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Wildfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia

151 points by gscott 7y ago

seanwilson 7y ago
If you live in Australia, what is this doing in terms of changing what people think and do about climate change? Is it motivating personal changes in diet, traveling and election voting choices? If this nightmare scenario isn't enough to push people into taking action, what will?
- throwaway3CC9 7y ago
  Nothing. A fire is not evidence of climate change any more than an absence of fire is evidence against.
  - BLKNSLVR 7y ago
    (my opinion, obviously) That's as true as it is misleading. The changing climate definitely has an effect on the scale and intensity, but not the existence. Rating the scale is an essentially impossible task because the factors go back years (length and scale of drought, climate effects on that).
  - kilroy_jones 7y ago
    And yet the severity and timing of them can be evidence.
  - taneq 7y ago
    Large areas have burned in the Queensland fires which are rainforests and usually too wet to burn. A combination of unprecedented drought and record high temperatures over the past few years have dried these areas out sufficiently to sustain huge fires. But that’s just local observation and means nothing in terms of climate change, right? Edit: Clearly unrelated. https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-02/2019-was-australias-hottest-and-driest-year-on-record/11837312 https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-02/2019-was-australia...
    - anthony_doan 7y ago
      In God We Trust, All Others Must Have Data - W. Edwards Deming (Statistician) I dislike it when people make statement without data which leads to politic. You have provided an article which contain data that support climate change may cause this fire. I wish more people are like you.
  - jamesbfb 7y ago
    Correct me if I am wrong, but the sheer number of them, how early they are occurring has got to account for something, no?
  - pan69 7y ago
    Australia has been in a drought for the past decade which is caused by the changing climate. Yes, if you isolate this fire season then the fires themselves will look as no evidence of climate change. But the fact the everything is as dry as fuck when its not supposed to be dry as fuck... In northern Queensland we have rain forests. The fringes of those rain forests are burning, because they're dry as fuck. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-02/extent-of-fire-damage-in-gold-coast-rainforest-revealed/11567574 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-02/extent-of-fire-damage... Can you please open your mind?
    - mrfusion 7y ago
      I’m still confused. Nothing else can explain a period of dryness? I feel like it’s convenient to blame global warming without considering other ideas. Please note, I say this as a huge climate change activist. But this feels similar to blaming hurricanes on climate change to me.
      - _ph_ 7y ago
        It is rarely possible to rule out that "something else" is the cause of a phenomenum. But the connection between rising temperatures and an exceptional dryness is quite obvious. So absent a very strong different explanation for the current dryness, climate change sounds like an important contributor if not the single cause.
      - polotics 7y ago
        Well hurricanes are also made stronger by the fact that CO2 traps more heat in lower layers and thus makes the upper atmosphere colder, leading to a higher differential with lower layers. So there you go, please inform your activism accordingly.
  - pxi 7y ago
    Agreed - a single fire doesn't mean squat. Fires breaking out all over like an alien invasion mean the climate has already changed: https://myfirewatch.landgate.wa.gov.au https://myfirewatch.landgate.wa.gov.au
- yen223 7y ago
  The elections have already happened in May, and people have rejected the Labor party who was pushing for climate change reforms. I suspect if the elections were to happen now, things might be different. Lots of people have directly or indirectly (thanks to heavy smog) suffered from the wildfires, moreso than previous summers.
  - sumedh 7y ago
    > and people have rejected the Labor party who was pushing for climate change reforms. Labor were also saying that taxes will increase, I think that is the major factor for their loss.
    - Gustomaximus 7y ago
      LNP were also pushing hard that taxes will increase under labour with their big push on the 'Labor will introduce death tax' which was highly unethical and misleading.
- edflsafoiewq 7y ago
  What do you expect them to actually do? The entire CO2 output of Australia could drop to zero with negligible effect on climate change.
  - eeh 7y ago
    If every country acted that way, we'd make no progress. Every country needs to do its fair share, and Australia is not: http://theconversation.com/australia-hit-its-kyoto-target-but-it-was-more-a-three-inch-putt-than-a-hole-in-one-44731 http://theconversation.com/australia-hit-its-kyoto-target-bu...
    - shard972 7y ago
      And this will convince china and india to also lower how?
    - jamesbfb 7y ago
      Absolutely. Anthony Albanese (opposition leader for Labor here in Aus) said exactly this today on ABC. Whilst there is negligible correlation between the fires and our action (or inaction) to climate change as a country, the rhetoric of “well, we output so little compared of other developed nations” should not apply. Oh, and our elected Prime Minister brought a lump of coal into parliament, which says as much.
      - mceoin 7y ago
        Also important to recognize that Australia's carbon contribution is not solely limited to domestic output but also our coal industry. Australia is the largest exporter of coal in the world and this is not properly accounted for in our emissions accounting. On a per-person basis, our output is among the highest in the world and the inaction of others does not absolve us from having a moral responsibility to clean up our own mess at the very least.
        eeh 7y ago
        Counting exports would lead to double counting: once for the exporter, once for the user. All that matters is countries having fair targets, and meeting those targets. Countries are free to meet their emissions reductions targets how they like, including buying cheap coal from Australia, planes from US, and cars from Germany.
- perfunctory 7y ago
  > election voting choices Unfortunately, I don't believe voting one way or another will make much difference. One party might be slightly better than another, but ultimately none will dare to implement sufficient measures. Climate problem will have to be solved outside of party politics. We need something akin to civil rights movement. On the global scale.
  - hanniabu 7y ago
    > We need something akin to civil rights movement. On the global scale. We also need someone other than Greta as the face of it. While she does a great job, she's often dismissed due to her age and the US president has even publicly called her retarded in the literal sense.
    - docdeek 7y ago
      "...publicly called her retarded" I didn't catch that one - is there a source? All I am Googling up is Trump telling her to chill, watch a movie, and a reference to anger management.
    - arrrg 7y ago
      Anyone who becomes the face of this will be relentlessly smeared, with no regard for reality. People in the streets is probably what you need.
      - hanniabu 7y ago
        There's a difference between smeared and dismissed. I've even heard from people that think we need to make a change say "what does she know she's only a kid".
    - roenxi 7y ago
      Greta is 16. A 16 year old brain is literally not fully developed. A global movement should be able to muster a better spokesperson than a child. No matter how earnest and scared a child may be, it is still a mistake to make major policy decisions on their say-so.
- carl_sandland 7y ago
  Here in Canberra, it feels like I'm living in a space station on a toxic planet; I haven't seen blue skies in a month. See this chart (https://air-quality.com/place/australia/australian-capital-territory/be182a98?lang=en&standard=aqi_us https://air-quality.com/place/australia/australian-capital-t...) which has air pollution literally OFF their chart ranges. Hearing the drivel spewing from our PM and other politicians; It's always the same pandering responses with no real strategic change. It's beyond frustrating. We will have to be destroyed (are being?) before anyone admits there is are real problems requiring real actions. I have noticed that at a more local level of government, the messaging has changed and is more serious now. Here are some thought bubbles; * more aggressive back-burning and fuel load management: managed at a federal level by law. * stop all new coal, keep replacing with ?whatever?, including a reappraisal of nuclear. * start retreating populations back towards cities: reverse the sprawl into protected urban bubbles. * start requiring building to have ventilation and filtering systems that can handle smoke better, and are more efficient at sealing air: I've heard many people complain about smokey insides: happens to me too ! * stricter criminal penalties for any arson related crimes. * restrictions on tourism to risky areas during the fire season. Either that or we finally DO become a giant desert from coast to coast: should be safe enough then!
  - chris1993 7y ago
    One of the issues is that the 'window' for fuel load management/back burning is shrinking because the bush fire season is starting earlier. We had out of control fires from September, which is unheard of, and concerns that they were started by back burning operations.
    - gwillz 7y ago
      In contrast, we had snow in our alpine regions into December. The weather is completely nutty recently.
- mceoin 7y ago
