Ten times the fuel means 100 times the intensity
Hardly anyone is talking about these numbers yet they show just how far beyond our control the pyroconvective firestorms are and why we need to be so much smarter at preventing them. They also show how irrelevant temperatures onsite are, compared to fuel load and wind speed.
Controllable fires are 3MW per meter, but we now have loads of 70MW/m
Not only are these fires obscenely, catastrophically intense, it doesn’t matter how much fire fighting equipment we buy, how many dams we empty, they are a man-made disaster, and we’ve known for years how to prevent them. (Some would say, thousands of years). The message in here is that cool controllable burns are tiny, less damaging, and far less intense. The pyroconvective monsters are totally different creatures.
Andrew Bolt interviewed fire expert David Packham in November:
Top fire expert David Packham says forget global warming. It’s the reckless failure to burn-off fuel loads that have turned parts of Australia into death traps. Near Melbourne “we’re looking down the barrel in these areas at 1000 deaths”.
His key point is that if we increase the fuel by ten, the fire intensity is 100 times greater. Today we are dealing with fire intensities with figures like 70MW/m. The maximum we can extinguish — with helicopters, bulldozers, tankers, is just 3MW/m.
“We now have fuel loads ten times greater than … what the indigenous people had.” “Fuel load …is not behind a lot of it, it’s behind all of it.” “The amount of fuel determines the amount of energy that is released”. “The amount of fuel determines how fast the fire moves”“The most dangerous place in the world is just north of the Yarra and the north facing slopes fo the Dandenongs.”
” The big threats are not just life, but the environmental damage, the threats to the water supply, and our electricity network.”
h/t to Skeptical Sam. Thanks to Roger Underwood for assistance.
The fireline intensity of the Australian 2020 fires is “off the chart”
The fireline intensity tells us how much damage a fire will do, how long it takes life to recover, or even whether it will recover. It also helps us figure out what we should try to do to minimize the damage. Bear in mind Packham was speaking of potential fire damage long before the huge New Year’s Eve fires.
The 1983 Ash Wednesday Bushfires in Victoria were estimated to be 60MW/m:
The freakish conditions spawned unique effects: a car was forced 90m along a road with its handbrake on, burning mattresses were seen hurtling through the air, … road surfaces bubbled and caught fire and sand liquefied to glass. CSIRO experts later reported that, from evidence of melted metal, the heat of the fires after the change rose to 2000 °C, exceeding that recorded during the Allied bombing of Dresden in World War II. In fact, the Ash Wednesday fires were measured at around 60,000 kilowatts of heat energy per metre, leading to similarities with the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. — Wikipedia (Baxter 1984)
The intensity of fire is hard to measure, especially live. We can get some approximation “after the fact” by looking at the damage. Be aware, there are many variations of both units and estimates, but the same message keeps coming. The intensity of the wildfires that “make their own weather” — the true firestorms are a magnitude far beyond what we can control.
Packham talks about the Byram Equation (1959) of Fireline Intensity. Defined “as the rate of heat output per length of fireline (I), expressed as kilowatts per metre of fire edge, as shown in Equation 1.”.
Byram Equation 1959. Fireline intensity.
He argues there is one more factor — which is the dryness of the fuel (moisture content). But notice what else is missing — temperature. It’s not even worthy of being a recognised variable. The R, or forward rate of spread would be a result of the wind speeds and slope, with some effect from temperature.
Note the scale: the experts says hazard reduction burns should be kept below 0.3MW/m. A low intensity fire is defined as less than 0.5MWh/m. So everything above that is “high intensity”. Australian trees need “high intensity fires” to germinate seeds, but these are only 0.5MW/m and above, not 70MW/m firestorms. So half of the chart below describes low intensity cool fires at a hazard reduction level. With intensities above 1MW the 70MW firestorms would barely register across the top corner in this logarithmic graph.
The rate of spread is determined partly by the amount of fuel, so high fuel levels rapidly turn into intense uncontrollable fires even at lower wind conditions (or lower rates of spread). There are four types of numbers on the graph below. The fuel load below is the x-axis. The side axis is the rate of spread. The intensity is the diagonal line result in the graph. The numbers on the lines like “6.00m” are the flame lengths. So in this case six metre long flames are generated in a 14MW/m fire.
Bushfire Behaviour Characteristic Chart
Next — a similar graph in an alternate form . Byram’s fireline intensity is the energy release rate per unit length of fire line – so kW/m. The graph above uses calories per cm2. And below (grimace!) in the form of BTU/ft2.
In Figure 1 the 2000 BTU per foot squared is equivalent to a 7MW fire, 70 MW/m is “off the charts”.
Fires are also mosaics, with a patchwork of different intensities side-by-side.
As Pyne et al. (1996) demonstrated in their Figure 2.18 (reproduced in Figure 1 below), fires of equal intensity may, in fact, be produced in quite different types of fuel and with different forward rates of spread. Average fire intensity around the perimeter of a fire also varies by a factor of up to 10 (Catchpole et al. 1992)
There are several ways to get “awful fires”.
Fire intensity: 317 Btu/ft2 = 1 KW/m2
Flame length
It would be nice if we could just use the height of the flames to estimate the intensity, but it’s only so useful. In large fires the flames lean forward diagonally with the wind, so the length is a lot longer than the height. But even if we could measure the length accurately, it maxes out long before we get to pyroconvective fire levels. As Phil Cheney explains, it’s only useful in fires of 10MW/m or less:
After 10 000 KW/m (a crown fire in dry forests) there is little difference in the height of the flames or the look of the defoliated forest. The main effect thereafter is in the influence on the atmosphere but this is also strongly affected by the temperature and moisture structure in the atmosphere.
Fire flame length and intensity, chart.
It’s useful though to know just how much of our understanding and research on fire is based on studying small, low intensity fires.
Intense fires cause much more damage
Now down to the business end of the charts. At what level do fires become truly awful catastrophes:
“McArthur (1962) noted that fire damage was closely related to fire intensity. Thus a reduction in the destructiveness of wildfires can generally be achieved by broadscale prescribed burning—where the primary objective is to reduce the accumulation of fuel over a wide area. Such broadscale reduction in fuel should result in significantly decreased rates of spread and intensities of a wildfire, which should in turn assist suppression forces in controlling the fire (McArthur 1962).
….
Not surprisingly, it’s difficult to measure “live” fire intensity:
Despite fire intensity being considered a good indicator of fire behaviour in general, fire intensity is difficult to measure accurately (Burrows 1995), especially over short periods of time. Often it is only estimated post-fire.
Fires are patchy things producing a mosaic pattern that encourages diversity of species (though, who knows, possibly a broadscale firestorm reaches 100% consumption of fuel that makes it less patchy; this report does not say that.)
Thus, fire creates environmental diversity at several scales. At the broad scale (i.e. across thousands of hectares) there is a mosaic of areas burned one, two, three, up to 50 or so years previously. At the local scale (i.e. across single hectares) spatial variation in fire intensities produces a patchiness in the resultant effects.
It may take up to 40 years for the mammals to recover if they lose shelter, food and breeding sites — even animals that survive the fire are likely to die in the aftermath:
Suckling and Macfarlane (1984) commented that the rate of survival (during a fire) of mammals is a function of fire intensity. However, longer-term recovery also depends on the recovery of habitat (i.e. shelter, food, breeding sites), in both composition and structure, which may be quite rapid or may take 20 to 40 years for complete recovery (ibid.). Suckling and Macfarlane (1984) also found that predation and starvation caused a high rate of mortality in fauna after high intensity fires.
Table 2: A low intensity fire is Class 1. High Intensity with seed regeneration is Class 2. A full crown fire is Class 4 with intensities of 70MW/m.
A low intensity fire is Class 1. High Intensity with seed regeneration is Class 2. A full crown fire is Class 4 with intensities of 70MW/m.
Seeds only need fires greater than 0.5MW to be activated. A high intensity fire is only a “class 2” level fire. More intense fires will change the structure of the forest — reducing canopy cover and increasing the scrubby understorey:
In respect to the flora, fire intensity can have a marked effect on the extent of post-fire recovery and on the relative abundance of plant species regenerating from seeds or vegetatively (Christensen et al. 1981 ; Lutze & Terrell 1998). Low-intensity fires (less than 500 kW m-1) will result in a low overall death rate of trees because the amount of bark removed from and damage to the tree boles and of crown scorch are minimal. On the other hand, greater damage occurs to the boles and crowns of trees and more bark is consumed in high-intensity fires (greater than 500 kW m-1) and higher plant mortality is likely. High intensity fires are also more likely to affect the canopy cover of the overstorey, which may enable the better establishment of understorey species—Chesterfield (1984) noted that bracken increased in dominance under a eucalypt overstorey after a number of ‘hot fires’ decreased the canopy cover.
Eucalypts are remarkably well adapted to low to moderate intensity fires:
McArthur (1962) noted that the genus Eucalyptus is remarkably resistant (in terms of overall survival of individual trees) to fires of low to moderate intensity. He also noted, however, that their resistance to fire depends on the intensity of the fire and the seasonal dryness as indicated by the Keetch-Byram Drought Index. Many adaptations in the genus also make them resistant to damage from high-intensity crown fires, as only a few species are likely to be killed outright in such fires.
Recovery from fires depends on the season they occur — dry seasons make it harder for seeds and tubers to recover:
Abbott and Christensen (1994) noted that fire intensity depends largely on the time of the year (i.e. the dryness of the litter and the stage in the life cycle), prevailing weather conditions and the period since the last fire (i.e. the amount of fuel available). The recovery of vegetation also depends on the weather conditions following the fire (Chesterfield 1984) and the legacy left in the soil in the form of seeds, bulbs, corms, tubers and lignotubers (Abbott & Christensen 1994). The effects of a fire will also depend on the season, the species involved, the residence time of the fire, fire frequency and the dryness of the vegetation and soil. Therefore, indicators of fire severity may indeed be a more effective measure of the ecological effect of the fire than fire intensity indicators alone.
Direct control and suppression of fires only works at 2- 3MW of fire intensity, above that only “indirect methods” are left.
Fire intensity directly influences the cost of suppression, as the method of suppression depends on fire behaviour or, more generally, fire intensity. For low-intensity fires (i.e. less than 2000–3000 kW m-1), direct attack methods may be used. For more intense fires, however, indirect attack methods are generally required, especially on the fire front.
Fire intensity is the most important factor in the survival of houses. As well as ember attack, firestorms create winds that damage homes:
Wilson (1984) stated that fire intensity is the most important determinant in whether a house survives a nearby wildfire, as compared to its construction material, the presence of flammable objects near the house and the presence of plants less than 5 m tall within 40 m of the house. Wilson and Ferguson (1984) studied houses that were affected (either destroyed or partially burned) in the fire at Mount Macedon on 16 February 1983. Fuel loads (including elevated and surface fine fuels, but not including the crown fuels) in the adjoining forest were up to 21 t ha-1, forward rates of spread in the town were of the order of 3–4 km h1 and the houses were exposed to fire intensities ranging between 500 and 60 000 kW m-1. Of the total of 450 houses surveyed (of which 234 were destroyed), about 10% were exposed to crown fire in the adjacent forest canopy (crowning was infrequent once the fire entered the township) and 50% were exposed to surface fire intense enough to fully scorch surrounding trees. Almost 40% of houses were exposed to a less intense surface fire, but one that was nevertheless accompanied by strong winds and airborne embers. Wilson and Ferguson (1984) noted that houses exposed to high-intensity fires are subjected to severe thermal stresses, and sometimes the strong winds associated with high intensity fires can cause structural damage.
There is more detail on the effects on the forest from this chart from Burrows 1984. The message is the same, minor permanent damage to trees starts with 1 – 2MW/m fires, and by 5MW/m the fully grown pine trees are destroyed, and even the rootstock of gums may be damaged to the point where it will not resprout and recover. Trees that are hundreds of years old can be wiped out.
Burrows, 1984. | Click to enlarge.
Prescribed burning should be done with fire intensities of only 0.3MW.
When fuel is allowed to accumulate there would be very few days each year when it would be safe to burn. A lack of hazard reduction makes it harder to do hazard reduction.
McArthur (1962) described, for prescribed fires, characteristic fire behaviours based on a series of fire intensity ranges. He implied that, to ensure that no unacceptable damage occurred in commercial (native) forests, all prescribed burning should be carried out with fire intensities less than 340 kW m-1 (or 100 BTU ft -1s-1). Gill et al. (1987) described the optimum prescribed burning days as those when fire intensities were between 60 and 250 kW m-1. Luke and McArthur (1978) suggested that the upper limit for prescribed fire (for the purpose of fuel reduction) is 4000 kW m-1. However both Cheney (1981) and Christensen et al. (1981) suggest that it would be extremely optimistic to expect a result at this intensity with little or no damage
These next graphs come from an EUreport (Forest Fire Fighting Terms Handbook), the Burrows report from Western Australia (1984) and a 2004 Victorian Govt report on the economic and environmental damage caused by fires.
Why do the Greens hate forests and Koalas so much that they put their own political agenda ahead of them?
REFERENCES
Baxter, John (1984). Who Burned Australia?: The Ash Wednesday Fires. Kent: New English Library. ISBN 0-450-05749-6.
Burrows, N.D. (1984) Describing Forest Fires in Western Australia, A Guide for Fire Managers, Forests Department Western Australia (WA). Technical Paper No. 9.
Karen Chatto and Kevin G. Tolhurst (2004) A review of the relationship between fireline intensity and the ecological and economic effects of fire, Dept of Environment and Sustainability, Research Report 67, Victoria.
Forest Fire Fighting Terms Handbook (2009) Multilingual handbook for fire terms across European borders during forest fire fighting,F.I.R.E. 4 Project Co-financed by the European Commission DG Enviroment Civil Protection Unit
Photo by Christopher Burns on Unsplash
I’ve known this for a long time. In ’83 I was involved in assisting the CFA in the Tallangatta fires and saw how quickly and fiercely a fire could erupt and move. And this is in the days where there was still some forest management afoot. Going bush in the last decade I see what I consider criminal negligence when it comes to forest management.
But isn’t global warming the convenient excuse for every failure today?
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Yes global warming is being used as the excuse and reducing our emissions is the policy. Both major parties are negligent, ignorant and guilty of supporting the biggest scam of all time, at state and federal levels of government. They are all guilty as charged.
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Democracy appears to have collapsed, but I’ll wait for the RC.
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Democracy per se is not the problem. The voters are. We get the government we elect. If enough voters were awake to the global warming scam they would be protesting vehemently by voting for a party that recognise said scam only enough to hold the balance of power to force a main party to accept the verdict of the people and stop kowtowing to the CAGW agenda and those perpetrating it. Of course that might happen eventually if and when enough voters wake up and are fed up with the hypocrisy and lies.
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The voters won’t wake up until they have an alternative to global warming, the RC should provide the catalyst and the Commissioner probably won’t be calling Michael Mann.
MICHAEL MANN: ‘Yeah, there’s a direct connection. The fossil fuels that we’re burning, the carbon pollution we’re putting into the atmosphere, is warming up the planet and it’s leading to these unprecedented extreme weather disasters like the bush fires that are breaking out across Australia right now. There’s no question about that. The science is clear on that. Australia, like many other Western nations historically has played a critical role in fossil fuel burning and generating the carbon pollution that’s already in the atmosphere.’
The Real News
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Democracy is the problem.
Most people aren’t smart enough to vote, that’s why the major Parties have been in
lockstep for 50 years.The ancient Greeks knew that Universal Suffrage must lead to
Kakistocracy, that’s why
they never considered it.
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Democracy comes from ancient Greece. Athens had a system where all citizens were able to vote on policy (not the slaves who were in a majority – about 75%).
It seems our politicians, particularly the Greens, are keen to bring this idea into practice.
I wonder if they are also keen on the ancient Athenian practice of no politician leaving office richer than when he started?
