This week 75 years ago. Dust storms, bush fires and unbelievable heat across New South Wales. 118 fahrenheit is 47 degrees C, and there were 100+ temperatures in many places. The sun appearred as a “red sky”. A dust storm created a “terror” in Mildura (just like last week in 2019).
In Parkes, it was the worst dry spell on record. People were going without milk because the cows have died. Thanks to Siliggy, Lance Pidgeon. Holy apocalypse!
The air was calm in Sydney today, but diffusion of sunlight through a dense blanket of fine dust bathed the city in a strange orange glow. Practically the whole of the NSW coast this morning lay under a shroud of yellowish-red dust and bushfire smoke blown from inland regions.
Maximum temperature in Sydney today was 98.7 degrees at 2.55 pm. Early reports at the Weather Bureau today indicated that a heatwave, unprecedented in intensity, was raging’ practically everywhere in northern, western and southern NSW.
Temperatures in many centres remained at over 100 degrees throughout the week-end. At Jerry’s Plains, Hunter Valley district, the mercury reading yesterday was 118 degrees. This was the highest reading reported there for nearly 20 years, and a State record for the present season.
Monday 20th November, 1944: City Haze: Densest for years, yellow pall of bushfire smoke and western dust enveloped Sydney today. This is all the camera could show Elizabeth-street, on a “sunny Sydney” November morning. Searing Westerly winds and swirling dusts forms swept with renewed fury over inland NSW yesterday and throughout’ the night.
In the Blue Mountains in November 1944 “only” 27 houses were lost. In Victoria in Feb 1944, one million ha burned, 500 houses were lost and 15 to 20 people died.
H/t Lance Pidgeon
Well that is Shocking and another clear sign of Climate Change (not a fingerprint this time).
Except, huh, it happened 75 years ago. That cannot be! How, How FGS?
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Probably same cause as today. A whole lot of boys without fathers.
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The article mentions Canberra too; googleing Canberra’s temperature record…
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/5996885/canberras-hottest-day-when-the-temperature-reached-422-in-1968/
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Jerrys Plains data has been homogenised and the actual temperature on the day remarked upon in the paper was a pleasant 27 decrees C.
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How is this the same as what is happening now? Dust and smoke carried by a hot westerly vs months of fires, in areas that have not previously burnt, extending over 4 states. Nice try but
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“diffusion of sunlight through a dense blanket of fine dust bathed the city in a strange orange glow” is exactly what has been happening now.
Didn’t you see orange moon.
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He only sees “orange man bad”
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‘How is this the same as what is happening now?’
It was a time of global warming and 1937–1942 were El Nino years.
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But there was a war on in 1944, so the weather had an excuse . . .
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Because no arsonists had lit fires in those areas until now.
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By not previously burnt are you saying ever or just for a long time Poiter ?
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He .
Wouldn’t .
Know .
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judging by the age of the canopy, the dominant species in the area, and the lack of fire scars on the trunks, not for a long long time. Could I say never? Since I’m not going to take a soil core, I can not answer that.
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Apparently Fitz can’t tell the difference between the effects of low intensity fires and no fires at all.
Low intensity fires don’t scar trees, kill them or scorch the canopy.
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Fitz are you claiming fires in four states during November is “unprecedented” or something?
Fri 26 Nov 1982
“Firemen and volunteers were
continuing to battle bushfires in
NSW, Victoria, Tasmania and
Queensland last night after
heatwave conditions brought
fires causing millions of dollars
damage and burning out tens of
thousands of hectares of land.
Firefighters were mopping up in
South Australia after fires which
caused more than $1 million
damage on Wednesday.
Two fires near Canberra, one
just over the ACT border and south
of the Federal Highway, and
another, smaller fire near Hall
Showground, were quickly brought
under control. Smoke from the two
fires, and dust from Lake George,
hung over Canberra till a cool
change moved through about 4pm.”
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/130831957
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1982?
People used to think we were on the brink of another glacial cycle back then.
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So now we go back more than 40 years, and say “oh it must be so common, look twice now in the last 75 years”. In your quote “thousands” we are up to 1.7 million, we have lost 6 people, yet you wish to cheapen the loss of life, and the efforts of the firefighters, by saying 40 or 75 years ago it was the same. No it is not.
this is climate change.
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In 1944 in Victoria 15 – 20 lives were lost and 500 houses.
But this is not a competition. The point is that The Guardian/ ABC could have raved about unprecedented weather and freak conditions of some sort at many points in our history, and today is just another.
The only thing different now, is that tens of thousands of people sit surrounded by decades of stupid forest policy. Fuel waiting to burn in a conflagration no one can control.
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Fires, according to this reference are becomming more frequent
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4785963/
and also the government also agrees
https://soe.environment.gov.au/theme/biodiversity/topic/2016/altered-fire-regimes
If the fire regime had stayed the same, I would not be as alarmed as I am, and would have put my personal month of smoke inhalation down to bad fall of the dice. But this event, its extent, and duration have been predicted for years, and without the improved water bomb and aerial retardant techniques, it would have been worse. Back in the 40’s, 30’s etc all they used was wet hessian sacks, sometimes on a stick, or a branch of green leaves – that was it. Nowadays with tankers, planes, IR cameras, and highly trained volunteers were are still losing. And back in the 40’s less controlled burning than now. Admittedly there was more controlled burning in the 60’s and 70’s as that was the only effective tool available for control then.
Imagine if we tried to fight these fires with sacks and saplings? I’ll stand by my comment
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“I’ll stand by my comment”
We never had any doubt that you would.
If only we could all qualify for a place in the Safe ,,,,,
You seem to be very adept at standing in pools of meaningless drivel.
In your rush to make the current situation appear to be “global warming”™ you have, of course, overlooked the green pedantry that has forced everyone, even city dwellers, to live with encroaching undergrowth and overbearing trees which in previous saner decades they would have been forced to remove.
Now if you remove dangerous growth like that from your home, escape routes etc you will be prosecuted vigorously and publicly shamed for hurting nature.
The AG 55 memorial question.
How come you left out the fifties?
KK
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,,, house.
Unmodulated.
10
Sorry, ” room”
10
Re your references above: the first is a model that draws spurious conclusions based on the magnificent time interval of less than 6 ½ years of data from 2007 to 2013; the 2nd merely assumes an increase in fire frequency. Neither proves anything about fire frequency in the long term.
As to this “never been burnt” garbage. If there are eucalypts present, it has burnt previously; if there is dry rainforest, it has burnt; if there is heathland, it has burnt; if there is grassland, it has burnt. If there are outliers of any of those vegetation types mixed in with complex rainforest, it has burnt there at some stage.
Only deep rainforest doesn’t burn and we haven’t had any of that burn yet, despite claims of its “destruction” up north, which turned out to be a beat-up by activists. When I checked the biggest “rainforest area” impacted by fire in northern NSW, it was actually spurs of eucalypts extending deep into it along the dry ridgelines that had burnt within the rainforest reserve, not the rainforest.
Even your “never been burnt” koala reserve at Lake Cathie had fire through it in the past or it wouldn’t have had eucalypts there for the koalas to feed on in the first place. Eucalypts are born in the ashes Peter. Even you know that.
This is not climate change, this is the consequence of 3 or 4 decades of misguided changes to forest management. We need more controlled fire in the landscape, not less.
For your information, there was a lot more burning off taking place throughout the landscape than you imagine in the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and early 80s. Back in the old days farmers used to burn off as the need and opportunity arose without recourse to any official permission or records being kept, because they weren’t stupid enough to let things get out of hand fuel-wise if they could avoid it. They knew they had primitive weapons to fight it if it got a go on. There was also a lot of manual clearing of lantana and sucker-bashing to remove excessive undergrowth without resorting to fire. During the Depression around here the hillsides were alive with men clearing undergrowth for a meal and a bed.
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What rot
010
Fitz do you ever read what you link to ???? Mate you’ve got to start reading the junk you put up as a reference .
This is just one excerpt from the report and there is no science here just memes ending in etal.
https://soe.environment.gov.au/theme/overview/topic/climate-change-key-pressure-australian-environment
Cyclones are not getting worse –
Oceans are not becoming more acidic –
I’m sure if I kept reading I’d find the pacific islands are sinking the Arctic is about to be ice free blah blah blah etc etc etc .
More junk .
30
As someone who experienced and contributed to the development of the modern process of reporting and collecting information – I can state with absolute certainty that a much larger percentage of tires are reported now.
No meaningful conclusion can be drawn from observed trends without correcting for confounding phenomena of this nature.
Also, and as has probably been observed elsewhere… As many fires have human causes, we have more humans to cause fires. But the biggest factor WRT property losses is the number of primary dwellings in the affected areas. Just as there are more houses on the tropical coasts to be affected by cyclones, there are more bloody houses in the bush. Areas that once held scattered houses have been subdivided and settled more closely.
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And don’t forget WHO is living in all those new homes.
Back in the late 70s we went from having 3 major landholders along our boundaries to having about 15 after one property was turned into 20 acre hobby farms. Worse still the new residents were all city types with no idea of land management or fire prevention. Their places turned from grazed paddocks into overgrown jungles, many with absentee owners. The degree of difficulty of dealing with bushfires went from 2 to 10 in under a year.
50
Peter
The reports that you cite only go back fro 10 years, which is not long enough to measure climatic change.
This image for the USA shows that the area burned by wildfires has reduced by 90% in the last 100 years.
10
Hi Peter.
Why does climate change look so much like climate same?
davefromweewaa
140
“in areas that have not previously burnt”
Ever noticed firewood works better the first time it is used?
401
S
That is also the problem with hydrogen for a fuel – it has been used for the first time
70
And so we have to pull it apart to start again.
60
And pay the bounty to the laws of thermodynamics
60
Four states ?
Not South Australia. We’ve had a few fires yes.
And aprts of SA are dry yes.
But each & every one of the fires here is out
Until someone lights another.
And BOM told us all yesterday
Prepare for Doom !
A day of severe Fire risk is coming.
Top temp today was 26 degrees
And bugger all wind !
Temp right now is a cold 8 degrees.
In BOM today there was much grinding of teeth !
Tearing of hair !
And blooding of arms !
Due to the Gorebul Warming
Complete failure !
Dopey idiots !
280
fire are out?
26
“Fire is out”
AG55 memorial correction. Enjoy your SR.
50
Your “memorial” comment KK caused me to look as I must have missed something and I did! Oh dear.
I’m sure he will be back.
23
“months of fires, in areas that have not previously burnt” Absolute codswallop. Perhaps you mean areas that have not burned recently.
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Oh come on Brian and Bill, try and keep up.
