A recent report from friends who suffered terrible losses of buildings, fences, pasture and cattle in the Coonabarabran fire commenced with the ominous and oft-repeated message: “a raging fire came out of the National Park straight for us”.
There is only one way to limit fire damage – reduce the fuel available.
Fuel load can be reduced in three ways – by grazing animals, by planned small “cool” fires, or by mechanical reduction with slashers, mulchers or dozers.
Australia’s grassland landscape was created and managed by generations of Aborigines who were masters at using man’s most useful tool – fire. Every explorer from Abel Tasman (1642) and Captain Cook (1770) onwards noted the smoke in the sky and the burnt trees whenever they landed. This burning created the open grassland landscapes that dominated pre-European Australia. Aborigines lit fires continually, so their small patchwork fires caused no permanent damage to the environment and created and maintained the healthy grasslands on which many animals and Aborigines depended.
Misguided tree lovers and green politicians have locked the gates on ever-increasing areas of land for trees, parks, heritage, wilderness, habitat, weekend retreats, carbon sequestration etc. Never before on this ancient continent has anyone tried to ban land use or limit bush fires on certain land. The short-sighted policy of surrounding their massive land-banks with fences, locked gates and fire bans has created a new alien environment in Australia. They have created tinder boxes where the growth of woody weeds and the accumulation of dead vegetation in eucalypt re-growth create the perfect environment for fierce fires. Once ignited by lightning, carelessness or arson, the inevitable fire-storms incinerate the park trees and wildlife, and then invade the unfortunate neighbouring properties.
Many of today’s locked-up areas were created to sequester carbon to fulfil Kyoto obligations. Who pays the carbon tax on the carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere by wild fires?
The green bureaucracies and politicians are clearly mis-managing their huge land-bank. Aborigines and graziers did a far better job. There should be a moratorium on locking up any more land and a return to sustainable management for existing land holdings.
Viv Forbes,
Rosewood Qld Australia
I am happy for my email address to be published.
Related articles
- Bushfires rage on in Australia ‘helped’ by climate change (updatednews.ca)
- Bushfires rage on in Australia (bbc.co.uk)
warringah shire council sydney rules on cutting down a tree http://www.warringah.nsw.gov.au/environment/documents/TreePreservationOrder.pdf and big fines if you cut down tree http://www.warringah.nshttp://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/vegetation/clearing.htmw.gov.au/environment/trees_warringah.aspx and
mpainter says:
January 21, 2013 at 7:25 am
In the southern US foresters plant pine in plantations of thousands of acres. Not one is without firebreaks, for example every quarter mile or less. Standard practice. The greenies are impractical, with impractical visions. The result: firestorms.
This an unusual statement from you (ie has something of substance to it), but are you suggesting the US foresters are greenies with ‘impractical visions’?
Moe says:
January 21, 2013 at 12:55 pm
mpainter says:
January 21, 2013 at 7:25 am
In the southern US foresters plant pine in plantations of thousands of acres. Not one is without firebreaks, for example every quarter mile or less. Standard practice. The greenies are impractical, with impractical visions. The result: firestorms.
This an unusual statement from you (ie has something of substance to it), but are you suggesting the US foresters are greenies with ‘impractical visions’?
===============================
What do you know about statements with substance?
For the reasons Viv cites the current forest area of Australia is probably greater than it was before colonization, yet misguided environmentalism has vastly restricted our native forestry industry. As a result most wood used in housing construction is now pine from plantations. It is greatly inferior in both strength and durability. Much of the extravagantly expensive housing built in recent decades will become irreparable junk in a few decades and the eco-tards call this sustainability..
I started reading the initial article and agreeing with the general sentiments expressed. Over the years the fuel reduction burning of public maintained roads has lapsed. If that climate spin doctor had got out of his/her government car on his 800 km drive BEFORE the fires devastated the coluntryside he/she would have found 6 to 8 inches of dry tree debris on the ground, and the same in the neglected forests, not to mention the fallen trees, dead wood that can’t be removed for “environmental reasons”.