  Can only speak from my personal circles but the current bushfires aren't having a direct impact on personal responsibility (those who were interested were already interested; those that weren't still aren't). We just had a political cycle where the Labor party lost on (among many reasons) a more climate-change focused agenda in the federal election, so we won't know for another three years if there is any any voter backlash. Additionally, parliament is not in session and the major parties are currently focused on crisis response (instead of attacking each other), so the political football has yet to truly begin. Aside from the considerable pain and hardship for these local communities and the potential increase in politicization of environmental issues, the tourism sector is being obviously effected as you simply can't drive to many parts of New South Wales right now, tourists are being asked to leave many areas, and Sydney has been smog filled for the last month.
  - sumedh 7y ago
    > so we won't know for another three years if there is any any voter backlash Labour will say your taxes will increase, liberals will promise more tax cuts and everyone will vote for Liberal again.
    - rs23296008n1 7y ago
      Not so much in Cobargo. They were somewhat less than enthusiastic over the Prime Bureaucrat's recent visit.
      - mceoin 7y ago
        Yes it's definitely possible that Bega will flip next state election even though the anger is directed at federal leadership.
  - perilunar 7y ago
    > Sydney has been smog filled for the last month. Not smog, just plain smoke.
    - 7y ago
- cookie_monsta 7y ago
  If you live in in the US you might be familiar with the line that some conservative politicians are taking - that this is a time of crisis, tragedy and grieving and should not be politicised.
  - martin_a 7y ago
    Thoughts and prayers!
- Aaron_Putnam 7y ago
  The biggest driver of Australia's increased emissions is the increasing population: https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/07/greenhouse-gas-emissions-tracking-population-growth/ https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/07/greenhouse-gas-emis... Under current immigration settings Australia will reach 40 million people by 2050. With zero net overseas migration, the population would stabilise at 27 million then fall slightly. This is the most important change that could be made to assist the Australian environment, but sadly discussing immigration is completely disallowed in mainstream Australian media.
- look_lookatme 7y ago
  Do you have a real example of how to take meaningful action that makes a difference, right now, today?
emrehan 7y ago
Let’s see how is this going to influence Australia’s opinion on their coal powered cheap electricity.
- duk3luk3 7y ago
  What are you comparing Australia's electricity to to call it cheap?
  - taneq 7y ago
    Our wholesale power prices are actually quite low. Residential power is expensive because rooftop solar is putting the economics of maintaining the grid into a death spiral.
    - BLKNSLVR 7y ago
      Rooftop solar became popular because residential electricity prices were so high. Look up gold-plating poles and wires. The grid death spiral is a long way off. It's also something that could have been mitigated by the networks themselves if they'd had any economists worth their salt.
    - phs318u 7y ago
      Please support your claim with some evidence. I worked in the contestable electricity distribution business for 8 years from 2001 to 2009 and I can assure that your claim is complete bollocks.
      - bjowen 7y ago
        https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2014/july/1404136800/jess-hill/power-corrupts https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2014/july/1404136800/jes...
        phs318u 7y ago
        Exactly. I worked at Powercor and Citipower - two distribution licenses but one parent company that ran a shared-everything operation across the two. We cost a bit more than one company to run but we’re able to recoup as if we were two wholly independent operations. The whole contestable distribution market was/is a huge scam.
softgrow 7y ago
I asked a firefighter when is the fire considered safe once it appears to have stopped burning? The answer surprised me a bit. You need to have a 100m strip around the fire where someone has raked or inspected inside every tree, under every cow pat, bit of grass to make sure nothing is smouldering in that area. This is a huge job as for the fire I enquired about (Cudlee Creek SA), the perimeter is 180km and a fair bit of this is in rugged terrain. So a ton of work.
- mehrdadn 7y ago
  Honestly I'm surprised that's sufficient. To my knowledge you can even have root fires burning underground for months. And I expect embers can travel in the wind far longer distances than 100m. It's pretty impressive to me they can do it with 100m of inspection, let alone how difficult that already is.
  - shakna 7y ago
    > And I expect embers can travel in the wind far longer distances than 100m. Far, far more. Embers have been known to travel 10s of km. However, if that happens after a fire has been reduced to smouldering, if it lights something, that gets considered as a new fire.
BLKNSLVR 7y ago
As a long term Australian, this is categorically the worst fire season Australia has experienced. Summer in Australia always comes with one or two big fires in at-risk rural areas over the months from December to February. Queensland and New South Wales were burning heavily by early December. And now Victoria and South Australia have joined in as well and we're still only just into the second month of three. It's unprecedented. The one thing that may provide back handed comfort is that so much has burnt that it will be a few years before enough 'fuel' is regrown for fires of this scale to be possible again. I'm wondering the unknowable tipping point at which the cost of rebuilding from bushfires outweighs the costs of de-carbonising the economy. Part of the problem with that is who / where the costs are borne / spread amongst.
- shard972 7y ago
  How will de-carbonising the economy stop bush-fires on this scale?
- raaaaraaaa2 7y ago
  I would expect that intensive large fires will destroy all forests in affected areas... So next season will be 'fine' (= no trees at all).
  - Tehdasi 7y ago
    Not quite, there will be less fuel, but not less trees. The bushland of Australia has had regular fires baked into it's ecosystem, so the plant species all have coping mechanisms to deal with fire. A good example is are the Banksia varieties that rely on a bushfire to germinate.
    - Scarblac 7y ago
      Yes, but apparently there are now also lots of forests burning that have never burned before and where the trees aren't adapted for it.
      - 7y ago
aaron695 7y ago
> The Australian Defense Force is sending ships to the Victoria town of Mallacoota on a two-week supply mission Sums up the lies from Time etc pretty well Using logic from primary school, exactly how could this happen? Two-week supply mission? Richest nation on earth, aka Australia. How does a fire destroy the ability for trucks to get through a road? Falling trees is the best fantasy I can think of. Which as long and they are slow moving, trucks can manage. Australians LARPing hurt like this is pretty fucked up. Two weeks supply my arse. Next door in Indonesia many people have died in flooding today, but they are brown. So Ozies bring it up about their pain for Facebook likes while the brown people have a true hurt.
- shimms 7y ago
  The town of Mallacoota is essentially surrounded by a moat of fire at the moment. The residents are trapped inside this ring, one part of which is the ocean. The Navy, as well as supplying, are evacuating people off the beach as there is no other safe way out of that part of the country at the moment.
  - Cogito 7y ago
    I'll add here because parent is flagged, but the fires can get so hot that the radiant heat will kill you from 100m away. The firestorms suck up all the oxygen, and can cause massive 'fire tornadoes' that have literally flipped a fire truck onto its back. It's not a question of 'just' sending the trucks in.
    - rs23296008n1 7y ago
      You can definitely just send the trucks in. Whether anyone will be actually alive a few minutes later is a very different proposition. I'd advise against it. People underestimate just how hot fire can get and what it actually means to operate next to and within an environment that is essentially a furnace. A furnace that stretches all around you and up into the sky and is moving all the time. The air is hot and thick. Your protective gear is hot. Embers are flying around and if they touch something flammable they become a fresh new fire. A few "trees across the road" means many minutes to clear that road. Which is surrounded by fire. Or soon will be. That wind could change any minute. Or the logs are still smouldering or on fire. So you clear the road and then a few hundred metres later you reach more fallen trees and massive ditch you can't pass. Now the fire has crossed the road behind you. Sure, why not drive through all that?
benjaminsuch 7y ago
Excuse my ignorance, can anyone explain to me what makes it so difficult to extinguish the fire? (This question is not meant to be an ass) I tried to google it, but couldn't find a proper answer. I'm just really curious.
- kmlx 7y ago
  you've got to understand australia is huge, as big as the united states. so when you've got fires as big as european nations, it's impossible to extinguish, even contain.
  - benjaminsuch 7y ago
    Okay I get that, but how do they battle it? What is the plan? Where do they start? Are they just trying to prevent the spread and wait till the fire kills itself?
    - flukus 7y ago
      > Are they just trying to prevent the spread and wait till the fire kills itself? Basically this whenever possible, often if it's not near a populated area they won't even try to limit the spread, they put themselves out eventually with the right conditions (wind, rain, geography). Near populated areas they do what they can, mostly controlled burns and having fire breaks that allow them to effectively concentrate resources (firetrucks, water bombers) where they can actually be useful, a firetruck can be effective where there's a firebreak but without one it would be suicide to be there.
    - SturgeonsLaw 7y ago
