Australian Bushfire Crisis - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15057211
https://www.news.com.au/technology/envi ... 663eec8a28

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... story.html

Biggest Australian bushfires in recorded history.... Destroyed 7 million hectares so far, will go down in devestation from here. Probably 8 - 8.5 million all up.

But not that big a deal in terms of "Climate science" when you realise the second biggest was the 6 million hectares in 1851's legendary Victorian blaze, and that record stood for nearly 120 years. Congratulations nature, you outdid yourself.

Yes you could argue this year's Bushfires have been fought by Firefighters with more numbers and better technology, where as the previous record holder burnt with probably less human resistance.... But can't have had terribly much impact.

The previous record holder was still BACK IN 1851 and that's simply the earliest on record.

But cue Climate nuts telling us it's the end of the world that Nature finally beat it's 1851 Australian record after 120 years.
#15057430
Always fun seeing rich politicians get heckled... Even in an emergency....



Go on, get in the car and p*ss off back to Kirribilli mate … you wanker


Choicest cut.

This should happen to every President or Prime Minister at least once a month.

Edit: funnier video.
#15057439
Prior to this emerging as a bushfire of such large and tragic proportions, saw this summary expecting terrible outcome in Spring.
https://www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/australia-drought-fire-spring-summer-iod-fa/

Rather than the vague reference to climate change, the article makes a point specific about the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD).
https://www.severe-weather.eu/news/unusually-strong-indian-ocean-dipole-australia-europe-fa/
This year the IOD is unusually strong, reaching record values for at least the past 60-80 years! The positive phase was initiated in June, but it wasn’t until late September that it has started to strengthen quickly, as the waters in the eastern pole were cooling rapidly, due to the strong easterly winds.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean_Dipole
#15057519
The fires will get worse every year as the temperatures increase due to climate change. I live in a semi-arid climate and know that wildfires will invariably start when temperatures hit 40 degrees. During the last weeks, new temperature records were repeatedly surpassed. With temperatures between 40 to 49 degrees, the country will burn until there is nothing left to burn. As old forest is replaced by bush land that can't hold humidity, the land will get drier all the time.

We are only at an increase of 1 degree globally. What will happen when we reach 1.5 in a couple of decades, or 3 to 5 degrees by the end of the century?

Australians show that fossil fuel junkies will keep up denial even if the country is burning all around them. There is no hope for humanity.
#15057552
Atlantis wrote:Australians show that fossil fuel junkies will keep up denial even if the country is burning all around them. There is no hope for humanity.


These type of large-scale bushfires are so rare in Australia that the last time nearly this scale of Bushfire and similar weather conditions happened was 1851. So excuse me for not being terribly worried about "shit getting worse". If anything we're lucky the bushfire record stood for so long. I mean that's quite impressive it took 170 years to break it. None of the bushfires inbetween compared to those blazes in size and intensity. This is the first blaze of this magnitude in 170 years. Rain kicked in back then once about 6 million hectares was burnt, due to kick in soon.



Also the Greens are partly responsible for the unprecedented scale of these Bushfires since they stupidly oppose Backburning everywhere in Australia. Fuck them. I mean Backburning was invented to help fight this shit, but the Greens fucken protest it at every available opportunity. Now they're complaining about how intense all these fires are and "proof of global warming". They wouldn't be so intense if these dickheads hadn't put Grass and Trees ahead of human lives. And if ScoMo and his mates hadn't underfunded the damn CFA(Country Fire Authority) and the equivalent one in NSW.

If the next one of this magnitude occurs in less than 150 years, then maybe you'd have an argument.... Lol.

The fires will get worse every year as the temperatures increase due to climate change


That's not how this shit works, it's going to get better for a while. The fuel has all been burnt-out and now needs to regrow over the next decade or 2. Australia(or at least Victoria and NSW) can expect it's next major bushfire disaster in about 12-13 years(Black Saturday was 2006/7). 20 years if lucky. So it doesn't "get worse every year" and these events are NOT terribly common. There's only been three in Victoria since 1980. Ash Wednesday (80s), Black Saturday(00s) and this one. They skipped the 90s. This one happened to be a real whopper. Ironically extensive regular Aboriginal Backburning probably stopped the 1851 fires from being this bad. They didn't have the Greens existing and stonewalling it.