An enormous fuel load of tinder dry material that boost the impact of intense heat and creates the firestorms, fire created mini tornado’s that literally explode off the ground like an enormous will willy or wurley whurley (Australian term for a wind/heat created tornado like, but dry wind storm) this mass of burning fireball can then travel through the air for miles on its own created wind and heat, to finally land and consume whatever is in its path.
To those who witnessed them the sound the sound is like the approach of many rumbling trains and as they land in forests they create more firestorms and fireballs, the whole thing is so heat intense that the tree tops of the forest ignite and with the wind it then travels at very high speed with unburnt leaves twigs, small branches and burning embers dropping over wide areas, and building fires in the forest fuel lying on the ground, developing new fireball effects. Then you have the unpredictable wind changes, that can turn an 18 mile long running finger of fire, into an 18 mile fire front of such intensity no firefighter on the ground can contain or hope to fight, and airborne water bombers can’t do more than perhaps help by strategic firebombing near houses or to save firefighters trapped by the wind changes.
I see that gullys were mentioned, and these are the firefighters nightmare, impossible to traverse because of their natural configuration and choked with combustible brush, grass and much like a chimney, creating a draft path for the wind and fire to travel at an alarming pace uphill, the widow makers of the bush, as another finger of fire that then broadens on the other side of the hill (lee side) where you just might have the chance (like as in a snowball in hel!!) of diverting it temporarily to save stock and property, the heat of hell as some have described it.
What annoys me is idiots like Climate Ace and Lazy teenager, the left wing self described urban “intellectuals” and environmental greens who have done nothing to help, but much to blame for the lack of undertanding and impediments to those who would make intelligent preparations, fire plans, fire access routes and equipment purchases and training for those volunteers who have a vested local interest in saving and protecting. Volunteers that are frustrated, by the you can’ts, and the regulatory powers these frustraters can access – drawn up by urban greenies who have no love of the rubes in the bush – except when getting dubious free legal advice at lunch with copious red wine as I suspect our self proclaimed ace no doubt did.
The sad part is that we are stuck with the situation, as our children are being indoctrinated with the product of spin, told to tell their parents they are environmentally irresponsible if they burn off or clear land, and the mere smell of wood or grass smoke is enough to send greenies into a frenzy.
I guess that some of you Americans did in part have an answer to restrict these taxpayer funded idealists and enviromentalists who have unlimited funds to produce glossy propaganda pamflets, video clips. The taxed enough already TEA party had the right idea, to get them off the taxpayer’s back, defund them, maybe out of their government air conditioned cars and offices and doing something productive, proving their worth and practicality BEFORE letting them loose to teach? or befuddle our children.
I notice how your Tea party people were attacked, put down and rideculed – can’t let the “ordinary American” get ideas and political momentum above their station in life serving the self styled elite now can we!!
My high hope is that at some time the ordinary taxpayers, and those that built this country here in Australia get some say above that comfortable shrill minority who have held us to ransom for too long. That we get to say how our tax dollars are spent and that our pockets are not continually raided to support drones who swan about the country in their 800 km drives and blame everyone else while ensuring their lifestyle and long lunches are protected.
yeah, I’m mightely P…d off with those supperior trolls….as you can see!!
Gail Combs says:
January 21, 2013 at 2:22 am
Climate Ace says:
January 21, 2013 at 1:18 am
Got some informal legal advice over dinner.
No probs about suing farmers for negligence if they let fires escape from their farms onto other farms or into national parks: ‘provided they or their insurers have money’.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
So if Plain Jane is correct, and she was there, can she and everyone else sue the crap out of the dunderheads who did not put out the fire while it was in the National forest and small or is this only a one way street where Greenies and their lawyers can go after individuals but individuals can not get the SOB’s who burnt them out fired and put in jail?
I notice that you have made the usual angry genuflection at the altar of greenie hate. I suggest you get a life and get rid of your anger because it will stress your immune system and increase the chances of your getting immuno-deficiency related diseases. (Faced with the rampant destruction of our wildlife and our careless extinction of many animals and plants, I used to have the same sort of anger at the careless of people who were content to destroy the results of millions of years of evolution in the space of few short years.).
The litigation following the 2003 Canberra fire is ongoing. Wildfires have become lawyers’ picnics, so it is just as well that someone does well out of them.