This from September
http://joannenova.com.au/2019/09/its-a-science-emergency-how-many-fires-can-australia-stop-with-solar-panels-and-windfarms/
and near me
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-06/port-fire-1-1/11481814
and it is still burning
Rainforest or swamp(and here the hint is in the name) does not burn, normally.
According to the Fires apps
115 currently burning in NSW
52 in Queensland
4 in South Australia
103 in Victoria
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Bill did say South Australia
40
now 5 in South Australia.
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5 whats? Please be specific.
20
And leading on from that, there are a total of 274 fires on the app.
How many in real life is another matter.
KK for SR awareness.
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The strengthening of the subtropical ridge has created a tinderbox.
‘The apparent southward shift of the ridge in certain seasons does not appear to have had an additional effect on SEA rainfall. During the 1935–1945 drought, almost a third of the rainfall decline can be attributed to the strengthening of the ridge.’
Timbal et al 2012
Now that the STR has collapsed we can expect a return to cool wet conditions similar to the 1950s.
110
Peter, I really wish you would start using your own brain instead of relying on Al Gore’s or Adam Bandt’s deluded one.
Tell me, whatever the cause, are windmills, solar panels and EVs the appropriate adaptation to managing the ever-present Australian bushfire risk?
Well just a simple think about it says NO. What needs to be done is better fuel (vegetation) management. Better building materials that resist fire better. We should even think about household fire refuges. In forests we need to build dams to store firefighting water.
Even then government get this wrong, they tip billions into firefighting resources (EG water bombing aircraft) when a moment’s though tells you what’s really required is a water scheme, forestry and a sensible logging industry that ties into fire management. Nothing to do with Solar Panels, Wind Turbines and EVs.
240
I have just completed a road trip down the east coast of Australia from Gold Coast to Melbourne.
The only areas that would not burn with intensity in the right conditions are some managed forests with recent culling or areas that have been burnt in the last 5 years. There are countless houses with large trees within a few metres located in forested areas. There would be no hope of preventing property loss in these circumstances.
I learnt of new national guidelines for building in bushfire prone areas. It can be downloaded from this link:
https://www.abcb.gov.au/Resources/Publications/Education-Training/Bushfire-Verification-Method
Page 29 of the handbook has an interesting chart showing separation on probability of loss. The labels are confusing but my reading of it suggests that at 100m separation from bush there is a 90% chance of the property surviving. I saw many examples where properties were nestled into bushland – meaning certain loss in a bushfire.
141
bobl – what makes you think that forestry does not have a fire management plan?
What sort of fuel management plan are you talking about? Do you have any idea just how difficult this is?
114
But windmills, Solar panels and EVs will Peter?
We used to divide national parks into manageable blocks where fire breaks were used to provide access and points of slower burn. Logging provided a lot of relief points and of course this logging was at a profit so you can get fire control and make money off it.
While this doesn’t guarantee no fires, it will reduce intensity – What will windmills, solar panels or EVs do Peter? Please tell me how those things affect bush fires at all?
100
you also do not understand what a national park is, now do you?
116
Hey Fitzy, I do… they’re our National Fuel Banks for wanna-be arsonists… or Army personnel on live-firing maneuvers near Canungra!
110
National parks are just A haven for weed infestation and home to feral animals
120
Pffft.
According to PF areas are burning today that have never burnt before; so this must be climate change.
As an ex firefighter, I can show the “esteemed gentleman” or “it”, areas that were burnt 50 years ago that have not been burnt since. To use PF’s logic, thus so called climate change, has caused the said areas to remain unburnt-this must be a good thing to have caused a reduction in burning of these areas.
But of course, as PF is so glued to ideology, that no matter how hard the facts stared him in the face he would always be a believer and has no hope of becoming unglued.
250
What you say makes sense and makes a great argument for controlled burns to create fires breaks and to reduce fuel for a fire which will eventually happen even with the best firefighting techniques.
Years and years of fire prevention increases the amount of fuel for a fire. Naturally before human intervention large fires occurred regularly.
What we are seeing is a worldwide problem with out of control forest fires in regions where there has been long term fire prevention.
https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/forest-fires-the-good-and-the-bad
World Wildlife confirms that controlled burns are useful to stop out of control fires and to help new vegetation grow.
Controlled burns are also used to prevent forest fires. Even before human involvement, natural, low-intensity wildfires occurred every few years to burn up fuel, plant debris, and dead trees, making way for young, healthy trees and vegetation to thrive. That new growth in turn supports forest wildlife. Forest managers are now replicating this natural strategy when appropriate, starting manageable, slow-burning fires to make room for new life that will help keep the forest healthy in the long term.
130
Smoke and dust have reached New Zealand. Red sunsets in Wellington (southern end of the North Island) and Nelson (northern end of the South Island). The big fires across Victoria years ago gave the whole of NZ colourful sunsets for a couple of weeks. This is nothing like that, yet.
Another 25 NZ firefighters sent over to help. “Foreign Aid” now at 75.
100
If you are going to quote folklore, at least be honest about it.
For example – On the mid north coast, timber harvesting was the main industry and supported all the river towns. None of those forests had burnt, as if they had, you would not have the size of the stumps you can still see dotted around the place. As to unburnt areas now burning, I’ll point you to the gondwana refuge rainforests in NSW as just one example.
As t the ideology jibe – I’ll let the moderators sort that out.
117
Folklore Mr. Fitzroy?
Don’t be a bigger fool the you’re already being
: since when is history and recent history at that, folklore?
If you did even a modicum of historical research you would notice the cyclicity of it all.
Instead, you sit there and yap “Climate Change Climate Change”
According to the definition of Klimate Change, it’s Climate Variation induced by humans. These fires can be only be described as Klimate Change when the arsonists become involved.
I don’t even live in Australia but when I saw SE NSW had drought last summer, I figured then we would see some fires soon. Hey look! Lots of fires, big fires! About four or so months sooner than I thought they would be but then the drought hasn’t fully let go, has it? This is about the fifth time (or more) the fires have been so large that New Zealand has sent fire fighters to assist. That’s since WW2. Why didn’t you see it? No, no need to answer that one … we all know only too well why you couldn’t see it …
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This is what you can blame outre weather variation on if you need something: https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/WMM/data/WMM2015/WMM2015v2_D_MERC.pdf. This has only happened over the last decade and it’s going to get more scrambled. At some stage, soon, it’s going to get really cold, just like the Younger Dryas did.
When it’s cold, it’s dry. Ideal for fires …
100
As el gordo rightly points out, fire and drought are linked to el nino, but not this time. as to drought and fuel loads – and againas el gordo has pointed out, a wet year – lots of growth, particularly of scrub, then a following dry year, the growth dies back producing fuel, but this is the 3rd year of drought, there has been next to no fuel build up (apart from edge effects), and normal biodegradation has lowered the load.
This is climate change (fires not linked to el nino)
218
fire and drought are linked to el nino, but not this time
And not the other times! What part of “1939” don’t you get?
’39 wasn’t the only dry La Nina. The previous declared La Nina, that of 1928-1930, was also a “dry”. SA had its one of its driest multi-year periods, if not the driest. In both cases, rain came to the east in the autumn, though obviously too late in 1939.
Just to add to the confusion of those who think in neat, mechanistic terms…the 1942-3 La Nina ended in droughty conditions in the east while WA copped the rain, which was the opposite of what was to happen in the Big Wet of 1950.
Mind you, though the rain total isn’t yet in for this year, it’s certainly an historically dry one while only just nudging Nino status. Of course, cold water somewhere far away to the west and all sorts of other factors, known and unknown, come into the mix. I’ll observe and try to remember. Easier when you don’t have to squash everything about to fit an agenda.
90
all of it.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/updates/articles/a008-el-nino-and-australia.shtml
This is what I’m using, not some misremembered folklore
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My misremembered folklore is entirely from BoM’s own records on La Nina/El Nino in Australia. Really. All of it.
So what part of “BoM” don’t you get?
100
‘ … fire and drought are linked to el nino, but not this time.’
El Nino creates the conditions for fire and dust storms, and without La Nina to dampen the environment the droughty conditions will prevail.
The big talking point going forward will be the unseasonal wild winds.
http://www.bom.gov.au/fwo/IDY65100.pdf
60
Not only do we have the old forests and newly declared NPs now unmaintained, but here on the midcoast we have these huge areas of scrubby regrowth, once marginal holding country which was regularly grazed or slashed. While I keep pretty good firebreaks I use the wattle and lantana regrowth as cover and companionship for new moso bamboo, which hates short grass and bare ground. (The moso can completely clear the ground to a fine forest floor in a few good seasons.) In my valley, the regrowth can be adjacent to state forest which was burnt annually but is now left completely unburnt for decades.
The result will be obvious to most. It’s probably even obvious to the tricksters and contortionists who will use any slight factoid to push the green agenda.
110
“According to PF areas are burning today that have never burnt before”
Brings to mind
“people are dying today that have never died before”
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These fires are so common that we have to go back to the 1980’s or the 1940’s for comparisons?
This is climate change
121
Those 1940s fires were so common that they would have had to go forward to the 1980s or the 2010s for comparisons?
This is GeeUp.
130
‘This is climate change.’
Technically correct, south east Australian is on a permanent wet and dry cycle.
100
Its unprecedented I tells ya!
Except for that pesky 74/5 fire season when 8M ha was
burningcombusting for reasons totally unrelated to climate.90
Peter,
The 1974-75 fires burnt out over 3.5 million hectares in NSW alone.
Also in the NT.
‘The Northern Territory experiences fires annually on a scale which dwarfs those in southern Australia. For example, in 1974-75, following lush vegetation growth due to heavy rainfall in the previous two years, over 117 million ha or 15% of the total land area of the continent was burnt in central Australia during the fire season ‘.
Also 1851 in Victoria – 5 million hectares.
All due to…..?
100
Yep. That fire emergency in 1974-5 across states happened right in the middle of the longest sustained period of La Nina conditions in the instrumental record. And it was not just La Nina, it was full monty La Nina conditions. But when there’s plenty to burn in Dorothea’s land…
What surprises is how rainforest near Wollongong was able to burn in the 1968-9 fires when the westerlies blew up to 100 km/h. Maybe climate changed moved to the ‘gong early?
80
Look, these fires are unusual in that they have burnt so much land before summer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushfires_in_Australia
Scroll down for the full list, look at the date column to see what I mean.
By any definition these fires in 2019 are exceptional, time will tell if they are unprecedented.
This is how climate change looks
115
By any definition all exceptional fires are exceptional.
