Whose fault was it and will they get away with it (like all the other times)?
Twenty seven people died, a billion animals, 2,000 homes, tourism wrecked and a plume of smoke stretched from here to South America. Unless heads roll, this cycle repeats every 10 – 20 years. Imagine if the media was demanding to know how State Premiers had allowed this catastrophe, or if the opposition was accusing the government of listening to the Ivory Tower instead of the firies? The problem is, they’re all complicit. Both sides of politics are guilty, and the media didn’t see this coming either.
We can recognise those avoiding responsibility by the way they fob off hard questions:
1. Let’s blame “climate change” (because these fires are “normal” now, get used to it. Plus luckily no one ever says — “you mean it’s China’s fault?”)
2. Let’s say “now’s not the time to play the blame game” and,
3. Coming soon: “let’s wait for the Royal Commission, or Almighty Investigation, or 28th Fire Report” — or whichever comes last. (Who wants to preempt a report even if we already know what it will say. )
But we already know three State governments have not followed the advice from most past reports. They’ve ignored the fire and forestry scientists who warned them a disaster was coming and fuel loads were too high. They’ve ignored history. Bushfires in Australia are one of the most obvious dangers to live and health and yet few state leaders have bothered to understand them.
An Inferno of Incompetence and Obfuscation
by Roger Underwood on Quadrant
Roger Underwood AOM spent years in bushfire management, and was General Manager of CALM in WA (Conservation and Land Management). He is often asked “who’s to blame” and he points at the State Premiers, Minister and Public Servants who listened to university fools and not the bushfire scientists who said “a disaster was imminent” and who told them to clear the fuel.
At the top of the list are the premiers and ministers responsible for land management, such as it is, and bushfire policy, and the public servants in their departments with jurisdiction over forests and national parks. State governments in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria have palpably failed to do the most important job they were elected to do: protect the lives and livelihoods of their citizens and the health of their environment. And their public servants have failed to do the job they are being paid to do: serve the public.
All Big-Government roads lead to death and destruction:
Yet despite the science, the evidence presented by bushmen, the dramatic history of this contininent’s relationship with fire, and the findings of numerous inquiries, successive governments in Qld, NSW and Victoria over the last 25 years have consistently failed to prepare potential firegrounds in the expectation of the inevitable. Not only this, they seem to have actually go out of their way to make things worse: the cut-backs to fuel reduction burning, the closure of access roads and trails in national parks, the decimation of professional forestry and fire management expertise, the turning of the blind eye to the creation of residential subdivisions incapable of being defended, the funding of “research” in the universities that is aimed at making the job of the firefighter more difficult, and the erection of a complex bureaucratic edifices that hinder sensible bushfire preparedness and make fuel-reduction burning almost impossible.
Local Councils are also responsible, but ultimately the State Government is responsible for allowing council nonsense. And State Governments are responsible for Crown land.
By destroying the forestry profession they dumped the job on volunteers:
One of the consequences of the deliberate destruction of the forestry profession and forestry district structures and crews has been that governments now have to fall back on volunteers to fight forest fires.
And, of course, we could have sold all those trees instead of having one big New Years Eve bonfire.
Underwood also describes something that sounds like a Water Bomber Cargo cult. He says it is a futile fantasy with fires this big, a profligate waste of money. During fires ten years ago, government spent $10 million dollars on using a DC10 brought over from the USA. The plane was so big it could only take off and land at Avalon airport in Melbourne. It needed a smaller lead plane to follow, and couldn’t land with the full $45,000 load of fire suppressant, so once it was off the ground it had to dump that stuff somewhere, on fields, or forests or failing that — on whales. If an academic isn’t already asking for a grant to study the effects of fire retardant on wildlife, they will be soon.
*Postscript: NC in comments points out most of the planes used are smaller, which is true, but they’re also impotent against a pyroconvective infero. Plus in a drought especially, Australia just doesn’t have handy Hoover Dams of disposable fresh water to drop on a million hectares of fire. But in true big government style — the DC10’s are so ineffective, we’re getting more of them, due to arrive on Jan 11 and Jan 18, which means, just in time for the rain.
“Cost effective or not, the ABC reports today that such planes are shortly to return. As Talleyrand is said to have remarked about the Bourbons, our leaders forget nothing and learn nothing.”
Underwood doesn’t spare the Federal government either. They were warned too, but they choose to fund knee-jerk “suppression” and “recovery” projects rather than funding prevention and mitigation. I suspect there is a federal government role in carbon accounting which encourages wildfires against prescribed burns. But again, it’s state laws that stop people clearing native vegetation. What Royal Commission would untangle those knotted incentives?
If the Feds were to set up a system where states were encouraged, through targeted funding, to establish effective bushfire management systems (with the emphasis on preparedness and damage mitigation), the eventual outcome would be less money needed for firefighting and post-fire recovery — a bill that these latest fires will likely see run into the billions.
Will those who are really accountable ever be named and shamed or, better still, sacked?
And for the first time — reports of one sensible government:
A final note: this article is specifically directed at the bushfire and land management jurisdictions in Qld, NSW and Victoria. In Western Australia, the penny dropped after the 2016 Yarloop disaster, and our Premier, ministers and public service agencies are now on the right track.
Roger Underwood AOM, spent more than 40 years working in bushfire management in Australia and overseas. He is a former General Manager of CALM in WA (Conservation and Land Management), and bushfire specialist.
Those opposed to hazard reduction burns have found a way out of their dilemma. Hazard reduction was an indigenous practice and therefore must be OK. Problem solved and they to feel good about it as well.
600
Like “welcome to country”, we will now have “cultural burns”.
473
And the Age provides the usual solution:
The Port Arthur analogy is a bit woeful, but certainly referencing the wrong culprit. It’s not climate change, but gross negligence by state governments that is the cause of these massive fires.
580
I should also have noted that this bushfire cycle doesn’t repeat every 10-20 years, but more around every 5-10 years. We had devastating fires in 2003, then 2009 and now 2019.
The cycle is much shorter now since the states stopped proper forest management. Victoristan’s bushfire management went the way of the dinosaur when the Forests Commission was disbanded. And with ever increasing national parks, the situation is exacerbated.
Given that I go bush a lot, I see first hand how the bush starts regenerating almost immediately after the fires are over. By winter there is usually regrowth starting and within two years you often can’t walk through the areas denuded by the fires two years past because the undergrowth is so dense.
651
On the coast, the Glenrock fire of 2013 has two distinct examples of regrowth.
In the valley where tall trees grow, the regrowth below has been gentle and still looks fireproof after six years.
Out on the promontory subject to salt spray the only thing that grows there is scruffy, impenetrable waist high prickly stuff.
It was burnt out too but has regrown and is now ready to go again.
KK
180
It was one,area of bush that didn’t go up on the coast this fireseason. I agree it is ready, especially in the scrub.
70
Further inland, coming out of Millfield on the way to Wollombi, the ridgeline on the left is burnt out and clear of undergrowth.
Whether a preemptive burn or the Corrobare fire coming over, I don’t know, but that early part of the Wollombi valley should be a bit safer for a few years now.
KK
100
And note how some are allowed to protect their properties, but not others:
Only if you’re indigenous can you manage your a property to reduce the risk. Is it possible that white fellas could hire indigenous bush managers to do the same on their properties and not be subject to massive council fines?
391
[SNIP]
The Aboriginal people are not dumbnuts
They know what will happen if there are
No Cultural/Cool/Fuel reduction burns.
The alternative is seeing your home go up in smoke.
Do you really want that ?
[SNIP]
[Campaign for property rights. For less red and green tape, for the freedom to manage risk. – Jo]
80
In moderation even after being snipped !
20
There is an opening there for indigenous fire management firms to take advantage of.
Shame it’s racist land management.
Or — as much as it’s legally possible, some may be able to do the other kind of “cultural management” and identify as indigenous…
190
The ABC has run a programme a couple of times, last year and a few years ago, about cool season burning in the NT. It seems that cool season fires produce less CO2 than hot season fires. An oil drilling company sponsors the programme which employs indigenous people to carry out the burning and claims CO2 credits.
70
Or simply learn from Aboriginal folk who practice ‘cultural burning’
30
Hi Jo
Reckon six generations would pass?
30
In the Bush Jo,
When the fires happen
No one cares about the colour of your skin.
The only thing that matters is can you Help put out the fires
Or Feed the firies !
30
Let me tell you a true story.
The local council (which I work for) was conducting a large scale survey of land over a reserve for an airport extension. There was a stand of trees within the survey area that were considered endangered. The survey team were not even allowed to enter the stand of trees on foot to get ground survey. So what did they do? They hired an aboriginal man to talk in there with the reflector for the survey team. He was allowed to walk in amongst the trees, but the surveyors were not.
We’ve done similar things to get fauna and flora surveys, which are completely non-intrusive. It’s just “you can even go into that area”.
60
The Courts have invented a class of people with extraordinary Rights, and all
levels of Government are happy to play along.
If indigenous Australians had any real leaders, rather than the Astroturf
Leadership created by NewsCorp and they could get ahold of the Megaphone,
they might question what is the Endgame here, and, ah, Cui Bono?
11
Why have Newscorp invented this. It appears to me that a few people from Newscorp are the only ones pushing back on this nonsense.
20
You will have noticed that NewsCorp papers always refer to Pat Dodson as the Father of Reconciliation.
Does anybody know what this term means?
Dodson has an Angry Man persona, but he’s done well in our world without having any obvious ability.
Bess Price is another one.
Her big gripe is Domestic Violence among indigenous Men, which feeds into the Gaslighting of Australian Men generally, but there are reasons why indigenous Men are violent, and those reasons aren’t a million miles removed from indigenous Women.
Then there are the indigenous sportsmen who get involved in the Politics of fingerpointing.
The Australian, in particular, gives these stories wide coverage without ever overtly editorialising on the absolute stupidity of the topic.
So, i’d say, yeah,NewsCorp not only promotes a lot of this fake division, it actually originates it too.
11
You will have noticed that NewsCorp papers always refer to Pat Dodson as the Father of Reconciliation.
Does anybody know what this term means?
Dodson has an Angry Man persona, but he’s done well in our world without having any obvious ability.
Bess Price is another one.
Her big gripe is Domestic Violence among indigenous Men, which feeds into the Gaslighting of Australian Men generally, but there are reasons why indigenous Men are violent, and those reasons aren’t a million miles removed from indigenous Women.
Then there are the indigenous sportsmen who get involved in the Politics of fingerpointing.
The Australian, in particular, gives these stories wide coverage without ever overtly editorialising on the absolute stupidity of the topic.
So, i’d say, yeah,NewsCorp not only promotes a lot of this fake division, it actually originates it too.
11
The option to identify as Indigenous is on all Government Forms, and many in the
Private Sector. Just my opinion, I wouldn’t be identifying even if i did have
indigenous genetic heritage.
Since The Courts have found Native Title exists in most of Australia,
Identification might put a person’s descendants in a dangerous position if the
Dystopian Australia some predict ever becomes reality.
12
One problem that would be faced with such an approach, which is an approach that I would fully endorse. More than a century, of less than optimum fire management has resulted in a changed composition and structure of our forests, woodlands and coastal areas. When I speak of composition I am referring to relative species abundance.
20
Damage Control!
More deception and diversionary tactics.
91
So why should we be embarrassed? At least the PM was out *doing* something.
Oh dear…..how many volunteers slugged their guts out to protect communities so some whingers can sit safely behind
a keyboard , latte in hand, aircon going ( aircon powered by coal too…ooooooo…) ….
https://www.theage.com.au/national/why-it-s-shocking-to-feel-embarrassed-to-be-australian-20200117-p53sen.html
“How good is Australia? Where have we heard that one before … Don’t worry, you’ll be relieved to know that this is not about PM Scott Morrison, politics or anything like that. But with the rough start to the year, we’re the opposite of former PM John Howard’s favourite pose of ”relaxed and comfortable”.
“Like so many Australians, I’ve found myself concerned for those who have been impacted by the fires. And worried for what these unprecedented fires have shown us about the state of our environment. Which then leads you down a rabbit hole on whether our politicians – all of them – can do what needs to be done.
“Not only do they have to outline how we’re going to deal with the threats posed by our warming climate, they also have to restore our faith in them as leaders. Whether they can do either of those things remains to be seen.
“All of that is a lot for us to think about when we’re meant to just be coming out of holiday mode, and these existential threats are on our collective minds. And it’s that exhausting angst that so many have felt over the last few weeks.
50
Sadly, it usually takes several generations and the thinning of the culpable/complicit/submissive generation before real change happens. Even then, the real change isn’t often enough a change for the better, as we have observed over the past three generations. No matter what, hang on because it is going to be a bumpy ride.
110
Should actually read: “Polls suggest that Australians want to take action on climate change as long as it doesn’t cost them anything].
Also as Peter Fitzroy recently pointed out, “A policy is a deliberate system of principles to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes”
that means any policy to reduce emissions should achieve a rational outcome.
And yet, ‘action’ taken so far in Australia has done basically 0 to reduce temperature / ‘cliamte change’ but has cost billions.
that is not ‘rational’.
280
Thinking policies lead to rational outcomes is delusional. Australian politics has generated lot of policies, many of them with ridiculous outcomes. Our treatment of LNG and uranium are classics, as are things like RET.
100
Yes, but my comment is normative for what they should be doing, not what they in fact do.
30
Gross negligence? Not all that gross.
If we had had normal rainfall in November it wouldn’t have been like this.
It isn’t the fuel in the National Parks that burns down houses. That problem belongs to the National Parks. It’s the fuel within 100 metres of the houses that burns down houses. That’s where the negligence counts.
My biggest complaint with the National Parks is that they don’t extinguish remote lightning strikes in the fire danger season.
83
As I’ve said before, there ought to mandatory reasonably wide, maintained no-tree fire-break/buffer zones on the edge of any State Forest of National Park backing onto inhabited areas or farmland
Also, any main road should have 20-30m no-tree well-maintained fire-break/buffer zones either side of the road.
170
I always found it bemusing that when the state builds a dual lane highway they fill up the centre and the verges with eucalypts when deciduous or fire retardant trees could form decent fire breaks. The old pepper tree was often used around homesteads because it is shady, tough as nails and catches embers without catching fire. In hot weather my grandfather would take his bed and mosquito net out under the pepper trees for a “good night’s sleep”.
150
When Marysville burned in 2009, I believe that the European trees provided protection for some. When you look at some of the aerial footage of the post fire situation, houses are gone but the trees are all there.
Sadly, Marysville was surrounded by gums and the embers would have gone everywhere and with all the old timber houses clustered together, it would have been a domino effect.
30
🙂
10
Andy
Are you a surveyor drumming up business? That might need a total resurvey/re-fence of existing land portions – neither of which will inspire joy for affected landholders.
Think of the surveyed width of road reserves. Around here most are “3 chain lanes” – i.e about 60 m (there are even 1.5 chain lanes). Of that about 35 m is required for the road and the landholder can clear 3 m outside the boundary fence – might have to fight tooth and nail for it (though it is better than the previous genius decree of 1.5 m).
Which leaves two strips of about 8 m to do all the wonderful things done by roadside vegetation in terms of preservation etc. And which strips do not abide by length/width requirements mandated of landholders adjacent and which affect clearing of fire breaks on that land.
And getting a permit to burn there requires more than dispensations from both the Pope and Tthe Archbishop of Canterbury.
Obviously biology works better in government hands (/s)
70
Fires permitted to burn in National Parks (because high fuel loads and no access make extinguishing impossible) inevitably come out on a broad front.
Fuel management in the last 100m certainly helps, but to hold Parks guiltless for the previous kilometres of fire is bloody ridiculous.
60
Anyone imagining that future Federal governments will be any more responsible and competent than past State governments, is utterly deluded.
90
Nothing will change until our intellectual geniuses, in all disciplines, rediscover the primacy of reason in studying stuff, instead of the current obsession with claptrap as superior to sense.
30
Universities and government offices are riddled with false flag occupants.
In the past people walked on water and reveled in the unusual atmosphere.
Then eventually the Thames ice melted and it was back to reality.
For us here in the Australia of 2020 the ice seems to be getting thicker.
Not much more to go though: industry is almost non existent;governments are huge, cumbersome blood suckers: electricity prices are taking care of the few remaining shops and offices, and maybe the ice will crack soon.
Good luck Australia, you’re gonna need it!
KK
20
Allen
All too often the model for “advice by remoteness” is that famous book
“How to do it and not get it”, authored by “One who did it, got it and can’t get rid of it”
00
This is the sort of stuff that really annoys me:
Odd? I’ve been going bush for over 40 years, and as I said earlier, I’ve seen this many a time. I have heaps of photographs of such areas in the High Country where there remains nothing but millions of sticks (and they are still there) following a bush fire of this magnitude. But as I said, the seeds start germinating almost immediately and within two years or less, the once burnt land can’t be traversed due to the dense scrub.
90
New company start-up. 😉
220
Heavily subsidised of course 😉
161
That’s exactly what I was thinking. The state government and councils would be virtually powerless to stop such an endeavour. I can see the irony of such a situation: Green ideology vs indigenous tradition. Who will win?
251
Already happening…..
50
” indigenous facilitator for your cultural burn”. Good idea. I’ll check with my indigenous mates about setting something up if they haven’t done so already. (The skills and knowledge are there, and some are busy recording it before it is lost.)
I recall when Queensland Planning laws used to have a category of “relatives apartment” that was even impact-assessable originally. TSI guy walked in, asked for the definition of “relative”, and was told the usual bunk eg just grandparents, children etc. His response? “I have about 300 people who I regard as a relative. Do you have a problem with that? If so, maybe we go and discuss this with the Australian Human Rights Commission?” The term disappeared within weeks. An ancillary dwelling is now included in the definition of a dwelling, and the only proviso is “single household” which is intentionally defined vaguely so can mean anything.
121
“I’ll check with my indigenous mates about setting something up if they haven’t done so already.”
Sweet ! 🙂
Go for it. !
111
Brilliant! I mean what an opportunity throughout Australia were this to happen. Governments would be sent scrambling, Greens’ heads would explode from the cognitive dissonance and something useful might come out at the end.
204
We have a red thumber who doesn’t approve of the idea.
Must be a “greenie” 😉
173
I have my suspicions as to who belongs to that red thumb: ‘Never give brown people an opportunity’.
101
I don’t really care who it is, so long as I keep upsetting it 😀
172
Martin,
Does the acronym TSI mean Torres Strait Islanders?
10
My great grandmother Slavica denied it but she was Aboriginal so I might look into it.
80
I can do a Celtic cultural burn, will that do. The match wont know the diffeence.
110
Wonderful! So the false allegation of Australia “being a racist country” becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy courtesy of Marxist Greens’ policy, enthusiastically implemented by the useful idiots of the Uniparty.
I suppose it at least extinguishes that other urban myth; that Australia is “the clever country” – Yep. Sure we are.
The “lucky country” has become the Land of Stupid.
110
The problem with hazard reduction. Is that at any given time the political/bureaucratic risk of starting any kind of fire, out-weights the risk of doing nothing. A smallish fuel load that can be safely and easily burnt off, can also but easily put out by fire fighters. If! Someone or something, else starts it. The ‘low risk’ burn off still has a cost (that can buy votes else where) and someone will find something to complain about even if it’s just the smoke. The net result is the transition from ‘Not worth worrying about’ to ‘It’s too risky to even try’ is seamless.
230
Thanks Jo !
I read Roger Underwood’s article yesterday on Quadrant
(In between glancing at the flamewar happening here )
It deserves a deep read by a wide audience
Including folk here.
I especially appreciate Underwood’s understanding
Of the way our Federal system of government works.
Constitutionally it is the STATES ALONE
Which are responsible for land management.
NOT the Commonwealth government.
But our ABC & Guardian & Fairfax journalists l
Long ago forgot this.
Though I doubt they ever knew
Being folk who never learned it in school.
But when the State F#CK up managing the bush
AS they have in SA, Vic, NSW & Qld these recent years
It is the Commonwealth that dumbnut journalists blame.
Loudly shrilly demanding that Morrison sort out non existent global warming
To sort out the bush fires.
A complete bunch of loonies !
280
It is a bureaucratic nightmare. Wildfire is fast moving and, in huge fuel load environments, unstoppable in bad weather. The bureaucracy is huge and slow moving, not the thing to be in charge where quick thinking and adaptable planning is required. So, what does a bureaucracy do to balance out the problem? Yep, they move people out of ANY perceived threat area. This eliminates the threat of life lost and bad publicity and gives the media huge swathes of destruction for the nightly news. Winning for the bureaucrats and politicians. Many nights on the nightly news and many hours in front of the 24hr news cycle cameras saying nothing whilst surrounded by bobbleheads and sign language exponents looking like they are jazz handing the feats of these do nothing politicians.
