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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We are struggling with bush fires in Western Australia at the moment… we had a very warm November, but December is off to a cool start. Currently there is a blaze to the south of Perth causing issues:
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/newshome/8433779/karnup-firefighters-brace-for-high-winds/
The travesty is that many of these bush fires are started by arsonists.
It should be noted however that the DEC (Department of Environment and Conservation) actually performs prescribed burns on a regular basis to reduce fuel loads in the Jarrah State Forest to the east and southeast of Perth. That way we have light burns from which the vegetation recovers quickly as opposed to uncontrolled heavy burns if loads build up too much… very sensible policy IMO. When you over-preserve the bush and fuel loads build up, the subsequent heavy burns decimate the area for years. Recovery is retarded under those circumstances.
There is some very interesting research on smoke germination BTW. A very tiny proportion (we are talking parts per billion) of chemicals in smoke drastically improve germination of many Australian species. Look up “karrikinolides” and have fun reading. Ironically it is because of research sponsored by companies mining the State Forest that we know as much as we do about such things as karrikinolildes and phytophotera (dieback). Without the mining companies presence there would only be a fraction of the research funding and corresponding understanding of our environment.
racookpe1978 says: …
All what follows is restricted by the IMF, which would rather give money to these country’s dictators than help the poor in these thrid world countries.
If the eco-nuts would allow these poor countries to build coal fired power plants, they wouldn’t need charcoal, clear cutting and forest destruction to stay alive. The farm techniques are some of the most destructive you can use. I don’t deny the poor doing what it takes. Just the fact that no one seems to care what is happening to the rest of the world. Like clear cutting the rain forest to grow palm oil trees for oil substitution
If these very same eco-nuts would allow nuclear power plants, we would all be better off.
And while we are at it, why not allow them to build DDT factories. Malaria has killed over 40 million African children under five in the decaes it was banned for a hoax.
There is lots of good that can be done, by simply allowing poor countries to use modern technology, like electricity. Not rationing of energy for developed countries.
It is an example of how to look really stupid.
Calm down a little folks as we don’t know what they were burning. In the ‘natural’ cycle burning a tree releases CO2 into the atmosphere which is then taken up in the growing of other trees. It’s supposed to be the burning of long locked away carbon in coal and oil that is the problem.
If they used recycled paper/wood it wouldn’t matter. If they used plastic material or such it would.
JEM says:
December 1, 2010 at 6:22 pm
JEM, we do have lots of gas (We sell it as LPG, LNG…) We use some and ship the rest to Asia. I don’t know what the price of the exported stuff is, but I remember that when the exports started the price was a lot lower (by ship) than the domestic use price (piped)
Its probably just me.. but the second photo spells SEX.
(I’ll get me coat)
JC
‘…the drought is over in Australia…’
The extended drought, which was cited as the most potent indication of CAGW and which was predicted by alarmists to continue indefinitely (because that would cause the most widespread alarm and despondency) is most certainly over (except for the SW).
To appreciate just how ‘over’ it is, click through the anomalies (1961-1990) menu:
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/rain/index.jsp?colour=colour&time=latest&step=0&map=anomaly&period=month&area=nat
JEM says:
December 1, 2010 at 6:22 pm
Actually Aus has large amounts of natural gas in Bass Strait and the north of Western Aus. It also has large amounts of coal seam gas in Qld and northern NSW. Not much about Sydney or the east coast.
If the fire created some charcoal, it did sequester some carbon. It can take quite a while for charcoal to break down, and it’s likely to break down into black soil rather than all going to the atmosphere.
Personally, what I found odd with the Australian art, compared to the other 350.org art; was it was the only one which actually went out of its way to physically ‘imprint’ its message on the actual land – using earth movers none the less. I would have thought pilling up stones would have been more in keeping (although a very real risk of finding something that would give you nasty bite doing that).
I had an email exchange with the artist concerned, the art was done on ‘degraded’ bush land, and the surrounding area has been seeded to regenerate – so it will eventually disappear. Although given the recent rains there is good chance its already gone.
What was interesting is that his response was cc’ed in with the ceo of 350.org and some collector/art friends – none of them (the artist included) challenged what I said regarding Indonesia and the degradation occurring there in the name of fighting climate change through supposed Co2 reduction.
Regarding distributed gas fired generation search on “blugen”. I’ve nothing to do with the company but I’ve looked at the product and it seems sound, unlike a lot of these things.
Regarding Australia’s weather patterns remember we’re the same size as the cont 48. WA is still desperately short of rainfall, but the Brisbane river was up 6 m (20 ft) down the road from my place for a week while they dumped excess water from the dams recently (after they were only 20% not long ago). Rumour is another dump sooner rather than later. It’s raining more days than not this summer.
Regarding controlled burns I was fighting fires in 93 in sydney. We lost all the outlying buildings and 4 cars at work and 7 houses at the bottom of my street. Firestorms are scary and regular burns do no harm to the enviroment, certainly not as much as the intense firestorms did. Took many years to recover and a lot of nutrients were lost.
It never ceases to amaze me that greenies, most of whom live in the inner city, not only feel they have a right to dictate to country people how they should live but view it as an obligation. It never seems to occur to them that people who go out of their way to live close to nature didn’t do it to lay waste to everything around them, and that all our decades of observation might have yielded a valid view of conservation different from theirs.
The key to understanding of course is that enviromentalism isn’t about saving the enviroment, that’s the excuse. They are really about self gratification. Sigh.
