12 ms·

I'm starting to think the least realistic part of every disaster movie plot is when the government recognises the crisis and acts. We've literally got people si

I'm starting to think the least realistic part of every disaster movie plot is when the government recognises the crisis and acts. We've literally got people sitting in boats in lakes or the sea while their towns burn around them; this in a country with well developed fire-fighting infrastructure and well trained personnel. Action now won't kick in for a decade or two, best case, but that doesn't make it any less urgent.

orhmeh09 7y ago
To my knowledge over 90% of the firefighters are volunteers and they are not exceptionally well supplied. Australia has done a worse job than other countries with its vast resources could have done. But I agree with you: when has humankind ever truly united on something to pull together?
- Robotbeat 7y ago
  Banning CFCs. The UV index is already better than it would've been without the ban. By 2050 or so, it would've been TRULY bad, with significant rise in skin cancer. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/WorldWithoutOzone/page2.php https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/WorldWithoutOzone...
  - khuey 7y ago
    Eliminating smallpox also comes to mind.
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    Many years after hearing, and being inspired by the world's reaction to CFCs and ozone depletion, I read a piece in one of the main US papers - WSJ, NYT, WaPo, I forget which, that the main impetus for US action on CFCs was Reagan had had skin cancer. Which made it more personal for him.
    - FooHentai 7y ago
      Whelp, I guess that means we’ll see a proper response right around the time Aspen has no snow over winter, Miami beachfront drowns, or some politicians family members pop their clogs die to something CC related. Alas that’ll be real late.
- kiliantics 7y ago
  How about WWII? If the challenges of climate change were treated with the same urgency the allies mustered together then, we might actually have a shot at avoiding complete disaster.
  - rini17 7y ago
    The urgency came only after long years of detente posturing...
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    That's really not an inspiring or hopeful comparison, but probably very accurate to how the world will play the climate crisis. If the Allies/Developed Nations respond with the same vigour, we have another half decade or two of ignoring the issue, hiding under rocks, and need to lose a good few developed nations to the void, without trace, first. Road to WW2: You could set up the dominoes all the way back to the punitive Versailles Agreement, but purely militarily... 1930, Japan moved into Manchuria. Germany withdrew from the League of Nations in 33, and immediately started rearming and brought back universal conscription. Rhineland reoccupied in 36, and Fracno put on the throne in the Spanish "Civil War" the same year - where they supplied armaments, troops, supplies, and lots and lots of planes. Blitzkreig was honed and practised here. Britain and France still busy appeasing, and ignoring clear, obvious unmissable signs. Some fringe, and not so fringe members of their major right of centre parties are highly sympathetic to German rebuilding and aims. They would like to do deals with that nice Mr Hitler. Including the man who was offered the premiership of the UK before Churchill, when Chamberlain stepped down. USA is busy ignoring the world, deep in isolationism, but at the same time building trade with Germany and parts of the US, notably California and New York are most impressed to see German implementation of eugenics as policy (Nazi eugenics and what developed from it originated in US ideas and policies[1]). League of Nations whistles a happy tune as its highest membership was during this period. In 37, Japan steps up to an all out war of total conquest with China, and the Rape of Nanjing takes place, 300k+ dead. Then follows Anschluss with Austria in 38 with still barely a word muttered on the global stage. Nor was anything done about Sudetenland (half of then Czechoslovakia). The day after the Slovak State was formed from the rest, they occupied that too. 39 Brought the "Peace in our Time" Munich Agreement. Hitler responds peacefully by annexing parts of Latvia, Mussolini annexes Albania. Allies, well the European ones, finally think perhaps they might, possibly/maybe do something. But not yet. Aug 1939 brings the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which presents an astonishingly accurate picture of the post-war Europe we actually got. September 39 and Poland is annexed. Finally two of the four major Allies do something. War is declared 3rd September 1939. But it will take much stalling to buy time to rearm properly, now at full speed finally. The success of the Battle of Britain after the fall of France (in moments), and Dunkirk, gives a tiny glimmer of hope -- and bought 18 months in which to rearm, though air force losses weren't sustainable. Those other two Allies, come to the party when it is politically unavoidable. Nazi invasion of USSR in June 41 and Pearl Harbor in December, otherwise they probably wouldn't have bothered without some other major event provoking action. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_eugenics#Origins_in_the_U.S._eugenics_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_eugenics#Origins_in_the_U...
FooHentai 7y ago
Gotta agree. I’ve witnessed this phenomenon that probably causes it up-close in the public sector. It’s a larger-scale case of that same phenomenon that makes bigger businesses generally less able to react than smaller ones - everyone working there is primarily concerned with protecting their own neck or at best, those of their immediate peers in a kind of clique-ey way. Survival in those waters is about keeping your head in and greasing the right wheels. Dissenters are efficiently dealt with. Given that, it’s no surprise there’s a general unwillingness to fo against the grain and push for change. The closest you get is elections which are drastically abstract and unable to tackle/target single issues until they become overriding priorities. Even then you’re just swapping out the leadership and there’s a whole abstraction of the machinery of government to wade through before you get close to the ‘able to do things’ people. In fact underneath that you’ve now got an additional layer because many things are farmed out to the private sector. Maybe this is what the Great Filter looks like from within?