The fight starts immediately after the disaster is over. Trees burnt in these fires are still useable if they are harvested now. Pines need to be harvested and sunk in dams until needed, Eucalypt need the same treatment with continuous sprinklers to reduce splitting. The state forest areas need to be replanted asap. All national parks that have been destroyed must be reappraised as to their need to be “protected”. While the bush is denuded, tracks need to be reopened and cleared. Think of this! Black Spur in Victoria is an icon forest that is loved and protected. It was a burnt wasteland in 1939. Replanted and nurtured. Where was the same love and nurture around Marysville and Lake Mountain? Going forward? Local CFA captains must be regranted their autonomy to act on hazard reduction in their own localities. Local knowledge of fires and conditions is how to fight a real fire when that day comes. Every three years start a regime of reduction burns to keep the litter under control in a planned mosaic. There will be another drought, there will be more hazardous fire days in those droughts. We must put this program into action. A wildfire loses its intensity the second it hits land under reduced fuel load. The Canberra fires are a perfect example. Absolute disastrous fuel loads in a felled pine forest that was left on the ground to rot caused a fire storm to blast its way into the city. where the fire hit land that was burnt three years previous it died.
It is beyond time that our HUMAN environment needs protection from this manufactured ecoloon disaster. We all have a right to be in this landscape. For over a century, the eco-loons have been trying to remove us from the bush. In the 1920s the loons blamed “picnickers” for destruction of the bush, In the 1960’s the loons believed firmly in locking up the bush so that no one could have access…Justifiable that not even one person lays eyes on this landscape in a hundred years knowing that it is safe from human predation…Ultimately, this VNPA belief led to the destruction of Cresta and the total human withdrawl from the south western portion of Philip Island. No tourism venture that requires a privately owned building in a natural setting will survive the onslaught of the various national park associations. These associations are the cause of lobbying and infiltration of the various state departments that instigate the reduction in passive protection furnished by working state forestry and land management, including tracks and hazard reduction by burning and firewood harvesting of fallen timber along roads and tracks. Because of this lobbying the disaster only needs a spark or strategic arsonist match to destroy hundreds of years of growth, millions of animals destroyed…including Koalas. This is why they ALL must be labelled as Koala Killers. Any politician that utters fealty to the climate god, any bureaucrat that manipulates their state or local government department to reflect their personal belief, and lobbyist, protestor or teacher. These people are the real enemies of the environment.
Right now, farmers that have survived the fire are still being prevented from accessing their stock with fodder or transport by the fire bureaucracy. Fear of death from falling limbs is a random event, but enough to stop access. Right now, the 24hr news cycle is protecting the loons and directing attention to the “climate god” and blaming the human society for the destruction of the bush because of our resistance to implement climate policy. The crisis is human manufactured. Millions are now being spent on advertising trying to undo the hysteria of the 24hr news cycle to resuscitate the tourist industry. Compensation in the millions is now being paid to people in evacuation zones for destroying their communities ability to maintain a functional commerce environment. This disaster could easily have been prevented. In all my years I have never seen the level of fear created as now. This fear of weather and the elements is fire and brimstone religious dogma weaponised. It is going to take a lot of us to overcome this hysteria..including a leader with the balls to recognise common sense. Regretfully, Scott Morrison is not that man.
480
Well said Mark….totally agree..
110
This is a very good and important comment Mark Jones.
120
Yep. I hope more read this and pass it on. The state forest and Bob Carr NP around me will only be good for forestry and it’s unlikely to be prime forestry. It’s thin, very steep in parts, with narrow and awkward gullies (my land having the last good creek flat). Some pine and blackbutt plantations do okay, and after years of closure there are probably some nice wild timbers worth taking. It needs people, activity and exploitation, much as described by Mark. Won’t be anyone’s goldmine but break-even is better than fires and ferals.
Maybe they could agenderize us off our land and let it all become fire-prone regrowth stretching to the Macleay. And when that plan turns out to be a mess they can burn the town, I guess. Certainly, nobody has ever called Kempsey a smart city. (Think that’s why I like the old place.)
90
Although Scott Morrison had no direct constitutional responsibility for the fires and after stating that “it is to early to apportion blame” he is now running scared of the media and the Green Blob and already talking about “adjusting our CO2 targets” as long as it “does not affect our economy”. What senseless double speak. I voted for his party but I never forgave him for twice acting sneakily during PM spills (the first making sure his team voted against Abbott while he voted ostentatiously for Abbot and the second when he stood back and “supported Turnbull” until Dutton shot his bolt and then stepped in and took the prize). I would not trust Morrison as far as I could throw him, and he is getting fatter daily!
21
Does “hazard reduction” include getting rid of certain politicians and public servants?
20
One criticism of this article. Most aerial firefighting uses smaller more maneuverable aircraft for fire spotting and target allocation. These are even used in directing helicopters and smaller firefighting aircraft.
90
Yes, that’s true though they are also futile and we have discussed those too in earlier articles. Will add note. Ta.
161
Around here the smaller planes, and the choppers played just as important role as the large bombers.
(1) they have infrared which allows them to jump on spot fires
(2) The fire controller uses one which gives both a situation overview and a way of directing assets (both air and ground)
(3) The combination of GPS and laser units provide the larger planes with accurate target information (those big planes use computers to manage their bomb run)
(4) small planes use the local rivers lakes to refill (these are floatplanes), and were averaging round trips of about 10 minutes between the Camden and Lake Cathie
(5) choppers can reload even closer, using the duchess creek sewage treatment plant, and lake Innes, also managing 10 minutes between fires.
So futility is in the eye of the beholder, certainly those smaller planes and choppers have kept the 2 peat fires under control for the last 3 months (they breakout every week or so), hopefully the rain will help
66
First, I am a licensed pilot (Commercial, Instrument, Multi-engine; about 11,000 hours PIC) and a licensed Geophysicist, in the State of Wyoming.
As to firefighting: depending on the size of the fire, and in the mountain West of the US, the smaller type of aircraft (usually some form of Cessna AgTruck, often with Pratt & Whitney PT-6 engines) are more maneuverable, even though the load they are able to drop is very small. They can get into those ‘tight’ areas, and make a better hit than larger aircraft.
Just a very few years ago, on the north face of Casper Mountain, a relatively large fire was out of control, so the DC-10/MD-11 was brought in. To assist with slurry placement, a small single-engine turbo-prop would lead the 10/11 onto the drop (the small plane was near its maximum speed, while the jet was flying close to its stalling speed, often with full-flaps, making downhill runs at the fire). There were some phenomenal pictures, both amateur and professional, of the whole event. We were fortunate that the US Forest Service had established a Regional base (as they do every year) at the Casper airport, and it had the resources to attack (and eventually knock down) the Casper Mountain fire.
Also, I had a trip that required me to stop for fuel at Twin Falls, Idaho, one fire season. There were several squadrons of the single-engine turbo-props doing the fire fighting, there in southern Idaho. The advantage of the smaller aircraft is that they could make about ten take-off, attack, landing cycles, on a single fuel-up. The 10/11, on the other hand, could easily take an hour to fill with slurry (or even just plain water), even at firehose delivery rates.
As has been pointed out in the several articles here, dealing with the bushfires, the problem is based on fuel-load and the warmunist prohibitions for reasonable land management. Once you get the situation that brought about this season’s conflagration, it does not matter WHAT or HOW MUCH fire-fighting equipment you have, the fires will just keep going.
At least up here, outside of the People’s Republic of Californiastan, we have Federal, State, and Local governmental officials who understand that thinning, fuel load reduction, management, and other wise and good practices, are the best fire-fighting tools to have.
May those Down Under gain the same type of decent government officials, and SOON!!!!!
520
At first I thought you were Blancolirio, but he’s in California.
61
That red thumb owner must also hate Americans.
42
I do wonder about the downdraft wake-turbulence effects on the ground one or two minutes after the passage of a heavy jet full of water, with full-flaps and a high AOA. If they’re @ ~1,000 ft I’d imagine the downdraft is going to be strongly fanning flame as soon it falls nearer to the ground. At least with the lighter aircraft, at ~160 kt, the risk of this fanning effect is almost non-existent.
Plus the falling water itself probably rapidly drags the wake turbulence down to the ground with it on release. Do the areas either side get relatively fanned by strong wake-turbulence falling air while directly under the path gets suppressed, but only where the water spray plume impacts? It may be the case that a heavier jets dropping water don’t provide net benefits in some fire conditions and terrains. I suppose specialist heavy-jet pilots are aware of that and try to minimize the effects of wake turbulence on the ground, but there’s only so high you can fly before the load is blown off target, or dissipates too less effective levels of application.
80
I do NOT know it for a fact, but I believe there is better dispersal of the retardant with some flap. I only know that the small guide plane topped out at about 160 knots, and a fully-loaded MD-10 or 11 is near ‘stick shaker’ at 140 knots.
I can also relate the time that I was birddog on a seismic crew in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming. Unless something has changed, this is an area that B-52’s will do low-level ‘practice’ bombing runs, and by low level, I am referring to cruise speed (>400 knots) at 50 – 75 metres above the ground. On this one occasion, we had no idea the -52 was coming, until literally it was right on top of us, and right after it passed over, we felt the whooooosh! of the downwash from the wings.
Of course we all cheered, and reveled in the USAF working to keep us safe. I observed that the aircraft was in its “clean” or cruise configuration (as it departed our location), so my best guess is that some measure of flap on a slurry run will aide in putting retardant on flame.
It is also true that there is a maximum altitude from which a load can be dropped, which is why the 10/11 working the Casper Mountain fire was trying to attack from the “uphill” side, to the “downhill” side, so there would be no panic “pull up” trying to avoid terrain. The spotter plane is often in a much better position to determine the proper attack location than the heavy aircrew. As I understand it, the spotter pilot has to be the more experienced of the two crews, to understand the needs of the large aircraft drivers. I watched a show, many years ago, about how much these guys practice during the “off” season (winter), to make sure they’re ready for fire season.
Hope that helps,
Vlad
170
Thanks for the insight Vlad.
60
Deplorable Vlad,
Thanks for the report.
We live near (2.5 mi.) where a fire burned a few years ago.
Search “images” with the string – –
Snag Canyon Fire
A few of those photos were taken from where our driveway meets the county road, while most are a little more distant.
All the types of equipment can be seen in those photos, including a DC10. Re-supply for that one was 60 miles east. Helicopters dip locally; small planes use the Columbia River 22 miles east.
The big plane came from the east, and over our place turned and dropped about 3 miles away on a ridge. It then circled and dropped retardant twice more, then headed back to Moses Lake airport.
“ it does not matter WHAT or HOW MUCH fire-fighting equipment you have, the fires will just keep going.”
The action we could see was meant to prevent the fire from going in a new direction. Where we are, they kept it up on the hills, and let it go.
60
Do you have an opinion on his Vlad? https://volunteerfirefighters.org.au/water-bombing-and-magic-bullets
60
I would have to mostly agree: it can be useful as an adjunct for smaller burns that have potential to go out of control and turn into deadly, property-destroying maelstroms, but for the type of fire that plagued the east coast of late, you’re better off just having the fire crew people, … … … um, … … … … ‘relieve’ themselves on the flames. The only reason the DC-10 was effective on the fire we had on Casper Mountain was because it was a small-ish fire, was being attacked night and day by ground crew, and had some of the smaller single-engine jobs doing guerilla attacks on the fringe. With the long turn-around time for the -10, when it did one of its large drops, crew had been evacuated from the drop area in advance, the spotter plane had the route in and out mapped perfectly, and the down-hill nature of the bombing run was able to be done from about 100 – 150 metres, so the vast majority of the hit was large volumes of liquid water, not droplets. It still took the -10 just over a week to finally knock the fire down to the point that helicopters and the single-engine tankers, with aggressive ground attack, could finally wipe out the fire.
By the way, the fire was started by lightning, from one of Wyoming’s famous summer dry thunderstorms, that proliferate in August. I had never seen such a profusion of dry thundersprinkles, until I moved to Casper; now I wonder about a storm that produces rain, along with the light and sound show.
60
To our astonishment we watched a 737 or similar circle our property in the Nandewar Ranges at lower than 1000meters and then back on a SE course. One of those WTF moments you get. Nothing observed in effect. Waste comes to mind.
120
Chopper pilots will tell you that they are good for spot fires in difficult terrain but for these broad-scale fires they are largely an expensive waste of time but they like the work. The DC10 tanker is good at laying a retardant line ahead of an approaching fire so that ground crews have a chance of stopping the fire reaching a line of buildings but as a general fire fighting measure they are too expensive and partial.
We saw the effects of retardant bombing of the actual fire front. Some evaporates prior to reaching the ground and then the fire subsides for a minute before picking back up to where is was.
During the 2013 Blue Mtn fire we had our RFS captain up in a chopper for a short time. He was able to see where the fire was tracking and we were then better directed to work together on the ground. Timing is everything so an eye in the sky is really useful and cost effective. After our successful operation Fire Control effectively kicked him out.
Aerial attack might garner public support and make the white-shirts feel important but like it or not, the pointy end of the operation is best directed by experienced people within eye-sight of the flames who are familiar with that particular terrain.
230
Exactly! Local knowledge is ignored.
120
This opinion is worth considering. Water bombers are a waste of money in his experience and opinion https://volunteerfirefighters.org.au/water-bombing-and-magic-bullets
50
I was told yesterday by the wife of a Gippsland Victoria bushfire volunteer that the massive fire that resulted from the merging of three fires could have been avoided if the CFA Headquarters bureaucrats had granted permission to volunteer units in the bushfires area to use local bulldozers to cut a firebreak.
Apparently they were told to wait and see what happens.
I wonder if this is another example of greenism, sustainability, UN Agenda 30?
570
Wait and see what happens? That’s a great strategy, NOT.
They were hoping for rain, maybe?
Sounds like Obama’s “Hope and Change.” How well did that work out for them? I remember yelling at the television saying Ask him what he hopes for? What is he going to change? But no, nobody asked…
211
No bureaucrat has ever had their career affected in anyway….By NOT making a decision.
The art of bureaucratic advancement is to avoid having your name attached to any decision.
Hence their need for committees. If no one person ever makes a decision no one ever has to take responsibility.
470
Very well said. “Government decision maker” is an oxymoron.
300
Change the rules. Fire the top personnel or fire the entire committee. There will be squawks but you may only have to do it once or twice. Point out to the gutless (or guilty) politicians that it is only the bureaucrats or they will have to take the blame and resign.
191
That is exactly right. The way to advance in government is to not make any mistakes. The easiest way to not make a mistake is not to do anything.
10
Looks to me like no-one was prepared to make an urgent decision!
110
‘fraid of the media.
70
They would be afraid of being prosecuted. There are laws around the clearing of vegetation and they usually have no exemptions. Ordering the illegal clearing of such can end up with you in jail.
00
By doing nothing they certainly ensured the vegetation would be cleared! In an emergency like this no-one would be prosecuted.
00
When the consequences of making a unilateral decision may be Loss of Job, heavy fines +
imprisonment, then the wise choice is to follow the Rules and survive.
61
Once State Governments take over functions that were previously Local Government responsibilities
or Autonomous, we’ve been seeing these failures to grant Official Permission causing Floods and
Bushfires.
Which the People With The Megaphone then blame on Federal Government failure to
act on ” Climate Change”.
Either coincidences happen in Australia much more regularly than elsewhere, or
there’s a pattern there.
132
Coincidences happen in nature, but in politics its more a pattern than coincidence.
80
Any examples?
We know that those huge Fires weren’t caused by a coincidence of Dry Lightning Strikes at just the right time and in just the right place.
Those huge Fires were Arson, even the Megaphone has acknowledged that, so let’s not backtrack.
52
yeah but with a small amount of fuel to burn ( compared to the large amount that was there ), would have been a lot lot worse.
41
Sorry….what I’m trying to say is fuel affects fire ferocity.
Less fuel, less fire.
81
Okay, soMetropolitan if Arsonists were lighting fires in the suburbs,
would the issue be fuel loads in the suburbs, or
would it be the Arsonists?
23
Well a fire coukd be as easily started by sun passing through a bit of busted glass in the grass…but once its going, fuel will be the issue….
31
Okay, its hardly a coincidence that arsonists are to blame for starting 80% of this season’s bushfires. Its a pattern going back to the dreamtime, when fire was also considered a weapon.
60
I want to make it clear that i’m not trying to verbal you here, but:
Are you in any way suggesting, inferring, or implying that the Arsonists to
blame for the recent bushfires were indigenous Australians?
Because that’s the way your comment reads.
26
No, they have more respect for the land. I was referring to clan skirmishes as witnessed by the First Fleet officers.
60
El gordo says:
So,hatband, you now accept that not all bushfires were a result of arson?
51
I prefer to look on the bright side.
You’ve now conceded that 80% of the fires were lit by Arsonists.
Let’s get to work on convincing you about the other 20%,
25
I understand your objective, trilby.
Yes 80% but half of those were accidental according to the records.
You really would like somebody here to agree with your nonsense I know. But we didn’t all come down in the last shower.
It’s pretty clear what you’re trying to achieve. But I’m not buying, thank you.
Mischief makers are two-bob a dozen. This blog has a history of dealing with reality and rejecting those who persist in talking through their hats. Banded or not.
32
‘Let’s get to work on convincing you about the other 20%.’
Accidental ignitions through carelessness, downed power lines and dry lightning.
41
So who’s really to blame here?
In 2010 Bob Brown led the Australian Greens with the ALP which allowed Prime Minister Julia Gillard to form government.
As a result of this the Greens gained the balance of power and signed the Native Forest Protection Act.
Which defunded National park Rangers and Control Burns Programs.
No bad decisions are made by themselves, a series of unholy thoughts go into a truly stupid act.
260
The plot thickens.
50
The question is who enables the Left to become the rulemakers…and has total control of public perception of blame in the event of adverse outcomes….LW journalists and the ABC.
Re saving lives…civil disobedience re large fire breaks could help save some homes but it doesn’t help in areas where the only escape routes are a sinister death funnel….tall trees and fuel right up to the edge of the narrow roads on either side…. removal of even that fuel not permitted-in fact prohibited.
It also doesn’t help when city residential blocks near national parks are dominated by massive gum trees that shower everything over a wide radius with leaves and debris 24/7…trees that are protected by local Council by-laws….regardless of danger to children…their removal carrying fines that would ruin many residents.
I can’t think of any part of this horror that can’t be traced back to the almost total capture of every institution by the Left including now the LNP Left.
That situation over-arches everything that’s now tearing Australia down …and the core strategy for it…the LW capture of all levels of education and communication…is enabled and deployed by the LW journalists who hold Australia hostage because they can make or break literally anyone of influence they want gone….including and especially elected MPs and PMs.
IMO the Royal Commission that Morrison foreshadows will also be captured by the Left…regardless of the calibre of the eminent person chosen to head it… as all other RCs have been captured in the end…once the ABC and the rest of the LW journalists plus the unions have their way with them…running interference in their various roles…defaming and disembowelling the eminent person should he/she happen to be too diligent or in other ways unacceptable to the Left.
The ABC’s already preparing in the way the Left always does…’losing’ vital data …burying alternative facts…deciding which experts and scientists will be heard and which experts will be sidelined and blacklisted…to ensure the RC will conclude that climate change and the conservatives’ refusal to sell Australia out to the noble cause of Global Socialism on the back of it….is to blame for the fuel…the fires…the loss…the deaths.
Conservatives will be blamed…for their refusal to cripple Australia as no other 1st world nation will be crippled…their refusal to destroy Australia as a free and prosperous country for the extent of the whole lives of anyone alive now…on the strength of an hypothesis that was declared closed to all questioning and alternative views and research…before any of the most vital research was even done.
The Left considers the scientific issue that’s being used to destroy Australia..and herd the world into Global Socialism… although the most apocalyptic issue of our time….is on the other hand not important enough for all scientific research and findings to be considered…because some scientists like Peter Ridd and numerous other eminent scientists worldwide are just not far enough to the Left to be heard.
Television’s the KEY IMO-and ABC should not be …as it is…a billion dollar extortion and propagandist org…whose employees militantly hold a country hostage.
It should be a news org only…not opinion… and should be held to account to ensure Australians get all news on its channels …not just news filtered and laundered by its all-Left employees…and should be scrutinized on any biased presentation of it….either that or abolish it.
251
That’s a great piece there Truth.
KK
70
Your city fringe comment is something that many city dwellers dont see, they think they are safe because they are nominally in the suburbs. We visited friends in Eltham recently , a leafy outer suburb of Melbourne. They are at far greater risk than we are are , surrounded by gum trees as far as you can see, plenty of ground fuel, and very limited access via narrow streets.
50
Someone commented that ecalypt leaf litter had the same BTU value as brown coal…so no wonder it burns hot….
30
truth,
That all sounds reasonable enough, but it’s incomplete without a definition of exactly what “the Left” means. E.g. substitute “bad”, “baddies”, etc., for “Left” and the comment still seems reasonable enough.
