Politics Climate Change Paradox (cont in part 2)

[twotooto]

This thread is a legit ****ing pisser. Like just about every thread on this board it's one team at one end and the other team at the other end. Progressives for, conservatives against and from there it's an endless circling of the drain until it's just one giant homogenous(lol) ball of sludge gurgling away in a pit of piss and shit. Yap yap yap Happy New Year muthafukkas.

 

[Deliverance]

The Eastern Australia Bushfires 2019

A recent article in the Sydney Sunday Telegraph paints a despondent picture: horrible bushfires are “the new normal” because of climate change. The fire season, we learn, now extends to nearly 10 months of the year, and bushfires have become so intense that they cannot be stopped before immense damage is done. According to former NSW fire commissioner Greg Mullins (now a member of the Climate Council): “The price of inaction [on climate change] will increasingly be paid in lives lost and communities shattered”.

This echoes comments made in the wake of the bushfire that destroyed the town of Yarloop in Western Australia in 2016. The conditions were described by authorities as “unprecedented”. And following the 2018 Queensland bushfires, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk told reporters “If you want to know what caused those conditions, I’ll give you an answer – it’s called climate change”. Greens leader Richard de Natali and Greens MP Adam Brandt are both blaming the current fires in NSW on climate change.

Let’s assume for the moment that this is all correct. Put aside the views of most bushfire experts that the basic problem is a combination of drought and the failure to control forest fuels in the expectation of a bushfire. Droughts are an inevitable component of Australian climate. If you add high fuel levels the result is always uncontrollable bushfires. On the other hand, even under hot, dry conditions, fires in areas with low fuel levels are mostly easily controlled.

But just for the sake of argument, let’s accept that, thanks to climate change, the bushfire threat in Australia is now completely out of hand and deteriorating by the day. So what is to be done?

Simplifying things a little, there are broadly two options for responding to this “unprecedented” bushfire scourge.

The first is: “Fix the Climate”....

The second option is to “Fix Bushfire Management”....

Read more -

The Eastern States Bushfires 2019 - Bushfire Front

by Roger Underwood A recent article in the Sydney Sunday Telegraph paints a despondent picture: horrible bushfires are "the new normal" because of climate change. The fire season, we learn, now extends to nearly 10 months of the year, and bushfires have become so intense that they cannot be...

www.bushfirefront.org.au

 

[Ron The Bear]

The lack of prescribed burns is largely down to insufficient safe days in which to hold them. The danger of them getting out of control is a significant factor in all calculations. Australia being one degree cooler would actually make more days available in which to hold controlled burns. That doesn’t preclude some mismanagement. But the idea that the Greens have somehow foiled controlled burns from outside any position of power is a fantasy and deflection.

I hope there’s a Royal Commission into preventative burning and the red tape that is making it so difficult to carry out. It’s true now that decision-makers are ultra-conservative when it comes to concerns about a prescribed burn getting out of control, but these burns used to be conducted.

Whose fault is it when a “safe” level to send in firefighters is 5-8 tons of fuel per hectare, and the load in Victoria is ten times that figure? Do we have enough resources when it takes 40 in the field to oversee such a burn where it used to take 6?

There are a lot of opinions flying about. Shine a light on it, for everyone’s sake.

 

[Fadge]

Simplifying things a little, there are broadly two options for responding to this “unprecedented” bushfire scourge.

The first is: “Fix the Climate”....

The second option is to “Fix Bushfire Management”....

Why would politicians admit they have been negligent in their duties around bushfire management when they can instead blame it on climate change, in the knowledge the majority will accept it without question?

 

[Deliverance]

Why would politicians admit they have been negligent in their duties around bushfire management when they can instead blame it on climate change, in the knowledge the majority will accept it without question?

Has anyone from the federal government actually blamed climate change for this?

 

[Roylion]

Yes, it has.

Where?

Even if this was the case, what does it tell us?

That the vast majority of peer reviewed papers published climate scientists agree that Anthropogenic Global Warming is occuring. In other words, the Earth's system is warming and that much of this warming is very likely due to human activities.

The original question related to specifics - What? When? Is there not a consensus on this?

