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Re: Deer in the Headlights

Reply #60
Perhaps fuel loads AND climate change were factors?

There's that and a few other factors as well IMO, some of which may be unfortunate coincidence, and others, like savage cuts to funding, which are completely within our control.  Hopefully this will be a massive wake up call.

Re: Deer in the Headlights

Reply #61
I'm confused.

All these people saying climate change has nothing to do with the fires.....are you saying there is no such thing as climate change?

Cimate change didn't start the fires, but it certainly helps create an environment which allows them to flourish.
As does minimising the preventative burning off measures required.
As does minimising the spending on being able to prevent and fight them.


Re: Deer in the Headlights

Reply #62
Of course it's a multifactor issue.
Perhaps a Royal Commission isn't such a bad idea.
They usually result in recommendations that carry a bit of weight for change.

Re: Deer in the Headlights

Reply #63
Of course it's a multifactor issue.
Perhaps a Royal Commission isn't such a bad idea.
They usually result in recommendations that carry a bit of weight for change.


Agree Lods.

Re: Deer in the Headlights

Reply #64
I suspect much of the vitriol aimed at Morrison is because he has been such a vocal climate change denier and has actively thwarted and prevented actions to increase fire fighting abilities. He's also the boss and represents a number of archaic ideologies.

A piece from this morning's The Age. Some good perspectives:

“…Associate Professor Philip Zylstra, from Wollongong University's Centre for Sustainable Ecosystem Solutions, said fuel loads in forests, and state government management, were not responsible for the catastrophic fire season.

"I think that for the federal government to say there needs to be a focus on hazard-reduction burning at this stage appears to be passing the buck to the states," he said.

"The reality is we are at a peak of prescribed burning by state agencies. More has been done in the past decade than in many, many decades."

NSW Environment Minister Matt Kean said there were 960,000 hectares burnt for hazard reduction last year, while the previous highest yearly total since 2000 was 260,000.

Professor Zylstra said a vast increase to the current hazard reduction effort would blanket cities and towns with smoke over winter and create "huge risks" of accidental property damage and even death.

Philip Gibbons, an associate professor at the Fenner School for Environment and Society at the Australian National University, said recent fires in several regions across the country were not halted by cleared farm paddocks, which showed broadscale land clearing was not an effective management technique.

"Fires have burned through rural land which has a much lower fuel load than a hazard-burn area, but that didn't stop fires."
Professor Gibbons said studies showed hazard-reduction burns weren't effective at halting fires and policy that focused on them could push states to set minimum-hectare-burned targets.

Victoria's fire managers have already shifted from an annual hectare target, which was set after the Black Saturday royal commission, to a more strategic approach.

A 2010 study from Wollongong University, The Effect of Fuel Age on the Spread of Fire in Sclerophyll Forest in the Sydney Region, found there was only a 10 per cent chance a fire would be stopped by a hazard-reduction burn. It said road barriers were most effective at halting fires.

"This summer's fires have burnt though many areas that had hazard-reduction burning. They can help control fires in moderate weather conditions, but in severe conditions it might just help reduce the severity," he said.

Cleared buffer zones in the bush within 40 metres of houses reduced house losses by an average of 43 per cent on Black Saturday, Professor Gibbons' study found. But he said no one technique was a solution.

"If there was a silver bullet on bushfires we'd have found it by now, after the 51 inquiries since 1939."

Associate Professor Trent Penman, from the University of Melbourne bushfire behaviour and management group, said "broader thinking" was needed and "blindly putting money into prescribed burning won't stop the problem".

He said states hadn't "dropped the ball at all" on hazard-reduction burning, and they were "working harder and smarter than they have in the past", particularly since the royal commission into Black Saturday…”


Again, being a climate change denier has little to do with policy regarding fighting bushfires.

Lets let this sink in.  Scott Morrison has been prime minister of Australia since August of 2018.  What that suggests to me is that the issues we are seeing today, are the result as much of PREVIOUS government, as they are today.

We have not had stable leadership since John Howard (whom I was no real fan of by the way).  We (Australians) have pontificated about various different issues at state and federal level, and now we are reaping the benefit by having a real problem to worry about and are simply reaping what we sow.  How much did it cost us not to build a road?  Everyone along the way has this on their hands. 


"everything you know is wrong"

Paul Hewson

Re: Deer in the Headlights

Reply #65
Of course it's a multifactor issue.
Perhaps a Royal Commission isn't such a bad idea.
They usually result in recommendations that carry a bit of weight for change.