Serious spring fires are NOT exceptional in NSW, since late winter/spring dries things out and inland winds pick up. Late winter/spring is fire time. Not every year. Just often.
Yes, this year’s fires have been more than serious. They have been exceptional and only exceptional spring fires are exceptional…
How long does this thought and word play go on? And if I say 1951 and 1980 you’ll say I’m hunting too far back. And if I don’t say 1951 and 1980 you’ll say…this is the first time? If I say 1895 you’ll get me on the technicality that those fires were actually at the end of winter…so they don’t count?
I suppose 1968 November is out of the question? The year rainforest near Wollongong burnt while the Blueys burnt? It’s from a source you might like…
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/flashback-1968-the-blue-mountains-engulfed-by-fires-20181025-p50bxe.html
Love this bit…Mr E. A Willis, said last night: “We are facing a catastrophe almost without precedent.” Way to go, Eric! Your eloquence was…well, unprecedented.
As for the Wiki link, we can all spell “bushfire” and we all know an entry will show up on Wikipedia first or near first whenever we type “bushfire” or just about anything into a search engine. We’re also good with buttons, trouser-flies and most shoelaces.
90
So nothing of substance them.
110
No, nothing of substance. Just the disastrous spring fires of 1895, 1951, 1968, 1980. Just muck about stuff. Like the Waterfall fire which chewed up 1 million + hectares on Sydney’s fringe in early November 1980. A mere moth-burp. I could have added the 1957 fires, which started in Spring and kept going into summer (you know the drill, NSW, dry mid-year, spring westerlies etc). Leura, Wentworth Falls, Megalong Valley, Lithgow, Jenolan Caves. A few deaths, lots of buildings, a million quid…barely anything at all. Nothing of substance.
As for rainforest burning in the Illawarra during 1968’s multi-region blaze…nothing could be less substantial. Why, it’s just a butterfly swallowing. Less than nothing.
This is what climate change doesn’t look like.
100
And let’s not forget the 1984/85 fires with 3.5 million hectares burnt in NSW and ACT during that fire season -5 died.
40
Hoping for the “lie told often enough becomes the truth” there PF?
00
Don’t worry, the BOM has probably homogenized this event out of existence by now.
280
Have taken screenshots of today’s BoM crystal ball / carbon bull Alpine Forecasts for the next 7 days:
1st and 2nd of December for TAS, VIC, NSW,
sub-zero temps and snow showers.
Wondering if similar summer snow blizzards were partly responsible for the fires of the 1940s and 1890s as well as 2019?
100
I recall last year, on 22nd December we had our open fire going…..
Global cooling?
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6509302/snow-on-the-way-for-canberra-just-days-out-from-summer/?cs=14225
“The start of summer may be just days away, but snow has been forecast to return to parts of the ACT on Tuesday.
“The Bureau of Meteorology has forecast falls of up to several centimetres in areas above 1500 metres near Mount Ginini on Tuesday evening.
“Meteorologist Helen Kirkup said the conditions were driven by a cold front sweeping across large parts of NSW.
“”It will be coming through Canberra late on Tuesday,” Ms Kirkup said.
“”There’s a fair bit of cold air behind the front, and we’re looking at the chance of a thunderstorm in large areas of NSW including the ACT.”
“The bureau says snow is also forecast for Thredbo and Perisher, along with surrounding areas in the Snowy Mountains.
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Steve I wish it happened – unfortunately that was linked with a weather system that failed to deliver promised rain at lower altitudes. There were storms about but not many. The snow prediction changed to 1800m and by the looks of things, strong winds are blowing that all away.
21
Hi There, It’s snowing in the Snowy Mountains today the26th November 2019!
90
is there much? Did the dust and wind arrive too?
13
Your ABC had a photo of a trampoline blown into a neighbour’s yard during this arvo’s Sydney tempest:
This is climate change!
Snow webcams from Mt Hotham, Thredbo and Perisher showed a decent covering (7 pm) once the cold front had passed:
This is only weather!
Looking forward to the coming weekend’s snowfall pics… wasnt it supposed to be ‘too hot to snow anymore’ twenty years ago?
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If the present events had occurred 75 years ago and the events of 75 years ago were to occur now, those clever and ever-inventive GeeUppers would be ready with…”This is not what happened before!”.
And they’d be right, in that pointless way of theirs.
I’ve been in the fire region for weeks and monitoring constantly. What I haven’t done is turn on the refuse media, left or right, commercial or ABC. This has helped me notice more and react less. For example, after the first couple of days there were some strong winds but not the dreaded high westerlies. Temps were up there, but not freakishly so. And, of course, here we broke the “record-evah” for November minimum…twice! That’s right. Coldest temp for November in daily records going back to 1965. Twice.
Vast areas which indeed have not burnt in recent memory did burn in some of the driest conditions going back to the late 1800s. Areas in Cumbatine NP closer to my home which HAD burnt a couple of years ago did NOT burn this time. Gee, I wonder how all that works…
Anyway, well done to our tireless fireys, some of them aging hippies working for the safety of grandchildren. 47 degrees and high westerlies would have probably been too much to resist, but that did NOT happen and the weather has now turned cool and dampish. (Not over yet, of course.)
In what may have been the greatest NSW drought since settlement – those years from 1926 to 1929 when the Darling stopped flowing and Lake George disappeared – two things probably saved the new arrivals. Age-old burning practices were still in force. And nobody asked GeeUp for advice.
320
Stop! I meant to write 1826 to 1829! Here’s an old account, and you’ll note that there were serious fires. Had the traditional burn-offs been stopped close in to the new city and farms? Some things we won’t get to know, but it’s interesting that in the drought/heat emergency of the early 1790s fire was not a problem.
1826 A.D. – 1829 A.D. Australia. Drought:
A severe drought struck New South Wales in Australia. Many crops failed. Even the indigenes began to die from lack of food. Lake George dried up. The Darling River, according to the explorer Sturt, was said to be dry.
In 1828 in New South Wales, Australia, the drought was so bad that livestock had to be removed from 30,000 acres at Camden for want of water.
On 29 November 1828 in Sydney, Australia, “the heat and hot winds of Saturday last excelled all that we ever experienced in the colony. On board the Volage, man-of-war, in the shade, the thermometer was 106° F, and on the shore it was, in some parts of the town, 100° F, and in others 104° F. To traverse the streets was truly dreadful, the dust rose in thick columns, and the N.W. wind, from which quarter our hot winds invariably proceed, was assisted in its heat by the surrounding country being all on fire, so that those who were compelled to travel felt themselves encircled with lambent flames. Sydney was more like the mouth of Vesuvius than anything else. Sunday, however, brought a change of wind, since when the weather has been somewhat more endurable.”
In Sydney, Australia, in March, 1829, “we are all burnt up: it is frightful to go into the garden. Not a drop of water but what we send for from Botany Swamps. Four pence per gallon was paid for water in Sydney during 1829.”
On March 1829, during Sturt’s Expedition in Australia, it was written, “I saw rivers cease to flow and sheets of water disappear.”
Westerlies, drought and fierce heat in November. Who’d a thunk?
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Just a reminder of what the settlement’s first drought was like…
No rain is said to have fallen at Sydney, Australia between June to November 1790 and all the grass was dried up.
In January and February 1791, there were several weeks of excessive heat, hot winds, birds dropped dead from trees and everything burnt up, streams of water supplying Sydney, Australia nearly dried up.
On 27 December 1790, the temperature in Sydney, Australia reached 102° F (38.9° C) in the shade. Then on 10 and 11 January 1791, the temperature in Sydney reached 105° F (40.6° C). Great heat was experienced. In January 1791, the settlement was visited by myriads of flying foxes and birds that dropped from the trees dead due to the extreme heat. The heat continued into February. On February 12, the country around Rose Hill and Parramatta was on fire for many miles.
On 10 and 11 February 1791 the temperature at Sydney, Australia, stood in the shade at 105° F (40.6° C). The heat was so excessive at Parramatta, made worse by the bush fires, that immense numbers of the large fox-bats were seen to drop from the trees into the water, and many dropped dead on the wing. At Sydney about the harbour in many places the ground was found covered with small birds, some dead, others gasping for water. At Parramatta, an officer of the relief guard left the beat to find a drink of water, he had to walk several miles in a dry watercourse before he found it, many birds dropping dead at his feet. The wind was northwest, and burned up everything before it. Persons whose business obliged them to go out declared that it was impossible to turn the face for five minutes to the wind.
It’s interesting to note how fire was not the main problem, though it was a problem near the new farms. Imagine what a match would do now in those conditions. Of course here we’re talking about one of those sickening spring-winds-in-summer events such as you get in NSW only occasionally. How anyone can be surprised by spring winds in spring amazes me. (Maybe they’re just pretending surprise.)
But when anyone talks about simultaneous events over a continent I like to recall the late 1870s, when drought wrapped itself around the middle of the globe…
Great Global Drought: Droughts can become so extensive that they can grip the entire globe. An example is the global drought of 1876-1879, which struck China, India, Australia, South Africa, Morocco, French Indo-China, the Dutch East Indies, Turkey, Brazil, the United States and Canada. In general, world trade offers a large safety net against future droughts and famines. But sometimes the world gets in a cycle where the entire world is engulfed in a great drought. This can cut holes in this safety net. During 1876-1879 over 16 million people starved to death. (World population has grown 5 fold since the 1870s. An equivalent lost today would be in the order of 84 million people.) The drought not only affected crops but also livestock. In Australia, 10 million sheep died.
I first got interested in this period when I found some late 1870s temps for Nobbys which seemed impossibly high for a site right on the ocean. Then I thought what westerlies might do if they didn’t let up.
It’s also interesting that this was a time for very low minima and big freezes in higher latitudes. In the late 1870s, you really couldn’t win.
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While Nobbys is right on the ocean, the recording gear is on the top of the island with a significant amount of rock underneath it.
The first thing the rising sun hits each day is that wall of rock. Just imagine the stored energy up to midday.
KK
40
The First Fleet of villains to Port Jackson had officers interested in the weather and in diaries they gave accurate accounts of their journey. The important point was their surprise at the freezing conditions travelling in the Roaring Forties in summer.
And it really was snow they saw on the mountains of Van Diemans Land, not white sandstone.
40
He who controls the present controls the past. He who controls the past controls the future. Except when they don’t.
Rewriting the present to be able to rewrite the past does not change the future. It might change the perception of things but that doesn’t change things. In spite of every marketing and propaganda machine on earth, perception IS NOT REALITY. It is nothing but a signal from reality that, if not dealt with correctly, results in a distortion of the beliefs about reality.
190
Was reading somewhere yesterday that the natives grasses that stayed green all year round have slowly been replaced by weeds and grasses that die off in summer in California? I think it was .