Edit:
https://www.dpaw.wa.gov.au/management/f ... al-burning

Significant Aboriginal Backburning made large intense bushfires a rarity.... At least until the idiot Greens came along and stupidly stupidly opposed Backburning in every state at every level of Government, then complained about "fires are getting worse every year..... Must be Climate Change!", Assholes.

Lol.
#15057662


This "Climate warning" was totally ignored by the Climate Change nuts, because you know, they're also about saving the animals ahead of preventing human deaths(even though, LOL, 500 thousand animals are dead, and migration animals now have nowhere to migrate to this winter). Turned out to be 100% true.

So was this one:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-07/ ... fmredir=sm

"The amount of prescribed burning occurring in Victoria is inadequate," it said.

"[The commission] 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."


... Which they as usual totally ignored.

But no.... IT WAS ALL CLIMATE CHANGE!

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!!
#15057881
colliric wrote:Also the Greens are partly responsible for the unprecedented scale of these Bushfires since they stupidly oppose Backburning everywhere in Australia. Fuck them. I mean Backburning was invented to help fight this shit, but the Greens fucken protest it at every available opportunity. Now they're complaining about how intense all these fires are and "proof of global warming". They wouldn't be so intense if these dickheads hadn't put Grass and Trees ahead of human lives. And if ScoMo and his mates hadn't underfunded the damn CFA(Country Fire Authority) and the equivalent one in NSW.

The guy in this video certainly agrees and if nothing else people should watch it for the swearing:
#15057910
It's amazing to see the deniers resort to absurd lies.

The unprecedented fires are a direct result of climate change and they'll get worse as green house gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere.

14 million acres burned and half a billion animals burned to death. The animals that escaped will die due to lack of food. Record temperatures, record droughts, the corral reefs are dying, yet the country keeps on belching coal into the atmosphere at an increasing rate.

The worst is still to come, yet already 2/3 of Australia's annual carbon emissions have been emitted by the fires alone. That isn't going to be sequestered by new growth. Stop lying! Mature forests takes decades to regrow. It's not preventive burning of grass land practiced by the natives at the start of the dry season. Forests will turn into dry bush land and keep on burning year after year, while the climate gets even dryer.

This is going to double Australian CO2 emissions at a time other countries are making efforts to reduce their emissions. Australia will be punished by a carbon border tax.

We ought to start building closed camps for climate refugees from Australia's mad Max dystopia because criminals who torch their own country should not be allowed to run around freely.

Image
#15057929
Sounds like the so-called Green-Bushfire complex is bullshit.

The Guardian wrote:Explainer: how effective is bushfire hazard reduction on Australia's fires?
Claims of a Greens conspiracy to block hazard reduction have been rejected by bushfire experts

Graham Readfearn, @readfearn
Sun 5 Jan 2020 04.18 GMTLast modified on Sun 5 Jan 2020 10.15 GMT

Australia’s bushfire crisis started much earlier than normal in August 2019, with thousands of fires in Queensland and New South Wales.

Despite the evidence a claim persists that a major contributing factor of Australia’s devastating fire season – and the deaths, loss of homes and environmental devastation they have caused – is not climate change but a conspiracy by environmentalists to “lock up” national parks and prevent hazard reduction activities such as prescribed burning and clearing of the forest floor.

On Saturday the prime minister, Scott Morrison, said after visiting fire grounds: “The most constant issue that has been raised with me has been the issue of managing fuel loads in national parks.”

He claimed that people “who say they are seeking those actions on climate change” could also be the same people who “don’t share the same urgency of dealing with hazard reduction”.

Prof David Bowman, the director of the fire centre research hub at the University of Tasmania, said: “It’s ridiculous. To frame this as an issue of hazard reduction in national parks is just lazy political rhetoric.”

On Sunday Morrison said he wanted to know “what the contribution of issues” around hazard reduction were, but repeated that it had been an issue raised often with him.

He also said “without the planning, without the preparations” of state agencies, “I fear what has really been a terrible tragedy would have been far worse.”

Are greenies stopping hazard reduction?
Hazard reduction is the management of fuel and can be carried out through prescribed burning, also known as controlled burning, and removing trees and vegetation, both dead and alive.

Hazard reduction is carried out by fire authorities, national park staff and individual property owners who can apply for permits to clear areas around their buildings. Coordination of activities happens through local bushfire management committees. There are 120 committees in NSW.

