Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to the New Daily, it is inconceivable that greens would oppose measures to prevent fires and improve fire safety.
How Rupert Murdoch is influencing Australia’s bushfire debate
Damien Cave
10:05pm, Jan 9, 2020Deep in the burning forests south of Sydney this week, volunteer firefighters were clearing a track through the woods, hoping to hold back a nearby blaze, when one of them shouted over the crunching of bulldozers.
“Don’t take photos of any trees coming down,” he said. “The greenies will get a hold of it, and it’ll all be over.”
The idea that “greenies” or environmentalists would oppose measures to prevent fires from ravaging homes and lives is simply false. But the comment reflects a narrative that’s been promoted for months by conservative Australian media outlets, especially the influential newspapers and television stations owned by Rupert Murdoch.
…
It’s all part of what critics see as a relentless effort led by the powerful media outlet to do what it has also done in the United States and Britain – shift blame to the left, protect conservative leaders and divert attention from climate change.
“It’s really reckless and extremely harmful,” said Joëlle Gergis, an award-winning climate scientist at the Australian National University.“It’s insidious because it grows. Once you plant those seeds of doubt, it stops an important conversation from taking place.”
News Corp denied playing such a role.
“Our coverage has recognised Australia is having a conversation about climate change and how to respond to it,” the company said in an email. “The role of arsonists and policies that may have contributed to the spread of fire are, however, legitimate stories to report in the public interest.”
…
But there are signs that the Murdoch message is making headway – at least in terms of what people make a priority.
Many firefighters working the smoky hills south of Sydney hesitated to state their views on climate change this week (some said senior leaders had told them to avoid the issue). But they were quick to argue for more back-burning.
Similarly, in Bairnsdale, Tina Moon, whose farm was devastated by the fires, said she was mostly furious about the government’s failure to clear the land around her property.
“I don’t think it’s climate change,” she said.
Read more: https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2020/01/09/rupert-murdoch-bushfire-debate/
In Australia, green efforts to turn the bushfires into a political point scoring opportunity for their climate action agenda are backfiring horribly.
There is widespread awareness in Australia that greens campaigned against hazard reduction burns. Their friends in the media might have tried to delete some of the evidence, but the Australian people are not idiots, and the internet never truly forgets.
Update (EW): Some more examples of greens impeding controlled burns;
Fears that hazard reduction burns near school redevelopment could hurt pygmy possum population
Protestors have halted planned burns in two locations today
Coastal incineration plan
etc.
I have spent years trying to reduce fuel loads but the local authorities stop you at every turn. It is a Green issue as much as they try to claim it isn’t.
Absolutely correct!
Since the 1991 Oakland Hills fire, here in the Oakland and Berkeley Hills, it’s mandatory to clear brush and other fuel loads from within 100 feet of a residence. Inspectors come around and owners will be fined if they don’t comply. This area is about as “progressive”, “liberal”, “greenie” as it gets. What is it with their Aussie equivalents? Send this link to them:
http://www2.oaklandnet.com/government/o/OFD/s/WildfireDistrict/s/Inspections/index.htm
Yes, but the eucalyptus trees have all stump sprouted and the fire danger appears nearly as great as what it was before. Also, nearby communities that have not burned in years, such as Lafayette, look as great a fire hazard as were the Oakland hills. I don’t think we have learned much.
Wow, I didn’t know that. For the many who probably don’t know this – after the ’91 fire, planting of new eucalyptus trees was banned, and many were triaged. I know this is not a solution to the Australian problem though.
I’ll go for a drive today and take some photos. Maybe I’ll write to the people in charge of painting unintelligible white lines in roads and inventing new places to put traffic lights about that. They may even listen.
I live in Marin County and have open space behind my house. They often bring in goats and sheep to put the potential fire fuel by eating it to the ground. The goats even eat poison oak trees. Green solution to a green problem.
when the english arrived in australia they planted english gardens . These are largly removed in the area i live in to return landscape to bush. We will pay
Fires are a normal and necessary and inevitable part of the ecology of these places.
The always have and always will happen.
I will say it plainly: Fire will never cease to be a hazard in these regions.
The idea that it might or could be eliminated is the problem.
Frequent fires prevent disastrous fires.
Fire suppression and ignorance make them worse.
There propaganda takes all kinds of stands on how “damaging” controlled burns are, however the official party spokesmen are very careful to never actually say the magic words.
The minions get their marching orders and the leaders have plausible deniability.
Due to the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires Victorians in bushfire prone municipalities are allowed to clear trees 10m from their homes are understory for 50m ( use to be 30m).
Additionally, residents can clear 2m either side of fences. This makes sense but is actively opposed by municipal environmental teams. A high % of fatalities occur on properties immediately adjacent to forests and government parks.
So if you live in a peri urban area advantage to a council owned park, and your house is only 5m from the boundary it is reasonable to request council to clear trees 5m on their side of the fence and understory vegetation for 45m. What 45m no way – this is would be flatly refused.
If the resident complained to the councillors or mayor, the environmental team would go to great lengths to justify the environmental significance of the vegetation. There would be no risk assessment to weigh the value of the vegetation vs the value of the human life. The Royal Commission states that human life should be given the highest priority . The “greens” within councils refuse to follow this recommendation
aint it the truth! someparks do at least have a road along some fenelines adjoining farmlands, not all
and they do NOT plough firebreaks OR clear anything further than a cars width
we cop a fine for grass over 10cm on our land, in fireban season
they?
get a pat on the back for scrub a dog cant run through full of long grasses and weeds.
I was told to slash my land,
refused as the horse n sheep were eating it
response was slash it anyway
refused as they wont eat fallen hay and the risk of colic/mould was real
I just ran a double wide firebreak n shut em up.
weird how they tried that stunt on me but dont try the same on the hundreds of acres of grazing land all over and around the town?
nanker,
Come to Arizona. If you don’t reduce fuel loads and create 30′ feet of defensible space, the Fire Dept. won’t even bother trying to save your house and outbuildings. In addition, if you refuse to evacuate when they issue the order, they won’t try to save you, either. They feel that if you are too stupid to follow an evacuation order, they are not going to risk the life of a public safety officer trying to save you.
The community here is fine with that. We are not stupid, unlike so many other places. Oh, and the fire dept. will work and help subdivisions and homeowners clear and create defensible space so, their is no excuse for it not being done.
Any “greens” in Arizona? They’re pretty sneaky so sometimes it hard to tell.
There are “greens” everywhere.
I’m not surprised that you are pretending not to know this.
No. You’re not “sneaky”. Scary, maybe but not sneaky.
Do you have a citation for this “fact” Loydo or, as usual, is it an evidence-free assertion by the voices in your head?
Unfortunately, the Center for Biological Diversity calls Arizona home. Yep, we’re infested with “greens.”
” if you refuse to evacuate when they issue the order, they won’t try to save you, either. They feel that if you are too stupid to follow an evacuation order, they are not going to risk the life of a public safety officer trying to save you.”
I’m not sure I see a problem with that.
There is a royal commission coming make sure to lodge a submission on what happened. I know at least 5 councils and there enviromental officer who will have submissions put in on them.
Yes a royal commission will give me some protection ( not a lot) to name names .
I can provide specific examples where friends of groups have worked with environment officers to convince councilors to override engineering officers.
Unfortunately for Australia Michael Mann is doing his Sabbatical year in Sydney right now. The ABC undoubtedly will be endlessly promoting him as any royal commission proceeds.
The Greens and green activists will claim they never had any “policy” to prevent backburning and bush felling. That may be true at a Federal or State level, but they have introduced bureaucratic paperwork and procedures that make it near impossible. They kill things by binding it up in a quasi-legal process. Permissions, appeals, notifications, restricted periods, over the top resource requirements. They stopped the clearing of firebreaks in the parks – unintended consequences of trying to save the wildlife. All the opposition killed the work, of which the consequences are now being reaped, but one they can claim that it wasn’t them who were at faut.