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Democracy requires the populace to be informed. If the media were strongly biased or were run by government propaganda as in Soviet Russia, then the populace vote in an ill-informed manner.
Democracy requires honesty in government, media and discussion. Democracy could withstand a corrupt government, but what we have today is to shut down discussion and a corrupt media. That’s why we are in such a troubled time today.
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Spot on Greg.
The treachery of the MSM, its betrayal of the Canons of Journalism is pause for thought and a note for history, how apparently easy it is to subvert democracy, liberty, prosperity, common sense, virtue, and facts when the MSM relentlessly utilises the parenteral route to inject a profoundly poisonous neo-Marxist ideology directly into the cortex, in the finest tradition of Paul Joseph Goebbels.
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True it would help if only the truth were told by the MSM but it is an age old tradition that the truth is trampled on by the elite who in turn use the MSM (or equivalent) to con the people and treat them like mushrooms. So the only way out of this conundrum is for the majority of the people to do their own research and think with their brains instead of with the rest of their anatomy. It won’t ever happen though. Humans are humans.
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It is happening though, the printed media are loosing readership and going broke.
It is a bit of a worry to think what will be in place if the printed media goes completely dead. Online only? Perhaps radio will make a comeback.
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There’s a lot riding on the Global Warming Phony.
$$$$$$$
KK
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Add to that, farming has ceased around the Capitals because the farmers are waiting to be bought out by Estate developers.
So the farm becomes overgrown with grass and scrub.
Small Dairy farms used to be close to the cities, creating a green buffer. These are also long gone.
The sort of fires that are nearly ready to go now will cause a mass evacuation of all of us.
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Thanks JO for this article & the video.
It will however need to be repeated ad nauseam
Until all Australians know it in our bones.
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PS I can if you are interested send photos of the fuel load which the local Mt Barker council has allowed to build up across the road from my home.
A friend who also lives here was so scared of the load on the ground, that he raked it all into piles for 100 meters along the road and rang the council and local mayor. Two weeks later & nothing has been done ! This for a section of road reserve which is just 2 meters wide !
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Bill, this is a national problem. The roads become impassable even after the fire has subsided because of the danger of falling trees.
The Princes Highway between Batemans Bay and Moruya on the south coast of NSW, is a good example. The effort after the major fire in that area has been to make the road safe by removing burnt trees. Horse. Door. Bolt.
Similarly, the Kings Highway between Batemans Bay and Braidwood has been closed, on and off, for the last 5 weeks or so. Why? Initially, because of the fire coming out of the Budawang NP and jumping the road at Government Bend 🙂 into the Monga NP; then because of the danger of falling, burnt-out, trees.
Those areas still threatened by fire down here on the south coast of NSW (and it’ll be on again in the next few days) have the trees right up to the edge of the highways – still. Very little work has been done to ensure road closures, post-fire, are mitigated.
At Tuross Head the Fire brigade’s shed is directly opposite a “park” heavily loaded with fuel, so much so that I defy anybody to make their way through it. The “park” is owned by the Eurobodalla Local Government Authority. It’s a standing joke in the community. But nobody is laughing.
Negligence and incompetence in spades. Green ideology being showcased yet again.
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S Sam
Did Tuross Heads village survive? I used to stay there at my grandfather’s place 60 years ago. Many special memories. Haven’t seen the place for 45 years.
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Yep.
It’s still there.
Lovely as ever. With Scheme water, sewage and electricity these days 🙂
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Thanks.
00
Quadrant has an excellent first hand account of a back burn that saved Cobargo NSW
In the 1970’s by a NSW Forest Commission worker.
This is how it was done.
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2020/01/the-night-cobargo-didnt-burn/
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I’ve been through Cobargo and district three or four times over the last couple of months.
The thing that amazed me was how few fire-breaks the farmers had ploughed along their fence-lines. Standard practice where I came from, but seemingly forgotten or unknown by modern day farmers in that district.
Hence, in addition to burnt out paddocks and sheds there’s massive loss of fencing.
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You must be from out west. Things like ploughing fire breaks and putting spark-arrestors on tractor exhausts are mainly for the flatter western grain-growing areas where special conditions still apply to machinery use during fire bans. On the coast they were never mandatory because they are not practical and achieve little in many areas, plus the boundaries are frequently more inaccessible due to the terrain. I had 40 years on the land on the coast and have yet to see a ploughed fire break in any coastal district.
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Interesting on fire-breaks. I suspect that might change given this last experience.
Yes, born and bred out west. North-west slopes and plains to be a bit more precise.
I live in Perth these days.
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Sometimes I wonder whether we should just have a referendum on this whole ‘ban coal because if causes everything bad’ issue and let the people decide. And let’s not make this ban coal over the next 20 years, make it a ban to take effect in say one year, given that we only have 11 years left.
Those for the ban can make all their claims about how everything will be good again in the world and those against the ban can make their claims as to what the consequences will be. The government could even run a test to show people what will happen by throttling all the coal fired power stations and give people some practical experience.
Who could possibly object to this, as it would prove that we either have nothing to worry about, or that we have a lot to worry about. It’s about time that the people of Australia were given the opportunity to choose and once the choice was made, one side or the other should then simply shut up.
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“The government could even run a test to show people what will happen by throttling all the coal fired power stations and give people some practical experience.”
If the staggered closure of every coal fired power plant for 24hours was implemented around Australia that would be interesting. The rules, of course, would be that the only backup was to be from Renewables.
Do that over a week and gauge public response.
KK
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That’s precisely what I would propose. Allow industry etc to prepare, but just demonstrate the exact energy environment that zero coal would provide. Do it for 24 or more hours, or have it in stages where it comes on for only short periods or erratically for a week or two. Show people what it really means to run on renewables and see how long they last.
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The fire which threatened my place was very intense considering that it was on the safest (eastern) side and that the wind had dropped when it (presumably) spotted. For some reason, though there were few new trees in the semi-clear area (lack of burning?) and this is not crown fire country, it was a furnace in there. But we already knew that, and had been wondering how to navigate the politics of getting it safer before the fire hit.
There had been a day of real fire weather back in November, when the fires flared south of here in the Port Macquarie area. It started freakishly cold, then a sickening hot nor’wester came up. Apart from that, you couldn’t say this spring/summer has been much hotter than normal, or that the wind patterns have been of the worst sort.
It had been extremely dry in the lead-up, drier even than 1902 and 1915. That’s a fact. And the fuel loads were through the roof. That’s a fact. The spark came almost certainly from “kids”, but what made the bonfire was drought plus fuel, both extreme. What saved many, including me, was the normal wind pattern. With spring-winds-in-summer (like in the early 1790s!) it would have been curtains.
If nothing changes in NSW, eventually we will get a summer westerly event coinciding with drought and massive fuel levels. You won’t be able to get cool even standing right by the ocean in those conditions and the air will be as dry there as way inland. The budgie on the verandah will fall dead in his cage. Do we really want to add fire to that?
So well done David Packham, and well done Andrew Bolt and Jo Nova for getting the info out there. You guys are in the business of saving lives.
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Very interesting but surely this information must have been known at the highest levels of Government. This means that somebody has to be responsible. It also leads on to the question of what has to be done to reduce future risks is the Government prepared to see Australia effectively vanish from the map?
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Based on the lack of action for 30 years, one may have to conclcude “yes”.
From a science point of view, I often used to wonder at what point did the fire enter a “feed forward” loop where it would start to consume the fuel and oxygen faster and faster until it got to its maximum “fuel burn rate”.
I often wonder if once the fire got to a very high rate of fuel consumption creating like a blowtorch effect through the bush? In a blowtorch scenario, very little could stand in its way.
I had information from rellies in Batemans Bay who said the fire literally burnt down to the waters edge on the beach, such was the intensity. Apparently the place is like a small daisy cutter/MOAB ordinance had gone off….
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Gerald the Mole:
The whole point of opposition politics is not to be responsible for anything but to promise to fix things once you are in charge.
The whole point of government politics is not to be responsible for anything but to find excuses for things going wrong. Excuse No.1 for the fires is ClimateChange©.
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The function of a public servant is to take orders from above and ignore complaints from below.
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The same thing can be said about a lot of misgivings by the governments on both sides over the years. We keep elect fools and expect professional leadership to make Australia great again. The two are completely contradictory and so will never happen as long as we keep electing either LNP or ALP to form a majority government. Those who are waiting for a PM or Premier to do the right thing for the people in many facets of life are obviously dreaming. The only way things will get better is things to get so bad most people will wake up and stop voting for the fools and start voting for parties with real policies that cut through the BS. Although we don’t have a rich field of better alternatives at the moment the field is not completely devoid and anything is better than the two mainstream parties, which are in fact doing pretty much the same thing in many areas at the state level.
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In the past, in every post I have made re bushfires on this blog, I have said the same re the editorial above.
FYI, climate change is not the cause.
I am a career firefighter with 27 years service.
If we allow ground fuel to build up above knee height we cannot do a cool burn.
If a fire occurs in that area it is unstoppable.
Fuel ground levels are allowed to increase due to government policy.
Landowners are not allowed to clear. State Governments have closed state forests and parks. As a result the fuel load on the ground builds up. This results in uncontrollable bushfires.
Local councils policies are to save trees. They don’t care about your life. If a fire with high intensity propagates through your property, the trees on your land (that have been saved by your council) will ensure that you and your property will be gone.
I have seen first hand too much loss in life property fauna and flora.
It is absolute madness.
The policies of our elected officials are to blame, not a 1 degree increase in temperature.
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william x sez:
“I am a career firefighter with 27 years service.”
What could a firefighter know about fighting fires ?
For that knowledge we need a “desk jockey” goobermint bureaucrat who once read a book on the subject.
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That book was also probably written by one who once read a book on the subject.
Such books seem to follow the model of this one –
“How to do it and not get it” written by “One who did it, got it and can’t get rid of it”
50
Actially…we need economists who are part of the the Establishment , to tell us how to fight fires….and how to fight mythical climate change(tm)
Apparently economists know everything, even more than Flimflam…..engineers and proper sceintists are now redundant….
/sarc
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Great stuff Jo! We need true (honest) science behind our decisions. As Maggie once noted – we need evidence based policy rather than policy based evidence!
Cheers,
Mike
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If one could drop a tonne of ice water on 1 metre of a 70 MW/m fireline, the intensity generated at that locus would provided enough heat to boil the water in about 6 seconds and in 32 seconds, sufficient heat to vaporise it completely. In theory the water would attenuate the fire intensity a little temporarily, but in practice the water cannot be contained within that restricted metre zone and would disperse over several metres of identical intensity, thus maximising the rate at which it would disappear, in well under a minute.
Not only is this futile, but such a practice would contribute extra moisture to the ascending column of hot air and enhancing the formation of pyrocumulonimbus clouds at a high elevation,increasing ice and then lightning effects, which could exacerbate the situation.
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I have seen buildings burn with such intensity that they soften large section steel ‘I’ beams to sag under their own weight. But 70 MW/m (I assume that’s per square metre) – is that possible for more than a very short time when wood and cellulose are the fuels? Can anyone work out how much O2 would be consumed per second? It seems a bit odd.
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This is a good question.
Yes the oxygen consumption is very large, hence the very high speed air flows experienced in big fires.
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It’s the rising hot air that draws in fresh air containing Oxygen from the sides, not the fires DEMANDING Oxygen.
So, the hotter the fire, the more the fumes rise, sucking in even more fresh air.
100
Which can be used to good effect.
If a controlled burn can be started on all four sides of the block (and in the middle if possible) then the “chimney effect” helps with control of the burn.
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It’s per metre, as derived by the Byram equation given at the head of Jo’s article:
kg/sq metre X kJ/kg X metre/sec = kJ/(metre.sec) = kW/metre
The rate of combustion depends on oxygen supply as mentioned by others, as well as the surface area to volume ratio of the fuel. Thus a finely dispersed powder such as flour can ignite in an instant. The more ‘open weave’ and finer the tinder, the faster the combustion. The variation in dimensional thickness of fallen branches, leaves and twigs results in variable combustion rates at any given moment and creates the mosaic pattern of fire intensity referred to by Jo. You can imagine this mathematically as a 3D surface with the Z axis representing fire intensity; this would have knolls,hills and valleys. So in one locus the intensity might be 73 MW/m and a few metres away it could be 58 MW/m and so on. As the fuel is consumed this mathematical surface would be in dynamic fluctuation, peaks diminishing and valleys rising. It appears from the published work that the value of 70 MW/m has been determined by measurements to be the empirical maximum value attained for bush-firelines to date.
60
G’day Deano,
I also balked at the MW/m usage, but it is the unit quoted in several sources, where the “m” is linear length of the fire front. My guess is that it’s a measure of what you’d be exposed to if you stood in front of an advancing fire.
Cheers
Dave B
70
I balked at the units too, but confirmed it with several experts (thank you Roger, Phil and Neil).
It is indeed the “fireline” per metre, not the area, m2.
Because there is a time component, a rate per minute — that burning line effective moves forward across ground at a set rate. The units check out. I did not want to make a mistake. I knew all the engineers here would spot it in a moment…
70
I’m pretty sure it’s kW per lineal metre of “fire front” which could clearly be quite a few metres deep (the more intense the fire, the more metres of depth).
These seem like screwy units, but the per m^2 would have a kind of bell curve — cool at the very front where things are just getting going, hot in the middle then cooler again where the fuel has been consumed. By going with kW/m at the front you’ve added up *everything* under the curve which seems like, maybe not so screwy after all.
More sensible than having a mean surface temperature for the whole planet at any rate.
60
The intensity is in MW/m. It applies to the fire front. So if you have a 5000m long fire front and 70MW/m then that front will be producing energy at 350GW; roughly ten times the maximum power output in the NEM electrical power grid.
If the front is moving at 10m/s then it needs a fuel load of 7MJ/sq.m to achieve the power output. Dry wood has an energy content of up to 20MJ/kg. So it requires less than 1kg/sq.m to achieve a 70MW/m fire front moving at 10m/s.
The faster a fire front moves, the more fuel it has available. That is why they become uncontrollable. The radiant heat rapidly dries any fuel ahead of the front so the front accelerates as the intensity increases.
140
I love the in depth knowledge of people on this site. Thanks guys 🙂
50
Thanks to all for answering my query and for clearing up my misunderstanding – without anyone needing to be Superglued to the footpath.
20
tonite’s Bolt Report:
Youtube: 6m27s: 27 Jan: Sky News: Bolt Report: There is more to saving a house than ‘clearing around’ it
Bushfire expert David Packham says ignoring the need for fuel reduction is “throwing knowledge [away]” that has existed since “Indigenous times” and which has been gathered from scientific research.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiu7P22JQwk
after listening to Packham above, what is the use of 20m firebreaks?
open access:
26 Jan: Australian: Bushfires: Queensland clears way for 20m firebreaks
Exclusive By Craig Johnstone
The government has also moved to ensure landholders are able to clear land for firebreaks and other fire management purposes without having permission from state and local agencies…
Last month, it amended planning regulations to make it clear firebreaks and fire management lines up to a width of 20m no longer needed state or local government approval.
Landholders will still need to obtain a fire permit for hazard reduction burning…READ ON
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/bushfires-queensland-clears-way-for-20m-firebreaks/news-story/beaecf22e30f4dd793c4721953dfeaef
150
note, also, near the end when Packham says phony burnings sometimes get recorded as real.
160
probably should have said “failed” burnings (not phony) get recorded as real.
100
I would not regard 20m as a fire break – maybe for a grass fire. Standard rule in insurance industry is horizontal separation 10 times the vertical height of whatever will burn. So in scrubby forest with 10m high treeline, the horizontal separation would be 100m. A little more if the structure is up slope from the trees and a little less if downslope.