markus_zhang 7y ago
You need a big gov to pull this off. And again people on HN are not exactly fans of big government.
- hanniabu 7y ago
  You just need effective leadership rather than ones that run away from their problems to vacation in Hawaii when their county is burning and citizens seeking haven in rafts and boats in the ocean and lakes.
- pstuart 7y ago
  I'm a progressive that believes that good governance is a good thing, but "big gov" is off-putting right out of the gate. I think the better phrasing would be: "You need a wise and uncorrupted government to pull this off".
Rebelgecko 7y ago
I do wonder how the fires would be if Australia had worse firefighting infrastructure. It seems like aggressive firefighting efforts reduce the damage caused by smaller fires but leave more fuel for "the big one", when it comes.
- viraptor 7y ago
  It's not that trivial. Planned burns were managed by firefighters as well, to reduce the amount of available fuel. Now we're not doing enough of it. Firefighters is not a great name in this case and just having better infrastructure doesn't imply actually stopping all fires.
iamaelephant 7y ago
Australia is the biggest climate denying nation in the developed world. They will never take action because that would require then to acknowledge the climate reality.
- killface 7y ago
  funny thing, they could put a molten salt reactor and a solar farm smack in the middle of that thing and likely not have to use petrol ever again.
  - pan69 7y ago
    Yes, but how do "they" make money from that? When your government is self serving then great ideas/solutions have no meaning.
- hanniabu 7y ago
  Thanks to Rupert Murdoch whom is the main news media owner there and also the source of a lot of false narratives here in the US with Fox news passing what are essentially drama shows as actual news.
  - Gibbon1 7y ago
    I'll be interested to watch what happens when that guy kicks off. We're down to one politically active Koch Brother too.
    - hanniabu 7y ago
      I'm sure the beliefs and outlooks have been passed down through the family which will pick up the throne and carry on leaving us into the darkness.
  - AlEinstein 7y ago
    Just a tip: you’ve used the word “whom” incorrectly here. You can just use the word “who” and you’ll always be correct.
zackmorris 7y ago
Ya Australian firefighters are really good, they actually fly up here to the northwestern US to battle blazes in their off season. They often eat at the restaurants by the airport here in Boise. I don't know how the politics in Australia work, but the main problem in the US is that the states with the biggest fire problems are democratic (California, Oregon and Washington) so are under constant pressure from republicans to have their federal fire budgets lowered, or are republican like Idaho and vote for smaller federal budgets anyway. For a bit of background, this crisis has been playing out for over a century. Republicans supported the large timber, mining and ranching lobbies that clearcut the old growth forests of the northwest, poisoned the water with mercury/arsenic and desertified grasslands. Fire prevention measures left forests too thick with young trees of the wrong species that can't survive burns and the loss of native species on the high desert makes range fires larger and more intense. Global warming has raised winter temperatures to the point that pine beetles no longer freeze out, so most forests are sick or dying as their phloem is stripped by the beetles (similar things are happening with invader aphids on the east coast as their forests die). Democratic environmentalists worked to stop public land mismanagement but were largely mocked until it was too late. This is primarily a republican problem, because democrats vote for solutions but are mostly outvoted in these times. The closest thing to blaming democrats for this would be via political horse trading, so maybe democrats pushed wedge issues like abortion or affirmative action so republicans attacked democratic causes like the environment in response. Or maybe democrats looked the other way as a trade for getting their own causes through. But the evidence suggests that when it comes to fires specifically, there is no "both sides" argument here. The messed up part is that the politics don't carry over to firefighters. It wouldn't surprise me if they are majority republican, or at the very least conservative. Working hard but being undercut by their party. Some help is on the way with new federal fire disaster funding put forth by republicans: https://www.crapo.senate.gov/media/newsreleases/crapo-wyden-risch-simpson-acting-usfs-cheif-christiansen-to-discuss-new-fire-disaster-funding-program https://www.crapo.senate.gov/media/newsreleases/crapo-wyden-... But keep in mind that this is a thinly-veiled attempt to reintroduce the timber industry and "thin the threat" rather than letting trees burn. Personally I'm against this, as I've seen extraction lobbyists run roughshod over the environment here. But I've also noticed that younger republicans here, especially hunters and anglers, support protecting public lands and regulating resource extraction more intelligently than in the past in order to protect natural resources for future generations. So time will tell. I've tried to make this as factual as I can, but it's inherently a political issue. I don't mean to offend, just inform.
hanniabu 7y ago
> and well trained personnel that are soon to be unpaid

orhmeh09 7y ago

To my knowledge over 90% of the firefighters are volunteers and they are not exceptionally well supplied. Australia has done a worse job than other countries with its vast resources could have done. But I agree with you: when has humankind ever truly united on something to pull together?