Trouble is they don't ... had one after black Saturday with recommendations to cut back undergrowth.

What happened?  Nothing

Re: Deer in the Headlights

Reply #66
2012 HAPPENED!!!!!!!


Re: Deer in the Headlights

Reply #68
Trouble is they don't ... had one after black Saturday with recommendations to cut back undergrowth.

What happened?  Nothing

Undergrowth deniers are worse than climate change deniers.
2012 HAPPENED!!!!!!!

Re: Deer in the Headlights

Reply #69
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/dec/15/climate-change-rainfall

What Kelly states may be correct, but his focus solely on rainfall in that tweet is both disturbing and a tell.  And the fact that Australia is spending big in the last 2 years is pleasing, but in no way compensates for head-in-the-sand policies and for doing stuff all before those 2 years.

Re: Deer in the Headlights

Reply #70
Trouble is they don't ... had one after black Saturday with recommendations to cut back undergrowth.

What happened?  Nothing

Seriously, the guy is a dill.

The science has been clear since the 1950s - Byram's Fire Equation!

Fuel load is the one thing man can control - yet we rarely do it.

Saying the (non) fire seasons are now much longer and there isn't 'enough time' is BS.

Whether it's green policy, lack of funding or lack of intelligence we have caused the problem ourselves.

Dr Andy Ptman, one of the alrmist cheer leaders on drought and climate change:

Quote
“…this may not be what you expect to hear. but as far as the climate scientists know there is no link between climate change and drought.

That may not be what you read in the newspapers and sometimes hear commented, but there is no reason a priori why climate change should made the landscape more arid.

If you look at the Bureau of Meteorology data over the whole of the last one hundred years there’s no trend in data. There is no drying trend.  There’s been a trend in the last twenty years, but there’s been no trend in the last hundred years, and that’s an expression on how variable Australian rainfall climate is.

There are in some regions but not in other regions.

So the fundamental problem we have is that we don’t understand what causes droughts.

Much more interesting, We don’t know what stops a drought. We know it’s rain, but we don’t know what lines up to create drought breaking rains.”

Finals, then 4 in a row!

Re: Deer in the Headlights

Reply #71
I am not always clear on what is supporting the various opinions being quoted and bandied around in the media, eg statistical correlation or proven cause and effect or what, so jumping to solutions can be futile at times.  However, urgency sometimes plays its part and a gamble on a solution or an educated guess may be the only action available at particular times.
Reality always wins in the end.

Re: Deer in the Headlights

Reply #72
Human Induced Climate Change and rising temps are not geared to global drought or flood, that's a crap assumption blokes like Kelly make to stir up crap for News Ltd and Newcastle Coal shipping mates. They try to assert it's Venus or Mars for the Earth.

Human Induced Climate Changes causes wild swings and extreme peaks and troughs, lots more so called Black Swan events and I think links in this thread have already discussed some relating to the current fires. Extreme rain, extreme drought, extreme blizzards and extreme firestorms.

The averages might be very deceptive if looked at in isolation.
The Force Awakens!

Re: Deer in the Headlights

Reply #73
To state that climate change isnt happening is stupid. 

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/GlobalWarming/page3.php

https://www.livescience.com/65927-has-earth-been-this-hot-before.html

the one part I dont know (nor do I think anyone knows) is how much of it is to do with our impact.

https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2017/01/the-worlds-10-most-devastating-volcanic-eruptions/

Somehow, these events have all occurred in the past.  They have resulted in cooling, and warming, and perhaps we are simply seeing an increased amount of volcanic activity which might be to do with human impact.  Or it might be solar, and lunar impact.  We simply dont understand enough to really concretely state what is down to us, and factually speaking, I think its the height of arrogance to assume we are causing it all.

The only thing I know for sure, is that we have logged more forests, and are putting more co2 into the atmosphere that would normally occur naturally.  This may play a part, but I suspect its only a small part.  I imagine our historic data is flawed, and that is infinitely more likely given we have never been as technologically advanced as we are today.
"everything you know is wrong"

Paul Hewson

Re: Deer in the Headlights

Reply #74
Even if we entertain the idea that Climate Change is not real (for the sake of the argument), who doesn't seriously believe that we would all benefit from better and cleaner ways of doing things ? We should change because the new ways are better - that's reason enough.