Rising trends in greenhouse gas emissions by human activity. Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and ozone, chloroflourocarbons and hydrofluorocarbons

There is certainly far less consensus on the extent social and environmental impacts of AGW and the the appropriate response/s that should be undertaken.

And if it is the case, why is population growth not front and centre in the discussion?

No doubt it should be. Hans Rosling the late Swedish statisician suggested that human population growth should hit a limit around 11 billion within the next hundred years, as the world equalizes in health outcomes.

 

[Werewolf]

The lack of prescribed burns is largely down to insufficient safe days in which to hold them. The danger of them getting out of control is a significant factor in all calculations. Australia being one degree cooler would actually make more days available in which to hold controlled burns. That doesn’t preclude some mismanagement. But the idea that the Greens have somehow foiled controlled burns from outside any position of power is a fantasy and deflection.

The criteria for "safe days" should be expanded and restrictions relaxed. High wind speed is far more dangerous than a few extra degrees. If it's too hazardous to burn on location, fuel can be moved to clearings and burnt. Keeping grass short and creating fire breaks is another important aspect of land management that anyone can do at any time. Of course these measures won't count for much if your house is between clusters of gum trees.

FWIW I didn't actually mention the Greens (would never vote for them btw!), but agree that the buck stops with the PM.

 

[Ron The Bear]

OK. So let's go along with the line that most of the world's meteorologists and mathematicians are smoothing data to serve a narrative (for me personally, that seems a massive conspiracy that's really unlikely, but humans are fickle beings, so not impossible).
How about:
Retreating glaciers?
Changes in leafing out of plants?
Changes in migratory bird patterns?
Animal colonies shifting where they live?

There is just too much evidence to disbelieve climate change.

Once again, there are few outright disbelievers. It’s a question of scale. How much is it changing? How much is due to man? That last question is the vexed one. The only real consensus is among those who say ‘all’, and that figure is nowhere near 97%.

The activist lobby in particular is big on attempting to blame drought, floods and other natural disasters on climate change, when even the IPCC’s latest report had no confidence in a link. That’s where science takes a holiday.

 

[Snake_Baker]

While there is dissent, the scientific 'consensus' (in terms of climate science) appears to support Anthropogenic Global Warming.

It cannot be denied, but the extent and predictions are as rubbery as all hell.

 

[Ron The Bear]

Morrison has announced a review of fire hazard reduction. Had to happen.

 

[Snake_Baker]

It's amazing watching people and the media lining up left right & centre to solely blame Morrison for this.

The country has completely lost it's ****ing mind. People have been so whipped up with media bullshit that they cannot think straight any more.

Australia has reached Pavlovian maximum. We are living in a land of zombies.

 

[Ron The Bear]

It's amazing watching people and the media lining up left right & centre to solely blame Morrison for this.

The country has completely lost it's ****ing mind. People have been so whipped up with media bullshit that they cannot think straight any more.

Australia has reached Pavlovian maximum. We are living in a land of zombies.

Even a senior journo in the so-called right-wing Herald Sun wrote a piece today that elicited a lot of feedback, much of it critical of the journo’s opinion.

Once again it is one side of the political divide making the hullabaloo. I think at least half the population can still think straight.

 

[Snake_Baker]

Somebody had better dig up Bob Hawke and inform him that he's responsible for the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires.

 

[Ron The Bear]

Just saw the video from Cobargo. Looks like nobody told Morrison it was a left-wing fortress!

 

[GetDimmaBack]

The greens are callng for an inquiry.
The current anger and confusion over fuel loads, reduction burns and locked forrests wil massively backfire on them if an inquiry does take place.

Man I love the smell of irony in the morning...

 

[Bradesmaen]

Morrison has announced a review of fire hazard reduction. Had to happen.

Tackling the wrong issue. Sounds like Scotty from Marketing. Listen to the experts? hell no. Let's listen to Paul Murray instead.

 

[Bradesmaen]

He will be listening to experts, why wouldn't he?

No, he won't be. Because they have said that while the fuel loads are a problem, it's more the fact that they have a reduced burn window due to climate change. He won't listen to that. He'll just say slash and burn like usual because he's into marketing himself rather than anything for the country. Good leaders sacrifice their image for the good of the country. Then there are the Scott Morrisons who are too busy trying to be everyone's mate rather than run a country.