Robotbeat 7y ago
Banning CFCs. The UV index is already better than it would've been without the ban. By 2050 or so, it would've been TRULY bad, with significant rise in skin cancer. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/WorldWithoutOzone/page2.php https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/WorldWithoutOzone...
- khuey 7y ago
  Eliminating smallpox also comes to mind.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  Many years after hearing, and being inspired by the world's reaction to CFCs and ozone depletion, I read a piece in one of the main US papers - WSJ, NYT, WaPo, I forget which, that the main impetus for US action on CFCs was Reagan had had skin cancer. Which made it more personal for him.
  - FooHentai 7y ago
    Whelp, I guess that means we’ll see a proper response right around the time Aspen has no snow over winter, Miami beachfront drowns, or some politicians family members pop their clogs die to something CC related. Alas that’ll be real late.
kiliantics 7y ago
How about WWII? If the challenges of climate change were treated with the same urgency the allies mustered together then, we might actually have a shot at avoiding complete disaster.
- rini17 7y ago
  The urgency came only after long years of detente posturing...
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  That's really not an inspiring or hopeful comparison, but probably very accurate to how the world will play the climate crisis. If the Allies/Developed Nations respond with the same vigour, we have another half decade or two of ignoring the issue, hiding under rocks, and need to lose a good few developed nations to the void, without trace, first. Road to WW2: You could set up the dominoes all the way back to the punitive Versailles Agreement, but purely militarily... 1930, Japan moved into Manchuria. Germany withdrew from the League of Nations in 33, and immediately started rearming and brought back universal conscription. Rhineland reoccupied in 36, and Fracno put on the throne in the Spanish "Civil War" the same year - where they supplied armaments, troops, supplies, and lots and lots of planes. Blitzkreig was honed and practised here. Britain and France still busy appeasing, and ignoring clear, obvious unmissable signs. Some fringe, and not so fringe members of their major right of centre parties are highly sympathetic to German rebuilding and aims. They would like to do deals with that nice Mr Hitler. Including the man who was offered the premiership of the UK before Churchill, when Chamberlain stepped down. USA is busy ignoring the world, deep in isolationism, but at the same time building trade with Germany and parts of the US, notably California and New York are most impressed to see German implementation of eugenics as policy (Nazi eugenics and what developed from it originated in US ideas and policies[1]). League of Nations whistles a happy tune as its highest membership was during this period. In 37, Japan steps up to an all out war of total conquest with China, and the Rape of Nanjing takes place, 300k+ dead. Then follows Anschluss with Austria in 38 with still barely a word muttered on the global stage. Nor was anything done about Sudetenland (half of then Czechoslovakia). The day after the Slovak State was formed from the rest, they occupied that too. 39 Brought the "Peace in our Time" Munich Agreement. Hitler responds peacefully by annexing parts of Latvia, Mussolini annexes Albania. Allies, well the European ones, finally think perhaps they might, possibly/maybe do something. But not yet. Aug 1939 brings the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which presents an astonishingly accurate picture of the post-war Europe we actually got. September 39 and Poland is annexed. Finally two of the four major Allies do something. War is declared 3rd September 1939. But it will take much stalling to buy time to rearm properly, now at full speed finally. The success of the Battle of Britain after the fall of France (in moments), and Dunkirk, gives a tiny glimmer of hope -- and bought 18 months in which to rearm, though air force losses weren't sustainable. Those other two Allies, come to the party when it is politically unavoidable. Nazi invasion of USSR in June 41 and Pearl Harbor in December, otherwise they probably wouldn't have bothered without some other major event provoking action. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_eugenics#Origins_in_the_U.S._eugenics_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_eugenics#Origins_in_the_U...