1. Plain Jane’s post is the first time I have ever heard of an RFS unit refusing to attend a fire call up. I am not calling Plain Jane a fibber. It may be true. It may not. (I noticed in Darwin after Tracey that some very, very wild and weird stories did the rounds). We have to bear in mind a couple of things: in the heat of the disaster moment ordinary humans are still ordinary humans. They make errors of judgement. I would make the observation that some of the volunteer fire crew captains I have known were fairly ordinary. I imagine that if the management of the fire crew was inadequate, if procedures were not in place or were not followed, if the equipment was not maintained to expectations, or if there was personal misbehaviour (in the sense of being under the influence, for example) then there appear to be good grounds for commencing action.
2. People keep saying that the Coonarbarabran fire started in the Warrumbungles NP. I can find no evidence for this. If it is true, it is true. I would appreciate some confirmation. I accept it came out of the NP, crossed 10 km and entered Plain Jane’s property. This does not mean that the fire started in the NP, however.
3. Plain Jane should consult litigation funders who are undoubtedly looking to move into the wildfire space. Since her property was 10km from the national park, she should ask the litigation funders to consider whether the 10 km of neighbours who allowed the fires through their properties onto her property were negligent, particularly if the owners did not carry out control burns, slashing of vegetation, the installation of firebreaks and other fire suppression measures as recommended by Forbes. My advice would be to ensure that those being sued have money or are ensured, for obvious reasons.
4. While she is at it, Plain Jane might consider that, if she did not stop the fire going through to her neighbours, she may well be subject to litigation as well on the basis of negligence particularly if the owners did not carry out control burns, slashing of vegetation, the installation of firebreaks and other fire suppression measures.
5. The national park authorities should also consult their legal advisers if the fire started outside the national park – particularly if the owners did not carry out control burns, slashing of vegetation, the installation of firebreaks and other fire suppression measures as recommended by Forbes.
6. The insurers of Siding Springs will, no doubt, be checking the fire management arrangements of the folk who run Siding Springs Observatory. I understand these same folk may have lost majr telescopes in the Stromlo Observatory in 2003. You would have thought that they might have learned a thing or two. In any case, I imagine that insurerers of observatories are going to insist on some pretty stringint passive and active fire measures as part of any insurance package.
6. Plain Jane mentioned that they had not had a fire in her valley since 1935. It is a pattern of comments in recent fires where locals say their patch will not burn because it has not burned in living memory. I know of at least one man who died in the Marysville Fire because he adopted this view and stuck to it. He was last seen alive sitting on his verandah as the fires approached. Put simply, as it gets hotter, the old bushfire ‘rules’ no longer apply.
7. Based on our personal experience in our shire as a result of bushfires, Plain Jane will find that her rates will go up, her fire insurance will go up, and her power costs will go up as shires and infrastructure providers pay for the fire damage.
8. Again based on personal experience in our Shire, which was heavily ravaged by fire, Plain Jane will find that the dreaded authorities will enact new housing regulations to prevent building amongst the gum trees and also a suite of new building standards. They will refrain from regulating the retro-fitting of same because homeowners do not like being told to make their houses fire-proof. In such cases the insurance industry might take an active hand.
The Coonabarabran fire burned in the general context of record national temperatures.
Welcome to AGW and its consequences.
Walter Starck says:
January 21, 2013 at 2:28 pm
For the reasons Viv cites the current forest area of Australia is probably greater than it was before colonization,
Completely and utterly wrong. But hey, don’t let the facts get in the way of your prejudices.
Someone mentioned pine plantations as exemplars of fire management.
The recent major fire in south-eastern Victoria burned through extensive areas of pine plantations (and some farmland) into the Lower Glenelg National Park.
I have spent time in some of those plantations and, amongst other things, took the opportunity to observer the way in which fire management was integrated into the planting designs.
They were pretty good, I thought, at the time. I recall, amongst other thing, a massive firebreak cut north/south through the park to protect the pine plantations from fires that might come out of the national park.
Looks like someone forgot to tell the fire.