It’s your comment, but I think an appropriate definition might be “boosters of big government”. Seems to cover the assorted pollies and other culprits you mentioned.
Here’s the thing though: quite a few commenters say they hope the government will sort it out (Royal Commission, etc.). That’s just asking for more of what’s causing the problem.
10
Sorry, I cant find this “Native Forest Protection Act” anywhere..
How do we get it repealed when i cant find a single reference to it anywhere. Austii says its a Bill rather then an ACT which means its not yet legally binding.
00
CFA Heaquarters in Melbourne
Bairnsdale is 300 ks away.
The fires were another 100-140 ks from Bairnsdale
But of course the CFA frackwits in Melbourne
Knew what was best !
( Courtesy of Labor premier Andrews utter stupidity )
170
Some were a lot nearer to Bairnsdale Bill, like Sarsfield, Bruthen and Mossiface and Nowa Nowa. We hope to head down to that area shortly, all being well.
Of course, Mallacoota is a lot further East.
30
Gosh, the moderation bug has hit me!
It must be the thunderstorm that’s going on atm, with plenty of rain, thank goodness.
50
Annie I know Sarsfield, Bruthen & Clifton Creek.
Friends came close to being burned out there.
With power & phone towers & lines down
It took a week to find out if they had survived.
But the fire where locals ‘requested’ that private local dozers
be brought in to do the job of making fire breaks
Wa further away up in the country
Between Gelantipy & Omeo.
And that is ~ 140 ks from Bairnsdale..
20
Just on a positive note…
Anything old that even looks made of solid timber gets snapped up these days. People know. Chipboard and plastic are used universally, even on expensive fits, but they are inferior.
One job of my youth was to deliver hardware supplies to furniture manufacturers scattered about Sydney’s south and west. There were a lot of them surviving into the late 70s and early 80s and many made furniture of very high quality. Parker and Jackson were well known, but there were others. I still sit on a Parker lounge and it faces a big entertainment unit made by Cumbers. My kitchen was re-made a while back by a friend using weathered old timbers lying in a neighbour’s paddock. He retrieves old doors from Qld which are made from superb lumps of silky oak and hoop pine. I have three of them and nothing compares. They’re good for another century at least.
So why the disconnect between supply and demand? Even plantation timbers can be great and everyone screams for solid wood product. When my friend successfully tendered for the demolished Crescent Head toilet block he arrived to find it bulldozed. When Burnt Bridge’s actual bridge was dismantled a few years ago the superb Macleay timbers (imagine the quality) were just piled and burnt. Where’s the respect?
Okay, all those old carpentry businesses disappeared not just because of chipboard and veneer. Reasonable quality imports also hit them. But a friend of mine recently made a kitchen for another friend using local silky oak for the benches. Wow. It’s hard to stop staring at it. Yet silky oak is a bit of a weed in these parts, if truth be told.
Okay, you need a thirty to fifty years time frame with maintenance and no return till harvest. Also, plantation timbers, even natives in plantation like blackbutt and silky oak, don’t have the romance of wild stuff. But it’s all good if it’s wood and something has to be done with marginal country. There are still prime wild timbers which can be taken. Bloodwood is superb for burning. And you also need wood chip, however unromantic.
So it’s time we stopped thinking of “wilderness” and exclusion and started replacing “green” with actual conservation. Bring back the human with his untidy and flawed ways. Human management beats fire and ferals. No. Really. I’ve just had a scary reminder along my east boundary.
Also, we need to do the opposite of what the globsters and cathedral burners want. Just on principle. Thwart a globalist today.
450
I had solid timber kitchen bench tops in my Queensland home and now the new kitchen of two years ago has solid timber bench tops, my son is a builder.
100
I renovated a few years ago and opted for timber. The cabinet maker told me I could almost get marble for that price, but I preferred timber. Much more welcoming.
90
moso2, at the risk of moderation, may I rephrase:
“Twat a globalist today”.
30
There is a furniture maker based in Cann River,Victoria using local hardwoods. They are mentioned on this Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/282672398794756/posts/silvertop-furnishingsproduced-in-cann-river-from-solid-australian-hardwood-timbe/486405088421485/
Their website appears to be not working. There were still operating late last year when I drove through Cann River as I admired the table and chairs in a little cafe and was told they were made locally by Sivertop Furnishings.
This is robust, sculptured furniture using beautiful Victorian Silvertop Ash hardwood.
Cann River was in the middle of the fires and became isolated. I expect the town is in recovery now.
70
Interesting Ric that he was using silver top gum tree wood for furniture.
I’m glad that it is good for that!
t is not good fire wood I know having tried it.
In many parts of Far East Gippsland ( Eg Cann River )
It is( was ? ) grown only for the export chipping market.
Via Eden in NSW. – Yes the site which burned just over 2 weeks ago !
And Blackwood ( Acacia Melanoxyen) superb furniture timber.
The craftsmen working it do need to be careful though.
The Blackwood wood dust damages the lungs.
So a helmet & face mask with a battery operated fan
To provide fresh dust free air, is essential.
70
A lot of timber dusts are quite toxic because in that form their component chemicals are readily transferred to the bloodstream if inhaled. The Wood Turners Guild put out a pamphlet listing the known effects of many timber dusts and the list was extensive, as were the effects, some very nasty.
I used to almost choke on Red Cedar dust when my father was wood-turning. I became hyper-sensitised and only had to walk in the vicinity to become effected.
Folks think that natural products are harmless because they are natural. It ain’t so.
110
Trees & Timbers which last hundreds of years
Do so for a reason.
There are chemicals in the wood
Preventing termites or bacteria or fungi eating the wood.
But those chemicals are often also poison to us.
60
Yes, but not only long-lived plants. If you grab a vet science textbook you will find that most plants are toxic to some degree and under certain conditions — even plants that we commonly eat like passionfruit, potatoes, tomatoes etc.
The sorghum family of grasses is particularly toxic, producing the pre-curser to cyanide in all green parts of the plant. It is deadly if eaten at the wrong stage. A sorghum leaf can kill a munching grub within seconds, yet half of Africa eats sorghum grain as its staple diet.
No plant likes to be eaten.
60
Yep.
The sooner we give the rabbit food a miss and transition to an all meat diet, the better off we will be.
If our ancestors from even 200 years ago could speak to us, they’d be shakin thar haids over us munching away on birdseed and rabbit food, when we’re perched on 2,000,000 Sq. Miles of potentially magnifcent cattle pasture.
44
Rhubarb!
41
KK, are you saying rhubarb likes to be eaten??
That would be ironic, wouldn’t it.
The only plant no-one wants to eat anyway !! 🙂
30
My grandmother told us that rhubarb couldn’t be eaten raw.
And personally when I had to eat it there had to be apple cooked with it.
Or am I getting mixed up.
30
And rhubarb to you too KK.
You youngsters — it’s hard to like, keep up with your teen slang, dude.
Seriously, it’s mainly the leaves and roots of rhubarb that are poisonous. They use a rhubarb leaf solution as an organic insecticide. No idea if it works. Rhubarb contains a lot of oxalates that knock your kidneys around if you over-indulge, plus it has other unknown toxins. Anything with massive juicy leaves like that is going to protect them with some nasty little chemicals.
Then there’s Ricinus communis from the seeds of which we get 2 wonderful products: castor oil for alleged health benefits and ricin for genocidal maniacs to wipe out populations with. In addition, it’s a bloody weed that comes up all over the Hunter Valley and elsewhere on wasteland. What a wonderful plant. In its defence, castor oil does make the best lathering soap of all though and the oil is as dear as poison to buy — $30 to $40/litre.
10
Thanks for that update Beowulf, the words I was looking for were oxalic acid and leaf.
Gottit.
00
Out here you be very wary of getting mulga wood splinters in you.
And if you do best to get them out pronto.
Also interesting that various scars I have from near misses chainsawing mulga for fodder have all healed up white – as opposed to numerous other scars from a long career of various things.
Presumably from the sap but I’m not aiming to be part of any replication trials
50
Thanks Ian. Nothing about it in my botanical/forestry texts, but I found this for mulga on the wood database:
Reaction — irritant, headache, nausea, lesions, wood contains a virulent poisonous principle used for spear heads by ab***ginals
https://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/wood-allergies-and-toxicity/
It’s probably an alkaloid, so it could be anything.
Had any rain out your way yet?
20
Enough to hope that we’ve had “the end of the beginning”. Water situation not fixed but better and a start to greening up but that will need follow-up. So I can’t park the dozer just yet.
Still better than last week though.
30
Right you are.
I cut some kiln dried Hemlock-Fir and the dust from it like to have killed me.
They don’t call it Hemlock for nothing.
Cheaper and faster to grow than Douglas Fir, but boy does it have a downside.
10
Text?
dangers to lives and health ?
or
dangers to life and health ?
50
It reads ok to me; Lives generally refers to human lives. Life of course is all life. Both would be correct in context. Same with health, it generally refers to human health, not animal health, it’s a bit clunky but it works also. My 2c for a Sunday 🙂
60
Yes. The original was “live” which didn’t seem to fit.
40
as long as I know what you mean I dont worry too much, especially on the Interwebs
50
‘The bushfire crisis has captured the attention of Australians more than any other news event in the past decade, according to an analysis of Google searches.’ ABC
A Royal Commission is imperative and I demand to see climate change in the terms of reference.
90
Climate change must be included if for no other reason than to force climate change emergency politics out into the open.
The more I am hearing the more convinced I am that Australians will not put up with a whitewash.
170
sure put AGW on there, add a few regressive commissioners, sprinkle on some virtue signalling and there will be another few billion wasted.
you can be sure though that should a royal commission recommend assorted useless green initiatives, they will some of few commission outcomes that are followed through with great vigor.
how many bushfire commissions do we need really? there will ne no new news. There will be recommendations that will be ignored or diluted over time or blocked by greenie councils through bureaucracy and delay. Then the very same councils and activists will bleat as their own regions burn.
without radical change I dont see an end , or at least a better managed approach, to this rinse and repeat cycle.
90
The RC would give us a quasi judicial environment to destroy any public perception that this drought and fire season were unprecedented and caused by AGW.
Of course, if its a whitewash then we are residents of a failed state.
80
I think your last thought there more likely describes the outcome of a RC, El Gordo.
While we have a PM who banned Craig Kelly from appearing on a Q&A program that focused on climate change…when Kelly was prepared to present facts and evidence that make a strong case against CAGW…and dispatched one of his fellow Photios footsoldiers to spruik the ‘we accept the science’ and ‘we will meet our Paris obligations’ line instead…this government with its cabinet full of Photios footsoldiers…. offers no hope for the truth to be revealed…IMO.
Photios…Canberra lobbyist and godfather of the NSW Liberal Left…hater of Tony Abbott and conservatives…is militantly pro-CAGW and the sell-out to the Paris diktat….apparently an admirer and acolyte of GetUp…Gore and Naomi Klein….as Morrison probably is too.
80
Perhaps we should be looking deeper, at Craig Kelly’s preselection he was going to be rolled, but Morrison intervened to save him. Why?
The PM doesn’t have the appearance of a charismatic leader, capable of serving three terms. I see the RC as his Trojan Horse.
20
I have no doubt that Morrison would have preferred Kent Johns ..the Photios candidate…be preselected for Craig Kelly’s seat…and he allowed speculation that Kelly was gone to continue for many months…but in the end he backed Kelly…IMO because if he hadn’t done so it would have been too clear a sign that Photios was pulling the strings.
It was Morrison who delivered the Photios faction and the numbers for Turnbull’s coup to oust Tony Abbott in 2015…and no one displayed more triumphalism than Photios when he was interviewed by SKY on election night or the day after about Morrison’s ‘miracle’ win.
I voted Liberal as I always have done… in spite of Morrison…thinking there was a chance he would end the ‘transition’ or at least facilitate the building of HELE coal plants for a stable reliable system….but I don’t think he has the ticker for telling the world that he’s not going to be dictated to by international bodies and will only do what’s best for Australia…especially when their officials have admitted they’re about rejigging of geopolitics for wealth redistribution…not for the environment.
IMO his attempts to project a smug certainty about everything mask weakness…hope I’m wrong.
60
Good insight and if correct then our democracy is a sham.
Lets pretend he thinks like us and needs a Royal Commission to make a decisive breakthrough. We have proof that elevated levels of CO2 didn’t cause this robust bushfire season or the drought which preceded it, so can we have our Hele now?
10
I wonder if Australian politicians have reached peak stupid yet or will it take a few more year?
Sitting here in the UK, it is very sad watching the troubles you have and how the modern techniques have made life much worse for you all.
It feels like climate realism is about to sneak out into the open but it is struggling to do so with so many parties ( MSM etc) lined up against it.
Fingers crossed that change is coming because all countries in the world are infected with the political stupid gene
220
Here in the land of droughts, heatwaves, bushfires and flooding rains here again now.
Mother Nature is uncontrollable.
70
And isn’t she demonstrating that now….showing us this is Australia as it always has been.
First Australia does drought…then it does the ‘flooding rains’…and on cue it’s just done both….could not be more familiar to anyone who has grown up in OZ.
70
A part of this famous poem, written in 1908
“I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me!”
141
Pure propaganda.
Was Dorothea Mackellar funded by Government in her day? Course she was.
The landscape she eulogises is as ugly as, any fule can see that.
121
Go back to Kiwi land Hatband !
Or migrate there !
You are Not wanted in Australia !
93
Huh?
Explain how that poet was govt funded?
This playwright appeared to get funding for “Kill the climate deniers” play…
https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-01/climate-change-play-draws-fierce-criticism-from-bolt,-opposition/5782798
“An ACT Government-commissioned play depicting a siege of Parliament House by a group of eco-terrorists has been criticised by conservative commentator Andrew Bolt and the Opposition.
“The ACT Arts Minister set aside $19,000 for the production of the satirical play Kill Climate Deniers, produced by the Aspen Island Theatre Company.
“”What sane government donates to a project urging others to kill fellow citizens, even as a ‘joke’? Are these people mad?” Mr Bolt wrote in his blog.
“The ACT Opposition’s Brendan Smyth said the decision was inappropriate, and showed appalling judgment.
“”What we need at a time of uncertainty is a minister who’s there to promote tolerance, who’s there to promote inclusion,” he said.
“”Not to fund, with taxpayers’ money, a group to put on a play called Kill Climate Deniers.”
92
She was a child of unimaginable privilege, who rarely ventured out of Sydney’s
Eastern Suburbs in her life, apart from commissioning a grand home on the
Pittwater which is only reachable by boat
Independently wealthy, she self published all her stuff, and gave writing a miss after 1926.
Her old man was Sir Charles Mackellar, sometime Cabinet Minister, Senator, and Member of the New South Wales Legislative Council for 40 years, as well as being a Director of the Bank of N.S.W. and a prominent Company Director.
Here’s the family house at Point Piper:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothea_Mackellar#/media/File:(1)Dunara.jpg
Conclusion: If her old man had been Nobby MacKellar, Council Garbo, would anyone ever had heard of her silly poem?
012
Such ignorance all resident in one individual is a very rare phenomenon.
Dorothea Mackellar had a love of the bush. She lived for a time on a property on the Liverpool Plains – near Gunnedah. Yep, that town now subject to flooding as Jo points out in an earlier post.
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/01/panic-now-drought-breaking-rains-could-raise-emissions-one-drought-was-twice-as-good-as-all-those-renewables/
101
Gunnedah and Dorothea Mackeller.
Here hatband, let me do your homework for you:
Located in Anzac Park, the bronze, life-sized Dorothea Mackellar Memorial Statue acknowledges this famous Australian Poet’s connection to the Gunnedah district.
Author of ‘My Country’, Dorothea Mackellar was said to be inspired by her love of the country, particularly her experiences in the Gunnedah district. Dorothea is shown sitting side-saddle on her horse, looking out in the distance towards her family properties, ‘Kurrumbede’ and ‘The Rampadells’.
The Maas Walk winds it’s way to the Dorothea Mackellar statue and was named in memory of the Dorothea Mackellar Memorial Society founder, Mient Je (Mikkie) Maas OAM. The Walk features two of Dorothea’s poems ‘Dawn’ and ‘Burning Off’, set amongst native floral plantings.
Burning Off
They’re burning off at the Rampadells,
The tawny flames uprise,
With greedy licking around the trees;
The fierce breath sears our eyes.
From cores already grown furnace-hot –
The logs are well alight!
We fling more wood where the flameless heart
Is throbbing red and white.
The fire bites deep in that beating heart,
The creamy smoke-wreaths ooze
From cracks and knot-holes along the trunk
To melt in greys and blues.
The young horned moon has gone from the sky,
And night has settled down;
A red glare shows from the Rampadells,
Grim as a burning town.
Full seven fathoms above the rest
A tree stands, great and old,
A red-hot column whence fly the sparks,
One ceaseless shower of gold.
All hail the king of the fire before
He sway and crack and crash
To earth – for surely tomorrow’s sun
Will see him white fine ash.
The king in his robe of falling stars,
No trace shall leave behind,
And where he stood with his silent court,
The wheat shall bow to the wind.
Dorothea Mackellar
141
Hatband I suggested you bugger off to Kiwiland earlier today.
The I was jesting
Now I am not
You have not been here long
But you’ve displayed extraordinary ignorance, stupidity and insensitivity.
Go bugger off to Kiwi land
Find some other folk there to bug.
32
Bill:
Thank you NOT. Direct him to Antarctica rather than my country.
Put him on ice.
I, for one, am neither enamored of nor impressed by his iconoclasm.
Anywhere else in the world — including Oz, but not here. The last
Aussie `refugee’ we tangled with shot 54 of our citizens just over
a year ago and is still highly unpopular.
Why don’t you `invite’ him to walk to Birdsville?
31
Which part of the poem do you so viciously hate Hatband…is it incorrect in its description of an Australia that every conscious Australian or visitor here could not fail to recognise ….or do you hate it because ordinary …not particularly privileged Australians love the poem and the country?
Or is it just that you don’t think a rich woman had the right to tell Europe …England in particular …why Australians could love a country so different from the ‘fields and coppice’ of theirs [and yours]…that she had no right to have her expression of that published.
I think if it had blown away from the privileged MacKellar garden and been found in a gutter…that particular poem would have resonated with the Australian who found it and with any subsequent readers of it…as it has with generation after generation of Australians since.
It’s your jaundiced view that hopefully doesn’t cut it with Australians who care about this country.
101
Here’s what really happened:
Bolshevism was big when that ”poem” was written, and it was big in Australia.
Mrs. Lawson’s little boy Henry got a leg up and was heavily promoted, despite writing doggerel and agitprop his whole life.
Hans Heysen, the gum tree painter, was another one.
Mary Gilmore was another one, then there was Dorothea Mackellar.
The thing they all had in common was that their ”art” was ugly.
Which perfectly suited the Bolsheviks, who were turning the World upside down, just as they’re doing now, by insisting that the ugly is beautiful, and Beauty is ugliness.
So, what’s my issue?
The second stanza of Mackellar’s poem has been namechecked here numerous times in the 3 weeks I’ve been reading the site, and since it’s not exactly something anyone talks about in real life, i’m inclined to think:
”What’s the deal, Neil?”
112
Ah…the point of mckellare poem is that it was written in 1908, and droughts and flooding rains were clearly common enough to get a mention in 1908 which implies knowledge of same before that date.
So…..these extremes of weather were obviously occurring around Federation and earlier, so for The Big Lie of climate change to say extreme weather is new, is complete nonsense……
60
Mr Hat
Edward Bellamy and his utopian ideas were more popular in Australia at the turn of the century than Marx, they didn’t get a foothold in Oz until the end of WW1.
10
“Conclusion: If her old man had been Nobby MacKellar, Council Garbo, would anyone ever had heard of her silly poem?”
and if my Aunty was a blike she would be my Uncle. She wasnt , and reality is what it is. One wonders what your point is.
92
Mischief.
The mischief maker rants and raves
and thinks we all should live in caves;
caves like his where light’s unknown
and facts are better left alone.
Intellect is dead to him
Who sees the world as very dim;
And, there he makes his way ahead
By mischief making in his head.
Well here he comes and not alone
He’s now got a mobile phone.
A phone that rings when it’s time to rise
A phone that tells him greenie lies.
So on he goes forever thus
His mind filled with infected puss.
He comes to tell us all his twaddle
But he’s up a creek without a paddle.
123
She wrote ‘My Country” while she was in England and homesick. Her first verse starts off in England.
41
Total BS.
She wrote it whilst on the family property “Torryburn” on the Paterson River north of Maitland NSW where she lived as a teenager during the Federation Drought and subsequent years. She later stayed at her brother’s cattle property at Gunnedah in NW NSW. She was on Torryburn for years as a teenager.
Gunnedah has more recently sought to claim her as its own, but before she died Dorothea told her nurse that she had written the poem on Torryburn about events of that time.
The “green tangle of the brushes, where lithe lianas coil” describes the rainforests thereabouts. A “brush” is the old name for a patch of rainforest.
