A nation watches the fires. The Australian Navy has rescued around 1,100 people and 250 pets. Thousands of other have fled. Thousands more on the SE corner of Australia have been chopping down trees, cleaning properties, waiting in queues for fuel and food. Today is forecast to be as bad as New Years Eve when 380 houses burnt down. Temperatures will be above 40 C — up to 45C inland in places like Wagga Wagga. (Right now, perhaps there’s a BOM site glitch but temperatures from Nowra south range from 30 -45?) Humidity levels will be very low. But a cooler change is coming late. Things should be much better on Sunday. Best wishes for everyone on the front line.
Suddenly, many people are taking “hazard reduction”. If only it weren’t too late.
Meanwhile the Labor Party still hope to reduce bushfires with an international carbon market. Good luck with that. A carbon market is form of carbon tax that sends money overseas and will make their friends at the UN and Goldman Sachs happy, but probably won’t impress the workers the Labor party used to serve. The only way it will stop fires is if people clearfell old growth forest to plant palm trees or corn for biofuel, to to make way for a solar “farm”. Otherwise, carbon storage = fuel for fires.
The pushback to Green policies picks up speed:
Bushfires: NSW south coast residents furious at ‘lessons unlearned
Greg Brown, The Australian
South coast residents are seething at the NSW government and councils for failing to take adequate precautions in hazard reduction burning. Numbugga locals Stephen and Janet Lennon said authorities failed to learn the lessons from a bushfire in the forests last August.
“They fly helicopters over there and drop (water) bombs (over state-owned forests) but 90 per cent of the time they don’t even work. And then they cast it as if they have done a burn-off, which doesn’t help,” Mr Lennon said.
“You are not even allowed to cut down trees on your property.”
Policy is changing: Scott Morrison says “Overhaul hazard reduction”
Rosie Lewis, The Australian
Scott Morrison has flagged an overhaul of hazard reduction operations in national parks and laws dictating where land can be cleared and houses built, while acknowledging climate change and the drought had extended Australia’s disastrous fire season.
Addressing a press conference for the first time since fires in NSW and Victoria ravaged the coast this week, the Prime Minister again held the line on his government’s climate change policies but said the national security committee of cabinet would meet on Monday to consider a short- and longer-term response.
Policy is not changing: the Labor party says we should fight fires with a carbon market (tax)
Anthony Albanese said the bushfires were a “national emergency” and called for a market-based mechanism to help combat climate change.
Scott Morrison must be delighted. How many Chinese carbon credits would have stopped those arsonists?
Back in August the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC said the areas in red were “above normal fire risk” in what will be remembered as quite some understatement. To be fair, they couldn’t know what rain or temperatures would come.
Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre forecast map Australia
The fire statistics so far
Nicholas McElroyAAP, PerthNow
NSW/ACT
- 16 people dead, one missing
- More than 140 bushfires burning
- 3.6 million hectares burned, greater than the size of Belgium
- 1365 homes confirmed destroyed
VICTORIA
- Two people dead, 28 missing
- About 50 bushfires burning
- More than 780,000 hectares burned
- 68 structures confirmed destroyed but this number is expected to rise significantly
Other states data is at the link. Curiously, in WA as much as 1.5million ha has burnt, but only one house was lost.
Very fast growing Australian Eucalypts were exported in the 1880s to California and later to Spain, Portugal, Greece, Israel and all have bushfires now. The advantages of flammable eucalypts and pines are offset by the advantages in low rainfall areas. Properly managed, it was a known risk. The Greens with their mad mother Earth Gaia approach where the planet looks after the people is now a real risk.
However after the terrible bushfires of 2009 known as Black Saturday where Victoria lost 2000 homes and 200 lives, there has been a huge change in emergency management. The next summer in California they also lost 2000 homes but only 20 lives. The difference is that Americans are told to evacuate under police escort.
I note that is the case here now and the loss of life has dropped x10 and even the heroic firefighters are a higher proportion of these. What was very disappointing was that many people told to evacutate decided to continue their holidays and refused. There is still this mad notion that you can be heroic and save stuff or that it won’t come near you. People told to leave must leave or be escorted out. So we had to send in the Navy.
Climatebaggers like Michael Mann are beneath contempt. This is not the weather, it is a bushfire as in so many other places like California. The difference is his profiteering cult and the Green Gaia madness spread by Flannery.
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And real science, not climate science, tells us that if CO2 goes up 50% over 100 years, vegetation goes up 50% so the fires today are going to be 50% worse than the endless smoke Captain Cook saw as he sailed up the East coast of Australia in April 1770.
So real science, not climate science, says we have to work harder to continually clear around forests, that eucalypts and pine trees reproduce by fire and Australian eucalypt forests are not safe places to live. And that a fire will come, the question being not if but when.
An visiting climate opportunists should go home and advise the Californians that they need more Carbon taxes to save lives.
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Where is it said CO2 and Vegetation are directly related?
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That’s photosynthesis. CO2+H2O -> (CO2)m(H2O)n or hydrated carbon dioxide. More commonly known as carbohydrate, the basis of all life on earth. The limits to all plants are three, CO2, H2O and sunshine.
At below 0.02% CO2 in the air, life ceases. All life. We and the plants and the insects, birds, animals and bacteria are all utterly dependent on CO2.
Without this tiny gas, the planet would be barren, dead. More CO2 and you get more life. Imagine the massive jungles which produced the oil and gas and coal we have today. Only since the invention of Climate Change have science ignorant people called CO2 pollution. You breathe in CO2 at 0.04% and breathe out at 14%. It powers your life, slow combustion. And the planet has another 7Billion people since 1900, but no one mentions that.
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Hi TdeF.
Should that 14 percent actually be 4%?
KK
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No, it varies with exertion of course. 4-5% would be a quiet resting level. It can be up to 24% from what I have read as I have never measured it myself. Either way it is 100x the input level.
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Good, I knew that the 4% figure was resting rate but had no idea for exertion.
The exchange rate at rest is 100:1 and at exertion, 14% implies an exchange rate of 350:1.
It seems that we probably evolved in a period when atmospheric CO2 levels were somewhat higher than now.
KK
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eg. approx. 4000 ppm at rest.
It’s truly amazing that choleric Watermelons don’t accidentally self-immolate for the cause. /sarc
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LD, 🙂 that’s 40,000 ppm out at rest and the usual 400 in.
It’s worse than we thought.
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Loss of CO 2 is significantly higher for Mouth Breathers and Snorers.
These people have lower Life Expectancies and higher rates of disease, particularly Asthma related.
31
Loss of CO 2 is significantly higher for Mouth Breathers and Snorers.
These people have lower Life Expectancies and higher rates of disease, particularly Asthma related.
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Greenies should hold their CO2 laden breath permanently.
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KKK @ 1.1.1.1.3 … 40,000 ppm … I knew that, yes of course it is. My typo error. Dang.
Well then, if you hold your breath for 60 secs (at rest), the output goes up to 76,000 ppm.
A definite case for not holding one’s breath and waiting for change.
Anything could happen.
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You breathe out at 40,000 ppm
20
A fact that cannot be denied, even by you, is that because of lock-up and neglect tactics regarding National Parks and State Forests, the current fires have been able to access a far greater fuel load.
You only have to watch them burning to see that.
With the current NATURAL drought, a common facet of the Australia climate, and the current hot blustery cycle of winds, again totally natural…
… Once fire gets into those inaccessible National Parks and State Forests, all the fire fighters can do is let it burn…
… Hence huge areas of fire that no-one can even hope to do anything about in the prevailing natural climate situation.
All they can do is hope the heck they can protect human assets when it comes near them.
Because there is so much fuel load, this tactic has, unfortunately, not been very successful in areas where people have trees close to and all around them.
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Important – 4th Jan Fire Spread Prediction Map – if you are in South Coast area or ACT or Riverina area of NSW, this is important.
Large map – will take a while to download.
https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/image/0008/148157/Fire-Spread-Prediction-Sat-4-Jan-2020.png
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Would you want to be this person right now?
Presumably backburning windows can be any size you want within reason, as long as you need to actually achieve the required result.
Are they back burning for a result, or just for a token effort?
We need to ask hard questions.
My rellies are again marooned in Batemans Bay, as the Clyde Mountin fire has people basically back on the beach again.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-04/nsw-vic-australia-fires-continue-burning-live-blog-january-4/11840348
“Windows for backburning are ‘extremely short’
“Bairnsdale Incident Control’s deputy chief fire officer Beth Roberts has addressed questions over backburning practices in the lead-up to this unprecedented fire season, with one reporter putting to her that the perception is that backburning or the clearing of fuel is the problem.
“”There are a lot of things that limit when we can do fuel reduction and weather is one of those. We have talked this year about the fact our weather windows are extremely short but any available opportunity we get out [to backburn].
“”You heard the incident controller say today we look intensely at backburning operations while the fire is in the landscape because we know that works to protect communities.”
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Seemingly the Watermelons privately refer to the fires as a ‘double benefit’.
Use ideology, bullying tactics and municipal take-over to implement policies that lead directly to a high fuel load on the forest floor.
Know that these will inevitably cause a calamitous conflagration and death.
Rejoice that it polarise the argument and adds to the sense of the “climate emergency” polemic, particularly as the Fourth Estate of the MSM is a seditious Fifth Column.
Crow in timely cadence with Gremlin Greta, the end is nigh, give us your money, stop having babies, turn out the lights.
The time to hold the Climatism Nuremberg trials draws closer. 40,000 excess winter deaths in the UK (power impoverishment) makes a sound opener.
51
Seriously??? Or is the trolling just becoming mor overt now?
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It’s a new year. His handlers are now demanding higher performance and better results
More hysteria on the way
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At Peter Fitzroy 4:21
“Where is it said CO2 and Vegetation are directly related?”
I assume you mean some sort of 1 to 1 thing, such as a 10% increase in CO2 (kilograms, or whatever) results in a 10% increase in kilograms of all growing (photosynthesis) things. It is not that simple.
I say this because as surely as you know how to tie your shoes, you know that CO2 is the major/main/greatest food for plants. Water is a carrier of nutrients (micro), and the passing of water to the atmosphere helps cool. CO2 is the food.
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Yes, in 1634 Van Helmont proved that a tree absorbed almost its entire weight from the air and he did not know about Carbon Dioxide, so he concluded plants were made from water.
Who would think a 50 ton tree could grow from seemingly weightless air alone?
My observation is that if a 50 ton tree grew from the soil, there should be a big hole around it. Instead the earth is often pushed up as the tree and roots push the soil away.
I cannot believe that Carbon Dioxide is being vilified by repetition as ‘pollution’. And this by carbon life forms, although politicians and Greenies may be from a different planet.
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Alternatively considering that there are/were only 92 elements in the Periodic table, the tree has to be made from something. And that something must be a gas or metal or neutral in the middle. I am sure we would notice if the tree was metal. It is in fact two gases, hydrogen and oxygen and one flexible atom, carbon, the one atom which is the basis of all we know as ‘organic chemistry’.
The only other atom which comes close is sulphur and there are allegedly lifeforms which can be powered by sulfur. And the odd person.
So to vilify carbon is to vilify life. And diamonds, graphite. Perhaps the most flexible atom in the entire set of 92 in its ability to form compounds and chains, like green cholorophyll which is itself a long chain hydrocarbon. And therefore evil, apparently and according to the Greens.
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Most sulphur based lifeforms live around submarine volcanic “chimneys”. However there are also some worm like thingies that have yellow coloured sulphur base blood, but I’ve forgotten what they are called.
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Yes, plants use CO2 and sunlight to build up biomass and soil. Verandah posts set up on galvanised post brackets on many homes I’ve built are now buried in the turf. It rises around the posts.
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Peter,
Just ask anyone who uses a greenhouse to grow produce. They use CO2 concentrator so to increase the growth inside the greenhouse. More CO2 more growth.
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The blood of sea cucumbers is yellow in color because as much as ten percent of its blood cell pigment is vanadium
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Something called the carbon cycle. Most of us learned about this in year 8.
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PF, you’re having us on? Or are you just stalking again?
NASA declares carbon dioxide is GREENING the Earth… reveals how Green New Death is a DEATH cult that would collapse global ecology — April 2019
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Sigh!
Latus Dextro
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
January 4, 2020 at 10:33 am · Reply
[I did the best I could. I’m sorry I do not know why it was held up] ED
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In Science 101.
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Pretty much everywhere since on the planet of today our plants are chronically CO2-deprived.
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Gee Fitz, I guess that they pump CO2 into greenhouses as a preventative fire suppression method rather than to encourage growth.
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Peter the only way you can get extra CO2 ….. NOT to cause greater growth, in any stage of the plant life, is for the researcher to go out of his way to deplete the soil of nitrogen. In all other cases and in practically every plant studied, at every part of its life cycle, CO2 causes greater growth. Plants are CO2 deprived on our planet. CO2 is usually the rate-determining step. In that it also helps out with stressed and water deprived plants.
You would think that the leftists would mention this in relation to fires but they don’t. Its kind of socially unacceptable to mention it in front of them. You think you are being generous, and magnanimous in conceding some minor point to their idiocy. But they don’t want to know. We should be seeking a level of about 700 ppm. But if we go that way we need to double down on fuel control efforts as Tdef mentioned. Without detracting from the urgent need for expanded preemptive burning we need also land hydration and planned grazing.
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Peter, I thought you were an ecologist- that’s what you said. Are you trolling or did you really forget your chemistry?
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ALERT! ALERT!
Cabramurra reached 69.8C at 4:26pm today.
Scrolled down to Snowy Mts.
http://www.bom.gov.au/nsw/observations/nswall.shtml?ref=hdr#CWS
Or see the half-hour updates here http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDN60801/IDN60801.95916.shtml
before they both disappear.
Bombala AWS
Cabramurra 04:26pm 69.8
The fires???
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Oh my God! The whole planet is burning!! Quick, ring the ABC.
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Screenshot of Cabramurra’s weather data from BoM’s ‘All NSW Observations’ as of yesterday.
Cabramurra 04/09:20pm 28.8 23.8 -1.3 14 15.0 WNW 15 19 8 10 – 0.0 28.8 09:20pm
69.8 04:26pm W 128 04:22pm 69 04:22pm
New world record.
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Nice catch in the slips, one arm extended, body suspended in space. Perfect.
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Stop it, people can live where they want to live but shouldn’t be told by local councils to deliberately surround their houses with a huge fuel dump.
Your assertion that people shouldn’t be allowed to live in the bush is just more totalitarian socialism. People should be given more freedom to protect themselves (IE to clear the land) not less.
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The plant species profile of our great continent has been shifted by over grazing of native slow growing grasses like Wallaby Grass, Kangaroo Grass and other extremely slow growing native australian flora to fast growing european grasses etc. This shift in the plant species profile was intentional in many cases in order to boost the amount of fodder for cows etc.
What we now have is a super continent of ultra fast growing, highly inflammable perennial grasses, Lantana in NSW, blackberry bushes 10 meters high and so on that burn very hot, unlike the slow growing Wallaby, Kangaroo, and other native grasses that do not burn very hot as they remain green during drought.
In 2007 circa, i had to fight off our local council who employed unqualified officers who then sent me letters to mow my front garden. I had to explain the grass is a combination of grasses and that they are all native and therefore i would not be mowing them. I had to repeat this information for a number of years until now, my front garden is burnproof with little to no management.
This year i have sent pics of my garden to show its incredibly green state, and its ability to remain green with zero watering. I never water my native grasses. I am especially proud of my low flammability Microlaena Stipoides. No wonder Aboriginals were able to perform burns without the heat today’s wildfires generate.
To return Australia to its original low inflammability rating, follow up weeding needs to be performed after fires to prevent recurrence of blackberry and other weeds, introduced or otherwise.
Fast growing gum trees that reach a mature size are very difficult to burn and almost impossible for fire to get into the canopy.
Fast growing plantations of juvenile gums are highly inflamable until the canopy is sufficiently high enough.
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For example, allowing cattle to graze in Australia’s high country has shifted the plant species profile over to fast growing, ultra inflammable weed species.
I maintain this kind of thing is creating a super continent of ultra fast growing, highly inflammable perennial grasses and other weeds.