You mentioned “they” five times but The Greens have little control of policy and green activists zero.
Really, Loydo?
Protesters Have Halted Planned Burns In Two Locations Today
https://www.trfm.com.au/articles/planned-burns-halted/
04 September 2019
Protestors at two planned burns in the east of the region have put themselves and the broader community at risk as they tried to disrupt planned burning operations.
Gippsland’s Deputy Chief Fire Officer, Beth Roberts said: “Forest Fire Management Victoria crews were planning to ignite burns at Baines Road Mossiface and Nelsons Road Nowa Nowa on Wednesday September 4.
“These burns are strategic asset protection burns, intended to protect human life, property and community assets from summer bushfires,” Dr Roberts said.
Article continues below
“Our crews ignited the burn near Mossiface and then had to call 000 to activate Victoria Police when, contrary to Authorised Officers’ advice members of the public entered the burn zone and refused to leave.
“This is reckless and irresponsible behaviour that puts their own lives and the lives of our firefighters and the community at risk in addition to tying up valuable police resources….
How is this any different than threatening to kill yourself unless the authorities let someone else die.
In effect you are giving in to a suicide bombers terrorisrrt demands. Do what I want or I will blow myself up.
Do you rush in with firefighters and police to help the suicide bomber? Is that really the correct way to deal with the problem? So why treat fire any different than a bomb? Dead is dead.
Loydo, any response to kctaz’s comment above? We would certainly like to hear it
Loydo
There is one single green MP in the UK. Brighton.
Why then do the greens exert so much influence over the entire country.
HotScot. Because they are in the bureaucracy and set the rules. Parliament passes the laws that set the “policy”, but the civil servants set the “rules” as to how that policy is implemented.
Simple really.
As usual you are clueless.
She’s not clueless, she’s on a deliberate crusade to divert attention.
Loydo: “You mentioned “they” five times but The Greens have little control of policy and green activists zero.” LOL. In most branches of government these days there is one around every corner and across the office partition.
https://www.ruralfire.qld.gov.au/Using_Fire_Outdoors/Pages/Fire-Bans-and-Restrictions.aspx
There is currently no fire ban in North Queensland, but in some places, such as Bluewater State Forest, the accumulated fuel load is enormous. If that goes up, then the southern part of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area will be threatened.
My property is 1347m2, part of a belt of sparse coastal savanna woodland in the dry tropics. If there is no state fire ban, I burn. In heaps not exceeding 2 cubic metres. If there is a fire ban, I burn much smaller quantities in a “properly constructed” barbecue or the like. Even in a fire ban it is permissible to cook food, so I record an image of the food and the kettle of water. (Doing this on a modern phone will record the exif data, eg time, date coordinates.) The local government has a local law intended to limit nuisance but is used inappropriately to prohibit burning. It does not have the capacity to override state law, but very few people seem to understand that principle so they accept it when the local council tells them otherwise. Same with the comment by Mr. below.
Bushfire Attack Level maintenance is a Federal Standard. The local council does NOT have the power to override Federal law. So yes, don’t ask, just do it, but watch out for crooked lawyers and weak-minded judges who might try to disguise this fact. There is safety in numbers. Everyone should do it. They can’t jail all of you. But if you lie down, they will walk over you.
In Loydo’s world, unless the Green party actually runs the government, then greens have no power.
It’s a classic troll diversion technique.
Loydo. I see you are using the green talking points, are you on the payroll?
“Policy” is set by Parliament and Councils under advice from Department “experts”. The “rules” that implement that policy are set by the bureaucrats in the departments. That is where the green sleepers are and as others have already pointed out, they organise the rules in such a way that certain things become impossible.
The Greens have been frantically trying to push your line so as to deflect blame from them and their actions. It’s not working.
Actually, “they” are not necessarily the Green Party. It is the people who believe in the Green ideology, and they are in positions of power in local governments. They are specifically the ones who make local by-laws which prevent clearing undergrowth and other such nonsense.
“They” are also the locals in an area who protest and demonstrate and write media articles trying to force the hand of elected government.
Case in point; the Franklin Dam, and every other dam that’s been proposed in the last 20 years.
Aussies who live outside the urban bubble (ie – “deplorables”) know what happens when they submit an application to local councils to remove foliage from the surrounds of their properties in order to make their dwellings BAL (Bushfire Attack Level) compliant –
REJECTION.
Council environment / sustainability depts are infested with greenie zealots. Landowners are “the enemy”
Never ever tell councils you are about to anything. It only encourages them.
I didn’t Mike.
I was doing my bit of clearing when the local ranger drove past and pinged me for not having a permit.
So when I put the permit in, it was rejected outright.
Correct. Greens supporters are total bludgers who won’t work normal, productive jobs. They like to infest government administration and impose their agendas via “deep state” methods.
Many US states, like California and Oregon, have the same problems and get the same out of control wildfires.
In Az., after our 2002 Rodeo-Chedeski fires, the greens tried to prevent dead tree and brush removal and fought against proscribed burns and all other clearing and fuel reduction efforts. Much of the litigation came from the Center for Biodiversity located in AZ. Same in Colorado. They denied that the fires were their fault but the list of their law suits to stop fire prevention, clearing, maintenance of trails into the forests, proscribed burns and anything else the fire people in both states had tried to do put that lie to rest.
Az. and Col. passed legislation to stop this nonsense.
How anyone who claims to be “green” and to care about our forests, animals and nature can actively work to stop fire prevention efforts when even a fool knows or, should know, that if fires burn out of control and nature is not managed, the result is extreme death and destruction of nature and man is beyond me. There can be no excuse for such stupidity nor ignorance. None. However, it seems to be a malady from which many in the first world suffer but why do politicians who are responsible for the decisions listen to them? No excuse for them, either.
Where I live, we agressively manage the forests and land We know who just arrived from California. They are the ones who write letters to the editor whenever proscribed burns are done complaining about second-hand smoke and bragging about how that’s illegal in Calif. Maybe, with the recent fires in Calif., they will change but, somehow, I doubt it. Some people can’t think beyond their own noses and refuse to educate themselves. I learned quickly. In 2002, we just moved into our new home when we moved from Kansas. I woke up three days later with a house full of smoke and planes and helicopters flying over my home fighting the fire snd our entire town under threat of being burned to the ground as it was in 1901. when CO2 was miniscul? That was more than the motivation I needed to get up to speed on forest fires and quick.
In our deadly Yarnell Fire in 2013 which killed 19 of our HotShots the land had been cleared on State land but not on Federal land and that is when it got out of control and killed them and burnt homes and the land. I wonder if the greenies would read this if it would change their minds?
19: The True Story of the Yarnell Hill Fire
On the morning of June 30, all 20 members of Prescott, Arizona’s Granite Mountain Hotshots headed into the mountains to protect the small town of Yarnell from an advancing blaze. Later that day, every man but one was dead. Through interviews with family, colleagues, and the lone survivor, a former hotshot pieces together their final hours—and the fatal choices
https://www.outsideonline.com/1926426/19-true-story-yarnell-hill-fire#close
Warning, this might make even grown men cry.
I am most grateful that we finally have a President who is doing on Federal lands what they should have been doing all along and, if done in 2013, might have saved our 19 HotShots. If the Feds want to own most of the West, they need to take care of the forests and lands and, finally, are. Trump is right. It does no good for the Feds to clear and maintain Federal lands if states won’t clear theirs also. Calif. is the opposite of what happened to us. Their politicians can blame PG&E and climate change all they want but it’s not doing prevention that is the cause of their fires. The windmills and solar arrays the politicians insisted PG&E build along with miles of extra transmission lines that must be maintained do not help, either. It is difficult to believe that we elect such fools who listen to fools to run our governments at all levels and in many nations. If Mankind has really become this stupid, we are doomed.