The Paterson Historical Society does a lot of quality research and wrote a small book about Dorothy, overseen by Dr. Cynthia Hunter, a well-known historian of the colonial era Hunter Valley.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/22413824?selectedversion=NBD58539098
80
Beowulf, I’ve heard that Patterson story as well.
Gets pretty sad when the blog cloggers rubbish other people so much.
KK
20
Hans Heyson ugly?..
You really are making up rubbish. Obvious trolling and of no factual worth.
71
Remember that line “silly twisted boy”?
21
Dorothea was a city girl the climate change hoax trolls like to post.
Actually Dorothea’s brother was a pastoralist and she loved spending as much time as she could on his properties in the sunburnt country.
101
In the California bushfires a few years ago PG & E the energy provider was found responsible and faced $ 30 billion in claims for losses and faced class action from victims. What is the possibility of anyone facing serious financial consequences In Australia as a result of their failures to undertake prudent preparation for something that no matter which side of the climate change argument you sit was inevitable. Ironically if you are an alarmist such ferocious fires are even more inevitable. It would be logical that councils or States that have failed to take what are considered appropriate precautions should be held culpable. If I was running an Insurance company faced with Billions of dollars in payout I would be looking to complicit governments to be footing part of those bills. It was interesting that in more recent California fires the energy provider chose to cut electricity supply to certain areas to avoid the risk of their infrastructure being blamed as the cause of any fires. The threat and reality of bankruptcy does help to steel ones mind as to what measures one should take to protect people and assets. I think that in regards to our fires their will fingers pointed in many directions and not too many taking responsibility for these fires. My guess ( no matter what recommendations follow) is that it will be concluded it was the fault of lightning and climate change and all other culprits will get off Scott free.
160
A class action lawsuit involving all of the Australians who lost relatives, property and animals would certainly rock the politicians in my opinion.
And force them to explain and account for their UN based skullduggery.
200
Although that would be nice a far simpler solution is for voters to stop handing majority rule to either major party. Of course that would require enough voters to be aware of the real issues and start giving a damn.
110
But some crazy ambulance chasing lefty lawyers would probably plead failure to reduce carbon dioxide emissions rather than the real cause.
50
While I cannot address these issues directly, I have often wondered about this:
According to some of the articles I’ve seen, high winds were snapping overhead powerlines, which, when so snapped, caused sparks which then ignited the tinder-dry underbrush (which had not been managed, or controlled, or removed, or … … … ).
Back in the 1950’s, when I was but a lad, I saw an article in the Reader’s Digest (not sure if there is any equivalent in Australia/New Zealand), which claimed that ‘post-war America is investing in underground utilities’. In the article, there was an artist-concept drawing of a ‘typical’ neighborhood, the first panel showing the conventional overhead telephone (remember land-lines?) and electrical lines (no, we did NOT have cable TV, or even satellite TV at the time … ), and then the second panel, identical view, but with the overhead lines gone, having been all placed underground, ostensibly more secure, and less prone to damage.
It has always made me wonder: if the amount of money we’ve spent on building bird-choppers, had been spent on burying our utility lines, as was suggested by this article, would we have had the problems we’ve had with the various fire seasons?
110
Vlad:
Electricity is often cut off in fire areas. To reduce the risk to firefighters.
Strong winds can bring tree limbs down on the lines at other times. SA Power Networks has had crews trimming roadside trees (near powerlines) for at least 2 years, and effort was much larger in the past 12 months in the Adelaide Hills, but we got our worst fires for years due to a dry year and Adelaide Hills Council not allowing clearance. Some eucalypt trees are notorious for shedding limbs without warning. One of my neighbours has a huge tree that drops 1-2 tons but the Council won’t allow him to remove it, and there are other regulations that make trimming a real nuisance and expense.
120
Well meaning Greenist Dumblenuts
On Adelaide Hills Council !
From the city !
Ignorant of the bush !
Some of them learned from the fires of December 19th last year
Lots did not !
Sighhhhhhhh !
60
Trees can become quite unwell, quite quickly
30
Hi Vlad,
Regarding the snapping, some overhead systems have what appear to be inert spacers to stop relative movement and induction.
We used to have a buried landline in our street and it regularly flooded. Not sure how secure major power transmission would go when underground.
🙂
50
Hi KK,
If my memory from decades ago serves, the conduit(s) would have been sealed to prevent any shorting from floods, and what-not. This was a major argument against doing the burying, aside from the cost, but again, I wonder what the cost of doing something of a prophylactic nature is, up against the cost in lives, firefighting, property damage, etc …
Still seems to me the ounce of prevention is worth the pound of cure (or should that be updated to, ‘ … milligram of prevention is worth the tonne of cure … ‘?). Also seems to me that doing the rangeland management is a lot more cost effective than trying to put shattered lives back together. But, what do I know? I’m safely ensconced behind my keyboard in Casper, Wyoming, and no where near Sydney, or Adelaide (once knew a visiting professor from U. of Adelaide, when I was an undergrad — — a downright decent, jovial, and pleasant fellow; so sorry I ever lost touch with him).
60
I must admit that I haven’t looked into the burying of power lines but both systems have their pros and cons.
In the meantime range management is important.
KK
20
Vlad
Yes, we’ve had it here for donkeys’ years – in New Zealand anyway.
I mentioned to a teacher once that I’d read something in Readers’ Digest and he exclaimed, “Oh, that Right-Wing rag!”
What!!??
40
Several cases have been reported of people having their request to clear around their property refused by local councils. Some of these people lost their house in a bushfire. Provided that such a house was insured I would expect the insurance company to hit the council for the cost of rebuilding. Also, there seems to be plenty of ambulance-chasing lawyers promoting ‘no win no fee’ compensation cases at present and so perhaps they might get into the fire compensation act. It would make local councils take notice if they start losing a number of compensation claims.
130
Same thing happened in the 2009 bushfires in Victoria that claimed 173 lives. One of the major outbreaks was triggered by poorly maintained power lines , which resulted in a large settlement.
80
$494 million was paid out in the settlement !
The Cudlee Creek Fire of December 19th 2019
Will generate some class action cases against the Adelaide Hills Council
And SA Power Networks.
Mayhap, this will learn the dumbnuts !
70
There are a number of reasons why politicians struggle with the notion of responsibility but as a starting point there are two questions I’d like to see answered:
1/ Does drought relief for farmers contravene free trade agreements?
2/ What is the general status of our National Parks, trees etc. and are they listed under some kind of heritage agreement with The United Nations?
91
UN Agenda 30 – Sustainability.
The creation of State managed National Parks & Wildlife Services and National Parks commenced early 1990s, State Forests where sustainable logging supported the now on its knees timber industry mostly now National Parks and also dam catchment areas have been handed over by Water Boards. And since only token land management has taken place, fire trails blocked, access to many places not permitted, including for bushwalkers.
And they are listed with the UN as heritage areas.
They are being preserved for future generations, apparently. So no logging, no dams, no extraction of minerals and energy reserves, no nothing for present generations.
240
Thank you Dennis.
So there is the problem. We have, by agreement handed the management over to The UN. Will someone tell Scot Morrison that the problem can’t be solved until we throw out these kinds of agreements and take back control of our Country. He was blathering on about this a few weeks ago but as usual it’s all talk. Time to walk the walk.
171
the ultimate problem is that politicians have no real accountability to the electorate.
they have done countless things that the voters never would have approved of.
but they call it ‘democracy’.
what a larf.
80
Yes it would be really nice if politicians were responsible for the mistakes they make just like a company director would be in similar circumstances. If the same rules were applied we would have to build more prisons. Then again we could make a difference by stop giving them majority rule. We have that power now. Too bad not many use it. Instead we keep getting the same old politicians. In a democracy such as ours the buck actually stops with the voters.
60
But even electing independents does not solve the problem.
as they are “representatives” they have carte blanche to do whatever they want once elected to office.
the public has no control over politicans once elected.
it is an elected dictatorship.
41
Never entrust your life, livelihood, property, family, or savings to anyone who bears no responsibility for being wrong.
Particularly, Politicians.
10
Dennis:
They (politicians and bureaucrats) should be asked “why should we preserve blackened tree stumps?”**
** And dead animals.
70
Under Kyoto, it is of utmost importance to maintain the vegetation.
It is the priority.
The more vegetation, the more valuable the carbon sink.
81
Sadly vegetation does not just sit in a computer model sucking in CO2. Out in the world it burns.
121
Don’t know.
The Free Trade dogma has risen up from the depths of Hell.
It’s the Ideological Structure of the whole disaster gradually enveloping Australia.
Ditch that for Industry Protection and Tariffs, there’d be pain for a while,
but we’d emerge the other leaving the present malaise behind us.
22
Free trade agreements are one of the aims of the American Communist Party…go figure….
20
Brilliant Jo.
This massive smoke pall that’s hung over us now for the last few months must be seen for what it is:
It’s the culmination of decades of politics that has encouraged ignorance, arrogance, dismissal of the lessons of fire history, the rise of petty martinets “protecting nature”, grandstanding with “waterbombers” and the ultimate misdirection; Man Made Global Warming.
Greenism has just been Blackened by the the ugliest public event in our recent history and the evidence will be there for everyone to see as we move about.
That blackened landscape, Nature, the bush, is saying; Government Failure.
A massive clean out has to happen, the adults must be put in charge again.
This lesson must not be wasted and with yourself and Roger Underwood bringing it out so clearly maybe the changes can start.
It must be the Turning Point.
KK
280
And don’t ignore Marine National Parks and the ban on commercial fishing that has ruined the fishing industry here, and much of our seafood is now imported.
The losses of businesses, jobs, tax revenue, local and national economy growth impacted adversely (economic vandalism) and more is outrageous.
180
And the rivers.
Someone mentioned last night that the welcome rain up north has taken black soot from adjacent fire zones into the river where it killed river life.
KK
110
Ash sucks oxygen out of the water and silt in run-off raises turbidity,
Fish need oxygen.
Unfortunate, but very predictable side-affect of bushfires.
110
The Governments shouldn’t be taxing Fishing anyway.
The Bottom Line here is Governments gradually preventing Australians from eating Meat.
Now, back in Feudal times, the Government just hanged peasants caught taking a fish
out of Lord FilthyRichPig’s river.
Nowadays, they must be more circumspect, but the intention is still the same, viz:
Porterhouse & Coral Trout for us, turnips, guinea grass, and the tree bark for everyone else.
72
You are correct about the anti meat push, but i note your heavy use of anti-capitalist rehetoric.
I spent time reading about Lawson and his socialist exposure, I think he was more concerned about poverty and the same class system transplanted into Australia ( it was a British colony…what did people expect? ). He clearly hated being poor, but ironically it gave him insights for his writings he otherwise might not have had.
I guess too the Bolshies were active, they did slaughter the russian Romanov royal family in the early 1900s…..maybe they did try and create a global socialist push, but thankfully it never succeeded.
30
and the man most invested in fake meat, the meat substitute, is none other than Gore.
30
Hatband:
Didn’t you know?
Fish are not regarded as meat animals. They can be eaten when red meat is not on the ecumenical menu as on “fasting” days.
Like Good Friday …
The Pope has always said so. (from before 600 AD — Pope Gregory — at least.)
So it’s `Fish on Fridays.’ and has been for over 1300 or so years.
00
Not much smoke to see now. 🙂
And where did all that heat generated by the fires go to.. ???
Surely it must have been “trapped” by all the CO2 released. 😉
20ºC here this morning near Newy, and a reasonable possibility of more soaking rain.
141
Andy, it’s quite cool here at the moment.
40
Got cold here in Greta last night Keith. Had to put a feather doona on the bed . . . in January! Damn that global warming. Have still only had a little over half an inch of rain all up. Better than none.
70
We had a couple of days where masks were handed out as an option for delivering in the smoke haze, I used it for one day and where the taste of smoke wasn’t there the lack of oxygen made you feel weak, we found out later that other Delivery Centres sent their posties home on the bad days, but not us and OHS is always a big excuse for any useless ideas.
40
“At the top of the list are the premiers and ministers responsible for land management, such as it is, and bushfire policy, and the public servants in their departments with jurisdiction over forests and national parks. State governments in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria have palpably failed to do the most important job they were elected to do: ”
Reckon there might be a bit of a problem getting that lot to approve an investigation of that lot?
120
A pox on both major parties. Australian voters wake up and do something different if you give a damn. Otherwise, enjoy the trip down into the abyss while you can. When we get closer to the bottom it will reveal how alert we all are and see if we wake up fast enough to change the trend to give the necessary message to both parties that we had enough BS.
120
Our Blackened Landscape
The Bush and the Politics, can we end “Government by Virtue Signalling” and get back to reality?
________
The ABCCCC and modern political institutions all the way down from the U.N. to local government councils are like a scum that floats on top of a pond and smothers it.
We are a nation of three month smokos, courtesy of government avarice.
Of closing industry and universities bursting at the seams with the unemployed. Empty shopfronts everywhere.
Of schools teaching about rainbows or maybe just the idea of rainbows: anyhow, just go to uni and do a degree in rainbowism, or whatever.
We are a nation which failed to look up and see the trees reaching in from both sides of the road and touching above us.
We are a nation which failed to acknowledge that these trees would block our escape from the green fires.
We are a nation which failed to pay tribute to the Two Hundred Fire victims of the last ten years and Fix The Problem.
They died for nothing.
After two hundred years of experience being ignored we need a political upheaval to return Australia to Ethical Governance.
KK
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/01/billion-dollar-bully-abc-resorts-to-namecalling-for-the-nightly-news/#comment-2257776
130
I’ve watched the whole mess unfold, and when I view things through what the CAGW cultists approach, a few points need reiterating :
(1) The main drivers of this appear to be UN Agenda 21 and Rewilding.
(2) The main aim of Agenda 21 and Rewilding is to drive people out of 90% of *all* land and “re-wild” it back to its original state, and herd people into cities.
(3) The CAGW occultists often use what appears to be govt policy & “ineptitude” to hide behind, so that no one gets blamed, and the agenda rolls on.
(4) That the CAGW mob a deadly serious about this process. In some of their writings its been made very clear they would try and coax the public to sign up to their belief system like going vegie, no animal products ( e.g. cover story of infamous Framingham heart study? ) , etc etc, and if they wouldn’t do it voluntarily, the public would be *forced* to.
(5) That the CAGW mob think in very long terms, like 50-100 years plus, so 30 years to let the fuel load develop so it could be blamed on The Big Lie of Climate Change(tm) is highly possible.
(6) That the new “rules” that are already being touted may make it very expensive to rebuild so they cant, so in effect they get kicked out….
(7) That to be at the top of most areas of work these days, appear to require singing from the Establishment “hymn sheet”….
140
Even if all those points a true, and I’m not suggesting they are not, what do we do about it? The mainstream politicians on both sides certainly won’t do anything about it. It’s up to the voters to send the appropriate messages via the ballot box. That’s assuming of course enough people give a damn. Or do we face a future like many other nations where riots are the order of the day and the few that do give a damn have to resort to civil disobedience to voice their messages? I hope not but if things continue to deteriorate that’s what’s going to happen.
100
Publicising it is often effective….
It will take a while for people to latch onto the idea, but when they see a pattern it will get interesting.
Once the CAGW mob work out people have worked them out, expect something big to happen as a distraction e.g. a war or similar…anything to keep people from exposing them.
All this nasty business can happen because its not widely understood what the CAGW mobs belief system is and what script they are following ( e.g. Agenda 21 & rewilding ).
That needs as much publicity as possible.
Bad stuff can only happen in the dark…..
142
Apart from the current sources, such as this blog and on some occasions Sky News, how much more publicity do we need? We also have the internet in general where there are already plenty of sources pointing out the fact CAGW is a scam and a hoax. It all comes back to the voter to voice their opinion. No voice no change. We are stuck in a groove.
70
Advance Australia conservative lobby group, check them out.
They support candidates for election to parliaments but are not a political party.
60
https://www.advanceaustralia.org.au
40
Had a look. Looking good. I hope it doesn’t end up the same way as the Australian Conservatives Party. I fear it will given the apathy and lack if awareness by the general public. One thing is for sure. It would make a better balance of power deal breaker than ON.
50
Talking to people you know also helps….its amazing how much correct info can spread when talking face to face….
51
Steve,
It’s very dark out there at the moment.
60
Agenda 21 is now Agenda 30.
In other words the completion target date changed from 2021 to 2030.
110
Agenda 21 refers to the 21st Century. Agenda 2030 refers to the year. One is local and the other is national/international. Both are current.
10
Just for what it’s worth. My nephew is currently working the fires in the Victorian North East, as a seasonal fire fighter. A couple of days ago he gave me a call after finishing yet another 23 hour shift. Yes thats correct, a 23 hour shift. Earlier on in these big fires he pulled a couple of 24 hour shifts! Now the difference between a 23 hour versus a 24 hour shift isn’t much except…..If he, and all the others work 23 hours they can be called back after a 12 hour break. If he works 24 hours he must have a 48 hour break. Now I’m not having a go at anyone, least of all the co-ordinators. Limited boots on the ground make it impossible to give everyone rest breaks however what is expected of the brave, and what the media call tireless firefighters! Every one is exhausted, genuinely exhausted. We hear about the health effects of smokey air quality in Melbourne. What about the health effects on these front liners! Never heard about an enquiry about a study of the impact of these working conditions on the FRONT LINE WORKERS. As you watch protestors in Melbourne bleat about climate change, think how they would manage a full 24 hours with a rakehoe or lugging a big chainsaw up and down the line.
280
We should get the climate whingers to go a put out a few fires, and see how long they last without a latte break….
160
Firefighter health needs sorting urgently.
Good point.
91
Our daughter knows all about that Sambar. She was very tired indeed by the end of the last summer season. This year she isn’t on the crews (although she enjoys the work) as she has another full-time job atm. She hopes to go back again sometime.
50
Fantasy land: We are all to blame, the Greens are trying to correct us.
Reality: Green policies of untouchable, sacred, virginal, spiritual forests are to blame, and our responsibility is that we allow them to get away with it.
130
Er, you did know that some of the rain – or is that superstorms or supercells? – in Qld has constituted a “one-in-100-year event”. That’s according to Kimba Wong of the Bureau.
Of course it’s a “one-in-100-year event”, Kimba. Of course it is. Nothing sensational or misleading about it. Apparently there’s a very technical reason why they have to call it “one-in-100-year event”. I mean, they couldn’t just call it Fred. Or Wilma.
And did you know that “searches relating to the blazes that have devastated the country since October have eclipsed the 2018 wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle”? So that constant media saturation had its effect. What a pity I just checked the Fires Near Me site and missed all that action. All I had was an actual fire. The fire’s out now. The TV and radio haven’t been on since that last fizzer of a Test Match. So they’re out too.
Unfortunately Harry and Megan are starting to hog the world’s attention again. Quick! Kimba! Find us a one-in-a-thousand year supercellular megastorm! Or something.
230
I doubt Kimba is up to date with new ARR.
Rainfall estimates have been revised,
and with further data, bigger storms on the east coast have a smaller ARI.
70
By the way, even though the gullies are running and my tanks are overflowing I’m still in parching drought, according to the BoM.
Yep. Seems only 0.2mm fell into that gauge at the airport yesterday. And we’ve only had 3mm before that, for the month. This is the same gauge which gave us a flood on a dry, clear day a couple of years back.
No doubt someone will notice soon and give us a reading averaged out from Port, Taree, Armidale etc. Or maybe they’ll just make it up. They could just leave it, of course. Drought being a thing ‘n all.
And this is the human-free measuring system upon which we are building a science of climate. To the decimal point.
190
Here’s hoping the Ventusky forecast for the next few days turns out to be accurate.
Meridional (south to north) weather patterns in summer, who’d have thunk it?
60
The steady rain of yesterday and this morning only added another 0.2mm to our airport’s rain gauge. Since the rain’s been falling for some days you’d think somebody would have noticed.
Perhaps this is all in fulfillment of the prophecy: “Even the rain which falls will not be enough to fill our airport gauge.”
Or wasn’t there a prophecy: “Our airport gauge’s children just aren’t going to know what rain is.”?
And I think Hawkie once declared: “By 2020 no airport gauge will be filling with water.”
I wonder how many other miraculous gauges there are around Australia. How’s yours?
80
I gather from your posts you are from the home of the Akubra. My Dad lives about 2.5km from the airport and tells me he got 77mm overnight. All up 166mm since Thursday. Apparently the A(LP)BC have reported that the gauge is faulty but don’t know if any of the Bunch of Muppets (BoM) are aware at this stage…
90
Bunch of Muppets 🙂 I like it
50
A one in 100 year event of which they warn will become more frequent because of carbon (sic), yet the BoM failed to predict it.
50
The 1-in-a-100- year stuff is a hoax. You can do the math with 10 years of data but it is just fantasy. You need at least 1000 years of accurate data to just get into the 100 year frequency ballpark. And this assumes the statistics are stable (called “stationary”) which for weather they are not.