See? I told you, Australia is no longer teh lucky country, it’s no too full of idiots.
At leest we no how to spal proper like.
BTW if you want to see exactly what we face in Australia – see The Rise of the Green Left: Inside the Worldwide Ecosocialist Movement and their yahoo group .
“the drought is over in Australia”
Yes indeed. They come and they go. As Dorothea MacKellar famously penned about 1904, ours is a land of “droughts and flooding rains” (though the first bit is hushed up in alarmist circles these days!). Lovely poem, it is, about a wonderful country.
http://www.lancescoular.com/my-country-by-dorothea-mackellar.html#a
Here’s another epic that says it all: “Said Hanrahan” by John O’Brien composed in 1921. It’s a great read too.
http://www.middlemiss.org/lit/authors/obrienj/poetry/hanrahan.html
Droughts? Here’s our mighty Murray River in their time.
http://home.iprimus.com.au/foo7/droughthistory.html
And to-day? Look at our “arid outback”!
http://www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2010/11/29/3078972.htm?site=brokenhill
It takes all kinds to burn a man. Not everyone at that event is a “filthy eco hippie” though they have tamed it down from back in the days of the drive-by shooting range where you could shoot targets from your car window as you drive by.
Hippies tend not to build stuff like this and live to tell about it:
We could do our own demonstration…. that is, if we cared.
Maybe a Giant “GORE LIED” or “WUWT RULES” or “CLIMATEGATE” visible from space.
Fractals will end the climate debate
http://www.fractalnomics.com/2010/11/breaking-carbon-climate-spell-with.html
Totally aside from every other aspect, I have to say that Burning Man image is spectacular!
& heck if I know why, but it automatically made me think of the really moving 2004 movie, Man on Fire, starring Denzel Washinton.
A counter-org would be nice: 530.org! 530 ppm by 2050! To help all the nice crops and conifers! Warming is good for you! Subsidize CO2! Coal is King, Wind Blows! Oil Excels, Solar Sucks!
It’ll be lotsa fun. 😀
This is old hat. Commercial airliners from Perth to Adelaide reach the Bight about the Archipeligo of the Recherche. Just before there, in the early 1980s, a farmer had scraped some letters with a bulldozer. Can’t recall what the word was, could be wrong, but have a memory of “SHELL”.
The Aboriginal people of Aus used to set fire to the leaf litter to keep the ground clear for hunting and some of the gum trees can only shed seed after fires. So fire has been a part of the environment for longer than we’ve been building houses in the woods. In LA they planted gum and pine trees around the houses built on the Hollywood hills both of which are very resinous and drop lots of leaf litter just what you need around your house.
James
re post by; Ron Cram says: December 1, 2010 at 5:36 pm
Ron, ‘clean coal’ doesn’t exist yet. At this point, or at least as of very very recently, it was still theoretical or at least nowhere near commercial yet. Now, don’t get me wrong – in 1st world nations (or at least the USA, but I think pretty much all of them) years ago all sorts of things were changed or added to coal fired plants that did a tremendous job of reducing the gaseous and particulate releases – using low sulfur coal, scrubbers, etc.
These sorts of things aren’t what is meant by ‘clean coal,’ however, which refers primarily (completely?) to methods to capture and sequester coal plant CO2 emissions.
JC says:
December 1, 2010 at 7:20 pm
Its probably just me.. but the second photo spells SEX.
There was an ink blot psychologist here who showed a pateient a randon series of blots. The patient replied that each one was about SEX. The shrink accused the patient of being obsessed and needinmg help. The patient angrily replied, “Not me, mate. It’s you. You are the who keeps drawing the dirty pictures”.
re post by; Wind Rider says: December 1, 2010 at 5:38 pm
Wind Rider, I don’t know about other nations, although I’d suspect it’s similar, but in the US widespread power outages aren’t because of generation single point failure or distribution schemes. The problem is one of unbalanced power loads. When you have one area go down (often a blown transformer or something like that), you can wind up with either too much or too little load on other parts of the distribution grid. When that happens, areas shut down automatically to prevent further damage to the system. If you get an overload in particular, and shutdowns don’t occur as they should or a smidge too slowly, you wind up blowing out other transformers or equipment and get a cascading failure.
Going with smaller, disconnected systems as you mention would probably wind up being worse, not better. Why? Because sure, then you avoid the rare cascade failures, but the entire area goes down goes down instead. With a larger grid, you have many different sources online, and many different pathways the electricity can follow – so you get a lot fewer failures and they’re typically limited to much smaller areas also. If a plant goes down or comes off grid unexpectedly – or for planned maintenance, a large grid can absorb the change and make up for the difference. Because you’ve got a grid, electricity can probably be routed into many areas that would otherwise be without power – often times people haven’t got a clue that a plant went down or a transformer blew, because the grid can distribute and make up the load from other sources.
The smaller your grid, the less it will be able to absorb over or under loading – and the more likely the whole thing blows or shuts itself down to keep from equipment damage. Also, the more likely you have to provide far more total generation capacity – back up in case a plant goes down. Large grid, and other plants can take up the load if needed, so you don’t have to maintain nearly as much redundant backup producing ability (e.g., fewer plants can safely cover more people). Electricity isn’t directional down the wires – it goes whichever way it is drawn, so balancing the load is the key.
This means effectively the bigger and more interconnected the grid the better, safer, cheaper, and more reliable the entire system is – provided of course that fail safes are put in to allow quick shutdown/disconnect from troubled areas – which is how modern systems are designed.