Duster, you seem to have misunderstood what I was saying, which is probably my fault for not explaining myself clearly enough.
Firstly, my point about romantic views of Aboriginal burning is along the lines of a myth now being promulgated in some circles that Aborigines were wizards who set controlled burns that managed the ecosystem in some sort of systematic fashion. This is nonsense – even today, with all our know-how and technology, controlled burns get away sometimes and cause devastating blazes. A bunch of nomads with not so much as a bucket between them simply could not not have done what is being claimed. Yes, they set fires deliberately, and no, these fires were in no way controlled or controllable.
Secondly, your point about agriculture is irrelevant in this context because Australian Aborigines did not practice it. They were hunter-gatherers.
Thirdly, the reality is that it is physically impossible for such a small number of people to have impacted the entire continent. It should be noted, too, that they did not move all the time, but rather moved seasonally from one defined area to another according to the availability of food and water.
In the case of the massive area that is the Great Dividing Range, most of it was totally uninhabited although people passed through it on their way somewhere else. Frankly, most of it is uninhabitable, being very rugged, heavily forested and difficult to traverse. Lighting any sort of bushfire there is just an invitation to suicide.
I suspect that you are not Australian. Ken B’s post just above is a realistic appraisal of the local conditions. And, once again readers outside the US often find it hard to conceptualise the distances here. Readers in the US just need to know that our country is about the same size as theirs, and ask themselves what impact a few hundred thousand scattered, nomadic hunter-gatherers could possibly have on the entire continent.
Ken B
My high hope is that at some time the ordinary taxpayers, and those that built this country here in Australia get some say above that comfortable shrill minority who have held us to ransom for too long.
We have a democracy. It is not perfect. Each person gets just the one vote, including the mad, the bad and the sad.
That we get to say how our tax dollars are spent and that our pockets are not continually raided…
I don’t mind paying taxes. I appreciate it that our hospital system is superior to that of the US and that there is a good chance that when I get crook someone will know what is wrong with me and the system will deliver the medical fix. I appreciate it that our roads are in such good nick. It is good that we have reliable power systems. It is great that our communications systems generally work. I like being able to walk through my city without constant fear. I like it that the folk who manage air traffic keep planes from flying into each other. I think the public education system is one of the best in the world with our kids consistently in the top 20 in world education achievements. I am pleased that our army, navy and airforce have good stuff and well trained service people.
Do I feel sorry for the self-pitying whingers who whine about being ‘raided’? Well, I might. If they got off the roads our taxes pay for, if they stay out of the education system our taxes pay for and if they stay away from hospitals. But they whinge about all that stuff and sneakily use it all anyway.
… to support drones who swan about the country in their 800 km drives and blame everyone else while ensuring their lifestyle and long lunches are protected.
Well, if I am a Marxist and a Nazi, I suppose it is just as well that I am a drone?
Just to be clear, you snivelling, whinging, rude, insulting, self-pitying grub, I have never been in a Centrelink Office in my life.
yeah, I’m mightely P…d off with those supperior trolls….as you can see!!
‘supperior’? Really? You might want to seek a preliminary consultation for what appears to be an inferiority complex.
Climate fool, aka Concern Troll, your attack on Ken B and your earlier comment about the latest fires having something to do with CAGW reveal all we need to know about you. No matter how much you spam this thread with your pompous meanderings, you are not deceiving anyone.
johanna says:
January 21, 2013 at 8:00 am
Jimbo says:
January 21, 2013 at 5:47 am
johanna says:
January 20, 2013 at 3:48 pm
………………………..
I am a bit sceptical of the romantic view of Aboriginal burning as well. There weren’t that many of them – vast regions of this vast continent were uninhabited, so the effects were localised in fairly small areas…….
The tribal boundaries drawn by Tindale, each with it languages and each with its clan groups demonstrate pretty well that all areas of Australia were inhabited by Indigenous people at the time of first contact.
There is some archaeological evidence that in previous hotter, drier climates, some areas of the central deserts were abandoned.
Following contact with its pattern of dispersal, massacres and concentration in missions and the like, vast areas of Australia were depopulated and much of these remain depopulated to this very day. The massive wildfires that are now common in much of the driest third of the continent and moving into the pastoral areas are almost certainly a direct result of the absence of the people who moved through the landscape igniting dozens of little fires on a daily basis.