What a good post, and so true. Sadly, politicians, the world over, are “easy street” ” I am in charge,not a servant of the people”.
I live on Whidbey Island in Washington State. I’m not aware of any restrictions in clearing land. Maybe there are some and I just haven’t run afoul of them.
We haven’t had any out of control wildfires on the island since I live here (April ’02). I’ve had a few tall trees removed from my property that were sickly and becoming a fall hazard. It was done by a professional service, so I don’t know it they had to get permits.
I do know that some people down near Seattle had trees on public lands cut down to improve their view, and got in big trouble for it. But none of it had to do with fire regulations.
We’re so wet along the coast of the PNW that wildfires are rare.
I think you mean prescribed (demanded) rather than proscribed (forbidden)
See http://greens.org.au/bushfires for the actual Greens policy on hazard reduction control burning and back burning.
Note that these are two different things. The first is a broad program done in cooler times of the year; the second is a specific technique than can be used either during control burning or an actual bushfire.
The article is oddly worded: ‘woods’ is not term used in Australia; you’d put a track through the forest, bush or scrub. But the misuse of ‘back burning’ is common.
There is some evidence that hazard reduction burning can result in worse regrowth if it’s not done appropriately, and it’s getting harder to find windows of suitable weather. Pragmatically and financially it would not to possible to do adequate annual hazard reduction in the vast areas of Australia especially the mountain forests that have been burning. We do need to rethink building houses right in the bush, and providing better safety access, ie fire refuges and more than one road into isolated towns!
Finally, EVERYONE needs to stop making political points. All sides are doing it, not just the ‘greens’. This WUWT post is itself an example of political point scoring. Listen to, hear other views. Find common ground to work together to solve problems that affect us all. Even if you are not burnt out or fleeing, the economic fall-out of the fires will affect you.
NOTE: I am not a member of or affiliated in any way with the Greens or any other political party or lobby group in Australia.
This WUWT post is about pointing out that it is a mistruth that greens don’t oppose controlled burns. Obviously I am not suggesting all greens oppose controlled burns, I’m sure there are sensible greens out there. But this is an issue, and it should be addressed openly and honestly, not covered up.
Well said, Eric, and I 100% agree except I am not at all certain there are “sensible greens”. I hope there are but they are not in evidence. Michael Shellenberger, Dr. Smallwood, Bill Gates, Patrick Moore and even James Hansen might be called sensible greens but since all of them are against wind farms, solar arrays, biofuels and biomass and pro-nuclear, I don’t think many greens agree with them or support them. In fact, James Hansen, the others and many more who do not toe the Alarmists’ line have been ostracized from the Green movement.
* GODFATHER Of Global Warming Alarmism James Hansen Admits Renewable Energy Is A “Nice Idea” Though Useless
* http://bit.ly/2P5L6Y1
Why I changed my mind about nuclear power | Michael Shellenberger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciStnd9Y2ak
How fear of nuclear power is hurting the environment | Michael Shellenberger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZXUR4z2P9w
“Why the War on Nuclear Threatens Us All,” March 28, 2017. Article describes effort by Ohio and other coal-polluted states in the 1970s to deploy nuclear energy to reduce pollution — and how Sierra Club and Ralph Nader fought nuclear and sought coal instead.
http://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2017/3/28/why-the-war-on-nuclear-threatens-us-all
Wattsupwiththat
Shocker: Top Google Engineers Say Renewable Energy ‘Simply won’t work’
http://bit.ly/2Z1LVG0
Bill Gates Sees Future in Nuclear Energy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HxI3-DzPWU
Dr. Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace provided an early warning of this covert socialist campaign in “Hard Choices for the Environmental Movement – The Rise of Eco-Extremism”
http://ecosense.me/2012/12/30/key-environmental-issues-4/
It is difficult, I think, for Mr. Foley to argue that Greens are sensible when they ostracize, condemn, vilify and/or ignore these famous Greens and many more.
In which case you should provide some statistics on how many hectares of controlled burn were prevented by protest.
Every fire authority has said that the problem is lack of suitable conditions last year for burning, why do you disbelieve them?
How many years with conditions suitable for controlled burns where little or no burning took place were there. I’m not an expert but it seems to me that there were several years worth of combustible materials rather than one or two. If burns take place annually then missing one or even two will be a problem but shouldn’t be a catastrophe.
Sensible greens is an oxymoron.
“it is a mistruth that greens don’t oppose controlled burns”
But no evidence, you just made this up.
“There is widespread awareness in Australia that greens campaigned against hazard reduction burns.”
But no evidence, you just made this up too. Stop making things up.
You make extraordinary claims but provide nothing but flimsy anecdotes and opinion in support. I get it that you’re preaching to the choir here so evidence is optional, but is there any extraordinary evidence?
And btw a handful of locals in outer NSW are not the greens. They could be National Party voters for all you know.
Look at the photographs, are you really that stupid?
Yes I suppose you are.
One half of her cognitive dissonance is really, really stupid, the other half just regular stupid.
Hey Loydo, have you figured out why the unit of measurement of global warming is based on a doubling of CO2 levels? If you did, you forgot to thank me. I never sent you my consultancy fee bill, so have some respect would you.
“You make extraordinary claims but provide nothing but flimsy anecdotes and opinion in support.”
The next royal commission will gather lots of documentation of green obstructionism, mostly at the local level.
The latest is an outright attack that there have been Arsonists involved, the MSM is now saying it was all internet tolling, there was only one case of arson during these fires.
Totally contradicying what they have been saying for weeks.
So what happened to the Teenage Reserve Firefighter that lit 7 fires, obviously all made up by anti Climate Change Trolls.
I went to your linked site. It said this.
Bushfires, Hazard Reduction and Backburning
The Australian Greens support hazard reduction burns and backburning to reduce the impact of bush fires when guided by the best scientific, ecological and emergency service expertise.
Attempts by Liberal and National politicians to place the blame on the Greens represent the worst kind of dishonest politics. The Coalition has spent six years in office ignoring the main cause of these unprecedented bushfires – severe climate change.
Climate change has left forests and grasslands drier, which means the bushfire season has started earlier and will likely last longer. Higher temperatures and drier conditions have made the window for hazard reduction shorter.
The major cause of climate change that has lead to these bush fires and extreme dry conditions around the country is the mining, burning and exporting of coal, oil and gas.
What the experts are saying:
“Climate change is making fires and droughts worse, with the windows for standard hazard reduction measures during winter months becoming increasingly sparse.”
– Greg Mullins, former NSW Fire & Rescue commissioner
Fact check – the Greens do support hazard reduction burns
_____
Well, we now know where the “unaffiliated with the Greens”, Tom Folly and Nick Stokes gets their information–from the Greens web site.
Sorry, Tom, it sure doesn’t sound like land management is a priority for the Green Party. They can’t even manage to get “backburn” right.
Definition of ’backburn’
backburn
in British English
(ˈbækˌbɜːn ) Australian and New Zealand
VERB (transitive)
1. to clear (an area of scrub, bush, etc) by creating a new fire that burns in the opposite direction to the line of advancing fire
NOUN
2. the act or result of backburning
Are they really that dumb or, are they saying that they only approve of burns after a fire has started because it is clear that “hazard reduction” are only OK after extreme bureaucratic measures are met which, in reality, means they are never approved. In my State in the US, the Fire Dept and the US and State Forest Services decide when and where proscribed burns are done. Backburns are totally different from proscribed burns or, in the Greens’ lingo, “hazard reduction” which, in reality, does not say proscribed burns but could mean anything and is not specified and there is hardly time for firefighters to consult with multiple gov. agencies to approve a backburn since, when they need to do that, their lives and others lives and property are in imminent danger of harm. It’s not something to be proud of that the Green Party approves of backburns. It only means they are not plum dumb.
Verdict–Guilty.
