Guest essay by Eric Worrall
British TV personalities including Piers Morgan have attacked Aussie politician Craig Kelly on air during an interview, over Kelly’s claim that dry weather and the buildup of fuel load is the reason for Australia’s horrific bushfire season.
‘You are a climate denier’: Craig Kelly in car crash British TV interview over bushfire crisis
By Bevan Shields
Updated January 7, 2020 — 9.03amLondon: Liberal MP Craig Kelly has defended Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s handling of the bushfire crisis during a television interview in Britain that descended into chaos after the hosts savaged the self-proclaimed climate sceptic.
The backbencher was called a “disgrace” and told to “wake up” during the combative encounter that threatens to undermine Morrison’s efforts to reassure Australians that his government accepts the link between climate change and extreme weather events.
…
Nodding in agreement as he was introduced to viewers as a climate sceptic, Kelly argued the fire crisis was caused by high fuel loads and the drought.
He also claimed there was “simply no” long-term trend to back up the widespread conclusions of scientists and other experts that the Australian climate was warming.
“To try to make out as some politicians have to hijack this debate, exploit this tragedy and push their ideological barrow, that somehow or another the Australian government could have done something by reducing its carbon emissions that would have reduced these bushfires is just complete nonsense,” Kelly said.
…
Read more: https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/europe/you-are-a-climate-denier-craig-kelly-in-car-crash-british-tv-interview-over-bushfire-crisis-20200107-p53pd9.html
The claim by British TV personalities that anthropogenic climate change is making Australian bushfires worse is pure ignorance, not supported by the evidence.
MP Craig Kelly is spot on about the lack of long term drought trend. Although he later recanted a little, earlier this year Professor Andy Pitman explained in a lecture in Sydney science can’t tell us what impact climate change will have on Australian droughts, because there is no long term trend.
As for Craig Kelly’s claim about fuel load, I can confirm this by personal observation. My local area, much of the region along the road from my hometown to the Queensland state capital Brisbane is a vast tinderbox of dry, scrubby bush and dry grass growing on the ground between the trees, overlaid with flammable eucalyptus deadwood ranging from twigs to fallen tree trunks, all ready to be ignited by the slightest spark (see the image at the top of the page).
Eucalypts, the dominant tree type in the Australian bush, shed tremendous quantities of dead branches and leaves. In the absence of frequent controlled burns the dead plant material rapidly self assembles into near perfect fire starting structures, with lightweight material laced with flammable eucalyptus oil at the bottom, tough spindly branches which ensure lots of airflow, all mixed in with heavier branches which consolidate any fire which starts in the lightweight material.
Hardly anybody in Australia dares to clear the bush and trees away from their houses, an obvious safety precaution in a bushfire area. People who make their homes or properties safe from fire risk financial ruin under laws based by urban green politicians, if the government catches them clearing native vegetation. Nobody, no matter how remote, is safe from the scourge of potentially lethal government bullying; Aussie state governments use satellites and AI to target and prosecute people trying to keep their properties safe from bushfires.
I am not personally at risk from bushfire, but I know people in my area who could lose their homes if it all ignites.
The other major aspect of our Aussie bushfires is the number of arsonists now charged. To date, 183 charged in New South Wales alone, with no doubt more to come from other fire-burning states.
Apologies for the paywall.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/bushfires-firebugs-fuelling-crisis-asarson-arresttollhits183/news-story/52536dc9ca9bb87b7c76d36ed1acf53f
This ain’t climate change either.
Yes as that article (Jan7 2020) in The Australian reports-
“Police arrested 183 people for lighting bushfires across Queensland, NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania in the past few months. NSW police data shows 183 people have been charged or cautioned for bushfire-related offences since November 8, and 24 arrested for deliberately starting bushfires.
Queensland police say 101 people have been picked up for setting fires in the bush, 32 adults and 69 juveniles.
In Tasmania, where fires have sprung up in the north of the state and outside Hobart, five were caught setting fire to vegetation. Victoria reported 43 charged for 2019.”
But never let the ugly facts get in the way of climate hysteria. Fancy the adults locked in the stocks in the town squares and the rattan cane for the juveniles climate changers? After all they’re creating your dreaded CO2 aren’t they?
