PF
A very DISHONEST person, aren’t you PF !
Ok for you to use koala deaths to push a blatant LIE,
But Barnaby isn’t allowed to tell the truth
Truth never did matter to you though, did it.
40
You are only here because you have deep-seated mental and personal problems, PF.
It takes a truly warped and ugly personality to do what you do.
A sad lonely twisted old white male, aren’t you.
40
1. The greens are not in power, stop blaming them.
2. To link a death to a voting preference is disgusting.
Try to explain why their vote preference makes any difference? Would you say the same about ON voters, most of them are regional as well?
The LNP are in power and have been for ages. yet all we see is pathetic denial about AGW and then linking death to voting preference. Whats next for you lot gas chambers? Vote green and you will be ‘re-educated’?
09
Greens are in power in many local councils
They INFECT many government department
The Greenie agenda is at the very heart of these large fuel load , and uncleared forest zones. locked up and just allowed to grow unchecked.
To DENY these facts shows just how out of touch you are with society, PF
A sad lonely ignorant little man.
To DENY the FACT that those living in these place are almost certainly Greens voters, is total DISHONESTY
and all we can ever expect from you.
Answer the question
Do you agree that these people living in these dangerous bush situations are most likely Greens voters
A yes or a no.?
Stop your idiotic distractions.
40
Prove the allegation about the greens
AS to voting intentions vs location – as far as I know, voting is a private matter, it is not for speculation. you denigrate yourself and those now deceased Australians. Are you going to have me rounded up and tossed into a fire, I vote green (because all the other parties are on the nose)
09
Who are you kidding? You vote green because you’re a muppet.
90
Wilfully BLIND, as well as DISHONEST hey PF !!
You can’t even be honest to yourself.
That is really sad. !!
20
Let’s see how long you can keep this particular deflection and hiding from the TRUTH going, shall we
You still haven’t answered any previous questions.
Do you agree that these people living in these dangerous bush situations are most likely Greens voters
A yes or a no.?
30
Fitz denies the Greens influence because he must otherwise admit his culpability on voting for those koala-roasters.
60
Yep, he KNOWS he cannot admit to the TRUTH… ever…
He is not a person to ever feel any SHAME or EMBARRASSMENT at his Greenie actions and fake environmental ideology.
The DISHONESTY runs soul deep.
40
Youve triggered PF again…..
Energizer bunny style faux outeage….
40
The area where I live is a bushfire waiting to happen and I noticed at a recent community work day that all the cars but one had Greens stickers and one of them was a support vehicle for Helen Haines last election .
My area contains a lot of teachers , Cops and nurses and if you go for a drive around the area at election time the signs for Haines are everywhere , the former incumbent was just as green .
As for the fuel load on the hills behind me which is national park I get the impression that green tape and lack of funds are the reason for lack of burning .
Further north along the range there has been fuel reduction burns and some bushfires over the last few years .
40
“Energizer bunny style faux outrage….”
PF is all faux !!
A created non-being.
10
Seems that, as he is unable to answer the question,
PF has now realised that everything that Barnaby said was TRUE and CORRECT.
How that must hurt him to admit that.
Thanks PF. 😉
10
This is an odd observation. Why is there no earthmoving gear tasked at any fireground? This suggests the RFS will only attack a fire from a gazetted main road? Are they really going to let the entire forest burn?
Fire energy goes up by the square of the fuel load. Ten times the fuel load equals one hundred times the energy. So, logical conclusion to “Catastrophic” fire danger compared to Broadford/Kinglake when temps are clearly 10C lower means fuel loads are huge compared to Vic….unless…the RFS is talking out its backside.
60
The RFS maintains a register of heavy equipment and operators on a call-when-needed basis…… I can’t comment on the current situation at the other end of the state from my district, but I have generally been allocated such machinery when I have requested it.
Machinery use is complicated by the time required to put containment lines in place in front of rapidly moving fires, the need to ensure that the operators are safe in these conditions…. and the probability that fires under these conditions will jump any containment lines that can be quickly constructed through bush.
Under these conditions, defending valuable property, basing conta8nment lines on broad advantageous areas such as bare paddocks and big rivers are the more reasonable strategies.
When conditions moderate, things may change.
I loved working with Forestry. Those blokes are not shy about tipping a few trees over .to stop a fire.
30
Peter, why wait for a fire before putting in containment lines?
That’s just stupidity at its best.
Put the containment lines in when there’s no fire. maintain them every year. Then they’re there when needed.
Ditto fire breaks, fire trails, hazard reduction – both cool burns and non-burn strategies.
It’s not rocket science.
10
Jonesy
From my little experience with a rural brigade
1. Even 3rd gear in a dozer likely won’t be fast enough if the fire changes direction – from a close encounter
2. Getting such equipment on the site.
3. On fencelines through our timber (not heavy by forestry standards) I can do about half a km an hour about three blades wide (about ten m). No way am I going to allow such activity on our place in front of a fire front – it will have to be handled from existing cleared lines. The nucleus of which is in place – sometimes somewhat Nelsonially
10
From a conversation just now
In the Kimberlys where water is scarce they use petrol leaf blowers to put out the flames and blow the litter clear. Even in spinafex fires
20
Bush fires have been a natural part of the landscape for many thousands of years. As communities have developed and properties and towns have been established, the risk of bush fires impacting on communities has increased. Throughout NSW there are approximately 1.3 million properties on bush fire prone land.