Sports ovals have often been used as evacuation areas as some have good separation from fuel. I expect rebuilding of some of these facilities will consider their potential as fire refuges.
People going back to fire ravaged locations will want to see fire risk better managed locally. I doubt that they would consider money spent on a wind farm in northwest Victoria would offer any reduction in their local fire risk. Where should the money be spent – new big wind farm 200km away or upgrading the local sports ground with large cleared zone; large sealed carpark; spacious fire-proof sports pavilion with emergency generator and maybe large in-ground pool for fire fighting reserve.
Any log on the floor of a forest will be home to a myriad of living creatures. Allowing natural processes to dispose of the log over the next few decades is a risky business because it puts all life in the forest at risk. It is preferable to burn off the log and displace some small creatures in order to avoid catastrophic conditions. Hopefully this is the lesson learnt.
80
This is the big lesson, the only thing that stops a pyroconvective firestorm is “the ocean”. Firebreaks would need to be measured in kilometers to protect against ember attack. It’s completely unrealistic to allow the fuel build up and then think we can either manage the fire, or protect properties downwind.
In Canberra in 2003 an entire capital city suburb was hit with a firestorm with almost no warning. They lost 500 homes. Friends of ours went to movie, not realizing there was a serious threat, by the time they got out, turned the car radio on, it was already too late. Their house was gone, the suburb was on fire and the roads were blocked.
40
“Bushfires may be 20 times more intense than the largest fires humans can control”.
That’s what makes it essential to prepare the potential “fuel” near habitation to make Low Intensity Zones.
Preparation includes the following in various mixes;
Land clearing by mechanical means.
Make sure roads cannot be blocked in the event that they are needed as escape routes.
Pre-emptive cool or off season low intensity burns.
Thinning of densely overgrown areas near habitation by cutting or burning.
Preparation is the key to saving farms, property, and human and animal life.
Previous Royal Commissions have no doubt, emphasized these things but no action has been taken on the ground.
Action is needed.
KK
170
What a great introductory chapter you have just written for a PhD Jo. Excellent literature review. I suggest the thesis title “Why do Greens hate koalas?” But of course what uni in Australia would support it?
In light of this knowledge, it would be interesting to review the controversial comments made by various RFS chiefs awarding unprecedented status to firestorms in some of the rare areas that had actually been control burned relatively recently. I’m guessing those fires started in areas which weren’t control burned reaching the required intensity there that took them through the crown of the forests that were.
180
Just watching Andrew Bolt on Sky and heard of a town surrounded by pine forests that survived a massive fire because of a 500 metre cleared zone between the town and the fuel .
100
Government Land Management Is A Joke.
The properties under their control are “loaded” with noxious, prohibited growth like:
Lantana.
Blackberry, and
Bitou bush.
Are they hypocrites or what.
Road safety is a joke.
If an OH&S audit was done on all the local government areas roads they would FAIL.
High winds and fire would close an extremely large number of local access and escape routes in the LG Areas.
OH&S, oh that’s right, I forgot, they run the system so they’re O.K.
KK
140
Independent, OH&S audit on all local and State government roads.
An absolute disaster!
70
Perhaps we could all send photos in to Jo to illustrate the problem of overhanging branches and potential torches on access roads and a thread could highlight the sheer negligence and hypocrisy of our “Governments”.
KK
120
We have recently had 2 cars damaged by falling branches while driving on main roads in the Gold Coast hinterland of Queensland.
One was a $2000 claim on the insurance for minor damage to a front guard & bonnet. The other was a $7500 claim on insurance for much more extensive damage.
To make this even more annoying, these claims are listed as “at fault” claims on your insurance record.
70
If you are a captain of a ship, and through incompetent seamanship you run the ship aground, you not only will never captain a ship again, you will be charged with the loss of life.
This does not happen to the (ir)responsible bureaucrats, while on their watch allow fuel loads to raise to unprecedented levels and ignore warnings of the impending dangers.
Even worse, either through ignorance or some self serving agenda, are all to quick to place the causes of devastating fires on the universal boggy man, AGW, thus misrepresenting the cause, they diminish any action to mitigate the risk of such things happening again in the future.
It’s not only the over paid bureaucrats, it’s gutless politicians and sick minded media willing to live off the hardship of others, as they have both demonstrated their avoidance of the fuel load issue.
I can understand David Packham’s frustration.
170
Jo,
This is in my opinion the most important thing you have ever published.
190
Fuel load is very significant but also is the conditions have made it more explosive and also the seasons are much longer. I wonder what causes that? More positive IOD’s? But what makes them stronger now?
011
Cold water makes them stronger “now”. Cold water also made them stronger “then”.
120
Andrew
Maybe the media!
If you were a life form, with human cognitive capability, born in spring and lived for 3 months, your observation would be that the days are getting longer and assume it will continue to do so, with no appreciation of the history of past events nor of cyclic nature of the world.
If you look back into history, beyond your life of observation you will see that what you are observing is not unprecedented.
50 years of observation is insignificance without at least 50,000 years of comparison.
210
The seasons are longer? Are there 15 months in a year now? Or are you saying that some seasons are longer and others correspondingly shorter? Seems to me to be the case each year, being different to the last and the one before that. Last year in Adelaide we hardly had any spring, weather was cool and wintry. Summer 2019/20 has been generally cool with a few hot days. Its called weather.
50
o/t but this has just come to my attention. no reports from ABC, ex-Fairfax rags, Guardian, NYT, WaPo, TV networks, etc – at least as far as I can see:
26 Jan: GatewayPundit: Another Obama Solar Company Burns Out – DC Solar Owners Plead Guilty to Largest Ponzi Scheme in Eastern California History
by Joe Hoft
Another Obama solar initiative bites the dust, but not until after stealing millions from individuals, companies and the US government.
This solar project turned into the largest Ponzi scheme in Eastern California history.
It was reported this week that the owners of a massive solar company turned ponzi scheme were indicted this week in Eastern California. According to the DOJ in Eastern California…READ ON
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/01/another-obama-solar-company-burns-out-dc-solar-owners-plead-guilty-to-largest-ponzi-scheme-in-eastern-california-history/
behind paywall:
24 Jan: WSJ: Owners of Solar Company That Swindled Berkshire Hathaway Admit to Running Ponzi Scheme
California couple has given up personal assets, including 148 luxury vehicles
By Dave Michaels
Jeff and Paulette Carpoff, who began raising money in 2011, admitted to a scam that involved swindling sophisticated corporate investors who earned valuable federal tax credits for helping finance a renewable-energy business. Authorities seized and auctioned off 148 luxury vehicles owned by the Carpoffs, including a 1978 Pontiac Firebird once owned by Burt Reynolds…
https://www.wsj.com/articles/owners-of-solar-company-that-swindled-berkshire-hathaway-admit-to-running-ponzi-scheme-11579907951
110
I assume Burt Reynolds’s 1978 Pontiac Firebird was an electric car charged from wind turbines then?
20
Brilliant write up, great read, much which moves the discussion.
110
Agree!
40
Anyome who has been in the vicinity of one of these recent high intensity bush fires , will know that a 50 m fire break is no protection.
These fires have crossed rivers and roads wider than that without even slowing.
Anything within 50 m simply spontaneously combusts..seriously..and beyond that they throw a massive superheated cloud of burning embers up to several kms infront of the main fire to start fresh firefronts,
In our south NSW village od Broulee, the fire burnt the forrest up to the western edge of the village, then jumped near 1km and ignited the grass in the dunes on the beach where most people has evacuated to.
100
Absolutely there’s a lot of money riding on the Left’s successfully conning the world on this…nearly all the money in the world….and geopolitics…nothing less than sovereignty of nation states and who rules the world ….rides on this issue.
It’s the issue of the millennium…..has never been another like it ….and the world’s most powerful people …the uber-rich …uber-powerful Socialists….have everything riding on it….the Goldman Sachs …Bloomberg …Rockefeller Brothers…the Kerry Foundation…the Sandler Foundation…the Clintons…Microsoft …all have their eyes on Australia because Australia is the key to whether or not their scam succeeds.
For them to succeed Australia must be forced to not only stop burning coal…that’s small in their scheme of things…. but they have to force Australia to stop mining and selling coal to other countries….because so long as countries like China and India can burn the cleaner Australian coal there will be huge resistance there to deploying wind and solar in a major way.
If we don’t succumb…and God help us if we do…but if we hold out…their plan as laid out in Hans Werner Sinn’s original Green Paradox…was to form a European consumer cartel administered by the UN…to deny FF resource countries a market…and that would of course extend to other exports as well. They would cripple resource countries that refused to comply.
Of course at the time that was written they thought America would be on side with them…so it’s absolutely vital that Trump is re-elected this year. They’ve got a problem with China and India too….and if they can shut down Australia that takes care of that.
But they’re hitting Australia on multiple fronts . The shareholder activists forcing insurance companies to drop all insurance on coal-related companies is backed by the US foundations and Clinton operatives like Podesta.
Incredibly there’s talk of a class action against the Federal government re these fires…and it’s easy to see how far that could go…for how long it could tie up and cripple the government… and how much it could cost Australian taxpayers….likewise a RC would be a feast for the LWMSM and Labor lawyers shifting blame away from Greens and Labor states.
There’d be no money left for the tremendous job in front of Australia…to do what’s required before the next Summer …or the next arsonist.
IMO Australian LW journalists are the key. They are the enablers and orchestraters of all this.
Left wing journalists are running the show…if they had any integrity …any regard for Australia and its sovereignty…they would be asking all the questions we want asked…and insisting on getting answers with evidence.
It’s world upheaval….Europe dictating to the world and deceiving the world…the most massive issue we’ve ever faced…for Australia the issue that will likely destroy it as a 1st world nation…and yet nothing has ever been required ….by those who claim to be guardians of our right to know…of those who want us to surrender our sovereignty to a mob that has expressed its intention to destroy the democratic Capitalist system.
I also think it’s unconscionable ….almost criminal…that Turnbull and now Morrison have forced Australia into a ‘transition’ that’s actually an existential descent into a crippled electricity system …the essential service on which everything….all of our prosperity… health…security…our children’s lives and futures depends….and that Morrison refuses to inform Australians of the outcome the Government intends and their justification for it…with evidence.
No answers have ever been provided about the dodginess of the weather stations….the absence of any trend that’s not natural…they’ve never had to prove a CO2-induced CAGW trend…never discussed the failures of all the models…the consensus before research…using the dodgy models to rejig the world before research into the most powerful drivers of climate that should be the models’ inputs was done…the overturning of scientific method and the tenets of science…and so much more…radio silence on all of it….the sort of treatment that foments revolution.
A few substantive questions to leaders from informed journalists with Australia’s interest at heart… could reveal to sucked-in Australians…or to those who are just too busy to be able to research it themselves…that the whole thing is a Global Socialist House of Cards of the most sinister intent.
240
truth,
I just cannot figure this out.
They can’t just stop burning coal, especially in those power plants. It would totally cripple the Country. It, Australia, would just just stop, cease to function. There would be NO power at all, nothing ….. except absolute anarchy on a scale unimaginable.
No entity here in Australia would actually ALLOW that to happen, even if it were at the direction of all those overseas conglomerates you mentioned, and even they would know what would happen, so I even doubt they would allow it either. If it actually were to happen, then Australia would be a basket case, and those other Countries would have to come to our aid, and that would cost an absolute fortune, more money than they had, so for them, it might actually be a lose lose situation.
It just won’t happen. At the first sign of any disaster of this scale beginning, it would be reversed, quick smart.
Anyone in a position of power who condoned this and allowed it to happen would feel the wrath of the people in a very very short time.
It won’t happen.
Tony.
120
They seem to want “Mad Max V – Beyond ThunderPants” as a reality-TV series to replace Vikings.
“… What’s that Skip? The fall of the Western Capitalist swine? We better go tell Dad and Jerry!…”
00
The capacity for ideology to inflict infinite harm is well established historically. 100M murdered courtesy of the fragile, brittle totalitarian Left.
You appear to omit the possibility that people will be placed in gulags and re-eduction camps prior to, or at the same time as, ditching coal. Wrong think is not permitted.
The events of Germany 1930 – 39 graphically illustrate how bringing the frog to a slow boil seems quite an effective strategy that creeps toward wider acceptance rather than rushing it.
Then of course, there’s the Cloward-Piven strategy – the orchestration of chaos to achieve societal change.
Either way, it’s the time to man the ramparts.
20
Tony
In the scheme of things, freedom has been short and is very fragile.
You appear a man of reason, your engineering/science mind wants to understand/conquer nature.
The people talked about above don’t care about reason/engineering/science, they want to conquer man.
You say they will “feel the wrath of the people”.
Most will fold, some may fight back, but with what sticks against a para military police force.
You cannot move in Australia without being tracked, if your phone has a battery in it and your in range of a couple of towers, they know were your are.
Most technology is a double edge sword, the internet is fantastic, but AI, CV, 5G and IoT, could almost overnight turn a free state into one of totalitarianism.
What sort of person you are, a threat to the state, can be determined using Artificial Intelligence and meta data, conveniently stored by your internet provider.
Cash is under attack, presently before the senate, 2 years jail for a cash transaction greater then $10K.
If your not an obedient citizen, your card will stop working and you will get a “Funds Frozen” message at the ATM.
It is not a revolution with guns and violence, it is death by a thousand cuts.
AGW is not a battle of science, it is their ideological tool.
It is not our politicians leading this charge, they are but puppets of forces far greater than them.
Explain the actions of Turnbull; easily understood, if you realize he is now one of their lieutenants.
The docile and obedient will fare best, Fritz may get a cushy job in the department of “New Science”.
It will happen, sadly, the writing is on the wall.
20
Also Tony, if I remember correctly you are a fan of Ayn Rand.
She seen this happen in her country of birth.
She could see it happening in the west and tried to warn us.
She called it the movement The New Left.
Atlas is shrugging!
32
“… a fan of Ayn Rand…”
Tony!
Tell me it ain’t so?!!
Surely not?
10
“His key point is that if we increase the fuel by ten, the fire intensity is 100 times greater.”
That is a very frightening quote and in correlation, surely it must register even with the green religionists?
Clear the bush, it won’t stop fires but the burn intensity can be limited and clearly reducible.
100
It’s a bit like the intensity of a crash compared to speed isn’t it?
We need something like the “wipe off 5” phrase, but for fuel reduction.
30
I would like to understand his reasoning. It appeared to be something about two of the three parameters in the Byram equation being either similar or the same, so they would in effect multiply.
00
G’day G#4,
That concerned me too until I heard Packham say that the factor “R”, the rate of advance, is itself a function of fuel load, “w”. giving two factors in the overall equation or a squaring of the effect of fuel load. But there is a modifying coefficient in the formula for R, covering things like slope, wind speed and fuel moisture if I remember correctly.
Cheers
Dave B
10
Thanks for the explanation Dave. Much appreciated.
00
Because they hate the idea that they are alive, are human, and are responsible for behaving that way. Hence, they can only destroy life in whatever form it exists even and especially if it means their own extinction.
They do not want to live at your expense, they want YOU to die with as much pain and anguish as possible. Their only will to live is to see you suffering and then die. After which they seek only their own deaths.
80
Question
How about using the largest size available aircraft to drop water and fire retardant?
Thoughts
In any fire the exhaust products go up being lighter than the surrounding air,
air/oxygen is consumed and comes in only at low/ground level.
There would not be any impediment to high speed big volumes of inwards oxygen.
In a big, high intensity, forest fire the flows are high volume and high speed-
combustion products of CO, CO2 etc going up and carrying embers,
and air drawn in to the fire.
The pattern of upward exhaust and inward oxygen once established would not change.
Any feasible amount of anything sprayed on the fire from above would not reach the fire but would get carried away by the upwards exhaust.
An aircraft above a fire would experience a substantial, but erratic, updraft.