 

[Father Jack]

The greens are callng for an inquiry.
The current anger and confusion over fuel loads, reduction burns and locked forrests wil massively backfire on them if an inquiry does take place.

And which Green state or federal government will be found at fault?

 

[Ron The Bear]

Tackling the wrong issue. Sounds like Scotty from Marketing. Listen to the experts? hell no. Let's listen to Paul Murray instead.

From the Royal Commission report into Black Saturday:

"Prescribed burning is one of the main tools for fire management on public land. It cannot prevent bushfire, but it decreases fuel loads and so reduces the spread and intensity of bushfires. By reducing the spread and intensity of bushfires, it also helps protect flora and fauna. Ironically, maintaining pristine forests untouched by fuel reduction can predispose those forests to greater destruction in the event of a bushfire.

About 7.7 million hectares of public land in Victoria is managed by DSE. This area includes national parks, state forests and reserves, of which a large portion is forested and prone to bushfire. DSE burns only 1.7 per cent (or 130,000 hectares) of this public land each year. This is well below the amount experts and previous inquiries have suggested is needed to reduce bushfire and environmental risks in the long term.

The Commission recognises that prescribed burning is risky, resource intensive, available only in limited time frames, and can temporarily have adverse effects on local communities (for example, reduced air quality). Nonetheless, it considers that the amount of prescribed burning occurring in Victoria is inadequate. It is concerned that the State has maintained a minimalist approach to prescribed burning despite recent official or independent reports and inquiries, all of which have recommended increasing the prescribed-burning program. The State has allowed the forests to continue accumulating excessive fuel loads, adding to the likelihood of more intense bushfires and thereby placing firefighters and communities at greater risk."

-----

We didn't learn.

 

[Father Jack]

Apropos of nothing, this is quite ... interesting

 

[Bradesmaen]

Thats why he will listen to experts and not the likes of you.

You mean like the experts he has already ignored? Because they don't tell him what he wants to hear? Maybe he'll hire them an empathy consultant for 190k.

 

[Bradesmaen]

From the Royal Commission report into Black Saturday:

"Prescribed burning is one of the main tools for fire management on public land. It cannot prevent bushfire, but it decreases fuel loads and so reduces the spread and intensity of bushfires. By reducing the spread and intensity of bushfires, it also helps protect flora and fauna. Ironically, maintaining pristine forests untouched by fuel reduction can predispose those forests to greater destruction in the event of a bushfire.

About 7.7 million hectares of public land in Victoria is managed by DSE. This area includes national parks, state forests and reserves, of which a large portion is forested and prone to bushfire. DSE burns only 1.7 per cent (or 130,000 hectares) of this public land each year. This is well below the amount experts and previous inquiries have suggested is needed to reduce bushfire and environmental risks in the long term.

The Commission recognises that prescribed burning is risky, resource intensive, available only in limited time frames, and can temporarily have adverse effects on local communities (for example, reduced air quality). Nonetheless, it considers that the amount of prescribed burning occurring in Victoria is inadequate. It is concerned that the State has maintained a minimalist approach to prescribed burning despite recent official or independent reports and inquiries, all of which have recommended increasing the prescribed-burning program. The State has allowed the forests to continue accumulating excessive fuel loads, adding to the likelihood of more intense bushfires and thereby placing firefighters and communities at greater risk."

-----

We didn't learn.

You didn't read. They have also been told that time frames are decreasing. By the firefighters themselves.

But you know, bleat away sheepy.

 

[Bazzar]

You mean like the experts he has already ignored? Because they don't tell him what he wants to hear? Maybe he'll hire them an empathy consultant for 190k.

Who did he ignore?

 

[Bradesmaen]

Who did he ignore?

Fire chiefs. It's been reported a billion times. The fact you don't know this shows your inherent bias.

 

[Bradesmaen]

Morrison did reply to them, on the 4th July, Mullins has even said that
Angus Taylor is the one who didnt get back to them.

Replying to them isn't listening to them.

Fantastic. Great move. Well done Angus