This was then pointed out as an underlying cause for some of the problems they are having .
If true makes you wonder if the same thing is happening here over the years to some degree !
110
“Staying green all summer” in a mediterranean climate might need a re-examine?
40
My thoughts exactly. Show me a grass that won’t hay off during a Californian summer.
“Likewise, in the 1800s California’s hills were covered with perennial grasses that stayed green during the summer. Now California’s hills are golden brown as highly flammable annual grasses have taken over.”
That was Jim Steele at WUWT here:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/11/23/why-worse-wildfires-part-1/
Jim has never managed pasture. I don’t doubt that the bulk of grass has increased, with annuals more able to take quick advantage of a wet season. Grow quickly, set seed quickly and die quickly.
20
Thankfully I put a qualifier “if true” but our bush is being slowly infiltrated with weeds , especially our national parks .
10
Robert… Not just California, but here, too.
The most prolific species in my area pre-settlement, was Themeda, or Kangaroo grass. It is not green “year round” but sprouts from roots in early summer, grows and flowers through mid-summer, and senesces at the first frost. The aboriginals burnt it off in the Spring, leaving the ground open for the first shoots after summer rain.
Unfortunately it does not persist well under heavy, constant grazing as the removal of green leaf denies the plant the ability to store energy for the next season’s sprouting, and the problem with the destruction of seeding heads is obvious.
I have stood, on a 40C day in midsummer, in native pasture that would have been too green to burn. One of my projects on this property is to restore a more appropriate fire regime to some parts of it.
Cheers… Peter
50
Peter
Did you catch up that kangaroo grass is no longer Themeda austrails?
Now Themeda triandra, same as South African roi grass
10
I didn’t know of the interesting S.A. connection. Tracked it down under Rooi Gras, the Afrikaans name. The African specimen must have been the oldest type-specimen, hence the re-classification of the Australian version in ’95.
Peter, where I am I would never trust Kangaroo Grass not to burn in summer. By December here things are generally pretty crisp unless it’s been a really wet year, and this is 40 inch rainfall country. Right out in the back hills and along the railway corridor it still exists as pure stands (never deliberately burnt off), but elsewhere it has long been replaced by inferior exotics like Carpet Grass and Annual Ryegrass.
00
Robert,
Living as I do in Southern California I have some perspective on that matter of whether some or any grass could stay green all year long. And I don’t see it. If there ever was a perennial grass or weed, that species is long gone. The summer months are dry with not even a hint of rain most years. A species that could not die off and leave seeds for the next winter, which is when the grass comes up again would not survive. By late spring the grass is already turning brown and even if there was suddenly water all year round it would die off because that’s what it does. If there was regular year round rain it would enable different species to move in and choke off the annual grass and weeds. And we would lose our spectacular wildflowers.
40
Back in the middle of last century in NovoCastria it was not unusual to have a hot period of maybe 10 days when the temperature max would range from 100F to 104F with occasional peaks of 107F.
In today’s terms that’s near 38 C to 40 C with peaks of 41.5C.
Inland away from the ocean lows and highs would have been more extreme.
Most afternoons we would hope for a Southerly Buster to bring some cool air up from the Antarctic, or at least Victoria.
It was accepted as The Weather.
KK
230
Yes, funny that……
Now they take weather, and concoct this cock and bull story about “warming” and “the UN” and other mumbo jumbo, jump up and down, point a handful of feathers at things and call it “science”…….
130
In case anyone doubts the story, those dust storms across Sydney did happen in November 1944. I remember them well, being in High School at the time and saw them!
240
This is starting to get personal. At the time of this Australian heat as reported, my wife Clleen was in Canberra and I was in Parkes, both towns mentioned. However, we were babes in arms then and our parents who might remember have long rode on ahead so they cannot be asked what it was like.
This scenario is one reason why Colleen and I try to record a lot of our personal experiences, because in our books a good, individually and objectively noted account Trumps a newspaper report any day.
I was pre-teens in Townsville when a tropical cyclone hit. A strong recollection is the hazard of climbing around on the roof with Dad, hammer and nails working to keep the galvanised iron from blowing away and cutting someone apart. Maybe you should not be qualified to write about cyclones and damage until you have survived one. Also, working in extreme heat (try Great Sandy Desert in summer) or extreme cold (try northern Canada, with chill factor reporting minus 60 deg C. There you learn the crossover, that at minus 40, Celcius C equals F scales). Those who write about extremes might be better able if they have felt them. Geoff S
190
That would have been Cyclone Althea which hit Townsville on Christmas Eve/Christmas Day 1971. I was 15. My family’s house was destroyed and fortunately, we were able to take refuge in the next-door neighbour’s house, which was untouched.
Cyclone Althea destroyed much of Townsville but was largely ignored by the media in preference for the Darwin cyclone.
My memories of Cyclone Althea were making sure I got back home and grabbed the cash I had stashed from my first band gigs ($30) and my copy of the new ‘Imagine’ John Lennon album. Luckily, my cash and my new album were intact, damp, but intact.
130
Geoff was writing about one in the 1950s
40
Ken,
Correct about age, but not so flattering as the guess by GD. I was born June 1941.
After Darwin’s Tracy, 4WD teams from our Tennant Creek base brough functioning long range radios, medical supplies into Darwin and established some of the first outside communication and help. We had 30 or so employees there, fortunately little harm, no bad injuries (except maybe to the private minds oif some). It was my job from Sydney to contact rellies all over the world to pass on the news. That small job was stressful enough, because it took at least a week after Tracy for credible news to emerge from Darwin in any volume, so the rellies were often quite alarmed and tearful when we finally contacted them.
They let people like me into Darwin about 3 weeks after the blast. Among other things, I drove east to Jabiru. The old Iron ore mine at Mt Bundey had been provided with electricity, on steel poles, some years before. The timber ones were quick snacks for termites. As I drove east for the first 120 of the 240 km, the poles had been bent at decreasing angles until finally, occasionally unharmed at the end of the line. Like reading the needle on a dip magnetometer as the field vectors are changed. They showed the way that strong wind can damage. These days some weird climate researcher would want to use them as a proxy for historic wind strength, he added sarcastically. Geoff S
20
Could someone comment on what the smoke from burning Eucalyptus is like? That must be some harsh nasty smoke.
80
Ok from a camp fire but when thick and heavy it gets old pretty quick .
90
OT:
Likely good news is early Winter frigid conditions with high snowfall are forecast for Europe and Spain in particular. Cold temps on the 2nd and frigid by the 4th Dec. It will get colder and snowier as the conference precedes, at this stage.
https://on.windy.com/324rv
The potential bad news is a mature 300 km/h and 920 HPa Category-5 cyclone is indicated to strike the mid northern Philippines at the same time. The prediction for a major storm in that area has been present in the models for about 4 days now and seems to be firming with each run. The media would have a field-day getting all whipped up over that.
https://on.windy.com/324sq
Greta Update: As of today Greta and cohort are just over half-way across the Atlantic on a great circle route from their destination to a likely landfall in NE Spain. From the present location they have ~1,420 nm to go (~3,040 nm total distance across). They’re doing about 150 to 180 nm per day. And strong largely W or WSW tail-winds are being forecast for most of the rest of the run toward Spain, until they run into a cold northerly during the final day or two of the trip. At that rate they’ll arrive in Spain around the 4th or 5th of Dec, and be in Madrid the following day by road or train. Many of the roadways in northern and central Spain should be snow or ice affected at that time.
150
The Greta’s current location and likely destination. Which destination will probably have to change, at this point:
https://www.windy.com/distance/boat/40.98,-40.34;42.79,-8.89?gust,39.591,-24.615,5
During the final three days of the trip they’ll encounter a cold NW wind that rapidly becomes a northerly then a north easterly, which becomes a gale. There’s a very pronounced dip in the Jetsteam over western Europe in the ~3 days before they reach Spain which brings cold air, clouds and snow as far south as Morocco and western Algeria. This will be the roughest part of their trip. They’ve been lucky within the storm dominated Western Atlantic,high wind and wave conditions passed just behind or just in front of them a few times. Winter came early and so have the north Atlantic winter storms.
The forecast conditions just west of Spain are become stormier within the last couple of model runs as they approach a projected landfall. The last two days are looking to be strong cold NE winds and ~15 foot waves hitting the port bow. Reality is of course expressed less consistently than model forecast averages.
They’re quite unlikely to want to slow down and bash through that to attempt a landing on the NW Spanish coast as that would leave them exposed to degrading conditions for longer. More likely they’ll decide to turn SSE with the winds and waves then SE to push them further toward Lisbon Portugal, or even all the way to Southern Spain for a more sheltered landfall.
As of now the more speed and distance they can cover each day the less they’ll be exposed to these more hazardous conditions towards the end. At present they’re doing 8.2 knots or 196 nautical miles per day. The current stiff WSW tail winds should maintain that sort of forwards progress for about 5 more days, until the northerly is encountered on Sunday, so they’ll make about 900 to to 1,000 nm further before that northerly begins to arrive and turn into a NEerly the following day. They should be ~400 nm from NW Spain at that point.
Which means they’re roughly 8 days from the mainland, depending on how rough it gets during the final 2 days. So a Dec 4th or 5th arrival in Spain or Portugal.
How dare you!
60
Here is a tweet from AndyOz2 on twitter, a Perth denizen.
Andy finds stuff in trove. Here is a beauty:
March 1920
Western Australia’s all time heat record of 126°F (52.2°C) at Coongan Station near Marble Bar had been lost in time.
Luckily I found it.
Strangely it’s unrecognised because 1920 is when CSIRO models say Australia was very very very cold.
https://twitter.com/AndyOz2/status/1198238885911781377
Good one, Andy!
180
Give it some more time and the leftists mob at the ABC and BOM will apply their memory holes and remove the event from our history.
Also note we had lots of lightning and rain in many parts of NSW so I don’t know why they aren’t blaming those as well on climate change. They made the mistake of replacing global warming with climate change so we can call them out and say any major weather event is linked to man-made CO2, events that are no different to previous ones since the year dot. In fact as most of us know we have had much worse fires and storms over 100 years ago.
100
If only they had known how solar panels and windmills could have saved them.
Perhaps govt staff could start to remove these pesky historical records..??
I want the term “Holocene warming” removed so as to not confuse the average punter…
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Don’t worry it will all be fixed when ALP+Greens win the next election, haha. Going by how many issues the government is stuffing up lately it’s almost a given, sadly.
80
They are building higher dam walls in readiness for the next inundation, beginning late next year.
What issues do you have a problem with?