Conclusion
If the above analysis is correct then using even large freight aircraft
(a DC10 has crashed) would be useless.
Further, note as described in other comments here,
the burning embers are carried up and then winds can spread them hundreds of meters.
40
Most of the aircraft fire RETARDENT dropps are not on the actual heart of the fire, but infront of the fire path to prevent (retard) forward fire propogation .
Water “bombing” is used to help control fire fronts near property , structures and people.
PS.. it was a C130 “Herculese” that crashed.
80
Thanks for elaboration
00
One of the problems with using large firefighting aircraft in Australia is that there aren’t many airports with long runways to support them. So they need to fly further away, then take longer to load up, thus significantly reducing the number of drops they can perform in a day.
40
We also don’t have a lot of spare fresh water nearby, especially in drought years.
I can’t say I’m excited by the thought of dropping salt water or retardant on the wilderness, and would think any halfwit environmentalist would prefer cool burns to pyrotechnics plus chemicals or salt.
90
They seem to be using crop-dusters with floats here at the moment trying to deal with the Potato Point fires. They seem to make a running pass across either Tuross Lake or Coila Lake to fill up, then off they go. They’re as persistent and noisy as mossies on a hot summer’s night.
Coila is brackish and currently closed off, while Tuross Lake is tidal and open to the ocean.
We’ve seen a bit of Elvis (or his mate) recently along with the NRMA’s chopper. There’s also a chopper buzzing about with a bucket, presumably also loading up with salty water.
As I type we’ve a 737 flying very low and slow directly overhead. Goodness knows what that’s all about. 🙂
00
Sam…
That would be Col Payne’s AIRTRACTOR 802.
Nominal capacity , from memory, is around 3200 litres, which is around the capacity of some RFS catergory1 Fire Tankers.
SEATs (Single Engine Air Tankers ) are used around the world. Very versatile and able to get in closer and more accurately to the seat of the fire.
10
And, just now, we have a tri-jet of some kind or another doing the same track. Three engines; one on each wing and one under the tail but above the fuselage. Noisy beggar.
Perhaps I was mistaken in my identification of the earlier one?
00
Sceptical Sam, If you see a low flying 737 near a bushfire it is most likely to be the RFS LAT Large air tanker).. stay safe
10
Thanks William. My comment at 21.2.1.1.1 was meant to go here!
Tri-jet?
Perhaps we’ve got two operating?
00
Jo.
Another issue with salt water is that when we get those lovely southern busters, the big blue salty bit is usually far too rough for scooping aircraft.
Cheers…. Pete
00
The Russians have a couple of super tanker aircraft which dump massive amounts of water but the Vic fires in 2009 the offer they made was rejected .
If there was enough heavy aircraft with big payloads it would possibly make a difference but fuel loads are ultimately the only thing we can control .
00
People should take photographs, lots of them, showing the build-up of fuel load on woodland, farmland, alongside roads, on the edge of national parks, around homes and farms etc.
If possible weigh the accumulation of fuel on metre square patches to get a large amount of evidence of the level of risk that has built up.
Otherwise once the fire has gone through the powers that be will claim that it was global warming/climate change that ‘done it’ .
110
“They also show how irrelevant temperatures onsite are, compared to fuel load and wind speed.”
A good example of this is the Hobart fires of 1967 … back when carbon (sic) was at safe levels, and the planet had been cooling for decades …
Tasmania’s 1967 Black Tuesday bushfires explained: What have we learned?
“The spring of 1966 in Tasmania had brought with it heavy rainfall and “prolific vegetative growth” followed by “abnormally dry conditions”, according to a report from the committee tasked with investigating the fire and its causes.
The summer of 1966-67 was the driest since 1885
The strong winds blew down burning trees, blocking road access for people evacuating or trying to fight fires.
Of the 110 fires, 88 were found to be deliberately lit, although the exact causes are unclear.
Some were from burn-offs started in the days prior.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-06/tasmanias-1967-black-tuesday-bushfires-explained/8241698
” …the limited observational evidence of warming that scientists had in the 1970s, when Earth had been cooling for a few decades,” he (study co-author Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies in New York) said.
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/
50
Oops. This was the link: http://www.bom.gov.au/weather-services/fire-weather-centre/bushfire-weather/index.shtml
Temperature inversions
A layer of warm air sitting over a layer of cold air is called a temperature inversion.
Inversions are common during the night and early morning when cool night air collects close to the ground (Figure 4).
This arrangement of air is stable because cold air near the ground is heavy and tends to stay near the ground.
The warm air above the inversion is lighter and tends to stay above the inversion.
There are often strong winds in the warm air above inversions, but while the inversion lasts these winds cannot come down to ground level.
As the sun heats the ground during the day, the inversion weakens and strong winds may begin to blow near the ground (Figure 5).
This is one reason why many bushfires burn more fiercely in the afternoon, as happened with the fires in Hobart in 1967.
http://www.bom.gov.au/weather-services/fire-weather-centre/bushfire-weather/index.shtml
50
Shorter time available for prescribed burning is a crock. The weather hasnt changed. Every autumn when the sub tropical highs move north and every spring when they move south. As the centre of the high passes over our continent are the days for conducting prescribed burns…not a calender day, not predictable nor scheduled. When the high is centred over you means very calm stable conditions for up to two days at a time. This is why fire managment must be returned to a very local level. The local CFA captain has years of experience how and when to reduce the fuel load. For too long, the green blob in bureaucracy has strangled our community’s ability of protecting ourselves. The koala killers must be pushed back.
Food for thought…our national parks were declared to protect certain attributes found within the bush…I put it that those attributes are now destroyed and no longer can be used as a basis of park declaration. If the blob cannot look after the bush it should be returned to the public as state forest to be restored and resourced. Fuel loads, tracks, forestry, fire wood, agriculture and recreation. Parks Victoria is a disaster!
160
State Government also took control of Dams and Weirs from Local Government.
Local knowledge emsured water releases were done in a timely mannere.
Since then, we’ve seen the 2011 Brisbane Flood, a Big Flood in Bundaberg, regular flooding in Depot Hill, and the 2019 Townsville flood, all the result of the new regime.
27
Have to agree with you about the CFA having the experience to do controlled burns, but since the Vic. State Government banned them from doing controlled burns (which used to be on private land as well as State Forests and Parks), that experience is decreasing as the older members move on. They don’t just want and need to keep the knowledge, they want to expand it and doing burns on private land does that as well as provide a funding source much greater than the cost of liability insurance or anything else.
In my experience, CFA members are very open to expanding and learning new skills, especially in areas they don’t often encounter.
On a slightly different theme, the fires must be knocked down as soon as possible so reactions must be quick – 20 or 30 minutes is way too long. Landholders must have rapid response gear, even a knapsack spray can be effective if the fuel load is low and the response is quick.
50
My comment from yesterday still stands
There is more than one axis, and while fuel load is important, it is not everything, or even the only thing
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0222328
/12
01
It’s just the only thing we can do something about.
50
this is a good article describing one of the factors influencing bushfires. If only we lived in such a 2 dimensional world
Instead why not look at this?
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0222328
Or this
https://www.publish.csiro.au/wf/wf12184
It is equally valid to point out that the drought (which is odd in that it atypical in respect to El Niño) is a major factor, equal to the fuel load.
00
Which this is a great article describing one factor influencing bushfire behaviour, it is not the only factor, and may not even be the major one.
This is a good summary:
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0222328
or this, which is a good evaluation of one of the other factors
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0111414
/12
18
in fact, you could say that the atypical drought (non el nino influenced) is a bigger factor
/1272
09
“Atypical drought”? Peter, please look at the BOM yearly rainfall data for the last 120 years. You will note::
1. 2019 had only 300mm rainfall. Yes, it was a significant drought year.
2. There were another 5 years also with low rainfall, around 250 mm. One of these was 1939.
3. There is NO observable trend towards decreasing rainfall in this data. None, nada, zilch, nein, nyet, iie.
70
I’m saying that the drought is atypical because of the lack of an el nino, 1939 had a large el nino, and this has been pointed out numerous times on this blog.
My point is that it did not burn last year, it did not burn in July, even though the fuel loads, and probably arsonists were at the same levels.
Sorry, but I can not accept a simplistic solution to a complex problem
17
1938-9 was a LA NINA flanked by neutral years, and 1939 was its summer. Yep, those fires and all those heat deaths occurred during a LA NINA. Which should indeed make us reflect on the complexity of climate and reject simplistic GameBoy buttons and levers.
It’s interesting that in the previous La Nina, the long one of 1928-30, SA had its driest August-to-March on record and bad drought stretched from the north west of the continent to the south-east. Yep. You were better off in the “super” El Nino of 1998. The 1930s and early 1940s were just a bad run for climate world-wide. Who knows why yet?
But how many times does one have to say it?
1938-9 was a LA NINA flanked by neutral years.
Enough?
40
Not according to the list
https://sites.google.com/site/medievalwarmperiod/Home/historic-el-nino-events
and according to BOM
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/ninocomp.shtml
the 1939 la nina could not have caused a drought
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/lnlist/index.shtml
do you have your reference?
02
Just use the slider…
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/lnlist/
It’s your own reference!
Yet this is what you wrote: 1939 had a large el nino, and this has been pointed out numerous times on this blog.
This is what your own reference says: A dry La Niña, especially so in the southeast. April 1938 to January 1939 (Figure 1) was very dry in Victoria, southern NSW and southeastern South Australia. Victoria had 98% of its area in the lowest decile, and southeast Victoria had lowest-on-record falls. When this low rainfall combined with extreme heat, it resulted in the Black Friday fires, which lit up almost all of Victoria, southern NSW and southeastern South Australia, causing massive devastation. Some 1.5–2 million ha was burnt in Victoria, much of it protected forest.
Peter. It’s your own reference. Now as to your bizarre statement “the 1939 la nina could not have caused a drought”…are you saying it was La Nina but was also El Nino? (Lamb recorded 1939-40 as El Nino while the Bom says neutral, but since the drought was 1938 to Jan 1939 that’s not material.)
Or are you saying there was a drought, there was La Nina…but that La Nina could not have caused the drought? Which could be true, even though pointless. You might say that cold oceans and lack of rain caused the drought. Or the dog ate the drought’s homework.
But maybe this is just face-saving and I type in vain.
60
2019 is just after 3 years of the strongest El Nino since 1998.
So your point is pointless. !!
People have also explained the effect of the Indian ocean dipole to you.
But you refuse to learn about that, too.
Stop being willfully ignorant just so you AGW cultism isn’t destroyed.
Fact REALITY for once in your life.
30
The thing that stands out this bushfire season is the intense high pressure in the Tasman Sea, which has brought these strong north-westerlies.
So at the RC I would say low solar activity has created blocking highs, which have played a significant role in this bushfire season.
10
so you agree, temp drought are at least a big a problem as fuel load
03
Peter, let’s say they are — next question, what’s easier:
1/ reduce fuel load
2/ Change the planetary climate to prevent droughts and cool the world through an unclear mechanism supported only by models we know don’t don’t work and without help of most of the largest economies on the planet. And even if we could cool the world, there will be less evaporation, less rainfall, and possibly more droughts, higher wind speed, larger evaporation and worse fires.
Hmm What to do?
110
Sure reduce the load. And as the temp continues to rise? And we continue to have longer droughts? And more animals are moved to extinction?
‘We had to destroy the village to save it’
03
We continue to have the same droughts we always had. 178 years of science. Ask Ashcroft et al?
Maybe read my posts sometime?
50
You have it wrong again.
Intentionally, I suspect, as you try to push your AGW fundamentalism.
Drought is ONLY a problem if there are large fuel loads ready to be dried out.
And droughts are naturally occurring Australia WEATHER condition.
And as you keep showing us, there is no evidence of any effect from atmospheric CO2.
40
The droughts, sometimes exacerbated by high summer heat and westerlies, (but caused by cold water) are what they have always been, with their differences.
The early 1790s should be a convincer. The drought of the late 1830s may have been the sharpest judging by the ‘bidgee, the drought of the late 1950s to the 1967 crisis was the longest, the Fed Drought was the most crippling…and recent droughts have been none too shabby. Around here 2019 was a shocker, though relieved smartly in Jan. In other parts of NSW look to years like 1902, 1888, 1944, 1968 for record dry…
I could point out that these cycles or events can’t be neatly related to just ENSO, but I suspect that will be ignored.
What’s new is the phenomenal amount of ground fuel. I’ve got a whole forest I can show to anyone interested…but you’d have to be interested, not just invested in an agenda.
20
Peter, you cannot simply link the occasional droughts to the steadily rising temperature. There is absolutely no proof of any correlation.
20
“Sure reduce the load.” Finally you get that right.
“And as the temp continues to rise?”
or fall, or whatever the next NATURAL variation is.
No rise in temperature above Australia this century.
“And we continue to have longer droughts?”
This was not a particularly long drought. Been much longer ones in the past.
“And more animals are moved to extinction?”
Another of your fantasies ?
Yes a lot of animals killed by these fires,
…. but name one that has gone extinct because of mythical “climate change”
10
Sadly, there are a lot of other dimwits out there who think like Peter Fitzroy. When faced with the fact the fuel loads are the only fire influencing factor that we CAN possibly have any control over, they come back with, “No, we need to ban coal”, or “No, we need to put a price on carbon”, or “No, it is clearly all Scott Morrison’s fault”….
So, when we do all that, get rid of ScoMo, and supposedly slow global warming to only be 2°C warmer than now in the year 2100 ….. what the hell are we going to do about the supposedly increased level and intensity of fires in the meantime?
Hint …. getting away from centralized Soviet style control of prescribed burns would be a good start: Lay down strict conditions, then allow local brigades and landowners on-the-ground to make decisions to burn in windows of opportunity which may only be a few days. Requiring 3 to 12 months to get a permit from a distant central authority which knows nothing about the details of the matter, and then requires the co-ordinated attendance of every service and every layer of management at the event results in …… “the ‘window of opportunity being too short for this all this dicking around…”
And THAT’S why “…windows of opportunity are now too short for preventative burning …..” after all the bureaucratic requirements are met.
20
There are almost no fires west of a line through Moree, Dubbo and Wagga.
Are you claiming that there is no drought out here? (Could have fooled me…. the sheep chasing the feed cart says there is, tho)
Are you telling us there is no climate change west of Dubbo?
Nope. Just like in every other drought, there is no fuel in the grasslands, so no fires.
10
PF you are straw clutching.
10
There was a weak ElNino, but more specifically a positive Indian Ocean dipole that I had been watching here https://i1.wp.com/www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/oisst/navy-anom-bb.gif for some time. It was noteable that the recent rain in the drought areas fell within in days of the positive IOD breaking down.
00
Sorry, most of the dry was because of El Nino, and IDO
ENSO hasn’t really dropped into La Nina territory since 2015
So you are wrong again, as usual.
The major factors of the intensity were:
1. dryness due to a natural drought,
2. a massive fuel load, due to the lock up and neglect greenie agenda.
3. strong blustery winds due to the meandering jet stream.
CO2 played no part in any of the weather issues.
And you cannot provide any evidence that it did,
So stop the petty implications.
60
Well l looked at the first paper you cited Peter. An interesting viewpoint. As it was generated by BOM staff, I guess that we have to accept some degree of homogenisation in their calculations, plus lots of modelling.
However, the point that caught my eye was that, although they obtained good correlation with fires in south eastern Australia, the correlation was not that good with fires in the SW region. Now I’m no statistician, but I thought that if you are seeking correlation as essential proof to validate your results, then surely the correlation would need to be present in all regions across Australia? If it isn’t, then surely there would be other factors, not investigated or studied within the paper, that could be influencing the results?
30
PF you clearly do not understand either the presentation or the appropriate physics. The total thermal energy output from a fire event is directly related to the amount of available fuel. Weather conditions droughts etc can not make available more fuel than has accumulated since the previous fire event. The increase in intensity is related to the square of the increase in the quantity of fuel.