The claim of a conspiracy by environmentalists to block hazard reduction activities has been roundly rejected by bushfire experts, and experts say it is betrayed by hard data on actual hazard reduction activities in national parks.

Prof Ross Bradstock, the director of the centre for environmental risk management of bushfires at the University of Wollongong, has previously told Guardian Australia: “These are very tired and very old conspiracy theories that get a run after most major fires. They’ve been extensively dealt with in many inquiries.”

Factcheck: Is there really a green conspiracy to stop bushfire hazard reduction?
Read more
Former fire chiefs who have been calling strongly for action on climate change, and who have been trying to meet Morrison for months, have also been calling for increased funding for hazard reduction.

The Australian Greens say they want “an effective and sustainable strategy for fuel-reduction management that will protect biodiversity and moderate the effects of wildfire for the protection of people and assets, developed in consultation with experts, custodians and land managers”.

A federal government factsheet on bushfire management outlines how state agencies and people can carry out a range of hazard reduction activities that have been exempted from national environmental law, even if they “have the potential to have a significant impact on nationally protected matters”.

How much hazard reduction has happened?
In the last full fire season of 2018 and 2019, the National Parks and Wildlife Service in NSW told Guardian Australia it carried out hazard reduction activities across more than 139,000 hectares, slightly above its target.

There are two major restricting factors for carrying out prescribed burning. One is the availability of funds and personnel, and the second is the availability of weather windows.

The 2018-19 annual report of the NSW Rural Fire Service says: “The ability of the NSW RFS and partner agencies to complete hazard reduction activities is highly weather dependent, with limited windows of opportunity. Prolonged drought conditions in 2018-19 adversely affected the ability of agencies to complete hazard reduction works.”

The RFS said 113,130 properties had been subject to hazard reduction activities, which was 76% of its target. The 199,248ha covered was 106% of its target.

Is climate change affecting hazard reduction?
A former NSW fire and rescue commissioner, Greg Mullins, has written that the hotter and drier conditions, and the higher fire danger ratings, were preventing agencies from carrying out prescribed burning.

But as well as climate change narrowing the window to carry out prescribed burning, Mullins said some fires have become so intense they have burned through areas that had been subject to hazard reduction.

Mullins has been fighting fires in NSW for months. Speaking to the ABC on Friday, he said he witnessed a fire in Grafton in an area that had burned only two weeks previously, but “the burnt leaves were burning again”.

He said: “There has been lots of hazard reductions done over the years – more by national parks than previous years – but the fires have burned through those hazard reduction areas.”

Mullins dismissed suggestions that the bushfires were down to “greenies” preventing hazard reduction activities.“This is the blame game. We’ll blame arsonists, we’ll blame greenies,” he said.

“When will the penny drop with this government?”

The National Parks Association of NSW’s president, Anne Dickson, has also responded to the attacks on environmentalists.

Prof David Bowman says hazard reduction burning doesn’t stop bushfires, but the aim is ‘to try and change its behaviour’.

In November 2019, she said: “The increasing intensity and frequency of fire is one of the greatest threats to biodiversity and natural landscapes. It may be politically expedient to pretend that conservationists exercise some mythical power over fire legislation and bushfire management committees, but it is not so.

“Such wild and simplistic claims avoid the very real and complex challenges of protecting our communities and the healthy environments that support our quality of life.”

Bowman said that separate to the “lazy political rhetoric” of blaming environmentalists, there should be an examination of the benefits and limitations of hazard reduction.

But he said there was also a reality to consider: “A lot of people are thinking that hazard reduction burning stops fire. It doesn’t, but what it does do is to try and change its behaviour.

“But let’s say you embarked on the biggest fire reduction program the world has ever seen. What’s the budget for that? Who will pay for it. Of course there is a place for hazard reduction but if you have massive increases, where does the money come from? The reality is that you can’t treat everything.”

What is climate change doing to bushfire weather?
The 2019-20 bushfire crisis coincided with Australia’s hottest year on record. On a state level, NSW easily experienced its hottest year, with temperatures 1.95C above the long-term average, beating the previous record year, 2018, by 0.27C.

Climate experts have said not all of that heat came from climate change, as two climate systems were also working to push up temperatures and fire danger.