This is also why record high and low temps are still common. The record is far to short to tell us anything statistical.
130
You can still get a statistical value.. Its just that the margins of error are rather large
Infrastructure planning requires at least a wild semi-educated guess.
I could explain simply how its all done, or you could read ARR. (Australian Rainfall and Run-off)
But as you say, Australia just doesn’t really have the long term data to get much accuracy in any estimates
71
People killed, animals dead, property and bush all damaged in the name of politics.
That really was an ugly mess.
NASA WorldView Dec 29 thru Jan 16 Animation Loop
80
Australian Constitution?
No problem, sign treaties and agreements and implement them, disregard constitutional laws written to protect we the people.
And legislate to protect politicians just in case.
80
Simple solution !
Amend the constitution by a referendum
No Treaties to take Affect or have Any force
Until ratified by the people in a referendum !
Frack the Globalists !
30
Yeah although international law doenst actually apply in Oz, AKAIK, it only works if the local govt is subservient to the international body who makes the laws.
As such, individual Australian citizens dont have to recognize an international body as its rule maker.
41
Victoriastan officials don’t want to hand over the 2018 fuel loading reports they have , the “land newspaper ” has been trying for a while and after much running around the Govt will let them have one region map for over $1000 .
Access to the story is paywalled and I have no link so if anyone subscribes might be worth checking it out .
100
Correction that should read “weekly times” newspaper .
30
Unfortunately there are no votes in hazard reduction burns – only one country electorate is impacted at any time, and local councils don’t have the funds or resources.
But there will always be complaints about the smoke from those burns, and complaints from greenies about the habitat destruction.
Now watch the pollies jump in after the fires, with promises of more resources and yet another Royal Commission with plenty of excuses put forward – “we didn’t meet the targets because of climate change”, “the resources were unavailable”, “the risks were too great”.
But when the flames have died down, and the next election is approaching, those promises mean nothing as funds are instead promised to inner city marginal electorates.
There are no votes in promising to burn areas around lovely if overgrown forests, or create fire breaks. Local expertise will be ignored.
Look at all the donations that pour in after the disasters we have experienced.
How many of those donations would have occurred if local CFA brigades or councils had asked for more funds to prevent devastation of small country towns?
With the responsibility for funding and accountability removed from local areas to State Treasurers and inner city bureaucrats, it becomes only to easy to conclude that the time is not right, the required resources are unavailable, let’s put it off until next year. So we wait for the inevitable next catastrophic bushfire.
The Australian Productivity Commission has calculated that between 2001–02 and 2006–07, the number of bushfires in Australia varied from approximately 46,000 to 62,000 per year, with an average of nearly 54,000 fires per year.
Between 1901 and 2011, 825 people lost their lives in more than 260 bushfires. Of those killed, 92 were firefighters.
More than 80 per cent of the deaths were in January and February, and 61 per cent happened in Victoria.
The CSIRO’s life and loss database analysis of 110 years of deaths in bushfires found that:
50 per cent of deaths happened within 10 metres of a forest,
78 per cent happened within 30 metres of a forest, and
85 per cent happened within 100 metres of a forest.
61
And, it’s becoming too hot for hazard reduction burns.
Another excuse.
81
Indigenous cultural burn a factor in helping save home from bushfire.
51
Excellent story.
50
This is all so true. The true villains are hiding under a pile of Global Warming Climate Change nonsense and it is being repeated by all the media minions around the World including the BBC and CNN. The Federal Government, the State Governments, Ministers, Local Councils and activist Public Servants all listen to deranged and Grant-seeking university Thermageddonistas and not the agriculturalists, pastoralists and forest experts who know just how inevitable bushfires are and what makes them much, much worse and it is not Climate Change. Timber Industries have been destroyed, ‘National Parks’ have been locked up and neglected as huge fuel dumps and people have been prevented from clearly danger from around their houses and houses are permitted to be built in areas of acute danger. Then the culpable are all shouting about a “a climate disaster is imminent” and shift theiur blame to the peasants who wanted to clear the fuel bomb.
100
The pile on from Albanese and the Green Left media has already started.
Only problem with the world is watching us mantra is is DID watch us when they were screeching “ the whole continent of Australia. Is on fire” .Outcome = overseas tourists are cancelling their trips here in their thousands which will send many businesses broke.
110
This Albanese reptile is very bad news.
Yet The Australian has run Albo-Friendly stories on it’s front pages every day since the Election.
90
But the news behind the news was not well publicised, Albo and spin doctors staging a fake sausage sizzle at the closed Bilpin RFS depot, not a weary and dirty volunteer fire fighter in sight.
An RFS truck pulled in with crew returning to home base after fighting the bushfires, with three hours drive ahead of them, and were directed to a McDonalds restaurant for refreshments.
The photo opportunity for media news release rolled on.
Albo in a shirt and long trousers but sighted earlier that day in shorts and teeshirt in a supermarket purchasing the food props.
Don’t listen to what they (Labor) say, look at what they do.
90
Took me ages to work out who Albenezy is…hes the poisoned chalice holder post-Shortonideas……
I keep hearing this annoying whining sound…..now i know what makes it.
80
Some of the nonsense/perceptions of people overseas mouthing off on blogs about the bushfires and impacts are quite epic. They are of course in the main completely clueless, but its easy to see how in todays world this could impact tourism for a long time.
20
With fertilisation effect of higher CO2 concentration and (possibly) more rain from increased air moisture if temperature is indeed higher (one may have reasonable doubts knowing how BOM makes that sausage) we may see shortening of the fire cycle – more fuel faster. Which makes prudent fuel reduction management even more important.
Pity general public is susceptible to AGW propaganda and nothing will happen this time.
80
Bureaucrats.
We have built up a fuel load that will be catastrophic now all we need is a struck match,a bolt of lightening or an arsonist to have a shit load of global warming propaganda.
60
sad to see the usual east coast (and even WA) bias when the longest term damage caused by fires this season is here in SA, especially KI, but also the vineyards of the Adelaide Hills. You get used to it, but it still sucks.
91
At this stage, you or anyone else has no real clue in regard to long term damage.
Adelaide Hills is a pretty small niche in the Australian wine industry so I doubt regardless of alleged parochialism that it would get a mention, regardless of how damaging it may be for individuals. Come to think of it I havent seen much talk of the NE VIC wine areas either around Milawa and Rutherglen. I guess in the context of drought and bushfires vignerons are low on the pecking order of victims.
60
Damage is widespread and severe in some vineyards.
4 vineyards/wineries on one side of a hill at the back of Lenswood (Anderson Hill, Pike & Joyce, and Henschke vineyards) suffered damage but the winery (Mount Lofty Ranges) on the otherside of the hill was untouched. Nearer Lenswood Tilbrooks was severely damaged (winery, stocks and most of the vines) as was Vinteloper. Towards Woodside Goldings winery was saved but not the vines, Tomic has reported lost some vines (and an old house) but Barrister’s Block next door escaped.
On the other side of Woodside Bird in Hand lost quite a few vines. Damage at Artwines and Croser but Murdoch Hill OK.
I have received an e-mail from MarQ wines in Margaret River about a fund raising raffle by several wineries there in aid of those winemakers in the Adelaide Hils who suffered damage.
50
Very well said, agree totally.
I think one of the biggest lessons stated in previous Royal commissions is that so many people have agendas arguing in self interest, which doesn’t always agree with the most cost effective way to reduce bushfire risk.
This could possibly include some types of hazard reduction burn, IMO.
80
Political theatre and public perceptions, the politicians realised that 2018/19 or 2019/20 Bushfire Season were potentially seriously dangerous fire storm danger zones because of the lack of land care, token clearing and burning licences issued only, reluctantly.
So spend millions of dollars on impressive big aircraft tanker-fire bombers to join the Fire Aviation fleet.
Doesn’t matter that they are only effective in limited situations.
Damage control.
50
We will know the outcome of a Royal Commission as soon as they announce who will be heading it, the terms of reference and the ‘experts’ they call on.
Regardless of the recommendations, governments will cherry-pick which ones they will take action on, finance them from forward estimates then hope another disaster occurs before they have to spend the monies and/or another group of pollies are in power, who can claim ‘that was before my time, let’s look forward’ to any questions about the lack of action.
70
Just thinking why go the direction of total, incredibly expensive fire proofing, in forested areas. Basically they’ll let you build a bomb shelter, preferably underground. Why not go the other way – flimsy, open, airy and cheap, where you can burn some of that fuel load to keep warm in winter. And you just walk away when it is threatened, and you havent had to spend your whole life paying the banks.
Naagh, you’re not making them money.
60
class action lawsuit with Roger Underwood, David Packham, Vic Jurskis etc as witnesses?
VETERAN (joined BBC in 1974) BBC propagandist, Julian Marshall, has distilled the entire bushfire/rains/CAGW story for wide consumption. ABC news radio played it as their top story following one of their hourly news bulletins this morning. no surprise. will followup with a comment on his guests –
Gundi Rhoades, veterinarian, scientist, farmer, Inverell
University of Melbourne Professor of Conservation Ecology Brendan Wintle.
BBC’s Julian Marshall: rainstorms have been described as a once-in-a-century event, much like the bushfires which are seasonal but, this year, were unprecedented; extinction crisis. CAGW not debateable any more; even the farmers admit it. ends with Marshall explaining some of the segment was recorded before the rains came. ABC edited that out.
first 12m57s only:
AUDIO: 52m59s: 18 Jan: BBC Newshour: Australia rains douse some fire-hit regions
Presenter: Julian Marshall
Heavy rains and thunderstorms have lashed parts of Australia’s east coast, dousing some of its fires but bringing a new threat of flooding to some areas…
(Photo: People in Sydney walk around the city with their umbrellas for the first time in months on January 17, 2020.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w172wq54hmtf820
30
so why those guests, BBC?
26 Dec 2019: SMH: Cattle have stopped breeding, koalas die of thirst: A vet’s hellish diary of climate change
By Gundi Rhoades
(Gundi Rhoades is a veterinarian, scientist, mother, beef cattle farmer and member of Veterinarians for Climate Action)
PIC: Gundi Rhoades is a member of Veterinarians for Climate Action based in Inverell
For 22 years, I have been the vet in this once-thriving town in northern NSW, which, as climate change continues to fuel extreme heat, drought and bushfires, has become hell on Earth.
Here, we are seeing extreme weather events like never before. The other day we had about eight centimetres of rain in 20 minutes. These downpours are like rain bombs. They are so ferocious that a farmer lost all of his fences, and all it did was silt up the dam so he had to use a machine to excavate the mud…
Personally, I have had weeks when I just cry…
I would invite Scott Morrison to come and see what life in Inverell is like. In case he chooses not to, I’ll paint this picture for the country and hope people can start to realise and understand the devastating impact climate change is having. I hope they will take a stand for the people, the places and the animals whose voices are too small for him to hear.
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/cattle-have-stopped-breeding-koalas-die-of-thirst-a-vet-s-hellish-diary-of-climate-change-20191220-p53m03.html
31 Jan 2019: Uni of Melbourne: Melbourne to lead Adani’s Black-throated Finch Management Plan review
University of Melbourne Professor of Conservation Ecology Brendan Wintle will lead a six-member panel of conservation and wildlife science experts to review Adani’s Black-throated Finch Management Plan (BTFMP).
Professor Wintle assembled the panel at the request of the Queensland Government.
“The black-throated finch is listed as endangered under Australian law,” said Professor Wintle who is based at the University’s School of Biosciences.
He is also the Director of the Threatened Species Recovery Hub of the Australian Government’s National Environmental Science Program…
https://about.unimelb.edu.au/newsroom/news/2019/january/university-of-melbourne-to-lead-the-review-of-adanis-black-throated-finch-management-plan
Twitter: Brendan Wintle
https://twitter.com/BrenWintle
30
can’t help wondering if there’s a family connection between Brendan Wintle and Bonnie Claire Wintle, Uni of Melbourne:
The Conversation: ***Bonnie Claire Wintle, Research fellow, University of Melbourne
I am currently a Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne in the Interdisciplinary MetaResearch Group (IMeRG), and we think a lot about how science is done, and ways to improve it. I am also affiliated with the Quantitative and Applied Ecology Group (QAEco) at the University of Melbourne, where I have previously worked on the early detection of threats to biodiversity and opportunities for conservation. My most recent postdoc before returning to Melbourne was with the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) at the University of Cambridge, where I scanned the horizon for emerging risks and benefits associated with rapidly changing technologies, such as bioengineering. I am still an active Research Affiliate of CSER.
I completed my PhD in 2013, supervised by Prof Mark Burgman (environmental risk analysis) and Dr Fiona Fidler (cognitive psychology). I have a degree in environmental science and ecology, including some history and philosophy of science. My doctoral thesis examined expert judgment under severe uncertainty, with a focus on reducing overconfidence and improving scientific judgements. I have published papers in a variety of disciplines and was awarded the CSF ‘best young researcher’ award from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich (Environmental decisions, risks and uncertainties conference, 2010).
https://theconversation.com/profiles/bonnie-claire-wintle-11913
7 Nov 2014: Wiley Conservation Biology: Using Strategic Foresight to Assess Conservation Opportunity
CARLY N. COOK, ***BONNIE C. WINTLE, STEPHEN C. ALDRICH, ***BRENDAN A. WINTLE
We highlight how the foresight process was used to identify conservation opportunities during the development of a strategic plan to address climate change in New York State. The plan identified solutions that should be effective across a range of possible futures. Illustrating the application of strategic foresight to identify conservation opportunities should provide the impetus for decision makers to explore strategic foresight as a way to support more proactive conservation policy, planning, and management…
https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cobi.12404
Uni of Melbourne: Governments must support science, not self-interest
First published on 25 September 2019 in Science Matters
The proposal of an ‘independent science quality assurance agency’ will not address the research replication crisis and will hinder attempts to improve science
By Dr Martin Bush, University of Melbourne; Alex O. Holcombe, Professor, University of Sydney; ***Dr Bonnie Claire Wintle, University of Melbourne; Associate Professor Fiona Fidler, University of Melbourne; Professor Simine Vazire, University of California
If you are unaware of what the replication crisis is – it’s when researchers in various fields find it difficult to reproduce and validate original research findings…
Recently, in response to the Queensland Government’s new regulations to reduce agricultural runoff in Great Barrier Reef catchments, the National Party, Queensland’s Agforce and Bob Katter have proposed an “independent science quality assurance agency.” …
But they are targeting specific results they don’t like, rather than trying to improve scientific practice in a systematic way…
Historians of science Professor Naomi Oreskes and Professor Erik Conway have detailed how these tactics were pioneered by the tobacco industry, ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbon manufacturers and others in their book Merchants of Doubt.
These same tactics are being played out today.
Scientists can never make pronouncements with the certainty of a politician. If, as a society, we want to enjoy a healthy scientific community, we will need to accept the idea of scientific uncertainties…
Science is self-correcting when we reward correction
Science is something that humans do. It is self-correcting when, and only when, scientists correct it.
Research is hard work, and we can’t expect scientists to never make errors or to provide complete certainty.
We need to shift the balance of rewards away from rewarding only groundbreaking discoveries and towards the painstaking work of confirmation…
https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/governments-must-support-science-not-self-interest
30
finally:
AUDIO: 4m51s: 3 May 2019: 2GB: Ray Hadley: Adani CEO says there’s an agenda behind Finch decision
The construction of the Adani coal mine has been delayed after the Queensland government rejected Adani’s plan to protect an endangered bird that inhabits the surrounding region.
The regulators said Adani’s Black-throated Finch Management Plan “did not meet requirements”.
The independent report into the Finch plan was led by Melbourne University ecologist ***Brendan Wintle.
Adani Mining Australia CEO Lucas Dow tells Ray Hadley the report could have been influenced by an anti-coal stance.
“They have referenced the so-called independent Wintle report.
“The people that are involved in that organisation, that Professor Wintle heads up, it’s got a host of members who hold an anti-coal, anti-mining, anti-Adani agenda.”…
https://www.2gb.com/adani-ceo-says-theres-an-agenda-behind-finch-decision/
50
Adani delayed again, eh?
Hands up all those people here who claimed it was going Gangbusters, and accused me of spreading lies!
35
That wasn’t me sir, but what do you make of this SMH headline?
‘Albanese calls Labor’s 45 per cent emissions target at election a ‘mistake’
‘The federal Labor leader’s comments come amid an intense debate about Australia’s climate change policies during the devastating bushfire season.’
40
He meant 95%…..there …corrected it…..
There seems to be no clear separation between the nonsense of Labor and the nonsense of the UN when it comes to crippling our economy with the Big Lie…..
Actually, the real problem is Australia is signed up to many UN treaties.
If you read many Australian Bills that go before parliament, you will often find references to many UN treaties. In effect, the occult and demented UN is being used as the framework for our new laws.
41
You’re still at it.
30
Ahhh hatband did you notice the date , I think Pat might have pulled a sneaky on you !
30
While you were “reading” that did you check the date?
30
Exactly, and yet we all know who Morrison will put in charge of a Royal Commission to find out what went wrong – the very people who failed in the first place.
A fire management plan that “allows” fires to burn for days where ever the wind takes it – and evacuates thousands is not a fire plan. And pushing volunteer fire fighters in the line of fire to do the best with what ever they have is a wicked trick
70
The number of animals killed has been hopelessly misquantified. A simple google search reveals that the most populous marsupial in Australia is the kangaroo (estimated to total 50 million), other mammals and birds generally number in the tens of thousands.
My point is that with the exclusion of insects and frogs, there is simply no way that a billion animals have been killed as a consequence of the fires in eastern Australia.
Surely no one is seriously suggesting that every creature of every species has suddenly been made extinct and even if they had as I stated above, there are not a billion animals in the categories claimed to have died.
120
Great point. Exaggeration is the name of the game.
Or:
Huffily: ‘Ants have a right to be counted too, specist.’
100
I wondered about that billion figure as well.
It would be an interesting and relatively simple exercise to divide one billion by the area burned to come up with what the population density of these animals would be.
One figure from BBC is 10 million hectares burned so that gives 100 animals per hectare which seems ridiculously high.
60
Maybe these “billion” animals they only appear during periods of “climate change” …its the unicorn horns and the rainbows that appear when such animals are around, that give it away….
60
I was once asked if I’d slept with a Brazilian woman, I replied probably how many is a Brazilian?
40
In Gippsland Victoria dead animal remains are left where they fell because nobody is permitted to handle them until the bureaucrats from EPA decide how to dispose of them.
50
Wild dogs will take care of them…..that and a D9 dozer, a big pit and many gallons of diesel.
The country is already burnt bare, so minimal fire risk Id have thought….
80
John Bowra –
in the BBC interview – comment #30 – Marshall asks Wintle about the 1bn figure (not the even more exaggerated 1.25bn figure). Wintle is brief, only mentions Dickman/Uni of Sydney, not WWF.
note: “may have been killed directly or indirectly”
7 Jan: WWF: Statement from WWF-Australia on Australia’s bushfire emergency
Statement from WWF-Australia CEO, Dermot O’Gorman
WWF-Australia estimates around 1.25 billion animals ***may have been killed directly or indirectly from fires that have burnt 8.4 million hectares across Australia (equivalent to the whole of country of Austria).
These figures have been calculated using methodology that estimates the impacts of landclearing on Australian wildlife and extrapolates upon the science of ***Prof Chris Dickman from The University of Sydney (LINK)…
https://www.wwf.org.au/news/news/2020/statement-from-wwf-australia-on-australia-s-bushfire-emergency#gs.tch15o
note “affected”, “impacted” in the following:
***3 Jan: Uni of Sydney: A statement about the 480 million animals killed in NSW bushfires since September
Australia has the highest rate of species lost of any area in the world.
Professor Chris Dickman estimates that 480 million animals have been ***affected since bushfires in NSW started in September 2019. This statement explains how that figure was calculated.
Update 8 January 2020 (LINK): Professor Christopher Dickman revised his estimate of the number of animals killed in bushfires in NSW to more than 800 million animals, and more than one billion animals ***impacted nationally.
This figure is based on a 2007 report for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) on the impacts of land clearing on Australian wildlife in New South Wales (NSW).
To calculate the impacts of land clearing on the State’s wildlife, the authors obtained estimates of mammal population density in NSW and then multiplied the density estimates by the areas of vegetation approved to be cleared.
Estimates of density were obtained from published studies of mammals in NSW and from studies carried out in other parts of Australia in similar habitats to those present in NSW
The authors deliberately employed highly conservative estimates in making their calculations. The true mortality is likely to be substantially higher than those estimated…
https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2020/01/03/a-statement-about-the-480-million-animals-killed-in-nsw-bushfire.html
FakeNewsMSM lapped up these figures, without question.
50
You are toggling between animals and marsupials. Marsupials are a sub set. Your argument isnt convincing. Having said that I havent seen any reliable animal census figures lately and I suspect any animal death estimates are very much finger in the wind, drama fuelling estimates.