Firefighters rely on public roads, trails and other tracks on public and private land to access the landscape to prevent and contain bush fires. Fire trails exist for the purpose of providing access to respond to bush fires, and it is critical to identify and maintain an effective network of accessible trails.
Historically, decisions regarding the establishment and maintenance of fire trails have rested
with land managers guided by a cooperative framework established by the NSW Bush Fire Coordinating Committee (BFCC). A need for a different approach was identified to achieve a more consistent and strategic outcome across both public and private lands.
The NSW Government is establishing a more integrated and strategic network of fire trails and access arrangements to improve accessibility for firefighters during bush fires and hazard reduction burns.
Amendments to the Rural Fires Act 1997, through the Rural Fires Amendment (Fire Trails) Act 2016, provide a legislative basis for the establishment and maintenance of the enhanced network of fire
trails.
20
Thanks Dennis. Does that include new fire trails inside National Parks? And re-opening ones they’ve closed? Even blocked?
Cheers
Dave B
30
All morning the emergency talking-heads on TV have referred to “a very large fire” to the north of Rockhampton, and to the west of Yeppoon … except there’s no smoke plume there. No smoke no fire!
Check the national satellite imagery, no smoke near Yeppoon, or downwind of it. There was no smoke plume there Monday either. There was a prominent single smoke plume there on Sunday morning. But nothing more for two days now.
Seems we’re being fed days-old reports by the media, or the people making the comments to media have no current clue of the situation. Either way the media tail is wagging the ‘crisis’ dog.
After watching the satellite smoke plumes for the past three days, IMO the smoke plumes are far less impressive today than they were on Sunday and Monday. There’s not much that’s burning in SE Queensland.
60
I think they use this Digital Earth Australia Hotspots MAP
https://hotspots.dea.ga.gov.au/
If you zero in at Yeppoon, click on a dot and check the legend tab, you’ll find most of the fires were on the 9/11/2019
And the confidence level on many is less than 30%
Not a good source for NEWS outlets but good for propaganda!
30
Thank you for that Dave.
40
Check
https://www.firenorth.org.au/nafi3/
30
Great link Ian, thanks.
30
Traditional Aboriginal Burning
https://www.dpaw.wa.gov.au/management/fire/fire-and-the-environment/41-traditional-aboriginal-burning
00
Up here in Blackheath in the Blue Mountains all is quiet at the moment. The southerly change has gone through and temperatures have dropped to 26C, but wind gusts are up to 50kph. The nearest fire, at the moment, is 60k to the North, in the Wollemi National Park. We had to go to Penrith this morning so took a case with our computers back-up, our passports and legal file, washing kits and a spare pair of undies (semper paratus!), just incase we could not get back up, but we did.
Here’s hoping the fire that came right up to the village two years ago has burnt out the undergrowth sufficiently to allow fire control if it gets to us again in the next few days. It will be a nervous night tonight!
110
All the best Peter, hope you escape fire related problems.
Where I am on the mid north coast there are major fires but the worst near my home are out now but within 10-20 kilometres out of control.
60
Whoops! I spoke too soon. An “out of control” fire has started on Cliff Walk in Katoomba, a path in the bush above the escarpment, close to the road. We have had no lightening so clearly started by humans. Probably a carelessly thrown away cigarette butt or – disturbingly – deliberate.
Here we go -this just the start!
80
Hope the WEATHER is not as windy up there as it is elsewhere.
That is the BIG problem !!
That, and the large fuel loads available.
30
Welcome to my world, and with luck Andny will leave you alone
08
He is not in your world PF. He is in the REAL world.
One where Australia’s NATURAL WEATHER variability is a real pain at times.
Not in your petty little world possessed by the evil imaginary CO2 demons.
Why do you always spew such a load of sanctimonious dishonest garbage?
40
Because certain words seem to trigger Patricia….
20
Has anyone in Sydney set up an Ember Watch – a 24hr vigil around the Opera House to watch for any sign of embers settling on this national icon? If not, why not? The prediction was for Tuesday and now Tuesday is 2/3 over already. This must mean operatic Armageddon is only a few hours away. You would think if even one little glowing ember were to rest even momentarily on the concrete shells of the Opera House you would be hearing it…sung from the highest rooftops.
‘O smoulderrr
‘O smoulder miiiioooooo…
😀
Yes I’m closing the door on my way out.
30
Isn’t it amazing. Australia’s CO2 emissions are 2%. So 98% of the CO2 is from overseas.
But the Green Garden Gnome blames the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison government, not the Chinese, Indians, Russians, Venezuelans, Arabs, Indonesians but the one country which is meeting its Paris targets thanks to Abbott. And the CO2 increase since Rudd/Gillard is nothing. And the temperature increase nothing. And no explanation of why 0.1C causes extreme bushfires when there is plenty of reason to blame the Greens for the devastation.
It’s about time Green communist councils were sued for their negligence and stopping people from clearing around their farms and the damage they have done. If any one group is responsible, it is local governments who tax people to fund their own ridiculous salaries and stop people from taking reasonable measures to protect themselves.
As for the Victorian communist government under Mad Daniel, no mountain grazing, no picking up tinder, no dams, no fracking, no gas exploration, no logging, no hope. All to please their Green partners in crime. And where is Victoria’s Global Warming? Or is that extreme weather, caused by Global Warming like the huge blizzards in the US long before winter.