Thanks for the link, Mr. Foley. It was most illuminating. Condemned by their own words. I am thinking the Green Party thinks their sympathizers are too stupid to know the difference between backburns and proscribed burns or, “hazard reduction”, whatever they mean by that. Not to mention, they are silent on mechanical and other reductions methods. From your post and that of Stokes’, it seems they are correct in their assessment of their fellow travelers’ intelligence.
I am just curious, do you and your fellow Greens really believe that even if CO2 is the Evil Molecule controlling Earth’s temperature, something that has never been proven per the Scientific Method which is the Foundation of Science, the tiny amount of the minuscule amount of CO2 in the atmosphere Aus. emits was eliminated tomorrow, it would make one iota of difference to CO2 levels or have any effect on
Earth’s alleged climate change/CAGW?
If you and the Greens really believed that, shouldn’t you be campaigning against China and India who emit multiples of tons more CO2 than Aus, does? What is the point of wrecking Australia’s economy and bankrupting her people for something that makes no difference to Earth’s atmosphere or climate at all especially, if you believe it? Why are you not condemning China, India and the other major emitters instead of the countries who are not–if, of course, you really believe CO2 is an existential threat to Earth?
Neither China nor India buy into CO2 caused AGW/CC. Other second and third world nations are not going to choose to remain in grinding, abject poverty to serve your agenda and deny themselves reliable, 24/7 electricity which is, as it was with the first world, the way out of poverty and to wealth.
Given that the best way to protect the environment is to increase the wealth of people, which also, by the way, reduces population growth, do you Greens want to keep poor people poor, if you really believe in what you say.
As to the question of why you would ever want to keep, mostly black and brown and yellow people poor, is not something I will opine upon but it does smack of some of the uglier times in the human history of how the first world has treated them in the era of Colonialism and extreme racism.
Say, isn’t “proscribed” being used inappropriately? It means “forbidden.” “Prescribed” (recommended) is what is wanted, no?
“There is some evidence that hazard reduction burning can result in worse regrowth if it’s not done appropriately, and it’s getting harder to find windows of suitable weather. Pragmatically and financially it would not to possible to do adequate annual hazard reduction in the vast areas of Australia especially the mountain forests that have been burning.”
How about letting goats have at it? Or loggers? (Send the chips to Drax, maybe.)
“There is widespread awareness in Australia that greens campaigned against hazard reduction burns.”
But no evidence presented here. Where is this campaign? All you have is a pic of a few people in Nowa Nowa holding up signs who don’t want their neighborhood burnt for various reasons.
Here is a story, from news.com.au, no less, from people who actually know about it:
“A frustrated firefighter has hit out at misinformation circulating on social media surrounding the current bushfires crisis.
Drew took to his Facebook yesterday and, in a post that’s since gone viral, busted some widely spread myths about the fires, their causes and apparent barriers to mitigation.
“First of all, does being a firey give me all the insight to this complex issue? Not even close and I need to make that clear,” the decorated firey began.
“However I’ve felt a strong need to say something here because I just can’t stomach some of the false science and outright lies being peddled on social media as news or facts.
“No, the Greens haven’t been stopping hazard reduction burns from taking place. We still do them and yes we should absolutely do more of them.”
That’s a sentiment echoed this morning by New South Wales Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons, who shot down the common misconception that “green tape” is making hazard reduction harder.
“Our biggest challenge with hazard reduction is the weather and the windows available to do it safely and effectively,” Mr Fitzsimmons said in an interview on Sunrise.
“Sure, there’s environmental and other checks to go through but we streamline those. There’s special legislation to give us clearance and to cut through what would otherwise be a very complex environment.””
Fears that hazard reduction burns near school redevelopment could hurt pygmy possum population
https://www.trfm.com.au/articles/planned-burns-halted/
etc.
This is the same bunch of folks at Nowa Nowa (and couple at Mossiface). They seem to have caused a small burn to be postponed in their area. But it is not a general Green campaign. As pointed out above, the Greens party and major organisations support hazard reduction burning.
I never said anything about the Green party. If you have any public comments by the greens party distancing themselves from unaffiliated local green groups who opposed hazard reduction burns I’ll happily append them to this post.
“distancing themselves from unaffiliated local green groups”
How can you distance yourself from an unaffiliated group?
No-one had heard of these Nowa Nowa folks till you took to to trotting out this photo endlessly, four months later. The story originally only made it to a regional facebook post of the East Gippsland ABC (briefly).
The Greens aren’t in government, at any level. It isn’t their job to adjudicate on any protest that locals care to make. And not doing so does not make it that they “campaigned against hazard reduction burns”.
“I never said anything about the Green party.”
No, thats not how dog-whistling works.
Nick doesn’t understand, that all parties have now “green” programs, to be elected instead of the “Green Party”, most parties are now greener than the Greens.
Really Nick, are you going to pretend that unaffiliated now means, absolutely no connection in thought, word or deed?
Not so certain about that…it did bring you to the comment table
“all parties have now “green” programs, to be elected instead of the “Green Party”, most parties are now greener than the Greens.”
Well aint democracy a bitch.
“…But it is not a general Green campaign…”
I don’t believe you.
Nick and his fellow travelers are experts at almost saying what they mean. This allows them to get the message across to those they are trying to influence while at the same time allowing them to claim that they never said, those exact words, when time for assigning blame comes around.
The Greens party machine is publicly covering its arse Nick, while their disciples that infest local councils wage their jihad against vegetation clearing.
I and quite a few other commenters here have experienced first-hand how the rabid greenie council officers block landholders’ attempts to create a bit of clear space around their rural dwellings.
ABC seems to be covering it’s arse as well as those of the Greens.
ABC deleting facebook posts on how protesters stop prescribed burns “more worried about climate change” than wildfires
« JoNova http://joannenova.com.au/2020/01/abc-deleting-facebook-posts-on-how-protesters-stop-prescribed-burns-more-worried-about-climate-change-than-wildfires/ via @JoanneNova
Oh, and Nick. The science of Forest and wildfire management andpreventing wildfires and doing burns etc. is quite well established.
Read the Comments to find out what is really going on.
One comment.
beowulf
January 1, 2020 at 8:38 pm · Reply
“Nothing to see here, eh Simon?
So just when Gippsland is going up in flames, half the ABC staff are away on hols and the biggest story of the year is taking place, having had 3 months to delete it, they suddenly decide to take time out to clean house and inadvertently “disappear” a bushfire post which covers protests that could be construed as increasing the intensity of these fires? Sounds reasonable to me.
Given the nature of the post and the nature of the ABC, the timing of the deletion on the 29th is more than suspicious.
And SBS is at it too. Another from the cauldron pool.
https://caldronpool.com/sbs-article-claiming-fires-not-due-to-climate-change-mysteriously-removed/
In the midst of the bushfires SBS suddenly deleted a news article from 2013 which featured top bushfire researcher David Packham calling links between bushfire disaster and climate change “an absolute nonsense”.
November 12th it was there; November 13th it wasn’t, as the bushfires kicked up a gear in northern NSW and QLD. When it was linked to and started getting more traffic it got disappeared too.
Another coincidence.”
Comment
OriginalSteve
I notices fores starting inland now south of the ACT and the ACT has gone one layer below state of emergency, so they are setting ready to react I think.
OriginalSteve
January 2, 2020 at 5:15 pm · Reply
“Thanks Sam, any info you can provide would be useful.
Most mobile phones can be “tethered” to your PC or laptop via either USB cable or bluetooth, so if the phone towers are still running you can stay online.”
I notices fires starting inland now south of the ACT and the ACT has gone one layer below state of emergency, so they are setting ready to react I think.
Cash is king, diesel rules. Pity anyone with an EV…you’d be well and truly….stuck….I think this proves my point about how useless are, EVs quite nicely.”
Mr Stokes,
Just look at the picture leading the article here.