Follow up weeding must be carried out after a fire when it is easy. Fires create a window to do just that, restoring our flora back to its low potential for intense fire.
We need an army of weeders to go in after fires.
It is a matter of national security.
I am qualified after being involved in bush regeneration projects, so i consider i know what i am talking about somewhat in general. Correct me if i am wrong.
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I might as well add that being a climate extremist will not solve anything.
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And +1.2C in average temperature is not Climate Change. No living thing could tell the difference.
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Yep, and radicalization of young children, into climate extremism is unfortunate to say the least. They should be living an antidepressant drug and doom free life, in hope, optimism, and love. …in my opinion.
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If they can’t make the most of THE MOST prosperous time in human history they will inevitably be haunted in their dotage by their own pathetic failure. Comes a time in life when blaming others has a very hollow ring.
Matt Ridley: We’ve Just Had The Best Decade In Human History. Seriously
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That all makes perfect sense. Grasses have no advantage in being highly flammable as they are short lived species anyway. Trees have a real advantage if they are fast growing and the trees and grasses are in eternal deadly competition for light and water and CO2. Trees do their best to kill grasses and after a fire, it’s first to the sunlight.
As I have been reading, those early farmers made a practice of burning their grasses regularly. And stubble after a harvest. No one seems to be concerned about flammability of species.
However as we do not have an army of weeders paid or unpaid, would it not be better to tolerate the invading plant species which feed cattle as long as they operate as a free weeding service? Otherwise we get the new regime, flammable new plant species, no fat cattle and devastating fires.
That is unless there is some reason plant species are preferable over others?
The same for animals. The reason we do not farm kangaroos for meat is that they jump fences. These are practical problems which need workable solutions.
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TdeF range land grazing, as distinct from improved pasture has long been controlled by fire. In this area the usual system was 2 years grazing, one year locked up to grow a good grass cover to carry a moderate fire, & a burn in that winter.
This system controlled most of the woody weeds, litter & saplings that otherwise take over, reducing grass production, thickening the undergrowth, & becoming a dangerous fire hazard.
The areas around that to be burnt were usually heavily grazed, to eliminate most grass, so the fire simply died from lack of fuel when it reached them.
My neighbor across the river has managed his 10,000 grazing area this way for decades. He stopped doing it about 15 years ago, as the area filled up with acreage subdivisions, & tree change residents. These people gave him such a hard time about the smoke, he simply gave up.
His carrying capacity has halved since then, & the paddock is becoming a fire hazard. We used that paddock to train our eventers for cross country events. It is so thick today you would be cut to pieces by the brambles if you rode through it even at a walk.
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That’s part of it.
The best reasons to be wary of suggestions to substitute Roos for Cattle and Sheep grazing are:
1. Roo meat is not nutritious
2. Roos are very poor sources of essential dietary Fats
3. Roos meat is full of parasites
4. Roos cannot be slaughtered humanely
5. Roo meat cannot be effectively inspected [since Roos are
shot at night].
and 6. The contribution of Roos to soil fertility is either Zero or Negative. Observed history of Australia bears that out.
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Cr*p.
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Native grasses are perennials rather than annuals. Many horse properties around the country are converting their properties to native grasses. These grasses are higher in protein and lower in sugar than introduced ones. Horse’s, like humans, have a lot of health issues relating to sugar in their diet and just like the earliest settlers, horse owners have recognised that animals thrive on the native grasses. The settlers started stocking their farms with sheep at the same ratio (no. sheep / acre) as in England. The sheep quickly ate everything including the roots. It was the loss of feed that prompted the introduction of fast growing annual grasses.
Not to mention the introduction of rabbits in 1830 who quickly spread across the continent and ate everything in their path.
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If you want to make your yard a Natural History Museum for pre-1788
Australia, fair enough, but you can’t expect the other 25 million of us
whose optimal diet is Cattle and Lamb/ products to exist on rabbit food
just to support your pre-1788 fetish.
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Good point, then the rest of ozzy that is not being used for agriculture should be managed with a weed army. Remnant roadside vegetation programs and national parks need to be weeded after fire.
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A Green Army composed primarily of guest workers or hopeful new immigrants.
How do you feel about reducing the size of national parks?
Looking ahead to 2030 I see classic pockets of fauna and flora in a pristine environment, feral free and managed by the green army. We should bring back logging of the remainder.
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Australia already has 13 million too many people.
According to Greens Policy up until ten years ago, the carrying capacity of the continent is 12 million, fresh water being the limiting factor.
That Policy went down the memory hole when Bob Brown got the flick.
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Lake Argyle holds 18 times the volume of water contained in Sydney Harbour! So to drought proof the MDB we need to put in a long water pipe and then we can take in millions of immigrants with ease.
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NSW actually bans cattle and horses from its national parks in order to promote the growth of highly flammable bushy shrubs.
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At my property I was interested to see the fire burn through an ungrazed apple orchard but stop at the electric fence where my horse had eaten the grass down short. Even the regular walking paths through the bush part of my block were enough to stop the creeping after-fire from spreading. Feet kick the fuel aside creating a fire-break. My biggest problem was the city fire-crew who physically prevented me from fire-fighting. Most urban crews don’t do bush-fire work and get scared. Many Sydney trucks drove up to Bilpin and just sat there doing nothing.
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“Fast growing gum trees that reach a mature size are very difficult to burn and almost impossible for fire to get into the canopy.
Fast growing plantations of juvenile gums are highly inflamable until the canopy is sufficiently high enough.”
Impossible ?? thats fantasyland stuff. It may be what you want to beleive but its not born out in reality. They certainly breeze through preventative burns but once there is any wind they torch rapidly. It will vary by conditions , but saying its almost impossible is just not realistic.
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Exactly. I think we have had more than ample evidence of that in the last few days. This “old growth forest doesn’t burn because it’s too tall” nonsense is make-believe.
ES Do you imagine old gum trees were born old? They had to grow through the young stage too. Does a healthy stand of gums not contain trees of mixed ages (apart from Mountain Ash) and is there not any understorey in that mature forest. Even Mountain Ash has an understorey of Blackwood (Acacia melanoxylon) up to 100 ft high, plenty high enough to conduct fire into the crown.
With respect, your theories are nonsense.
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Some research for you in particular beowulf.
An extensive list of ozzy fire retardant and resistant plants. Acacia is on the list.
https://apsvic.org.au/fire-resistant-and-retardant-plants/
Fire Retardant Plants. Plants that will not burn in the first wave of a bushfire, but may burn once dried out:
Acacia melanoxylon
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Acacia is a genus with numerous species. Many of them are short lived, and once they die provide wonderful fuel for fire in the forest understorey. Sufficient understorey fuel under severe ambient conditions can allow the fire to get into the canopy especially if there is a significant quantity of suspended fuel which provides another rung in the ladder for the fire to climb to the canopy.
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This is fire behaviour science 101.
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As beowulf points out and makes it abundantly clear for all of us, in this case, that neither you yourself or indeed beowulf know very little of the species profile of an established old growth forest with respect to the relative flammability of its varied combustible and non combustible inhabitants. or any other fire related dynamics. 🙁
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At least do some research Yarpos. Thanks for the opportunity of double checking my own knowledge base.
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In the past you have tried to tell us:
• that bushfires don’t crown in old growth forest
• that old growth “is a natural fire break”
• that “the reason there is not as much ground fuel is because big trees out-compete both weeds and other for sunlight making fuel on the ground very diminished”
• “Typically, an old growth forest floor is far greener than the forest floor of a thirsty juvenile tree plantation which remain [sic] dry for years while the saplings are growing like a virus.”
Where do you get this drivel? Have you been “got at” by some super-radical Landcare group?
All of the above have been shown to be very demonstrably and wildly incorrect. The burnt evidence is staring you in the face.
What is abundantly clear is that you have zero idea what constitutes an “old growth” forest. How high do you imagine the canopy is in an average “old growth” forest? Do you imagine all forests are identical? Do you think a forest lives forever with no recruitment of younger trees? In some places in Australia “old Growth” is less than 20 feet high; in others 300 or 400 feet; in the main it is somewhere in between. Most unmanaged old growth forests contain trees of all ages.
Many of the areas that just burnt west of Mallacoota were old growth of great height. You can waffle about “fire-related dynamics” and pretend to be all sciencey, but the fact is that despite their great height and their pristine nature, they burnt just as well as any plantation. Their ground fuel loads and ladder fuels were just too great, and moisture levels too low. When fire conditions are right for a conflagration, it matters not a jot about “fire-related dynamics” and “non-combustible inhabitants”. Presumably they were the koalas that got incinerated?
You also failed to address the question of how big trees get to be big trees without going through the same stages of growth as a young plantation. If younger trees in a plantation are such a fire hazard, why aren’t young trees a hazard when growing amongst older forest?
And if A. melanoxylon is such a great fire retardant, the Mountain Ash forests wouldn’t burn like they do, repeatedly. And when they re-grow, all young trees of the same age — just like a plantation — by your theory they should suck the soil dry and readily burn down again. Reality trumps the musings of the Native Plant Society or whatever they call themselves.
You really need to read more widely Enviro Skeptic. Many acacias are highly flammable, full of oils and resins. When they burn they pop and spit red hot coals several metres, adding to the fun. I’ve watched it happen.
From the Tasmanian government:
https://www.fire.tas.gov.au/publications/1709%20Brochure.pdf
Acacaia melanoxylon — “Moderate flammability — these plants should be avoided in the building protection zone.”
As to your evergreen native grasses, we had Kangaroo Grass, Barbed-Wire Grass, Weeping Grass (Microlaena) and Wallaby (Danthonia) grasses on our property, along with a multitude of imports.
I have yet to see a native grass that stays green over summer unless there has been good rain, in which case everything is green. The crowns (bases) of the tussocks might stay greenish but the 90% of the plant above hays-off like all the other grasses and burns just as well.
We had about 50 hectares of remnant Kangaroo Grass pasture, along with long railway corridors populated with pure stands of Kangaroo and Barbed-Wire, so there was plenty to observe over many years. The Weeping Grass and Wallaby Grass only grew in sheltered, moister areas. When I was 21 I flogged my guts out using a hessian bag trying to control a summer fire in Kangaroo Grass next to the railway until the cavalry arrived.
What does burn more fiercely are the imported runner grasses like Kikuyu if they are overgrown. That’s a simple function of the volume of plant material they produce, relative to tussock grasses.
Sorry, but your theories are still nonsense.
PS. I don’t like plantations either, but I stick to the facts.
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Thanks!……”What does burn more fiercely are the imported runner grasses like Kikuyu if they are overgrown. That’s a simple function of the volume of plant material they produce, relative to tussock grasses.”
Without dissecting your entire response, the main point i make is that we need a Weed Army.
It is a matter of national security.
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In Washington State and other parts of the US west one of the problems is cheatgrass:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromus_tectorum
Odd story this past week was about tumbleweed:
Trapped
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Some facts in your post E S. Although suggesting that Microlaena stipodes is typical of all native grasses isn’t without error. There are also native grasses that are annuals and fire ephemerals such as Austrostipa compressa. Kangaroo grass Themedia triandra burns very well, and germination of seed is triggered by fire, as seed dormancy is broken.
I’m not sure how much blackberry contributes to fire intensity as I’ve never actually seen it burn. As far as fire getting into the canopy is concerned, a high fuel level in pure native eucalypt forest will cause this. However crown fire cannot occur or be maintained without high levels of ground fuel. If the continuity of ground fuel is broken, the crown fire cannot be sustained.
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Thank you for your common sense farmer’s reply Ted. I guess it’s the difference between seeing a thousand acres of native grasses and a strip 3 feet wide in your front yard.
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I don’t know much about blackberry either TdeF, but around southern Queensland & north into the tropics it is Lantana that is prevalent. When drying out at the end of winter it goes up like tinder, & will throw flame over 12 meters high.
80
Now that’s a weed which is a real pest, but from what I have seen as a distributed plant it is much more easily eliminated than most grasses. I did not mean to imply that no weeding happened, but that weeding grasses is near impossible, expensive and there is no hope of recruiting enough labour.
20
Weeding after fire is not arduous or expensive. The savings in herbicide alone are ridiculous.
00
Maybe we could ask the UN to use some of its Carbon Cash to fund bush regeneration 🙂
00
Most of the Lantana is is National Parks and it is only ever removed by fire.
80
Fire and follow up weeding.
00
And significantly, Kangaroo grass is very slow growing, unlike weed grass species. What we are talking about here is the speed of regrowth of invasive weed species, Like lawn grass and Lantana etc.
In my volunteer bush regeneration work, we begged the local CFA to do a controlled burn at Puffing Billy Bridge area so we could then go in and poison the green shoots of blackberry bush. We achieved what we wanted after years and now the area is blackberry bush and reasonably weed free…
It is crucial to go in and follow up with weeding after a fire… In my experience, it is not expensive or arduous at all to weed after fire.
00
Observation suggests that preference for small, cooler fires is linked to absence of shoes for ember pain control.
Geoff S
110
Geoff….the focus here is the speed of growth of weed species. Cooler fires are associated with slow growing native species you suggest is characterised by the absence of shoes to control.
00
ES..
1…. the fast growing grasses to which you refer are almost all eaten by fast-growing cattle and sheep. That is why the majority of fires where such grasses are most common -privately-owner farmland – are relatively smaller.
It’s simply wrong to talk about those species and environmental weeds like blackberry and lantana, as though they are equivalent.
What also needs mentioning is that any plant in the wrong place is a weed, and that includes native species. The problem is not eucalyptus per se, so much as an infrequent fire regime that kills big mature trees while promoting dense stands of eucalyptus, wattle and scrub regrowth.
Replace that regime with very frequent mild fire and you get scattered mature trees with an open grassy understory. Fires in a springtime grassy understory are not intense enough to kill big trees and do not provide the fine , competition-free seedbed that encourages dense regrowth.
A plant in the wrong place……
00
Our Federal government choice is Treblinka or the Russian Front. The Russian Front is currently in power. Until this changes Australia will continue to believe it can make nothing and live off inflation, immigration and digging. The redistribution of natural water, low electricity prices (A$35/MWhr), low methane prices (A$3.50/GJ), low petrol and diesel prices (A$1/litre) should be a priority. All of this is possible.
The first thing to do is cancel the Paris Agreement. Next, take a very hard look at the value of the UN.
302
President Trump has addressed the UN in New York and warned them to downsize and get back to doing what the organisation was originally established for, and to stop interfering in the affairs of member nations.
The sooner that happens and the sooner the EU implodes the better for the world.
381
Wow.
Happy New Year.
40
TdeF, there is a story going around that the people in Mallacoota who wanted to leave over a week before being cut off, couldn’t leave because they could not buy fuel. Service stations were ordered by the authorities to keep supplies for emergency service use. If this is true then heads are going to roll.
140
Another social media meme. Mallacoota had been receiving more than 12,000 litres of fuel resupply a day but once road access to the town was cut off then of course fuel was reserved for emergency services. Resupply was then done by sea with one barge delivery around two weeks supply including food, water and 30,000 litres of fuel.
90
No TDe F !
people MUST take into their own hands again
Making their homes & the land around them’SAFE
By hazard reduction burns
In the cooler wet time of the year
And Frankly f#uck the local councils trying to stop this ‘making safe’ process.
I live on the outskirts of Mt Barker in SA.
With open paddocks & trees across the road.
But the road reserve immediately across the road is piled high with fallen twigs, leaves & bark strips
Waiting for a match or cigarette.
The Local Council has allowed this develop over the past 10 years.
And if it goes up and threatens my home
I will be suing the Mt Barker Council for GROSS negligence.
210
And Frankly f#uck the local councils trying to stop this ‘making safe’ process.
Very much agree Bill, the town and district Councils plus nanny State-based agencies have let everyone down for decades now, they are incapable of being reformed (same for the disgusting complicit media scum). Everyone with a brain can see these Councils are delusional, and that doing what they dictate is madness and certain to lead to endless fire disasters.