100
Even better than that satellite images (OCO-2) show that Australia is a net CO2 sink, not a source.
60
forgot the link.
https://www.australasianscience.com.au/article/issue-may-2016/rethinking-australia%E2%80%99s-carbon-abatement-contracts.html
30
It’s only -17C in Detroit tomorrow morning, -6 in Manhattan, and -1 in northern Florida.
I hope the UN’s hydrocarbon oil heaters are working OK, don’t want the hysterical freak-show getting frostbite.
60
The level of denial from the Greens in here is truly stunning.
Even using their own figures, there is nothing Australia can do to affect the climate by any meaningful measure. We are far too small and we have zero influence over the growing economies of the world..
Which means that the fire-deniers here are insisting that we know that fires will be worse but that we should not do the most obvious thing – the thing prescribed by fire research and accepted by every Royal Commission into fires – to PREPARE for them.
Hypocrites…..
70
And how do you propose to do that?
will the RFS become a professional paid body?
will the RFS stop having to beg at Bunnings for donations?
will the various national parks get the funding they need for this?
will the government admit that things have changed
Just like in America after every mass shooting, we can rely on thoughts and prayers after every fire event.
/My time is limited, Andy is going to have me thrown on a fire for voting green
19
Will you admit to the RECORD PAYMENTS from the NSW Liberals?
You sound like you want to throw yourself on the fire.
A deep mental issue.
that things have changed” have they ??????
Atmospheric temperature over Australia has a zero trend for 20 years, and before the 1998El Nino, form a further 16 years.
Not much has changed.
We still have droughts
We still get strong blustery westerly winds in Spring.
What has change with the global climate in the last 40 years that can scientifically be linked to human release of CO2
You STILL refuse to answer.
Is it because you know that you have zero scientific evidence?
Also.. stop being an insipid COWARD.
Do you agree that these people living in these dangerous bush situations are most likely Greens voters
A yes or a no.?
60
“will the RFS stop having to beg at Bunnings for donations?”
Lots of charities go to Bunnings to make extra funds.
That’s why the RFS is classed as a charity, as well as getting RECORD FUNDING from the NSW Liberals.
70
Andy,
When you increase carbon pollution you promote plant growth (apparently plants rely on pollution but i digress). With the extra plant growth you get extra fuel load ergo bigger fires.
So as i have just demonstrated climate change and the interchangeable non sensical phrase carbon pollution does cause bigger bush fires during El Nino or neutral conditions.
Alternatively during strong La Nina conditions cabon pollution causes floods if there is a fire during the floods then climate change + climate change = normal.
In addition to this carbon pollution kills birds as climate change creates storms which make wind turbines rotate.
Confused…….i am here to help
80
Thanks, That was very un-confusing 😉
50
Well, that appears to be bit of a fizzer around the Hunter region.
Only the Wollemi fire out of control
A few small grass fires around Branxton, and a bushfire at Greta (lol) now under control
A few grass fires around the Morisset area, nothing unusual about that.
And a small bushfire near Awaba, now under control.
A couple of fires in the Blue Mountains, under control and a few spot fires around the Sydney suburbs.
30
Not quite Andy. The RFS website was way behind actual events.
From the mid-Hunter Valley, thank you to the Victorian crews who saved quite a few houses near me this arvo. I noted trucks from King Lake, Echuca and I think Yackandandah. One place closest to the bush was lost in the next street over from me from a fire that started in grass half a km away and roared at us with a 40 or 50 km north westerly behind it.
The RFS threw absolutely everything at our fire: 737, the Erickson Skycrane, numerous choppers, even a float plane. Our little street was choked with over 20 fire trucks at one stage trying to get to the fire in the next street. Three hours after the main event we still have the Erickson and other choppers bombing hot spots near us at 40 second intervals.
PS. Neither global warming nor CO2 caused our fire or burnt down that home.
70
” with a 40 or 50 km north westerly behind it”
That is ALWAYS the bad time for fires.
As you say, absolutely NOTHING to do with atmospheric CO2
40
All quiet on the western front now.
Westerly winds — the bane of the Hunter Valley.
20
The way the southern jet stream is behaving, I suspect we will get them on a regular basis at least until Christmas.
Almost cyclically cold south-easters then hot dry westerlies.
May not be a pleasant summer at all.
10
There is one proven effect of increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere and that is the increase in plant growth around the world. More plant growth will eventually produce more combustible material on the forest floor which will produce more intense bushfires. I’m not saying that the current fires are the result of this effect but it is a serious consideration that will need to be addressed by governments when deciding the amount of burn off and hazard reduction needed.
I also find Barnaby Joyce’s blaming the greens for lack of hazard reduction a bit much. We have never had a green party government in Australia. No, poor forestry management is entirely the responsibility of those in government i.e. Barnaby Joyce and his do nothing mates. Shouting from the mad fringe players does not stop the elected government from doing its duty.
As for the excuse that local government is run by the greens, well that may be true in some places but the State governments in Australia have the power to sack local governments that are being mismanaged and replace them with management that will do what is required by the State legislation. If anything it demonstrates the lack of political will on behalf of the major political parties that allows green politicians to run amok in local government.
As David Packham said on the Bolt Report last night, serious fire hazard reduction does not benefit those who have a vested interest seeing large wild fires happen. Green activists use them to promote their climate change crap, politicians use them to smear their opponents and to demonstrate what great guys they and how much they really care about the victims and the media, well they just love the opportunity to get out the hi-vis gear and report on the mayhem. What fun!