60
Here you go.
https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2020/01/08/australian-bushfires-more-than-one-billion-animals-impacted.html
Chris is a good bloke and I bet he’d send you the reference list.
where did you get your estimates?
00
If you are transracial and identify as an indigenous Australian would you be allowed to do “cultural burns”?
101
Only if you burn native grasses and other bushland but you can use modern equipment.
sarc.
60
Who cares?
It;ll be scammed anyway, it’s not a serious proposal.
It’s incredibly patronising toward indigenous people, though.
It’s as if Government Bureaucrats are saying
”Hey, we’ve finally found something these people are good at, and since they’ve been
idle since 1788, let’s give them a box of matches each and put them to work to solve
our immediate political problem.”
It’s as Fake & Phony as the Acknowledgement at the base of the page on Federal
Websites.
47
This one?
The department acknowledges the traditional owners of the country throughout Australia and their continuing connection to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to them and their cultures and to the elders past and present.
How is it “Fake and Phony”?
Sounds like you’re projecting, trilby.
22
Depends whether you’re a lefty or not.
70
I identify as an indigenous, transexual, who speaks French at home in the Census. Is that good enough?
71
Right on Syster!
50
“Climate change is the excuse to hide an Inferno of Incompetence …” Yeah its like some sort of Gresham’s law of problems to solve. Nonsense problems are crowding out the real things that we ought to be concerned with. The Misean economy is further away than ever since one industry after another is fundamentally dysfunctional. The poison starts with banking and taxation policy but it doesn’t end there. People on both sides of politics and on every place within the libertarian-communist spectrum have been blinded to real problems out there because of these fake problems. The fuel buildup being a case in point. Really most of us forgot that this was going on a couple of years after the 2009 fires. Fake news and fake problems distract everyone and not just the terminally stupid within the left.
I quite like young Barry Brook. Sure he buys into the global warming racket. But for the most part he’s focused on real problems and real solutions. He brought a lot of focus to these artificial reefs to provide habitat for sea life to flourish. We ought to be beefing this up. Misean economics isn’t the way to go for every last industry. With fishing; communist reef-building and enlightened hunter-gathering is a better model. But its when we start integrating floating reefs and submarine defence, than we are getting a little bit more sophisticated from a strategic point of view. People aren’t taught to stack functions. To do things for many reasons at once and not just one justification at a time.
73
Fess up the downvoter. What is it you are up to? What is the goal? Is the continent to get more dry … less and less fertile? What do you think you are doing? Or do you have a better continental strategy?
31
If one is to believe in the cause and effect of climate change/global warming there is only one real solution. Go nuclear. All other solutions are a total waste of time and money. Given man-made climate change/global warming is a myth going nuclear would also be a total waste of time and money, although there would be a few side benefits that have nothing to do with the climate.
31
Off the top of my head:
Three Mile Island, Fukushima, Windscale, Chernobly, quite a few more that
the Soviets covered up, waste that is radioactive for thousands of years, storage of that
waste, these are the things that are the cause for pause before jumping into the hole.
04
Old plants and/or badly located. Today new nuclear power plants are safe and our Australian environment is ideal. That’s not the problem. The problem is cost and public apathy/ignorance.
11
By ‘ideal environment”, do you mean the availability of the Outback to be used as a dumping ground for radioactive waste?
The Great Artesian Basin isn’t going to like that, and the GAB has got plenty of fans.
12
I’ll stand with hat on this. If the South Oz government fancies going down that particular road for reasons of virtue … due diligence is required.
NSW and Vic won’t be joining the club.
21
For those interested here is the report plus evidence transcripts of the 1939 bushfire Royal Commission.
https://digitised-collections.unimelb.edu.au/handle/11343/21344
90
OT –
An update of the graph of European electricity prices rising with more wind and solar.
https://twitter.com/JWSpry/status/1218458075994247168/photo/1
50
18 Jan: Townhall: Fight Fires with Facts – Not Fake Science
by Paul Driessen
Editor’s Note: This piece was co-authored by Duggan Flanakin.
Greens are incensed over suggestions that anything but fossil fuels and climate change might be turning green California and Australian ecosystems into black wastelands, incinerating wildlife, destroying homes and killing people. The notion that they and their policies might be a major factor in these fires gets them so hot under the collar that they could ignite another inferno. But the facts are there for all to see…READ ON
https://townhall.com/columnists/pauldriessen/2020/01/18/fight-fires-with-facts–not-fake-science-n2559720
50
If I throw a bomb into a house and kill people I am a murderer BUT
If I set fire to scrub adjacent to a dwelling and the house burns and life is lost, I will only receive a slap on the wrist with a wet lettuce from some magistrate.
Something is drastically out of balance by allowing arsonists who are responsible for loss of life are allowed to go free.
100
Surely arson must be a big factor in the severity of catastrophic bushfire events.
Just think of all the forest that wasn’t burnt – maybe 2/3 or something like that – it was also mostly a tinder dry powder keg. If fires had of started there as well it could have been so much worse, so the severity does depend a lot on the number of ignitions, I would say.
60
Yep.
There’s a Site that records Lightning Strikes, what’s the incidence of out of control
fires caused by lightning?
Somewhere around zero?
As the 1939 Commissioner stated in his findings:
”These fires were caused by the hand of man.”
So, Arson in the forests has been happening for a long time, and that’s the issue now.
BTW, did Commissioner Stretton leave his papers to any Institution?
There could be a Gold Mine in there waiting to be found.
66
Why don’t you do some research and find out, instead of clogging this site up with your trite and glib comments.
Then tell us all about it.
Any dill can ask myriad questions.
22
I think that it would be wise to read the 1939 report in full before attempting to a analyse what Stretton meant. It’s only about 33 pages of text.
31
I’d be taking his findings literally.
He said the fires were lit by the hand of man, why not take him at his word?
11
‘Judge Stretton’s report was celebrated not only as a political statement but also as literature. For many years it was a prescribed text in Victorian Matriculation English …’
Griffith Review
30
Last month I would be seeing these big helicopters flying around with a relatively small package of water underneath. Thats bad enough but the water sources must have been scarce since I was two towns away from the fire front. So it looks like they would have to dump this fairly small amount of water and fly all the way back again in some cases. Or perhaps they were just coming back after a break and in many cases they could load up more locally.
Of course if there isn’t much fuel buildup and water features on the land are ubiquitous than the fire trucks can surely load up with greater efficiency. All I see is a few ponds here and there. Usually only near the bottom of paddocks. These are a water access strategy and no land hydration strategy. As a result they are basically tapped out and dry when you really need them.
32
I wish people stop blaming the politicians. In our form of democracy we the people have the power to put in government whoever we please in our electorate. So if people are not happy with the way our politicians are handling things, such as climate change then vote for a party that would make them happy. It is really that simple.
80
Absolutely true.
Also people who voluntarily plant eucalypts right next to their house in fire danger zones, or build houses nestled right in there among the loverly-gums. (Check ‘My Fair Lady’for spelling.)
60
I see what you are saying. But I think this one is line-ball. I think it could pass under the wire.
32
Yes I see what you mean, it could still could be possible that most Swedes believe that CO2 emission reduction is necessary and they are maybe disappointed it wasn’t achieved.
20
Only if it was a very, very thin wire.
Otherwise the converse may apply.
KK
00
Re #86
00
With all the billions being splashed around, I think some people will actually be financially better off in the final wash up.
There is going to be a major building boom in the bush with plenty of construction jobs.
I wouldn’t be surprised if bushfires do become more common, as arson increases when the conditions are dry enough.
It would take only a few more arsonists to make a significant difference.
50
You seek greater political diversity in the House of Reps and move away from the two party system.
This is achievable, other democracies operate that way, but first we have to enlighten the people through a reinvigorated media. It is an informed citizenry, not simply an opinionated one, that is a prerequisite for a mature society.
The catalyst has to be the RC exposing the catastrophists and opening up a can of worms that questions the AGW hypothesis. Out of the tumult to follow, there would be plenty of opportunity for the formation of new alliances which could potentially force the majors to their knees. It really depends on Morrison’s behaviour, its that simple.
34
No, the Two Party System ensures Parliamentary and Government stability.
The problems in Australia started early on when the Labor Party emerged from the depths
of Hell and supplanted the Protectionists.
That left the Free Traders representing everyone else.
Eventually, Labor pulled the old Bait and Switch with Whitlam, and we’ve had 2 Free
Trade Parties ever since.
Judge the results for yourself.
The only solution?
Outlaw the Labor Party, before we’re all in the Gulag, or worse.
45
Egads, no!!
Can you imagine how much tail-wagging-the-dog the Greens would do if the HOR were subjectd to a significant minority party presence. Witness Germany. There is a good case for proportional representation in the Senate:
1) as a way of differentiating it from the HOR, and
2) as a way of giving minority parties a voice,
but creating a system for the HOR with a similar kind of outcome as the Senate destroys 1) and increases 2) to defectiveness.
90
Agreed, its a fairly stable system. I’m trying to think of a way to help PeterS overcome his hatred of the majors, by pointing to a few multiparty states. Its a wonder they get anything passed.
42
I don’t hate anyone. I hate the policies the state and federal government have on climate change saying it is causing longer summers and that we must and will do more about it, such as continuing to reduce our emissions. The NSW government for example is aiming for 0% emissions by 2050. That highlights exactly what I’ve been saying. Most people are ignorant, gullible and/or deluded. That includes you.
120
I take that as a sleight, but accept your well founded criticism.
The people are ignorant because they have been told lies by a compliant media, overcome this problem and our democracy will return to good health.
40
People are told lies all the time. That doesn’t mean the people should turn their brains off and just accept those lies. People should use their brains and apply logic and reason while doing their own research. We are not robots created to follow politicians and MSM with our eyes shut, although I’m sure the elite love such a situation to continue to eternity. We are human beings with an intelligent mind. Too many people are in a state of stupor so it’s no wonder we get the governments we have.
20
But that’s hatband’s objective.
He’s a subversive green mischief maker.
An agent provocateur of the anarchist green left.
81
One common sense method to fight,
The bush fires that spread and ignite,
Is to burn excess wood,
For the general good,
For electrical power and light.
110
The Guardian: It’s heart-wrenching — 80% of Blue Mountains and 50% of Gondwana rainforests burn in bushfires
Another way of expressing this sobering claim is that vast tracts of national parks, state forests, flora reserves and other public lands along the Great Divide and east coast have been annihilated by decades of misguided management and orchestrated neglect dictated by Green dogma, thereby endangering numerous towns and thousands of lives, destroying hundreds of homes and businesses, killing 22 people at last count, plus untold numbers of wildlife and stock; all of this idiotically perpetrated in the name of protecting the thing they have destroyed the most of.
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/its-heart-wrenching-80percent-of-blue-mountains-and-50percent-of-gondwana-rainforests-burn-in-bushfires/ar-BBZ2iUO?ocid=spartandhp
“The data [their conclusions that is] is based on a Guardian Australia analysis of areas burned in New South Wales and Queensland and was confirmed by the NSW government. [No confirmation details whatsoever are given]
Further north, the fires have devastated parts of the Gondwana rainforest world heritage area, a collection of reserves of subtropical rainforest that span 366,500 hectares across NSW and Queensland.”
“Using newly released data which combines all burned areas in NSW and Queensland since 1 July 2019, and calculated the area of overlap with world heritage areas.” [sic]
The Guardian has calculated that 53% of the Gondwana rainforest area has burned (naturally ignoring all of the Tasmanian Gondwana rainforest). Well if some “journo” at the Guardian has determined that figure, then it must be right. Unfortunately the Guardian folks do not reveal their methods beyond a vague description. So they are claiming 194,000 ha of Gondwana rainforest has burned. That is a very big call given the previously noted cases of misidentification of other forest classifications as rainforest within rainforest reserves after the QLD and northern NSW fires, and the so-called “destruction” of some subtropical rainforest where leaves a metre off the ground weren’t even singed or wilted.
As was pointed out yesterday, the RFS & NPWS kept fire away from the world heritage Wollemi pine gorge — where the Wollemi pines bear the scars of previous “unprecedented” bushfires before we even knew such trees existed. Those must have been some huge historic bushfires to penetrate deep into that precipitous, damp gorge. As a species that out-lived the dinosaurs, we can reasonably assume it has seen many fires during its long existence, and we know it can re-grow by coppicing from the base if its trunk is destroyed. A useful adaptation to say, fire, which might destroy its trunk. (A number of the existing mature Wollemis are multi-stemmed coppice trunks growing from one rootstock where the original stem was destroyed by some factor.)
For those who wish to make their own assessment, the Guardian used the following:
Australian Bushfires Maps and Spatial Data Page
https://www.emsina.org/australianbushfires
Australia, World Heritage Areas
http://www.environment.gov.au/fed/catalog/search/resource/details.page?uuid=%7B6C54FE6C-2773-47C6-8CBC-4722F29081EF%7D
90
Formatting went berserk. Sorry about that. WordPress strikes again.
81
And how did the Gondwana Forest degrade into what the First Fleeters found in 1788?
A couple of thousand years of continuously lighting fires would have done the trick.
What else could it be?
35
Try climate change.
23
Now what he implying here.
No white men before 1788.
Maybe it was the original inhabitants.
Someone “degraded” it!
It seems more than a coincidence that two new “contributors” arrived nearly at the same time and can only feel good about themselves if they abuse and diminish others.
Sad stuff.
KK
31
A friend has a Wollemi pine growing in his back yard.
Commercial outlet.
50
The Guardian – A.K.A.
“The Puckering Post”
40
Now *thats* funny….
Nice one, Centurion….
40
If I allow fire escapes in my business to be impeded and somebody dies I will be charged with manslaughter, the highways are the fire exit. A criminal investigation by the AFP or preferably a foreign force is required that will catch the guilty politicians and public servants attention. This should be followed or preceded by class actions by the insurance companies and the under and non insured. Hit them in the pocket.
180
Ouch!
110
So many sections of road that I drive on have beautiful trees reaching in from each side and kissing directly over the centre line.
Very romantic, until the fires come.
KK
120
Highway to hell KK?
80
hilarious. try getting to grips with this! even sillier at the “relatively new” Avaaz link:
18 Jan: Mashable: YouTube’s top related videos have a climate change denial problem
by Marcus Gilmer
The new report comes from activist organization Avaaz (LINK), ***a relatively new global group that harnesses the power of collective action via campaigns and petitions. The Avaaz study found that not only were a significant number of climate change denial videos surfacing on the platform, but that YouTube’s algorithm was sending viewers to even more of those types of videos.
Additionally, in a move that might actually cause YouTube to do something about it, Avaaz found dozens of big-name brands – including Samsung, Uber, L’Oréal, Warner Brothers, and Nintendo – have had their ads attached to climate change denial videos on the platform…
***For the study, Avaaz wanted to focus on YouTube’s “Up Next” feature that sends users to videos related to the ones they’re currently viewing. But since Avaaz couldn’t fully replicate the “Up Next” algorithm, they used a developer tool, YouTube Data Tools (YTDT), that approximated it.
***For that reason, it’s worth taking the results with a bit of salt since their methods couldn’t replicate the actual “Up Next” feature.
All told, Avaaz found that “16 percent of the top 100 related videos for the search term ‘global warming’ contained misinformation.” It’s not a great look, for sure. But when you take YouTube’s guidelines into account, things get… complicated…
As for those brands, several confirmed to Avaaz that they were completely unaware that their ads were attached to these climate change denial videos. ***We’ve reached out to reps at several of the companies – including Samsung, Nintendo, and Uber – for additional comment…
One of the brands whose ads appeared attached to the climate change denial videos included President Donald Trump’s website. Given Trump’s own efforts at bending over backwards to avoid acknowledging climate change, this is completely unsurprising, whether it was algorithmic or intentional…
With each passing year, climate change becomes a greater threat to our planet and our survival…
https://me.mashable.com/tech/8718/youtubes-top-related-videos-have-a-climate-change-denial-problem
51
I’ll be making a balanced bullet-point type complaint to the Minister starting with my own little mistakes and working through to his own office’s role.
Many volunteer crews performed well day-in, day-out while others were appalling. We need to be open to constructive criticism of volunteers, Fire Control, Government inaction etc. but the MSM are reluctant to be honest.
My solution is to involve an amateur film-maker putting together short documentaries about key aspects of the Blue Mtns fires. YouTube and social media are greater than ever before so I’m hopeful that we will ruffle more than a few feathers.
Some local people are forming their own street crews so we can by-pass the time delay through 000, Fire Control and then RFS response. One incident I rang-in to 000 resulted in no fire crew showing up. I had been very specific about the location and nature of the fire and the required response. By chance a crew I’d worked with earlier that night cruised by my daughter’s house and I collared them to deal with the, by-then, significant spot-fire. This has been a repeated complaint so we’re “going rogue” with our own utes and trailers, CB radio channel and mobile phone message groups. We’re free to use chain-saws and do our own real life training exercises without OH&S constraints. Farmers have been doing this on private property for decades.
Committee lovers and “white shirts” will find themselves in command of unavailable RFS crews while mysterious winter fires start in the National Parks a day prior to rains.
This is the inevitable result of years of buck-passers undermining their own credibility.
120
“Climate change is the excuse to hide an Inferno of Incompetence”
Hey, that’s completely true!
Climate junk scientists are all stupid geothermal deniers. Their incompetence is exposed here:
https://phzoe.wordpress.com/2019/12/25/why-is-venus-so-hot/
https://phzoe.wordpress.com/2019/12/24/hot-plate-heat-lamp-and-gases-in-between/
https://phzoe.wordpress.com/2019/12/06/measuring-geothermal-1/
50
I heard a Professor from Queensland on commercial radio a couple of weeks ago. He stated that fuel reduction burns only need to be done within 500m of residential areas, the rest should be left natural.
Now I’m no expert but I do live in one of the most at risk residential areas NE of Melbourne.
We are constantly reminded by the local CFA that these fires push embers several kms ahead of a front.
Does the professor understand that? He is to busy blaming Climate Change to learn any different.They really do live in bubbles these people.
130
“He stated that fuel reduction burns only need to be done within 500m of residential areas, the rest should be left natural.”
I agree totally with the 500m, depending on circumstances,
… but leaving things “natural” was what caused the intensity of these fires in the first place.
There should be well maintained fire-trails through all State Forests and National Parks
And use the State Forests for their original designation, very selective lumber work.
This “lock up and neglect” greenie-based mentality needs to change. !
If this requires a significant increase in funding…
I can name one big area of manifest waste of taxpayer funding.. the ABC.
The Brown/Gillard “Native Forest Protection Act” has a lot to answer for.
112
It doesn’t require funding for fire trails and whatnot.
Funding is required to knock the Eucalypt forests down to an easily manageable size,
thin the remainder out, plant pasture, and introduce cattle.
Like we were doing up to about 1910, when the rot took hold.
Never forget the words of Stretton on the 1939 Fires:
These fires were lit by the hand of man.
Simple solution: Remove the source of the Fuel Load.
56
When the fires spot ahead into the reduced load area (500mtrs or whatever zone) then there is less to burn , what is the problem with that? It makes great sense to focus on towns, reservoirs, powerlines or whatever other assets you want to protect.
Thinking you can control burn the total environment and not prioritising is just an example of the perfect getting in the way of the good.
61
Burning to 500m around settlements is an example of timidity and shortsightedness.
We can’t live with these types of trees.
So, it’s either them or us.
You can’t appease flammable trees. There’s got to be a heavy hand applied
47
Why are you getting so many red thumbs?
Answer: Could it be that those rational people who comment at this site see you increasingly as a fool?
I see you as a green subversive who seeks (at some future time and in another role and persona) to portray the nonsense that you contribute here as being the views of those who are contributors to Jo’s site; and therefore all views raised here should be disregarded.
If that’s not the case, then you need to lift your game.
61
Concern Trolling now, eh?
06
No.
Bored with your BS and intellectual immaturity.
00
“Could it be that those rational people who comment at this site see you increasingly as a fool? !
A pretty solid hypothesis. 😉
81
But is it falsifiable?
30
Dunno, anyway I think gaslighting is frowned upon.
00
The hypothesis is remaining very sound under repeated testing.
I have yet to see any contrary evidence.
00
There are a number of ways to deal with this issue
For those who live in the bush or close to it
1: Maintain a green lawn zone around this home area
2: Grow non native low flammable trees & shrubs
3: Select and plant native fire retarding trees & shrubs ( Good list in “Grow What Where’ 2007 & 1983 editions )
4: Set up your water supply to home area, so it works by gravity. Gravity NEVER stops working unlike pumps which can fail when needed.)
5: Put the water lines from this water source ( dam or huge tank ) underground
6 : Put sprinklers on the roof of home & main sheds so when needed a curtain of cooling water can be maintained to douse ambers falling on buildings.
