7 ms·

Australia's severe wildfires were predicted by the government over a decade ago

71 points by stopads 7y ago

onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
This is a large part of what the USDA and The Department of Energy do in the US. It's sad we live in a world where people would rather not know risks than know them -- think it's worthless to find studies that determine these types of risks that most people wouldn't think of, or know how to calculate, or what would be intelligent things to do to prepare for them... I guess if all you care about is the market going up, you're better off if people know about less risks.
- vmchale 7y ago
  > I guess if all you care about is the market going up, you're better off if people know about less risks. It's even more crass: the interests of a few oil/coal companies allow us to paper over the very real dangers of fossil fuels &c. to the detriment of basically everyone in the world, every other industry.
L_226 7y ago
Yes, but this was the 2008 Rudd (Labor) government. The current Liberal government has spent most of its time reversing all the previous Labor policies it didn't like (like the carbon tax we briefly had) - which is business as usual in Australia after a change of government. I really want to do an analysis of the money Australia would have made from that repealed carbon tax up to now, vs the total amount of all the recent donations to the RFS (currently at like A$48 million [0]). It really is shameful that a nation with one of the highest GDPs per capita is getting donations to deal with a situation that was foreseen, and not just ignored but had (potential) solutions that were actively removed. [0] - https://www.facebook.com/donate/1010958179269977/ https://www.facebook.com/donate/1010958179269977/
- chrisco255 7y ago
  If you think carbon taxes are going to stop a 3 year drought from occasionally hitting Australia, a region with thousands of years of documented dry spells, I don't know what to say. We don't control the rain. The only sensible thing Australia can do is prescribed burning and bush thinning.
  - L_226 7y ago
    Sorry let me rephrase, a carbon tax would have done these things: - reduced Australia's carbon emissions (not a massive deal by itself) - built up a public repository of cash that could have been allocated to something useful, like funding the fire services - lead by example; we will now never know if Australia's leading by example would have encouraged a wider implementation of carbon tax schemes and a reduction in carbon emissions You are correct that it would have not by itself mitigated the natural drought cycle in Australia, however the opportunity to reduce the impact was lost - and Australia is poorer for it. Finally, I did not suggest that a carbon tax would have stopped these fires, only that I would like to do an analysis between what the potential sum of taxes would have been versus the donation totals. Cheers.
    - daneyh 7y ago
      Also relatively unquantifiable but: -divert funding to sustainable and productive industries which would further reduce Australian carbon emissions -create commercial opportunities in exportable industries that would have positive impact on GDP and net exports.
    - 0xy 7y ago
      Also, notably, it does nothing to impact arson rates - which are the primary cause of the crisis.
      - lucy_gatenby 7y ago
        This is plain wrong and is misinformation. https://theconversation.com/bushfires-bots-and-arson-claims-australia-flung-in-the-global-disinformation-spotlight-129556 https://theconversation.com/bushfires-bots-and-arson-claims-...
- aldoushuxley001 7y ago
  A carbon tax has almost nothing to do with the current fires in Australia; sounds like you have an axe to grind.
  - cpach 7y ago
    So global warming has nothing to do with it?
    - aldoushuxley001 7y ago
      Correct. Almost nothing to do with it.
      - JoeyJoJoJr 7y ago
        You are going to need to provide further explanation why, because your view does not at all fit with consensus.
      - plugger 7y ago
        Quantify almost.
- SubuSS 7y ago