40
12 Nov: Australian: Coalition has slashed NSW national parks rangers by one-third since 2011
by Andrew Clennell
The number of NSW national parks rangers — who perform hazard reduction burns — have been cut by a third since the Coalition government came into power in 2011, the Public Service Association claims, with one of its officials calling remarks by Deputy Premier John Barilaro that a failure to burn increased the severity of current fires “worse than an insult”.
The industrial manager for the Public Service Association, Nathan Bradshaw, said that since 2011, a total of 289 rangers, including 28 senior rangers, had been cut to 193.
Since 2017, in a restructure, the National Parks and Wildlife Service’s number of area managers was cut from 50 to 37.
And the Office of Environment and Heritage’s budget was cut by $80 million this year, Mr Bradshaw said, of which the National Parks and Wildlife Service was absorbing part of the cut…READ ALL
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/nsw-deputy-premier-john-barilaros-hazard-reduction-swipe-worse-than-an-insult/news-story/546160173b4418e19b5caaf44ef73ac1
30
Perhaps the RFS could lend the NPWS several hundred of their 840 full time staff during the off-season. If they aren’t fighting fires they should be out lighting them in controlled burns. A better use of man power all round. Pre-emptive burning needs less manpower than conflagrations.
40
Like most areas of the public service NPWS has become a kingdom with many well paid members and the more there are the better for the seniors remuneration.
20
12 Nov: ABC: The causes of unprecedented bushfires are complex but climate change is part of the puzzle
Opinion By David Bowman
(David Bowman is professor of pyrogeography and fire science at the University of Tasmania, exploring the relationship between fire, landscapes and humans)
Climate change is making a bad situation worse…
So, with unprecedented extreme fire weather conditions upon us, what can we do to safeguard ourselves against a more flammable future?…
Unprecedented conditions
Extreme fire weather creates fire conditions that exceed all known firefighting technologies.
This is why major fire disasters are occurring in California, despite the greatest concentration of firefighting resources in the world and billion-dollar budgets…
The deterioration of fire weather patterns, apparent around the globe, closely matches the prediction of climate change analysts.
There is good reason to understand our current situation as an intellectual transition from the stage of ***”what climate models tell us about the possible effects of climate change on bushfires”, to ***”observing and experiencing extreme, unusual, and ecologically and economically damaging bushfires driven by anomalous climate conditions”…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-12/cause-of-bushfires-is-complex-but-climate-change-is-part-of-it/11692176
***says who?
12 Nov: Scoop NZ: Bushfires rage along Australian East Coast – Expert Reaction
Press Release: Science Media Centre
The SMC asked experts to comment on the fires…
No conflict of interest declared.
David Bowman, Professor of Pyrogeography and Fire Science, and Director of the Fire Centre Research Hub in the School of Natural Sciences, The University of Tasmania, comments:
“I think the key point is that this current burst of fire activity, that builds on recent (certainly since the turn of this century) unprecedented bushfires across a broad spectrum of Australian ecosystems present a critical ‘linkage’ to understand how climate change will transform bushfire behaviour, frequency and ecological impacts. What I mean, is that we are clearly transiting away from the stage of ***‘what climate models tell us about the possible effects of climate change on bushfires’ to ***‘observing and experiencing extreme, unusual, and ecologically and economically damaging bushfires driven by anomalous climate conditions’…
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC1911/S00026/bushfires-rage-along-australian-east-coast-expert-reaction.htm
***says who?
can anyone explain?
30
It is amazing that the promoters of Climate Change/Global Warming have anything to say about the terrible bush fires. What on earth is a bush fire to do with climate?
I suppose they say it is extreme and an event so an extreme event but it is not a climate event. It is a bush fire, which is something you get in Australia. Regularly.
If it is worse than usual, you can blame the Greens for stopping any attempt to protect ourselves. Now they claim devastation is proof that they were right. About what? Bushfires are not a climate. Nor are they a climate event.
Then there’s Green Garden Gnome Bandt. More weasel than wombat. Claiming responsibility for the bush fires rests with the current conservative government. Why do Australians have to put up with Green weasels?
90
At least kangaroo Flannery has had the good sense to not claim credit for the terrible bushfires. And Green senator Sarah two fathers and krazy Kennealy have saved their vitriol for Barnaby Joyce who questioned coal production was a cause of the bush fires. Was there a time when our politicians were not such useless ratbags?
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this is the entire summary – Barnaby Joyce is the only politician named:
AUDIO: 3min22sec: 12 Nov: ABC PM: Politicians shamed for using fire crisis to score points
By Alexandra Beech on PM
One Nimbin resident has characterised the behaviour of politicians today as “Bread and circuses while Rome is burning”.
It comes as a political spat has broken out over whose policies are more to blame for the severity of these bushfires.
Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce went so far as to say he assumed certain people who died in the fires had been Greens voters.
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/pm/politicians-shamed-for-using-fire-crisis-to-score-points/11697754
12 Nov: ABC: I lost my home to bushfire. Thoughts and prayers are not enough
The Conversation By Janet Stanley (headline at The Conversation: “Mr Morrison, I lost my home to bushfire. Your thoughts and prayers are not enough”)
(Janet Stanley is associate professor and principal research fellow at the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute at the University of Melbourne)
I lost my home in Victoria’s 1983 Macedon bushfires. I know sympathy and financial assistance for those in the midst of the crisis is important. However, when political leaders such as Prime Minister Scott Morrison offer their “thoughts and prayers”, it’s hard to read this as anything but disingenuous.