“But never let the ugly facts get in the way of climate hysteria”
“ugly facts”? No, they are Murdoch lies. Yes, the headline says
“Bushfires: Firebugs fuelling crisis as national arson arrest toll hits 183”
But the story itself says “183 people have been charged or cautioned for bushfire-related offences since November 8”
Now “cautioned for bushfire-related offences” is not being arrested for arson. They go on to say that “24 arrested for deliberately starting bushfires”. So it is 24 arrested, not 183. You don’t get cautioned for arson. They have lumped in all the people who got told off for using a home BBQ on a fire ban day etc, and called these “arson arrests”.
I see the headlines actually refers to a claimed national total, which is coincidentally the same number as the total “charged or cautioned” in NSW. But they still don’t give evidence that 183 people have been arrested for arson. In Vic, 43 were charged with, well, something. It doesn’t say that they were arrested. In NSW they say:
“These offences include discarding lit cigarettes, setting off fireworks and failing to comply with a total fire ban.”
Even 24 charged with arson is bad enough. One fire, with a strong wind behind it causes a cascading affect leading to multiple fires. People have lost their homes and lives. How many of the 24 have glued themselves to the road, recently?
Here is a youtube version of the interview:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFvTrdOqdXo&w=560&h=315%5D
That was pretty funny the 1,2,3 of how to triggered a lefty 🙂
All we really needed was Climate change is an existential threat and you are killing us HOW DARE YOU. It would have been so good if they could have got Greta on as well.
Saying to burn as much fossil fuel as possible amd jump on planes and fly from one end of the country to the other …. trolling the left/greens … priceless.
Near the coast of NW Spain we saw a hillside that had been burnt out. The native pine trees were dead. The eucalyptus were bursting leaves out of their blackened trunks — they had lost their branches but they are evolved to survive that. Go back now and you’ll see eucalyptus saplings smothering the hills, rooting from fire-activated seeds. In Madeira we walked through a reserve in the centre of the island and noted the eucalyptus trees spreading at the expense of broadleaved deciduous trees. When forest fires were reported a coupe of years later, I checked: sure enough, the eucalypts were up to their usual game, start a fire, kill the opposition, survive the fire and colonise.
Maybe politicians need to use their eyes a bit more and their mouths a bit less.
JF
Piers Morgan has a habit of being on the wrong side of a discussion. He proved himself to be a poor ignorant soul when he was on US TV berating people about gun ownership. Jesse Ventura put him back in his box.
Let’s also not forget he was working for the Daily Mirror during the time our troops were fighting in Iraq and he was responsible for publishing fake photographs of them purportedly mistreating Iraqis.
And it must be at least 12 years since the fakers of climate data were exposed; the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit and Michael Mann and his remarkable hockey stick graph for example. We a regular revisit of what was being done behind the façade of Al Gore’s settled science. These quacks and snake oil salesmen are still peddling their wares.
Lets be fair Piers Morgan is just a shouty No_mark Gobshite
Lachlan Gray reports in The Australian (Jan7 2020)-
‘An environmental group has celebrated on social media the destruction of the Eden Woodchip Mill in the NSW south coast bushfires, sparking outrage from the local community.
On Monday Environmental East Gippsland (EEG) posted on Facebook a picture of the Eden Woodchip Mill burning with a happy face in the description describing the fire as “really good news’’.
The post was deleted but later a new post of the mill burning was published, stating that it was a “symbolic moment”.
A spokesman for Allied Natural Woods Exports, the operator of the mill, Malcolm McComb called the mill’s destruction “tragic”.
It is the largest employer in the town of 3000.’
The Eden locals were not too impressed with the Green cheer squad as you can well imagine.
It seems strange to me that a vast, sparsely populated country like Australia, would skew environmental regulations in favour of wildlife or “carbon”, but some rules are beneficial, such as protection for trees that many people want to fell to improve the view from their property.
The problem isn’t at a Federal or State level it is at the local government level where anything outside your building envelope falls under that level of government. Most councils take have an enviromental officer who has gone thru to get an enviromental science degree and so has usually has very green/left views.
Just do a search on Council Enviromental Officer and you will get the picture.
What most landowner groups would like is local government removed totally from fire control. The idea is being pushed hard at bot major parties.
WTB edit ability … got interrupted and lost track of typing.