If ever there was a case for mass civil-disobedience this is it. If the people decide those councils are complete fools and not to be trusted or listened to again, it’s over. The Councils and State agencies have drastically over-reached, and usurped a level of threat power and ‘authoritah’ (for its own sake) which they never should have been allowed to wield over private properties and citizens. IF they all refuse to take council directives any longer, there is really nothing the ‘authorities’ can do about that. And patently they’re unfit organisations to ‘govern’ in such areas and physical hazards, so there’s no further reason to listen to them or submit to their effective dictatorships.
Stuff them.
The only ‘authority’ they have, is the authority of the people, we decided to permit them to have. They have our authority and our money and if they’re not worthy of the money or the people’s authority, then they’re done, we can reclaim both and get back to sensible policies.
All organisms have a right to fight for their own survival and territory in the environment to ensure they can live there. And Councils and nanny-State agencies have no natural right, and the people’s natural authority is not given to inhibit or undermine the survival of human beings who are taxpaying citizens and private property holders who actually live there.
STUFF THE COUNCILS, it is obviously time to disobey them en-masse. And if they insist on going after isolated individuals, then it’s time for thousands of locals to organise and visit the local Council chambers and offices and to give them an update on who’s authority it is that they’re grossly and repeatedly abusing and make clear to them why they’re going to cease to do that any longer.
230
Spot on Bill and WXcycles.
110
It comes down to a choice :
Ignore the dopey Council bureaucrats en masse,
And do our own cool burns And thus save our homes
OR obey these bureaucratic DUMBNUTS
And become refugees watching our homes burn.
Easy to make a decision I think !
90
You’ll lead the way, Bill?
Don’t forget that the Government has a monopoly on the use of force, and they’re not slow to use it when examples need to be set.
04
Where the people do not obey the law
Or accept the law
The legislators are blowing hot air.
They can pick ff one or two just !
If most of us say Stuff you”
They are helpless !
50
Examples of that ever being successful anywhere at any time?
How’d the Eureka Stockade work out?
The wounded that couldn’t flee were bayoneted by the cops,I believe.
06
Hatband I think you have earned the
signal to F$ck off.
You are either democrat in modernAustralia
Or you are a kow tow to the bosses type idiot.
Bye !
41
time for an organized legal action to hold those responsible to account for this disaster,.. Its not as if there has not been any warnings from experienced people predicting these events that have been taken seriously by the authorities…
60
That’s what eventually happened after the Brisbane Floods of 9 years ago.
The plaintiffs were awarded $3 Billion the other day, for the Queensland Government’s deliberate flooding of their homes and land.
As a matter of fact, massive floods in Bundaberg in 2012 and Townsville this year had the same cause, but so far the Media hasn’t done any,
ahem, noticing.
70
‘ … to hold those responsible to account for this disaster.’
Who do you have in mind?
01
What do we do with folks that deliberately build their houses among the gumtrees? This seems to be scheduled for some discussion in the coming months.
61
The 1988 referendum made local councils unconstitutional they have no power of their own and are effectively in most states legislated branches of the state government. You don’t have to listen to them and they have no law making powers of their own because they are not a “government” they can’t therefore levy taxes, which is why states issue rates.
Most of the things councils do are illegal.
PS telling you you can’t clear outside of X metres is not legal. No government can tell you to do something that is harmful to you outside of the military. For example a police officer could not direct you to stand in front of an oncoming truck. Councils likewise cannot tell you to stand in front of a oncoming fire (IE by preventing fuel removal) so please go ahead and clear then remind the courts about the 1988 referendum and the constitutional prohibition on putting the citizens in danger when they try to prosecute.
10
Agree.
There are endless stories about people being fined heavily simply for doing what is sensible, traditional and absolutely necessary by Green councils who insist doing nothing is caring, despite the known terrible consequences. The Greens even managed to burn down a whole suburb of Canberra, an ultra modern planned city through a refusal to clear.
And it’s not as if your choice does not affect others around you. The way Greens have taken over councils in inner city Melbourne is amazing and they want to chop down English trees, Elms, Oaks, Plane trees and put in Australian trees, a sort of Tree racism. Branch dropping highly flammable trees on roadsides and in parks.
160
Yes Tde F..Absolute bloody DUMBNUTS !
With the Tree Racism preference for inflammable eucalypts
One day fires will reach into the inner suburbs of our big cities.
And then maybe scare the bloody sh#t out of all these Greenists !
90
When the authorities tell people to evacuate, it usually means that they’re
going to let their houses burn.
If Fred the Merchant Banker [and retired ALP Minister] has his Country Estate
up the road, where do you think the resources are going to concentrate,
his mansions, or your mud brick, peasant?
90
Also, at some sites within Australia fire risk has been increased by the planting of eucalypts for timber and/or carbon sequestration.
Kangaroo Island has major fires in the settled part of the island in addition to the one in native forest in Flinders Chase national park. A major factor in the fire risk has been plantations of blue gum, a eucalypt imported from the eastern States for its high growth rate. These plantations have occupied formerly cleared agricultural land. Much nonsense was talked about carbon sequestration, as if these artificial forests would remain in perpetuity and never burn or rot. The plan was to build a new port to export the timber, presumably to environmentally-woke cuntries who would guard, keep and cherish it for all eternity.
80
the solution, as i said many years ago, is to launch the trees into outer space.
20
“The advantages of flammable eucalypts and pines are offset by the advantages in low rainfall areas.”
Huh?
00
A bit late isn’t it?
Not to mention an underwhelming repose.
These fires were predicted, but that science was ignored and now we pay the price in lives, income and property lost.
If the scientists had been able to get their points past the right wing media, and the pro coal shrills the following would have occurred.
To meet the increased threat, more hazard reduction burns, funded by the government. Instead – as exemplified by this blog, the insistence that the climate is not changing, meant that no action was necessary, in fact reductions in budgets were implemented instead.
To adapt – a funded federal adaption agency was established and produced actionable plans to safeguard our water etc. Instead – that agency was shut down by Scotty from Marketing.
563
How on earth did you come to this conclusion “the insistence that the climate is not changing, meant that no action was necessary”. That’s ridiculous illogic.
Besides bushfires are not the climate. They are a fact of life for the species of tree we have. Full of gum, exposive, fast growing, they have adapted for fire. Pines too are full of turpentine and go up like Roman candles. We grow them for paper, pine wood but we know the risks. It is only with this climate cult that the way to prevent bushfires is a carbon tax.
You cannot prevent bushfires, quite apart from the 60+ firebugs already charged in NSw, summer lightning will start them anyway. What you have to do is be aware of the risks and minimize the damage to life and property. Not more taxes, the socialist solution to every problem.
So what has this to do with Climate?
532
Spotted Gums don’t burn unless the wood is dry. From my research today. Quite surprising.
https://apsvic.org.au/fire-resistant-and-retardant-plants/
30
It should not be difficult to create firebreaks using Aussie fire resistant and fire retardant plants given the huge variety we have.
20
More rampant Verbalism, where any point of view can be made to appear real if you pack enough words around and push them in a histrionic fashion.
You are not being histrionic but I suspect that your sole education in “the science” has been derived from such media sources.
This makes you a Victim and a shining example of the power of propergander to control and manipulate the vulnerable.
KK
220
Labour says UN slavery
Liberals say common sense.
141
Remarkably succinct.
40
Poor PF, all you can do is make nonsense empty postings, disregarding any facts.
No Australian temperatures rise since 2000.
Yes we are in severe drought at the moment.
That is climate normal for Australia.
NO evidence of increased atmospheric CO2 having any affect whatsoever on “climate”
204
Which is my point – if the climate is normal, then you don’t prepare for events like this. After all it worked last year, and the year before etc.
314
Only your twisted , warped mind could mangle any thought so much.
Drought for a few years, climate normal, things get gradually worse.
You basic comprehension issues, yet again made very apparent to all.
And you don’t even realise what a clueless clown you come a cross as…
or do you ! 😉
It that your intent ???
71
Peter, when would you ever describe a climate as “normal”? What is normal? A climate that never changes?
60
The current situation has nothing to do with the climate and everything to do with green-leaning councils and state governments delaying or refusing to do cool burns and back burning in the cooler months.
That statement is mind-numbingly ignorant. Of course, sensible people prepare for events like these by back-burning during the cooler months. Unfortunately, it’s the lack of forestry management by the green-leaning councils and politicians that have exacerbated the acts of vandalism by arsonists and thus led to the devastation we are currently experiencing.
40
Not to mention that rising CO2, undisputed by anyone, increases plant productivity by about 1% for each 2ppm so forests grow faster as does our food supply. This means that we need to do even more lawn mowing (fuel reduction) than before… but of course we do need to bear in mind that the benefits from increasing CO2 (secure food) vastly outweighs the need to mow the lawn (and reduce fuel in forests) more often.
Deliberate Government green incompetence lies behind all of this and we should be demanding the incompetents immediate sacking.
30
Peter is completely correct on his first point. These fires were totally predicted, except not by any climate scientist. Those predictions were made by Australian bush fire expert, David Packham, back in 2015:
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/bushfire-scientist-david-packham-warns-of-huge-blaze-threat-urges-increase-in-fuel-reduction-burns-20150312-14259h.html
What was his now-accurate prediction based on?
David has made multiple submissions to the Victorian parliament. Some of his modelling can be found here.
There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that climate change is the cause of this year’s fires in Australia. As the following article shows, NASA has identified a 20% reduction in total area burned by wildfires across the globe over the last 16 years.
https://notrickszone.com/2020/01/03/smoke-and-deception-blanket-australia-nasa-giss-fudges-data-australian-cooling-turns-into-warming/
Coincidentally, that link also shows 140 years of temperature data at six locations in Australia. Four sites showed a cooling trend until the BoM got their hands on the data. After “scientific correction”, all stations now show warming instead.
392
Here is David Packham’s 2016 submission.
200
There’s something defective about the link Pauly –it looks valid ( http://https//www.parliament.vic.gov.au/images/stories/committees/SCEP/Fire_Season_Prepardeness/Submissions/Submission_27_-_David_Roy_Packham.pdf ) but doesn’t reach its target.
20
Here is the corrected link to David Packham’s 2016 submission:
https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/images/stories/committees/SCEP/Fire_Season_Prepardeness/Submissions/Submission_27_-_David_Roy_Packham.pdf
30
Outstanding post Pauly. Thank you.
00
“in fact reductions in budgets were implemented instead.”
So, you have no problem in taking say half the ABC budget and sending it to RFS and NPWS for bushfire hazards reduction tasks.
Correct ???
202
The greens are just the useful idiots, working with the UN & its Agenda 21 and Rewilding plan, in effect.
If the stated aim of Agenda 21 is in effect to drive humans out of 90% of the planets surface, into large cities where they can be easily controlled, then letting fuel build up so the inevitable mega fire happens could in deed be part of the plan.
One question we don’t know the answer for is – how did these fires start? Anyone know? Rather convenient timing after the failed COP 25….trying to breath life into the climate change zombie corpse…a form of CAGW “voodoo”…
We need to vigilant now – if the plan is indeed to “rewild” these area sand lock humans out of them, then the UN-adoring beaurocracy, logically should make it as difficult as possible to rebuild and also get back into parks or areas burnt out for “safety” and “sensitive regrowth” reasons.
Of course they will say its “temporary”, but it wont be.
I understand how they think, believe me we need to keep them under a microscope.
101
Saboteurs rather than useful idiots is my view; I’d declare the green party a terrorist organisation and rusticate the members to Macquarie Island the better critically to examine their belief system.
111
Why settle for half the ABC budget. Take the lot. The staff could be more gainfully employed learning bushfire hazard reduction.
50
Yes PF! that what we need! a climate fiddling government agency. What better way to fight bushfires?
60
Pfft!
You talk about climate change. Perhaps you can explain to us what is “climate change”. Give us a definition and as you are so keen to promote and blame every natural weather event on your “climate change”, this should be easy for you.
To help you with your explanation, tell us how the climate has changed in the last 100 years.
By the way, you should be putting “scientists” in inverted commas, because they are not proper scientists.
110
I no longer waste my time reading your comments Fitzroy.
You are wating your time here
Go find some extra gullible dopies to misinform !
71
Yes, he’s not even entertaining and seems to be cultivating a bitter streak recently.
60
Whether you call it a Hazard Reduction Burn, or a Bushfire, CO2 is still
being released into the atmosphere.
Logically, even more CO2 is produced by regular Hazard Reduction Burning than
Bushfires, since regrowth is the stress response to fire in Eucalypt forests.
Bottom line: if CO2 release is your concern, then you can’t condone Hazard
Reduction Burning.
38
“These fires were predicted, but that science was ignored and now we pay the price in lives, income and property lost”.
Yes PF, if the warnings of fire research scientists with regard to extremely high fuel levels all of this could have been avoided
If the scientists had been able to get their points past the LEFT wing media, and the PSUEDO ENVIRONMENTALIST shrills THIS WOULD NOT Have occurred.
100
How did my comment appear down here?
40
Peter,
What was ignored was even when strategies were put in place, the Greens made sure they could not be acted upon.
Land can’t be cleared, selective logging and cattle grazing in NP has been stopped, and any clearing or hazard reduction burning has been reduced to almost zero. Large areas have been locked up so no fire trails or containment lines can be established making it impossible to get in to stop a fire before it becomes established.
The Greens have become the guardians of forests, national parks and the bush in general. Because of their policies. they are therefore responsible for anything that goes wrong.
160
And the guardians are now the grim reaper.
80
‘Bushfires spew two-thirds of national carbon emissions in one season.’
Mike Foley/Oz
40
Please ban this prick
60
But we all have such fun debunking him, leave Fitz alone.
51
Australia doesn’t have a right-wing media. It all leans to the left. From the the far left Fairfax press, to the far far-left Canberra times.
80
We’ve had fires since settlement.
Every major fire enquire for 80 years has found that we need to be doing more fuel reduction burning.
The “denier” here is he who is pretending that fires are new and fuel management a new discovery.
The liar here is the one pretending that his green-leftist mates have been advocating fuel management when their favoured policy is more taxes and magic windmills.
10
I think an important method of fuel reduction was allowing cattle to graze in the national parks. I understand this has been banned. I suspect cattle grazing opens up the undergrowth allowing other smaller grazers like kangaroos to further reduce the fuel load. Cattle grazing would reduce the amount of off season burns needed to reduce fuel loads to a manageable level.
300
Cattle still graze the Buckland valley near Bright and the area is expected to burn with fire bearing down on it so will be interesting to see the difference after the fire .
Cattle do an amazing job on the grass up there .
150
Sounds right John. What gives me the [snips] is when you want to go for a walk in the woods and its this impenetrable thorn ridden thicket. No-one gets to appreciate the forests if there is not some moderation by way of a good selection of herbivores.
20
As for the concern for all the wildlife, an important point missed is that failing to clear, build firebreaks, reduce forest floor litter is that before the Green madness, fires were not as big, not as hot. Trees would be burned but not dead. The next year they would grow green shoots and life would begin again.
However the mad Greens maximimize the disaster and the very hot fires kill the trees and all the animals and the forest does not recover. The rains wash away the topsoil and devastate the landscape, destroying the habitat. The Green madness is the problem. It is killing the forests and killing all the animals and birds and giving the environment no chance of recovery.
Until it is accepted that bushfires are natural and the animal life is also well adapted to them, the Greens will devastate our country through their wilful ignorance. They did not save the animals by preventing backburning, they destroyed them and their environment for decades, possibly forever as opportunistic foreign plants and animals invade.
This not Climate Change. It is Green wilful ignorance of science, ecology, botany, zoology and common sense.
303
You need both. Controlled burning is only really a tool to reduce the fire risk around people and houses. Areas will continue to burn. The changing climate is increasing the fire risk, so we must collectively work to reduce that risk.
529
‘The changing climate is increasing the fire risk …’
The changing climate has nothing to do with Australian bushfires, although to be fair we need to compare full glaciation 18,000 years ago to the very warm Holocene Max at 8000 years BP to gauge the difference.
183
“The changing climate “
Australian atmospheric temperatures since 2000.
Drought in Australia is not climate change, it is climate normal
There have been far worse droughts in the past.