Scientists and meteorologists have for years warned of more frequent and extreme bushfires as climate change worsens. Their messages have been met by policy inertia. Nationals leader Michael McCormack on Monday went so far as to dismiss those who link bushfires to global warming as “raving inner-city lunatics”.
If the Morrison Government seriously wanted fewer Australians to experience a bushfire crisis, it would use the current situation to galvanise public sentiment, shift the political agenda, and make meaningful inroads into emissions reduction…
The World Meteorological Organisation said in February that the four years to 2018 were the hottest on record, in a clear sign of climate change “associated with record atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases”.
Bushfires are not directly attributable to climate change. However, the fast-warming climate is making bushfires more frequent and intense.
In Australia, weekly bushfire frequencies increased by 40 per cent in the five years to 2016, particularly during summer months, suggesting a serious climatic shift.
The northern hemisphere is also suffering. Research released earlier this year found that California’s annual wildfire extent had increased fivefold since the 1970s. This was very likely driven by drying forest fuels under human‐induced warming.
The mountain of irrefutable evidence linking global warming to bushfires makes the Federal Government’s failure to act — or even talk about the problem — extremely hard to explain. Of course, worsening bushfires are not the only signal that climate change has arrived…
But it’s not too late to turn the ship around. The current bushfire emergency is an opportune moment to join the dots and prepare to implement significant climate change policies.
Experts say such a plan would include setting a credible pathway to net zero emissions and defining clear policy pathways to renewable energy, such as replacing existing coal generators with clean energy by 2035…
Even if the Morrison Government tackled climate change with gusto tomorrow, the reality is that the problem has already taken hold. And as former NSW Fire and Rescue Commissioner Greg Mullins this week warned, “we are not adequately prepared” for the monster fires that will result…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-12/nsw-bushfires-scott-morrison-thoughts-and-prayers/11697378
AUDIO: 3min36sec: 12 Nov: ABC PM: Cold front could make fires worse: Weatherzone
By Linda Mottram on PM
Guest:
Brett Dutschke is the Senior Meterologist at Weatherzone.
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/pm/cold-front-could-make-fires-worse:-weatherzone/11697744
12 Nov: ABC: Fire weather: Cold front drags in hot, blustery air and sudden dangerous wind changes
ABC Weather By Kate Doyle
Updated about 2 hours ago
Cold fronts have resulted in disastrous fires again and again in Australia.
It was a cold front that ramped up the fires on Friday, and it was a cold front that brought on Black Saturday (2009), Ash Wednesday (1983), and Black Friday (1939)…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-11/fire-weather-and-why-tuesday-looks-so-bad/11693894
10
As someone who grew up in the bush and with the occasional threat of fire to combat what’s left of my hair wants to stand on end to see some of the places that people are living. They have trees coming right up to their doors. Then they plant more trees around the house. What’s worse the only access roads in and out have often been allowed to get overgrown on either side and overhung with trees and shrubs. Then they contrive to be shocked when fire comes. Most of the people living like this are escaped urbanites or ‘townies’ if you come from where I do. They don’t know Australia, they don’t know the bush and they certainly don’t know fires or they would never be comfortable placing themselves or their families in such hazardous and dangerous circumstances. In the farming district where I grew up we never lived like that. Having seen bushfires and having had to fight them we wouldn’t have been game. The houses were out in the open with plenty of space between them and the bush. We often had fences around the houses and a few trees for shade and vegetable gardens and the like but no, no bush on our doorsteps. My tip for people wanting to live surrounded by bush is to not have a house that can burn, to have a safe fireproof shelter to retreat to, preferably underground and failing all be able to get out quick. Quicker than the fire front. Some very strange unworldly people have siezed control of policy at local, state and federal level. Hazard reduction and fire mitigation has been deliberately reduced. Forest management has been similarly degraded. Whoever did these disservices are culpable. The results are exactly what they deserve. Ignorance of the risks of bush fires is dangerous. No one should be all that surprised.
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Exactly Bob. And multi-generation families on the land still live that way too. We all knew about the dangers of bushfires when we were young. No one came to help, you were on your own, and if you messed it up through ignorance and silly or dangerous lovey happy-crappy lifestyles, you paid the cost of losing everything. No blame-game, no buck-passing, no hand-wringing, no pretending some irrelevant factor like a minor trace gas was responsible. The on;y thing that mattered was mitigating the risk with chainsaw, slasher, and tractor, pump and irrigation from a dam. Keeping the property clear of flammables inside and out. When you did that it gave you the best chances of success. And if you don’t do that you had no chance of success. Everyone who was smart knew that.
Stupid people aren’t supposed to survive and breed but they have, and now we all have to put up with the ignorant lazy dishonest bleating nonsense of Adam Bandt and that pathetic bunch of cringe-worthy party of delusional fools.
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Having lived my entire life in the fire country of the southwestern United States I can understand exactly what you’re going through. We don’t have the huge expanses of easily combustible landscape that you do but the problem is the same, fire makes the rules and we scramble to figure out what they are so as to be safe instead of sorry or dead. It takes time to learn how to do anything right but it takes no time at all to let some half baked idea replace the lessons of many decades of experience and then when the trouble strikes you have no choice but to run from the fire.