There is a chance of rainfall in Australia.
http://tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/mtpw2/webAnims/tpw_nrl_colors/ausf/mimictpw_ausf_latest.gif
There is a cyclone in the top of Western Australia dropping a couple of hundred millimeters (about 12 inches for those in imperial). Australia is a very big country and that map is meaningless 🙂
What is of interest is rain of the fire areas in the Eastern States which isn’t expected to be much this week.
The heat and winds are expected back on Friday and back up will go the fire risk.
Actually much of the rain across the continent comes from the Indian Ocean, not all of course but a significant amount especially during the Indian-Indonesian monsoon season which is late this year.
The fires have kept burning while the weather has been quite cool and with modest rain coming from the southern coast and the SE.
We shall see what transpires.
Precipitation from the northwest shifts south.
Those blaming climate change for the Australian bushfires should be stunned to know that police attribute most of the fires this bushfire season to arsonists and not to climate change.
Authorities know a few fires were likely started by lightening strikes e.g. in Tasmania. But they know that most of the bushfires were intentionally or unintentionally started by individuals.
Australia does not face a climate change crisis. It faces an arson crisis.
After reading Eric’s article and subsequent comments from others in Down Underland, I am quite glad I live in an area where tangled woodlands with dense undergrowth are cleared out by DNR. Considering the fire hazard this presents, I find it difficult to believe that anyone with a working brain cell can’t see the danger presented by dense undergrowth. Healthy young trees don’t have spindly 3 inch trunks that are 30 feet tall, trying to get light and free air through the canopy. And insurance companies here don’t want to insure homes that are embedded in a fire hazardous spot, so you either clear out the hazard or go without coverage.
Ecoterrorism isn’t new any more, but it is very real. Those people should be prosecuted beyond just probable cause (or whatever). They don’t care who gets hurt, and they have zero understanding of the real natural world. IF they really gave a damn about the natural world, they’d be less likely to do those things. But I don’t think they really care at all.
quite a few people who’ve faced horribly burnt livestock in the thousands we now have to bury or kill and bury
would prob not be too upset if the arsonists also hit the burial pits
(personally I wouldnt shed a tear or give them a thought)
but no, most will get community service counselling(juvy)
adults will cost us 80 to 100k a yr for jailtime
theyre NOT worth it.
Isn’t it wonderful how TV personalities and movie stars manage to show off their ignorance about scientific issues without even trying?
The reality about climate changes is that Earth is not a greenhouse but a fast rotating planet where the centrifugal force of the supersonic 1,677 km/h equatorial
speed of rotation combines with sun’s maximum heat to turn all molecules in the atmosphere into cooling agents instead of warming the planet as on Venus with a 6 km/h equatorial speed of rotation.
The role of CO2 in photosynthesis and how that has been operating for over 2.5 billion years are well known. Its cooling effect in the lower troposphere and the release of oxygen are unequivocal.
Molecules in earth’s atmosphere 78% N2, 21% O2, 0.9% Argon, 0.04% CO2, plus up to 4% H2O are thrown up to heights that correspond to their molecular mass:
1. H2O, molar mass 18, gets up to about 22 km and defines the troposphere. It absorbs surface energy and reflects solar energy as it condenses and when it freezes to form high altitude Cirrus clouds.It is the primary regulator of Earth’s surface temperatures.
2. Oxygen (O2), molar mass 32, gets into the lower stratosphere to about 40 km where it absorbs high energy solar radiation and forms ozone during the day and releases that energy again overnight to help cool that region to -55C.
3. Carbon dioxide (CO2), molar mass 44, gets to around 100 km altitude, the upper mesosphere, where it intercepts high energy solar radiation and helps to cool that region to -100C.
This permits a conclusion that to the very limited extent that anthropogenic CO2 influence surface temperatures they must have a cooling effect.
Droughts and rain are climatic events that depend on the short period variations in the speed of Earth’s rotation from the changes in Earth’s orbital velocity (conserving angular momentum) but also from the frequent changes in the orientations of Earth’s spin axis due to the 4 outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune) with a combined mass of 445 Earth’s and make Earth move 13 solar diameters above and below sun annually. These orbital effects show up not just as oceanic oscillations, but in the latitudinal distribution of the low and high pressure cells we are familiar with from weather forecasts.