      I can help answer this, one of my parents is a volunteer firefighter who was helping within the last few days. The current mandate for the CFA is asset protection, ie; protecting houses, farms and other properties where they can. It's understood that the fires can't be put out in the current conditions, so resources are focused on protecting buildings for now. We're hoping for rain, but that's probably not going to appear in any significant quantities for a couple of months.
pxi 7y ago
It's been nice in Brisbane the past few weeks. I'm starting to feel "survivor guilt". For the people saying we need less trees, please watch this: https://youtu.be/SIHIsSJ2Txk https://youtu.be/SIHIsSJ2Txk
fs2 7y ago
It's sad to see how these fires are automatically linked to climate change. Until the mid 2000's Australia burned down small patches of forests to prevent large disasters like these we have now. But that changed when burning down forests (mind you to prevent larger forest fires in the future) were deemed too bad for the environment. So now the policies and fire prevention techniques changed (for the worse) and exactly what many firefighters predicted has happened: mass fires covering the east coast. It doesn't matter how much the climate changed when the whole part about prevention has been screwed up.
- voltagex_ 7y ago
  https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/12/is-there-really-a-green-conspiracy-to-stop-bushfire-hazard-reduction https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/12/is-th...
  - BLKNSLVR 7y ago
    Thanks for the link, someone staying with us was saying exactly what this article is debunking. I've sent it to them, but I'm expecting an 'unchanged opinion' type response.
    - voltagex_ 7y ago
      No worries. The last thing Australia needs is bad info at the moment.
  - Merrill 7y ago
    >Bradstock says research “overwhelmingly” demonstrates that creating a 40- to 50-metre fuel break around a house can give it a much greater chance of surviving fires.
- jdnenej 7y ago
  The policies have not changed. The fire department has said the weather has been too dry for too long and they are unable to do controlled burns like they used to.
marliechiller 7y ago
is there any way of harnessing all of that out of control heat energy to try and salvage at least some good from the situation?
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  Technically yes but not practically because the temperature differential is what is needed and well as considerable logistical and engineering issues of making something which uses it large enough to deal with a moving and raging fire - let alone not interfering with fightint efforts or being accused of arson to not pay for fuel. Nobody has used Centralia, PA as a generator despite the long burning underground coal fire - it has also been moving underground in a regular pattern.
tempsy 7y ago
I heard that earlier efforts in the year to do controlled burns were protested against by activists and thus paused and could’ve contributed to the extent of the fires now.
- edgefield0 7y ago
  Everything is fine. This is just fire mismanagement and is in no way indicative of a climate crisis. /s
  - tempsy 7y ago
    It can be both
- BLKNSLVR 7y ago
  Elsewhere in the discussion sometime posted a link to an article debunking that common misconception from a number of angles.
- Intermernet 7y ago
  This is misinformation happily spread by the Australian media, who are hand in hand with the fossil fuel and forestry lobbiests. The Australian green party has supported hazard reduction burning for many years. The activists you mention have had pretty much zero influence on what hazard reduction has been done. The current government cut the budget for the fire service so drastically that they lost about 60% of the qualified staff who were in charge of planning hazard reduction burns. We have areas the size of Tasmania that are the responsibility of 1 hazard reduction expert. The areas that are burning are not areas that the activists you mentioned were active. Some of the fires in September and October were likely caused by hazard reduction burning. Basically, hazard reduction burning is a viable technique when the fire season lasts 3 or 4 months. This fire season is looking like it will last for 6 to 7 months, which leaves very little time to plan and execute hazard reduction. You are probably not taking into account the size of the areas that require hazard reduction management, and the low (now even lower) number of people who are responsible for it. In short, environmental activists (and, mostly, arsonists) are a bogeyman created by people trying to divert attention away from the real problems. The main real problems are: Due to forestry the water cycle on the western side of the great dividing range (and other mountains in Australia) has been disrupted and areas that usually receive rain have had declining rain or no rain in the past decade. Global patterns such as El Nino have been disrupted leading to less precipitation and one of the worst droughts in Australian history. Average temperatures across the continent have been setting new records for the past decade, with 2019 being the hottest year on record, and about 3 weeks ago we had the hottest day on record Australia wide. Serious budget cuts to the organisations who are responsible for hazard reduction in fire prone areas. It's basically the perfect storm of climate change and government ineptitude. But, according to our glorious leader, we should not worry, stay calm and watch the cricket. Seriously, you couldn't make this shit up if you tried.
jrziviani 7y ago
Why aren't Europe, Greta, Hollywood artists screaming their head off just like they did at Brazil/Amazon Forest on June?
- truculent 7y ago
  They are though? It’s even being reported in TIME...
  - jrziviani 7y ago
    Not even close to the noise made here: Macron (and Hollywood artists) lying about "world lung", Europeans threatening us with economic sanctions, fake news everywhere (old pictures, fake pictures (from other places), animals that don't even exist in Amazon...
- jkrltifk 7y ago
  Hive it a bit of time. For the Amazon fires, local activists were DMing influencers. This is how coverage started on Instagram, and then the media picked it up. Now I already see instagram influencers asking about this, in about a week top accounts will post toom
- apexalpha 7y ago
  We do, it's in the news non stop.
  - jrziviani 7y ago
    Is Macron saying anything about "world intervention" as well? Otherwise it might look like Europe is only interested in forests that compensate their CO2 emissions. Should I stop burning CO2? nahhh, it's too expensive. Let's pretend we care about others forests and blame on them.
    - apexalpha 7y ago
      Is the AUS government actively incentivizing people to burn down patches of forest to turn into economically viable land?
jaimex2 7y ago
The real tragedy here is the amount of wildlife and livestock gone. The toll is estimated at about half a billion animals so far.
JetBen 7y ago
"Throw another shrimp on the barbie", he said. "No worries, mate. It'll be fine", he said... FYI - I'm an Aussie born and bred, and part of our culture is to laugh at ourselves, even during the hard times. That's how Australians stay so resilient through hardship.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  "It'll be fine"? Not "She'll be right"?
  - JetBen 7y ago
    Ha! I already got downvoted for my culturally appropriate joke. If I'd said "She'll be right", I probably would have gotten banned from HN.... again.
foxhop 7y ago
I'm curious how all the permaculture farms and homesteads are faring. Are these alternative landscapes surviving or maybe thriving dispite the droughts and fires? Could the country promote or even mandate permaculture style landworks?
- pjc50 7y ago
  Permaculture also burns. Most of what's on fire is naturally growing eucalyptus and brush.
- bjowen 7y ago
  “Alternative landscapes” here really means exotic species that aren’t fire-propagated. There’s some evidence that exotics are protective of property in a low-intensity fire, but they’re also far more dependent on water, which is a desperately scarce resource, and many are deciduous, which adds to fuel loads. The wide-scale promotion of non-native flora should be obvious enough as a non-starter.
yassam 7y ago
As an Australian resident and now citizen for 20 years, I've been pretty angry since that last federal election. So many people here are still denying man-made global warming, and that includes our own government, which stood in the way of progress at COP25 [1]. Even now, in the midst of unprecedented heat, drought and fire that has gripped this continent for months, if not years, "friends" of mine regularly post the most ignorant climate denialist BS on FB. [1] https://reneweconomy.com.au/cop25-talks-labelled-lost-opportunity-as-australia-burns-its-international-reputation-46894/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/cop25-talks-labelled-lost-opport...
- crispinb 7y ago
  So many people here are still denying man-made global warming That isn't really true beyond the margins. Polls show that a large majority of Australians have accepted the science on climate collapse for two decades. Australians know what's happening, but they believe their wealth can insulate them personally from the consequences while they watch dusky foreigners die. The last federal election contained an implied declaration of environmental war on the Pacific island nations, with the tradeoffs very clearly spelled out in the campaign. Australia is a rogue nation of self-comforting nihilists, for whom Scott Morrison is a very natural leader.
  - bjowen 7y ago
    “The margins” also unfortunately include the perpetually outraged Alan Jones, and every policy pie his pudgy fingers poke. +1 on your diagnosis of the cultural problem.
    - crispinb 7y ago
      Yes absolutely, of course. No-one can deny the outsized political significance of those margins along many dimensions (marginal rural constituencies, the Liberal/Nat/LNP right-wing factions, Alan Jones' grumpy gossiping old men, perpetually outraged about anything done by anyone under 60, the Murdoch press, etc). I guess my point is that these extreme margins gain their power only because of the nihilism of the skittish 'moderate' Australian majority, which knows enough, and cares little about anything of significance.