And then the blame game begins, it’s climate change. The excuses game follows, oh, it’s not my responsibility or, we’ll shut off the power in advance in the name of public safety. But it’s all futile because you see the real problem is that some half baked excuses for leaders have taken control and they don’t want humans defiling their sacred Earth or they want power.
I suspect I don’t have to say that I’m angry.
And then the insult is added to the injury. We have a community forum for all sorts of purposes. Need a reference for a tradesman? Need to let everyone know about suspicious activity in the neighborhood? Got a local business you want to make known? But when a subject more critical than any of the usual ones generates more discussion than anything I can remember, just try to discuss the root causes, the actions by state and local jurisdictions that lead to there being all that fuel that doesn’t need to be there and, oops, you can’t talk about that and the censors swoop down and erase what I say like I never said it.
The fire damage and death are an ugly thing but censoring me when I comment about the problem is even uglier. I hope that you can at least avoid the censor’s eraser.
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Sounds to me Roy you have a worthy cause – namely defeat the censors……
The truth will out -God loves the truth.
Ephesians 5:11 “Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them.”
10
Exactly. I have made it my job to do just that. I have no idea how far I can get because this forum is run by a nationwide corporation. It’s not a local operation. Reading the rules for posting and commenting is a daunting job. It smells of lawyers from one word to the next.
Wish me luck.
20
Good luck with that Roy but when the forum is run by a nationwide organisation you are looking at just a very small part of the information/disinformation revolution where “feelings” govern our lives.
The controlled media is our new surrogate government with all the checks, balances and distortions imaginable.
Only major catastrophes like the current firestorms give us the opportunity to observe government performance and judge them.
Even the media has trouble distorting and hiding the fact that these fires are bad and caused by government mismanagement and arrogance.
Trouble is we have a political system here that is almost beyond repair.
I’m not sure where we go from here.
KK
20
Me neither Keith. But if nothing else I can push back against them and maybe before I’m removed some readers will see what I’m talking about. But it may be possible to make a case in support of me because I found nothing that said I couldn’t talk about the culpability of government or anyone. So it looks like the local “leads” as they’re called may be enforcing their own version of the rules.
About the more general problem that so many are driven by news media — that will change when more than half the voters wake up, if that ever happens.
10
After looking into getting action on the censorship I decided it’s not worth the fight. I deleted my account and they’re welcome to their censorship. I don’t need one more ulcer and the thing never was worth much to begin with.
The only one unhappy with dropping it is my wife. You can’t win them all and she’ll get over it.
10
Some thoughts:
In old growth forest, fires do not make it into the canopy. It is simply too high.
Once logged or converted to plantation forest, fires can easily get into the juvenile canopy.
When a forest begins to be infiltrated by fast growing weed/non native plants, these fast growing weeds are ideal for fires.
Native Australian plants grow very slowly in general.
It is vital to do follow up weeding after a fire to get rid of the fast growing weed species, and so a fire aftermath is an excellent opportunity to do that.
A robust old growth forest uninfected by weed species prevents an overgrown forest floor, and so any fire is vastly less intense.
“Tall timber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucalyptus
Several eucalypt species are among the tallest trees in the world. Eucalyptus regnans, the Australian ‘mountain ash’, is the tallest of all flowering plants (angiosperms); today, the tallest measured specimen named Centurion is 100.5 m (330 ft) tall.”
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Dont know where you got that from ?
Im no expert, and i dont know what you are defining as “old growth”..but a 50yr old gum tree is pretty dam tall and they burn over the crowns at wind speed, because the foliage is the most flammable part of the tree.
My understanding is “crown fires” were the normal form of forrest fires in Au, with these superheated ground based fires being a more recent form due to the heavy build up of fuel on the floor.
00
every man and his dog can claim CAGW caused the bushfires!
11 Nov: BBC: Is climate change to blame for Australia’s bushfires?
Bushfires are a regular feature in the Australian calendar, but the blazes in New South Wales and Queensland have not previously occurred on such a scale and so early in the fire season, officials say.
This has led many Australians to ask how closely the fires can be linked to climate change.
The science around climate change is complex – it’s not the cause of bushfires but scientists have long warned that a hotter, drier climate would contribute to Australia’s fires becoming more frequent and more intense.
But the nation’s political leaders are facing a backlash for batting away questions on the subject…
What have Australia’s leaders said (or not said)? (Morrison and McCormack only quoted)…
So are these bushfires due to climate change?
“We find it very difficult in general to attribute climate change impacts to a specific event, particularly while the event is running,” said Dr Richard Thornton, chief executive of the Bushfires & Natural Hazards Co-operative Research Centre.
“But what we do know is that the average temperature in Australia now is running about 1C above the long-term average.” He added fire seasons were starting earlier and “the cumulative fire danger” in many areas was growing.
Prof Glenda Wardle, an ecologist from the University of Sydney, agreed: “It’s not every weather event that is the direct result of climate change. But when you see trends… it becomes undeniably linked to global climate change.”
She said there was a “collective shift” in the timing and intensity of weather events.
Australian National University climate scientist Dr Imran Ahmed called it a direct link: “Because what climate change does is exacerbate the conditions in which the bushfires happen.”
Do scientists believe Australia is doing enough?