Concern Troll, as I have renamed Climate Deuce, has bombarded us with misinformation interspersed with fact. He has calibrated his latest thread-bombings thanks to feedback from people like me, who regard his gloating over ‘proof’ of CAGW while people’s homes are still smoking as loathsome. So, he has taken a different tack. Since I don’t want to bore readers as he has, I’ll take one example.
Who are people like you?
Just for fun, apparently, he has thrown in some spurious assertions about ‘artificially created’ gullies in the Great Dividing Range, and how they are useful for fighting fires. What rubbish.
Overseas readers need to understand that the GDR is a string of mountains that runs 50 to 100 miles inside the east cost of Australia for over 2,000 miles. It is largely populated with eucalypts, and is one of the most potent sources for bushfires thanks to lightning strikes. Aborigines certainly spent time there, but they would have been suicidal to light fires there. The gullies that CT claims (a) are ‘unnatural’ and (b) are a great help to firefighters are in fact a feature of the mountains. They are why it took European explorers – who didn’t bother to consult the natives – years to find a way over them. Every time you think you are getting ahead, you hit a gully, and have to go back. That is the topography of these mountains.
As for being a help to firefighters, if CT can explain how a deep gully in rugged terrain during a bushfire is helpful, next thing is, he’ll be selling us sh*t sandwiches and saying that they are good for us.
Johanna naughty: an erosion gully is not the same as a natural gully in forested country. I would certainly not count the latter as useful for fire fighting. Quite the opposite, actually.
No, the gullies I specified were erosion gullies. There are around 45,000 or so. They exist because the forests and woodlands on their slopes were cleared of forest. This resulted in speeded run-off and the rest, as they say, is history.
You can fit an average house into some of these gullies, so they do form an unnatural firebreak. If they are at right angles to an approaching firefront, they can be used for backburning purposes.
With regard to the lunatic policies around national parks, CT diverted with some dispute about where the fire started. It doesn’t matter…
It does matter when the litigation starts.
Like all concern trolls, you continue to deliberately miss the point while weeping crocodile tears.
What point am I missing? I support suitable control burns. I support national parks and farmers working together so that farmers can have firebreaks, fuel mitigation measures and the like on their farms to stop fires getting into national parks. I support control burns in national parks. Nor am I an tree fetishist and can claim to have knocked a few down with chainsaws in my time, which is probably more than most of the posters on this string can claim to have done.
My family has suffered farms burning, stock killed and houses burnt to the ground. Some of us have had extremely narrow escapes from being killed in fires themselves. Many of us have been involved in volunteer fire fighting. I do feel sorry for people who have been burnt out.
But, in an important sense, personal experience this is neither here nor there. We all have our values and what we regard as important. Those values need to be worked out through the political system. Each of us is as entitled as the next person is to our values. I value animals and plants not becoming extinct. You don’t care about extinctions. Fair enough, we are different.
It might be time for the blame game to cool down a bit and for some work on sorting out some compromise measures.
It seems Plain Jane has joined Watkin Tench and William Dawes on the list of people not to be credited. Not that these people are making stuff up. They’ve just been McTernanised. Their accounts are not confirmed by long motor car rides. It is necessary to take such stern action in a warming world (wherever that is).
Oh, could somebody welcome India, China, Korea, Russia, the Middle East, England, North America etc to some of the consequences of AGW? In a hurry, please!
I have difficulty understanding this. I have been reading about the science of controlled burns for 25 years. I can’t find ( searching the web ) any creditable science that argues against controlled burns. I eventually found some “green” material saying that controlled burns harm bio diversity. But no evidence. Just claims. Can someone please explain to me why they refute the science. Why are they anti controlled burns. I really don’t get it!
/ikh
johanna says:
January 21, 2013 at 5:09 pm
Climate fool, aka Concern Troll, your attack on Ken B and your earlier comment about the latest fires having something to do with CAGW reveal all we need to know about you. No matter how much you spam this thread with your pompous meanderings, you are not deceiving anyone.