40
Watch Sky News. There are many. As for the dam height increase – too little too late. Besides that’s a state issue not a federal one.
30
Its a 50/50 deal and money well spent.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/oct/13/nsw-to-get-a-new-dam-as-part-of-1bn-drought-emergency-boost
The PM knows its going to rain big time when La Nina returns.
20
Southern Cross, Comet et al were doing their best with the windmills back then
20
Morning all,
This article has surprised me. The ABC has published it!! And the person quoted has said that fuel loads are significant in the severity of bush fires, and the ability of firies to fight them !! That a group of similarly qualified people recently put the blame on climate change hasn’t deterred him. The “person” is Phil Koperberg, a previous director of NSW RFS.
…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-26/nsw-bushfires-phil-koperberg-says-climate-change-a-factor/11735252
…
Perhaps there is some hope.
Cheers
Dave By
80
One thing i have noticed is that there seems to be a correlation between how high up the social ladder someone is , and them being on song with whatever the Establishment deems as “truth”.
Or put another way, parrots make compliant and approved “leaders”….
60
New world order and George Soros
https://www.city-journal.org/html/connoisseur-chaos-14954.html
40
A deeply informative article; thanks Dennis.
10
“something is going on with the climate” according to former RFS chief and then Labor politician Phil Koperberg.
Really? What a weird non science throwaway line! What codswallop. Such silly statements pay lip service to the political climate but say nothing about climate.
It seems that ‘the Climate’ is an invariant pattern and average of the seasons, the rain, storms, sunshine, wind, vegetation, floods, droughts and is somehow disrupted. Obviously by mankind.
Except that for two hundred years Australia has been a land of drought and flooding rains. And bushfires. None of them predicted.
And Mr Koperberg is amazed at the current unprecedented and utterly unexpected bushfires. Pure genius. We Australians are truly blessed with our politicians.
The new Climate Myth is that the climate was perfectly predictable and regular, even bushfires and it’s your fault that this happened and you will pay. Here endeth the standard political view of Climate and meteorology excluding of course actual meteorologists.
And of course, Climate Change has nothing to do with China or India or anywhere else. It’s a very local Climate Emergency, Council by council. And Greta is right. As every right thinking woke politician knows. All due to Western democratic carbon dioxide and self indulgence with their jets and steak sandwiches.
And as every Labor, Green and Left politicians knows, whatever is ‘wrong’ with the climate is entirely the fault of conservative voters and Donald Trump and Boris Johnson.
And cows. Veggie burgers will save us.
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Thar has-been, has been so over-rated for so long I almost forgot about him. I’m not surprised he’s a labor political hack now, I always though he’d end up in the labor party, greens or at the ABC (but I repeat myself). But how did such grandstanding bed-wetter become the head of the Rural Fire Service? Yes-man perhaps?
60
WXcycles:
He had a brief try at being a Liberal candidate. When I was a member in the 1990’s I was at a meeting/conference (forget which, but larger gathering than our Branch), at which he spoke long and boringly about bushfires. Quite a few people there were keen on him joining the Labor Party, as they couldn’t see him as an asset in the Liberals.
30
A first principles understanding of the drivers of climate would examine the interplay of the multiple variable periodicities of orbit eccentricity, obliquity and precession as calculated by Milankovitch, a process which is of a complexity beyond the explanatory capabilities, and irrelevant to the motives, of an MSM committed to alarming the public about fictitious Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming for which, obedient to the dictates of their financial backers and the UNIPCC (that body of political bureaucrats posing as scientists) and in the tradition of not letting the facts get in the way of a good story they finger carbon dioxide as the culprit oblivious to the complete absence of a veridical argument to sustain such a daft position.
The climate claptrap only gets a hearing in the West because its populace has been so assiduously dumbed down for the last fifty years to the point that for decades they’ve been unable to think for themselves and will believe whatever they’re told they should.
00
He’s still having a few bob each way there.
20
He certainly is, Keith.
30
I have angry memories of Koperberg as RFS Commissioner, denying what firefighters on the ground were saying loudly and publicly – that fuel was the problem and that we should be doing more about that.
Of course, supporting that claim would have been embarrassing to the government that was responsible for the land in question… and on which Koperberg depended for his job at the time.
100
A “leader” like that, acting contrary to the best interests of his team, is no leader.
To analyse that situation too closely might take you into ugly territory:
was the level of pre-emptive burning cut back during his term as fire chief, and how does he feel about the number of injured firefighters that have to deal with the danger he helped create?
I doubt that the ABCCC would ask those questions, it’s just hurt and damaged plebs and has nothing to do with the real focus on keeping the channels open to the United Bloody Nations for the likes of Kev, Julie, Julia and MalEx444.
KK
40
Keith.
I can’t tell you that it was “cut back”.
I can tell you that the level recommended by various Royal Commissions was never achieved in the areas under control of the NPWS… and at that time, the Minister responsible for Parks was also Koperberg’s boss. You perceive the conflict, no doubt.
The RFS was, in those days, a very immature organisation, despite its claim to go back a century. Prior to 1996, there were only Brigades, organised on a Shire basis, and a relatively small Gov Dept that oversaw funding and some training.
Lots of $$ were spent and some good things done, but in my (rather grumpy) view, it lost the community-defending-itself ethos and became more of a “service” with its own agenda. A senior officer told me to my face that “Head Office” was more interested in shiny paint and mediacimage,than providing the most cost-effective protection to my community.If you are familiar with WW2 Australian military history, there are parallels with Thomas Blamey and his relationship with his troops.
All rather beside the point, except to say that the RFS management is rather political and is having nowhere near the input that it should WRT fire management on public land.
Cheers…
30
If that is the name I think it is “there might be less to this than meets the eye”
10
37C not 47!!! Still bloody hot though
10
Not going to make it into MSM.
Slightly off topic but I can’t get a comment quoting what Democrat Senator John Kennedy said on Fox posted even on Andrew Bolt’s blog. The lefty moderator rejects it straight away even without anything offensive.
60
I am pretty frustrated by the Greens, Labor and 3/4 of the LNP coalitions obsession with tieing every damn little thing to global warming. The HUGE problem with this is the solutions are then always the same for the climate worriers. It’s always the econuts favoured tech trinkets, subsidised Solar Panels, Wind turbines and EVs none of which ACTUALLY deliver any CO2 savings anyway.
How exactly does my buying an EV stop the next arsonist from lighting a fire, or prevent some greenie throwing his joint butt out the window to start a fire. Will my solar panels stop a lightning bolt or clashing power lines ? Is the local wind turbine really going to save whales, quolls, Tessie devils or koalas or would it work better to address real problems in these population, koala chlamydia for example. Piping water down from the tropics is a much better solution to water shortages than a big battery, and my god, it’ll still work even if the climate change narrative is wrong
The econut side of politics is just obsessed to the point of wilful blindness on what is really needed. Renewable energy addresses nothing, lowering CO2 emission addresses nothing particularly well. Addressing the issues does and for fire, it’s fuel, fire breaks and water.
160
Have you tried reading New Scientist? Global Warming is shoehorned into every story possible and that cacodox policy seems to obtain across all popular science magazines nowadays.
10
I am up in North East Victoria at the moment.
Thunder, lightening, rain and the remainder of a dust storm. Yesterday was 35oc, today is 23oc and falling. The ABC commentators are filled with fear and angst, describing the weather as spooky and foreboding.
All the birds and animals are functioning as normal, the galahs and rosellas are waiting for feed, the magpie is banging on the back door. They should be afraid, what aren’t they afraid…
140
The real galahs work for the ABC.
120
Despite a blattery wind and the temperature having dropped from yesterday’s 31C (brief spike to 32C) to 11C at 0846 this morning, all the birds around are acting prefectly normally. Don’t they know there’s a ‘climate emergency’….good grief! What a lot of rotten little deniers! 😉
100
Has your region organised its climate emergency gathering?
80
Is that what happens when hundreds of sulphur-crested thugs gather at our place to vandalise the apple trees? Or when thousands, if not millions, of tiny, tiny insects gather around our windows and lights and get stuck in spider webs or just generally create a sticky unpleasant mess (said with feeling after this morning’s efforts to clean ’em all up, along with flies large and small, spiders, woodlice (slaters), etc.
I don’t know about Mother Nature being ‘fragile’. She strikes me as being extremely robust and very uncaring!
50
Annie
You need to be aware that “ecological fragile” has nothing to do with “fragile as in fine china”
Means that the community is undergoing rapid changes in species – sounds just right for a land of droughts and flooding rains.
10
There is a local greenie climate group of some sort but not yet heard of any ’emergency’ meetings. The only emergency here will be when all the uncleared rubbish growth on the roadsides causes trouble and/or there are blackouts, thanks to the undermining of Victoria’s electricity generation capabilities. Looking at you Dopey Dan and Lily D’Ambrosio ( what are your qualifications for making power generation decisions Dan and Lily?).
60
Annie
The further away from it the more they know
30
Ian,
NO. Should read “The further away from it the more they think they know.”
10
As long as there’s a continuing uninterrupted level of investment in renewables Lily won’t be ruffled; reliability of electricity supply hasn’t been a concern of hers for some time, after all those coal fired power stations are so outage prone…
10
‘ … fear and angst, describing the weather as spooky and foreboding.’
They will try to pin it on CO2, but Morrison will say that sort of talk is unscientific.
The masses become very disturbed by unseasonal weather in midlatitudes, so we have to come up with an explanation for Sky News and go on the attack.
60
I believe Rowan Dean’s former mullet may have angered the CO2 Gawd.
50
Antarctic ice core study reveals Australia’s 39 year mega drought
“Rainfall records only go back for about a 100 years but scientists at the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre in Hobart have used an ice core to look at the past 1,000 years of drought history in NSW and Queensland.
They found eight mega droughts that lasted longer than 5 years, including one drought in 1174-1212 AD that lasted for 39 years.”
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/worldtoday/antarctic-ice-core-study-reveals-australias-39/5970754
39 yr drought (1174-1212) – ice core EVIDENCE.
Blaming 0.4 of a percent of global emissions for Oz drought & bushfires is failed UN doomsday climate zombie deceit.
110
Just a slight correction 400PPM is 0.000400 or 0.04% not 0.4%
40
How Australia’s biggest dust storm went on to green the ocean
“But although dust storms are frequent during the Australian spring and summer, and Australian dust has a high iron content, witnessing the oceans bloom has proven elusive.