302
Most Australians are probably aware that the situation in NSW has attracted attention worldwide,offering many opportunities for misinformation from committed alarmist such as the BBC, but also more sober comments such as this from Paul Homewood
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2020/01/03/australian-wildfire-latest/
which uses BOM’s own statistics to demonstrate that the current drought conditions are actually against the trend of the last few decades.
BOM show that rainfall has been trending upwards, even in NSW and most of Australia is wetter in the last few years than 50 years ago.
To quote some comments from that article:
-“It does not need a statistician to see that the claim that the current drought is due to, or exacerbated by, climate change is absurd. Clearly Australia as a whole has become wetter as the climate has warmed. The year just finished may be the driest on record, but statistically is an outlier.
But national figures can hide regional variations, so what about NSW, where the fires have been worst?
Again we find a similar picture. Last year is the driest on record, but the climate generally speaking has been much wetter since the 1940s.”-
120
Mike, this BOM generated graph is also very misleading as in Feb 2019 (11 months back) most of north Queensland had one of the biggest and most persistent rainfall and major flooding events on record. Everything north of a line from about 22 deg south latitude, west to about the NT-QLD border was inundated. it took about 6 months to rebuild a lot and roads and rail line west of Townsville due to the epic scale of major flooding. And much of that rain water flooded south for months down the western QLD channel-country, saturating it and that flowed into Lake Eyre in NE central South Australia – filling it for the third time during this decade. Something that’s not occurred since European settlement (235 years ago), so we have not actually been generally short of rain this decade, it’s been wetter than normal, at least in Queensland. Indeed in May when the flood waters had finally receded and millions of drowned cattle, sheep and wild life burned the farmers were thrilled because grasses were think and green and the water injection into the deep sub soil and aquifer recharge would lead to years of good pasture and high beef, crops and vegetable yields.
A really widespread national scale drought will come along again within another decade. But the one we’re seeing now is a more limited regional event.
90
Lots of rain in the Latrobe valley Victoria this year. No drought here…
I believe Perth is no longer in drought.
20
Willis makes that point in this post, its a little droughty at the moment but over the last half century its been wet.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/01/04/australia-fires-and-misses
00
There are two distinct risks. One is the risk of fire. The second is the amount of damage. I cannot believe +1.2C makes any difference at all to the risk of fire or the weather or in summary to the climate. That is Green fantasy, made up stuff. The computer models say so is not science.
However increased CO2 increases the fuel load. And failure to recognize the potential for damage from high fuel loads is something the early settlers understood. The more fires, the less damage done by each one. Unfortunately we are so desperate to put all fires out that when they finally come they are hotter, bigger and more destructive than ever before. They now kill everything, even the trees.
I would suggest that the frequency and size of bushfires since settlement is far lower than in previous times, simply because we put the fires out. This does not reduce the risk of fire but guarantees that when they take hold, the damage is immensely greater.
Early farmers and aborigines continually lit fires. City dwelling Greens disagree. And politicians listen. And the total devastation they bring from their wilful ignorance is unprecedented.
It is to be hoped that the new view of evacuation is going to translate to more money for backburning. In Victoria the head of Energy Safe Victoria told me that the government spends $100Million a year on tree trimming near power lines. Most of this is in the city of Melbourne, where it is nuts but as they say, money for jam. That money should be spent in the bush. And in the city, we should plant English trees, not the giant gum tree which shed a branch on Kingsway this week, killing a British girl in the car below. It is insane to plant gum trees in the city without recognizing the well known dangers.
This religion of a kind earth mother is against all human experience. Every civilization has regengineered their environment. Inside the latte circle, this is a crime against their religion.
280
That’s what used to happen, up until the early 1970s, when Councils all over
Australia started planting Natives and giving native plants and shrubs away
free to ratepayers.
100
Plus 1.2 degrees might very well make fires worse. But not if by greenhouse. Because the very nature of greenhouse is to take away all your highs and lows. To spread the thermal energy out.
30
Have you never heard of Liebig’s law of the minimum? CO2 is unlikely to be the limiting factor, it is more likely to be moisture.
You numpties have also not yet worked out that it is not the change in the average temperature that is important, but the change in the probability distributions. Temperature and rainfall are notoriously long-tailed and so extremes are amplified. Heat waves like this one are more extreme than seen before as is rainfall distribution.
113
Make it up as you go along, simple simon.
Your posts are ARRANT NONSENSE backed by absolutely zero science.
111
Ah so that explains record cold and snow in the NH its merely a result of probability distribution now all we need to do is pin this on co2
[]
70
Pin…..pin it on co2 stupid smart phone
60
Ha ha ha ha ha. You DOPE. Where did you get that law from? Meaning the application of this law? You got it from Coby Becks encyclopedia of pathetic excuses, or from our own famous cartoonist Mr Cook.
Now in your own words explain why you think invoking that law is relevant?
70
Simon, If all you claim is true, then what should our governments and humankind do to combat this global warming threat to planet earth?
You seem well informed and educated.
You might have the answer.
Tell me how we can save this planet.
How do we as humankind, stabilise or lower planet earths temperature?
40
Que???
10
Simon, we haven’t a heatwave in Perth for the last 20-30 years. Heatwaves used to be temperatures in the high 30s for 2-3 weeks, not just days. It’s been so long that my kids have no memories of these real heatwaves.
70
‘Heat waves like this one are more extreme than seen before as is rainfall distribution.’
That is not true, the tail end of the Federation drought was of significance.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2019-07-16/federation-drought-analysis-finds-huge-ecosystem-losses/11312694#lightbox-share-11314048
Of course the 19th century had similar examples, which are clear for all to see.
70
Simon you have things ass backwards. Greenhouse blocks incoming. Not just outgoing. It spreads thermal energy out. So what you are really campaigning against, if we could even show it works, is slightly less freezing mornings for the Laplanders. You want to get to the bottom of who it was that mislead you into thinking that greenhouse would make things more extreme rather than more moderate?
It was Coby right? Or Mr Cook right?
If we lose soil THATS when our floods and droughts both get worse. If we strip the country of vegetation sure we can get worse floods and droughts at the same time. But CO2 is not the causal vector here. Quite the contrary.
40
I don’t think simple simon understands the works of a simple greenhouse
Otherwise he wouldn’t use such anti-science terminology.
Not many AGW vassals have even the most basic clue of thermal transfer mechanisms, or anything to do with how the atmosphere actually operates.
31
‘During the LGM, and in the period leading up to it, it would seem that much of the coastal strip of eastern Australia was a distinctly rebarbative environment – cold, dry, sparsely vegetated and subject to widespread dust storms.’ Bowdler
Winds from the north-west were more common, so all things being equal, bushfire conditions would have been similar to now.
20
You’re missing the point…..when a fire gets hot enough ( and you know this…tsk…) , it projects embers a loooonnngggg way ahead of it.
What you want is for it to run out of a fuel a long way out from civilisation.
Extensive fuel reduction is the only way to do this.
200
During the Holocene Climate Optimum a small lake at Cradle Mountain (Tasmania) reveals that climate was changing.
‘The highest fire activity in the record occurred between 10,900 and 9400 cal yr BP, the warmest interval of the postglacial period based on independent proxy records. Subalpine trees had depressed levels of pollen during this time. After 9000 cal yr BP, fire activity declined substantially, and fire-sensitive rainforest reached its maximum extent ca. 8500–6500 cal yr BP.’ Stahle et al 2016
50
To get a better perspective of those dates.
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/clip_image0021.jpg
20
I agree broad ranging actions are necessary to reduce bushfire risk and intensity. However this should be focussed and prioritised on things that will produce a real measurable impact. Wasting time on virtue signalling or insignificant impacts is a waste of human and finacial resources and puts more people at risk.
60
This climate zone became drier commencing about 130,000 years ago, the rainforests gradually disappeared and today are just 3 per cent of forests in Australia.
20
Yeah … so now that Simon and his green-menace sees that the preventative hazard-reduction burning policy direction will change, they want to begin to argue that such burns should only occur around domiciles and that the fires are still all about climate change.
You’re arguments are so transparently full of it, Simon.
50
“You need both” As I was about to give my tick of approval I saw “climate change” meaning CO2-warming (SPEAK ENGLISH!!!) Now maybe its not your fault. Maybe you believe every upward sloping curve you’ve seen. Whether the lies of Michael Mann, the nonsense of Broadway Boys affecting to be NASA scientists, or some upward-sloping crack in the paint on a toilet wall.
Yeah sure if you believe these lies you are going to be rabbiting on about global warming. But you haven’t checked. Have you? No you haven’t. So check. And believe whatever it is you find out. Its all lies. Like building 7 or the magic bullet of the Kennedy hit.
21
Wrong.
Fuel reduction across the landscape also permits us to control fires before they get big and before the blow-up days occur.
The inquiry into the Canberra fires found that they burned for a week under relatively mild conditions and could probably have been controlled had fuel been less and the effort made. Lettin them burn resulted in 4 deaths and 500 houses burnt on one day.
The fire I am currently working on was very nearly contained on the first and second days. Better access and lower fuels would have made it more probable. Since then it has killed a volunteer and burnt over 1000 square kilometres.
So close. So damned close….
20
One person dead.
Many injured.
A big price to pay for failed Leadership and adherence to a distorted view of the world.
Leadership is not about cleaning up the mess, it’s about stopping the mess from happening in the first place.
The idea of leadership needs to change.
KK
10
“Remember that it’s far more cost effective, say around 66 to 100 times more cost efficient, to prevent wild fires through hazard reduction than it is to have reactionary fire response, which is what we have at the moment.”
Green Tape Prevents Volunteer Rural Firefighters from Reducing Bushfire Risk
https://volunteerfirefighters.org.au/green-tape-prevents-volunteer-rural-firefighters-reducing-bushfire-risk
1995: “Environmentalists have clashed with ACT Conservation and Parks over fire hazard reduction burning which has destroyed an estimated 7ha of Belconnen bushland which the group has spent the past five years studying.”
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/127281632
Proportion of deliberate bushfires in Australia 2008:
https://aic.gov.au/publications/bfab/bfab051
90
What has happened is akin to thousands of full Jerry cans of petrol being placed throughout the bush by arsonists (the state governments) and the Greens then vehemently protesting their removal. Stupid people following the advice of even more stupid people.
162
Good analogy but left out one important element. Voters keep said governments in power and pay taxes to them. So voters are peak stupid.
90
Partly true, but the majority of urban voters know little about the bush and are completely unaware of the fuel loading hazards and what the government is failing to do. Note in my second post how the Pravda on the Yarra is lauding Andrews for doing nothing to prevent these fires from being as devastating as they have become.
70
Ignorance is no excuse. Voters need to turn their brains on at least 6 months before each election and do their own research instead of fronting up to the booth and still wondering who they should vote for while fumbling through the “how to vote” pamphlets. Every time I queue up voters in front and behind keep flipping between them to figure out which one to use. It’s peak stupid.
81
I wouldn’t call it ignorance, urban dweller have other issues that concern them and the bush is simply not on their radar. Unless they have a reason to be concerned about the bush, it’s not important. Additionally, they keep getting told that everything is OK and the only danger is from climate change.
It’s human nature and probably rational thinking to be concerned about things that affect you directly and vote for those that promise to address your specific concerns and needs. Even with these terrible fires in progress, for most urban dwellers it’s an abstract event that’s soon forgotten.
30
Exactly, which all boils down to ignorance or perhaps even arrogance.
Definitions:
ignorance: lack of knowledge or information
arrogance: full of self-worth or self-importance and who tells and shows that they have a feeling of superiority over others, such as those in the rural areas.
20
It’s only perhaps things like this (smoke over our township in South Gippsland yesterday) that will alert urban dwellers of the real dangers of not understanding what’s outside the burbs, but unfortunately memory of such events fades very quickly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMV1ltvTAHw. But they have to be reminded all the time.
20
Don’t they have TVs? Of course they do but many prefer to watch something that allows them to escape reality rather than learn about the real world outside their bubble.
20
I stopped watching TV because it contains nothing about the real world.
I get my information from the internet.
10
Yes I get the vast majority of info from selected internet sources but washing TV allows me to keep a finger on the pulse of public sentiment using some segments on Sky News although it has cumbered to the cancer of CAGW in a few cases. A few times I chill out and watch a few old movies, like Escape from New York and the Day the Earth Caught Fire.
10
During the Howard Government terms 1996 to 2007 during one election campaign a journalist interviewed a group of tennis ladies at their local tennis court, he asked them who they intended to vote for and why. They were referred to later as “doctor’s wives” and the tennis court was in the Sydney Eastern Suburbs.
Most said they intended to vote for the Greens and their reason was that they care for the environment. The more questions asked the more obvious it became that they knew very little about Green politics. And that is the problem, who does not want to protect the environment?
Many years later then former Howard Government Treasurer Costello was interviewed after returning from a visit to Germany, as reported in The Australian newspaper. Costello was not prepared to discuss all of the conversation but mentioned meeting in Germany with a former German Government Cabinet Minister who was a Green politician. He described the Australian Greens as being far to the left of international greenism. Which is of course why Australians refer to them as Watermelons, green on the outside and red in the centre.
110
This is how the Age hides the truth:
Exactly what has he been preparing for, the PR exercise following devastation? In those 11 years, the Andrews government has done virtually zero fuel reduction burning, closed off mountain tracks, removed the cattle from the High Country and declared more national parks. Every, single, action has contributed to worsening fires.
261
The Cause , COmrade…the Cause….
Closing off access to areas is under UN Agenda 21 and Rewilding.
These fires play perfectly into that. Now watch those areas get locked off for a long time after these fires due to “Safety” and never reopened…..
131
Eastern Gippsland, National Parks and UNESCO listed heritage areas.
Green to black.
90
And the 2030 bushfires the worst on record, even though Australia had gone fully zero carbon.
50
A perfect example of lying mass-media who are the concerted enemy of the people.
40
Slightly OT – but with nearly 1100 people evacuated by the Navy, it is worth remembering that at Nubeena (during the Dunalley 2013 fire) nearly 1000 people were evacuated by water, with nary a Federal Navy nor State police launch in sight.
70
All the boats are being towed back home to Sydney or Canberra, ! 😉
51
“Delingpole: 2020 Is the Year We Storm the Green Barricades!”
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/01/03/our-mission-in-2020-is-to-storm-the-green-barricades/
70
If the bitumen & metal roadway was as hot as they claimed they sure would not be laying on it.
30
As already stated by various posters here the current bush fires are due to a number of factors, not the least being the accumulation of fuel during times of healthy growth thanks to previous wet seasons. It was only a matter of time before our traditional hot dry conditions return providing a high fire risk. That’s where we are now. We will never be able to stop the bush fires but we can reduce the severity by proper land management. Significant man-made climate change even if it were real (which of course it isn’t) would almost be an irrelevant factor in any case. The fire storms will still occur. So ALP’s solution is not only useless it’s counter-productive because it would lead to even bigger fire storms without proper land management, not to mention the destruction of our economy leading to a crash and burn end to our nation.
51
However, these facts will not stop the ramping up of the climate change alarmists. In fact they are already escalating their alarm. Mark my words the West is heading for a crash and burn scenario if this rot continues. I see no sign of it stopping any time soon. So it’s a race against time. Will the people wake up or will they remain asleep and gullible enough to be sucked in more and more by the alarmists crap? Time will tell.
72
No doubt there will be a Royal Commission or two following these disastrous bushfires in Qld, NSW and Vic.
They can write their recommendations from this Senate report back in 2010.
“The committee is of the view that the consistency of recommended action over a number of years indicates that some states have not adequately addressed deficiencies in bushfire management. The clearest example of this is the apparent lack of political will in some jurisdictions to comprehensively plan, fund and implement fuel hazard reduction strategies on fire prone public land, despite consistent advice from fire fighters and other bushfire experts to do so”.
“The committee understands that improving bushfire management practices is not a straightforward task, nor is there universal agreement about the best way to do it. But the committee makes the observation that governments at all levels are obliged to take all reasonable measures to avoid the catastrophic loss of life that occurred in Victoria in February 2009. The committee therefore suggests that governments and their agencies re-consider inquiry recommendations they have previously rejected, and hasten the implementation of those they have accepted, bearing in mind the real possibility that a similar disaster could occur again.”
100
Already had two Royal Commissions into bushfires in Victoriastan but we’ve forgotten the results.