Fire authorities are guided on a daily basis on the risk of fires through the Forest Fire Danger Index, a combined measure of temperature, humidity, wind speed and the availability of dry fuel. Spring 2019 had been the worst year on a record going back to 1950 for bushfire risk.

A 2017 study of 67 years of FFDI data found a “clear trend toward more dangerous conditions during spring and summer in southern Australia, including increased frequency and magnitude of extremes, as well as indicating an earlier start to the fire season”.

A study of Queensland’s historic 2018 bushfire season found the extreme temperatures that coincided with the fires were four time more likely because of human-caused climate.

On Sunday Morrison claimed the government had “always made this connection” between climate change and impacts on Australia’s weather.

Advice shared with authorities around the country earlier this year from the National Environmental Science Program said: “These trends are very likely to increase into the future, with climate models showing more dangerous weather conditions for bushfires throughout Australia due to increasing greenhouse gas emissions.”

There are also fears that large pulses of carbon dioxide emissions from Australia’s bushfires may not be reabsorbed through regrowth of forests as they have in the past.

The fire season has seen several reports of bushfire-generated thunderstorms. Guardian Australia has reported that 2019 would likely be a “stand-out” year for storms known as “pyroCBs” that generate their own lightning and influence the atmosphere at heights of up to 15km.

A study in 2019 published in the journal Scientific Reports found that adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere would create more dangerous conditions favourable to pyroCB events in the future, particularly for the southern parts of Australia.
#15057956
Graham Redfern is an idiot.. His article is pure Green Propaganda bullshit and ignored totally all evidence submitted to the 2009 Victorian Royal Commission Into The Black Saturday Bushfires. Because of cause this isn't the first rodeo.

http://royalcommission.vic.gov.au/Commi ... rsion.html

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal ... -eqht.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20090821194 ... 85,00.html

The commission said 485 of the 1280 public submissions it had received related to fuel reduction and controlled burning, on which it is due to start taking evidence later this year.


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.

The Commission proposes that the State make a commitment to fund a long-term program of prescribed burning, with an annual rolling target of a minimum of 5 per cent of public land each year, and that the State be held accountable for meeting this target. DSE should modify its Code of Practice for Fire Management on Public Land so that it is clear that protecting human life is given highest priority, and should report annually on prescribed-burning outcomes.


It was fucking ignored.... As usual. NSW of cause said "this is Victoria's problem".... So also ignored it, despite the fact the same Lazy Government bullshit was happening in their state too. That Hazard Reduction target you mentioned for NSW is known to be woefully inadequate as well. The government that was allowing shit to build up was a Left-wing Labor Party government with a strongly Greens influenced environmentalist policy. "Minimalist approach" = pandering to the Green voters for their preferences at the next election. So don't tell me this shit doesn't happen. We have Preference Voting in Australia, and so shit like this happens all the time. Everyone in Australia with half a brain knows it does. A fucken BUSHFIRE ROYAL COMMISSION told us so.

Fact: The 2009 findings of the Royal Commission into the Black Saturday Bushfires was IGNORED.

The Voluntary Firefighters Association of NSW official statement on The Greens preventing them doing their job:
https://volunteerfirefighters.org.au/gr ... hfire-risk

https://volunteerfirefighters.org.au/ca ... e-business

https://volunteerfirefighters.org.au/ns ... -reduction

Miranda Devine's quick summary of Green Blockading efforts against Hazard Reduction:
https://volunteerfirefighters.org.au/th ... -blame-for
#15057972
colliric wrote:Graham Redfern is an idiot.. His article is pure Green Propaganda bullshit and ignored totally all evidence submitted to the 2009 Victorian Royal Commission Into The Black Saturday Bushfires. Because of cause this isn't the first rodeo.

http://royalcommission.vic.gov.au/Commi ... rsion.html


The text you are quoting is from the government report in the 2009 fires.

This is part of the history that caused the fires, and is not part of the recommendations, which occurs later.

You also left out the sentence shortly thereafter saying that “ Since the 2009 fires land and road managers and the CFA have identified high-risk roads and are carrying out fuel-reduction work to reduce the future risks of bushfire.”

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal ... -eqht.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20090821194 ... 85,00.html

The Voluntary Firefighters Association of NSW official statement on The Greens preventing them doing their job:
https://volunteerfirefighters.org.au/gr ... hfire-risk

https://volunteerfirefighters.org.au/ca ... e-business

https://volunteerfirefighters.org.au/ns ... -reduction

Miranda Devine's quick summary of Green Blockading efforts against Hazard Reduction:
https://volunteerfirefighters.org.au/th ... -blame-for


Quote the relevant text.

fucking
bullshit
shit
shit
shit
fucken


Classy.