Now, however, armed with satellite data, we’ve recorded phytoplankton blooming, almost certainly due to Australian dust storms.”
https://theconversation.com/how-australias-biggest-dust-storm-went-on-to-green-the-ocean-47695
50
“Dust Storm Hits Central Eastern Australia”
https://jennifermarohasy.com/2009/09/dust-storm-hits-central-eastern-australia/
There is a DustWatch Australia site that looks interesting but brings up a Firefox security warning
20
[…] Jo Nova reports how NSW was shrouded in dust and smoke with 47C in the Hunter Valley 75 years ago. […]
10
David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz –
note the orginal headline in your link: “nsw-bushfires-phil-koperberg-says-climate-change-a-factor/11735252”
your link was given a new headline:
“NSW’s bushfire woes cannot be fixed with more planes and firefighters, former RFS chief Phil Koperberg says”
however, theirABC has once again elevated CC to the headline, for the AM program:
AUDIO: 3min13sec: ABC AM: ‘We just can’t ignore this’: Former NSW RFS chief on climate change
By Isobel Roe on AM
The former head of the New South Wales Rural Fire Service is adding his voice to the chorus of ex-fire chiefs calling for climate change to be addressed, to reduce the severity of bushfires.
Phil Koperberg was the state’s first rural fire commissioner. He says too much fuel along with a lack of foresight are contributing to the unprecedented fire season.
Featured:
Phil Koperberg, founder and former head, New South Wales Rural Fire Service
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/am/we-just-cant-ignore-this:-former-nswrfs-chief-on-climate-change/11737758
50
David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz –
meant to post my comment as a reply to your comment #15, but the page refreshed before I finished. then I forgot to click “reply” again…if u know what I mean.
60
Thanks Pat,
Sounds like my hope for a change of heart at the ABC was absolutely wrong.
Cheers
Dave B
30
1944! ?
I was born in the NH in January of ’44.
A bad omen, I guess.
I was once in Tucson AZ and it was 117°F.
I don’t think I could have survived had it been 118.
June 1976, I think.
60
John, it’s 31°C outside at the moment with a strong, warm wind. That’s about 88 °F.
I wouldn’t want to go near 117 or 118.
20
Broken Hill has some classic experiences with dust storms that turn day into night:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-25/broken-hill-dust-storm-1907/8841320
This one from 1907 when the climate was always balmy and cool. These dust storms are known to reach Melbourne:
https://static.ffx.io/images/$width_1024%2C$height_576/t_crop_fill/q_86%2Cf_auto/941425f68b72b9c625acb8f69bf72f356347c8ad
A feature of smoke and dust is its tremendous cooling effect. When on the road we found that areas with thick smoke were at least 5C cooler than areas with clear skies. The smoke is not good for solar farms.
70
Rick
“A feature of smoke and dust is its tremendous cooling effect. ”
Not my experience with dust. 1965 was a hellish year for dust storms in south west Qld. Blood red dawns were an all too common experience. A September trip Birdsville way had temperatures of well past 100F and dust galore.
And if such storms were the result of grazing then things must have improved as they haven’t been as common since.
30
AUDIO 54min07sec: 25 Nov: ABC Big Ideas: Do unions help or harm the economy?
Presenter: Paul Barclay
Only 16 percent of the Australian workforce belong to a union…
Former union boss Bill Kelty and business leader Jennifer Westacott discuss the history and role of unions and what’s needed to meet our current economic problems.
Recorded 30 October 2019 Latrobe University Debate.
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/do-unions-help-or-harm-the-economy/11730602
paraphrasing:
at 26min36sec: Westacott: why shouldn’t unions and business work together to act on energy and the environment? we cannot afford policy uncertainty. so let’s break the impasse and drive the transition to a clean energy future that ensures affordable and reliable energy, but keeps us competitive, creates new industries, new jobs…
52min: Paul Barclay: tomorrow on Big Ideas: ***Living in the age of fire. as bushfires burn across Australia, we replay a conversation about arson in Victoria’s dreadful Black Saturday fires with Chloe
Hooper.
26 Nov 2018: ABC Big Ideas: ***Arson and the age of fire
Chloe Hooper in conversation with Paul Barclay about Victoria’s ‘Black Saturday’ bushfires, the arsonist responsible for two of the fires, and why we are living in an age of fire.
Recorded at the State Library of Queensland on 14 November, 2018.
Guest:
Chloe Hooper, author. publication The Arsonist, Penguin
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/arson-and-the-age-of-fire/10546116
in opening 6 minutes:
mentions of 46C temp by Barclay & Hooper.
Barclay: massive Calif wildfires raging at the time; the worst wildfires in their history. looks and sounds apocalyptic over there.
Hooper on Victoria Black Saturday bushfire: 46C. there was a feeling this is our warming future. this is what – if we don’t seriously tackle climate change – what we’re headed for. we’re now seeing megafires that burn hotter and longer and burn areas that didn’t previously burn, all around the world.
Barclay: global warming will makes fires of this nature more common and we’re living in an age of fire.
Hooper: Stephen Pyne, the great ecologist says that. some say anthroposcene, but it could be described as the pyrocene.
Barclay: this spectre of global warming is the elephant in the room in your book, it is the sub-text of your book…
30
VIDEO: 6min08sec: 25 Nov: Sky News: (Chris) Kenny on Media: The ABC’s problem ‘is that management surrenders control to the staff’
Sky News host Chris Kenny says one of the “biggest problems at the ABC is that it is a staff collective [and] that management surrenders control to the staff”.
However, Mr Kenny did say ABC host David Bevan deserves “the highest praise” for his comments relating to the national broadcaster’s proposed climate crisis advisory group.
Mr Kenny said the ABC host had been “brilliantly honest” to say the potential formation of the internal advisory group “was perhaps an extreme example” of the “workers’ collective” within the ABC.
https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6108583700001
for a laugh – ABC Big Ideas 21 Nov:
Restoring American leadership
Donald Trump is a maverick in the White House. He’s thrown out the rule book and shoots from the hip via Twitter. Allies can no longer predict how America will react nor depend on its commitment to free trade.
Veteran American diplomat Nicholas Burns says it’s time for a change.
“veteran” diplomat Nicholas Burns:
22 Jul: CNN: Nicholas Burns, a respected, long-time Foreign Service officer who has served in both Republican and Democratic administrations, has joined former Vice President Joe Biden’s foreign policy team as a formal adviser, CNN has learned…
TWEET: Nicholas Burns
I am proud to endorse @JoeBiden for President and to be an advisor to his campaign.
12 Nov 2019
30
There was a time when the weather was a matter for discussion. At no time did anyone think the weather was someone’s fault. Bushfires happened and the discussion was how to put them out and then a Royal Commission to make sure they didn’t happen again. Backburning mainly. Prevention. And the rain, whether too much or too little was always a topic in dry Australia.
Now everything is Climate Change. You cannot mention any weather but it’s Climate Change and bushfires are not the weather, they are bushfires, but it is still something’s wrong with the Climate.
And of course, nothing has ever been so bad, even when things are really good.
At what point did normal sensible discussion stop and everything which happens was a result of too much Carbon Dioxide in the air and whose fault it was and how could we punish ourselves, as an example of idi*cy and self flagellation to the rest of the world. An idi*cy we expect them to follow, except China and India and Russia and South America and Africa and most other places outside Europe, which are developing countries with a real need for coal and CO2.
The question seems to be whether we can punish ourselves enough to save the planet? And bushfires are caused almost entirely by Climate Change. It’s a Climate Emergency.
The only two things missing from the Climate Emergency are logic and facts.
100
‘It’s un-precedented!’
said o’er and o’er
by the climate demented,
and moah and moah …
we’ll write a paper on it,*
before y’all
perish.#
* (published in a reputable journal.)
#starve,
drown,
shrink
…choose yr own
cat-ass-trophe.
70
If I remember correctly, Bob Carr was Premier when the number and size of National parks was increased in NSW, and the rules were changed.
Cheers
Dave B
40
This policy has two major benefits
1. Allows you to show more flags on a map of the state
2. Allows you to spruke bigger area numbers
That there is no money allocated for management somehow gets left off the skite list
30
25 Nov: ABC: NT Government criticised over ‘incompatible’ renewable energy strategy
By Chelsea Heaney (digital journalist and producer at the ABC Darwin newsroom; reporter for the NT News and music editor for Off The Leash magazine)
As some states race ahead in the development of renewable energy, the Northern Territory continues to lag significantly behind the rest of the country — according to a report released by the Climate Council.
As some states race ahead in the development of renewable energy, the Northern Territory continues to lag significantly behind the rest of the country — according to a report released by the Climate Council.
While South Australia and the ACT now generate more than half of their electricity from wind and solar, the report states only 4 per cent of the Northern Territory’s energy comes from renewable sources.
That figure has risen by 2 per cent in the two years since the Territory’s Gunner Government announced its commitment to a renewable energy target of 50 per cent by 2030.
The target was a key election promise by the Labor Government.
The Climate Council’s Greg Bourne, former president of BP Australasia, said there was a contradiction in the NT Government’s plans to set renewable targets while also supporting growth in onshore fracking and gas exports.
“This is a real problem, not only for the Northern Territory and Western Australia but other states as well, and indeed other countries,” he said.
“Pushing fossil fuel exports and at the same time enunciating that they are going to try and reduce emissions, the two things become incompatible.”…
Canberra on track to reach 100 per cent renewable target…
Mr Bourne said the Northern Territory would bear the brunt of some of the most severe effects of climate change.
“The intensity of cyclones are going to increase, there is no doubt about that,” he said.
“We’re expecting to see, during the dry season, much more intense bushfires as well, just like on the east coast at the moment where we are seeing these tragic situations.”…
Change not being led by Federal Government…
former BP Australasia’s Bourne: “We need to be facing forward, not facing backwards. I look at Prime Minister [Scott] Morrison with despair as a person who is walking into the future facing backwards holding a lump of coal to his chest. That’s not the way forward,” he said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-25/renewable-energy-review-finds-northern-territory-running-last/11734952
21
pat:
There are several problems with your report (though not your reporting).
1. SA only generated 50% of their electricity from renewables for 5 minutes. No doubt they will soon manage to get to 10 minutes. (Video then on the ABC of people waving their arms and signing Hallelujah.)
2. The ACT doesn’t generate any electricity. However, by complicated waving of their hands they’ve convinced gullible types e.g. ABC reporters that renewable electricity is shipped into the ACT separately by the same lines that carry conventionally generated electricity.
3. The NT isn’t a good place for renewables. The dust in the air cuts solar PV output substantially (50%+) and while they get the occasional cyclone, wind turbines need more subsidies than usual. And all those public servants (see the definition of the 4.21 Club) are keen for subsidies for themselves only.
20
My understanding is that most fires are lit.