The orbital period of Jupiter (318 E-mass) is ~12 years and of Saturn (95 E-mass) is ~29.5 years, to give them a roughly 20 year lap cycle, and a half lap cycle of around 10 years. The orbital period of Uranus (14.5 E-mass) is ~84 years and of Neptune 17.1 E-mass) is ~165 years, which gives them a lap cycle of roughly 171.4 years, to give a half cycler that is similar to the orbital period of Uranus. Earth’s orbits phase with these cycles and their effects on Earth can be recognised in the global mean temperatures.
On the sub-millennial scale the further cycles caused by Jupiter and Saturn is their 973 year their millennial cycle; ~180 years that phases with the U-N lap cycle; and, Earth’s solstices and perihelia/aphelia phasing with their ~20-year lap cycle to give 3 sets of 60 year cycles. The present circumstances are due to this cycle being at its peak, as it was at the time of federation at the start of the 20th century and during the early-1960s.
I find this a very interesting take on climate change. Where online can I look into this view more? Thank you.
But maaate! What about that extra CO2 molecule that occurred in the last month? Greta spotted it just last week!
My response would be: It’s impossible to deny the existence of climate. Please reformulate your statement using proper meaningful language.
Slightly O/T but people in Australia are, quite rightly, asking questions about these fires, as people did in California last year.
If the information was available from Anthony, it would be interesting to understand if there are any spikes in activity on WUWT during those periods.
It would also be interesting if it were possible to judge how many people ‘stick’ instead of just looking and moving on.
Perhaps his proposed registration process may help with that.
The behaviour of that BBC woman is deplorable. The BBC no longer has any shame. A constant stream of lies about Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Iraq and etc.
The BBC clearly has an agenda and it is not something that John Reith would have been proud of. Tony Blair dissolved their “Arabic Section” because he deemed it unnecessary just before the Gulf War was launched. Hundreds of educated and literate Arabic, Persian and Pushtu speakers were sacked. Since then, the decline has accelerated. They currently have a Zionist running the Corporation.
It was good humor value, it isn’t as if Craig Kelly cares what some pratts in England think.
Do we really need this type of anti-Jew comments on this marvelous website?
Why not just come right out and say that they have a Jew running the Corporation? Why so shy? Hoping the neighbors downstairs won’t notice as long as you goosestep quietly?
Perhaps the most amazing fire adaptation is that some species actually require fire for their seeds to sprout. Some plants, such as the lodgepole pine, Eucalyptus, and Banksia, have serotinous cones or fruits that are completely sealed with resin. These cones/fruits can only open to release their seeds after the heat of a fire has physically melted the resin. Other species, including a number of shrubs and annual plants, require the chemical signals from smoke and charred plant matter to break seed dormancy. Some of these plants will only sprout in the presence of such chemicals and can remain buried in the soil seed bank for decades until a wildfire awakens them. The image shows lodgepole pine seedlings growing next to the charred remains of their parent plants following the 1988 Yellowstone National Park fires.
Short excerpt from Encyclopaedia brittanica on pyrophytic plants, not so strange that uncleared brush causes devastating fires, Aborigines and later Australians used to backburn the Greenies knew better.
OT but as we’re on the subject of British TV, Channel 4 intend to regale us with A George Monbiot propaganda piece tomorrow night (Jan 8th 2020, 10:00 PM) entitled: “Apocalypse Cow: How Meat Killed The Planet” Past tense. Yes, I know. Anyways, a preview shows the moonbat surveying a herd of cows, saying “I see them as carbon releasing machines” I felt moved to try to save Channel 4 from making a fool of itself, so I emailed them and urged them to learn about the carbon cycle before airing the program. To understand that a cow cannot make grass into more carbon than it has absorbed from the air to make itself. But it seems they are going to air it anyway as they have just shown the clip again. Oh well, they can’t say I didn’t try.
Right-Handed shark
I never thought of it like that…
“To understand that a cow cannot make grass into more carbon than it has absorbed from the air to make itself”
It was the ghost of Keith Flint wot dunnit.
One of the many functions of the AGW agenda is to distract people from the obvious failings of the Progressive agenda. It wasn’t bad or non-existent land management demanded by the eco-left responsible. It was “climate change”. It’s their false god.