120
Proof we keep repeating the same mistakes, at least until something catastrophic happens in which case we do wake up but not for very long. Cycles.
60
I thinks its fair to say we are in a better place than where we were in 2009.
– better communications and awareness
– VIC Emergency app
– bushfore assessments before building and building requirements in firezones
– right to clear around homes and boundaries
– at least some controlled burning happening
I think we did learn, but of course its not perfect and probably never can be realistically.
What depresses me is that we dont seem to learn a lot across States and between countries , wether its bushfires, renewable energy or anything else. Parochialism and not invented here syndrome seems the norm and we love to go off making the same mistakes and doing paralell work believing somehow that our area is somehow special and different.
40
ABC reporters this morning embellished coverage by referring to temperature forecasts in areas likely to be affected by fires today. To a man/woman they said temperatures in the mid 40s are forecast. The reality: Jindabyne (BOM forecast is 38), Narooma (BOM 25), Bermagui (BOM 36), Eden (BOM 31), Batemans Bay (BOM 33). I live on the NSW south coast. Temperature maxs reported in this area are so far from the truth it isn’t funny. New Year’s Eve a top of 28 was posted for my town. We wore hooded tops most of the day – my trusty alcohol thermometer peaked at 19.
80
They’ve got Scomo getting verbally abused by those greenies playing on a loop .
40
Current ECMWF forecasts.
Temperature
https://i.ibb.co/QM0gyr8/Screenshot-2020-01-04-Windy-as-forecasted.png
Humidity
https://i.ibb.co/nc36zCp/Screenshot-2020-01-04-Windy-as-forecasted-1.png
Wind gusts
https://i.ibb.co/SDgrpvb/Screenshot-2020-01-04-Windy-as-forecasted-2.png
There’s scope here for a terrible afternoon and evening. Tomorrow morning will be much cooler (and more humid) anywhere on the coastal sides of the Alps.
30
During a time of stress, danger and loss for so many Australians the people they elected or will in the future have the audacity to use a natural disaster made worse by all sides of politics and its overreaching bureaucracies for their own personal agendas and that of foreign powers.
Every citizen in this country should take note and consider of the type of person it takes to treat the hardship and suffering of their own people as an opportunity to make false claims on the behalf of the failed hypothesis of human induced climate change.
Anyone elected or otherwise that has willingly enabled the worsening of fuel loads in our natural vegetation should be held accountable by our laws in the same way as arsonists are, they both cause destruction of public property and the loss of life.
The addiction to disaster porn isn’t exclusive to the internet or to criminals, one gets a say in court while the other on the MSM.
80
While we are talking about Anthony Albanese , I often wonder why opposition leaders are given air time during these events. In reality they have nothing to offer, dont control anything and dont influence events. Its just a media opportunity.
90
Bring on a class action lawsuit. It is not only the victims of the fires that have to suffer the fallout, we will all pay some of the cost of this when the insurance companies jack up premiums to recover their “losses”.
10
According to Lads Weekly, Sydney Uni said “400 million mammals, birds and reptiles.”
But according to the marginally less unreliable CBS News, Sydney Uni said “half a billion animals and plants” – which is a completely different order of magnitude.
What did Sydney Uni actually say? And what is it worth? (Sydney Uni has acquired a bit of a rep . . .)
50
Won’t somebody please think about the cockroaches (and earthworms)
80
By order of magnitude is meant a factor of ten. If the Sydney Uni statement’s billion is the imperial version (a million million) then the difference is three orders of magnitude but more likely the billion is the cheap yank version (a thousand million) in which case there is no order of magnitude difference.
50
Australia should really do more,
To halt fires on each forest floor,
With best methods and modes,
That reduce fuel loads,
And all carbon trading ignore.
250
and arrest Al Gore.
240
From the start of the Bushfire Season 2019/20 Labor have been in full political spin mode, imagine what it would now be like if they had formed government in May 2019.
Opposition Leader Albanese has been a shameless stunt man, like arriving in the Blue Mountains (Great Dividing Range)and being sighted in shorts and shirt at a supermarket buying food items and then with camera crew and supporters appearing in more formal wear at a Rural Fire Service unit where a fake feeding of fire fighters was recorded for television news. Not one work stained RFS volunteer in sight.
And then came the news that while the stunt was being performed a truck carrying RFS volunteers arrived, returning from fighting fires and with three hours drive to home base ahead of them, and they were turned away and told to go to McDonalds.
Albo has been milking the bushfire emergency shamelessly.
And Labor now have the hide to return to their extreme climate change hoax agenda list and once again talk about “putting a price on carbon”, Australian’s monies sent to the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. That was Labor’s plan when they introduced their Carbon Tax and Renewable Energy Surcharge on electricity bills, plus GST. Minister Combet during a radio interview admitted that the Carbon Tax was short term and would be converted into an ETS, and when asked for more information he said EU ETS.
Union’s Labor and Union supported with donations Greens are our worst political enemies along with their GetUp activist organisation.
100
It should also be noted that Union & Labor at State Government level have been pushing for volunteer fire fighters to be forced to join the Union.
I understand this is in the Labor Government States of Victoria and Queensland.
100
That’s sure to work out well…” want some overtime?” Here’s a box of matches.
“Elf ‘n Safety”?
The delegate says it’s too hot to go out today.
20
Dennis a couple of CFA volunteers I work closely with say the fuel reduction burns have dropped off significantly over the past ten years with one wanting to do this on their own property being threatened with fines and jail from the hierarchy in Melbourne after they protested the stopping of it.
130
The inquiry that the Prime Minister has announced needs to take evidence of what you describe.
A NSW RFS volunteer told me after a serious bushfire that nearly burnt houses and a golf course that the local council had refused to issue a burning permit on the basis that a bushfire had burnt that area a few years earlier. She was very annoyed and said it was obvious that there was a fire risk because of regrowth.
90
So, the fires are bigger than Belgium. Yesterday is was bigger than Wales – pick a site and you will find it is bigger than somewhere. Problem is, after speaking to my grown up, overseas residing, international news watching, kids, they are terrified for all their friends and family who live in a place that is burning down. I asked them what percentage of NSW was burning and got answers between 20 and 50%. 3.6 million hectares, of a total of over 800,000 sqkm is actually about 4.5%
of the land area of NSW. What I have learned is that NSW is around 22 times the size of Belgium
70
The CSIRO Australia has identified a potential irrigation farming area that is about the same size as Western Europe, Northern Western Australian, Northern Territory and North Queensland.
Now existing Ord River Irrigation Area, Kununurra, Western Australia would be the western boundary. There are some other rivers to the east that would provide dam storage of similar capacity.
A food bowl for export and national purposes.
31
The CSIRO, eh?
Aren’t they the people who told our forefathers that introduction of the Guatemalan Cane Toad would solve the Cane Beetle problem in Queensland?
And that African Gambusia fish would solve the mosquito breeding problem in fresh water lagoons?
20
Well, they’re certainly bigger than the kollectiv IQ of the incumbent comrades in the Wellington DroneHive.
00
Australia is Committing Fire Suicide!
It just gets worse and worser! According to Richard Flanagan.
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/comment-australia-is-committing-climate-suicide/ar-BBYArAP?ocid=spartanntp
I am not sure what his suggested action is, even after reading the article. Vote Labor presumably.
150
Makes perfect sense that we are committing “climate suicide” yet when bushfires and rolling blackouts strike the most rabid greenie regressive place like California they say nothing.
60
California brings up an interesting issue. Is much of Australia heading the way of California the loony state? I hope not and only time will tell.
30
Just wait until “The Big One” hits in California. They’ll immediately blame it on human beings, that’s a given of course. And we can be sure that although earthquakes has always occurred, but CO2 released from coal mining has made earthquakes so much more damaging, and they’re only going to get worse until the West stops using electricity. Does anyone think that ‘argument’ won’t actually be made by greenies when that occurs?
40
As far as fact free Frightbats go dare I say this guys on fire……
70
Walter Duranty lives.
Integrity dies.
30
Let them go from extreme to more extreme. Eventually they will be so far removed from reality they will trip over their own lies and fall flat on their faces while the rest of the world laughs.
30
It could snow in Sydney in the summertime and they aren’t backing down. Way too optimistic. Only targeting the oligarchy itself could bring some progress.
30
They could be campaigning for higher royalties. Which would actually reduce banker overhead. But no. They need an international carbon market because welfare queen bankers aren’t leeching enough. These bankers are such bludges, if they had a pet bird it would be a bludgerigar.
50
I always thought Turnbull was one of them. After all he came from Goldman Sachs.
30
Yes of course he is one of them. And that big pantomime about voting for the Republic, with him posing as a Republican. That was just an act of washing this Sachs-Bot as a faux-nationalist. From then on in the media had him in the top three contenders for leader of the Liberal party. He was foisted on us in the same way that the Italians had a Sachs-bot, the New Zealanders too. Its disgraceful that we can be played so easily. Think of this fake-ass bludgers political rise in comparison to eg. Costello. Who was a bigshot all the way back to University. Completely different trajectory.
41
The climate emergency has ended, Greens Senator Sarah Hanson Young tweeted on New Years Day how exciting to know that babies born in 2020 could live to 80 or more years of age and live to see the Year 3000.
Please send to Greta.
101
Dennis,
2020 + 80 = 3000 ?
Your typo or SHY’s innumeracy ?
60
He was being biblical.
🙂
12
Avi Yemini : WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE BUSHFIRES IN AUSTRALIA
https://www.tr.news/australian-bushfires/
Spot on Avi!
60
Look at the bright side…
Due to Green policies of prohibiting fuel reduction burns, we only have to have these mega fires every five years or so…
These mega fires do clear the due load, unfortunately everything else as well.
160
but my other point is that because the fires are so hot, they kill the trees dead and all the wildlife. There is no refuge from 900C and 50 metre flames. More frequent smaller fires do not.
So the terrible irony is that the Greens in trying against logic to protect the bush are destroying it. Greens are the ignorant and emotional people, easy prey for the socialist dream. If the ABC had any role in Australia today, they would be trying to educate people on the perennial place of bushfires in the Australian forests, not trying to push their terrible end of world +1.2C bandwagon and UN/EU Carbon taxes.
110
Not so. Our bushland are extremely resilient. Regrowth is inevitable by various natural means unless we have a permanent drought.
50
That has not been my observation. Seemingly dead trees used to sprout in the coming spring. After a modern bushfire they are blackened dead stumps.
50
New growth don’t normally come from stumps. They come from seeds, first in the form of weeds, small shrubs and the like before the larger trees take hold again. The most intense fires might destroy virtually all the seeds but even then they can come from other areas by various means (rain, wind, birds, animals, etc.) to regenerate the area. Just takes more time.
10
Yes, it does. I have seen many burnt forests years later where the bottom half of the trees are black from a fire a decade before. I have seen trees sprout soon after a fire. They used not be ‘stumps’. That is devastation.
There is also the problem of the runoff of fragile topsoil. Mountainsides are not good farming as the soil is thin and runs away with the water with even grasses to hold it. Our fires are often followed by big rains, making the damage much worse if the forest is completely dead. Seeds need somewhere to germinate.
Frequent back burns save forests. Failing to do can destroy them, at least on human time scale and promotes invasion of foreign species.
40
Eucalypts very often regrow from stumps or trunks
https://www.scienceimage.csiro.au/images/cache/detail/976_0_EM11278.jpg
20
Not true, Peter S. i have witnessed two major bushfires up here in the Blue Mountains now and I can assure you that within weeks of the fire (if it rains) new growth sprouts out of the blackened trunks and branches and within 4-5 years (apart from the still burnt trunk), you would not know that the tree had lost all its leaves previously. We have been lucky up here in the BM – our firies have done a wonderful job and I look forward to regeneration soon.
40
Peter.
Ditto
After the 2013 fire came through the Mt Wilson region of the Blue Mtns I went down “Joe’s Canyon” in memory of the author of the canyon guide book, Rick Jamieson, with Helen (his daughter) and friends. It was heartening to see such regrowth on dead black sticks of shrubs. Many plants probably seeded and later died but ultimately the bush has regenerated well.
10
The epicormic growth in Andy’s photo is a very weak form of branch that breaks off easily because it isn’t tied into the structure of the trunk like a normal branch. It’s kinda the tree’s last throw of the dice. Much of that tree would be dead now or very soon. The tree will try to flower and produce seed before it is gone in a few years.
In really hot fires the ground can be “cooked” to about 6 inches depth which effectively kills off a lot of the seedbank in the soil, hampering regeneration. Hot weather and heat from fires will cause eucalypt seed capsules to shed their seed, but hot fires destroy most of it either in situ in the crown or on the ground.
With such large tracts of land obliterated the re-colonisation by insects, birds, mammals and reptiles will likely be pretty slow. It will be a silent, empty landscape for a while. The entire ecosystem has to re-build itself from the ground up, literally. Plants first then invertebrates, then maybe some honeyeaters on flowers, and insectivorous birds.
A fire at Fingal Bay burnt the bush back to bare sand which I thought would take ages to clothe itself and would wash away in the meantime. We had an inch of rain and within 3 weeks there were pioneer species that I had never seen anywhere near that area, growing up to chest height. Their seed must have been in the soil all along. Remarkably they are an ephemeral rainforest species in what was coastal heathland before the fire. The banksias and larger shrubs that dominated the area will take years to reassert themselves.
The NPWS fire management plan for that area stated that it should have been burnt off regularly for asset protection (it backs directly onto houses and across the road from homes at another point). It was choked with many years’ rubbish. The bushfire solved the problem of getting permission to burn.
30
That was meant to be “fuel” not “due”. The Android spelling checking makes lots of unauthorised “corrections”…
50
Correct. Let the fires burn to their natural conclusion and just keep people safe.
51
Wrong.
Firstly, these are not “natural” fires because they are burning in an environment with artificially elevated fuel levels.
Secondly, we cannot “keep people safe” without evacuating a significant fraction of the population of SE Australia. Where do you suggest we house and feed a couple of million people?
21
The only thing not natural about some of the current bush fires is we are not letting them burn to their conclusion. I think we are letting most of them to burn given they are in such remote areas and are too large for any action to stop them. If this country was devoid of any humans the bush fires will still occur, naturally. As for “artificially elevated” fuel levels how the hell are we going to reduce them over the millions of hectares they cover in our large country? We can’t and we never will. The only way is the natural way – bush fires.
21
Trying to find the silver lining a lot dilapidated wood based houses that are bonfires waiting to happen will be replaced with fire resistant structures.
I believe in the future our bushfire danger could will largely solved if non flammable structures are built in fire zones and people are allowed to clear their property around their homes.
50
It depends on how much money they have. I suspect most are not that wealthy and so will build flimsy structures again (and again). I suppose we could have state laws to force people to build appropriate structures. That would be a major change.
40
The Australian building code is fairly strict with regard to fire resistance these days.
If you live in a BAL-29 or BAL-FZ zone all building needs to comply with fire resistance rules.
I live in a flame zone and if I want to do an extension, windows alone are like double the price or else special steel shutters are needed.
60
The code would have to be pretty tough for structures built in the bush to withstand the fires of today. One would then need to have deep pockets to build to that standard. Perhaps better to enforce the building of a “panic bunker” for safety and just let the house burn.
50
[I] believe the majority of houses are not surrounded by large trees and are burnt down by small spot fires on very flammable parts.
Watching the aerial footage of destroyed houses and sometimes there is actually green unburnt trees and foliage next to them.
60
Sorry “I believe” not “the believe”
30
“The fires of today” – so much hotter and dangerous than the fires of the rest of human history – hmmm – thats a big call. I’m sure that’s not what you meant, but notice how insidious the warmist language has become.
150
What I meant is the fires of TODAY literally. Sorry for any confusion but I thought it was pretty obvious I was referring to the current fires we are experiencing, which are not the worst in history but certainly not insignificant. They are bad and saying they are not would be a lie.
10
Then again in Texas I don’t think storm shelters are mandatory yet I suspect they do have them because it makes sense.
50
I screwed old sheets of corrugated iron over my windows. It took quarter of an hour and cost me virtually nothing. It worked well until the idiot fire-crew from Belmore came to stop me putting out spot-fires after the initial fire-storm had passed.