I’m not sure that you paid too much attention to David Packham’s presentation.
30
Or perhaps you didn’t understand it.
20
He never does.
20
The alarmists and the Greens always lecture us on how we should believe the facts and the science. The above is as good as it gets on this issue –time for the alarmists to do some reading.
60
Ross
You don’t need to do that – goes against the feeling (/s)
30
I have noticed in the comments section of The Australian that it is patently obvious that the majority of alatmists don’t do any research. Or if they raise an issue, it always seems to be the same reference, which suggests some background organisation is supplying the research. A recent example was that one of them claimed that the world wasn’t concerned about global cooling in the 1970s.
10
And for those that can’t read they can watch the utube clip.
00
The “shorter window” is BECAUSE of the damned fuel loads….
The higher the fuel load, the more limited the conditions are in which you can burn without exceeding specified intensity and risk levels.
We must break that cycle if we are to make our bush safer. Using the problem that poor management has created, as an excuse for more poor management, is not acceptable.
140
Department of Defence
A composite troop of Army Reserve engineers is using bulldozers, chainsaws and plenty of muscle to help clear secondary roads in the Hunter Valley, NSW.
Based out of the Hunter Valley Fire Control Centre and under the direction of the multi-agency Incident Management Team, the 39 soldiers of Composite Engineer Troop 4 are making roads and tracks accessible to residents and emergency services alike through Yengo and Wollemi National Parks.
Deputy Incident Controller Phil Bryant, of the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NSW), said the area had been hit hard by the fires, with fires still burning south of Singleton.
“We’re tasking the Army to help clear public roads and access trails so people can get to their homes in the aftermath of the fire,” he said.
“Basically, they are creating safe passage for the people who use those trails.
“They are keen to work with us, and I’ve found we gel well, we brief well, and there’s good communication. Everything is running smoothly.”
Out in the devastated fire-grounds the engineers are making fast progress, with grateful responses from residents.
For Corporal Nathan Lawley, an entry trail clearance of Commission Road in Wollemi National Park resulted in hearing about a narrow escape from an ex-soldier who stayed to defend his property.
“A man named Peter told us he had been trapped for about a week because of the damage to his access track,” Corporal Lawley said.
“He had already tried to clear his driveway but hadn’t been able to get too far – he was very happy to see us.
“He said when the fire came through, he could hear the roar of the fire through the valley.
“The wind dropped just as it got to his house, but if it hadn’t it would have roared through and he wouldn’t have survived.
“He said he would never hand around again, next time you will find him at the beach.”
80
Just love reading this Dennis. Great post.
10
Agree on that, Peter. However, more tracks, smaller blocks of dangerous fuel loads and calm days will eventually eat through the problem… Old Proverb..How do you eat an elephant? One mouthful at a time!
60
CARBON DIOXIDE IS NECESSARY FOR LIFE ON EARTH
Earth’s climate has been changing for at least four billion years in cycles large and small. Few in the climate debate understand those changes and their causes. Many are fixated on carbon dioxide (CO2), a minor constituent of the atmosphere, but one absolutely necessary for life as we know it. (In the process of photosynthesis, terrestrial plants, and phytoplankton, kelp, and algal plankton in the oceans use sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water to produce carbohydrates and oxygen.) Perhaps this fixation derives from ulterior political motives for controlling the global economy. For others, the true believers, perhaps this fixation derives from ignorance.
Greenpeace co-founder Dr. Patrick Moore has written an excellent summary of the history of carbon dioxide on Earth titled, “The Positive Impact of Human CO2 Emissions On the Survival of Life on Earth.” In this 24-page paper, Moore notes that we came dangerously close to losing plant life on Earth about 18,000 years ago, when CO2 levels approached 150 ppm, below which plant life can’t sustain photosynthesis. Currently, atmospheric CO2 stands at about 400 ppm which is about one-third the level for optimum plant growth.
Phanerozoic temp CO2 moore
Here is the executive summary of Moore’s paper:
This study looks at the positive environmental effects of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, a topic which has been well established in the scientific literature but which is far too often ignored in the current discussions about climate change policy. All life is carbon based and the primary source of this carbon is the CO2 in the global atmosphere. As recently as 18,000 years ago, at the height of the most recent major glaciation, CO2 dipped to its lowest level in recorded history at 180 ppm, low enough to stunt plant growth.
This is only 30 ppm above a level that would result in the death of plants due to CO2 starvation. It is calculated that if the decline in CO2 levels were to continue at the same rate as it has over the past 140 million years, life on Earth would begin to die as soon as two million years from now and would slowly perish almost entirely as carbon continued to be lost to the deep ocean sediments. The combustion of fossil fuels for energy to power human civilization has reversed the downward trend in CO2 and promises to bring it back to levels that are likely to foster a considerable increase in the growth rate and biomass of plants, including food crops and trees. Human emissions of CO2 have restored a balance to the global carbon cycle, thereby ensuring the long-term continuation of life on Earth.
Moore presents a concise history of CO2 beginning in the Cambrian Period 540 million years ago when CO2 was about 7,000 ppm. He follows that with a discussion of how carbon is distributed today between the atmosphere, oceans, plant life, and rocks.
In his concluding remarks, Moore briefly discusses the politics of CO2 and notes: ” Lost in all these machinations is the indisputable fact that the most important thing about CO2 is that it is essential for all life on Earth and that before humans began to burn fossil fuels, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 was heading in a very dangerous direction for a very long time.”
https://wryheat.wordpress.com/2016/06/28/carbon-dioxide-is-necessary-for-life-on-earth/
100
Stunted and fewer plants within a 100,000 yr dry period led to wind-deflation of soil. This is why Australia generally has thin crappy soil profiles. The LIA dryness didn’t help this either as the soil of then is within the Tasman sediments, and on NZ and South American glaciers. Not a problem if you have glaciers grinding up bedrock, to create thick aeolian loess deposits, as in China, Russia and the US, but Australia had almost no glaciers. So this country more than probably any other benefits now from higher CO2 levels and more moisture that is growing plants that protect the soil from strong winds, and stabilizes a thickening soil profile development. A bit of charcoal probably doesn’t hurt either.
The last thing we need here is lower CO2 levels.
40
Of course, we understand the importance of CO2, but worryingly a lot of people do not and have accepted the lie that Carbon Dioxide is Carbon pollution.
I have read comments suggesting that rising CO2 in the atmosphere is creating the growth of vegetation that fuels bushfires and therefore lowering CO2 is the answer, totally ignoring the obvious about plant growth or no growth, crop yields high or crop yield low, or worst case scenario, crop yields zero.
30
Tried searching CSIRO reports, as they claim to be bushfire experts.
“Between 1901 and 2011 there have been 260 bushfires in Australia associated with a total of 825 known civilian and firefighter fatalities.” “Over three-quarters of all fatalities occurred within 30 m of the forest and half of all fatalities occurred on days with an FFDI greater than 100 (the current threshold for declaring a day as ‘catastrophic’).”
But then they quickly get distracted by – you guessed it – climate change.
100
They love quoting FFDI, as if some magical homogenised modelled calculation is the answer to everything.
10
Tony Heller points out clearly with the benefit of data and newspapers of the day that bush fires (pre.1900) were horrendous. Why cherry pick from 1901?
20
It may not be possible to control fuel loading in an elevated temperature climate. It is in everyone’s interest to ensure that climate scenario does not occur.
118
“to ensure that climate scenario does not occur.”
There is absolutely nothing that Australia can do about natural climate variability.
You are being totally delusional if your think there is.
There is no evidence that our CO2 emissions have any affect whatsoever on climate,
…and even if it did, what would you suggest that would make one iota of difference?
140
Are you serious?
07
You really are delusional, and simple minded, aren’t you.
I repeat…
There is absolutely nothing that Australia can do about natural climate variability.
There is no evidence that our CO2 emissions have any affect whatsoever on climate,
You are welcome to present some empirical evidence that human released CO2 affects climate..
But you bound to be even more of a total failure than you currently are.
30
Noted that simon simply neglected to answer the question.
Maybe it would require some rational thinking.! 😉
What would you suggest that would make one iota of difference to the climate.?
Cue, either blank silence.. or a clown show. ! 😉
20
He could try putting out the sun 😀
20
Simon global warming has stopped and the failure of the models, to predict the plateau in temperatures, is a fair indication that CO2 is a negligible component.
So we are stuck with natural variability.
100
Is there anyone here who isn’t totally delusional?
010
You most certainly are one of the delusional.
Most of us here are what is called REALISTS.
You are so simple, that you just swallow all the anti-science of the global warming meme.
How about you actually go and look for REAL scientific evidence.
Start with the basics, empirical evidence of warming by atmospheric CO2
You will find, like many others have found, that there just isn’t any
70
Yes, there are quite a few of us. You aren’t one, Simon. Unfortunately.
10
Simon. Most are pragmatic. Anyone touting coal bans, or a price on carbon, is plainly looking at an entirely different problem. Or agenda.
00
Markx, just an adjustment to your comment at 27.1.1.1.8 “supposedly slow global warming to only be 2°C warmer than now in the year 2100”.
The IPCC’s concern about 1.5-2.0°C of warming is based on the change since pre-industrial times.
As the world has already warmed by about 1°C, what the prophets of doom are talking about is an increase of just 0.5-1.0°C by 2100, so quoting a rise of 2°C is misleading.
1°C of warming to date has been beneficial, another 1°C of warming is catastrophic??
00
Robber, a good correction. But, I’m not saying it is a problem, just following the logic that if the theory is that warming to date caused the fires then there is no solution to the matter for the next 80 (or probably 200) years as they KNOW it won’t get cooler. Emissions reduction is not the answer, whatever the beliefs or long term agenda may be.
00
It’s a lie to claim that Australia can stop the world warming.
It’s a lie to claim that trying to do so with the means currently available, is an economically viable so,union to the fires that we have now.
It’s a lie to claim that trying to do so is beneficial to those countries using cheap energy to bring their populations out of poverty, OR those fountries anticipating longer growing periods and reduced winter-deaths from warmer weather.
It’s a lie to claim that anything we can do now will solve a problem that has been in existence for millennia.
110
Wrong. Australia actively assisted to break the Madrid talks by its refusal to negotiate on it’s Kyoto credits overhang. Future global climate policy is affected by what Australia does here and now.
010
Let’s hope we can make the whole AGW scam collapse then. 🙂
50
“Australia actively assisted to break the Madrid talks by its refusal to negotiate on it’s Kyoto credits overhang. Future global climate policy is affected by what Australia does here and now.”
What a load of mindless twaddle. !
Nothing Australia does will have ANY effect on the global climate. !
Doesn’t matter if its economically viable, or would destroy the whole country…
It wouldn’t have any effect on the global climate whatsoever..
You are totally delusional if yo think it would.
What would happen would be to greatly reduce our resilience to cope with naturally variable climate and weather events.
50
Is it fun trolling here Simon ?
50
Pretty feeble attempt, hey.
Laughable.
All that he has managed is to further the average IQ drop of the resident warmy trolls
Barely scraping double digits now. 😉
30
Good effort by Angus in Madrid, he singlehandedly brought the tent down with his Kyoto Credits.
41
Good for Australia. What a shame it didn’t collapse everything especially Paris.
20
Simon Enzed has met its 2020 obligations by using Kyoto credits , 20 million tons or so CO2 credit but Adern still preaches at your church of CAGW.
00
Simon, like you I once thought CO2 was a significant atmospheric heater but it is not. In fact Infra-Reds play only a minor role and water vapour is by far the main agent of IR absorption/emission. The hoax is based upon most people having close to zero understanding atmospheric physics.
20
Controlled burnoffs have doubled over the past decade, and it still didn’t stop these fires. How many hectares a year are going to have to be burnt? The logistics are overwhelming.
120
Simple.
20
… simon… met a pie man.
And no, burnoffs have not doubled,
They have been stymied by the greenie agenda, and greenie local government overlords .
People get FINED for creating fire-breaks on their own properties.
Green and red tape make it impossible for many burn-offs to proceed.
State Forests have been locked up and neglected. Fire trails overgrown and inaccessible.
160
Don’t give us that.
The Western Australians spent decades burning an average of between 7-8% of their forested country per year.
It’s not that bloody difficult.
130
Your belief is not supported by fact – Victoria’s recommended annual planned burn target agreed to from the Royal Commission into the 2009 bushfires is 390,000Ha.
Actual fuel reduction burn area:
2018-19- 130,000 Deficit- 260.000
2017-18- 74,728 Deficit- 315,272
2016-17- 125,052 Deficit- 264,948
2015-16- 197,940 Deficit- 192.060
2014-15- 234,614 Deficit- 36,674
Cumulative deficit over the last 5 years totals 1,068,954Ha. Planned burns only achieved 45% of the target over the last 5 years. An honourable premier would stand down over such a dismal performance on such a critical target.
The Victorian forestay management achieved over 5 years what they proposed to do in 2 years. It is incredibly deficient.
140
It could perhaps also be evidence, prima facie, of industrial manslaughter as defined under various State acts.
70
‘ How many hectares a year are going to have to be burnt? The logistics are overwhelming.’
Which is why we need a Green Army, 10,000 strong, to slow burn the Great Dividing Range. This would be an ongoing battle against nature and we must never again lower our guard.
Morrison could go down in Australian history as the PM who stopped the bushfire cycle.
50
Don’t much like the ‘Green Army’ Gordo. Who’s doing this? Are they pros getting paid for a pro job and risks and responsibilities taken? If that’s coming from taxpayers I don’t want local councils and states involved in that, they’d milk it dry and do nothing. Something along the lines of a Federal Department of Interior? Or I shudder to say, ‘homeland security’? It would need Federal powers over states that can override recalcitrant state governments, of whatever persuasion or ideological agendas and ‘leadership’ quality, or rather the extraordinary avoidance or absence of such.
A ‘volunteer’ agency is never going to cut it, but what about private contractor ‘service-providers’, to a Federal Tasking-Agency adn National Authority where such contractors bid every few years against competitor companies, hire locally people who know the area, and the appropriate priorities? And at all costs avoid White-Shirt overseers in the media.
50
Detail is a little cloudy, the foot soldiers could be wannabe immigrants, guest workers and backpackers, all on the minimum wage and covered by insurance.
The upper echelons would confer with local communities and RFS, also the states and federal government will cooperate because there is no alternative to the cool burn strategy.
20
Apart from WA all the states and federal government worked in harmony this bushfire season, so it would only take the RC to come down heavily on green tape and the laws could be modified to allow selective logging in national parks.
20
Simon. Doubling from almost nil a few years ago to about one tenth of what was prescribed by earlier Royal Commissions, is NOT a very useful observation.
00
At least keep all roads and firetrails open. what the army would be good for and its their job. Also stop using suburban streets to plant Koala food trees. The big hazards for koalas are dogs and cars. Our council has just planted them. If they help spread fire that is lethal for koalas too.
110
The UN has an agenda which includes population reduction and they know full well that an increase in co2 will increase food production which leads to an increase in population. If they can stop the burning of fossil fuels then maybe they can hold populations steady and then work out other ways to kill people off.Not allowing countries in Africa to produce cheap electricity burning coal helps keep people in poverty and death rates high through a lack of refrigeration and modern medical treatment. The only ones to benefit from these current fires are the loony left who can use them to further blame GW for any disaster whilst totally ignoring the human incompetence and corruption that are the root cause for the fires being unstoppable.
30
Just bring back logging in specified areas of any bush close to towns and farms. It’s not rocket science, it’s just that the Greens are ideologically opposed to pretty much all logging.
100
But the political flux at the state level will stymie a determination to do anything consistently effective. If the states are taken out of the picture that’s one less layer of needless expensive seat-polishers who specialize in normalizing failure.