Human-Caused Climate Change Australian Style = Green/Psychopath Arsonists
Doesn’t matter where you fit on the spectrum, this is 100% spot-on reality:
“…that somehow or another the Australian government could have done something by reducing its carbon emissions that would have reduced these bushfires is just complete nonsense…”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-51018170
One of the interesting things about the bushfires in Victoria is that the weather this summer has been relatively cool. In Melbourne , since it began we have had only 5 days over 30 degrees and only two of them in a row ( zero heat waves) . We’ve had 26 days of less than 25 degrees hardly toasty weather. None of Victoria is in drought yet we’ve had extremely severe fire conditions. All this proves to me is that Kelly is right, that it has nothing to do with global warming and everything to do with failure of governments and councils to manage forests as well as arsonists.
The irony is that Victoria has one of the greener governments in charge which has spent a fortune closing down coal fire power stations and subsidising renewables. Victoria has one of the highest uptakes of solar panels on roofs in the world. Nature has strange ways to fight back.
“In Melbourne , since it began”
The fires were not in Melbourne. Orbost, which was evacuated in E Gippsland, had a max of 43.1°C on the critical day 30 Dec. This was preceded by days of 34.4, 36.5 and 35.6. It was 41.2°C on 4 Jan.
But while Melbourne has had its usual mix of cool and hot, there has been a lot of unusually hot days that you don’t mention. And it is the hot days that bring fires; you don’t get offset credit for the cool days. It was 43.5°C on 20 Dec; very hot for the month, and only 0.2 below the record. It was 40.8 on the 30th, 40.1 on 18th. It even exceeded 40°C in November.
On forest management, the Vic CFA’s chief had this to say:
“The Country Fire Authority’s chief officer Steve Warrington said there was a “fair amount of emotion” around the issue.
“We’ve had fire down the landscape here that has had burns go right through it [during colder months] and it hasn’t slowed it at all,” he said.
The emotive argument is not supported that fuel reduction burning will fix all our problems.
Some of the hysteria that this will be the solution to all our problems is really just quite an emotional load of rubbish, to be honest.”
Has anyone looked at a map of these bushfires? They occur almost exclusively where the people live. If it was really Climate Change then we should expect bushfires everywhere in Australia. But we don’t. We see them close to humans. This means that its not Climate Change but something else. Arson maybe?
Sorry Rudolf, but how much have you read of the comments on this post? 183 people have been arrested so far and it’s been well and truly established that reduced hazard burning made it easy for them.
Just turn the area around your house into a BIG garden and plow everything under. Grow something that grows low and is tough.
A newspaper article from Feb 2009 regarding hazard reduction burns –
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/green-ideas-must-take-blame-for-deaths-20090211-84mk.html
and 2013…
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/blogs/miranda-devine/green-arrogance-burns-fiercely/news-story/ed1f49f1e1ff11f820aa59059ea23e21
Limp-wristed lilly-livered governments chasing inner city hipster votes should take a lot of the blame, if not for the fires certainly for their intensity.
“A newspaper article from Feb 2009…”
It’s an opinion article by right wing columnist Miranda Devine. Interestingly, it starts out:
“It wasn’t climate change which killed as many as 300 people in Victoria last weekend. It wasn’t arsonists.”
Apparently the talking points have changed.
There were interesting statements today from the fire chiefs:
NSW
“NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons insists hazard reduction is an important element of fire prevention, but it’s not a panacea.
“Let’s not forget, only a matter of months ago in New South Wales, we and the land management agencies, particularly national parks and forestry, we were public enemy number one because a byproduct of hazard reduction burning is smoke and yes, there’s a very significant health issue with smoke,” he said.
…
The Commissioner has also defended fire management agencies saying claims by some politicians that “Greenies” have disrupted prescribed burning were not true.”
And Vic
“The Country Fire Authority’s chief officer Steve Warrington said there was a “fair amount of emotion” around the issue.
“We’ve had fire down the landscape here that has had burns go right through it [during colder months] and it hasn’t slowed it at all,” he said.
The emotive argument is not supported that fuel reduction burning will fix all our problems.
Some of the hysteria that this will be the solution to all our problems is really just quite an emotional load of rubbish, to be honest.”
“Apparently the talking points have changed.”
Nope.
Read the next few sentences:
“… It was the unstoppable intensity of a bushfire, turbo-charged by huge quantities of ground fuel which had been allowed to accumulate over years of drought. It was the power of green ideology over government to oppose attempts to reduce fuel hazards before a megafire erupts, and which prevents landholders from clearing vegetation to protect themselves.”