“Planned Burns Health Hazard”
“Stop Burning the Bush”
“Stop Burning Habitat”
“Stop Burning Threatened Species”
Then there’s this gem
“Burning Increases Fire Risk”
and
“Habitat Trees Not Hazard”
All neatly printed, not hand scrawled, showing prior planning and group organization.
Nowhere did Eric’s post did he call it a “Green Party” organized function just a bunch of Greenies.
Your argument therefore, as such, is merely an attempt to redirect the debate and negate the point by attempting to disprove an alternate point.
You shouldn’t put forth Straw Man Arguments. It might lead people to wondering if you only had a brain.
And one of the protesters was worried about climate change and her GRANDCHILDREN. So, following all the alarmism, having children is the worst thing you can do to the climate.
Nick Stokes appears to be as bushfire aware as a person living down a Wombat Hole to judge by his comments on hazard reduction in Australia. It seems that Green denialism is spreading.
Eric,
as for your folks worrying about the coastal burn, which radical action do they propose? Glue themselves to trees? No:
“You can write to the manager of DEPI in Orbost – Steve deVoogd Steve.Devoogd@dse.vic.gov.au Ask that decent surveys be carried out by experts, peat beds are mapped, a risk assessment be drawn up, a detailed copy of the burn plan supplied, and if all the necessary precautions are taken and the fire goes ahead, that adequate aerial water bombing capacity be on standby. Due to this area being so valuable environmentally, pre and post burn surveys need to be carried out on a wide range of values, not just plants.”
They aren’t demanding no burning. They are asking that they try to minimise harm to animals, and have backup. Unreasonable?
Surveys undoubtedly carried out by “experts” from academia – the results of which will mostly be “there is a unique species of cockroach in this region, no burn!” or some such. (The ones whose current grants are close to running out will not do so – their line will be “requires further study.”)
“Peat beds are mapped” – at a cost of what? Off the cuff estimate, about $250K (that’s $US, I’m not bothering with looking up the exchange rate right now).
“Risk assessment” – which, when drawn up, will be opposed as “whitewashing” by the usual bunch of politicos. Rewritten about a dozen times before they are facing reelection and are too busy spending the money from their green donors to throw sand in those particular gears.
“Aerial water bombing capacity be on standby” – again, at what cost? What other needs are ignored in the meantime (there are not enough bombers to handle even the normal, immediate missions – take how many out of that rotation?)
In the meantime… Charred houses, dead firefighters and civilians, destroyed communities, as the forest burns naturally, without anything to stop its spread.
While the “environmentalists” return to their condominiums in the city.
” take how many out of that rotation?”
Prescribed burning is not done while water bombers are busy with bushfires. But burning is a dangerous and destructive activity. In a different context you call it arson. The difference between prescribed burning and arson is the care that is exercised. These folk are asking for due care.
“return to their condominiums in the city”
The only culprits presented so far are some residents of Nowa Nowa and Mossiface. No condos there.
“The difference between prescribed burning and arson is the care that is exercised.”
LOL! Really? I thought the difference was between mental illness and officially condoned activity. (Though I admit, sometimes there is no difference.)
Nick, it looks like doing all that would take a year or two, if not more.
Rather a case of the Land dies by a 1000 bureaucratic cuts. If this bureaucrat knew what he was doing instead of just covering his arse (the #1 priority for bureaucrats), he would have had this done several years ago and not waited for fire season and the annual events of brush fires which have been occurring in Australia for forever.
It is truly pathetic that the aborigines could figure out how to do proscribed burns for centuries and did them but the super-intelligent and modern White Man cannot and is paralyzed without study upon study upon study that he can’t even get done in a timely manner.
I guess having your life depend on managing the land has a way of focusing the mind that a bureaucrat safely away from fires doesn’t have.
Same in the US when the US Gov. decided Native Americans who told them fire is essential for the forests and land were stupid and they knew better brought out Smokey the Bear and fought all fires to the detriment of Man, animals and the forests and grasslands.
By the way, you do know that foreign grasses introduced to Aus. have greatly increased the fire problems just like Buffelo Grass in the American SW has. Gosh, we are just so smart, aren’t we and the Natives are ignormuses, huh? Oh, and thanks to the greens, we can’t use herbicides to rid the deserts and other areas of the SW of Buffelo grass, either. It has to be pulled out by hand. Needless to say, that hasn’t worked.
Don’t bother even arguing with the troll a royal commission is coming and just make submissions.
All the previous Royal Commissions have come to the same conclusions.
Too much Fuel.
The Government and councils continue to ignore their results at the peril of everybody in the bush.
No Nick – you can produce evidence that environmental department of Australian local governments are actively supporting fuel reduction. I have trouble finding it.
Specifically, local councils complained to the royal commission that they couldn’t clear roadside vegetation due to restrictive legislation.
Recommendations 60 removed this restriction by allowing councils to apply to remove veg.
Can YOU provide evidence of how many applications have been approved. I know of several high risk councils who have not made a single application equating to zero trees in more than 3000km of road
Nick
Summed up:
He’s saying,
1. It’s not our fault.
2. There’s nothing we could have done, fuel reduction burns are so difficult now.
3. We need to do a lot more fuel reduction burns in the future.
There’s a certain degree of contradiction there.
Nick
…News.com no less
News.com, while a Murdoch publication, is as Luvvie as all get out…
I have on more than one occasion posted remarks along the line of …if news,com journalists and commentators close their eyes and wish really, really hard they might one day get a job with The Australian Conversation…The Guardian or Green News Weekly…
As that ONE firefighter also noted as did the NSW Fire chief…We still do them and yes we should absolutely do more of them.”
In Victoria we had the Black Saturday2009 Kingslake disaster…173 lost souls…Just one of numerous Fire tragedies in this land of drought…flood..fire…
The Royal Commission made many recommendations one being that the hazard reduction target be tripled from 1.7% of land cleared to 5.1%…
Victorian fire commissioner reports this was less than half that recommendation this season…
One can not deny the fact the seeds have been sown by environmentalists to protect the forests. That being to stop logging native forests, lock up more land into national parks, restrictions on farmers to clear land, protection laws of native flora and fauna, restrictions on removing trees adjacent to urban areas, development prevention, the list goes on. As the environmental movement has grown, so has the infiltration into government departments and local councils with their ideology placing more and more restrictions via red and green tape. All are hindrances to fire mitigation.
In regards to fuel reduction burns, yes the Greens party say they support fuel reduction burning, but on the other hand they say… ”The Greens believe that hazard reduction (including deliberate burning to reduce fuel loads) is appropriate in some circumstances. Hazard reduction needs to balance competing social, economic and environmental factors, and be based on best available science.”
Sorry, but that is totally ambiguous.
And the thing that gets me the most is they only represent less than 20% of the electorate yet their ideology continues to creep within society to the detriment of progress.
The noisy minority who have perfected influencing government policy to the detriment of the majority.
and if anyone goes there? READ the comments section;-)
Leader of the Greens – De Natale said on radio the other day that the Greens never have and do not oppose fuel reduction measures. This may be their ”current” policy but there is no denying that over the past several decades, removal of material from the bush, road sides etc has been frowned upon if not downright illegal. This is the direct result of ”green” type ideas that everything must be left so as not to disrupt habitat. I could take anyone down the road from me where there are mountains of material left untouched along the road. Mostly in the form of dead trees and branches. It may not be the greens directly but it most certainly is the same wide spread ideology that has pervaded almost every local council. The chickens are now coming home to roost.
Joëlle Gergis, an award-winning climate scientist at the Australian National University”
Awarded? For what? Climate science? Give me a break!
”Once you plant those seeds of doubt, it stops an important conversation from taking place.”
Yes lets not plant any seeds of doubt! Let’s Instead keep everyone in the dark so they don’t bother us!!
Wall to wall garbage.
”
Bingo.
And 5.4.3.2.1 comes Nick with its not an organized campaign
“Joëlle Gergis, an award-winning climate scientist at the Australian National University”
“Awarded? For what? Climate science? Give me a break!”