10
State Governments are of course the Federation of States that form the Commonwealth of Australia.
The former colonies that joined together and now in accordance with Constitutional laws the States have more power and responsibilities for managing our affairs than the federal Government responsibilities. Councils report to State Governments that have the power to dismiss elected Councillors and appoint an interim manager.
10
The problem is what forest areas are designated for logging and what are designated for conservation is not determined by anything to do with ‘fire risk’ to property and life; it is almost entirely determined by conservation values. This leaves areas near to towns/farms exposed to increased fire risk.
A change at the political level to allow designation based on fire risk- which means logging close to any bush near towns- will require a changed paradigm; not impossible, just difficult with all green momentum in the last few decades, and your right above-cleaning out those in officialdom who only look at conservation values and little else largely out of self interest.
00
It must have been a bush fire that brought down Notre-Dame of Paris roof… not a cigarette butt…
40
No, that was obviously the result of Climate Change causing the roof timbers to get extra dry and 1 deg hotter !
50
Nature has presented us with a oportunity not to be missed.
The ground fuel load has largely been eliminated in millions of Ha of parks and forrests.
If the authorities do not seize the oportunity to maintain key areas of this new “safe space” with planned control measures to prevent future fuel buildup, then we are dumb.
Why do i just suspect this will not happen ??
70
If the article is right and fuel intensity increases on the square of fuel load then the headline is wrong and reality is much more scary.
If the fuel load is twenty times greater than can be extinguished then the resulting intensity is 400 times greater than can be extinguished, not the twenty times in the headline
00
This is a great article describing one factor influencing bushfire behaviour, it is not the only factor, and may not even be the major one.
This is a good summary:
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0222328
or this, which is a good evaluation of one of the other factors
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0111414
/12 – maybe not deleted this time
00
anyone watching the tennis in Melbourne would know it’s been mild weather-wise – 23C, 26C etc. commentators barely mention it though.
however:
20 Jan: ABC: Climate change could make January too hot for Australian Open, scientists say
By Elias Clure and staff
Climate scientists say the Australian Open could become too dangerous to play in the peak of Melbourne’s summer and have proposed moving the major to a cooler month…
However, a report from the Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub, released today to coincide with the beginning of the 2020 Australian Open, argues more dramatic action will be required as the climate continues to change…
While conditions are expected ***to remain mild temperature-wise this week, it’s not just the heat that’s causing problems.
Play was halted at the Kooyong Classic last week because of smoke from the bushfires — which have also been linked to climate change…
“This bushfire season has been absolutely unprecedented, and players are having to deal with this too,” another of the report’s authors, Dr James Goldie, said…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-20/australian-open-january-could-be-too-hot-due-to-climate-change/11882340
27 Jan: ABC: AP: Roger Federer beats Marton Fucsovics to reach Australian Open quarter-finals
He ended up with a 44-15 edge in winners on an evening with the temperature ***below 20 degrees Celsius…
***19C is what it was. BUT WAIT FOR IT:
27 Jan: ABC: Heatwave forecast to span Australia according to Bureau of Meteorology
ABC Weather By Kate Doyle
Updated yesterday at 7:37pm
Brace yourselves Australia: there is yet another heatwave on the way. If you were beginning to think this summer was over, think again.
A pool of heat that has been brewing over inland Western Australia is about to make its way south and east as a lingering high pressure system slowly makes its way across the south of the country this week.
By mid-week heatwave conditions are expected to reach from coast to coast, with severe heatwave conditions for South Australia.
By the end of the week the heat is expected to focus on the south east and extreme heatwave conditions are expected for Canberra, eastern Victoria, south-eastern New South Wales as well as eastern Tasmania…
Under extreme heatwave conditions even healthy people are at risk and need to moderate their behaviour accordingly…
What’s the forecast?…
The daytime temperatures are impressive but when it comes to heatwaves it is the prolonged heat and lack of overnight relief that makes them deadly…
Fire danger
With the heightened temperatures the fire danger would also be expected to rise, despite the recent rain…
But the current forecast is for far less rain than has been flooding the north of Queensland over the past few days…
So it is time again to: call and check in on your nan, take it easy in the sun, and keep an eye out for those around you.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-27/another-heatwave-on-the-way-for-south-eastern-australia/11903826
40
WA will get widespread severe heat but not as bad in NSW and VIC, it’s further inland to the NW (in drier areas) and not forecast to be as windy or for as long, and it’s over on the evening of the 1st of Feb.
Cooler after that, mostly anomalously cooler, as sub-tropical Highs regain strength up to ~1035 hPa in Indian, Southern and Pacific basins during February. Humidity improves a bit after that in the South-East states and rain looks more likely.
30
This summer in WA is hotter than the last 2-3 summers. More of a return to the “normal” WA summers.
30
As I commented recently here, 40+ deg C in Western New South Wales is normal in Summer and January-February in particular.
In my regular visiting experiences, and earlier working there experiences, since the 1960s.
10
27 Jan: Breitbart: Private Aircraft Flew Prince Charles 16,000 Miles Days Before Greta Meeting
by John Nolte
“Prince Charles took three flights on private jets and a helicopter before meeting the activist Greta Thunberg,” reports (LINK) the Daily Mail.
Here we go again…
The Daily Mail lays out in graphic detail all the private flights Prince Eco-Hypocrite took in just 11 days, and includes the math, which adds up to 16,000 miles, 162 tons of carbon emissions, four flights with Charles on board, five flights without him on board (flying empty to pick him up and return to base), all at a cost of 280,000 pounds, or roughly $360,000 American dollars.
The Daily Mail adds that in just 11 days, Charles spewed more than 18 times an “average Briton’s yearly total” of carbon emissions…
A big deal was made of the fact Charles drove an electric Jaguar to the forum, as though the carbon burned elsewhere to charge the car somehow doesn’t matter…
Climate Change is a hoax created by elites as an excuse to grab control of every aspect of our lives.
https://www.breitbart.com/environment/2020/01/27/nolte-private-aircraft-flew-prince-charles-16000-miles-days-before-greta-meeting/
60
27 Jan: Forbes: Solar Power Ponzi Couple Pleads Guilty In Billion-Dollar Fraud
by Christopher Helman
Their scam, the “biggest criminal fraud scheme” ever seen in the U.S. Eastern District of California, involved manufacturing and leasing portable solar-powered lighting and communications towers, for sporting events. The Carpoffs, between 2011 and 2018, attracted billions of investments from financiers with the promise of juicy federal investment tax credits.
But although DC claimed to have built 17,000 of these solar systems, only 6,000 existed. Using what investigators claims was “smoke and mirrors,” they sold the same equipment again and again to new buyers, reportedly scraping old VIN stickers and replacing them with new ones…
Progressive Insurance Co., East West Bancorp and Valley National Bancorp were all victims. Berkshire Hathaway took a $377 million charge tied to DC Solar to reverse the value of tax credits it had claimed against assets that turned out not to have been real…
The Carpoffs’ biggest unsecured creditor is racing driver Chip Ganassi, whose Nascar team is owed $4.3 million by onetime sponsor DC Solar…
More than 700 of DC’s mobile solar units were auctioned off last year. The federal investigation has so far seized $120 million in assets and returned $500 million to the U.S. Treasury. Sentencing is in May.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2020/01/27/solar-power-ponzi-couple-pleads-guilty-in-billion-dollar-fraud/
hard to find, and no update:
25 Jan: Bloomberg Green: Solar Scammers Plead Guilty After Bilking Berkshire, Others
By Brian Eckhouse and Katherine Chiglinsky
DC Solar built mobile solar generators for sporting events and music festivals…
“This is a sad day for the Carpoffs,” Malcolm Segal, a lawyer for Jeff Carpoff, said in a telephone interview. “The business started with the best of intentions.”…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-24/couple-pleads-guilty-in-solar-scam-that-bilked-berkshire
30
In recent years Australian forests have been subjected to high CO2 and low H2O. High growth in drier in conditions, does this result in higher fuel loads on the ground ?
GeoffW
20
Hi Geoff,
CO2 readings above crops suggest that green growth of any type creates its own microclimate that is vastly different to the 400 ppm atmospheric average commonly known about.
KK
30
Hi Keith,I was thinking back to some reports from Nasa about 3 years ago of a greening planet reportedly due to the increased CO2 levels. More green equals more dead leaves and litter and in turn equals bigger fires.
GeoffW
40
🙂
Sounds like NASSA is in favour of cutting down green growth so it will stop reproducing.
10
The CO2 growth “boost” effect is minor compared to the deliberate lack of action to remove any ground fuel load in the Parks and Forrested areas.
Incidentally, one of the best ways to see exactly where the active big fires are actually located, is to view them on the rain radar in one of the weather apps ( eg Weatherzone) for the area the fire is in.
30
Prof Andy Pitman had a go at Tony Abbott for quoting Pitman statement last year about no link between climate change and drought .
Pitman says there is a link , more CO2 more trees .
Bit of an own goal for Pitman .
00
Easier for a politician to blame ” climate change ” rather than do anything that might upset the greens.
50
How does just one scientist’s evidence-free view negate all the other scientists and RFS put together ?.
In places, fires had torn through previously managed areas.
27
Ah, yes, the miracle of the burnt area just burning again. Renewable combustion!
The desperation to shift the emphasis off cool burning and management is clear when one considers where they are trying to shift the emphasis. Carbon taxes, white elephants and internationalism won’t be helped by sensible burn-offs and controls. So expect no sensible burn-offs and controls.
The globsters (green at the start, red when ready) like these fires. They like ’em.
140
Yes, moso. Not environmentalism but power politics – who shall rule – played out by way of the Saul Alinsky Rule Book. Subversive warfare to bring down constitutional rule of law – yr aims justify yr means … Hilary, The Occupy Movement, Anti-Fa, Rise-Up, XR ‘n Mister George Soros, of course.
https://www.newenglishreview.org/DL_Adams/Saul_Alinsky_and_the_Rise_of_Amorality_in_American_Politics/
60
Yes, it’s back to a 1930s situation where Stalin is my darlin’ – if you live far away from Stalin. Back then you could wear red any ol’ how, now there has to be a decent green cloak over the red. And now they believe in the dictatorship of “markets”…which can be made even more obedient to central power than silly old soviets.
What sort of person gets up in the morning with dreams and schemes to control, condition and manipulate his fellow humans? I never want to know.
60
I think you are deliberately having us on.
You don’t really want evidence, and I suspect that normally you wouldn’t say please to CO2 questioners.
If you really want to tell us something, go ahead: but remember, Evidence Pleese.
KK
30
Evidence, may I quote a paragraph from a report I’m currently reading (Issues Brief 8 2002-3, Bill McCormack, Dec 2002):
“While fuel reduction burning is the principal means to reduce the risks of bushfire, under extreme conditions bushfires can burn across land with very low fuel loads, which would have been halted under milder conditions.”
So it was known some time ago that this could happen. It’s nothing new, it’s not unprecedented.
30
Just listen to the RFS, are they lying ?, plus you haven’t addressed the sceptic’s preference for assertion over evidence.
26
I listen to the RFS a lot, and especially when they are standing at my boundary fighting actual fire coming from forestry. They see the same blatant evidence I see, know how things were done thirty years ago, know how things are done now…but unlike me they can say nothing publicly. We all stare together at the evidence, then turn on the refuse media and have to listen to round-the-clock assertions. (Actually, I made that up. I do NOT turn on the refuse media, but most people still do.)
Big Green has infested the upper echelons of every government body, every service, every corporation, every branch of academe and – needless to say – our appalling media. Not content with one bully pulpit, they preach their green slop from every pulpit, conservative media and parties included.
The guys on the ground know. Confused? Get a bit of slightly moist paper and try to light it. Then get a large pile of scrunched up dry paper and try to light it. If you are still confused we have an ex-firey called williamx who pops up on this site. He has many years of on the ground experience with fire. If you are still confused after that…join the GeeUppers.
140
OK, the RFS is officially lying and you have no evidence other than some strange notion of the greens running everything.
I think you forgot to include Marxists.
07
You seem to have no understanding of how the bureaucratic system works and how extreme greenism is deeply involved in councils and other government departments in positions of influence.
70
What Dennis said.
Naive, at best.
60
Read what I write, quote what I say. When you have the words in front of you, don’t try the old “so what you’re saying is…” or “so according to your logic you are asserting…”. That’s typical GeeUp stuff and won’t even fool a starving pigeon.
Baby steps. Start by reading what I write and quoting what I say. By all means assert what you like…but don’t make your assertions my assertions.
90
I did read what you wrote, I wish you would too. I see you believe your own evidence-free schtick and can only exist in this men’s shed.
Why don’t you submit your chestnuts in a proper paper for review instead of hiding it here ?.
17
So far you haven’t managed to refute a single item that’s been presented to you. If you want to engage in an adult debate, then please start by providing some evidence to the contrary. But if you just throw ad hominems at everybody and try to say something that wasn’t said, this is just childish and contributes nothing.
60
Someone better tell him the “men’s shed” reference is looking older than Cliff Richard’s first single.
Fresh material please, GeeUp!
60
Men’s Shed….?
The poor kid is probably wishing he didn’t have to go back to school this week!
Tough break, kiddo.. Do try to learn something this time.
Or maybe you could go on strike like Greta, who knows even less.
20
You haven’t presented any “proper” papers.
You are living up to your name.. Evidence free!
In denial of the huge fuel-loads in these recent fires really is the dumbest thing you could do, because its so obvious to everyone with two eyes and a brain..
20
You haven’t presented any “proper” papers.
You are living up to your name.. Evidence Free. !
Denial of the huge fuel-loads in these recent fires really is the dumbest thing you could do, because its so obvious to everyone with two eyes and a brain..
40
Okay. Another tip for you, Mr Evidence Please. We often get invited to submit and publish, in the full knowledge that it would be as fruitful as pounding sand for a skeptic to try and bust through gang review into the Publish-then-Perish industry. You know, I know, we all know. In any case, it’s no rebuttal of anyone’s point of view to say “why don’t you publish?”. What it is is a typical GeeUp stunt.
Maybe you think these stunts are new. They’re old, okay? We notice a swarm of them when a post by Jo goes especially close to the bone. So skip the standard GeeUp digs and, ahem, assertions. Skip the typical snobbish references to what higher-ups say and think. You may as well poke out your tongue, go nyah-nyah and hide behind a bush. You are not saying anything.
Do you have any thoughts of your own? Something that has come to you as an individual? Fresh experiences with fire or with your local brigade? A conversation with someone on the ground? Be your own person. Forget the green herd and the appalling media. Tell us something that comes from you, the person.
60
What a copout to avoid the obvious failure of your ‘evidence’, even Bolt wouldn’t use that.
04
And your response EP, is just more ad hominem stuff? Do you have anything to say here?
70
He never says anything. Not a thing. It’s just sulks and snarls.
Is this the best the GeeUppers have got for a topic that has obviously got them revving? Still, it can’t be easy defending a belief that fuel and combustion are barely related. That’s got to be the toughest stretch since the sea level beat-up.
60
Poor little Evidence Free.
When are you going to produce some evidence ??
School back this week is it? you poor thing. !
00
What people do with their chestnuts is their own business.
Try being a bit more scientific.
10
Nothing being hidden here. The number of hits and reads that this web site receives are likely by orders of magnitude to exceed anything locked down behind a paywall esoteric pall reviewed climatism mag or open access centrefold climaporn like the BBC offer kids these days.
50
LD,
I am referring to the scientific method which is alive and well in the outside world and which all serious scientists adhere to.
You can’t dodge your failures with conspiracy theories.
00
The scientific method is NOT alive and well in “Climate Science™”.
Most of them haven’t a clue what the scientific method actually is
They think it means that if the data doesn’t match their models, they have to adjust the data to fit the models and per-conceived notions….
Sort of the pretty much the absolute OPPOSITE of the real “scientific method”.