40
Look at the cost of not doing it that everyone else pays. User-pays sounds good to me. Plus the higher cost to rebuild may help to keep the feral-greenie-menace varmint numbers down in the bush. Getting Sarah-Hansen-Young fans out of the bush would dramatically improve the average IQ of regional towns.
90
Building codes are only one factor…. and should not be used as an excuse to ignore the obvious need for fuel control and access.
70
Building with asbestos is now banned, so I suggest aluminium foil to cover dwellings during bushfires. It worked in Balmoral, a man covered his place and saved it. Also he built a fire kiln and hid in there when the fire hit, the only casualty was his potting shed.
61
Building with Asbestos containing materials should be legalised again.
The product is completely inert in situ.
The fatalities were all quarrymen and factory workers who wouldn’t wear PPE, plus lazy chippies and dopey plumbers cutting Fibro and Versilux with a power saw, and their unfortunate wives doing the laundry.
63
It would be more palatable to go with the aluminium foil and mandatory kiln bunkers.
22
If ”palatable” means politically expedient”, then sure.
Otherwise, Asbestos containing materials were invented by The Romans,
it’s been around a long time, no ones ever going to invent a replacement product as effective, and it’s still mined and manufactured in Canada and Russia.
30
Okay I concede, having grown up in a fibro house, the Balmoral fella is just lucky to be alive.
“I was in there for half an hour while the firestorm went over. It was huge, just glowing orange-red everywhere. Just scary. I was terrified.”
He admits he could have died.
“I could have if I hadn’t thought about plan B. In that little kiln enclosure I made, I had a fire extinguisher, a bucket of water, a drinking water bottle and a fire blanket.”
40
Underground shelters work very well. A fire can go overhead very quickly. In the Black Saturday fire, one man hid under a concrete culvert and was fine. Considering the temperature that is amazing. And exposed he would have been toast in seconds like poor Bryan Naylor who tried to run.
With modern digging equipment sinking a shipping container in the ground would be fast and work well. As in WW1 or in Tornado alley, it all happens quickly. Otherwise there is nowhere to hide from the burning air, the massive radiation, the scorching wind, the flames. In the ground you are safe for enough time.
70
Excellent idea.
20
(Off topic.)
Apparently December was the hottest eeevvveeerrr in Australia, according to The Guardian quoting the BoM.
I couldn’t find this “news” on the BoM site however, so I’m not sure if the BoM stated it.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jan/02/2019-australia-hottest-year-record-temperature-15c-above-average-temperature
80
Note, The Guardian seems to have changed it from hottest December to hottest year.
The hottest December claim is still on news.com
https://www.news.com.au/national/december-2019-australias-hottest-month-on-record/video/a9ac3063080b275aba7c3afd6ba13f6c
90
The real news is the latest version of ACORN-SAT temperature data (which is used to determine these “records”) is the most homogenised and artificially warmed EEEVVVEEERRR.
80
Records are meant to be broken. It means nothing. I’ll worry if we have such high temperatures in winter consistently.
60
you set a high bar. So you won’t worry until we get a string of 35+ days in July?
212
The only way that’s going to happen gee aye is after your beloved BoM climate propaganda agency has sufficiently massaged, deleted and “homogenised” real data to make it so.
And even if it did happen for real, when in human history have the numerous periods of natural warming such as during the Minoan, Egyptian, Roman or Medieval warm periods EVER been bad? Periods of natural warming are characterised by civilisation thriving, and a minimum of famine, war and disease.
No warmist has ever been able to answer my question.
121
With the blocking pattern firmly in place we should expect unseasonal weather and temperatures in midlatitude.
40
July in the NH is 31 days. I could be wrong about the SH.
90
Gee Aye can stop worrying then!
🙂
40
That’s my point. We are not experiencing anything really out of the ordinary. Let me know when we are with real evidence and not the fabricated crap from NASA and others.
As a reminder: Dead Dingoes Don’t Lie, But Climate Scientists Do
20
At Deniliquin, the record for the AWS at the airport was 44.8 achieved on 31 Dec 2005. That record was broken on when 46.5 was reached on 20 Dec 2019. However the Airport site has only been operating since
10
At Deniliquin, the record for the AWS at the airport was 44.8 achieved on 31 Dec 2005. That record was broken on when 46.5 was reached on 20 Dec 2019. However the Airport site has only been operating since 1997. The BOM also collected weather data at the Visitor Centre, 4.5 kms from the airport, from 1850 until 2003. The Visitor Centre data shows the December record as 47.8 on 9 Dec 1874. The highest ever was 49.6 on 12 Jan 1878.
70
Any year with an 18 in front of it has been declared privileged, racist and unspeakable.
80
There’s a big problem with those who think they’re in the know about “global warming”. Most do not even seem to have thought about what it implies. Higher maxima? No, not necessarily. Higher minima? Yes. Rising sea levels? Yes, but with a lot of moisture making its way to places it doesn’t go now, like the Sahara, whose long pluvial only ended less than six thousand years ago.
There is still controversy over whether the Younger Dryas mini ice age was caused by bolide or by too-rapid ice melt after the last glacial period. Why has the world glaciated regularly these last few million years? Why does it warm to levels like now every 120k years (ball park)? The forcings to drag us from the depths of the YD to the Optimum in a mere three to four thousand years have to be colossal. What are those forces, internal and extraplanetary? By comparison, the bit of warming and dribble of SLR in the last couple of hundred years is no biggie (though the last mini-cooling around 1700 was a bit of a worry).
Even the roller coaster of cooling then warming from the start of the Younger Dryas is mild compared to the heave out of glacial max into interstadial warmth around thirteen thousand years ago. That would have been a ride! And all of what I’m talking about was recent.
Why are such meditations on actual and recent global warming and cooling regarded as irrelevant? Shouldn’t they be foremost in the minds of those claiming knowledge of and interest in the subject? With orbits in the picture, can we know if both hemisphere’s will be equally affected? Does “global” cooling or warming mean the same for both?
Above all…what is this association of drought with warming? A colder world is a dryer world all up. You might not be able to ski in Switzerland or race snowmobiles in Alaska. Those places could lose so much precipitation that children there won’t know what snow is…all thanks to global cooling.
Think. At least think.
82
The ‘Little Ice Age’ with skating on the Thames was very recent. Amazingly it only ended in the 1870s. The temperature has climbed steadily since then. You would think that whatever caused the little ice age was the likely culprit, not the internal combustion engine as it hadn’t been invented! So what caused the Little Ice Age?
As has been proven to my satisfaction by Prof Weiss, the last 2500 years can be explained by two simple cycles, 250 years and 60 years. The De Vries solar cycle and the PDO ocean oscillation. This was discovered by blind Fourier analysis, which is convincing. CO2 is not needed or significant, which is the common conclusion of all real scientists. The wild hypothesis about CO2 is disproven many ways, but still it is promoted as the entire explanation for world temperatures which otherwise should be constant, apparently.
And the current hot dry conditions are universally considered to be the result of the Indian Dipole, not Climate Change. Still I read even in the Telegraph that it is all the fault of Donald Trump and Scott Morrison.
72
Note to Gee aye,
Sequential data sets fitted with curves to find climate cycles.
10
Yeah thats a pattern. So no individual scientist wants to take responsibility for fake news. So its hand-balled to an organisation, then FURTHER hand-balled to journalists who have no pride in their profession. You see this pattern time after time.
30
“Lies, Damned Lies & Statistics”
Another example of the use of statistics to bolster weak arguments.
The media is full of it (miss use of statistics I mean and the other as well).
In reality since many of the temperature recording stations use to establish an “average Australian temperature” have not been around for very long, for example Melbourne Olympic Park,”Observations commenced at the current location (86338) in June 2013 and it became the primary ACORN-SAT site from that date.” -BoM
Hence the evaluation (& the records) of an Australian average based on measurement from consistent sites has been for no longer than 6 years. Hottest year in 6 years of consistent recording, not much significance in that factual statement.
Doesn’t sell papers or support certain agendas.
40
And Just for the record.
Max temps at OLYMPIC PARK 1st Dec for the last 7 Years.
BoM Data
MELBOURNE (OLYMPIC PARK)
01-Dec 2019 16.8
01-Dec 2016 21.9
01-Dec 2017 23.5
01-Dec 2015 24.6
01-Dec 2014 28.1
01-Dec 2013 30.8
01-Dec 2018 31.7
20
But bankers all need a 3rd mansion and private jet to get to it funded by the completely involuntary superannuation fund contributions of working class turnips.
70
Are there enough waterfront properties to accommodate all the Labor Party officials, union thugs, crony capitalists and Greens (plus other assorted vermin) who will profit from the carbon trading scheme?
120
“hazard reduction”
A stitch in time saves nine,
who da thunk!
110
To think these people had fire management right on their doorstep ready to burn at the right time. After all the consulting and organizing were done the fireys had to just go away. In crown fire country, I presume, some of the worst in the world for hot burns! And isn’t Nowa Nowa the place they caught and arrested a firebug yesterday?
Around here we would love it if the state fire services were more active in winter. More worried about mulch and climate change and grandchildren? After years of neglect any burn-offs will be too severe for some species. But I’d rather be a nestling in a September fire than in a January one.
70
It seems as you stroll down the tiers of government, Fed, State, Councils, they become more dictatorial.
The exception is in small communities, which could be a good thing.
But when the small communities ideals are undergrounded and lead to unforeseen disastrous consequences they want to blame anyone but themselves.
I do believe that controlled burns in the correct conditions is much less devastating on the environment, wildlife, humans and property than waiting for natures big burn.
40
Labor and the Greens once again seem to have deflected all blame for these events onto the Coalition. I think both the Russian communist party and the Marxist Chicoms will soon send emissaries to Oz to find out what their secret sauce is.
80
That’s because the Coaliton are rightly seen as either 2 Bob Each Way fence
Sitters, or secret Greens.
Just my opinion:
Any Coalition Parliamentarian brave enough to stand up in Parliament and utter
the shibboleth Arsonists [i.e., not ”firebugs”]
will be ”retiring” at the next Election.
10
The BOM were in good form last night, a fire started near Kersbrook in the Mt Crawford pine forest about 10 kilometers south of my place. At the time there was no wind but the cold-ish front was moving through the state.
At 9pm the bom claimed we woukd get a se wind change in an hour a wind change that woukd push the fire in my direction.
By 10pm tbere was no wind change, undeterred tbe bom stuck to their guns and said it wil arrive by midnight..of course it never did and surrounding town still stand today.
On top of this i think tbeir doppler radar is broken, i have extensive experience with radar and suspect
A, the wind turbines are adding false returns
B. The composite radar image is not being displayed correctly and
C. Based on tbeir ability to maintain the weather station at Edinburgh i doubt tbey can maintain anything correctly
130
Crakar
Yrs I was watching and listening to the BOM ‘experts’ last night on ABC 891..
According to BOM the cool change when it arrived
Was going to create a firestorm blowing North eastwards towards Mt Pleasant, Springton & Eden Valley.
Well the cool change arrived here at Mt Barker at 11.00 pm with a wind change to South Westerlies..
But there were no huge gusty winds in the change
And thus the Kersbrook fire did not take off as predicted.
And now all is quiet !
But I wonder what or who started that Kersbrook fire ?
It did not start from spotting from of the Cudlee . Creek fire
As Cudlee Creek is well to the South
And the winds were North Westerlies..
Now there’s a puzzle !
30
A kersbrook resident stated there was a brief power outage a few seconds which suggest a powe network fault and possible cause or some retard started it
10
Good to see a comment from someone with expertise in the area of the subject.
10
Hands up if your local government area has jackboot policies that say you will be fined if you clear trees around your house! Everyone, I suspect.
Apart from bushfires, there’s one thing you can bet on in Australia, and that is that ‘conservative’ state governments will be too cowardly to change the relevant ‘laws’ and regulations concerning land clearing – or anything else, for that matter. There is a yawning gap in Australian political representation that is just BEGGING to be filled. Pauline – ANYONE – use this bushfire crisis (just as the enemies of our society will use it to double-down on the global warming scam) to get sufficient numbers to force change on ‘conservative’ governments.
On the subject of government generally, but local government specifically, there was a time when the flaws in our democratic system didn’t really matter, because government was largely benevolent and we could trust them to look after the interests of ordinary people. But in this new era of hate and revenge politics, the wrong people see government as a weapon that they can use to punish people with opposing views and to force their personal agenda on the unwilling, and we have absolutely no way of changing it. Our only hope is to have conservative governments that are principled enough to understand the nature of our society’s enemies and mercenary enough to put the boot into them, as PDT is doing in the US. But try to think of one – just one – occasion on which this has happened in Australia in the past 40-odd years. It hasn’t. This is a golden opportunity for One Nation, as the only remaining ‘conservative’ (largely) minor party, to go in hard and get the numbers to FORCE ‘conservative’ governments to stop cowering from the enemies of our society.
100
This is the regulation for our council area:
https://www.casey.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files-public/2018-10/Significant-Tree-Strategy-Significant-Tree-Register-Strategic-Development-Version-21_0.pdf
There are three listed trees in my street but they do not affect me.
I planted all the trees on my property and have no limits what I can do with them. On the other hand my neighbour’s property is on the Victorian Heritage Database and he has to get permission to touch a tree on his property. I am not certain what applies to overhanging branches but I have asked the question – yet to get a reply.
I think that the pendulum is swinging on council regulations. I know of one council in the Hunter Region that has tight limits on the distance that houses can be placed to forest trees and then restrictions in the type of vegetation that can be planted near the house.
I expect insurers will be taking a closer look at fire risk of residential properties after this year. The losses are mounting and that always gets their attention. I know increasing CO2 is contributing to the rate of growth of forests in Australia and around the world. I have doubts that fuel reduction in State national parks can have any value. Once commercial logging is stopped there is no financial incentive to limit fire risk – just let it burn. Property owners and their local councils need to place high priority in establishing fire control lines to protect property near national parks.
I drove from Gold Coast Queensland to Melbourne Victoria via the coast in November and there were tens of thousands of homes I felt at risk in the conditions we have now. If it gets really dry around Melbourne in the next two months I consider many houses in Melbourne suburbs will be at high risk. Dandenongs remain a disaster in waiting. The warning system has been useful in reducing loss of life. I know people who have relocated to a safer area on high fire risk days at least three times over the past 6 years; not only a plan but a tested plan.
30
Thanks Rick,
A better response to Fire risk than wasting money on CO2 reduction.
30
” Policy is not changing: the Labor party says we should fight fires with a carbon market (tax)”
A carbon market is so much worse than a tax. That is to say pumping up coal and oil royalties. A carbon market is just one more Abba-Dabba Berman numbers racket. So much more leeching. This is yet another thing that doesn’t go down well at all if you try to reach out to the left. If you say “look .. all we have to do is do what the Arabs did in the 70’s …. just pump up royalties for our coal exports ….. and then …. we’re done.”
Something about that way of thinking they hate. Its as if they were a member of Senator Palpatines minions.
20
O/T but relevant.
https://principia-scientific.org/exposing-the-medias-fake-news-about-wildfires/
The implications are surreal. The push-back against the ‘Greens’ policy is gaining ground and some people are in a panic!
50
Morrison gets GG to sign compulsory ADF and reserve call-out.
Leases 4 extra aircraft.
A worthy Prime Minister.
61
He will need to bring in a bush fire tax to pay for the 200 bucks a day tax free for reserves
20
Nah, just halve the ABC’s budget.!
61
What! No you shall pay for this not the propaganda machine
11
An interesting article on firefighting and the effectiveness of water bombers. Forget the aircraft. Please read this.
There is a big difference between being a fool and being misinformed.
https://volunteerfirefighters.org.au/water-bombing-and-magic-bullets
10
That diagram is almost prescient.
00
Back in
Auckland(Antarctica) for a bit, where the circum-Antarctic current freezes it every evening, noticed the drop in temperature, well if it was Napier (30C) would have felt more normal!Sympathies to all victims of the bush fires.
Same problem earlier in CA where forest management was let go to appeal to eco maniac green policies. Not managing the the load is plain idiocy.