  At the scale this is happening, How is this different from the 'big one' predictions that talks about the San Andreas Fault earthquake possibility or the yellowstone volcano one even? I guess beyond a particular point humanity is still at the mercy of nature isn't it? As bad as the reversals sound, making it a government thing seems like overfitting.
- 0xy 7y ago
  The vast majority of Australia's fires were caused directly by arson, so much so that the NSW police are starting a taskforce to tackle it while publicly saying it's the primary cause. How would a carbon price help arson, considering that it'll likely have a negligible impact on temperatures and therefore intensity of bushfires? Arson is also getting worse and more severe.
  - L_226 7y ago
    This is fake news [0]. [0] - https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/dangerous-misinformation-news-corp-employee-s-fire-coverage-email-20200110-p53qel.html https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/dangerous-...
    - ithkuil 7y ago
      How can I, as an external observer that doesn't even live in Australia, disentangle these mutual accusations of fake news? From what I can see there are those who claim that climate change has to do with it and there are those who claim it's mainly arsonist. Then there are those who claim that focusing on the arsonists is actively used to deflect from the climate change problem, and there are those who claim that such claim actively used to pursue the agenda of climate change activism. Is there a way to objectively figure out what's going on?
      - L_226 7y ago
        Objectively, probably not - short of physically going and interviewing police officers etc directly involved. But you can always attempt to more fully understand a given problem space and the political forces at work to shape the debate. You then need to apply a filter of rational analysis onto all 'news' you consume, attempt to work out any inherent bias in the source, hypothesise a reason for a bias to exist even if it is not apparent, then determine that if a bias exists, who profits from it. Then make up your own opinion. Just like with everything else on the internet. In this case, the Murdoch press has been actively supressing the climate debate in Australia for years, for which you can find more sources than I can reasonably link here I'm sure.
clumsysmurf 7y ago
I read somewhere between 480 million - 1 billion animals have perished, especially the less mobile species like koalas. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/1/6/21051897/australia-fires-billion-animals-dead-estimate https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/1/6/21051897/austral...
vmchale 7y ago
Scientists have warned about this for decades, but they were smeared or even harassed by bad-faith actors. I wish that those responsible would be punished or at least demoted.
- trhway 7y ago
  That really depends on what end of the climate change stick the country is at. Such smearing/harassment has never been a thing in Russia/USSR. Back at USSR in the middle school in mid-198x we were taught the scientific fact of human caused climate change/global warming. The lessons were learnt well - these days Russia invests all the way into the things like the new and increased oil and gas production and builds up the new large fleet of ships and related infrastructure - ports, railways, etc. - to ramp full scale up during the coming decade the freight route through the clearing Arctic as that route is shorter than through the Suez channel.
  - vmchale 7y ago
    That's true. Here in the United States scientists were sued for telling the truth, which caused immense headache.
ribble 7y ago
Australia's wildfires are being caused by arsonists. 183 arrested so far... https://www.christianpost.com/news/australia-183-arrested-for-arson-as-deadly-bushfires-rage-at-least-25-people-killed.html https://www.christianpost.com/news/australia-183-arrested-fo... Left-wingers seeking to "prove" climate calamity.
blargmaster33 7y ago
Except that over 180 arrests for arson has been made aka the eco terrorists are at it