Fact: The 2009 findings of the Royal Commission into the Black Saturday Bushfires was IGNORED.


No.

You have shown what the findings were.

You did not show they were ignored.
#15058067
What could the cause be?
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/fede ... 53ozo.html

“There’s obviously been a change in the logging industry. The bush is not being logged to the same extent it was," Mr Lapsley said. "There’s been a change in the amount of fuel ... more fuel levels and a changing climate and changing weather on top of that. These are things our (environmentalist) values have demanded, but it has created the situation we are in now. We need to talk about how we manage."


Even Climate Change believers in Australia also agree with me..... (In addition to Climate Change, you are allowed to believe in multiple causes guys).
#15058071
Why does logging equate to fuel reduction?

It’s mismanagement plain and simple. And forgetting what indigenous folk of the past once did. Pity the fool.
#15058075
colliric wrote:What could the cause be?
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/fede ... 53ozo.html

Even Climate Change believers in Australia also agree with me..... (In addition to Climate Change, you are allowed to believe in multiple causes guys).


You shifted the goalposts.

You went from blaming the “greenies” and environmentalists for refusing to burn stuff to the different and far more general claim that there is more fuel.

And you also deliberately added text into the quote to support a point that the text does not: that environmental issues are to blame.

The actual text does not mention environmental values.
#15058076
Pants-of-dog wrote:The actual text does not mention environmental values.


Yes it does.. in the previous paragraph, which I decided not to quote because I didn't want the quote to be too long.

But since you demand to see it, here it is:
Mr Lapsley, who led the recovery after the 2009 Black Saturday fire, said the way state governments had managed the bush had changed in the past 70 years because of society’s conservation and environmental values.


ness31 wrote:Why does logging equate to fuel reduction?


Less undergrowth... since loggers clear it out and clean it up before going in to cut the trees down. Need to get their equipment in there. Less falling dried leaves as well. Also less trees generally to burn. Also newly planted trees don't create as much forest fuel.
Last edited by colliric on 06 Jan 2020 03:01, edited 1 time in total.
#15058078
colliric wrote:Yes it does.. in the previous paragraph, which I decided not to quote because I didn't want the quote to be too long.

But since you demand to see it, here it is:


And if you out the two paragraphs together, it is definitely not clear that the person was referring to those values.

    .....

    Victoria’s former fire chief Craig Lapsley said fire intensity had increased in the past two decades amid a changing climate and more extreme weather conditions and this current crisis was a "watershed" moment.

    Mr Lapsley, who led the recovery after the 2009 Black Saturday fire, said the way state governments had managed the bush had changed in the past 70 years because of society’s conservation and environmental values.

    “There’s obviously been a change in the logging industry. The bush is not being logged to the same extent it was," Mr Lapsley said. "There’s been a change in the amount of fuel ... more fuel levels and a changing climate and changing weather on top of that. These are things our values have demanded, but it has created the situation we are in now. We need to talk about how we manage."

    .....
#15058079
Pants-of-dog wrote:And if you out the two paragraphs together, it is definitely not clear that the person was referring to those values.


Lol.

Despite him directly referring to those values in this specific sentence:
the way state governments had managed the bush had changed in the past 70 years because of society’s conservation and environmental values.


Now who's ignoring the science? Even from scientists on your own side, lol.

It is "not clear" despite the fact the person made it clear in a specific sentence.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/it- ... 53okc.html

This Aboriginal man explicitly stated his property was saved by burning traditionally and that the Ecologists, government and National Parks departments caused trouble for him and tried to stop him.
#15058081
colliric wrote:Yes it does.. in the previous paragraph, which I decided not to quote because I didn't want the quote to be too long.

But since you demand to see it, here it is:




Less undergrowth... since loggers clear it out and clean it up before going in to cut the trees down. Need to get their equipment in there. Less falling dried leaves as well. Also less trees generally to burn. Also newly planted trees don't create as much forest fuel.


How is it possible a balance wasn’t able to be struck? Appropriate land management where there is less fuel without having to raze everything to the ground. Or isn’t it possible to have both? :hmm:
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