Why, start a fire, of course! Surely, only lunatics would use fire as a tool to promote the idea of reducing combustion to bring CO2 levels down to 350ppm. And yet, here we have it. From earth350.org where they write:
Australia Ignites For Climate Action…
If you haven’t yet seen the incredible photos out of Australia for 350 EARTH, you’re missing out.
First up is this gorgeous aerial, with the snaking highway behind it:
The design–which incorporates a windmill as a sign of clean energy alternatives–was made by Keith Chidzey.
The next photo is of a similar design, engulfed in flames.
The piece, which was photographed by acclaimed photographer Peter Solness, was designed to call attention to the issues of drought and wildfire in Australia.
While prolonged drought and bushfires a continuing crises in Australia, the problems (and their solutions) have never before been depicted so evocatively. Enormous thanks to Keith, Peter, and everyone else who helped create this beautiful piece.
==============================================================
Umm, the drought is over in Australia in case you 350.org folks haven’t noticed.
And I can’t help noticing how the second photo from above, doesn’t look that much different than this one:
I suppose it makes some sort of sense, as both events do tend to attract the same sort of firebugs filthy eco hippies artists people.
From the Wikipedia entry they say that for the 2010 event, “BLM issues 293 citations and 8 arrests.” BLM is the Bureau of Land Management.
I wonder if the earth350.org kooks got burn permits? I wonder if they restored the land to its previous state before torching it?
h/t to Ecotretas
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Ridiculae, for sure.
They’re idiots all right.
Look at the fires throughout the world, every day … And see where they all aare for the most part. Satellites know … Fire Mapper — http://firefly.geog.umd.edu/firemap/
Most of the fire are agricultural or land clearing operations in thrid world countries. Charcoal production figure big in the totals. I wonder why no one tracks this destruction daily.
“Surely, only lunatics would use fire as a tool to promote the idea of reducing combustion to bring CO2 levels down to 350ppm.”
wOw!
I wouldn’t trust those brainiacs with a rollerskate key. Things would undoubtedly go south in ways I could never imagine if they ever got their hands on one.
Lewis and Clark reported acres and acres of NATURALLY-BURNING coal fields in North Dakota when they paddled by going upstream in 1803.
Over one hundred years later, those same underground NATURAL fires are still burning in the shallow coal fields underneath South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana. More fires are burning in China. Tundra fires have smoldered for hundreds of years in Siberia.
And all of that energy is wasted.
(There are an admitted number of human-incurred underground fires – primarily in abandoned mines and other near-surface coal layers that were started by trash fires and surface forest fires. But none compare to those natural fires above.)
We are made guilty by the forest fires, by brush fires, and by “so-called clear-cutting. But every kilogram of carbon in forests and brush worldwide has grown back AFTER fires that had previously cleared every acre of forested land. Further, every dead tree now “decaying naturally” emits the same mass of CO2 (just a bit slower) that burning emits. Forest fires are a natural requirement of forests.
We should never “encourage” them nor ignore them. But the enviro’s pretty campaigns best serve the enviro’s only (as usual) and seldom address the real problems. But they do make their enviro sponsors feel better.
tarpon says:
December 1, 2010 at 4:19 pm
Allow the poor economical energy worldwide, and the poor you decry for making charcoal would only need it for their hamburgers. On football weekends.
But, until then, are you going to deny them permission to burn wood also? Are you going to kill them with your policies?
I’m switching from electrical heating to a wood fire this winter because electricity is now too expensive.
Well, at least they didn’t explode skeptical children.
I wonder if they restored the land to its previous state AFTER torching it?
Huh.
It gets better: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/energy-smart/sydney-to-go-it-alone-as-power-producer-20101201-18gr8.html
The Lord
MayorGoofball of Sydney, Clover Moore, has decided that she will fight those noxious, carbon emitting coal-fired power stations with natural gas burning power stations.racookpe1978 says:
“And all of that energy is wasted.”
Naaah – it’s helping to keep us warm. And, incidentally, preventing the next Ice Age.