But Prof Wardle said the government was “passing the buck” on climate change and not doing enough to help stem the rise in global temperatures.
“It hasn’t just been fires, there’s been flood, there’s the drought,” she said. “Every time [the government] has had the chance to take on the big issue of climate change and do something, they choose not to and blame other things like land management.”
Dr Ahmed said the leaders’ responses this week were a “very unfortunate” reaction to peer-reviewed warnings by leading scientists.
“With that sort of evidence on the ground, it’s hard to see that you still have the politics around doubting climate change,” he said.
Was Australia warned about the risk?
The Bureau of Meteorology’s State of the Climate 2018 report said climate change had led to an increase in extreme heat events and increased the severity of other natural disasters, such as drought.
In April, 23 former fire chiefs and emergency leaders issued a letter, warning the government about “increasingly catastrophic extreme weather events”. It requested a meeting which was declined by the government.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50341210
10
the entire FakeNewsMSM is on board:
behind paywall:
12 Nov: UK Times: The Times view on the wildfires raging around the globe: World on Fire
The wildfires blazing in Australia and across the globe must serve as a warning
More than 100 fires are raging across New South Wales and Queensland and yesterday the smoke sent air quality levels north of Sydney to “hazardous”. Vast wildfires such as those in Australia have this year become a depressing global theme. They have burnt across California, Alaska, Africa, southeast Asia and Brazil.
Fires sweep through many of the world’s forests and great plains on a cyclical basis. Yet this is the first time that the Sydney region has faced a “catastrophic” fire alert since new danger ratings came into effect…
Wildfires kill, not least through polluting the air, which increases the risk of serious illnesses including lung and heart disease. The responsible response must be to redouble global efforts to tackle climate change…
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/f0d1f45e-04ae-11ea-872c-a98e8bfab8fc
two polls you can’t believe in:
12 Nov: UK Times: Election 2019: Parties go green as voters say climate change matters
Environmentally friendly policies from the Tories, Labour and the Lib Dems are out in force in a bid to woo votes, write Ben Webster and Chris Smyth
Just over half (54 per cent) of people said that climate change would influence the way they vote in the election, a survey last month found.
The proportion rose to 74 per cent among people under 25, suggesting that parties with strong policies on the climate will score well in the youth vote, according to the Opinium poll of more than 2,000 people ***commissioned by the environmental campaign group ClientEarth.
Fracking risked being a vote loser for the Conservatives, with both Labour and the Liberal Democrats pledging to ban the controversial method of extracting shale gas…
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/election-2019-parties-go-green-as-voters-say-climate-change-matters-9d6vcflvk
8 Nov: Edie: General Election: Majority of UK public calls for net-zero target to be pushed forward
by Matt Mace
More than half of UK citizens believe the Government should push the target to reach net-zero ambitions by 2050 forward by at least 20 years, with climate policy set to be a key battleground for the upcoming general election.
A new YouGov poll, ***on behalf of Green New Deal campaigners, has found that 56% of the public believe the UK should set its net-zero emissions target for 2030 or earlier. In fact, one-third believe that the target should be set for 2025, compared to 24% for 2030. The total sample size was 1,639 adults.
This could give Labour a boost heading into the polls…
There is cross-party support for the Green New Deal. Former Labour party leader Ed Miliband, the Green Party’s Caroline Lucas and former Conservative MP Laura Sandys have launched a cross-party Environmental Justice Commission aimed at ushering in a UK Green New Deal…
Youth striker Noga Levy-Rapoport, said: “This general election is our last chance to face up to the climate crisis. The public clearly supports the most ambitious targets to decarbonise. Parties should respond in kind by offering a Green New Deal which rapidly reduces emissions while improving living standards and expanding services like free bus travel.”
https://www.edie.net/news/11/General-Election–Majority-of-UK-public-call-for-net-zero-target-to-be-pushed-forward/
20
“Inferno”
http://catallaxyfiles.com/2019/11/12/inferno/
20
All journos are made to wear suitable protective gear in restricted fire-zones for their own safety. We had a couple of ABC people at the Gosper’s Mtn fire to-day(Tues). Visibility was poor and there were a dozen trucks waiting for the fire to emerge from the Wollemi Nat Pk. It actually helps if everyone is easy to see.
I had a bit of a go at them about the dramatic scenes on Monday night’s ABC news and “7:30 Report”.
1) We don’t need horror movie music backing a news segment.
2) We don’t need repeated replays of the same footage and tear-jerking interviews.
3) Australia specialises in creating victims on telly. Where did the practical, “down-to-earth” Aussie get to. When I fell off my push-bike as a child my mother would scold me for being a dick.
4) Some objective reporting wouldn’t, go astray.
5) They could spend more time advising people what to do. Last night I watched people on TV wearing thongs/flip-flops, shorts and a tee-shirt. These folk mean well but are a liability to themselves, the community and us in the RFS.
and 6), Fireys are not heroes. We work to minimise damage cos we are built that way. 90% of the time it’s a boring chore. To-day was a “catastrophic” fire day(stupid new term IMO). Despite the apparent drama it has been the most tedious day so far in my life. At least the truck had A/C and a fridge of cold water and some of the time I could just access this site !
90
🙂
A little criticism of our National broadcaster is never going to go astray.
50
I’ve just e-mailed the ABC with suggestions about building self respond-ability and accountability of citizens and reducing emotive phrases such as “catastrophic”.