Consider the population of Australia in 1947 at 7.4 million. That’s nearly 1/4 of the modern population.
So there should be 4x as many arsonists and 4x as many fires and 4x as much damage.
but it’s easier to blame Climate Change.
70
When you consider that Australia has only 0.4% of the world’s population and a mere 2% of the world’s CO2,
98% of the CO2 comes from overseas. Instead of punishing ourselves, we should send the bill for the bushfires to China.
The money could help pay for more coal fired power stations.
120
what if we are 16x better at detecting and responding to fires?
16
and 64x more journalists blaming it on climate change.
Tony.
150
And 32>< worse at carry out preventative measures than in earlier years when our leaders were held a bit more accountable.
60
128 x more words about nothing.
60
We’re glad that you noticed the appropriate progression: maybe we could all qualify as climate scientists after all.
🙂
50
We’re glad that you noticed the appropriate progression: maybe we could all qualify as climate scientists after all.
🙂
10
Where did the 16x come from? What’s the logic? My simple observation was based on population growth and parallel infrastructure expansion in extent and cost. As far as I can tell we cannot put our forest fires any better than we did. The damage from all natural disasters does scale roughly with GDP.
And ‘responding’. Do you mean put them out? How do you do that? Once established as a front, we can only stop fires spreading by doing what we should have done in the first place, backburning. Plus we can stop unnecessary or collateral losses from sparks and embers and only in places which are not in the path of a firefront. You cannot fight 800C! Not with a hose anyway.
Thanks to the Greens and their fuel load, the modern bushfire is hotter and kills the trees and all the wildlife. Nothing recovers. Only Green intransigence and ignorance explains the burning of an entire suburb of Canberra.
70
I don’t know what to write here without going through the history of the last 70 or so years of growth and development of Australian society.
So seriously, population is your metric? how about justifying that against the myriad other things that I hinted at?
16
WOW!
Great answer GeeEye to the question:
NOT!
50
I just made up the 16x just like TdF just extrapolated population as a made up metric for comparing two eras
02
GA.
The simple and HONEST response on your part would be to accept that it is highly complex, and that blaming just one factor – climate change – is objectively wrong.
We tend to hammer the subjects of fuel loadings and fire trails because they are the most effective things that we can do in the short term. The cultural and structural changes required to deal better with living in a fire-prone environment will take generations (even with a major change in government policy) and focussing on AGW is the longest term and least cost-effective strategy of all, even if greenhouse theory were true.
We have limited resources and political will. The more we waste them on “never-never” goals like zero global emissions, the less we have for immediate goals like saving lives and property.
30
I was pointing out the complexity to TdF. I did not mention climate change. But thanks for the lecture.
02
GA…
You were trying to hide behind yet another version of “it’s a long story” without actually providing enough of it to justify your apparent argument.
If you don’t want to look as though you are dodging the issue…..
20
We both have the same critique of Tdf. He was too simplistic and I am not obliged to come up with answers. Thanks for telling me how to conduct myself.
02
Not sure that that statistic is correct TdeF. I think the wording was that most were caused by humans, and some are deliberately lit. Machinery problems, BBQ getting away, legal burns getting out of control, tossed cigarettes… And lightning strikes seem to outstrip arson.
Can’t remember where I read that, so I don’t have a link for you. Sorry.
Cheers
Dave B
30
Paul Murray using NSW (I think) fire stats has it around 80 odd% caused by humans , 50% deliberate the rest accidental .
30
That’s my understanding. Like the time about five years ago when the big NSW fire was started by the army and climate change was blamed. The proportion started by lightning strikes must be decreasing with increasing population. And pyromania is a well known and common mental condition. It’s hard to legislate against a mental condition.
20
I have it on good authority that pyros cannot be “reformed”. Nor can they easily be identified by any level of cost-effective psych testing.
We are left with deterrents. Flogging sounds good to me. Followed by hanging in irons from a public gibbet.
20
another ABC opportunity for Koperberg:
26 Nov: ABC: Sydney news: Bushfire smoke lands on city again, water inquiry gets underway
Updated about 3 hours ago
Here’s what you need to know this morning.
“While no-one can predict the length of a drought, Sydney Water now has more certainty of drought conditions continuing during our next regulatory period, 2020-24,” a Sydney Water spokesman said…
More firefighters not the answer: former RFS chief
The first commissioner of the New South Wales Rural Fire Service believes climate change is making Australia’s bushfire season worse.
Phil Koperberg was appointed to the role when the organisation was created in 1997.
He said dry fuel loads on the ground, combined with a changing climate, had led to unprecedented fires, and he urged politicians to come up with better solutions, because more firefighters and equipment could only do so much.
“We just can’t ignore this and respond only by putting more and more resources to put the fires out. We can’t do that because somewhere we’re going to find that we don’t have enough,” he said…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-26/sydney-morning-briefing-tuesday/11736818?pfmredir=sm
50
‘Sydney Water now has more certainty of drought conditions continuing during our next regulatory period, 2020-24.”
That won’t happen, La Nina is coming.
40
“Sydney Water now has more certainty of drought conditions continuing during our next regulatory period, 2020-24,”
But, the ‘science’ …
“A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture—about 7 percent more per 1.8°F (1°C) of warming.”
https://www.climatesignals.org/climate-
If trace CO2 causes more moisture in the atmosphere, why should we expect droughts and bushfires to get worse?
40
Note they have disappeared that page.
Here is another with quote:
“For every 1°C (1.8°F) of warming, the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere increases by about 7 percent.”
https://www.climatecommunication.org/climate/heat-trapping-gases/
30
I remember the scientists use to argue that CO2 would up the temp by 2.0C or so and the rise to 4.0C – 6.0C would be from the resulting increase in water vapour.
20
That would probably be the mythical positive feedback.
20
Anyone uncertain about the need for education at all levels regarding the danger of bushfires could go to Perry’s Lookdown out of Katoomba near Blackheath.
Despite past lessons, “authorities” still save money on preventative maintenance and endanger the people they’re supposed to be working for.
Too many recent fires have threatened locals and taken homes and possessions in the Blue Mountains.
KK
60
https://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/1521632/blue-mountains-bushfire-survivor-breaks-his-silence-after-50-years/
We went down past the memorial a couple of years after that 1957 tragedy.
KK
30
So New South Welshmen all perished in 1944 along with all the koalas and the joint had to be restocked? All that CO2 decimation eh? I guess that lets all the post war immigrants in NSW off the hook with blame for the original invaders and Terra Nullius but we’ll need to find out which ones snuck across state borders and back again in order to say sorry.
60
App antics
https://www.redpowermagazine.com/forums/topic/121995-since-the-joke-thread-is-gone-here%E2%80%99s-something-to-chuckle-at/page/33/?tab=comments#comment-1359195
10
The dust just kept on coming into the following year BTW.
1945 “Dust storms again in three states”.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/245336548
20
we’ve been ignoring the most alarming news of the day!
26 Nov: Daily Mail: Carbon levels in the atmosphere reach highest level in 3 MILLION years as World Meteorological Organization warns ‘there is no sign of a slowdown’
•The globally-averaged carbon dioxide concentration reached 407.8 ppm in 2018
•This is up from 405.5 ppm in 2017 — an above-average increase for this decade
•Climate change impacts will be more severe as a result of these emission rises
•Future generations will face more extreme weather and higher temperatures
By Ian Randall
The alarming findings were published in the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO)’s Greenhouse Gas Bulletin.
‘There is no sign of a slowdown, let alone a decline, in greenhouse gases concentration in the atmosphere despite all the commitments under the Paris Agreement on Climate Change,’ said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.
‘We need to translate the commitments into action and increase the level of ambition for the sake of the future welfare of the mankind.
‘It is worth recalling that the last time the Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was 3–5 million years ago.
‘Back then, the temperature was 2–3°C warmer, sea level was 10–20 meters (33–66 feet) higher than now.’
Experts predict that the rate of global greenhouse gas emissions will not reach a peak by 2030, let alone in the next decade, if current climate policies remain unchanged…
A complementary ‘Emissions Gap Report’ will be released by the United Nations on 26 November, examining the latest research into current a estimated future greenhouse gas emissions…
The matter will be carried forward to the UN Climate Change Conference, which is to be held in Madrid, Spain, from 2–15 December 2019…
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7722439/Carbon-levels-atmosphere-reach-highest-level-3-MILLION-years.html
20
***love the casual ***”or 2050″:
11 Feb 2017: MDPI: Peaking China’s CO2 Emissions: Trends to 2030 and Mitigation Potential
Authors: Liu, Q.; Gu, A.; Teng, F.; Song, R.; Chen, Y.
Our analysis suggests that China’s CO2 emissions will continue to grow until 2040 ***or 2050 and will approximately double their 2010 level without additional policy intervention…
View full text LINK
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/2/209
30
a story in two parts, but who would believe the first carbon brief part?
26 Nov: Reuters: COLUMN-Coal use for electricity slips, but China, India concerns remain by Clyde Russell
A record drop in the amount of electricity generated from coal is likely this year, something that sounds positive for efforts to mitigate climate change, but things are seldom that simple.
Global electricity from coal-fired power plants will drop by 3%, or 300 terawatt hours, this year, according to an article by three power sector and climate change analysts published on Monday in the online journal Carbon Brief.
This would be the largest decline in coal-fired generation on record and is the result of falling output at power plants in Europe and the United States, the report said.
It also said that India will see coal-fired generation drop in 2019 for the first time in “at least three decades,” while China’s generation will stabilise…
***But while these statistics look positive from a climate change perspective, there are other equally credible numbers that point to growing industrial demand for the fuel and illustrate the scale of the challenge.
Global sea-borne trade in coal, both thermal for use in power plants and coking used for steel-making, is likely to rise this year after three years of being effectively flat.
In the first 10 months of 2019 global seaborne coal flows were 1.19 billion tonnes, according to vessel-tracking and port data compiled by Refinitiv.
Assuming the last two months show similar volumes, it puts the expected 2019 total around 1.43 billion tonnes.
From 2016 to 2018 global seaborne volumes were 1.32 billion tonnes in each of the three years, meaning this year is on track for an increase of about 8.3%.
Coal is also still largely a China and India story, as these two countries account for about 60% of the global electricity generated using the fuel.