It is noted that you are still Evidence Free. Just bluster and waffle
10
Mr Evidence Please
Your quote:
“I see you believe your own evidence-free schtick and can only exist in this men’s shed.
Why don’t you submit your chestnuts in a proper paper for review instead of hiding it here ?.
In reply to your quote.
I have submitted evidence to the NSW coronial inquests and the royal commissions re bushfires. You are free to read those reports. You are free to read the conclusions and recommendations of those reports. It is not hidden on this blog.
They are published and have been reviewed by NSW parliament.
Mr Evidence Please, You are quite able to research and review those reports and do your own “peer” assessment.
Nothing is hidden by the many diverse and qualified contributors on this blog.
Challenge your faith and do some research.
You may be surprised by what you find…..
The truth.
90
Why do I not feel the need to put up with this sort of rubbish any more.
But then it’s always great to have another contributor sharing the load.
KK
40
Dear Evidence
What you are looking for is common sense.
There is no alternative. None of the factors which affect the severity of a fire are under our control, not drought, preceding seasons, temperature, humidity, wind, …. except for fuel load.
If Australia had cut out all CO2 emissions 50 years ago, the effect on climate would have been a not measurable, but probably slight increase in temperature as demand driven fossil fuel usage world wide would have used lower quality, less efficiently extracted and transported product from elsewhere.
CFA says? Well, those in charge can say “It’s not our fault, it is all climate change’s fault, or …. Yep, we should have done more prevention, but we didn’t”.
Recently on a comment stream on another article, two different firefighters chimed in one after the other, naming their regions and brigades, and commenting how bureaucratically impossible it was to carry out prescribed burning, and that they now did none at all.
But, within one hour, both had deleted their comments. Not a career move to speak out, it seems.
10
I don’t know who in the RFS you are talking about? The well paid public servants that control the unpaid volunteer organisation from their HQ in Sydney perhaps? Those in my local brigade are adamant. The massive fuel loads accumulated over decades of neglect are to blame. Worse, dispatched to one fire they found their access blocked because the local council has barred the access track by erecting a steel wire barrier such as you see in places along the sides of some roads. When you get a fire of the intensity described in the lead in article it creates a fire storm that tops through the trees. Reaching a previously treated area with reduced ground fuel load such a firestorm will propagate for some distance through topping.
130
Your local brigade sound like my local brigade.
But it’s easier to read the Grauniad or listen to the ABC than talk to a firey. And don’t the media know it!
90
Remember also that the RC’s for previous major fires, have ALL concluded that excessive fuel loads were a major factor in the fires severity
00
Evidence is of massive fuel loads and blustery windy WEATHER.
No evidence of CO2 causing warming.
It is quite likely the political bureaucrats of the RFS are lying to placate their greenie political overlords
RFS People on the ground, and I know a few personally, all speak of intense fires due to huge fuel loads.
You cannot get the sort of intensity without massive fuel loads.. period !!
70
“preference for assertion over evidence”
Are you looking in a mirror?
That is AGW cultist meme.
We are realists and look just at the actual real science.
Have you ever done that.?
Are you even capable of doings so ?
Parrots can only regurgitate rote learnt noises. !
30
If you want evidence just look at kangaroo valley , all burnt out except for the green bit from an earlier fuel reduction burn .
20
this is a Greens leader?
27 Jan: Tasmanian Greens: Does Peter Gutwein Believe Eric or the Experts?
Media Release – Cassy O’Connor MP | Greens Leader
Senator Eric Abetz’s attempts to blame the Greens for this season’s bushfires is unsurprising given he has made a career out of deceitful, green-bashing politics.
Tasmanians have overwhelmingly rejected this nonsense. They know Abetz is lying, and instead they are listening to the experts – fire chiefs, climate scientists, Aboriginal people, bushfire victims – who tell us that it is climate change that’s having the biggest influence on bushfire threat.
So who does our new Premier believe? Eric Abetz, or the experts?…
Experts say global heating is the most important factor in Australia’s increasing bushfire risk. Senator Abetz is the Tasmanian who is most single-handedly responsible for Australia’s systemic climate denialism and inaction…
https://tasmps.greens.org.au/content/does-peter-gutwein-believe-eric-or-experts
10
Off Topic Alert ! Tony from Oz, have you seen this interesting article from ‘Their ABC’ ? Why solar power investment has fallen off a cliff ?
10
Thanks for the tip Bill.
As it’s off topic here, I’ll bring it up at the first Unthreaded this week.
After the weekend ‘fox park’, it gives gives me time to, umm, get the maths right eh!
Tony.
30
Look forward to it Tony !
Maybe Jo could even lead out with a post on this ?
20
whenever hazard reduction comes up, our media finds someone to deride it.
***Ch 7’s Cameron Price says hazard reduction took place at one location mentioned; gets his one person to say hazard reduction wouldn’t have worked, anyway etc. catchy words, not a lot of detail. watch the video:
27 Jan: 7News: NSW bushfires: Residents are being charged thousands to rebuild their homes
by Digital Staff
***VIDEO: 1m54s Bushfire residents struggling to rebuild
In the Southern Highlands, the hold-up is being blamed on council red tape.
Wingecarribee Shire Council is charging residents wanting to re-build thousands of dollars…
On Monday NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro toured the disaster zone, declaring more work needed to be done on preventing fires.
“We’ve got to be better when it comes to fuel reduction, and I think that’s a debate we must have now,” he said.
“If we haven’t learnt that from this fire, we’ll never learn.”
***Locals say there were hazard reduction burns in the area just months before the November 8 ripped through the regions.
Residents said in the conditions, the hazard reduction burns made no difference.
***“It just gets up in the trees and jumps and jumps, and you can’t stop it,” one resident said.
https://7news.com.au/news/nsw/nsw-bushfires-residents-are-being-charged-thousands-to-rebuild-their-homes-c-667287
10
read all:
27 Jan: FrontPage: Fake Atomic Scientists Warn Not Believing the Media Will Destroy the World
The Doomsday Clock of fake news gets closer to midnight.
by Daniel Greenfield
Every year, Rachel Bronson, President and CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, who has a degree in political science from Columbia, gets up in front of a fake clock to announce that the world is doomed.
And the media eagerly covers the annual imminent warning of doom as if it came with an open bar.
Bronson is not an atomic scientist. Or any kind of scientist. Unless you believe politics is a science. And if politics is a science, then Bronson is the Lysenko of the field, predicting doom out of bias and ignorance…READ ALL
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/01/fake-atomic-scientists-warn-not-believing-media-daniel-greenfield/
22 Jan: Bloomberg: It’s Donald Trump Versus Greta Thunberg in ‘Prophets of Doom’ Climate Showdown
By Josh Wingrove, Javier Blas, and Alan Crawford; With assistance by Chris Reiter
Davos delegates may not like Trump but “they like his policies,” Ian Bremmer, president of consulting firm Eurasia Group, told Bloomberg TV. “You can have Greta here, you can have a bunch of people talking about climate and sustainability, but the reality is that Trump doesn’t drive people crazy at Davos the way he does in the United States.”
Hundreds of climate activists arrived on foot on Tuesday following a three-day march across the Swiss Alps. Protesters will gather at the ski resort and stage a demonstration calling for the end of the World Economic Forum…
Many at Davos are preparing for another four years of Trump, expecting him to win a second term in November’s presidential election, according to Eurasia’s Bremmer…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-21/it-s-trump-versus-greta-in-prophets-of-doom-climate-showdown
10
What would be useful at this stage of climate change hoax would be for The Australian newspaper and other honest publications to publish this article.
And the truth about CO2.
20
27 Jan: NYT: With 130-Mile Coast, New Jersey Marks a First in Climate Change Fight
Builders will be forced to take climate change, including rising sea levels, into account to win government approval for projects.
By Tracey Tully
The move by Mr. Murphy, a Democrat, is part of a widening effort by states to use regulations to address worsening climate conditions and to aggressively counteract the Trump administration’s push to roll back environmental regulations…
Like other states that have taken on climate change in the absence of any action from the White House, New Jersey has set a goal of producing 100 percent clean energy by 2050…
It is hard to dispute the impact of climate change on New Jersey and its 130 miles of Atlantic Ocean coastline.
A study released in November by Rutgers University found that the sea level in New Jersey was rising more than two times faster than the global average. Since 1911, the sea level rose 1.5 feet, compared with the global mean of 0.6 feet. It is expected to rise by as much as another foot by 2030, the study found. At the same time, some coastal areas are undergoing subsidence, meaning they are sinking.
In Atlantic City, tidal flooding occurs 10 times more frequently than it did in the middle of the last century. By 2050, Atlantic City could experience high-tide flooding 120 days a year, according to the Rutgers study.
“We are both drowning and sinking,” Mr. LaTourette said…
Mr. LaTourette, the D.E.P. (Department of Environmental Protection) chief of staff, said the department was aware of the urgency and was fully committed to quickly moving forward. “It’s a watershed moment for us,” he said.
“Unless we want to send boats in to save everybody,” he added, “we can’t back down.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/nyregion/climate-change-nj-environmental-rules.html
27 Jan: WashingtonTimes: Blue to red? New Jersey rally a test case for Trump
by Jennifer Harper
President Trump journeys to Wildwood, New Jersey, on Tuesday, site of another jumbo campaign rally with all the trimmings. And more. A record-breaking 100,000 hopeful Trump fans have asked for tickets; the faithful have been lining up with sleeping bags and lawn chairs for the event since Sunday. Some sense that the Garden State — faced with tax woes and policy disagreements — could be back in touch with Republican values.
“The atmosphere is intense, the motivation is huge. These people are so proud of President Trump, so ready to support him,” Priscilla Confrey — co-director of the 17,000-member grassroots group New Jersey Women for Trump — told Inside the Beltway as she watched the cheerful, enthusiastic crowd.
“I feel like what is happening in New Jersey is a microcosm of what is happening across the rest of the nation. We are considered a blue state. But we’re not anymore. The feeling we get is that we’re blue turning purple — and going towards red,” she said.
Her fellow co-director Tracey Lore believes that New Jersey voters — including those uneasy Republicans who did not vote in 2016 — have had a change of heart.
“Yes, people didn’t vote back then. Now President Trump is motivating the base with optimistic messages and clear, positive results from his decisions made in office. The people are seeing that. They also are supporting Trump because they don’t want the state of New Jersey to become the East Coast version of California,” Ms. Lore told Inside The Beltway…
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/27/inside-the-beltway-blue-to-red-new-jersey-a-trump-/
24 Jan: NJ.com: Trump rally in Wildwood now has 100K ticket requests, Rep. Van Drew says. The venue holds 7,400.
By Jeff Goldman
About 100,000 tickets have been requested for President Donald Trump’s rally at the Wildwoods Convention Center next week – the highest demand for any event the president has held, U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew told Fox News during an interview Sunday…
“It’s been exciting and I’m proud to say for his event – of all the events he’s done in all the country – we’ve had the most ticket requests,” said Van Drew, R-2nd Dist., who recently switched parties after losing support from Democratic leaders for opposing impeachment.
Trump is slated to appear at the Wildwoods Convention Center at 7 p.m. on Jan. 28…
“We’re proud to have him,” Van Drew said. “It shows he cares about the big towns and big places and he also cars about the little places.”…
10
can’t verify but…
27 Jan: WPG Talk Radio: Lara Trump: 175,000 Ticket RSVPs for Trump Rally in Wildwood
by Harry Hurley
Earlier today, in a “Hurley in the Morning” WPG Talk Radio 95.5 FM and 1450 AM exclusive interview, Lara Trump made big news confirming two important breaking news items as follows:
1. That more than 175,000 tickets have been requested for tomorrow’s President Trump rally in Wildwood, New Jersey. This is a record for any President Trump Rally, anywhere. This is the first time that this number has been reported anywhere.
2. Lara Trump confirmed during our on-air interview that because there is so much demand for tomorrow’s rally… that they will be holding another rally at some point in the future. This will come as welcome news to many President Trump faithful, who will not be able to get inside tomorrow’s rally.
The Wildwoods Convention Center holds 7,500 people, demonstrating that the supply and demand challenge is evident.
Tomorrow’s ticket in Wildwood will be one of the hottest tickets in Southern New Jersey history…
https://wpgtalkradio.com/lara-trump-175000-ticket-rsvps-for-trump-rally-in-wildwood/
27 Jan: PhiladelphiaInquirer: Trump fans have descended on Wildwood to camp out overnight for a seat at the rally
by Amy S. Rosenberg
As dusk fell, more than 1,000 people settled in for a cold overnight wait in a growing line outside the Wildwoods Convention Center, where President Donald Trump will speak at a rally Tuesday night…
On the Boardwalk, T-shirt seller Shawn Keoughan acknowledged that Trump merchandise was a hot seller all summer long in Wildwood…
20
ANU sure breeds them:
28 Jan: JohnMenadue.com: ANDREW WONG. Logging Makes Bushfires Worse
(Andrew Wong has worked as a forest ecologist in southern NSW, and has a Bachelor of Science in Resource and Environmental Management from the ANU. He has also worked for conservation groups on campaigns to protect old growth forests and rainforests as national parks)
In the wake of the recent bushfires, the logging industry wants to ‘thin’ Australia’s forests to reduce fire hazard. But their plan is likely to make the fire hazard far worse. Could there be another agenda at work?
In 2007, Naomi Klein wrote a book titled ‘The Shock Doctrine: the Rise of Disaster Capitalism.’ In it she described a class of commercial opportunists who suddenly appear after major disasters, using “exploitation of national crises to push through controversial policies while citizens are too emotionally and physically distracted by disasters or upheavals to mount an effective resistance” (Wikipedia).
While the largest bushfires in modern history are still burning, a series of opinion pieces and media articles have emerged from the smoke, including a recent article in The Conversation by three academics from the University of Melbourne (all of whom have been funded by the forestry industry). They are suggesting we should let the forestry industry start thinning our forests, in combination with increased hazard reduction burns, to reduce the likelihood of these fires happening again. Is this a case of the logging industry offering a generous public service, or Shock Doctrine at work?…
The only ‘positive’ outcome from this plan is that as climate change, drought and fire gets worse, the logging industry will make an increased profit.
https://johnmenadue.com/andrew-wong-logging-makes-bushfires-worse/
20
“The message in here is that cool controllable burns are tiny, less damaging, and far less intense.”
According to an ABC program about cool season burns in the NT, that I have seen a couple of times, emit less CO2 to the atmosphere that hot season burns. Such cool season burns are carried out by local indigenous people paid by an oil company who then claims carbon credits for the reduced CO2
20
Nice work if you can get it. Looking ahead to when carbon credits are worthless, hopefully the oil company will continue to fund the slow burn.
00
Let’s face reality. We should do what our previous inhabitants did to the bush and light fires frequently to keep the fuel loads down. It won’t ever happen for a number of reasons. First and foremost it would mean the evacuation of most towns and villages in the bush, especially now that the fuel levels are so high. Some could stay protected by very large areas free of enough bush to avoid being engulfed even in the most severe fire-storms provided their properties are protected from flying embers that still might reach them. We do have a Catch-22 situation. It’s too late to do the right and proper thing across all areas. Perhaps we should restrict people living in the bush harsh as that might be. Or we could just let people do what they like as now and let them take the risk. There really isn’t any other option. Bush-fires have been and will always be part of Australia – as long as we have bushes.
20
Clearly you have missed my lectures on how the Green Army will operate.
‘Bush-fires have been and will always be part of Australia ….’
That is true, but think back to a time before Europeans arrived. To the west of Sydney two clans lived in the Blue Mountains and another at Jenolan Caves, over thousands of years living in the same place they had to travel further to get dead wood for the campfire. In this way the undergrowth was cleared over a very wide area.
02
They were nomads.
They were always traveling to where the resources were.
11
PeterS….