I don’t usually ‘attack’ anyone. But is some grub insults me, I might choose to defend myself. The whinging, whining, self-pitying KenB accused me of being a ‘drone’. How ignorant and how rude is that? I bet he is on the dole or old age pension or something and that he is bludging off us taxpayers in some way.
BTW, I notice that you have lavished plenty of insults on me in several posts on several strings. You appear to think you have licence to be rude and nasty. On WUWT, that is par for the course. However, you do not have a licence to be incompetent.
My suggestion to you would be to get a comprehension teacher to teach you how to read with understanding. That way you might stop making some of the silly mistakes, false assumptions and ludicrous deductions that appear to be your natural strength.
For example, you might just have picked up the difference between a natural gully and an erosion gully and saved yourself from looking like a dill.
mosomoso says:
January 21, 2013 at 5:18 pm
It seems Plain Jane has joined Watkin Tench and William Dawes on the list of people not to be credited. Not that these people are making stuff up. They’ve just been McTernanised. Their accounts are not confirmed by long motor car rides. It is necessary to take such stern action in a warming world (wherever that is).
What? You don’t do skepticism?
I have queried one of Plain Jane’s statements. It is that the local RFS refused to put a fire out when it was very, very hot, windy and extremely dry. If that claim turns out to be correct, I will accept the claim.
Who ‘discredited’ Tench and Dawes?
These silly strawmen of yours are on a par with your penchant for factoids when the facts are staring you in the face.
ikh:
At January 21, 2013 at 5:25 pm you ask
They oppose the science because they are ‘greens’. Sometimes they will quote selected science as support for their philosophy when that is convenient, but they ignore anything which does not support their philosophy.
Their philosophy says there was once upon a time a pristine “environment” which humans have harmed. If activities of humans are constrained then the ‘environment’ will return to the state they imagine but never did exist in reality. That imaginary state is an ‘ideal’ and if its attainment kills people then – according to their philosophy – that is a small price to pay.
Richard
ikh says:
January 21, 2013 at 5:25 pm
I have difficulty understanding this. I have been reading about the science of controlled burns for 25 years. I can’t find ( searching the web ) any creditable science that argues against controlled burns. I eventually found some “green” material saying that controlled burns harm bio diversity. But no evidence. Just claims. Can someone please explain to me why they refute the science. Why are they anti controlled burns. I really don’t get it!
/ikh
If you Google search terms something like ‘impact of fire regimes on Australian biota’ you will get scads of research material on this topic.
Radical Rodent says:
January 21, 2013 at 5:40 am
My understanding is that eucalyptus forests require fire for propagation. Which would explain what could be seen during the TV interview of that family photographed sheltering under a wooden jetty. In the background, there did not appear to be the devastation one would have expected after such a fire. I suspect that might be why only a glimpse could be seen – had there been blackened stumps, I have little doubt the cameras would have lingered over the sight.
The cameras did linger over both the fires and the devastation.
Yes, there is a close relationship between the life cycle of most of the hundreds of ecualypt species and different fire regimes.
The fire that you referred to burned through a mixture of farmland, settled areas, production forests and national parks. It burned thousands of hectares, and forced thousands of people to flee, so there was plenty of devastation for the cameras to linger over, as you put it.
The fire was in the context of Hobart’s hottest recorded maximum temperature.
CodeTech says:
January 21, 2013 at 5:21 am
Climate Ace assures us that Australians are allowed to clear brush. Others say, NOT TRUE.
I have several online friends in Australia who tell me Climate Ace doesn’t know what he/she is talking about. I see links here and at other places that indicate that Climate Ace is clueless in this.
What to believe/
The answer is not straightforward. It is incorrect to state that farmers can never create firebreaks on their properties, can never do control burns on their property or can never reduce vegetation on their property by grazing or slashing as Forbes implied.
For example, the farmers in the recent Tarcutta, Bookham and Booroowa fires live in areas that are up to 97% cleared. They have largely introduced pastures or broad acre crops across thousands of hectares.
My point was intended to demontrate that even where they can do so legally, farmers very often do not undertake fire suppression actions; further, that this renders them vulnerable to litigation on the grounds of negligence, should fires leave their properties and enter other properties.