maddog3356 7y ago
At https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21934288 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21934288 from user voldacar is: > Could you repost your original post (now flagged) so I and others can see your argument? From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21933963 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21933963 here is the original post: For "1/ The looming climate crisis will be to this century what the two world wars were to the previous one. It will require countries and institutions to re-allocate capital from other endeavors to fight against a warming planet. This is the decade we will begin to see this re-allocation of capital. We will see carbon taxed like the vice that it is in most countries around the world this decade, including in the US. We will see real estate values collapse in some of the most affected regions and we will see real estate values increase in regions that benefit from the warming climate. We will see massive capital investments made in protecting critical regions and infrastructure. We will see nuclear power make a resurgence around the world, particularly smaller reactors that are easier to build and safer to operate. We will see installed solar power worldwide go from ~650GW currently to over 20,000GW by the end of this decade. All of these things and many more will cause the capital markets to focus on and fund the climate issue to the detriment of many other sectors." there is an accurate one word summary -- nonsense. With two or more words, even worse than nonsense. It's time to drive a stake through the heart of this climate change alarmism. We can do a good job just in this little post. In simple terms, there is no serious evidence that CO2 from human activities at anything like probable concentrations will have any significant effect on the temperature or climate of the earth. Yes, CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but it is a long logical path from there to any claims of a significant effect. We need just two steps: (1) History. There is NOTHING in the climate history from the present back to about 1 million years ago that supports the idea that anything like realistic concentrations of CO2 from human activities will have any significant effect on temperatures. (i) For the ice core records going back ~1 million years, yes, both temperatures and CO2 concentrations went both up and down. BUT, if we just look carefully at the big graph in Al Gore's movie, with high irony, that graph totally destroys his claims from that graph: He misread the graph. The main point is that there is an 800 year delay; CO2 concentrations changed 800 years AFTER the temperature changes, from whatever cause. Specifically: (a) When temperatures started increasing, from whatever cause, CO2 concentrations were LOW, not high. (b) About 800 years later CO2 concentrations were HIGH, from increased biological activity from the higher temperatures. (c) When temperatures started to fall, from whatever cause, CO2 concentrations were still HIGH, not low. (d) The high CO2 concentrations did not keep the temperatures from falling. (e) Once the temperatures fell, about 800 years later so did CO2 concentrations. Net, CO2 did not cause the higher temperatures or keep the higher temperatures from falling. (ii) In the last 2000 years we had the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age, and there is no suggestion that CO2 concentration changes caused either. (iii) Starting in the 1940s and through about 1970, we actually had some significant cooling, but in those years CO2 from human activities -- WWII, pulling of the Great Depression, and the economic boom after WWII -- increased. So, we got COOLING, not warming, with the additional CO2 from human activities. Net, there is NO data from the historical record that supports the claim that higher CO2 will cause higher temperatures. (2) Yes, CO2 is a <i>greenhouse</i> gas. The absorption spectrum is at https://webbook.nist.gov/cgi/cbook.cgi?Spec=C124389&Index=0&Type=IR&Large=on https://webbook.nist.gov/cgi/cbook.cgi?Spec=C124389&Index=0&... So, CO2 absorbs in three narrow bands, one for each of bending, stretching, and twisting of the molecule, out in the infrared. No, Tom Friedman of the NYT: CO2 does not absorb sunlight, and anyone can confirm this by looking at a source of CO2, e.g., exhaling or the bubbles from soda pop, and simply observing that the CO2 is not visible and does not cast a shadow. So, the theory has been that the CO2 warms the planet. Then there has been ALARMIST CLAIM: Extra CO2 from current human activities will soon cause significant extra warming and, thus, "climate change", a "climate crisis", etc. Since the historical record can't support the ALARMIST CLAIM, we have to rely on the theory based on the absorption spectrum of CO2 and computation. Well the computations were done by dozens of teams, and the results are summarized in http://www.energyadvocate.com/gc1.jpg http://www.energyadvocate.com/gc1.jpg Net, as in this graph, nearly all the computations predicted rapid, significant increases in temperatures soon. Well the time of predicted increases came and went with no sign of anything like the predicted increases. In science, when predictions are made and found to be false, we junk the science. No doubt, the failures in that graph are some of the worst in all the history of science. GOOD science, e.g., the hunt for and finding the Higgs boson at the LHC (Large Hadron Collider), the observations that confirmed the predictions of black holes, many other confirmed predictions of special and general relativity, the A-bomb, the H-bomb, the design of the Hubble telescope, to the quantum mechanics in semi-conductors that are the core of current digital electronics, the science was just rock solid. We are just awash in super solid science, and the global warming computations in that graph are just a humiliation of anything scientific and just sick. So, for the ALARMIST CLAIM, there is no scientific support. For more there is the video documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Mx0_8YEtg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Mx0_8YEtg there see (A) the remarks of MIT Professor R. Lindzen on (i) why any warming we might be getting now cannot be from CO2 and (ii) the huge pile of money that didn't just buy off the climate scientists but HIRED the climate alarmists pretending to be climate scientists, maybe 10 times more alarmists than real scientists. Also that documentary argues that the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age were caused by variations in the rates of sun spots. More sun spots increase the solar wind which, from more links in a causal chain, in the end slows cloud formation and has a net warming effect. So, since both (1) history from ~1 million years ago to the present and (2) the computations based on CO2 being a greenhouse gas fail to support the ALARMIST CLAIM, we have no scientific support or even meaningful evidence for the ALARMIST CLAIM or the proposed very expensive reductions in carbon, etc. In this case and quite generally, if we are willing to go forward with big, expensive changes without good evidence, then we leave ourselves open to some of the worst mistakes in all of civilization. One current example of such mistakes is killing off the rhinoceroses to get their horns for use in Chinese medicine. For another such mistake, there is from page 76 of Susan Milbrath, Star Gods of the Maya: Astronomy in Art, Folklore, and Calendars (The Linda Schele Series in Maya and Pre-Columbian Studies), ISBN-13 978-0292752269, University of Texas Press, 2000. with "Indeed, blood sacrifice is required for the sun to move, according to Aztec cosmology (Durian 1971:179; Sahaguin 1950 - 1982, 7:8)." That is the Mayan charlatans killed people to pour their blood on a rock to keep the sun moving across the sky. No doubt the sun actually did keep moving across the sky. If we go forward with the Green New Deal, the Paris Accords, carbon taxes, etc. we are making a mistake as irrational as in the Chinese medicine and the Mayans. Warning: It appears that now the sun is entering the part of the 11 year or so sunspot cycle with fewer sun spots. So, we are in line for a few years of cooling. So, don't believe a claim of the global warming alarmists that their efforts caused the cooling. At this point, continuing with entertaining the ALARMIST CLAIM is just nonsense, expensive nonsense.
Khaine 7y ago
There has been a lack of leadership in Australia for at least a generation. Since Rudd took office, politicians have been driven by polls and the media. The current government is no exception. We need to do more to protect Australia's environment, including from climate change. We are letting the Great Barrier Reef wither away, and our land is burning. The lack of leadership is particularly frustrating. Instead of developing and growing new sustainable industries that will be around when the world has de-carbonised the government is doubling down on coal. It is utter madness. We have lacked a cohesive energy policy for over a decade due to climate change being a political issue where sides have been divided. Its hard to believe, but in 2007 the collation under John Howard took a carbon emissions policy to the election. We have regressed in policy from that point. Ultimately, a lot of the blame for all of this sits with the Greens. If they had been so blinded by purity and supported Rudd's carbon pollution reduction scheme. It would have been in place, and like the GST been settled. Instead they allowed it to become a political football. That plus Gillard's ineptness with the carbon tax has made this a toxic debate. Talk is cheap, and the only thing that will change it is writing to your representative and letting them know. I strongly urge you to respectfully write to your MP and let them know they need to do better.