You keep bringing up this spurious argument that it is “too late” to do Hazard reduction because it is either too dangerous or too expensive.
It is dishonest of you. I say deliberately dishonest because it has been pointed out more than once that such programs HAVE been carried out over large areas and they HAVE been successfully reintroduced without the need to evacuate entire towns or districts.
What others can do in the same environment, we can do.
What has been done, can be done again
The people who are saying that it can be done, are the people who have done it, and will do a great deal of it if it is done in the future. Foresters and firefighters.
Who do you think you are, to contradict us?
21
The only way to reduce significantly the enormous amount of fuel that has accumulated over the past 100 years or so in our vast bushland areas is to have more of the fires we had recently. There is simply no way we can use tiddly amounts of burning to make any difference.
00
Peter S. You mean, “no way politically” we can use burning. It obviously can be done.
and… “restrict people from living in the bush”… seems to be a Labor policy, removing services from small towns, closing ag colleges.
Seems they figured there were no votes out there for them.
10
28 Jan: ABC: Bushfire disasters in Adelaide Hills and Kangaroo Island to be investigated by former AFP chief
By Casey Briggs
Posted 47 minutes ago
A review headed by former Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Keelty will examine South Australia’s bushfire readiness before and since the “unprecedented” disasters in the Adelaide Hills and Kangaroo Island.
Those fires claimed three lives, destroyed businesses and about 140 homes, left untold economic impacts and killed thousands of livestock and wildlife.
South Australian Premier Steven Marshall announced the review today, focussing on devastating blazes in the Adelaide Hills and on Kangaroo Island…
The review is due to be completed by June, before the next bushfire season begins.
Mr Keelty previously chaired an investigation into bushfires in Perth in 2011…
The wide-ranging review is likely to explore whether the state’s hazard reduction burning regime is adequate.
“In terms of our preparation for the current bushfire season, all of those cold burns and prescribed burns that were required were completed,” Mr Marshall said.
“The question now is ‘were they adequate in their original design?'”
Fires were ‘literally unprecedented’, CFS chief says
This is the first bushfire season with Country Fire Service chief officer Mark Jones leading the organisation…
“Regrettably, the climate circumstances this year have been really challenging … some of those fires are just literally unprecedented.”…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-28/review-to-examine-cudlee-creek-and-kangaroo-island-bushfires/11906180
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27 Jan: CoastCommunityNews: Greens not to blame for reduced hazard reduction burns
Media release, Jan 17 Cath Connor, Central Coast Greens
Central Coast Greens member Cath Connor, who stood as a candidate for the party for the seat of Robertson at the 2019 Federal election, said The Greens support hazard reduction management guided by the best expert advice. “After the recent devastating bushfire season, some commentators have blamed the Greens for a lack of hazard reduction burns to prevent bush fires, ” Connor said.
“The Greens, however, back the statements of senior bush fire professionals that hazard reduction has become more difficult due to longer, hotter and dryer conditions leading to fewer safe periods for hazard reduction burns. “The unprecedented nature of these fires is linked to climate change which has increased the dryness of the fuel load.
“Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology has presented findings concluding that 2019 was our hottest year ever, with the mean temperature at 1.52 degrees Celsius above average. “Australia’s national average rainfall was just 277mm – the lowest ever recorded. “The government has shown an appalling lack of leadership.
“They took no steps to prepare for or mitigate the extreme bushfire season that they were warned we would face. “Instead, the blame shifting game (it’s the Greens’ fault) is being pushed as hard as it can be. “This is despite all the accurate information presented by people like the RFS Chief and CSIRO scientists.
“With a large number of our homes close to or in bushland areas of the Central Coast, there is more we can do to address the bushfire threat, the most urgent being to act on climate change. “In addition, the Central Coast Greens call on the government to adequately fund rangers to conduct hazard reduction and to create a National Disaster Response Unit. ”
https://coastcommunitynews.com.au/central-coast/news/2020/01/greens-not-to-blame-for-reduced-hazard-reduction-burns/
10
Tucked away at the end of this thread, if anyone gets here to read it, particularly in light of Jo’s excellent presentation:
Greens NSW Bush Fire Risk Management Policy Principles
1. Assumptions about traditional European bush fire prevention,
mitigation, control and management need review in the light of the
need for ecologically sustainable management.
2. There is an urgent need to correct the common misconception that
responsible fire management always involves burning or clearing to
reduce moderate and high fuel loads generally throughout the
landscape, irrespective of where they occur. Rather, such activities
should be strategically planned, to protect the community and
vulnerable assets whilst minimising the adverse impacts of these
activities on the environment.
3. Stricter controls are required to drastically reduce the amount of rural
burning not required for essential asset protection.
4. Prescribed burning is only one method of fuel management and should
be considered in the context of other available options and the
management objectives of the land in question.
5. Many vegetation communities and plants cannot survive frequent fire;
for this reason frequent fire has been listed as a key threatening
process by the NSW Scientific Committee under the Threatened
Species Conservation Act.
6. Further, many vegetation communities can undergo severe decline in
biodiversity with long term fire exclusion. Ecologically appropriate fire
regimes are required to maintain biodiversity and functioning
ecosystems.
7. Firefighting services in NSW need support, supplementation and
additional resources. In particular, local government needs to be
provided with additional resources and finances to enable the proper
implementation of its responsibilities with regard to the assessment and
implementation of hazard reduction strategies.
8. Education of councils, land managers, land-holders, the general public,
fire management planners and fire fighters is needed and should be
publicly funded. Such education should target specific audiences and
address a broad range of ‘bush fire’ and environmental issues.
9. Education and community awareness material needs to focus
especially on the threat to the environment and property of
inappropriate use of fire, particularly burning which is too frequent,
extensive in area, of excessive intensity, badly timed or carelessly
implemented.
10. All Fire Fighting Agencies and Land Managers should be issued with
guidelines as to the specific implications of the legal requirement for
ecologically sustainable fire management and receive training on the
environmental effects of bush fires.
11. Basic training courses for Fire Permit officers, Brigade Captains and
Brigade members should include specific information on the
environmental impacts of frequent burning, appropriate fire regimes for
biodiversity protection in different vegetation communities, guidelines
regarding the timing of burns, the manner in which burns are lit,
maintained and contained, appropriate fire exclusion areas and buffer
zones, and other requirements of the local Bush Fire Risk Management
Plans.
12. Local Bush Fire Management Committees should prepare summaries
of landholder obligations under Risk Management Plans, including
environmental assessment and protection requirements, for general
circulation in the district.
13. High bush fire hazard areas are usually those associated with natural
areas and vegetation. The location of residential or rural residential
areas in high bush fire hazard areas increases the level of native
vegetation loss as well as increasing the level of threat to people and
their homes from the risk of a bush fire. This is neither economically,
socially nor ecologically sustainable. New development that requires
the clearing of native vegetation on adjoining properties should not be
permitted in identified Bushfire Prone Areas, where such development
is likely to put lives or property in danger or involve substantial
protection and suppression costs including loss of environmental
values.
60
In other words, bushfire management by committee
60
And we all know what a greenie Bushfire management committee would say..
NO, every time.
Which is why we had the situation we did have , with the very high fuel loads.
50
They do not live in the bush
They do not know how to manage the risks
They should be ignored as ignorant interfering ‘do gooders
10
Number 3 really lets the cat out of the bag. They define any area not immediately adjacent to property as not requiring HR….. and if it’s not “essential”, it must be reduced as much as possible.
20
Number 3 really lets the cat out of the bag. They define any area not immediately adjacent to property as not requiring HR….. and if it’s not “essential”, it must be reduced as much as possible.
10
meanwhile…
28 Jan: PakistanObserver: New wave of cold weather likely from today
The met office has predicted entry of cold Siberian winds in Karachi on Tuesday, which will drop the minimum temperature in the city. The minimum temperature in the metropolis likely to remain between 09 to 13 degree Celsius. The cold wave in the city is expected to last on January 31 and the first day of February, met office spokesperson said…
The met office had recently predicted a longer cold spell in Karachi this year as compared to the previous years. According to the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), normally the cold winds continue in the city till mid-January, however, this time they are expected to stay for a longer period. “The winter is expected to continue in the city till the end of the February,” it said adding that a system of western winds would enter the Northern Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on January 24. These winds would become a source of extending the cold-weather spell in the city from 27 January (today) to onward.
https://pakobserver.net/new-wave-of-cold-weather-likely-from-today/
***ahead of ‘Spring’ heatwave? cold cannot stand on its own:
27 Jan: UK Express: BBC Weather Europe: Avalanche risk as snow buries continent ***ahead of ‘Spring’ heatwave
BBC WEATHER has forecast heavy snow in the Alps but the mild temperatures mean there is a risk of avalanches ahead of a “Spring-like” weekend.
By Claire Anderson
BBC Weather’s Ben Rich warned there is a risk of avalanches in the Alps as Meteoalarm has issued warnings for snow and ice in Germany. Conditions in Europe are set to take a bad turn as heavy showers will soon engulf parts of the continent with up to 50cm of snow. The Met Desk map shows parts of Italy, France, Germany and Spain covered in up to 50cm of snow the second week of February…
Parts of the Balkans will also see heavy snow showers as well as eastern European countries such as Poland, Ukraine and Lithuania.
The severe weather conditions will begin hitting parts of Italy from next week and will spread across the continent almost completely by the end of the following week.
The latest BBC Weather forecast has also predicted “significant snowfall” to submerge parts of Europe in the next few days, as a freezing weather front sweeps in…
The forecast showed that France, Spain and parts of Scandinavia were most at risk of snowfall and plummeting temperatures. BBC meteorologist Phil Avery warned that there were “signs that a big chance in on its way”.
He predicted metres of snow could fall across Scandinavia and the regions surrounding the Alps.
Avery said: “We have weather fronts moving across the British Isles on Monday.
“They will sweep their way into Norway and then south into the heart of France and then into the north-west of Iberia…
https://www.express.co.uk/news/weather/1234194/bbc-weather-europe-latest-news-weather-warning-snow-avalanche-rain
24 Jan: UK Express: UK snow warning: Monster Polar storm to savage Britain – New maps show widespread chaos
THE UK is set to be savaged by a ferocious polar storm next week as powerful winds will cause temperatures to plummet.
by Rachel Russell
Snow maps from NetWeather, which uses a global forecast system to generate its predictions, show widespread swirling lines of green, red and yellow sweeping in from a north eastern direction from Monday, January 27 onwards…
The Met Office also warned temperatures will remain wintry, as a blanket of frost and fog will settle…
https://www.express.co.uk/news/weather/1232513/UK-snow-warning-britain-weather-forecast-met-office-latest-bbc
10
It’s officially drought in NZ’s North Island. Very dry across the South Island.
Absolute fire bans (no burning at all allowed) all over the place but no (widespread) blanket bans, yet.
That will be soon if there is no decent rain soon.
10
The blocking pattern is the culprit and my first instincts is to look back in time to see if its unprecedented.
http://www.bom.gov.au/fwo/IDY65100.pdf
00
VIDEO: 27 Jan: Gulf Today: Camel licks frozen water in Saudi after temperature turns zero
A video is circulating on social media showing freezing water in Turaif and Al-Jalamid area, North of Saudi Arabia. The temperature reached minus 3°C, forcing camel and sheep owners to heat water for their livestock.
Recently, heavy snowfall blanketed the northwestern regions of Saudi Arabia, particularly in the Dahr Mountains.
A video of the snowfall has gone viral on social media causing an excited meltdown.
However despite the excitement, some people are left questioning the authenticity.
With the temperature going below freezing point, the Saudi weather body urges residents to keep warm and avoid isolated places.
https://www.gulftoday.ae/news/2020/01/27/camel-licks-frozen-water-in-saudi-after–temperature-turns-zero
20
getting colder earlier!
24 Jan: MoroccowWorldNews: 10 Photos to Make You Fall in Love with Winter in Morocco
Don’t let the palm trees fool you—if you’re traveling in Morocco between November and February, be prepared to bundle up.
By Morgan Hekking
The country usually receives its first coating of snow in December or January, but changes in weather patterns in recent years have pushed the first Moroccan snowfalls to the autumn months of ***October and November…
https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2020/01/292003/winter-in-morocco/
30
Apparently a defence chopper started the ongoing canberra fire due yo heat from a landing light…..yeah right, what i can tell is one type of army chopper has a big landing light under the fuselage, as army pilots tend to come rather hot they have a tendancy to smash the light on the ground and most likely setting the grass on fire
00
What type of light unit radiates so much heat that it can start a fire ?
Dont the military have access to LEDs or Lazer lights ?
00
True which why they would have busted as per normal
00
New Zealand blasted for climate ‘hypocrisy’
The Australian-21 hours ago
Coalition MPs have accused New Zealand of hypocrisy over climate change, as the Ardern government looks set to use carry-over credits to hit its 2020 Kyoto target…
28 Jan: Daily Mail: Jacinda Ardern is accused of ‘climate hypocrisy’ by Barnaby Joyce and Australian MPs for using carry-over credits to meet global warming targets
•Barnaby Joyce and Liberal MPs slammed Jacinda Ardern for ‘climate hypocrisy’
•Ardern said the Morrison Government they would ‘have to answer to the Pacific’
•New Zealand is set to use carry-over credits to reach its 2020 Kyoto target
•New Zealand will use 27.7 million tonnes of credits from its 2012 target
•Barnaby Joyce said Australia doesn’t need to be lectured on climate policy
By Alana Mazzoni
New Zealand called for Australia to back a UN commitment to a carbon-neutral economy by 2050 during last August’s Pacific Islands Forum.
But according to government stats, New Zealand likely won’t meet its Paris target to reduce emissions by 30 per cent of its 2005 levels by 2030.
Last week, New Zealand Climate Change Minister James Shaw said there was an ‘allergic reaction’ to using carry-over credits to meet the 2030 Paris targets.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7935887/Jacinda-Ardern-slammed-Barnaby-Joyce-accusing-climate-hypocrisy-global-warming.html
28 Jan: NZ Herald: Jacinda Ardern accused of ‘climate hypocrisy’ by Barnaby Joyce
When speaking about the pressures of climate change with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, she made pointed comments that Australia would have to “answer to” the rest of the Pacific.
However, the New Zealand Prime Minister has been criticised as she is set to use 27.7 million tonnes of credits from a successful 2012 target to reach New Zealand’s 2020 Kyoto target…
“We don’t need to be lectured about our environmental policy when we are complying with our agreements,” Joyce told The Australian.
“When New Zealand starts quoting environmental policy, start counting your carbon credits.”…
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12303967
10
27 Jan: The Hill: Coronavirus is spreading–but the flu is a greater threat to Americans
At least 8,200 people have died from the flu in the United States this season, including 54 children.
By Joseph Guzman
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that so far this season, there have been at least 15 million flu illnesses for the 2019-2020 season, 140,000 hospitalizations and 8,200 deaths in the U.S. The CDC reports there have been 54 reported flu-related pediatric deaths this season from Influenza B viruses.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the flu causes up to 5 million cases of severe illness globally and kills up to 650,000 people annually…
Health experts warned earlier this month that this flu season could be just as deadly as the 2017-2018 season, when 61,000 flu-related deaths were recorded…
But still, the flu rarely gets the sort of headlines an outbreak like the coronavirus does, despite killing more Americans each year than any other virus, and Americans do not seem to be particularly worried…
https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/longevity/480089-coronavirus-sparks-panic-as-flu-poses-greater-threat-to
7 Jan: The Hill: 2020 on track to be worst US flu season in decades
As flu reaches high levels throughout the country, the virus sets a tragic record for children.
By Joseph Guzman
https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/477142-the-us-is-on-track-to-have-one-of-the-worst-flu
20
Just another guilt trippin push by the Vaccine manufacturers.
These people have no shame.
02
267 people charged with starting bushfires in NSW alone – not climate change.
20