It is also true that there is state and territory legislation in place which prevents clearing activities in most, if not all states, where there is remnant native vegetation. Given that most farmland has been cleared or ploughed already, the proportion of land directly subject to these controls is a very small proportion of the overall land.
So, you see, it is more about a noisy minority making as much noise as possible than it is about taking a balanced look at competing values.
In relation to the Kyoto protocol that someone upstring mentioned, the conservative coalition government of Howard and Costello worked a series of federal/state agreements to control clearing of forests as part of reaching Australia’s commitments under Kyoto. The current government has maintained this stance and the Opposition conservative government has not included relaxation of these clearing controls in its plan to spend $10 billion of taxpayers’ funds to reduce Australia’s CO2 emissions by 5% by 2020 or indeed, its plans to increase its RET by a considerable percentage.
Be nice, Ace. I guess I really should be more skeptical. I’ll start with your motor car ride. I won’t call you discredited – you’ll notice I don’t say harsh things about you – I’ll just put you on a list of people not to be credited. Once we get your mileage confirmed and your observations peer reviewed, we might get you off the list. Fair? Skeptical? (Oh, and Ace…no need to quote me at length. I know what I’ve written. Those long quotes can look like thread hijacking, and we don’t want that.)
Hey, what about the Big Chill and Snowpocalypse in that other hemisphere, Ace? Those are some factoids! It doesn’t require the intelligence of an Adam Smith to know there’s something going on up there that’s not warming in the unrevised sense of the word (though I haven’t checked the Macquarie for any new definitions by Sue Butler today). I’m sure the New York Times and The Guardian have managed to attribute it all to this AGW thing…but they would say that, wouldn’t they?
Anyway, Ace, we seem to both appreciate roads and hospitals and air traffic control and stuff. Man, with cheap abundant energy from flash new coal power generation we could really lay on some infrastructure and do some serious conservation. There are wild dogs and cats doing murder and extinction in the forest back of my place right now. Can’t blame local forestry people for that. There’s never the dough and resources. Never. Bring on that cheap abundant power, for industry, for commerce, for everybody!
But I’m biased. I love Australian coal. To me, it’s chocolate sunshine, Ace!
Many are furiously debating Climate Ace in here, when he is in fact in general agreement with Viv Forbes and seems to have a fairly practical approach to the matter. His knowledge and research are good.
In short, it is probably simply his ‘everyone except me is an idiot’ approach here that has everyone busy debating him. For instance, while it is technically correct to state that reducing fuel load is NOT the only way to reduce fire risk (though I think it is a critically important one) the quote below uses (IMHO) unnecessarily inflammatory language to make a point.
What he detailed in his first post was quite logical once you go past the opening paragraph. He makes a good point debating where fires may have started, and whether or not national parks are really to blame for all. Note he does encourage fuel reduction burns in the parks.
I believe the problem is that where once farmers would fairly routinely burn back from firebreaks, under conditions of modern bureaucracy and litigation that has become more and more difficult to do. Mind you some of that back burning by farmers was into parks and forestry, and that is clearly a matter which should be strictly controlled (but NOT made impossible!). And we should note that fires have always occurred, and WILL still occur, all we are talking about is containing their spread.
In his last post he re-iterates logical points on firefighting, and furthermore rebuts Lazy’s throwaway (as usual) comment on Kyoto.
mosomoso says:
January 21, 2013 at 6:23 pm
Be nice, Ace.
I try, but I am snowed under by the balance of rude posters who think it is perfectly OK for them to get nasty, vicious and mean on a personal basis. An occasional return shot clears the tubes nicely.
I guess I really should be more skeptical. I’ll start with your motor car ride. I won’t call you discredited – you’ll notice I don’t say harsh things about you – I’ll just put you on a list of people not to be credited. Once we get your mileage confirmed and your observations peer reviewed, we might get you off the list. Fair? Skeptical? (Oh, and Ace…no need to quote me at length. I know what I’ve written. Those long quotes can look like thread hijacking, and we don’t want that.)