The poor need development for better efficiency,cleaner environment, and proeper use of resources, if it take a village Nuke reactor so be it, but the holier than thou watermelons, who go to bed at night fearing healthy, happy, prosperous, dark skinned people are at the helm of NGO’s like 350, 1010, etc.
Hanging all the kelptocrats would be a good start…
In Australia no one is ever keen to declare the end of a drought, especially if drought status is linked with farm subsidies. But wow the story down under is the most marvellous La Nina (IOD) wet. North (Darwin), East and South-East it has been a remarkably wet spring and also fairly cool…just read the stories http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/
Some of the groups hyping 350 initially made the mistake of holding rallies and other types of events which would only look remotely impressive if you had lots of people involved. The slide shows on The Guardian website for a couple of years therefore included an awful lot of carefully cropped pictures of about a dozen people sadly huddling together in each location .
One of the rare wide shots one year was in, I think, a Scandinavian city square. True it had dozens, if not a hundred or more, people in the picture, but closer inspection revealed that most of them were passers-by wondering what the hell was going on.
Sensibly, more of these groups now restrict themselves to gestures which can, as in this case, produce a superficially impressive picture without blowing the gaff that they have virtually no supporters.
Did they have to perform an environmental impact study?
Just like the Hollywood types that tell us CO2 is bad, and then go film a movie with fires and explosions, cars being driven into lakes and so on.
In this allegedly drought-ravaged part of the world, we are currently enjoying above average rainfall and below-average temperatures. Farmers are facing destruction of crops due to too much rain.
Australia has always been a land of droughts and flooding rains. They come in cycles.
How much desert life was killed by this?
Neil’s comment raises a question for me… seriously. I know natural gas is clean burning, but clean coal is supposed to be clean also. Is natural gas cleaner than clean coal? Seriously. I don’t know. Obviously, both will result in atmospheric CO2, but that isn’t really the question. I am wondering about real pollutants. Does anyone have any numbers?
Just to emphasize the natural variability of the climate in the Broken Hill area (NSW, Australia) where they lit the fires, have a look at this ‘dry arid’ area right now:-
http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2010/12/01/3082076.htm?site=brokenhill
Neil says:
December 1, 2010 at 4:44 pm
Uh, not so fast – they don’t seem to be advocating pie in the sky solar or wind solutions built from unobtanium here – the plan appears to be to move towards a more decentralized approach, based upon natural gas, so it may not be totally bonkers.
Over-centralization and reliance on single point of failure generation and distribution schemes is one of the major issues not usually discussed with regards to power infrastructure 1.0 (and the modernization of same). Smaller, more distributed generation capabilities would likely be an improvement. Instead of wide swaths of an area losing power during an outage period, it would be more localized. Plus, ‘gas’ can be obtained from other sources than pumping naturally occurring pockets deep underground, plus if burns without many of the really noxious by-products involved with coal, which require extensive and expensive solutions to reduce to tolerable levels.
This one bears a bit of watching, instead of reflexive rock throwing.
Yeah…next thing you know, these eco-nuts will show us how to reduce our consumption by…I don’t know… having wild PARTIES in CANCUN, Mexico, or something……..Oh wait…
I’d like to recommend we start a global event where we all buy 5kgs of coal and burn it in order to bring attention to CO2 release.
350 is 10 degrees shy, maybe if they put 350 and 10:10 together. Nah, they’d just blow something up, set it on fire, or drop it from a plane.
Peter Spencer must be pleased.
Afraid my first thought, seeing picture #2, was not of the Burning Man, but of a much older custom. However, on inspection, I see nobody wearing sheets.
Neil – actually, natural gas is considerably cleaner burning than coal, while the CO2 factor is pretty much a wash it emits a whole lot less of all the other nasty stuff.
A power plant that burns gas is also much easier to maintain, the plant engineers love it – it comes in through a pipe, it goes into the firebox and it burns. No pulverizers, no conveyor belts, no trucks, no train cars, no bits of mine debris screwing up the works.
The only problem from the Oz perspective is they’ve got lots of coal and bugger-all natural gas, so far as I know, so it’d all have to be imported. Maybe I’m wrong.