151 points by gscott 7y ago

If you live in Australia, what is this doing in terms of changing what people think and do about climate change? Is it motivating personal changes in diet, traveling and election voting choices? If this nightmare scenario isn't enough to push people into taking action, what will?

throwaway3CC9 7y ago
Nothing. A fire is not evidence of climate change any more than an absence of fire is evidence against.
- BLKNSLVR 7y ago
  (my opinion, obviously) That's as true as it is misleading. The changing climate definitely has an effect on the scale and intensity, but not the existence. Rating the scale is an essentially impossible task because the factors go back years (length and scale of drought, climate effects on that).
- kilroy_jones 7y ago
  And yet the severity and timing of them can be evidence.
- taneq 7y ago
  Large areas have burned in the Queensland fires which are rainforests and usually too wet to burn. A combination of unprecedented drought and record high temperatures over the past few years have dried these areas out sufficiently to sustain huge fires. But that’s just local observation and means nothing in terms of climate change, right? Edit: Clearly unrelated. https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-02/2019-was-australias-hottest-and-driest-year-on-record/11837312 https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-02/2019-was-australia...
  - anthony_doan 7y ago
    In God We Trust, All Others Must Have Data - W. Edwards Deming (Statistician) I dislike it when people make statement without data which leads to politic. You have provided an article which contain data that support climate change may cause this fire. I wish more people are like you.
- jamesbfb 7y ago
  Correct me if I am wrong, but the sheer number of them, how early they are occurring has got to account for something, no?
- pan69 7y ago
  Australia has been in a drought for the past decade which is caused by the changing climate. Yes, if you isolate this fire season then the fires themselves will look as no evidence of climate change. But the fact the everything is as dry as fuck when its not supposed to be dry as fuck... In northern Queensland we have rain forests. The fringes of those rain forests are burning, because they're dry as fuck. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-02/extent-of-fire-damage-in-gold-coast-rainforest-revealed/11567574 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-02/extent-of-fire-damage... Can you please open your mind?
  - mrfusion 7y ago
    I’m still confused. Nothing else can explain a period of dryness? I feel like it’s convenient to blame global warming without considering other ideas. Please note, I say this as a huge climate change activist. But this feels similar to blaming hurricanes on climate change to me.
    - _ph_ 7y ago
      It is rarely possible to rule out that "something else" is the cause of a phenomenum. But the connection between rising temperatures and an exceptional dryness is quite obvious. So absent a very strong different explanation for the current dryness, climate change sounds like an important contributor if not the single cause.
    - polotics 7y ago
      Well hurricanes are also made stronger by the fact that CO2 traps more heat in lower layers and thus makes the upper atmosphere colder, leading to a higher differential with lower layers. So there you go, please inform your activism accordingly.
- pxi 7y ago
  Agreed - a single fire doesn't mean squat. Fires breaking out all over like an alien invasion mean the climate has already changed: https://myfirewatch.landgate.wa.gov.au https://myfirewatch.landgate.wa.gov.au
yen223 7y ago
The elections have already happened in May, and people have rejected the Labor party who was pushing for climate change reforms. I suspect if the elections were to happen now, things might be different. Lots of people have directly or indirectly (thanks to heavy smog) suffered from the wildfires, moreso than previous summers.
- sumedh 7y ago
  > and people have rejected the Labor party who was pushing for climate change reforms. Labor were also saying that taxes will increase, I think that is the major factor for their loss.
  - Gustomaximus 7y ago
    LNP were also pushing hard that taxes will increase under labour with their big push on the 'Labor will introduce death tax' which was highly unethical and misleading.
edflsafoiewq 7y ago
What do you expect them to actually do? The entire CO2 output of Australia could drop to zero with negligible effect on climate change.
- eeh 7y ago
  If every country acted that way, we'd make no progress. Every country needs to do its fair share, and Australia is not: http://theconversation.com/australia-hit-its-kyoto-target-but-it-was-more-a-three-inch-putt-than-a-hole-in-one-44731 http://theconversation.com/australia-hit-its-kyoto-target-bu...
  - shard972 7y ago
    And this will convince china and india to also lower how?
  - jamesbfb 7y ago
    Absolutely. Anthony Albanese (opposition leader for Labor here in Aus) said exactly this today on ABC. Whilst there is negligible correlation between the fires and our action (or inaction) to climate change as a country, the rhetoric of “well, we output so little compared of other developed nations” should not apply. Oh, and our elected Prime Minister brought a lump of coal into parliament, which says as much.
    - mceoin 7y ago
      Also important to recognize that Australia's carbon contribution is not solely limited to domestic output but also our coal industry. Australia is the largest exporter of coal in the world and this is not properly accounted for in our emissions accounting. On a per-person basis, our output is among the highest in the world and the inaction of others does not absolve us from having a moral responsibility to clean up our own mess at the very least.
      - eeh 7y ago
        Counting exports would lead to double counting: once for the exporter, once for the user. All that matters is countries having fair targets, and meeting those targets. Countries are free to meet their emissions reductions targets how they like, including buying cheap coal from Australia, planes from US, and cars from Germany.
perfunctory 7y ago
> election voting choices Unfortunately, I don't believe voting one way or another will make much difference. One party might be slightly better than another, but ultimately none will dare to implement sufficient measures. Climate problem will have to be solved outside of party politics. We need something akin to civil rights movement. On the global scale.
- hanniabu 7y ago
  > We need something akin to civil rights movement. On the global scale. We also need someone other than Greta as the face of it. While she does a great job, she's often dismissed due to her age and the US president has even publicly called her retarded in the literal sense.
  - docdeek 7y ago
    "...publicly called her retarded" I didn't catch that one - is there a source? All I am Googling up is Trump telling her to chill, watch a movie, and a reference to anger management.
  - arrrg 7y ago
    Anyone who becomes the face of this will be relentlessly smeared, with no regard for reality. People in the streets is probably what you need.
    - hanniabu 7y ago
      There's a difference between smeared and dismissed. I've even heard from people that think we need to make a change say "what does she know she's only a kid".
  - roenxi 7y ago
    Greta is 16. A 16 year old brain is literally not fully developed. A global movement should be able to muster a better spokesperson than a child. No matter how earnest and scared a child may be, it is still a mistake to make major policy decisions on their say-so.
carl_sandland 7y ago
Here in Canberra, it feels like I'm living in a space station on a toxic planet; I haven't seen blue skies in a month. See this chart (https://air-quality.com/place/australia/australian-capital-territory/be182a98?lang=en&standard=aqi_us https://air-quality.com/place/australia/australian-capital-t...) which has air pollution literally OFF their chart ranges. Hearing the drivel spewing from our PM and other politicians; It's always the same pandering responses with no real strategic change. It's beyond frustrating. We will have to be destroyed (are being?) before anyone admits there is are real problems requiring real actions. I have noticed that at a more local level of government, the messaging has changed and is more serious now. Here are some thought bubbles; * more aggressive back-burning and fuel load management: managed at a federal level by law. * stop all new coal, keep replacing with ?whatever?, including a reappraisal of nuclear. * start retreating populations back towards cities: reverse the sprawl into protected urban bubbles. * start requiring building to have ventilation and filtering systems that can handle smoke better, and are more efficient at sealing air: I've heard many people complain about smokey insides: happens to me too ! * stricter criminal penalties for any arson related crimes. * restrictions on tourism to risky areas during the fire season. Either that or we finally DO become a giant desert from coast to coast: should be safe enough then!
- chris1993 7y ago
  One of the issues is that the 'window' for fuel load management/back burning is shrinking because the bush fire season is starting earlier. We had out of control fires from September, which is unheard of, and concerns that they were started by back burning operations.
  - gwillz 7y ago
    In contrast, we had snow in our alpine regions into December. The weather is completely nutty recently.
mceoin 7y ago
Can only speak from my personal circles but the current bushfires aren't having a direct impact on personal responsibility (those who were interested were already interested; those that weren't still aren't). We just had a political cycle where the Labor party lost on (among many reasons) a more climate-change focused agenda in the federal election, so we won't know for another three years if there is any any voter backlash. Additionally, parliament is not in session and the major parties are currently focused on crisis response (instead of attacking each other), so the political football has yet to truly begin. Aside from the considerable pain and hardship for these local communities and the potential increase in politicization of environmental issues, the tourism sector is being obviously effected as you simply can't drive to many parts of New South Wales right now, tourists are being asked to leave many areas, and Sydney has been smog filled for the last month.
- sumedh 7y ago
  > so we won't know for another three years if there is any any voter backlash Labour will say your taxes will increase, liberals will promise more tax cuts and everyone will vote for Liberal again.
  - rs23296008n1 7y ago
    Not so much in Cobargo. They were somewhat less than enthusiastic over the Prime Bureaucrat's recent visit.
    - mceoin 7y ago
      Yes it's definitely possible that Bega will flip next state election even though the anger is directed at federal leadership.
- perilunar 7y ago
  > Sydney has been smog filled for the last month. Not smog, just plain smoke.
  - 7y ago
cookie_monsta 7y ago
If you live in in the US you might be familiar with the line that some conservative politicians are taking - that this is a time of crisis, tragedy and grieving and should not be politicised.
- martin_a 7y ago
  Thoughts and prayers!
Aaron_Putnam 7y ago
The biggest driver of Australia's increased emissions is the increasing population: https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/07/greenhouse-gas-emissions-tracking-population-growth/ https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/07/greenhouse-gas-emis... Under current immigration settings Australia will reach 40 million people by 2050. With zero net overseas migration, the population would stabilise at 27 million then fall slightly. This is the most important change that could be made to assist the Australian environment, but sadly discussing immigration is completely disallowed in mainstream Australian media.
look_lookatme 7y ago
Do you have a real example of how to take meaningful action that makes a difference, right now, today?