For her excellent data manipulation and cherry-pie recipes.
Mike I agree with your comments about leaf and branches accumulation on our forest floors
Speaking to a local resident at Bullarto in well treed central Victoria last weekend he told me he is not allowed by law to enter the forest and remove fallen branches of often fall trees for firewood
because it is argued they provide homes for forest wildlife
He went on to add there is not much wildlife left after a fire has swept through the considerable flammable dry timber allowed to accumulate on forest floors
Western Australia has more forest area than all the other states combined and has had a controlled reduction burning policy for many years. While this occasionally results in the odd ‘smokey’ day finding its way to more populated areas, nevertheless it’s been years since the last major blaze (the Yarloop Fire of 2016 – 95 homes lost).
According to this, that has changed and there are many fires now in Western Australia.
https://myfirewatch.landgate.wa.gov.au/map.html
WA fires: toilet paper flown in to remote roadhouse as main road closed
Caiguna, Cocklebiddy and Madura roadhouses to receive fresh produce as Nullarbor’s Eyre Highway to be closed for at least five more days
Calla WahlquistThu 2 Jan 2020
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jan/02/wa-fires-toilet-paper-flown-in-to-remote-roadhouse-as-main-road-closed
I am glad to hear they have been able to be proactive and wish them well.
and it appears that fire that closed the ONLY sealed rd to WA was caused by?
a boat trailer !
not sure if it was a bearing issue or something dragging and making sparks
but the guy who started it sure feels bad
This, from NASA, would indicate that there has, indeed, been very serious fires in Western Aus. Perhaps you don’t live there and left some time ago? It’s hard to see how you could have missed a fire of this magnitude.
New NASA Photo Shows Enormity of Burn Scar Left Behind by Western Australia’s ‘Gigafire’
By Drew MacFarlaneNovember 07 2018
Oops, here’s the link.
2018-11-07
https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2018-11-07-western-australia-gigafire-nasaProtesters Have Halted Planned Burns In Two Locations Today
404 error
https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2018-11-07-western-australia-gigafire-nasa
Better link 😀
False is it?
The falsehoods are spread by conservatives?
Let’s try the other possibilities:
• The greenies use common sense to choose the most logical solution? Nope.
• The greenies have deep knowledge and extensive woodlands experience? Nope!
• The greenies listen to industry experts and accept their suggestions? Nope!
• The greenies understand and reject the MSM messages that CO₂ causes fires? Definitely nope!
• The greenies study history and understand that this year’s drought is normal. They also understand that this past year is not the “hottest”? Extremely nope!
All of the other possibilities are far less likely. The author Damien Cave is another leftist throwing false strawmen against fecal covered fans. Trying to portray conservatives in a bad light while exonerating the firebugs and loony activists blocking forest/wilderness management.
Sadly, the MSM propaganda machine here in Australia is working. Many people I know who were “fence sitters” on AGW have completely fallen for the barrage of propaganda from our media. Most people here don’t know 183 people have been arrested for arson. Most people DO know the greens were against burning, but the MSM have published article after article saying that preventative burning doesn’t prevent these fires etc. The propaganda campaign by the MSM here has been unprecedented. The only time in living memory when the propaganda machine was so intense was the gay marriage vote we had here a few years ago. This time, I think the MSM even out did that.
The Australian people are green, not green, and they’re wary of Green. conservation, not environmentalism
It’s sad that the so called “environmentalists” have such little knowledge of the real world.
The Green movement became the go to cover for marxists when the Soviet Union fell and communism fell from favor.
Absolutely, MarkW.
Describes fear-mongering efforts starting in the 1970s through to today in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.
http://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2017/7/25/greenpeaces-dirty-war-on-clean-energy-part-i-south-korean-version
“Atomic Humanism as Radical Innovation,” June 12, 2017. Describes origins of anti-nuclear movement and the nuclear industry’s failure to understand and cope with the attacks.
http://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2017/6/12/atomic-humanism-as-radical-innovation-2017-keynote-address-to-the-american-nuclear-society
“Why the War on Nuclear Threatens Us All,” March 28, 2017. Article describes effort by Ohio and other coal-polluted states in the 1970s to deploy nuclear energy to reduce pollution — and how Sierra Club and Ralph Nader fought nuclear and sought coal instead.
http://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2017/3/28/why-the-war-on-nuclear-threatens-us-all
“Jerry Brown’s Secret War on Nuclear,”
April 5, 2018. A comprehensive history of the anti-nuclear movement’s origins in California, and the special role played by Gov. Jerry Brown in killing nuclear plants.
http://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2018/1/11/jerry-browns-secret-war-on-clean-energy
Even HBO is in on the act.
HBO’s falsified Chernobyl “documentary”
July 6, 2019
http://bit.ly/2Z1xxMI
Malthusians also use the “green blob” to push their agenda :
https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/greenfascismpromo/pdf/EIR_GreenF-teaser.pdf
Those psychopaths are THE real threat for humankind, not the climate change baloney.
“There is widespread awareness in Australia that greens campaigned against hazard reduction burns. Their friends in the media might have tried to delete some of the evidence, but the Australian people are not idiots, and the internet never truly forgets.”
The Internet does never forget but many, especially politicians like Joe Biden and E. Warren, and too many journalists to mention, seem to have great difficulty remembering that.
“Green” lifestyle is anything opposed to ‘their’ beliefs and promoting humanity.
They totally support hazard reduction in principle. However, try to implement it and you’ll quickly encounter why it can’t be done in this case. And in every other case.
As I said, they totally support it in principle. As far as they have any.
Which is none.
“ backfiring horribly”
Let’s hope those lighting backfires are good at what they do.
“There could be populations of Smokey Mouse, ”
I have to ask! Is its name derived from anything related to fires?
In Canada years ago, one could be pressed into assisting in forest fire fighting in extreme situations. I don’t know whether that is still true.
The reason anti-forest management environmental extremists are being exposed for their decades long campaigns that have led to massive out of control wildfires in California and Australia is because it’s reality and accurately reflects the damage being done by these “green“ idiots.
This reality is clearly documented in California in the Little Hoover Commission Wildfire Report of 2017, the Legislative Analyst Wildfire Report of 2018 and the CalFire Wildfire Report of 2019.
This environmental extremists wildfire driven debacle is also reflected in Gov. Newsom’s declaration of a State of Emergency in early 2019 to allow CalFire recommended clearing of forests to be done without CEQA review that would have been utilized by environmentalist to stop these actions which has been the case for decades in the state.
Environmental extremists have created these wildfire debacles in California and Australia and it is time this reality is addressed and stopped.
Greens website, 14 December 2019: (via Wayback Machine)
“let us kill off the furphy of clearing trees to protect homes. Trees around your home make very little difference to fire risk . . . ” https://web.archive.org/web/20170716013738/https://greens.org.au/bushfires
Greens website, 6 January 2020:
“The Australian Greens support hazard reduction burns and backburning . . . ” https://greens.org.au/bushfires
“Greens website, 14 December 2019”
It’s actually from 2009, and is not about controlled burns. It is a Greens MP who believes as a matter of science that trees around a house make it safer by shielding radiant heat. He gives his evidence. He may be wrong, but it is nothing to do with controlled burning.
Here is a post from a Greens spokesman in 2013:
“We strongly support fuel reduction burns to make Australians safer from bushfires. We’ve held this policy for a long time, and backed it up with action.
For example, Nick McKim, the leader of the Tasmanian Greens and a Minister in the state government, secured a funding increase of a recurrent $16 million for Tasmania’s Parks and Wildlife Service to manage reserves, including fuel reduction burns. Nick writes more about our policy to protect lives and property:”
A long statement follows
More from the Greens website 14 December 2019. (via Wayback Machine)
“People printing up ‘No fuel, no fire’ bumper stickers are basing their campaign on a fallacy . . .”