FooHentai 7y ago

Gotta agree. I’ve witnessed this phenomenon that probably causes it up-close in the public sector. It’s a larger-scale case of that same phenomenon that makes bigger businesses generally less able to react than smaller ones - everyone working there is primarily concerned with protecting their own neck or at best, those of their immediate peers in a kind of clique-ey way. Survival in those waters is about keeping your head in and greasing the right wheels. Dissenters are efficiently dealt with. Given that, it’s no surprise there’s a general unwillingness to fo against the grain and push for change. The closest you get is elections which are drastically abstract and unable to tackle/target single issues until they become overriding priorities. Even then you’re just swapping out the leadership and there’s a whole abstraction of the machinery of government to wade through before you get close to the ‘able to do things’ people. In fact underneath that you’ve now got an additional layer because many things are farmed out to the private sector. Maybe this is what the Great Filter looks like from within?

markus_zhang 7y ago

You need a big gov to pull this off. And again people on HN are not exactly fans of big government.

hanniabu 7y ago
You just need effective leadership rather than ones that run away from their problems to vacation in Hawaii when their county is burning and citizens seeking haven in rafts and boats in the ocean and lakes.
pstuart 7y ago
I'm a progressive that believes that good governance is a good thing, but "big gov" is off-putting right out of the gate. I think the better phrasing would be: "You need a wise and uncorrupted government to pull this off".

Rebelgecko 7y ago

I do wonder how the fires would be if Australia had worse firefighting infrastructure. It seems like aggressive firefighting efforts reduce the damage caused by smaller fires but leave more fuel for "the big one", when it comes.

viraptor 7y ago
It's not that trivial. Planned burns were managed by firefighters as well, to reduce the amount of available fuel. Now we're not doing enough of it. Firefighters is not a great name in this case and just having better infrastructure doesn't imply actually stopping all fires.

iamaelephant 7y ago

Australia is the biggest climate denying nation in the developed world. They will never take action because that would require then to acknowledge the climate reality.

killface 7y ago
funny thing, they could put a molten salt reactor and a solar farm smack in the middle of that thing and likely not have to use petrol ever again.
- pan69 7y ago
  Yes, but how do "they" make money from that? When your government is self serving then great ideas/solutions have no meaning.
hanniabu 7y ago
Thanks to Rupert Murdoch whom is the main news media owner there and also the source of a lot of false narratives here in the US with Fox news passing what are essentially drama shows as actual news.
- Gibbon1 7y ago
  I'll be interested to watch what happens when that guy kicks off. We're down to one politically active Koch Brother too.
  - hanniabu 7y ago
    I'm sure the beliefs and outlooks have been passed down through the family which will pick up the throne and carry on leaving us into the darkness.
- AlEinstein 7y ago
  Just a tip: you’ve used the word “whom” incorrectly here. You can just use the word “who” and you’ll always be correct.

zackmorris 7y ago

Ya Australian firefighters are really good, they actually fly up here to the northwestern US to battle blazes in their off season. They often eat at the restaurants by the airport here in Boise. I don't know how the politics in Australia work, but the main problem in the US is that the states with the biggest fire problems are democratic (California, Oregon and Washington) so are under constant pressure from republicans to have their federal fire budgets lowered, or are republican like Idaho and vote for smaller federal budgets anyway. For a bit of background, this crisis has been playing out for over a century. Republicans supported the large timber, mining and ranching lobbies that clearcut the old growth forests of the northwest, poisoned the water with mercury/arsenic and desertified grasslands. Fire prevention measures left forests too thick with young trees of the wrong species that can't survive burns and the loss of native species on the high desert makes range fires larger and more intense. Global warming has raised winter temperatures to the point that pine beetles no longer freeze out, so most forests are sick or dying as their phloem is stripped by the beetles (similar things are happening with invader aphids on the east coast as their forests die). Democratic environmentalists worked to stop public land mismanagement but were largely mocked until it was too late. This is primarily a republican problem, because democrats vote for solutions but are mostly outvoted in these times. The closest thing to blaming democrats for this would be via political horse trading, so maybe democrats pushed wedge issues like abortion or affirmative action so republicans attacked democratic causes like the environment in response. Or maybe democrats looked the other way as a trade for getting their own causes through. But the evidence suggests that when it comes to fires specifically, there is no "both sides" argument here. The messed up part is that the politics don't carry over to firefighters. It wouldn't surprise me if they are majority republican, or at the very least conservative. Working hard but being undercut by their party. Some help is on the way with new federal fire disaster funding put forth by republicans: https://www.crapo.senate.gov/media/newsreleases/crapo-wyden-risch-simpson-acting-usfs-cheif-christiansen-to-discuss-new-fire-disaster-funding-program https://www.crapo.senate.gov/media/newsreleases/crapo-wyden-... But keep in mind that this is a thinly-veiled attempt to reintroduce the timber industry and "thin the threat" rather than letting trees burn. Personally I'm against this, as I've seen extraction lobbyists run roughshod over the environment here. But I've also noticed that younger republicans here, especially hunters and anglers, support protecting public lands and regulating resource extraction more intelligently than in the past in order to protect natural resources for future generations. So time will tell. I've tried to make this as factual as I can, but it's inherently a political issue. I don't mean to offend, just inform.

hanniabu 7y ago

> and well trained personnel that are soon to be unpaid