emrehan 7y ago

Let’s see how is this going to influence Australia’s opinion on their coal powered cheap electricity.

duk3luk3 7y ago
What are you comparing Australia's electricity to to call it cheap?
- taneq 7y ago
  Our wholesale power prices are actually quite low. Residential power is expensive because rooftop solar is putting the economics of maintaining the grid into a death spiral.
  - BLKNSLVR 7y ago
    Rooftop solar became popular because residential electricity prices were so high. Look up gold-plating poles and wires. The grid death spiral is a long way off. It's also something that could have been mitigated by the networks themselves if they'd had any economists worth their salt.
  - phs318u 7y ago
    Please support your claim with some evidence. I worked in the contestable electricity distribution business for 8 years from 2001 to 2009 and I can assure that your claim is complete bollocks.
    - bjowen 7y ago
      https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2014/july/1404136800/jess-hill/power-corrupts https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2014/july/1404136800/jes...
      - phs318u 7y ago
        Exactly. I worked at Powercor and Citipower - two distribution licenses but one parent company that ran a shared-everything operation across the two. We cost a bit more than one company to run but we’re able to recoup as if we were two wholly independent operations. The whole contestable distribution market was/is a huge scam.

softgrow 7y ago

I asked a firefighter when is the fire considered safe once it appears to have stopped burning? The answer surprised me a bit. You need to have a 100m strip around the fire where someone has raked or inspected inside every tree, under every cow pat, bit of grass to make sure nothing is smouldering in that area. This is a huge job as for the fire I enquired about (Cudlee Creek SA), the perimeter is 180km and a fair bit of this is in rugged terrain. So a ton of work.

mehrdadn 7y ago
Honestly I'm surprised that's sufficient. To my knowledge you can even have root fires burning underground for months. And I expect embers can travel in the wind far longer distances than 100m. It's pretty impressive to me they can do it with 100m of inspection, let alone how difficult that already is.
- shakna 7y ago
  > And I expect embers can travel in the wind far longer distances than 100m. Far, far more. Embers have been known to travel 10s of km. However, if that happens after a fire has been reduced to smouldering, if it lights something, that gets considered as a new fire.

BLKNSLVR 7y ago

As a long term Australian, this is categorically the worst fire season Australia has experienced. Summer in Australia always comes with one or two big fires in at-risk rural areas over the months from December to February. Queensland and New South Wales were burning heavily by early December. And now Victoria and South Australia have joined in as well and we're still only just into the second month of three. It's unprecedented. The one thing that may provide back handed comfort is that so much has burnt that it will be a few years before enough 'fuel' is regrown for fires of this scale to be possible again. I'm wondering the unknowable tipping point at which the cost of rebuilding from bushfires outweighs the costs of de-carbonising the economy. Part of the problem with that is who / where the costs are borne / spread amongst.

shard972 7y ago
How will de-carbonising the economy stop bush-fires on this scale?
raaaaraaaa2 7y ago
I would expect that intensive large fires will destroy all forests in affected areas... So next season will be 'fine' (= no trees at all).
- Tehdasi 7y ago
  Not quite, there will be less fuel, but not less trees. The bushland of Australia has had regular fires baked into it's ecosystem, so the plant species all have coping mechanisms to deal with fire. A good example is are the Banksia varieties that rely on a bushfire to germinate.
  - Scarblac 7y ago
    Yes, but apparently there are now also lots of forests burning that have never burned before and where the trees aren't adapted for it.
    - 7y ago

aaron695 7y ago

> The Australian Defense Force is sending ships to the Victoria town of Mallacoota on a two-week supply mission Sums up the lies from Time etc pretty well Using logic from primary school, exactly how could this happen? Two-week supply mission? Richest nation on earth, aka Australia. How does a fire destroy the ability for trucks to get through a road? Falling trees is the best fantasy I can think of. Which as long and they are slow moving, trucks can manage. Australians LARPing hurt like this is pretty fucked up. Two weeks supply my arse. Next door in Indonesia many people have died in flooding today, but they are brown. So Ozies bring it up about their pain for Facebook likes while the brown people have a true hurt.

shimms 7y ago
The town of Mallacoota is essentially surrounded by a moat of fire at the moment. The residents are trapped inside this ring, one part of which is the ocean. The Navy, as well as supplying, are evacuating people off the beach as there is no other safe way out of that part of the country at the moment.
- Cogito 7y ago
  I'll add here because parent is flagged, but the fires can get so hot that the radiant heat will kill you from 100m away. The firestorms suck up all the oxygen, and can cause massive 'fire tornadoes' that have literally flipped a fire truck onto its back. It's not a question of 'just' sending the trucks in.
  - rs23296008n1 7y ago
    You can definitely just send the trucks in. Whether anyone will be actually alive a few minutes later is a very different proposition. I'd advise against it. People underestimate just how hot fire can get and what it actually means to operate next to and within an environment that is essentially a furnace. A furnace that stretches all around you and up into the sky and is moving all the time. The air is hot and thick. Your protective gear is hot. Embers are flying around and if they touch something flammable they become a fresh new fire. A few "trees across the road" means many minutes to clear that road. Which is surrounded by fire. Or soon will be. That wind could change any minute. Or the logs are still smouldering or on fire. So you clear the road and then a few hundred metres later you reach more fallen trees and massive ditch you can't pass. Now the fire has crossed the road behind you. Sure, why not drive through all that?

benjaminsuch 7y ago

Excuse my ignorance, can anyone explain to me what makes it so difficult to extinguish the fire? (This question is not meant to be an ass) I tried to google it, but couldn't find a proper answer. I'm just really curious.

kmlx 7y ago
you've got to understand australia is huge, as big as the united states. so when you've got fires as big as european nations, it's impossible to extinguish, even contain.
- benjaminsuch 7y ago
  Okay I get that, but how do they battle it? What is the plan? Where do they start? Are they just trying to prevent the spread and wait till the fire kills itself?
  - flukus 7y ago
    > Are they just trying to prevent the spread and wait till the fire kills itself? Basically this whenever possible, often if it's not near a populated area they won't even try to limit the spread, they put themselves out eventually with the right conditions (wind, rain, geography). Near populated areas they do what they can, mostly controlled burns and having fire breaks that allow them to effectively concentrate resources (firetrucks, water bombers) where they can actually be useful, a firetruck can be effective where there's a firebreak but without one it would be suicide to be there.
  - SturgeonsLaw 7y ago
    I can help answer this, one of my parents is a volunteer firefighter who was helping within the last few days. The current mandate for the CFA is asset protection, ie; protecting houses, farms and other properties where they can. It's understood that the fires can't be put out in the current conditions, so resources are focused on protecting buildings for now. We're hoping for rain, but that's probably not going to appear in any significant quantities for a couple of months.