71 points by stopads 7y ago

This is a large part of what the USDA and The Department of Energy do in the US. It's sad we live in a world where people would rather not know risks than know them -- think it's worthless to find studies that determine these types of risks that most people wouldn't think of, or know how to calculate, or what would be intelligent things to do to prepare for them... I guess if all you care about is the market going up, you're better off if people know about less risks.

vmchale 7y ago
> I guess if all you care about is the market going up, you're better off if people know about less risks. It's even more crass: the interests of a few oil/coal companies allow us to paper over the very real dangers of fossil fuels &c. to the detriment of basically everyone in the world, every other industry.

L_226 7y ago

Yes, but this was the 2008 Rudd (Labor) government. The current Liberal government has spent most of its time reversing all the previous Labor policies it didn't like (like the carbon tax we briefly had) - which is business as usual in Australia after a change of government. I really want to do an analysis of the money Australia would have made from that repealed carbon tax up to now, vs the total amount of all the recent donations to the RFS (currently at like A$48 million [0]). It really is shameful that a nation with one of the highest GDPs per capita is getting donations to deal with a situation that was foreseen, and not just ignored but had (potential) solutions that were actively removed. [0] - https://www.facebook.com/donate/1010958179269977/ https://www.facebook.com/donate/1010958179269977/

chrisco255 7y ago
If you think carbon taxes are going to stop a 3 year drought from occasionally hitting Australia, a region with thousands of years of documented dry spells, I don't know what to say. We don't control the rain. The only sensible thing Australia can do is prescribed burning and bush thinning.
- L_226 7y ago
  Sorry let me rephrase, a carbon tax would have done these things: - reduced Australia's carbon emissions (not a massive deal by itself) - built up a public repository of cash that could have been allocated to something useful, like funding the fire services - lead by example; we will now never know if Australia's leading by example would have encouraged a wider implementation of carbon tax schemes and a reduction in carbon emissions You are correct that it would have not by itself mitigated the natural drought cycle in Australia, however the opportunity to reduce the impact was lost - and Australia is poorer for it. Finally, I did not suggest that a carbon tax would have stopped these fires, only that I would like to do an analysis between what the potential sum of taxes would have been versus the donation totals. Cheers.
  - daneyh 7y ago
    Also relatively unquantifiable but: -divert funding to sustainable and productive industries which would further reduce Australian carbon emissions -create commercial opportunities in exportable industries that would have positive impact on GDP and net exports.
  - 0xy 7y ago
    Also, notably, it does nothing to impact arson rates - which are the primary cause of the crisis.
    - lucy_gatenby 7y ago
      This is plain wrong and is misinformation. https://theconversation.com/bushfires-bots-and-arson-claims-australia-flung-in-the-global-disinformation-spotlight-129556 https://theconversation.com/bushfires-bots-and-arson-claims-...
aldoushuxley001 7y ago
A carbon tax has almost nothing to do with the current fires in Australia; sounds like you have an axe to grind.
- cpach 7y ago
  So global warming has nothing to do with it?
  - aldoushuxley001 7y ago
    Correct. Almost nothing to do with it.
    - JoeyJoJoJr 7y ago
      You are going to need to provide further explanation why, because your view does not at all fit with consensus.
    - plugger 7y ago
      Quantify almost.
SubuSS 7y ago
At the scale this is happening, How is this different from the 'big one' predictions that talks about the San Andreas Fault earthquake possibility or the yellowstone volcano one even? I guess beyond a particular point humanity is still at the mercy of nature isn't it? As bad as the reversals sound, making it a government thing seems like overfitting.
0xy 7y ago
The vast majority of Australia's fires were caused directly by arson, so much so that the NSW police are starting a taskforce to tackle it while publicly saying it's the primary cause. How would a carbon price help arson, considering that it'll likely have a negligible impact on temperatures and therefore intensity of bushfires? Arson is also getting worse and more severe.
- L_226 7y ago
  This is fake news [0]. [0] - https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/dangerous-misinformation-news-corp-employee-s-fire-coverage-email-20200110-p53qel.html https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/dangerous-...
  - ithkuil 7y ago
    How can I, as an external observer that doesn't even live in Australia, disentangle these mutual accusations of fake news? From what I can see there are those who claim that climate change has to do with it and there are those who claim it's mainly arsonist. Then there are those who claim that focusing on the arsonists is actively used to deflect from the climate change problem, and there are those who claim that such claim actively used to pursue the agenda of climate change activism. Is there a way to objectively figure out what's going on?
    - L_226 7y ago
      Objectively, probably not - short of physically going and interviewing police officers etc directly involved. But you can always attempt to more fully understand a given problem space and the political forces at work to shape the debate. You then need to apply a filter of rational analysis onto all 'news' you consume, attempt to work out any inherent bias in the source, hypothesise a reason for a bias to exist even if it is not apparent, then determine that if a bias exists, who profits from it. Then make up your own opinion. Just like with everything else on the internet. In this case, the Murdoch press has been actively supressing the climate debate in Australia for years, for which you can find more sources than I can reasonably link here I'm sure.

clumsysmurf 7y ago

I read somewhere between 480 million - 1 billion animals have perished, especially the less mobile species like koalas. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/1/6/21051897/australia-fires-billion-animals-dead-estimate https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/1/6/21051897/austral...

vmchale 7y ago

Scientists have warned about this for decades, but they were smeared or even harassed by bad-faith actors. I wish that those responsible would be punished or at least demoted.

trhway 7y ago
That really depends on what end of the climate change stick the country is at. Such smearing/harassment has never been a thing in Russia/USSR. Back at USSR in the middle school in mid-198x we were taught the scientific fact of human caused climate change/global warming. The lessons were learnt well - these days Russia invests all the way into the things like the new and increased oil and gas production and builds up the new large fleet of ships and related infrastructure - ports, railways, etc. - to ramp full scale up during the coming decade the freight route through the clearing Arctic as that route is shorter than through the Suez channel.
- vmchale 7y ago
  That's true. Here in the United States scientists were sued for telling the truth, which caused immense headache.

ribble 7y ago

Australia's wildfires are being caused by arsonists. 183 arrested so far... https://www.christianpost.com/news/australia-183-arrested-for-arson-as-deadly-bushfires-rage-at-least-25-people-killed.html https://www.christianpost.com/news/australia-183-arrested-fo... Left-wingers seeking to "prove" climate calamity.

blargmaster33 7y ago

Except that over 180 arrests for arson has been made aka the eco terrorists are at it