50
Today’s max:
Auckland 20°C
Invercargill 12°C
Scott Base, Antarctica -3°C
Maybe summer will arrive in February…
50
Interesting celebrity pushback against greenie “conservation” policies. Of course the MSM had labelled it a “bizarre rant”
https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tziporah-malkah-has-unleashed-on-greens-voters-for-protesting-backburning/news-story/99dd1635e067da2135387c391ef2ee4b
Meanwhile, Bette Midler had suddenly become an expert in Australian bush fires
https://thewest.com.au/news/australia/bette-midler-takes-to-twitter-against-australian-prime-minister-scott-morrison-ng-b881424356z
30
Personally I think Bette Midler is really Mama Cass in disguise. “Cass” couldn’t sing raunchy songs as a fatty and she died and came back as a …… Well I won’t go in for any kind of shaming.
22
Who downvoted me for that? Its proven actually. There is much more of this behaviour going on then you think. Cass was born Cohen. Coincidence? Or Cohencidence? Her Mother was a dead ringer for Bette Midler, and Midler’s daughter is a dead ringer for Cass Elliot. Plus the one woman, or the two women IF YOU MUST, were married to the same European royal.
Plus the last time I got thrown off twitter, or the second to last time, I always blamed Bette Midler. I kept calling her Ellen and I don’t think she was happy about it.
30
“Meanwhile, Bette Midler had suddenly become an expert in Australian bush fires”
Well she’s further away, so more expert (/s)
30
This as labors policy going into the last election, don’t see much mention of a carbon tax.
https://www.billshorten.com.au/_labor_s_national_fire_fighting_fleet_sunday_17_march_2019
You and your miss representation of Australian politics and of climate change are one of the reasons we now have a leaderless country. Bad as the Greens you are.
120
Frednk, Open your eyes. A forced artificial carbon market is a tax. The government makes you pay by law, there is no product. It’s a tax.
The only difference between Julia Gillards carbon tax and an international carbon market is that the money we paid in 2013 stayed in Australia. The international carbon market is a more stupid, far worse form of tax. It doesn’t even support pointless bureaucrats and their families in Australia, instead it pays off first world bankers and corruption in third world countries.
243
Jo 10 per cent of carbon tax revenue was remitted to the UN by Labor.
And you are of course correct about emissions trading.
91
Jo, this may be a little known aspect of the Climate Change juggernaut that most Australians are unaware of.
Perhaps an indication of how much is being siphoned off by the Globalists would be very interesting to a lot of taxpayers.
KK
80
Frednk you must verify if you can trust the data you are looking at. I assure you, that you cannot. So you must check for yourself and believe what you find out.
“A forced artificial carbon market is a tax. ” No its much worse than a tax. There is simply no comparison. A tax raises funds for a local government, that may be somewhat representative and sometimes good things come from a tax. Libertarian philosophy is mostly right but its way too overstated if we are going to equate this OUTRAGE of carbon markets to just another tax. We went too far for the right reasons but we went too far just the same.
FREDNK do you fancy Jamie Diamond? Do you think Jamie Diamond is pretty cute? Sultry?
FREDNK Do you think Lloyd Blankfein is one of the most under-appreciated hotties of the modern era?
https://amp.businessinsider.com/images/54dcdb7cecad04a5358b456a-750-562.jpg
Do you want to see Lloyd Blankfein in short shorts? Does he really DO IT for you?
If not you’ve got get to your local labour office and demand no carbon market and higher royalties as the substitute. Otherwise you and everyone else around you will be stuffing all your cash into Lloyd Blankfeins garter. FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIVES.
Economists love markets of this sort since they resemble Frank Knights idea of “perfect competition” on a superficial level. So economists are hard-wired to opt for these markets. But these markets are a vicious imposition on the free market. They are just a money hose for the “market makers” as that sex kitten Blankfein would describe himself.
But check your data. If you check for real rather than pretend to check, you will find your data is nonsense.
50
I hope that the icon that you use isn’t indicative of something frednk.
And I like galahs.
10
‘ … we now have a leaderless country.’
The PM is acting like a leader, walking among the people and calling out the reserves. Its a war against nature and Scott sends in the rescue ships, a first world problem, but everyone is doing a terrific job.
He is doing fine.
30
The NSW Premier has been doing well right from the start of bushfire season, when the QLD and VIC Premiers were on leave.
After all, fire control is state government responsibility, Fire Commissioners and assets are state based.
20
Jennifer Marohassy has written an excellent article about
Not ‘Unprecedented’ fires
Check it out here : https://jennifermarohasy.com/2020/01/it-has-been-hotter-fires-have-burnt-larger-areas/?cp=0#comment-671280
60
Probably the only thing unprecedented is the media hysteria and the way they now predict catastrophic fire conditions days in advance, which I think is like a red rag to a bull for all the firebugs out there.
Scott Morrison mentioned the level of arson in his press conference today and I agree.
There inevitably seems to be multiple ignition points on high fire risk days now.
70
Scotty needs to double down on the Arson talk and then keep doubling down
until the everyone gets the drift and the media can’t ignore it anymore.
Of course, he’s got to be able to back the talk up with facts, or else he’ll
end up like heroic American Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, abandoned by his
colleagues while speaking the truth.
40
“or else he’ll end up like heroic American Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, abandoned by his
colleagues while speaking the truth.”
Sir…………………… I am in your debt.
20
I notice that GA & Fitz have disappeared form here again.
Maybe they’ve been burned out !
Now that would learn them both !
91
They’d blame it on climate change.
30
You can either burn forests at a time of your choosing, or at a time not of your choosing. The option of ‘not burning’ is impossible.
140
Too right RavenX
It’s not if, but when.
And when nature does it, she is remorseless.
60
Yeah, but what if Nature had a lot of help setting those fires from forces
other than, er .., ”Lightning Strikes”.
40
To try and draw an analogy between planting fire retardant species around a dwelling and the function of those species in the natural environment leads to a flawed conclusion.
10
Wise words Ravenx.
20
Fires making lots of smoke and producing convective storms once more.
https://on.windy.com/36qqu
40
The Law of un-intended consequences strikes yet again.
1/.Order a general evacuation. Stop the petrol stations selling petrol. Rescue over 1000 by sea, leaving behind an empty town with no power, but lots of petrol and a few hundred abandoned vehicles.
2/. Make a decision not to evacuate a small township as it is declared to be in a good defensible position. Then cut the water supply.
60
I’m a recent discoverer of this site and welcome the take downs of some of the BS going around.
I do suggest however that your work would be more meaningful if published in journals ?.
41
What work. Which Journal?
If Prof Lindzen, MIT award winning professor, needs two years to even get a paper published, what chance would any skeptic have?
161
Have you tried ?
14
Why would we bother? Half of what is published in peer review is rampant junk. The journals don’t check the papers they do publish beyond a cursory free pal review. When Michael Mann wanted to publish a paper that was truly awful he went to Nature. When he was shown wrong, Nature wouldn’t publish the response. That’s a score of minus 2/2
Frankly, blogs have higher standards than that.
131
Wow, blogs are the last true sources of science ?, who reviews the blogs?.
Isn’t that as insular as mainstream science?.
05
New DUMBNUT here
Are you warpath ?
40
who reviews the blogs?.
Everyone who wants to.
“Isn’t that insular”
Doh. You’re free to comment here. I see you can’t find any flaws?
30
I’ve just pointed out several flaws.
By review, do you mean the thumbs ??
01
Professor Richard Lindzen’s paper, “Climate Science: Is it currently designed to answer questions?” examines cultural changes after WW2 and the politicisation of scientific institutions …specifically the politicisation of climate science and how scientists adjust both data and even theory to accommodate these politically desired positions and ways opposition to those positions is side-lined. https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0809/
30
Link didn’t work. Try again…
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0809/0809.3762.pdf
10
Hmmm. So we’ve somehow implied that a suggestion to publish is an “outrageous idea”, even though “it’s what scientists do”…
That would portray us as pretty backward and silly, wouldn’t it?
Now who would want us portrayed that way?
30
You’ve portrayed/ betrayed yourselves that way.
The climate blob has its issues but countering it with equally poor science is not the way forward.
00
Not new, this stunt. You come on the scene with some conditional flattery, some criticism of the other side…then throw out the old invitation to publish.
Skeptics aren’t to be published but they are invited to try because it would be so handy if they wasted their energies pounding sand and beating mattresses. You know, I know, we all know. The GeeUppers really know it.
It’s a transparent stunt, and getting very old. Leave it now.
30
Hmmm…
The old suggestion to publish, eh? Might be sincere. Might be a tired GeeUp stunt. Benefit of the doubt for the moment.
One thing is certain. Skeptics trying to get published carry more lead to the gate than Phar Lap.
110
‘The old suggestion to publish’
Why is that an outrageous idea?, its what scientists do.
13
Newton didn’t. Einstein didn’t. Darwin didn’t.
Are they not scientist enough for you?
50
Please don’t insult such giants. Their work has been ratified over and over ( by the scientific community), yours hasn’t even been coherently presented.
14
I bet Jo and David’s work has been subject to far more scientific analysis than anything you or most climate scammers yabbering ever has.
Argue the SCIENCE.. if you can
20
Of course, this is a blog and intended to be such. The invitations to publish are really invitations to stop blogging. We can see through that game by now. Good to know Jo’s annoying all the right people.
On the subject of qualifications…
A poor bookbinder’s apprentice learned by reading and getting comp tickets to lectures by the likes of Sir Humphry Davy. He got his break when Davy needed a valet for a long European tour. He doubled as scientific assistant but Lady Davy made sure he got treated like a servant.
The humility stayed with him the rest of his life, as he refused many an honour. I reckon it was enough of an honour just to be Michael Faraday.
40
Phar Lap was originally a News Zealand horse named Phillip. When they asked the name of the horse, an Australian incoredtly recorded the horse’s name as Phar Lap. (As in Prunce Phar Lap)
00
Warpath could you get me a spot in the Talmud while you are about it?
41
Graeme,
Strange Semitic segway there?.
[I’m not going to let this turn into something that it clearly is not. You suggest it is easy to get published Graeme is making a joke at your expense.] ED
01
Ed, I didn’t say it was easy but that’s its part of the process scientists go through.
11
No, it’s the establishment gatekeeper process used to launder unchecked junk with no public data that’s been reviewed by two anonymous unpaid pals.
Google “Gergis” and “lewandowsky” to find just how weak a paper needs to be to get published.
The brand name “science” is a sitting duck to be misused and abused through a shonky glorified system that slows and reduces debate, hides research behind paywalls, and is so weak it would never be accepted even for a tax return.
Blogs are transparent. Debate is fast and welcome and while Nature published namecalling, we have higher standards.
81
In climate so-called “science” it is very much PAL-review.
So long as it conveys the “correct” message, neither the science or anything else in a paper matters.
Look at Mickey Mann’s hockey stick farce, and one could name numerous other “climate” papers that are basically just JUNK science, but still passed PAL-review.
21
$2.39 per comment, Warpath?
30
Seriously? “Australia’s first climate change refugees”
https://www.theage.com.au/national/australia-s-first-climate-change-refugees-20200103-p53okp.html
40
This makes me so angry! They are “weather refugees” in the same way as those who left Darwin after Cyclone Tracy in December 1974. There would be many other examples over the years, for example the trains from the Bourke heatwave of 1896.
70
At what point do we declare that the 2020 El Nino has started?
https://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com/2020/01/at-what-point-do-we-declare-that-2020.html
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4wp7dJaOAkc/XhAi1GtWruI/AAAAAAAAB8c/tMwhfhE4_Q4QYMjO4flKqC6eWSkJ0n8nACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/2020_El_Nino.jpg
02-JAN-2002 12:00 UTC – Peak sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies lie between 3.3 and 4.5 C across 80 % of the equatorial Pacific Ocean. If it persists, I believe that what we are seeing are the signs of the onset of the 2020 El Nino.
50
BoM has ENSO in neutral until Autumn at least, but what is the cause of that warm blob in the South Pacific?
There has been some discussion here on this particular anomaly, possibly a blocking high or undersea volcanic activity etc.
In your estimation, is there any chance of seeing a strong La Nina this time next year? If not, why not?
50
el gordo,
Please go to this link. It’s all I can divulge at this point.
https://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-lunar-alignment-density-index-and.html
My prediction is for an El Nino event starting in the first half of 2020, followed by a La Nina event, possibly starting by the Southern Summer of 2020-21.
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What’s the effect of a Niño in Australia? In Chile El Niño brings rains, so if this is true for 2020, it could break our current drought.
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El Nino makes Australia very dry, but going on Ian’s forecast we can expect La Nina this time next year, which has a cool/wet effect in the land of Oz.
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When the global warming obsession broke the anti-scientists had their pitch SORTED. But back then there was no such thing as a climate scientist. I could in no wade into the fray NOW with Jennifer working with neural networks and sophisticated things going in. But I waded right in back then because the subject was no-ones specialty. The leftists would not answer questions and the skeptics were so full of fear to be caught out wrong about this subject or another. After all this time I still don’t fully understand the lapse-rate for example. But back them most people knew very little outside their specialty and this psychological operation made them afraid to ask.
But anyway this subject takes on all of science. A fellow with seven undergraduate degrees would have had a better sense of things than any specialist in the old days. Like David Bellamy. I have a memory of him when I was a kid, and he was pointing out that he had seven degrees. Might be a false memory but if its true he would have been in the most excellent position for a judgement call on this story back in the day. So the take home story is that there really is no such speciality even now. No such thing. Progress has to come from looking at every aspect of reality from all angles. After all we got a lot of traction when an incredibly loveable Professor started looking at clouds from all sides. As the poet had done many years before.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pbn6a0AFfnM
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Around this area
“False Pragmatism in a Neural Network”
https://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2020/01/01/false-pragmatism-in-a-neural-network/#comments
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Has to happen right? After all the humans have false paradigms too. Sometimes the humans can have false paradigms for a century or more. Gravity is space bending. Ho ho.
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The link here goes with this IMO
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2019/12/31/w-o-o-d-31-december-2019-the-end-of-the-year-as-we-know-it/#comment-122054
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Hmmm!
That was a test.
Previous post attempt with a direct link to Sharyl’s site vanished
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Actually as there is virtually no fossil fuel CO2 in the air anyway, whatever impact CO2 has on bush fires is a moot point. Unless the CO2 levels are man made and controllable, what does Climate Change matter anyway? We can do nothing about it, which gets us back to backburning.
The only reason CO2 has gone up is very slight ocean surface warming and even that they are trying to blame on CO2 without any explanation at all. David Bellamy was right. It is all poppycock. And he never had another job after that statement and never recanted where David Attenborough is drowning in work.
The best statement was from our former Prime Minister Tony Abbott. Climate Change is Crap. That’s without being a scientist and the entire reason he had to be driven out of the job and out of parliament.
Now what could we do with $444Million (less administration fees)? Replace all the lost houses, or at least what the insurance does not cover.
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And the administration cost of the $444Million no strings gift to Malcolm’s friends is $16Million a year. I would do it for $2Million a year, in advance. And the money will never be seen again, as is inevitable.
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This is all fair and good. But we want to think ahead. And if our ultimate destination was (lets say) 700 ppm then we better have land hydration, grazing AND burning or else we will have to suck in smoke all the winter and much of the spring. Just follow the logic ahead a bit. We have to pre-empt both the increase in CO2 AND leftist stupidity (dancing on the end of oligarchical strings. )
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Consider for s second that CO2 increases have zero effect on temperature. Otherwise everything about the increase is very good news for life on earth. Especially with a population of 8 billion people.
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Yes for sure. But as you say it does mean that we need to be more vigilante with fires.
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I think Tony said “The science behind global warming is crap”, a little bit different.
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Have just been reading a number of earlier bushfire warning reports, and it’s obvious that the fuel buildup and the actions of the Greens were well known many years ago.
There’s an interesting 1860s photo of the Daintree “Plains” in this document: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/destructive-green-policies.pdf.
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NSW is in big power trouble pushing the network to its limits prepare for network collapse
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This won’t help things:
Urgent call to reduce power use as Snowy region bushfires cut interstate lines
Power supply update
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The green slime had to go there.