pxi 7y ago

It's been nice in Brisbane the past few weeks. I'm starting to feel "survivor guilt". For the people saying we need less trees, please watch this: https://youtu.be/SIHIsSJ2Txk https://youtu.be/SIHIsSJ2Txk

fs2 7y ago

It's sad to see how these fires are automatically linked to climate change. Until the mid 2000's Australia burned down small patches of forests to prevent large disasters like these we have now. But that changed when burning down forests (mind you to prevent larger forest fires in the future) were deemed too bad for the environment. So now the policies and fire prevention techniques changed (for the worse) and exactly what many firefighters predicted has happened: mass fires covering the east coast. It doesn't matter how much the climate changed when the whole part about prevention has been screwed up.

voltagex_ 7y ago
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/12/is-there-really-a-green-conspiracy-to-stop-bushfire-hazard-reduction https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/12/is-th...
- BLKNSLVR 7y ago
  Thanks for the link, someone staying with us was saying exactly what this article is debunking. I've sent it to them, but I'm expecting an 'unchanged opinion' type response.
  - voltagex_ 7y ago
    No worries. The last thing Australia needs is bad info at the moment.
- Merrill 7y ago
  >Bradstock says research “overwhelmingly” demonstrates that creating a 40- to 50-metre fuel break around a house can give it a much greater chance of surviving fires.
jdnenej 7y ago
The policies have not changed. The fire department has said the weather has been too dry for too long and they are unable to do controlled burns like they used to.

marliechiller 7y ago

is there any way of harnessing all of that out of control heat energy to try and salvage at least some good from the situation?

Nasrudith 7y ago
Technically yes but not practically because the temperature differential is what is needed and well as considerable logistical and engineering issues of making something which uses it large enough to deal with a moving and raging fire - let alone not interfering with fightint efforts or being accused of arson to not pay for fuel. Nobody has used Centralia, PA as a generator despite the long burning underground coal fire - it has also been moving underground in a regular pattern.

tempsy 7y ago

I heard that earlier efforts in the year to do controlled burns were protested against by activists and thus paused and could’ve contributed to the extent of the fires now.

edgefield0 7y ago
Everything is fine. This is just fire mismanagement and is in no way indicative of a climate crisis. /s
- tempsy 7y ago
  It can be both
BLKNSLVR 7y ago
Elsewhere in the discussion sometime posted a link to an article debunking that common misconception from a number of angles.
Intermernet 7y ago
This is misinformation happily spread by the Australian media, who are hand in hand with the fossil fuel and forestry lobbiests. The Australian green party has supported hazard reduction burning for many years. The activists you mention have had pretty much zero influence on what hazard reduction has been done. The current government cut the budget for the fire service so drastically that they lost about 60% of the qualified staff who were in charge of planning hazard reduction burns. We have areas the size of Tasmania that are the responsibility of 1 hazard reduction expert. The areas that are burning are not areas that the activists you mentioned were active. Some of the fires in September and October were likely caused by hazard reduction burning. Basically, hazard reduction burning is a viable technique when the fire season lasts 3 or 4 months. This fire season is looking like it will last for 6 to 7 months, which leaves very little time to plan and execute hazard reduction. You are probably not taking into account the size of the areas that require hazard reduction management, and the low (now even lower) number of people who are responsible for it. In short, environmental activists (and, mostly, arsonists) are a bogeyman created by people trying to divert attention away from the real problems. The main real problems are: Due to forestry the water cycle on the western side of the great dividing range (and other mountains in Australia) has been disrupted and areas that usually receive rain have had declining rain or no rain in the past decade. Global patterns such as El Nino have been disrupted leading to less precipitation and one of the worst droughts in Australian history. Average temperatures across the continent have been setting new records for the past decade, with 2019 being the hottest year on record, and about 3 weeks ago we had the hottest day on record Australia wide. Serious budget cuts to the organisations who are responsible for hazard reduction in fire prone areas. It's basically the perfect storm of climate change and government ineptitude. But, according to our glorious leader, we should not worry, stay calm and watch the cricket. Seriously, you couldn't make this shit up if you tried.

jrziviani 7y ago

Why aren't Europe, Greta, Hollywood artists screaming their head off just like they did at Brazil/Amazon Forest on June?

truculent 7y ago
They are though? It’s even being reported in TIME...
- jrziviani 7y ago
  Not even close to the noise made here: Macron (and Hollywood artists) lying about "world lung", Europeans threatening us with economic sanctions, fake news everywhere (old pictures, fake pictures (from other places), animals that don't even exist in Amazon...
jkrltifk 7y ago
Hive it a bit of time. For the Amazon fires, local activists were DMing influencers. This is how coverage started on Instagram, and then the media picked it up. Now I already see instagram influencers asking about this, in about a week top accounts will post toom
apexalpha 7y ago
We do, it's in the news non stop.
- jrziviani 7y ago
  Is Macron saying anything about "world intervention" as well? Otherwise it might look like Europe is only interested in forests that compensate their CO2 emissions. Should I stop burning CO2? nahhh, it's too expensive. Let's pretend we care about others forests and blame on them.
  - apexalpha 7y ago
    Is the AUS government actively incentivizing people to burn down patches of forest to turn into economically viable land?

jaimex2 7y ago

The real tragedy here is the amount of wildlife and livestock gone. The toll is estimated at about half a billion animals so far.

JetBen 7y ago

"Throw another shrimp on the barbie", he said. "No worries, mate. It'll be fine", he said... FYI - I'm an Aussie born and bred, and part of our culture is to laugh at ourselves, even during the hard times. That's how Australians stay so resilient through hardship.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago
"It'll be fine"? Not "She'll be right"?
- JetBen 7y ago
  Ha! I already got downvoted for my culturally appropriate joke. If I'd said "She'll be right", I probably would have gotten banned from HN.... again.

foxhop 7y ago

I'm curious how all the permaculture farms and homesteads are faring. Are these alternative landscapes surviving or maybe thriving dispite the droughts and fires? Could the country promote or even mandate permaculture style landworks?

pjc50 7y ago
Permaculture also burns. Most of what's on fire is naturally growing eucalyptus and brush.
bjowen 7y ago
“Alternative landscapes” here really means exotic species that aren’t fire-propagated. There’s some evidence that exotics are protective of property in a low-intensity fire, but they’re also far more dependent on water, which is a desperately scarce resource, and many are deciduous, which adds to fuel loads. The wide-scale promotion of non-native flora should be obvious enough as a non-starter.

yassam 7y ago

As an Australian resident and now citizen for 20 years, I've been pretty angry since that last federal election. So many people here are still denying man-made global warming, and that includes our own government, which stood in the way of progress at COP25 [1]. Even now, in the midst of unprecedented heat, drought and fire that has gripped this continent for months, if not years, "friends" of mine regularly post the most ignorant climate denialist BS on FB. [1] https://reneweconomy.com.au/cop25-talks-labelled-lost-opportunity-as-australia-burns-its-international-reputation-46894/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/cop25-talks-labelled-lost-opport...

crispinb 7y ago
So many people here are still denying man-made global warming That isn't really true beyond the margins. Polls show that a large majority of Australians have accepted the science on climate collapse for two decades. Australians know what's happening, but they believe their wealth can insulate them personally from the consequences while they watch dusky foreigners die. The last federal election contained an implied declaration of environmental war on the Pacific island nations, with the tradeoffs very clearly spelled out in the campaign. Australia is a rogue nation of self-comforting nihilists, for whom Scott Morrison is a very natural leader.
- bjowen 7y ago
  “The margins” also unfortunately include the perpetually outraged Alan Jones, and every policy pie his pudgy fingers poke. +1 on your diagnosis of the cultural problem.
  - crispinb 7y ago
    Yes absolutely, of course. No-one can deny the outsized political significance of those margins along many dimensions (marginal rural constituencies, the Liberal/Nat/LNP right-wing factions, Alan Jones' grumpy gossiping old men, perpetually outraged about anything done by anyone under 60, the Murdoch press, etc). I guess my point is that these extreme margins gain their power only because of the nihilism of the skittish 'moderate' Australian majority, which knows enough, and cares little about anything of significance.