7 : Cool burn in the late Autumn/Winter/Early Spring to reduce the fuel load in the surrounding bush.
40
To which I would add
metal Gutter guard
and some way of keeping your downpipes from the roof full of water.
Even better would be to route the water from the roof to a tank to recycle it, but that would require a pump (not electric – diesel?)
10
Or clean out the gutters !
I do not like gutter guard as it covers the gutters
And so we cannot see what condition they are in.
10
Embers will still shower down on houses after skipping over that 500m buffer zone with the reduced fuel.
Forest can and have been burned in the past.
Cattle men used to bring their cattle down from the high country around Easter and as they reached the open country they’d light the undergrowth and the fire would slowly creep up the hill.
Nothing different from what has been done for thousands of years.
70
Such clearing close to populated areas will help to a limited extent. As pointed out by others in a major bushfire the embers will easily jump over such areas and burn houses – unless something is done to protect the houses in the first place, such as a sprinkler system and better fireproofing of the property. It all costs money. Those who can afford it are well advised to do so. The rest will just have to forgo the property and escape for their lives. Simply put there is too much emphasis on reducing fuel loads as though it would prevent the fires. They are everywhere and we have over 100 million hectares of bush. So the only realistic way of removing it is to have large bush fires. Catch-22. There is no other way known to man to reduce the fuel loads in such a massive area.
60
correct. Canopy fires on extreme days progress the same no matter what the level of undergrowth.
01
Yes, the big deadly fires have happened regularly throughout our history.
Does this mean the government has always been incompetent ?
I don’t think we need panic and throw billions around, putting us back into deficit.
With all due repect to those who died and lost property,
I think bushfire is a bit like shark attacks, the media attention and general impact on our consciousness, is much greater than the actual number of deaths, injury and destruction.
The daily death rate would not change during the bushfires, more people would die falling off horses or off ladders than by bushfire.
The property destruction would hardly even register as a blip on our total economy, and bushfires cost the least of all our natural disasters.
The situation will gradually improve as better houses are built and there a lot that can be done on ones own property without having to worry about what the government does or doesn’t do.
It’s just part of living in Australia especially if you are in forest.
53
24 hr news cycle, social media, clickbait, monetization of content/comment, an uninformed global commentariat all play a part in amping up every event
60
Live in the bush and you have to accept the responsibility and risk outcome of that choice.
GeoffW
50
And do whatever is needed to live there safe from being burned out.
That is one’s own duty of care to self and family and the firies who may have to come to help achieve that goal.
60
I live in the sticks close to a National park and know that on those very hot very windy days if a fire breaks out we will be in trouble , I don’t expect the CFA in the driveway and I don’t rely on an emergency notification because sometimes you may not get one until it’s too late .
60
it’s a self fulfilling prophecy:
1. create fake problem (co2 causes catastrophic climate change)
2. use fake problem create conditions that will lead to catastrophic fires (policy creates fuel load).
3. blame catastrophic fires on 1.
4. demand more regulation to deal with 1.
5. go to 2. and repeat.
70
As peter keeps showing us, there really is no real evidence that CO2 caused climate change even exists.
Its purely Man MADE-UP Climate Change.
124
Perception is reality, and as amply demonstrated by true beleiver climate alarm doomest it becomes their reality. No amount of beautiful days and sea levels doing nothing much will persuade them that doom is just over the horizon (it will always be just over the horizon).
People are already doing stupid things like not having children or using their existing ones as props in their delusions. I assume people will probably end up suiciding over this at some stage, and would be unsurprised if someone said its happening already.
71
Perception is not reality when it is filtered through a hive mind where each believes what the next hive member says he believes. All in the intellectual equivalent of a circular firing squad. The net result is a summation of zeros having little to no relation to what reality actually is. This is exactly what the enforcement of political correctness and go along to get along produces.
41
A number of sites could collaborate to provide a report on the previous reports
and the lack of Government response and the resultant further injury
Catallaxy springs to mind, the sanguine folks there
and some of the contributors to WattsUp..
divide and conquer
happy to be on the team deconstructing the bullshit we are served up as government condescending generosity
60
Negligent manslaughter charges for our state governments…..
40
Making politicians accountable for negligent decision making ! You get my vote .
20
some mention of major bushfires every 10-20 years; others say 5-10 years.
Prof Wintle – comment #30 – told BBC’s Julian Marshall massive bushfires are happening every 3, 4 or 5 years. no argument from BBC. that’s the kind of talk they like.
80
Climate change will be used by the States as their “get out of jail” card to deflect blame elsewhere. This also has the (for them) added bonus that the heat is then on the Federal Govt (not them) and they can avoid having to spend as much on the required fuel management increases.
The enquiry needs to be properly drawn up to ensure that the States cannot do this. And we need a merciless judge who will not allow people to sweep matters under the rug.
My father was involved in several Govt enquiries and was disgusted that in at least one case secrecy agreements were used to gag investigators, as they found material which, if released, would have almost certainly had that State govt in the hot seat…So they have form in this area.
60
The art of project management – ALLOCATION OF BLAME.
60
More like
“ALLOCATION OF BLAME – somewhere else”
60
class action lawsuit is the only way to get to the bottom of this issue, so that bureaucrats are forced to act properly as regards forest management. look at this rubbish:
14 Jan: Guardian: Victoria announces inquiry into bushfire crisis as Morrison flags royal commission
by Paul Karp
The Victorian government has announced a two-year inquiry into the bushfire crisis, ahead of the mooted federal royal commission which has met resistance from some states…
On Sunday Scott Morrison said that a national inquiry – most likely a royal commission – would be “necessary”…
The Western Australian government has dissented from the call for a royal commission…
The New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, has already announced that state will hold a separate inquiry…
Later on Tuesday Morrison told reporters in Canberra that a national inquiry had never been intended to replace state inquiries and any suggestion they were in conflict was “false”…
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jan/14/victoria-announces-inquiry-into-bushfire-crisis-as-morrison-flags-royal-commission
14 Jan: SBS: AAP: Victoria announces inquiry as Morrison government pushes for fire royal commission
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has said her government is “not against the idea” of a national inquiry…
“We’re not against the idea. The time for bitterness and name-calling and finger-pointing is well past us.”…
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/victoria-announces-inquiry-as-morrison-government-pushes-for-fire-royal-commission
nothing could possibly come out of the above – it’s just buying time, rather than correcting the problem.
70
Don’t it always seem to go? That you don’t know what you got till its gone? So said the great poet and songstress But there are many potential futures. And even many potential near-libertarian futures. But unless you have a leg-in to what this fellow is talking about you can never be on the same page as other well-meaning people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1ZeXnmDZMQ
21
16 Jan: Bloomber NEF: Energy, Vehicles, Sustainability – 10 Predictions for 2020
by Angus McCrone, Chief Editor
One connecting thread is that companies and investors are more committed to a cleaner future than ever before, but governments still have the capacity to accelerate – or impede – that process. This year, the U.S. presidential election in November will have major implications for the speed of decarbonization globally…
Politics in developing countries are becoming more important, particularly for renewables.
Recently, two Indian states have toyed with introducing retroactive cuts in tariffs for wind and solar, and in Mexico President “AMLO” is considering scaling back the previous government’s commitment to clean energy projects. As parts of Europe demonstrated in the early 2010s, this sort of action can wound investor confidence – and slow the pace of deployment…
One other thing before I list BNEF’s 10 Predictions for 2020, and that is a quick recap. We did respectably with our crystal ball gazing a year ago…
Please take the following predictions for 2020 with what they deserve – a large pinch of salt…READ ON
https://about.bnef.com/blog/energy-vehicles-sustainability-10-predictions-for-2020/
30
behind paywall:
17 Jan: Financial Times: The energy transition will not come cheaply
https://www.ft.com/content/d323ee6c-3843-11ea-a6d3-9a26f8c3cba4
excerpts found:
From Germany to China, governments are struggling to reconcile their industrial demands with their environmental ambitions.
Events of the past 18 months, including a marked shift in public awareness of the climate emergency, have underlined the need for action.
For all the setting of emission reduction targets, policymakers are only just beginning to talk about the costs of the energy transition, and the fact that it will lead to losers as well as winners…
Experts may have worked out the costs of this shift, but it is now time for political leaders to engage with their citizens about the choices ahead and how they can be helped to adapt. It is not just the EU’s credibility that is on the line.
NO THANKS.
50
Experts may have worked out the costs of this shift,
I am yet to see any government document that has any clue about the cost to transition from fossil fuel.
50
And, you never will.
Because that would waken the sheeple and give pause to the delegation of wealth and power to the UN and other politicians as well as the globalists who profit from the sheeple.
Sheeple are good for 4 things: To be Eaten, Shorn, Sold, or F#$ed.
Unarmed Sheeple can’t even resist.
Conclusion: Don’t be a Sheeple. Do demand that accounting of costs but don’t bet on it.
10
I’ve just been watching ABC news here in SA.
It was dominated here in SA by news about the costly consequences of all the bushfires.
1 : People dead !
2: People’s homes burned’ down or damaged
3: Farms, fodder and livestock burned and killed
4 : The tourist industry collapsing as overseas visitors stay away from Australia and Australians cancel going to tourist areas anywhere close to the fire grounds ( eg Adelaide Hills, Kangaroo Island )
5 : Millions of wildlife animals killed or seriously burned..
And ALL these costly consequences are the direct result of ignorant city based idiots & ‘experts’ and bureaucrats & pollies, demanding that cool burning/ fuel reduction/ cultural burning NOT happen. When will these dumb nuts ever learn !!
However it was the ABC I was watching. The special 40 minute edition. And despite reporting all of these impacts of the bush fires, the ABC dumbnuts completely omitted to mention cool burns or fuel reduction burning or even cultural burning. That’s how indoctrinated the ABC is.
I wonder when they will learn to look beyond their Collinswood North East Road high rise ?
60
“I wonder when they will learn to look beyond their Collinswood North East Road high rise ?”
Bill
I fear the only windows they’ve yet found are on their computers. As that song has it
“Step by step, row by row – – “
50
Bill In Oz –
BBC is just as bad. hours and hours on the bushfires and I have NEVER heard them mention fuel loads. at least ABC have given a nod in that direction a couple of time, even if it was to try to convince its audience they weren’t the problem or whatever.
50
I have not read all the replies but why they must blame Climate change is because who do you sue for gross negligence if Climate change is responsible
A class action was taken out by victims after 2009 fires here in Victoria . Ran for 2 years was very expensive and quietly closed down with payment made but who was responsible not declared. However , David Pakham and Roger Underwood blamed lack of hazard burning, land management etc. like now
60
Ran until 2014-5
The power company paid out $494.5 million dollars
And of course we all know
They did that out of the goodness of their hearts
Not because they were guilty as hell !
Now where’s the other leg ?
it needs pulling hard !
20
The settlement was one of the factors contributing to electricity price rises in Victoria over the last 5 years.
30
Greta, a “star” in the CAGW mob’s eyes, incl the FakeNewsMSM:
17 Jan: UK Telegraph: Davos elite gathers for 50th anniversary in shadow of climate change and populism
by Russell Lynch
More than 2,800 of the world’s VIPs don snow boots and winter gear for a four-day frenzy marking the event’s 50th anniversary…
Heads of state, earnest chief executives, billionaires and central bankers – most of whom have flown in by private jet – will hold forth on this year’s theme of “stakeholder capitalism for a sustainable and cohesive world”. Worthy discussions on climate change dominate the agenda…
The star turns will be climate campaigner Greta Thunberg – down for at least three events – and US President Donald Trump, attending for the first time in two years. Prince Charles puts aside the House of Windsor’s recent family difficulties to make his own climate address on Wednesday…
Sheryl Crow will be entertaining the guests of Philip Morris, while veteran superstar DJ Mark Ronson is spinning the decks at the Wall Street Journal party…
In the Davos hierarchy, apart from world leaders – who don’t wear a badge – the £500,000-plus white badges are the access-all-areas golden tickets. Orange badges are for the press, green for flunkeys and purple for technicians. A hotel pass gets you into the Belvedere and the chance to grab passing greatness.
The world may have seen a populist revolution in recent years with the rise of Brexit and Trump, but in Davos the global order remains intact, for four days at least.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/01/17/davos-50-still-partying-despite-rise-populism/
30
Interesting to see if Greta is finally forced to say something of substance, which is likely to be wrong. Her first event is a panel on Tuesday, which is billed as a debate (how to avoid the apocalypse?). Hopefully she cannot speech her way out.
00
Her Father and Handlers write her scripts for her.
That child has not the education, ability, nor mental prowess to answer an unstaged question.
Deviations from the script paralyze her. Not unusual for an aspergers child.
Seriously doubt it is a “Debate”. More likely a Photo Op and Rigged Show.
“Substance” isn’t part of the experience or vocabulary of someone her age.
20
VIDEO: 17m: 19 Jan: Sky Australia: Bilpin farmer had fire break request knocked back days before brutal bushfires ripped through property
Presenter: Sharri Markson
Bilpin resident Martin Tebbutt says he made numerous attempts over a two-and-and-half-year period to get permission to hazard reduce on his NSW property which was ultimately significantly fire-damaged by the enormous Gospers Mountain blaze.
Mr Tebbutt told Sky News he believed there is an “atmosphere” and “attitude” within the NSW Rural Fire Service, in which the administration “must have complete control of any situation at all times, seemingly regardless of the outcome”.
Mr Tebbutt said he was denied permission to clear land and create fire breaks on his property leading up to the devastating blaze on December 21 last year despite voicing his concerns to NSW state government ministers and the NSW RFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons just days before the damage was incurred.
Along with his criticism of Mr Fitzsimmons and his administration, Mr Tebbutt said NSW Environment Minister Matt Kean “is also part of the problem,” over the issue.
Mr Kean told Sky News he believed, “there’s a range of factors” which have contributed to the current bushfire crisis which has devastated the state.
“Obviously, there’s been arson, there’s been lightning strikes,” Mr Kean said.
“No one can deny the link between climate change and the conditions which have allowed these catastrophic fires to occur,” he said.
https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6124709698001
20
No one can deny it, except the IPCC:
Low confidence in an observed global-scale trend in drought or dryness (lack of rainfall) since the 1950s, due to lack of direct observations, methodological uncertainties and choice and geographical inconsistencies in the trends ;
•High confidence that the frequency and intensity of drought since 1950 have likely increased in the Mediterranean and West Africa (although 1970s Sahel drought dominates the trend) and likely decreased in central North America and northwest Australia ;
•Low confidence in attributing changes in drought over global land areas since the mid-20th century to human influence owing to observational uncertainties and difficulties in distinguishing decadal-scale variability in drought from long-term trends ;
*High confidence for droughts during the last millennium of greater magnitude and longer duration than those observed since the beginning of the 20th century in many regions.
https://wg1.ipcc.ch/presentations/Sbsta_drought.pdf
00
unbelievable. how much Faker can the FakeNewsMSM get? read all:
19 Jan: Vice: Australia’s Bushfires Are the Worst Ever. So Is the Disinformation Campaign
Right-wingers in Australia and elsewhere are blaming environmentalists and arsonists while trying to avoid a conversation about climate change.
by Connor Macdonald
But as firefighters battle blazes on the ground, an unprecedented right-wing disinformation campaign rages online in which overzealous environmentalists, arsonists, and exploding manure piles, not human-induced climate change, are blamed for the ongoing crisis…
Even before the fires became international news, conservative politicians in Australia were blaming environmentalists for wildfires in general…
Misinformation about all-powerful Green lobbyists and bureaucratic green tape surfaces every bushfire season, pushed by fringe groups and conservative Australian media outlets. Right-wing pundits in Australia have been blaming Greens for fires while simultaneously shrugging off concerns about fires for years…
“What is new this time around is the scale and the spread… suggesting there was a hungry audience looking for superficially believable claims that can be used to reassure themselves that their worldviews are not countered,” said Ketan Joshi, a communications consultant currently writing a book on climate change denialism in Australia…
https://www.vice.com/en_in/article/v74dx3/conservatives-across-the-world-are-spreading-disinformation-about-wildfires
20
leftist scammers in Australia and everywhere are blaming man made-up climate change,
…in a desperate attempt to avoid talking about greenie agenda “lock-up and neglect” fuel loads.
100
Here in Mt Barker SA
It’s been raining for the past 3 hours.
Lovely gentle rain
No Hail or downpours..
Just slow & steady.
And coming from the South East
Which is very unusual as it means
We too are benefiting from the low which has formed
Over the eastern states
it’s so very welcome
Why I think it’s ‘climate change’ !
😉
70
Just emptied the rain gauge
31.5 mm of rain and it’s still drizzling
Wonderful rain
The negative IOD over the Indian ocean off the North West coast
is making a huge impact !
30
Geothermal denial is a serious mental illness that prevents mainstream climate science from ever being correct:
https://phzoe.wordpress.com/2019/12/25/why-is-venus-so-hot/
https://phzoe.wordpress.com/2019/12/24/hot-plate-heat-lamp-and-gases-in-between/
https://phzoe.wordpress.com/2019/12/06/measuring-geothermal-1/
40
Picky picky picky. Look at the bright side. If there’s any truth to the damage assessment and to the Nuclear Winter Unless We Surrender predictions (remember those?), the smoke from those fires ought to at least lower temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere for several years. The Ministry of Truth will, as always, be called on to rectify kleptocracy thermometer data, but there are other, third-party thermometers.
10
Hi Jo
A copy of the signpost on the Chuck Schumer article here might be strategic for illustrating future “the science is settled ” posts
https://wattsupwiththat.com/
20
Were the Arsonists ”Firebugs”, as the ABC tries to dismiss them as, ecoterrorists, as
some overseas #FakeNews outlets spin, or were they paid to light fires?
Until we know that, blame can’t be laid at any door.
01
PM Morrison has confirmed he is a climate change/global warming believer. He stated at a press conference he will be focusing on emission reductions in a response to a question raised about several state and federal LNP members demanding more action on climate change. So anyone who votes for either major party is supporting more action on climate change. If anyone has a brain they need to reassess who they should vote for at the next federal election. So stop blaming the ABC and politicians and start using your brain and send a clear message to them at the ballot box. We are not fools, at least I’m not and I certainly will not be voting for LNP, ALP, Greens and any other party that has a policy to reduce our emissions any further. We’ve done more than enough already so let other countries like China and India do their bit first before we do any more reductions. We clearly can’t save the planet for some hypothetical catastrophic climate change on our own. Of course if PM Morrison were serious about his belief in CAGW he would be allowing for the building of nuclear power stations. Needless to say he is very likely not serious and is telling fibs. He is treating us like fools. So again vote accordingly or stop whining and put up with the BS and let’s see how things pan out.
51
Stalin said”It’s all about Cadres, baby, and you ain’t got any.”*
Mao said ”All Power comes out the barrel of a gun.”
So that’s the big problem.
The ALP has got Cadres, the Greens have got Cadres
The Liberal Party has got Blue Rinsed old ladies in Twin Sets
and everyone else ain’t got nuttin’.
Getting it now?
*Not his exact words.
03
There are more people speaking-up. AGW is a hoax. Some references to recent papers here:
https://www.3ccorp.net/2020/01/12/climate-change-hoax-collapses-as-new-science-finds-human-activity-has-virtually-zero-impact-on-global-temperatures-2/
50
Good. I expect then PM Morrison will take note and get us out of the Paris Agreement ASAP. Otherwise, it only adds more proof he is Turnbull 2.0
10
I really like this report (may have already been posted)
Swedes Vote Climate Policy Biggest Waste of Tax Payer Money in 2019
The Swedish public has voted that climate change spending has been the biggest waste of taxpayer money in 2019, according to a poll by the Swedish Taxpayers’ Association.
The Taxpayers’ Association released the results of their annual wasteful spending poll earlier this week, declaring that climate policy had been the biggest waste of money, largely due to the fact that despite the spending, emissions in Sweden had actually slightly increased.
In 2014, the Swedish national government spent 5.2 billion Swedish krona (£419 million/$547 million), a number that has more than doubled to 12.6 billion krona (£1 billion/$1.3 billion) for the planned 2020 budget.
“The government has more than doubled the appropriations for climate policy, but despite this, emissions no longer decrease. In 2018, emissions even increased. That is why climate policy has been voted the worst waste of the year,” Johan Gustafsson, Waste Ombudsman at the Taxpayers’ Association, said.
“Too much tax money is wasted without benefit to those who pay. It is no less important that money has an effect when it is invested in something that is important — rather the opposite,” he added.
In second place in the poll was a project from the artists’ commission that saw over a million krona donated to a project focused on art for earthworms and fungi….
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/01/11/swedes-vote-climate-policy-biggest-waste-tax-payer-money-2019/
20
BBC on CAGW-saving hydrogen, which sounds more & more ridiculous & impractical the longer it goes on. never mind the deceptive exploitation of Venice.
nothing, tho, beats “environmental scientist”/local campaigner, Jane da Mosto, who begins and ends the program. if u listen to nothing else, don’t miss the final minute from 25m09s.
why does she sound about 12 years old?
is da Mosto channelling Greta? BBC seems to be ending a lot of their CAGW programs with highly emotional pleas.
