6 ms·

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'

by 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 I really want to do an analysis of the money Australia would have made from that repealed carbon tax up to now, vs the total amount of all the recent donations to the RFS (currently at like A$48 million [0]).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-...
- plugger 7y ago
  > The only sensible thing Australia can do is prescribed burning and bush thinning. Which we are doing. But the opportunities to do prescribed burns aren't what they once were because the climate is changing and the window for these types of activities is smaller annually. We need more than just prescribed burns.
- h0l0cube 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 Are you implying that the rate and duration of dry spells have been the constant for thousands of years? If so, do you have data back this up? If not, is it possible that we're living in exceptional weather conditions? A quick google gives me an article from the Bureau of Meteorology, an organization with a wealth of data, the requisite compute power to analyze the data, and actual expects of climate modelling: http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/updates/articles/a010-southern-rainfall-decline.shtml http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/updates/articles/a010-southern... > The only sensible thing Australia can do is prescribed burning and bush thinning. Do you think that fire authorities haven't been doing this already? If anything their capacity has been reduced by recent budget cuts from NSW Liberal Party - the core policies of the Liberal Party are smaller government, individual responsibility, and hence lower taxes across the board. The Victorian Labor party, on the other hand, increased their capability. Unfortunately there's a number of forests that are exceptionally dry due to recent long term trends, and Australia just needs more and more resources to manage its land. So sensible things to do are: - provide more resources for land management - stop making the world hotter
  - chrisco255 7y ago
    Australia has generally gotten wetter over the past 50 years than the first 50 years of the 20th century: http://www.drroyspencer.com/2020/01/are-australia-bushfires-worsening-from-human-caused-climate-change/ http://www.drroyspencer.com/2020/01/are-australia-bushfires-... This is a deep drought but it's coming on the tail end of a wetter than average decade. So plants have had plenty of time to build up combustible fuel over the past decade. "As former State Fire Chiefs call for a summit on bushfires, expert and scientist David Packham explains that it has nothing to do with climate change and everything to do with fuel-loads." https://volunteerfirefighters.org.au/scientist-david-packham-on-whats-really-causing-the-bushfires https://volunteerfirefighters.org.au/scientist-david-packham... David Packham warned about the fuel loads in 2015. Bushfire scientist David Packham warns of huge blaze threat, urges increase in fuel reduction burns Darren Gray By Darren Gray Updated March 12, 2015 — 4.05pm https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/bushfire-scientist-david-packham-warns-of-huge-blaze-threat-urges-increase-in-fuel-reduction-burns-20150312-14259h.html?fbclid=IwAR34JIaMaE2gqzioGU3S-KC6wcc7fRn8Kg_HpJS8JLb8RDF1ETUm-_QHFJk https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/bushfire-scienti... The Aussie government apparently didn't listen to its own experts on this 4 years ago. Worse still, they actively discouraged and fined people for attempting to remove firewood from national parks: https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/news/removing-firewood-from-national-parks-is-illegal https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/news/removing-firewood-fr... That's negligence of the highest order.
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.

by L_226 7y ago

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-...
plugger 7y ago
> The only sensible thing Australia can do is prescribed burning and bush thinning. Which we are doing. But the opportunities to do prescribed burns aren't what they once were because the climate is changing and the window for these types of activities is smaller annually. We need more than just prescribed burns.
h0l0cube 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 Are you implying that the rate and duration of dry spells have been the constant for thousands of years? If so, do you have data back this up? If not, is it possible that we're living in exceptional weather conditions? A quick google gives me an article from the Bureau of Meteorology, an organization with a wealth of data, the requisite compute power to analyze the data, and actual expects of climate modelling: http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/updates/articles/a010-southern-rainfall-decline.shtml http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/updates/articles/a010-southern... > The only sensible thing Australia can do is prescribed burning and bush thinning. Do you think that fire authorities haven't been doing this already? If anything their capacity has been reduced by recent budget cuts from NSW Liberal Party - the core policies of the Liberal Party are smaller government, individual responsibility, and hence lower taxes across the board. The Victorian Labor party, on the other hand, increased their capability. Unfortunately there's a number of forests that are exceptionally dry due to recent long term trends, and Australia just needs more and more resources to manage its land. So sensible things to do are: - provide more resources for land management - stop making the world hotter
- chrisco255 7y ago
  Australia has generally gotten wetter over the past 50 years than the first 50 years of the 20th century: http://www.drroyspencer.com/2020/01/are-australia-bushfires-worsening-from-human-caused-climate-change/ http://www.drroyspencer.com/2020/01/are-australia-bushfires-... This is a deep drought but it's coming on the tail end of a wetter than average decade. So plants have had plenty of time to build up combustible fuel over the past decade. "As former State Fire Chiefs call for a summit on bushfires, expert and scientist David Packham explains that it has nothing to do with climate change and everything to do with fuel-loads." https://volunteerfirefighters.org.au/scientist-david-packham-on-whats-really-causing-the-bushfires https://volunteerfirefighters.org.au/scientist-david-packham... David Packham warned about the fuel loads in 2015. Bushfire scientist David Packham warns of huge blaze threat, urges increase in fuel reduction burns Darren Gray By Darren Gray Updated March 12, 2015 — 4.05pm https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/bushfire-scientist-david-packham-warns-of-huge-blaze-threat-urges-increase-in-fuel-reduction-burns-20150312-14259h.html?fbclid=IwAR34JIaMaE2gqzioGU3S-KC6wcc7fRn8Kg_HpJS8JLb8RDF1ETUm-_QHFJk https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/bushfire-scienti... The Aussie government apparently didn't listen to its own experts on this 4 years ago. Worse still, they actively discouraged and fined people for attempting to remove firewood from national parks: https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/news/removing-firewood-from-national-parks-is-illegal https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/news/removing-firewood-fr... That's negligence of the highest order.

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.