maddog3356 7y ago

At https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21934288 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21934288 from user voldacar is: > Could you repost your original post (now flagged) so I and others can see your argument? From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21933963 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21933963 here is the original post: For "1/ The looming climate crisis will be to this century what the two world wars were to the previous one. It will require countries and institutions to re-allocate capital from other endeavors to fight against a warming planet. This is the decade we will begin to see this re-allocation of capital. We will see carbon taxed like the vice that it is in most countries around the world this decade, including in the US. We will see real estate values collapse in some of the most affected regions and we will see real estate values increase in regions that benefit from the warming climate. We will see massive capital investments made in protecting critical regions and infrastructure. We will see nuclear power make a resurgence around the world, particularly smaller reactors that are easier to build and safer to operate. We will see installed solar power worldwide go from ~650GW currently to over 20,000GW by the end of this decade. All of these things and many more will cause the capital markets to focus on and fund the climate issue to the detriment of many other sectors." there is an accurate one word summary -- nonsense. With two or more words, even worse than nonsense. It's time to drive a stake through the heart of this climate change alarmism. We can do a good job just in this little post. In simple terms, there is no serious evidence that CO2 from human activities at anything like probable concentrations will have any significant effect on the temperature or climate of the earth. Yes, CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but it is a long logical path from there to any claims of a significant effect. We need just two steps: (1) History. There is NOTHING in the climate history from the present back to about 1 million years ago that supports the idea that anything like realistic concentrations of CO2 from human activities will have any significant effect on temperatures. (i) For the ice core records going back ~1 million years, yes, both temperatures and CO2 concentrations went both up and down. BUT, if we just look carefully at the big graph in Al Gore's movie, with high irony, that graph totally destroys his claims from that graph: He misread the graph. The main point is that there is an 800 year delay; CO2 concentrations changed 800 years AFTER the temperature changes, from whatever cause. Specifically: (a) When temperatures started increasing, from whatever cause, CO2 concentrations were LOW, not high. (b) About 800 years later CO2 concentrations were HIGH, from increased biological activity from the higher temperatures. (c) When temperatures started to fall, from whatever cause, CO2 concentrations were still HIGH, not low. (d) The high CO2 concentrations did not keep the temperatures from falling. (e) Once the temperatures fell, about 800 years later so did CO2 concentrations. Net, CO2 did not cause the higher temperatures or keep the higher temperatures from falling. (ii) In the last 2000 years we had the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age, and there is no suggestion that CO2 concentration changes caused either. (iii) Starting in the 1940s and through about 1970, we actually had some significant cooling, but in those years CO2 from human activities -- WWII, pulling of the Great Depression, and the economic boom after WWII -- increased. So, we got COOLING, not warming, with the additional CO2 from human activities. Net, there is NO data from the historical record that supports the claim that higher CO2 will cause higher temperatures. (2) Yes, CO2 is a <i>greenhouse</i> gas. The absorption spectrum is at https://webbook.nist.gov/cgi/cbook.cgi?Spec=C124389&Index=0&Type=IR&Large=on https://webbook.nist.gov/cgi/cbook.cgi?Spec=C124389&Index=0&... So, CO2 absorbs in three narrow bands, one for each of bending, stretching, and twisting of the molecule, out in the infrared. No, Tom Friedman of the NYT: CO2 does not absorb sunlight, and anyone can confirm this by looking at a source of CO2, e.g., exhaling or the bubbles from soda pop, and simply observing that the CO2 is not visible and does not cast a shadow. So, the theory has been that the CO2 warms the planet. Then there has been ALARMIST CLAIM: Extra CO2 from current human activities will soon cause significant extra warming and, thus, "climate change", a "climate crisis", etc. Since the historical record can't support the ALARMIST CLAIM, we have to rely on the theory based on the absorption spectrum of CO2 and computation. Well the computations were done by dozens of teams, and the results are summarized in http://www.energyadvocate.com/gc1.jpg http://www.energyadvocate.com/gc1.jpg Net, as in this graph, nearly all the computations predicted rapid, significant increases in temperatures soon. Well the time of predicted increases came and went with no sign of anything like the predicted increases. In science, when predictions are made and found to be false, we junk the science. No doubt, the failures in that graph are some of the worst in all the history of science. GOOD science, e.g., the hunt for and finding the Higgs boson at the LHC (Large Hadron Collider), the observations that confirmed the predictions of black holes, many other confirmed predictions of special and general relativity, the A-bomb, the H-bomb, the design of the Hubble telescope, to the quantum mechanics in semi-conductors that are the core of current digital electronics, the science was just rock solid. We are just awash in super solid science, and the global warming computations in that graph are just a humiliation of anything scientific and just sick. So, for the ALARMIST CLAIM, there is no scientific support. For more there is the video documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Mx0_8YEtg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Mx0_8YEtg there see (A) the remarks of MIT Professor R. Lindzen on (i) why any warming we might be getting now cannot be from CO2 and (ii) the huge pile of money that didn't just buy off the climate scientists but HIRED the climate alarmists pretending to be climate scientists, maybe 10 times more alarmists than real scientists. Also that documentary argues that the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age were caused by variations in the rates of sun spots. More sun spots increase the solar wind which, from more links in a causal chain, in the end slows cloud formation and has a net warming effect. So, since both (1) history from ~1 million years ago to the present and (2) the computations based on CO2 being a greenhouse gas fail to support the ALARMIST CLAIM, we have no scientific support or even meaningful evidence for the ALARMIST CLAIM or the proposed very expensive reductions in carbon, etc. In this case and quite generally, if we are willing to go forward with big, expensive changes without good evidence, then we leave ourselves open to some of the worst mistakes in all of civilization. One current example of such mistakes is killing off the rhinoceroses to get their horns for use in Chinese medicine. For another such mistake, there is from page 76 of Susan Milbrath, Star Gods of the Maya: Astronomy in Art, Folklore, and Calendars (The Linda Schele Series in Maya and Pre-Columbian Studies), ISBN-13 978-0292752269, University of Texas Press, 2000. with "Indeed, blood sacrifice is required for the sun to move, according to Aztec cosmology (Durian 1971:179; Sahaguin 1950 - 1982, 7:8)." That is the Mayan charlatans killed people to pour their blood on a rock to keep the sun moving across the sky. No doubt the sun actually did keep moving across the sky. If we go forward with the Green New Deal, the Paris Accords, carbon taxes, etc. we are making a mistake as irrational as in the Chinese medicine and the Mayans. Warning: It appears that now the sun is entering the part of the 11 year or so sunspot cycle with fewer sun spots. So, we are in line for a few years of cooling. So, don't believe a claim of the global warming alarmists that their efforts caused the cooling. At this point, continuing with entertaining the ALARMIST CLAIM is just nonsense, expensive nonsense.

Khaine 7y ago

There has been a lack of leadership in Australia for at least a generation. Since Rudd took office, politicians have been driven by polls and the media. The current government is no exception. We need to do more to protect Australia's environment, including from climate change. We are letting the Great Barrier Reef wither away, and our land is burning. The lack of leadership is particularly frustrating. Instead of developing and growing new sustainable industries that will be around when the world has de-carbonised the government is doubling down on coal. It is utter madness. We have lacked a cohesive energy policy for over a decade due to climate change being a political issue where sides have been divided. Its hard to believe, but in 2007 the collation under John Howard took a carbon emissions policy to the election. We have regressed in policy from that point. Ultimately, a lot of the blame for all of this sits with the Greens. If they had been so blinded by purity and supported Rudd's carbon pollution reduction scheme. It would have been in place, and like the GST been settled. Instead they allowed it to become a political football. That plus Gillard's ineptness with the carbon tax has made this a toxic debate. Talk is cheap, and the only thing that will change it is writing to your representative and letting them know. I strongly urge you to respectfully write to your MP and let them know they need to do better.