You know what you have written but others might have forgotten. So I like the readers to see exactly what I am responding to. As for thread hijacking, trolling and the rest, that is up to the moderator.
I am happy for you to forget about the motor car, it was indicative and personal so not very statistical. I suggest you track down what happened in the Bookham, Tarcutta and Booroowa fires instead. When doing so, I would like you to keep in mind that it my points about those three fires were not statistical but indicative of the options open to the farmers.
Hey, what about the Big Chill and Snowpocalypse in that other hemisphere, Ace?
I was talking to some northern hemisphere rellies about it just the other night. They were very happy because they were able to get some excellent skating in. They are looking forward to CAGC (Catostrophic Anthropogenic Global Cooling).
Those are some factoids!
Your term. I understand that the tempertures have been very cold and that a large amount of snow has fallen over very wide areas.
It doesn’t require the intelligence of an Adam Smith to know there’s something going on up there that’s not warming in the unrevised sense of the word (though I haven’t checked the Macquarie for any new definitions by Sue Butler today). I’m sure the New York Times and The Guardian have managed to attribute it all to this AGW thing…but they would say that, wouldn’t they?
Adam who? Climate scientist was he?
The numbers that count are: collapse in summer sea ice extent in the Arctic, the ratio of hot temperature records to cold temperature records, gain in heat by the oceans, loss of global ice mass balance by glaciers. I would be very, very happy if that lot stabilized or even reversed itself for a couple of decades. I would be able to go back to the other issues that concern me and forget about AGW. It would be wonderful.
Anyway, Ace, we seem to both appreciate roads and hospitals and air traffic control and stuff.
Excellent. You might mention that to the whingers on WUWT who whine about governments and whine about having to pay tax while still sucking up all the wonderful things that governments provide.
Man, with cheap abundant energy from flash new coal power generation we could really lay on some infrastructure and do some serious conservation.
Talking about serious conservation, we have never, ever burned more fossil fuel in Australia. With all this BAU going on why are we getting more and more species added to the endangered list? According to your construction, it should all be getting better.
There are wild dogs and cats doing murder and extinction in the forest back of my place right now.
I know, I know. In relation to foxes, there was a proposal floating around CSIRO to do some very fancy recombinant gene technology involve the splicing of a virus gene onto a reproductive protein. The idea was that the immune response to the virus would cause the fox to render itself infertile. The technology was there. It is there for cats as well. Imagine a catless Australia! One of the prime extinction drivers gone! Vaccinations available for pets.
Uh, uh.
Can’t blame local forestry people for that. There’s never the dough and resources.
I agree that there is an issue of priorities. I suggest we stop all funding for elite sports such as the olympics (who cares about nanoseconds in the pool?) and transport it forwith to the forest managers. I forget how many tens of millions of dollars we pay per gold medal but, IMHO, it is a scandal.
Never. Bring on that cheap abundant power, for industry, for commerce, for everybody!
See above. The more the world economy has grown on the back of cheap energy, the more species have gone extinct and the more are added to the endangered lists. Something does not gell with your argument.
But I’m biased.
I accept that your values are not the same as mine. It makes your values neither better nor worse. They just are.
I love Australian coal.
No doubt you would have been devastated by Abbott’s prediction of the death of the coal industry. Just as well he was lying.
Speaking of false factoids, Ace says:
“The more the world economy has grown on the back of cheap energy, the more species have gone extinct and the more are added to the endangered lists.”
Now you’re just being ridiculous.
RCourtney stated:
That imaginary state is an ‘ideal’ and if its attainment kills people then – according to their philosophy – that is a small price to pay.
Bau boosting bulldust of the most egregious kind.
More people were killed in Australian bushfires before conservationists even existed, before national parks existed other than as isolated oddities, and when there were no vegetation-clearing controls. No one had heard of Kyoto. In short, it was all BAU a-Go Go.
Greater areas of bush were burned in single fires and greater numbers of stock were killed in those fires.
There are lots of variables involved so it is a bit more complex than you vicious (kills people) pseudo-philosphical posturing suggests.
We have the technology to stop all bushfire deaths now. It is a matter of the will and the resources. We are an incredibly wealthy country so the resources are available.