My house is at the top of a westerly ridge in the Blue Mtns with the bush only a few metres from my back boundary but I left the place unattended on Tuesday. A neighbour agreed to turn on my sprinkler system in an emergency and my other neighbour agreed to keep me informed about Berambing conditions by text message. My daughter lives in Bilpin and came to feed the animals and check on the place as my wife was out west baby-sitting. Local co-operation and common sense means we don’t need a fire brigade or bunch of panic merchants telling us how to live. Strangely, we can work it out for ourselves !
Tuesday’s over-reaction by Fire Control and the media was an expensive waste of time and money and they need to be told that. Yes, there were potential problems but they needed mature responses and not the child-like blithering that was served-up.
20
Greens changed their policy on bushfire risk management just a few days ago on the 8th of November , wonder what changed ?
70
I’ve found a couple of old policies on Internet Archive, so here’s some links with relevant excerpts
2008:
https://web.archive.org/web/20080719201513/http://greens.org.au/node/761
2015:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150405172018/http://greens.org.au/sites/greens.org.au/files/Forests%20Policy.pdf
Their [Land%20use%20and%20Planning%20Policy.pdf] from this year also mentions
2016:
https://web.archive.org/web/20170714092511/https://greens.org.au/sites/greens.org.au/files/20160619_Forests%20for%20our%20Future.pdf
2018:
https://web.archive.org/web/20180327221754/https://greens.org.au/policies/natural-resources-forests-mining
I was not able to find the words “burn” or “fire” in their forestry policies of 2018.
While there seems to be a trend in Greens policy de-emphasising prescribed burns and emphasising carbon sequestration, that change occurred years ago. The change since 1 year ago to the Natural Resources policy is a vague new statement about resource extraction rates and is not specific to bushfires. They only have two other forestry-related policy proposal documents (“Protecting And Restoring Nature”, and “Protecting Our Oceans, Forests, Rivers And Reefs”) and both of them were last modified on 17 April this year, not on 9 November.
A perusal of their website today shows a new page on Bushfires has been created from scratch quite recently, and any changes to it are clearly addressing Frequently Asked Questions that have arisen only in the last 2 days after the recent fires. It is not a policy page, it’s a PR page about a current issue which references much older policy documents.
Interestingly, the URL for their bushfire page was first used back in 2009 ( https://web.archive.org/web/20170716013738/https://greens.org.au/bushfires ) for a completely different page written in the wake of the Kinglake fire in Victoria, when it held the transcript of a Greens MP’s speech to parliament about the contributing factors:
The Greens in their stated policies have an unbroken 11 year history of supporting prescribed burns for reducing bushfire risk, that much is true, but it has always been conditional on the ill-defined term “ecologically appropriate” which left wiggle room for special cases.
Robert, I suggest there has in fact been no recent change to Greens policy on bushfire.
While high fuel loads and drought are definitely the largest exacerbating factor in this conflagration, not man-made climate change, blaming a lack of fuel reduction burns on the Greens is a cheap distraction from the true culprits. The bottom line is that the Greens have rarely held the balance of power anywhere, have not held it federally since 2013, have not held it in Tasmania since 2014, and forest management is a State level responsibility so any policy implementation is down to the reigning majority State governments of the day which has never been the Greens Party.
00
The law of unintended consequences strikes again. (Well poorly thought out action and predicted by many)!
They declare a wild fire emergency and close the schools (Well not all).
So the little monsters are at a loose end possibly un-supervised and as they are monsters the like to test the grown-ups by being; well monsters!
A 9 year old boy took a gas blow torch, walked a distance from his home and set fire to some bush.
The RFS managed to contain it so it did not do too much damage.
A door knock found the boy who was quite proud to own up to setting the fire cannot be prosecuted!
PC gone mad!
60
Take the kid on a tour of houses that were burnt out and families that have nothing left.
20
No, prosecute and fine the parents for failing to educate and control their off-spring,
Parents are responsible for the actions of their children.
30
Just a tad silly. The parents committed no crime but you want to set aside the very fundamental of law and punish someone you know to be innocent. Been done before by governments under leaders such as Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot etc but do we really want to go there.
Both Commonwealth and State have decided that no-one under 10 years old can have a sufficient understanding between “right and wrong” so they cannot be prosecuted. But this brat was able to endanger life and property with the deliberate intent confirmed by lighting and carrying a blowtorch for heavens sake. He planned the incident, understood the cause and effect and so knew exactly what he was doing. Surely some penalty has to apply. When I was a kid in early primary school I received six of the best from the headmaster for skipping school with a mate one day. I also got a heft clip under the ear from my mother and grounded for a month. But nowdays such would bring vehement complaint and possible prosecution of the parent, so this kid has now come to understand that there is no penalty for misbehavior and will carry that through to his adult life. Another potential recruit for violent and disruptive left wing protest groups.
20
Brian, parents are responsible for the actions of their children.
If they throw stones through the neighbours window..you are liable..
If they bully other children,…you will be expected to address the issue.
Children must learn right and wrong and the consequences of doing wrong… that is the role of a parent, and if they fail ( or do not bother !) then they should be held accountable
00
It’s times like these that governments try to sneak through unpopular legislation while everyone is looking the other way.
50
For Australia, the truth must come out,
As to what brought the fires about,
And to bring to the fore,
What the Greens could ignore,
The fuel load and not just the drought.
70