China’s domestic production of coal is on track to rise this year, having gained 4.5% in 3.06 billion tonnes in the first 10 months of the year, compared to the same period in 2018.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/column-russell-coal-climatechange/column-coal-use-for-electricity-slips-but-china-india-concerns-remain-russell-idUKL4N2861O0
BBC wants to believe CB:
25 Nov: BBC: Coal: Is this the beginning of the end?
By Justin Rowlatt
The fuel that powered the industrial revolution may be in decline at last…
Rise of renewables
The (Carbon Brief) report suggests that the reasons for the drop in coal-fired generation vary from country to country, but include increased electricity generation from renewables, nuclear and gas, as well as slowing or negative demand for electricity…
This year, however, the fall in developed economies is accelerating, while coal generation in India and China is slowing sharply
The Chinese situation is complex.
A recent report showed a surge in new coal-fired plants in China…
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-50520962
30
behind paywall:
26 Nov: UK Times: Labour criticises National Grid over offshore move
by Miles Costello
Labour has accused two of Britain’s biggest energy operators of “prolonging the rip-off” of consumers after they shifted their ownership offshore in order to complicate the party’s promise to renationalise them.
National Grid and SSE, formerly known as Scottish & Southern Energy, confirmed yesterday that they had created new companies for the parts of their businesses deemed vulnerable to a Labour seizure and had registered them in jurisdictions in Switzerland, Luxembourg or Hong Kong.
Both companies said that they had moved to protect the interests of their owners, which include smaller investors and local authority pension funds, with Labour committed to buying back the assets at a discount to their present value.
Labour, which argues that a discount is justified by decades of state subsidy…
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/582ac55a-0ef4-11ea-96fb-8041210fa214
30
Sounds like a political turnaround.
20
***CHECK THE CHART:
25 Nov: HinduBusinessLine: How to make coal mining sustainable
by R Srikanth
(The writer is Dean of the School of Natural Sciences & Engineering at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru)
Notwithstanding the optimism over renewables displacing fossil fuels rapidly, coal will continue to dominate India’s electricity generation for at least a couple of decades more…
Coal fuelled approximately three-fourths of the country’s electricity generation in FY 2018-19. In addition to electricity generation, it is also a vital input for other core industries like steel and cement, which play a critical role in the country’s development. Despite being the world’s second-largest coal producer, India imported 235 million tonnes of coal at the cost of more than ₹1.7 trillion during FY19 ***SEE CHART…READ ON
https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/how-to-make-coal-mining-sustainable/article30078414.ece
***CHECK THE CHART:
25 Nov: Yahoo/Bloomberg: Despite the Talk of Coal’s Demise, It Still Powers the World
***CHART
by Will Wade
For all the talk of ditching fossil fuels to fight climate change, coal remains king in much of the world.
The amount of electricity generated from coal jumped 7% in the developing world last year, according to BloombergNEF’s annual Climatescope report that evaluated more than 100 nations. It’s the biggest increase in five years…
***The study also found investments in clean energy fell 21%, to $133 billion, across emerging markets last year, as China, India and Brazil all cut back…
While many developing nations including China and India have pledged to limit emissions as part of the Paris climate accord, they’re faced with the dilemma of also bringing affordable electricity to rural regions. China added 207.5 gigawatts of coal capacity from 2014 through 2018. India added 59.2 gigawatts…
Renewable power won’t be cost-competitive with coal in some developing countries until about 2025, Demoro said…READ ON
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/despite-talk-coal-demise-still-144903496.html
40
did Carbon Brief put out their nonsense report to get some anti-coal headlines, knowing Bloomberg’s report on REs was dire?
a must-read:
26 Nov: AFR: How China moved from leader to laggard on climate change
When the economy was growing robustly, Beijing saw stronger environmental policies as core to its economic transformation. Today, with growth at its slowest pace since the early 1990s, that has changed. The FT reports.
by Leslie Hook
But for Vincent Yu, deputy general manager at Yingli Solar, one of the first renewables companies to set up in the city, business has been difficult lately. “These last two years, there has been a lot of pressure. The subsidies for solar projects have fallen,” Mr Yu says. New solar installations in China — running at 53 gigawatts in 2017 when demand peaked — will be about 40 per cent lower this year, he estimates…
Today Yingli is insolvent. It has been defaulting on debt payments since 2016, and in 2018 it was kicked off the New York Stock Exchange because its market capitalisation had sunk below the minimum $US50 million ($74 million) threshold. Although Yingli still makes solar panels, its factories operate at a loss and the most valuable asset it has left is the land underneath them. Some question how Yingli is still operating. But analysts believe the political connections of its founder may have helped stave off creditors…
“The general momentum on climate and environment issues has been declining [in China],” says Li Shuo, senior global policy adviser at Greenpeace. Climate change has become a lower priority for Beijing. “There is less space for the green agenda,” he says.
China’s investment in renewable energy fell 39 per cent in the first half of this year, compared with the same period in 2018, according to data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Beijing yanked subsidies for solar panel projects in the middle of last year, and is shrinking those for wind, causing an abrupt shift…
At the same time, coal appears to be again in the ascendant with Li Keqiang, China’s premier, last month identifying it as a priority area…
The dice are now loaded in coal’s favour. The new policies for renewable energy are focused on grid parity — only building wind and solar projects that can compete with the price of coal. Yet with coal power prices dropping, and a glut of new coal-fired power stations coming online, it may be challenging for wind and solar to compete…READ ALL
https://www.afr.com/world/asia/how-china-moved-from-leader-to-laggard-on-climate-change-20191126-p53e34
30
h/t Bolt Report/Sky. read all:
VIDEO: 8min32sec: 25 Nov: ABC Media Watch: Powerful media commentators dismiss the link between climate change and fires.
TRANSCRIPT:
Paul Barry: But 11 days ago, after four people died in those New South Wales fires, former fire chiefs of Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania tackled the issue head on:
LEE JOHNSON: So there’s something going on and certainly climate change is exacerbating the very, very dry conditions that we’re all experiencing.
NEIL BIBBY: Bushfires are a symptom of climate change.
MIKE BROWN: I’ve had 39 years of Tasmanian Fire Service and I didn’t see too many dry lightning strikes earlier on in my career but now, and due to climate change, we’re seeing this as a regular event.
– NewsDay, Sky News, 14 November, 2019
But leading the charge was a former New South Wales fire boss, Greg Mullins, who said in multiple interviews that a warmer climate was making it harder to fight our bushfires and reducing our ability to prepare for them:
GREG MULLINS: … look, it’s very clear, any fire service will tell you, that the windows for hazard reduction through the winter are getting narrower and narrower. Now, a slight lift in temperature overall, average temperature, means the extremes are more extreme. The scientists are very clear, the numbers are very clear, more days of very high fire danger and above.
– The Project, Channel Ten, 11 November, 2019
But some powerful media commentators are convinced that they know better. Like shock jock Alan Jones in this full-page column in News Corp’s Daily Telegraph…
2GB’s news bulletins that day barely gave them a mention, even as the stations’s talk-show hosts, like Ray Hadley, had a crack at fireman Mullins with barbs like this…
And 2GB’s Steve Price was even more scathing…ETC
So, what is the truth? And is it actually inconvenient for all those know-it-alls?
Well, it’s certainly true that fires have devastated Australia since time began. But the CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology, fire chiefs and climate scientists all tell us the fires are getting worse…
And, to cap it all, according to Professor Ross Bradstock from Wollongong University’s Bushfire Research Centre, it’s all coming faster than expected…
Last week, at News Corp’s AGM in New York, a proxy for Australian shareholder activist Stephen Mayne asked Rupert Murdoch this question…
RUPERT MURDOCH: There are no climate change deniers around, I can assure you…
Rupert Murdoch is renowned for knowing what his papers and commentators are saying all across the world…
And two days after Rupert spoke came another example, from Ian Plimer in The Australian, urging us not to “pollute minds with carbon fears”, telling us:
There are no CARBON emissions. If there were, we could not see because most carbon is black.
– The Australian, 22 November, 2019
Hard to believe, isn’t it?
https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/episodes/fires/11736656
Bolt compained there is no right of reply. guest, Gerard Henderson, said former ABC managing director, Mark Scott, promised a right of reply, but failed to follow through, as the staff collective – or soviet as he calls it – won out.
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26 Nov: Yahoo/Reuters: U.S. Supreme Court lets climate scientist’s defamation claim proceed
By Lawrence Hurley
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed a prominent climate scientist to pursue a defamation lawsuit against a conservative magazine and a think tank that compared him to a convicted child molester.
The justices declined to hear appeals filed by National Review magazine and the Competitive Enterprise Institute seeking to overturn a lower court’s ruling that allowed the lawsuit filed by scientist Michael Mann to go forward.
One justice, conservative Samuel Alito, dissented, writing that the case raised questions “that go to the very heart of the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech and freedom of the press.”…
https://news.yahoo.com/u-supreme-court-lets-climate-144519288.html
26 Nov: FoxNews: Alito pens fiery dissent after court declines to hear dispute between climate professor, National Review
by Tyer Olson
“If the speech in all these cases had been held to be unprotected, our Nation’s system of self-government would not have been seriously threatened,” Alito wrote after naming several recent cases in which the Supreme Court upheld controversial speech, including the trade name “F-U-C-T” for a clothing company. “But … the protection of even speech as trivial as a naughty trademark for jeans can serve an important purpose: It can demonstrate that this Court is deadly serious about protecting freedom of speech.”
The petition the court denied was on a procedural issue in a lower court — whether a jury could decide if a claim is “provably false” — and National Review will have the chance to appeal the ruling if lower courts rule against it. In fact, the Supreme Court’s denial of National Review’s petition is just one more step in a case that’s been in the courts since 2012. But Alito said protecting the First Amendment meant the Supreme Court should take up the case that it would normally let play out at lower levels before stepping in.
“[R]equiring a free speech claimant to undergo a trial after a ruling that may be constitutionally flawed is no small burden,” he wrote. “A journalist who prevails after trial in a defamation case will still have been required to shoulder all the burdens of difficult litigation and may be faced with hefty attorney’s fees. Those prospects may deter the uninhibited expression of views that would contribute to a healthy public debate.”…
“If citizens cannot speak freely and without fear about the most important issues of the day, real self-government is not possible,” he said. “To ensure that our democracy is preserved and is permitted to flourish, this Court must closely scrutinize any restrictions on statements that can be made on important public policy issues. Otherwise, such restrictions can easily be used to silence the expression of unpopular views.”…
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/alito-climate-science-professor-national-review
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Fat finger
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Its hilarious that Sydney and cities on the Queensland coast will always receive the results of Canberra’s climate change antics…. Serves them right for voting them in – should happen more often!
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Prediction: Floods in the Hunter Valley in 2020 (2021 at the latest). Big drought (which usually end in lots of rain), plus 12 year flood cycle. 12 years are up.
Conditions are very similar to 2007, the year the Pasha Bulka went for a surf at Nobbys.
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