Someone has claimed people being rescued from fires are “climate refugees”
TOTALLY DISGUSTING!
https://australianclimatemadness.com/2020/01/04/sydney-morning-herald-claims-bushfire-victims-are-climate-refugees/
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They are not climate refugees. They are political refugees. They are fleeing a preventable disaster caused by politics.
This has been caused by the policies of local and state governments, that over my service of 27 years, have continued to refuse to implement recommendations by the Royal Commissions and Coronial Reports.
It’s politics, you don’t get a vote from paying someone to conduct a slow burn hazard reduction.
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Because of where I live on days like today I’m forced to listen to emergency warnings and special coverage of my area on the ABC radio .
What do I get ? , climate change , climate change , climate change , warning , some guy in Melbourne who has installed a charging point for Teslas , climate change , climate change , climate change .
Then some carefully screened green nutters and unprecedented, unprecedented, unprecedented , climate change , climate change , warning .
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Robert
You think that bad.
I once caught a segment called Media watch on ABC TV.(My remote was playing up)
It’s akin to Al Capone running Neighborhood Watch.
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In moderation for the last post and no idea why unless it’s excessive use of the word Climate change ?
Just heard Albo bragging about how Morrison has just adopted his policies today !
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Well if they are on the same page about;
No change in Climate Policy,
No more commitments to Paris COP,
Local responses needed for fire risk,
Then it is all good. Political consensus converging on Real Solutions. I just hope so.
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bushfire, blackouts, floods and other disasters… are the only things that wake up the blue pilled npc population, sadly.
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NSW at risk of blackouts as fires cut power link with Vic
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Back up now but notice NSW power prices went ballistic.
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Look on the bright side.
At least someone’s making a Quid out of the disaster.
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We have known the answers of what to do to reduce fire hazards for years. Knowledge is not the problem it is the failure to act on that knowledge, for whatever reason. Here is a link to a very good summary of bushfire management knowledge.
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/Publications_Archive/CIB/cib0203/03Cib08
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The Australia Institute calls for a disaster levy on heavy industry after it blames sections of heavy industry for the increased frequency and severity of disasters.
“A one dollar levy on core oil and gas produced in Australia could raise $1.5 billion annually – essential income for a national climate disaster fund,” the Institute’s Richie Merzian told reporters.
“If you profit from supplying the cause, you should help cover the cost of the impact.”
https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/company-news/proposed-disaster-levy-for-heavy-industry/ar-BBYyY4K?ocid=spartandhp
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re the writer below:
Jon Gaunt has been working in Broadcasting for over 25 years and has worked on a variety of platforms and won many awards including Three Sony Awards.
He has worked for BBC London and had over a million listeners when he was the mid morning presenter on talkSport for three years.
Jon had his own full page column in the Sun newspaper for over five years with a readership of 8 million.
He is often called upon by TV and Radio stations to act as a Newspaper reviewer or Political/Social Commentator. He has appeared on BBC Question Time many times and was a main newspaper reviewer on Sky News for ten years…
He started his own podcast three years ago and built it into a live radio station with over 60,000 weekly listeners and millions of downloads…
https://sputniknews.com/authors/jon_gaunt/
3 Jan: Sputnik: Global Warming is Not to Blame for the Horrific Bushfires in Australia
by Jon Gaunt
There I have said the unsayable but don’t hold your breath you will not hear that on the MSM biased broadcasters like Sky or BBC.
Of course, this is only my opinion but it is an opinion held by millions and deserves to be heard surely?
I hoped after the media bias over the Brexit debate and the General election that the MSM broadcasters would stop emoting and get back to reporting but alas my optimism was misplaced.
It appears to me that because the BBC and Sky News lost the Remainer narrative and the trash Boris agenda and the British public that they have now switched their attention and propaganda machine to promote climate change danger and the agenda of Greta.
The BBC seem determined and desperate to blame the horrific fires in Australia on their global warming agenda and seem very reluctant to mention that over a hundred for people have already been arrested for setting fires.
Arson has always been a feature of these annual bush fires and of course the fires themselves are not a new phenomenon either…
Like many people I don’t doubt that Global warming is happening but I am not convinced that is man-made and that opinion should be reflected in reports…
Have you seen the video of the Australian who has a completely different narrative of what has caused these fires? Although his language is extremely fruity, to say the least, his point is that it is actually green activists that have led to the scale of these fires because they have forced farmers to stop burning their scrubland in the winter months which use to create natural fire breaks. This is a tradition that goes back centuries and was actually practiced by the original indigenous Australian Aboriginal population. This possible cause is echoed all over social media today in many tweets from the affected area today…READ ON
https://sputniknews.com/columnists/202001031077933832-global-warming-is-not-to-blame-for-the-horrific-bushfires-in-australia/
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30 Dec: news.com.au: Understanding an arsonist’s motives may help stop future fires
Only lightning causes more bushfires than arsonists. But what spurs someone to set fire to tinder dry foliage that could destroy properties or even lives?
by Alex Turner-Cohen
With people deliberately lighting almost half the bushfires this season, experts are calling for more research to better understand arsonists – and stop them before their ideas catch alight.
For every 1000 people you pass on the street, one of them probably wants to light a fire and see the world burn, according to Melbourne University bushfire expert Janet Stanley.
However, there’s a simple reason she can’t confirm that estimate – because “there’s very little research on arsonists worldwide”.
“There have been no funds given into research to arson to date,” she told news.com.au…READ ON
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/understanding-an-arsonists-motives-may-help-stop-future-fires/news-story/0eebd6a2ea1a726126df38ca2ce8fb56
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No doubt an important issue, but not the main one, and she really needs funds to do the research.
Should focus on clearing out 30 years worth of accumulated ground cover, scrub and combustible growth near homes and all roads.
Then clear all of the nutters from state, federal and local government who have created this disaster.
KK
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No doubt an important issue, but not the main one, and she really needs funds to do the research.
Should focus on clearing out 30 years worth of accumulated ground cover, scrub and combustible growth near homes and all roads.
Then clear all of the officials from state, federal and local government who have created this disaster.
KK
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Up until the mid 1970s, it was accepted that, apart from ethnics doing
stocktakes, all Pyromamiacs were homosexual.
That was the accepted wisdom that was never debunked.
So, these ”experts” warblings for funding are in extremely poor taste.
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the Great Greta strikes again:
By Jack Newman
4 Jan: Daily Mail: Planes could fly together in V-shaped flocks to save fuel and cut down on emissions amid growing ‘flight shame’ over their environmental impact
•Airbus is planning to test the flight technology with two A350s within six months
•The formation is inspired by migrating birds and could change air travel
•Planes will be flying closer to each other and riding on each other’s air upwash
By Jack Newman
Within five years, airlines will be encouraged to use the formation in a bid to save up to 10 per cent of fuel, lowering costs, as well as lowering carbon emissions…
It comes amid a growing trend of moral objection to flying by plane among environmentalists, with climate activist Greta Thunberg famously sailing to and from the US…
For the new formation to fly, passengers will need to be convinced of the safety of flying far closer to other jets than is currently allowed.
Dr Sandra Bour Schaeffer, chief executive of Airbus UpNext said: ‘We’ve known about the efficiency of migratory birds for a long time.
‘The air is smooth and easy to ride and does not impact the comfort of passengers. There is huge potential in it.’
The Airbus plan, called Fello’fly, is the latest in an attempt for flight engineers to recreate the flight of birds…
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7850555/Planes-fly-V-shaped-flocks-save-fuel-cut-emissions.html
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BUT!
“Meat Loaf: Greta Thunberg has been “Brainwashed” ”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/01/04/meat-loaf-greta-thunberg-has-been-brainwashed/
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Good stuff Meatloaf.
Saw him live some years ago and he appeared frail then. Was surprised to hear he was still around. Looks like Heaven can wait, just a bit longer.
She obviously didn’t
“take the words right out of his mouth”.
All her own work. Maybe.
KK
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The irony about these fires is that in the last months the release of CO2 from the fires probably wipes out all the emissions reductions achieved by all the highly subsidised solar panels in Victoria. In Victoria categorically we have not had one heat wave period in the last 12 months . Spring and December were definitely below average temperaturewise and we have the highest proportion of households with solar panels in the world and have had some of the most intense fires in living memory. If solar panels could protect us from fires Victoria would be fireproof by now . The Victorian government could not be more in step with the program and are in fact living proof that reducing emissions won’t impact fires. There is so much anecdotal evidence that cool burning practices which are now inadequately implemented have been the major and probably the only reason why these fires have been so intense.it certainly not the weather ( although the BOM will claim more records) . Thank God Morrison is in power . If Labor has got in they would’ve made more useless gestures with zero impact on fires. Andrew Rule has a great article explaining why historically cool burning was so important in reducing bushfires to a level that is at least manageable. The inevitability of these fires and their intensity had been forewarned by many different sources and it has been gross negligence that governments local and state have allowed these national park tinderboxes to flourish. Hopefully common sense will come thru when review of these fires leads to future action rather than tleading to the pagan ritual of sacrificing a healthy economy on the Climate God’s altar.
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The situation in your country is terrible, I’m honestly so sad for all the people, animals and forests that have been lost. Here in Chile the news have been following closely, I guess because we have similar climate and are also subject to regular devastating fires.
This whole mess so clearly shows the irrationality in the climate debate. Let’s assume the AGW theory is right. We know anything Australia does in terms of reducing carbon emissions won’t do much, because of China and India. Therefore, we can assume that big fires in OZ are inevitable, because of drought and CO2 greening. What’s the rational response then?
So here’s my 2 cents. Chileans are used to huge natural disasters, especially earthquakes. We can’t predict them yet, and even so, there’s nothing we can do to stop them. Hence, our policy is to mitigate and adapt: our buildings are all quake proof by law; everyone is trained from a young age on what to do when a quake hits; we have special urbanization codes for tsunami-prone areas, etc. That’s the rational thing to do, so when a big quakes hits, there are few deaths and little destruction.
I think that mentality translates to our current response to climate-related stuff, like droughts…we don’t sit and moan about carbon, I guess because we know that, as a small country in the butt of the world, we can’t really change how the big ones behave (if we assume AGW). So we don’t waste time thinking about carbon markets, what’s the point? We have a drought, it’s terrible, but debating about the causes, the IPCC, Greta, etc., won’t do shit to help the people and animals that are suffering. Of course we still have scientists studying the climate, and the government loves to brag about our renewable energy, but politicians in all sides of the equation don’t really debate on the topic because it just doesn’t make sense…it would be like debating with the Earth’s crust to tell it to stop moving. So we get on to building, mitigating, adapting. Basically the response is almost the same as if we assumed the climate is changing without any human intervention.
That’s why I find surprising that otherwise practical Aussies are still debating what to do. Fire hazard reduction is OBVIOUSLY the choice. Anyone who opposes controlled burnings in the winter is insane, akin to, idk, people here opossing mandatory quake-proof buildings because their material is not “green” or something like that. Just assume that the climate is hotter, whatever, and get on with what you guys know works; what your aborigines knew is the anwswer. Fires will get ignited every summer regardless of the weather!
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Always interesting to hear what other countries are doing about coping and adapting with their natural disasters Fran. You are correct – Australia is still arguing about how to cope with our bushfires. We hold expensive government discussions then ignore their findings. We endlessly debate what to do after each major bushfire, and still nothing is done. For a country that provides itself on its “can do” attitude, this inaction remains a national disgrace.
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Jon Gaunt – comment #59 – referred to a “fruity” video, which I think I tracked down on his FB page. it was in a comment related to his Sputnik article (language warning):
Maggie Lear Watch the passion of this man, but be warned his language is a bit ‘fruity’
VIDEO: 3m37s: Romeo Georges 1.6m views 13,000 comments
https://www.facebook.com/romeo.georges/videos/3089496327732098/
in a reply to another comment on Gaunt’s thread, someone posted this video (language warning):
VIDEO: 45s: Hyndrx Petero 1.2m views 6,000 comments
https://www.facebook.com/groups/402635187134916/permalink/558850608180039/?hc_location=ufi
the point I want to make is there is a comment pinned to the top of each of these multi-thousand comments and, in both cases, it is from a Greens apologist. what a coincidence! it appears when you click full-screen and the comments appear to the right of the video.
Romeo’s top comment:
Chris Christodoulou: Mate I don’t know where you’re getting your info from but straight up it’s wrong. The greens have literally no control over back burning outside of seats they control (Melbourne City). The biggest issue with backburning is the organisation of it, getting permission from home owners and then waiting for the right weather for it, I know this because I’m an RFS volunteer in one of the highest fire prone areas of NSW (the blue mountains). The Greens may have opinions but they are worth about as much as my opinion or yours, f**k all lol, they have no power to influence wether or not a backburn happens. The grandma who’s a grumpy bitch who’s house backs onto bushland has more power to hold up a backburn than the leader of the Greens, she can delay a process for months, the Greens can be ignored. As for the weather I punched the current weather details for where I am into my fire calculator and this is what I got. Extreme but just under Catastrophic, there could be other areas in Sydney that tip the scales to catastrophic so by definition the whole region gets the rating.
Hyndrx’s top comment:
Molly McCausland: the greens aren’t in government and don’t hold the balance of power, so even if they didn’t agree with hazard reduction burning, they don’t have the balance of power to change any decisions made on this issue in government. you may want to ask the current government about this instead, the ones that DO have a majority government and DO make the decisions
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Pat,
I am sat here in the UK.
Just want to confirm that Jon Gaunt is right
Sky and BBC are giving a clear impression that everyone in Australia is convinced that “The Climate Crisis” is the problem. There is no mention of hazard reduction!
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Just the British Brainwashing Corporation
Hard at work putting out propaganda & lies !
Take a look at this : https://www.facebook.com/woodburn84?fref=search&__tn__=%2Cd%2CP-R&eid=ARDXwY7IeUTzupqyAbJqiGVwMH-V2SplQdW1QdNfbO1mjmx07368If6AKn_RQKTvEEcthCU-L9rluvl6
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The NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service controls over 7 million Ha of National parks, approximately 9% of the area of the state.. About 90% of this is bushfire prone and 30% is wilderness area.
Last night I carried out a crude analysis of the 6 largest fires out of control in NSW at the moment, they covered an area of about 1.25 million Ha, mainly national park.
The NSW government in its enhanced bushfire management program boasts that for the 5 year period to 2021 it has increased its hazard reduction burn area to an average 135,000 Ha per year, an approximate doubling of the area of hazard reduction burns over the previous five years. This is about 10% of the bushfire prone area every 5 years.
Even if they were not expecting the present conflagration, they were certainly setting us up for it.
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“What’s The Matter? Is That Vegan Margarine Starting To Taste Like Oil and Gas?”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2020/01/04/whats-the-matter-is-that-vegan-margarine-starting-to-taste-like-oil-and-gas/#comments
10
“The murky and convoluted politics of the power industry + Tony Thomas, Jo Nova & Alan Moran”
http://catallaxyfiles.com/2020/01/04/the-murky-and-convoluted-politics-of-the-power-industry/
10
“Wind watch and the choke points revisited”
http://catallaxyfiles.com/2020/01/04/wind-watch-and-the-choke-points-revisited/
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have people seen this resource from nasa
puts are fires ( while terrible ) in greater perspective
https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/#z:2;c:31.6,-10.4;d:2020-01-04..2020-01-05
00
Labor has lost the plot. Do they really think that if we all drove electric cars these fire wouldn’t have happened?
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There is a big difference between being a fool and being misinformed.
https://volunteerfirefighters.org.au/water-bombing-and-magic-bullets
10
A long article but it’s well worth the read…
00
Back in 1997 I worked in Western Australia in the autumn and then near Canberra in the early summer. What I observed in WA was signs that said “aerial burning imminent, call this number before entering the Forrest!” there was a lot of smoke around in the autumn and early winter.
Then When I worked near Canberra it was very noticeable that there was so much more undergrowth and debris. I thought to myself no wonder they have such terrible fires!
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California suffered much the same watermelon mismanagement with terrible results.
Take a listen:-
https://audioboom.com/posts/7470293-1-2-california-administrative-state-burns-down-national-home-insurance-richardaepstein-hooverinst
00