AUDIO: 26m29s: BBC: Global Business: Hydrogen: The answer to Climate Change?
Hydrogen is a volatile gas with an image problem, but hydrogen evangelists think this could be the ‘magic molecule’ which will solve the world’s air pollution and cut carbon emissions dramatically. Manuela Saragosa presents the final part of this Global Business special series on energy from Italy, where hydrogen has been pumped into the existing gas network. Could a hydrogen boat replace the diesel belching cruise liners and ships along the canals of Venice? Produced by Nina Robinson
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3csy82q
the real Jane da Mosto:
***UnderstandRisk.org: Jane da Mosto
Jane da Mosto is an environmental scientist (MA, Oxford University, M. Phil. Imperial College London) with international experience as a consultant on sustainable development, climate change and wetland ecology. Since 2012 she has been fully engaged in trying to change the future of Venice and for Venetians as co-founder of We are here Venice…
After working in London in management consultancy and venture capital, Jane took up a fellowship at the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei in Milan. Since moving to Venice in 1995, she has worked continuously and variously: European Projects for local NGOs; Agenda 21 for Venice Municipality; a review of climate change research in Italy for the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme/Consiglio Nazionale di Ricerca; the Venice in Peril Fund/Cambridge University five-year study “Flooding and Environmental Challenges for Venice and the Lagoon” and the “Venice Report” on demography, change in use of buildings, public finances and tourism; the OECD Territorial Review of Venice; muf/British Council installation at the Architecture Biennale etc. She gives lectures, frequently appears in the media and is invited to explain Venice at conferences and seminars, worldwide.
https://understandrisk.org/jane-da-mosto/
***UnderstandRisk.org is a project of GFDRR (Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, a grant-funding mechanism, managed by the World Bank…Working on the ground with over 400 local, national, regional, and international partners, GFDRR provides knowledge, funding, and technical assistance)
20
Absolute nonsense of course. The canals of Venice are far to narrow and shallow to take cruise ships.
The Port of Venice is a Green Port. That’s where the ships are. And they don’t “belch” while in port. They’re very polite, unlike the BBC barbarians.
10
Off topic, but interesting:
UK Wind Farms Paid Millions Per Day NOT to Run Turbines
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/01/19/uk-wind-farms-paid-millions-per-day-not-run-turbines/
30
Heavy rain over the north east Vic fires now will test Forest Fire Managements ability to keep the fires going and the money flowing.The helicopters flying over our place for over a month have dropped enough water on Whitfield fire to grow a rice crop.
50
1939 Royal Commission has been brought up in the comments. I didn’t realise Peter Hannam wrote about it. naturally he spins it to CAGW eventually:
11 Jan: SMH: Lessons learnt (and perhaps forgotten) from Australia’s ‘worst fires’
By Peter Hannam
“The worst disaster in Australia’s history,” and “Terrible climax to heat wave,” were just two of the screaming headlines greeting readers of The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald 80 years ago this week.
The Black Friday bushfires of 1939 devoured some two million hectares of Victoria, as much of the state ignited on January 13.
For NSW, the fury was mainly endured as a spell of heat so extreme that it set records in some places that are yet to be toppled…
The Black Friday death toll was shocking enough (at least 71) to prompt a royal commission in Victoria led by Judge Leonard Stretton. The commission’s report ran to 35 pages and was completed in less than four months – rather more concise and speedy that its recent counterparts…
Record-setting heat and drought
Linden Ashcroft, a researcher of climate history at the Bureau of Meteorology, says the weather in early 1939 was notably severe.
Four of the five hottest days on record for New South Wales as a whole were in January 1939, and two of the five hottest days in Victoria, she says…
“The second week in January [1939] is generally regarded as the most extreme heatwave to affect south-eastern Australia during the 20th century,” Ashcroft says…READ ON
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/lessons-learnt-and-perhaps-forgotten-from-australia-s-worst-fires-20190108-p50qol.html
20
AUDIO: 52m59s: 19 Jan: BBC Newshour
And we hear from an Aboriginal land expert on the impact the bushfires are having on the animal species in Australia.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w172wq54hmtj4z3
summary is misleading; Williamson is, however, eventually asked about indigenous practices for controlling bushfires; brief response to that. Liz Walker, CEO RSPCA Victoria, talks about loss of plants & animals.
why BBC might have chosen Bhiamie Williamson, given the tone of the interview:
10 Jan: The Conversation: Strength from perpetual grief: how Aboriginal people experience the bushfire crisis
by ***Bhiamie Williamson, Research Associate & PhD Candidate, Australian National University;
Jessica Weir, Senior Research Fellow, Western Sydney University;
Vanessa Cavanagh, Associate Lecturer, School of Geography and Sustainable Communities, University of Wollongong
Disclosure statements:
Bhiamie Williamson is affiliated with the ACT Bushfire Council.
Jessica Weir receives funding from the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Council.
Vanessa Cavanagh receives funding from The NSW Bushfire Risk Management Research Hub. She is affiliated with Firesticks Alliance Indigenous Corporation.
Oliver Costello is chief executive of Firesticks Alliance, an Indigenous-led network that aims to re-invigorate cultural burning. As he puts it:
“Since colonisation, many Indigenous people have been removed from their land, and their cultural fire management practices have been constrained by authorities, informed by Western views of fire and land management.”
In this way, settler-colonialism is not historical, but a lived experience. And the growing reality of climate change adds to these anxieties…
https://theconversation.com/strength-from-perpetual-grief-how-aboriginal-people-experience-the-bushfire-crisis-129448
no idea why they chose Liz Walker. better if they had someone from WWF Australia to justify the figures.
10
a lengthy piece, that never tackles the elephant in the forest:
20 Jan: ABC: Bushfire experts say it’s time to revisit Black Saturday recommendations and stop people rebuilding in highly dangerous areas
By the specialist reporting team’s Loretta Florance and social affairs reporter Norman Hermant
But, as fires continue to burn throughout much of the country, one of the country’s leading bushfire researchers thinks there are some areas where the decision of whether to rebuild should be made long before the flames reach the doorstep.
Melbourne University fire ecologist Kevin Tolhurst said there were some areas of the Australian bush where houses should never have been built — or rebuilt.
“People shouldn’t be surprised that if the house burns down, that they’re not going to be allowed to rebuild because that property has perhaps already been identified as one that’s in a place too dangerous to live,” Dr Tolhurst said.
“If it comes as a surprise, not only do they have the trauma of losing things through fire, the trauma of not being able to rebuild adds to that problem.”…
The idea of moving people out of certain areas altogether was considered carefully in the aftermath of the Black Saturday fires.
‘No-one could explain how this would work’
A royal commission into the blazes made 67 recommendations.
Then-premier John Brumby accepted them all in principle — except one, which called for the voluntary buy-back of at-risk properties…
“To rebuild without any real thought being given to the future management of bushfire risk is to fail to learn from experience,” the report said…
In 2010, Mr Brumby argued that not only would it be too difficult to decide which roads and streets around the state would be eligible, but it could actually make living in remote, heavily-forested areas more dangerous…
When the Coalition was voted into government in 2010, new premier Ted Baillieu accepted the idea of buybacks, but they were only offered to people living within 100 metres from significant forest who had lost the home they lived in.
One hundred and sixteen houses were bought-back under the scheme…READ ON
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-20/government-buybacks-for-properties-extreme-bushfire-danger-zones/11851884
20
20 Jan: ABC: Bushfires devastate unique woodlands on the Nullarbor, threaten native wildlife with extinction
ABC Goldfields By Jarrod Lucas
Hundreds of native animals are believed dead and a rare species of bird may be bound for the “extinction radar” after massive bushfires in Western Australia swept through the world’s biggest temperate woodland.
Authorities have finally given the all-clear after the blazes, started by lightning near the small town of Norseman on December 16, tore through more than 550,000 hectares of the Goldfields region.
No homes or lives were lost, but the destruction of vegetation and wildlife has devastated the traditional owners, the Ngadju people, who have been trying to grow the local population of malleefowl over the past six years…
Mr Shultz said the land had been affected by drought, which had provided dry fuel for the fires…
Mr Schultz said traditional owners want to be more involved in fire mitigation work, and what he called “cool burn-offs” during milder conditions.
He said 12 Ngadju rangers have been trained as firefighters but have no machinery.
“We need to get back to the old ways because that’s been working for thousands of years,” he said.
“We need to get in and get our hands dirty and do what the elders used to do.”…
The bushfires occurred just months before the official opening of Norseman’s $2.1 million Woodlands Community Centre in a bid to bring more tourists to the region.
Landscape photographer Lynn Webb, who owns a professional gallery in Norseman, has been capturing the beauty of the woodlands and the Lake Cowan salt lake for the past 40 years.
Many of his favourite spots in the area have been destroyed…
“But there is still a large portion of the woodlands which has survived, and we need to make sure it is managed much better in the future.”…
The Shire of Dundas is now calling for a multi-agency review of how the bushfires were fought and what funding should be put towards mitigation work…
Shire of Dundas CEO Peter Fitchat said the Ngadju rangers could make a difference in reducing the severity of future fires if they were engaged for bushfire mitigation work…
“The fire went to the stage it did because of a lack of mitigation work and the drought.”
“It’s going to happen again if we don’t fund people to do the mitigation work — and not just anyone, but people who understand what they’re doing and who have an interest in that bush.”…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-20/norseman-bushfires-threaten-wildlife-with-extinction/11880912
30
20 Jan: Australian: Time to come out of the wilderness on bushfires and cut back the fuel
by Nick Cater, executive director of the Menzies Research Centre
The taboo around talking about climate change during a crisis has been smashed. Greenpeace wants to seize the moment and “ensure the bushfire crisis continues to be framed as a symptom of the climate emergency”. The single-cause obsession of the climate-explains-everything movement is a gift to bad governments. All manner of public policy and administrative failures can now be duckshoved to the weather gods.
The quiet Australians have already worked this out. On talkback radio (recommended by pharmacists as an antidote to Twitter), few if any callers have wanted to talk about climate policy in recent weeks.
Hazard reduction, rather than the reduction of emissions, was at the top of their list, backed by calls for stronger containment lines.
They are on solid empirical ground…
Of the three factors that govern the intensity of fires — heat, oxygen and fuel — it is the only one that can be controlled easily by humans.
Every reputable authority on the subject, from the CSIRO to Forest Fire Management Victoria, agrees. “Fuel management reduces the spread and intensity of bushfires, which makes suppression more achievable and safer,” reads the FFM’s guide to managing bushfire risks…READ ON
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/time-to-come-out-of-the-wilderness-on-bushfires-and-cut-back-the-fuel/news-story/9d248f13dd6949d1d88592364930eec1
20
Most bushfires occur in strong National Party seats. So despite all the promises made after every fire, and the recommendations following every inquiry, when it comes to next year’s government budgets, there will always be more votes to had in inner city seats. That results in promises for more national parks, less logging, no new dams, bans on wood removal, and cuts to park maintenance, hazard reduction, and roadside clearance. And inner city greenies celebrate how much wildlife has been protected – until the next major fire. But then, it’s not our fault, say the pollies, it’s climate change. Stop burning coal and everything will be green again, if only we wait for another hundred years.
20
20 Jan: Mirage News: Forest thinning can reduce bushfire risk – academics
Writing in “The Conversation” today, the University of Melbourne academics led by the university’s Head Forest and Ecosystem Science Professor Rod Keenan say research has shown forest thinning in a vital additional tool we can use to make our communities safer…
CEO, Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) Ross Hampton: “It beggars belief that some activists and activist academics are determinedly proclaiming that not only do we not change the way we do things but we go even faster down the failed road we have been on.
“For example, tens of thousands of trees are being felled by forestry contractors right now along the edges of roads in Victoria and NSW to make those roads safe for traffic. Thanks to the voices of the activist academics who believe all forests should be left in a wilderness state, this timber cannot be used but is instead being left in piles where it will become fuel load for the next major bushfire season.”…READ ALL
https://www.miragenews.com/forest-thinning-can-reduce-bushfire-risk-academics/
forget “controversial”:
20 Jan: TheConversation: Forest thinning is controversial, but it shouldn’t be ruled out for managing bushfires
Rod Keenan, Professor, University of Melbourne
Chris Weston, Senior Lecturer, University of Melbourne
Luba Volkova, Senior Research Fellow, University of Melbourne
Disclosure statement
Rod Keenan receives funding from the Australian and Victorian Governments and the forest industry. He is a Member of the Institute of Foresters of Australia and the Ecological Society of Australia.
Chris Weston has previously received funding from VicForests as a part of the Mechanical Fuel Load Reduction Trial (MFLRT) overseen by the NSW Government on behalf of the Australian Government.
Luba Volkova has previously received funding from VicForests as a part of the Mechanical Fuel Load Reduction Trial (MFLRT) overseen by the NSW Government on behalf of the Australian Government
Calls from industry and unions (LINK AUSTRALIAN 8 Jan – Forestry industry, CFMEU united on logging, burns to take fight to bushfires – BEHIND PAYWALL) for increased thinning in forests to reduce bushfire risks have been met with concern from conservation scientists. They suggest forest thinning makes forests more fire prone.
So who’s right? Well, it’s complicated. The short answer is forest thinning is a good way to lower the risk of fire and is a widely-used strategy to improve forest health. However, there are potential downsides. Thinning needs to be carefully planned to avoid effects on soil, water or sensitive habitats…
We’ve seen in the media arguments about using thinning to manage bushfire risks. It’s important conservation and bushfire scientists, the timber industry and government bodies understand all concerns and create space for inclusive dialogue to identify where thinning and prescribed burning are best practised…
In any case, whether you’re for or against the practice, more research is needed to determine how much we should use it…READ ON, ENDS WITH THE “CHANGING CLIMATE”
https://theconversation.com/forest-thinning-is-controversial-but-it-shouldnt-be-ruled-out-for-managing-bushfires-130124
20
PODCASTS: 20 Jan: Asia&ThePacificPolicySociety: Podcast: Managing bushfires (part two)
Preparing for a new normal?
by Stephen Dovers, Janette Lindesay, Liz Hanna, Siobhan McDonnell, Paul Wyrwoll, Martyn Pearce
On this second episode of our two-part podcast, our expert panel dive deeper into the physical and mental health impacts of the fires, the impact on Australia’s biodiversity, and discuss what lessons policymakers can really draw from a potential Royal Commission into the bushfires…AUDIO
Having discussed the link between climate change the bushfires and shared their personal experiences in part one, our expert panel – Dr Liz Hanna, Professor Stephen Dovers, Professor Janette Lindesay, and Dr Siobhan McDonnell – return for part two of this special Policy Forum Pod episode on Australia’s bushfires. Our presenters Dr Paul Wyrwoll and Martyn Pearce pick up where we left off asking the panel about the far-reaching mental and physical health impacts of the fires, look at whether a Royal Commission is needed, and discuss what better policy might look like.
You can listen to the first episode here AUDIO
Stephen Dovers is Emeritus Professor with the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society and works on the policy of climate change adaptation, disasters, and sustainable development.
Janette Lindesay is a climatologist, a Deputy Director of the ANU Climate Change Institute, and Emeritus Professor at the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society.
Liz Hanna is an Honorary Fellow at ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society. Her research investigates the health impacts of climate change.
Siobhan McDonnell is a legal anthropologist with over 20 years of experience working with Indigenous people in Australia and the Pacific on land use, gender, and climate change. She is a Lecturer at Crawford School of Public Policy, and the lead negotiator on climate change for the Vanuatu government.
Paul Wyrwoll is an environmental and resources economist at Crawford School. Previously, Paul was General Manager of the FE2W Network and Managing Editor of the Global Water Forum.
Martyn Pearce is a presenter for Policy Forum Pod and the Editor of Policy Forum
Show notes | The following were referred to in this (SECOND) episode:
Hazard reduction burns are ‘not the panacea’: RFS boss ETC
https://www.policyforum.net/podcast-managing-bushfires-part-two/
10
Spare us the cultural burning aspect as though it’s some panacea. Nobody has lived like a native or used fires to flush out game for generations. The “most” aboriginal people, those last westernised, [SNIP 18C You are not allowed to voice any offensive opinion.] and fires routinely get out of control out bush and in remote towns. It would be a disaster.
[SNIP. Section 18C means you can’t ask that question as people may get offended. – Jo] As it’s essentially a national parks and state forest issue you need sensible people using the best meteorological information. And lots of fire breaks and fuel reduction. Anyone who knows bureaucracies knows we’ll be back here in a decade.
11
Strawman.
No one is suggesting we give up mobile phones and satellites.
No one is saying cool burns have no risk. But manageable risks beat Pyroconvective Catastrophes. And learning from indigenous management and history surely informs us.
20
Jo, I am 72.
I was helping to put out my first fire at age 7 !
And put out a grass fir lit by other kids at age 8.
At age 11 in country Victoria I was part of gang of kids and house wives
Putting out a grass fire near houses
Started by an idiot bloke’s cigarette but.
WE mowed a lot in those day in Spring and early Summer
To create a decent fire break between us and the bush.
As an adult organic farmer
Over 15 years I did 7-8 cool burns to reduce the fuel load on our farm
One got away and burned scrub on a next door property
The local CFA turned up
And parked the firetruck to protect a home which was down wind.
And then just waited.
They said “This burn was needed. It was a firestorm waiting for a match”
That was in August, in Winter !
20
I am staggered at the amount of people that use the meaningless terms like “climate change, denier, emissions” on sites like this. Everyone wants to have their say on the bleeding obvious problems create by the Green environmentalists – but does anyone write to their local member and tell them what they have been elected for.
Perhaps don’t waste your time with your local halfwit – I have the brilliant Nicole Flint who doesn’t even bother to acknowledge emails but of course singlehandedly built a local underpass and can cut ribbons and visit oldies in nursing homes!
What if we all contacted Morrison and demanded he start to bang a few heads together – get the states to start building the new HELE COAL FIRED POWER STATIONS as a matter of urgency – employ someone like Pro Ian PLIMER to do a series of educational short videos explaining the Global Warming bullshit and the benefits of burning fossil fuels (cheap reliable power, returning pure clean green CO2 back into the atmosphere which of course is needed big time now for plant growth).
Don’t forget we pay peanuts like Wong ($332,000), Di Natale ($301,000), Hanson-Young ($211,000) etc for what?? write to them and demand they resign for the damage they have done. At least ask them if they have a guilty conscience!
PS. Saw another stupid claim that fossil fuels (CO2) kills people – Craig Idso at CO2 Science shows that from 1820 to today life expectancy has increased from 29 years to 72 years due to the use of fossil fuels! Won’t see that in the Guardian.
00
Jo, the irony of this entire episode in our history is that the mass hysteria that ensued like “The whole continent of Australia is on fire” announced at the Golden Globe awards has obviously been taken seriously by many potential overseas visitors.
Our niece in London whom we persuaded to continue her trip told us that her travel agent was cancelling scores of intended trips to Australia.
Now of course when every business on the SE coast and hundreds of other tourist organisations are about to go broke, the very people who were hyping the disaster into something worse than “Direct Impact” or “War of the Worlds” are blaming poor old ScoMo for the whole shamozzle.
10
Politicians + Votes + CO2 theory megaphone + Green policies + community Science nihilism in education = Current national governance disaster
The problem is how to reverse the position when green policy fauna and flora disaster is sold as supporting their Climate Change policies.
How do you open politicians’ minds up to what constitutes science vs taking screeched opinions as ‘proof’ and scientific outcome.
How do you make politicians realise they have no business determining a science outcome nor in hindering open science debate. Dark Ages!
How do you force politicians to realise that what they now do may destroy economies and they will personally forever be scorned by history.
How do you force politicians to read climate history to teach them its all happened before, in recent history and will happen again.
How do you force politicians to realise a poet from the turn of last century knew more about climate changes than they ever will.
How do you force politicians to look at China and India and realise destruction of Western economies for green theory is evil and futile!
How do you force politicians to defend the poor, not take from them while their subsidies make the already wealthy even wealthier.
How do you kick politicians in their rear end to have them realise that’s where their brains, egos and self interest reside!
It is not for politicians to jump on bandwagons from the loudest voices to make populist decisions, ignoring the lack of current knowledge
of future developments but gamble all our futures on their presumption that those developments save their gamble in a timely and economic
fashion. These latest fires prove just how little politicians have the capacity to foretell of the huge and apparent dangers their policies presented to the forests, the wildlife and the people resident in them. Either the politicians were and are totally incapable of appreciating
such dangers, or they placed their own futures (for votes) ahead of the at-risk lives of people and fauna those policies helped place in danger.
It has to be one or the other! There is a point also, that we ‘the people’ have to wake up in allowing ourselves to chase and support stupidities.
00