” let us get rid of this preposterous argument put around by the Victorian Association of Forest Industries that forest thinning reduces fuel . . . ”
This Green policy was obviously reversed on 15 December 2019.
To their dubious credit even the Iranian Government – after strenuous denials – came out and admitted they did shoot down the Ukrainian airliner.
“This Green policy was obviously reversed on 15 December 2019”
Again what you are quoting is from 2009. And again, it is not opposing prescribed burning. Forest thinning is not burning; it is a timber production process. He argues that taking down small trees actually increases flammable residues.
And he says “no fuel, no fire” is a fallacy. He’s right; prescribed burning does not eliminate fuel. Here is the chief of the CFA saying the same thing:
“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.”
Nick, do you realize you just destroyed AGW/CC Alarmism with this quote?
“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.”
During colder months means the fires are not caused by hot weather aka AGW.
He is referring to prescribed burns, often called cool burns. They do these in the colder months so they are easier to control. If it is too cold, they won’t burn at all.
The response of fire to heat is perfectly obvious to anyone paying attention, and has nothing to do with AGW. You get bad fires on hot days, usually after a dry period. If the days are hotter (AGW) this will happen more often.
You are not right, forestfires in winter happen, not often, but it’s not unusual. It’s not the heat, but the draught. You may have rel. humidity > 10% in wintertimes under falling air conditions.
If it is too cold, they won’t burn at all.
Following your comment, campfires in winter will not be possible 😀
Sorry, typo,
< 10%
zoom in and look at the red values
Klick on the value and see the hourly history .
“…Here is a post from a Greens spokesman in 2013…”
Just like in 2019/2020, it was damage control.
He and the other Greens can say what they want…their website and other statements spell-out the restrictions they want imposed. It’s like saying you’re pro-choice on abortions and then promoting a host of challenging restrictions that make it infeasible for most to get one.
Just a few days ago, you claimed the Greens have no power in government…yet here you are promoting a claim that a Green used his power in government to increase fuel reduction burns.
“you claimed the Greens have no power in government”
Currently true. A few years ago they were part of a coalition State government in Tasmania. The author (a Green) is describing the actions he took then to boost prescribed burning.
Everyone wants restrictions on prescribed burning, else we’ll be getting more of uncontrolled damage.
“…Currently true…”
Senators, members of the House, elected representatives across state and territory parliaments, and local councilors don’t have any power?
“…Everyone wants restrictions on prescribed burning, else we’ll be getting more of uncontrolled damage…”
Most of the restrictions they are asking for are not related to controlling the accidental burning of homes lol. And if everyone wants the same restrictions, then why haven’t they been implemented?
The Greens are inner city, bourgeois, university -infesting or public service employed snowflakes. They don’t get upset if other people get burnt to death. They get upset if they have to breathe smoke haze.
Riddle me this Batman. If increased CO2 increases water vapor, why is a wetter atmosphere causing bigger fires?
You don’t need them to halt burns, they don’t even allow clearing around towns and farms either. And no logging….
There’s that déjà vu feeling all over again, after every major summer fire event there is the obligatory enquiry that reaches the same conclusions, but little is done.
A related issue is the tendency to increased centralisation and bureaucratisation of state rural fire services with attendant empire-building at the expense of small local volunteer organisations.
Not to put too fine a point on it: the bureaucrats are more interested in major fire suppression rather than prevention.
“Some more examples of greens impeding controlled burns”
So let’s look:
1. This is actually a protest about clearing inner city parkland (Manly Vale, NSW). The protests about burning off the remainder are fairly incidental.
2. Yes, the tired old story about a few locals at Nowa Nowa and Mossiface
3. Some anti-logging folks worry about a coastal burn. They want to see it done properly. They are not trying to prevent the burn. Their proposed course of action?
“You can write to the manager of DEPI in Orbost – Steve deVoogd Steve.Devoogd@dse.vic.gov.au Ask that decent surveys be carried out by experts, peat beds are mapped, a risk assessment be drawn up, a detailed copy of the burn plan supplied, and if all the necessary precautions are taken and the fire goes ahead, that adequate aerial water bombing capacity be on standby. Due to this area being so valuable environmentally, pre and post burn surveys need to be carried out on a wide range of values, not just plants.”
Thanks for pointing out how they go about their obfuscation and public circus risk averse process Nick-
https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/images/stories/committees/SCEP/Fire_Season_Prepardeness/Submissions/Submission_29-Gippsland_Environment_Group-A2.pdf
“After the Gippsland Environment Group alerted the Orbost DSE to the existence of the rainforest stand within the planned burn boundaries, [X] the manager of Biodiversity at Orbost DSE, removed the area from the burn schedule pending more research. ”
It’s their massive covert operation rather than the obviously overt that does the trick but you can’t hide on the net and the truth will out.
It is perfectly reasonable that they should point out that rainforest. No-one wants rainforest to be burned. It’s just asking that they do the task properly.
Why? Greens are fine with cutting down rainforests for windmills.
Old-growth trees cut down for windfarm transmission corridor
http://bit.ly/33gNH8m
Rainforest trees 200 years old have been cleared to make way for a wind farm transmission line in Tasmania’s Tarkine, prompting claims of green “hypocrisy”….
They are also fine with winfarms slicing and dicing endangered eagles (well, any eagle is fine with them).
Tasmanian wind farms are very efficient at killing these endangered raptors.
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2007/s2130927.htm …
Wind farm industry a fatal blow to eagles
JULY 27, 2019
There are less than one and a half thousand Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagles left.
A Tasmanian wind farm has killed three eagles in the past few months, and 37 eagles across its wider operations since 2002, amid fears 10 new wind farms planned for the island will cause extinctions.
…The recent deaths are a concerning development for Woolnorth, a joint venture between China’s Shenhua Group and state-owned Hydro Tasmania, which had not reported eagle fatalities at either northwest site for about a decade.
…Bird experts warned the latest deaths raised concerns about the survival of threatened bird species as the island state braced for a wind farm boom…
Greens are hypocrites of the highest order.
“Greens are fine with cutting down rainforests for windmills.”
The usual haphazard “facts”. The forests were not cut down for windmills. They were cut down to widen a corridor for a transmission line, The corridor long pre-existed the coastal windmill development. It was not the windmills that required the widening; it was bushfire safety.
Nick, you prove you do not even read that which you criticize.
Looking through the comments there seems to be some confusion between Greens and green policies. Whilst the greens as a party would probably support less rather than more forest management burning it is their crazy ideology that infects so many councils and governments. The NSW Turnbull influenced Liberals and the state Liberals are barely distinguishable from Greens in many of there policies and policy statements. You had the NSW environment Matt Keane sound like an extinction rebellion supporter rather than a liberal minister. In the socialist republic of Victoria the Andrews government wants to go further green on energy / emissions policy and the Liberal party is not much better. The influence of green thought and processes has influenced all major institutions, corporations, placies of learning , all religions. I fear that any commission into these fires will be hijacked by green influences from all parties. When you had the senior most respected climate scientist Andy Pitman categorically say there is no connection between CO2 and drought ( despite trying to disown his statement) it should be clear that the further linkage of drought to fires doesn’t fail at the first hurdle. Yet the absolute obviousness that the prevalence of fires won’t change no matter what policies we undertake. As this is so obvious the only thing we can do is conduct practices that will make us safe.The badgering of the prime minister I fear will turn Scomo from a brilliant coal waving sceptic stirring up the lefties to a disappointing compliant servant of the Greens. From the time Labor needed the Greens to stay in power politics in Australia has kept going further and further to the left no matter which party you are talking about.
Maybe a minor party will take up the anti-green mantle. It would have an impact, if it gained a lot of votes.
We are not stupid… You cant even collect firewood without a permit… If you have the time I suggest you read this nonsense…
https://www.federationcouncil.nsw.gov.au/Environment-Waste/Animals-Plants/Firewood-Collection/Roadside-Firewood-Collection-Permits
You have no idea the amount of GREEN you have to go through to remove a DEAD tree in Sydney suburbia let alone on land area adjacent to a forest.
A Royal Commission is about to called into the bushfires but it will be at a Federal level. Therefore the States and Local Councils wont be investigated on the subject of fuel load. The GREENS are most active at the local council level in this country.
It doesn’t have to be the council usually this all falls under a council enviromental officer and they have been greenwashed getting their degree.
We had the ‘Black Saturday’ bushfires in Victoria in Feb 2009 and the usual unprecedented shock horror yada-
https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/black-saturday-bushfires
So it didn’t take long to cobble together the new Australian Standard for Bushfire Attack Levels AS3959-2009 and subsequent amendments as new wisdom comes to light-
https://hia.com.au/business-information/standards-regulations/building-in-bushfire-prone-areas
So every one of those currently destroyed homes many of them old weatherboard relics from past sawmilling will need a BAL Assessment to be rebuilt-
https://www.sabushfiresolutions.com.au/bushfire-attack-level-bal-assessments/
Well whilst many will decide they don’t want to go through it again rebuilding many will also find the insurance payouts are not sufficient to meet the new building requirements anyway. It’s what we do with a National Construction Code and you can sit on old buildings and their shortcomings as long as you like but the moment you want to renovate or build anew then welcome to current Standards for the health safety welfare and amenity of the occupants. No ifs buts or maybes folks.
Started on military land *AFTER* weapons fire. Duh!
Not exactly.
Many homes are in unsewered areas, and the lots are two small to accommodate the waste water systems. Many residents were allowed to rebuild using old style septics.
A lot of burnt homes were immediately adjacent to government forests with thousands of acres of bush. There was no way they could meet the new guidelines. There was a lot of looking the other way by authorities.
Thanks to all the Greens that have expanded our National and State parks Thanks to all the Greens who have reduced controlled burns Thanks to the Greenies who chained themselves to trees to get media attention.
Thanks to the media for giving them prime time to achieve their goals.
Thanks to the legislation to stop roadside firewood collection Thanks to the shires who won’t allow trees to be fell on private property Thanks to the Government for stopping grazing in the High Country Thanks to the lack of roadside grass cutting by shires Thanks to the Greens for brainwashing the next generation……and then you all have the audacity to blame climate change!
Hope your movement of what you have created take responsibility for the horrific bushfires that are ripping the heart and soul from so many towns and communities in our country…
I have to ask, how many greenies are at the fire front trying to help these communities?
How many are chaining themselves to trees? Are out rescuing the wildlife or that special rare plant species?
I agree – if the people who have got the time to protest march in cities about climate change actually did something constructive it would be of more use!!!! Nothing Australia does is going to stop climate change anyway!
“Joëlle Gergis” Can’t be that award winning as I have never heard of her.
I see Nick is up to his old tricks again. Sad.
““Joëlle Gergis” Can’t be that award winning as I have never heard of her”
Read all about it.
http://joellegergis.com/?page_id=7
In 2007 she was one of three national finalists for the 2007 Eureka Prize for Young Leaders in Environmental Issues and Climate Change, and was one of nineteen Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists’ Science Leaders Scholarship recipients selected nationwide. Professor Tim Flannery, the 2007 Australian of the Year, was one of her mentors during the program aimed at training outstanding young scientists to help bridge the communication gap between science and public policy.
In 2012 Joëlle was awarded an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) fellowship, and her team won the 2014 Eureka Prize for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Scientific Research – informally known as the ‘Oscars of Australian Science’.
In 2015 Joëlle was awarded the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research in the Faculty of Science at the University of Melbourne. In February 2018, she was selected to serve as a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report – a global, state-of-the art review of climate change science.
Joëlle’s book Sunburnt Country: The future and history of climate change in Australia, was released by Melbourne University Publishing in April 2018.
In August 2018, Joëlle joined the Climate Council – Australia’s leading independent body providing expert advice to the Australian public on climate change and policy.
In November 2019 she received the 2019 AMOS Science Outreach Award, a national prize for science communication awarded by the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (AMOS), Australia’s peak professional body for climate science.
Don’t want to. As I said she can’t be that great if I have never heard of her before.
I assume this is the same Joelle Gergis that Steve McIntyre took down here?
https://climateaudit.org/2016/07/21/joelle-gergis-data-torturer/
Yes. Here’s the first paragraph from that post:
You should read Climate Audit.
Nick. You are obsessing about the photo. No one is claiming that these handful of protesters is somehow responsible for the tragic fires in Australia. It is not these individuals, but it is the widespread culture in which these people thrive. This culture is pervasive across much of Western Civilization, from the indoctrination of small children to the highest levels of governments: Nature is good and beautiful. Humans are unnatural and, therefore, bad.
Some of the first commenters on this thread appear to be Australians reporting on their first hand experience with regulations that made it extremely difficult or impossible to legally protect their own property from bush fires. This topic isn’t about 10 people in Nowa Nowa, but about a whole culture of regulation and intimidation, largely fueled by environmental scare stories that are grossly inaccurate or just completely made up, and championed by the liberal media and liberal judges.
The fires are revealing that the culture of regulation has gone too far, and the ‘Greens’ will have a well deserved set-back in their desire to control everyone. But it will just be a set-back. I doubt they will change their narrative or their efforts. They just won’t be as successful as they have been in the past, at least for a little while.
“No one is claiming that these handful of protesters is somehow responsible for the tragic fires in Australia.”
Well,they can’t seem to find any other actual people; just some deep state myths. The fact is that regulation is controlled by the local and state governments that the people elect. And they are not electing (majority) Greens.
Back in the 1950s they couldn’t find any white racists in the Ku Klux Klan either. And yet black men were getting lynched…
Nick. Denial is not just a river in Africa….
It’s not denial, it’s diversion.
Nick are you messing with people or don’t you really know.
For all non Australians , “The Greens” is a left wing political party. They do however have some environment policies, based on anti – everything
The real drivers against all types of clearing are the individual greens ( may or may not be lefties and may or may not be members of the greens) in all levels of government.
It doesn’t really matter if a commenter refers to greens or the greens
“This culture is pervasive across much of Western Civilization, from the indoctrination of small children to the highest levels of governments: Nature is good and beautiful. Humans are unnatural and, therefore, bad.”
IOW, four legs good, two legs bad.
There is widespread evidence in print and photo in Australia that Greenies have done their best to stop all-hazard reduction burns. The bushfires occurred not in hot temperatures but in areas with fire load that had not been cleared during winter. The Greenies have been supported in the media and by local government who all blocked or spoken against hazard reduction. Fortunately, the Australian people can remember the past and in case they do not, the internet WayBack never forgets.
The Greens pull about 10% of the votes in Australian Federal elections.
However, Their ABC will seek comments from The Greens on almost every issue.
The ABC are Charter bound to provide balance and news/opinion without bias – but you’d never know!
The reality is that the vast majority of Australians have ZERO interest in what The Greens have to say about anything.
It’s actually worse than that they use greenpeace twitter feed as a reference for news storys. I lodged a complaint about one because the greenpeace twitter feed made a mistake which ABC copied. Any source check from any of source and you would know it was wrong.
The speed at which the fire advances is related mostly to wind speed, not fuel load. A grass fire in a howling wind is almost impossibly to extinguis. But the heat and intensity is proportional to the fuel load. Try this experiment. Light a single match and examine the flame. Then hold 3 or 4 matches together and light them and see the difference.
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Thanks to all the Greens that have expanded our National and State parks Thanks to all the Greens who have reduced controlled burns Thanks to the Greenies who chained themselves to trees to get media attention.
Scott Morrison’s input to the royal commission review will be worth studying. Will he cravenly admit that he should be supporting action to prevent climate change, in order to garner green votes. Or will he have the spine to stand and say that fires are routine but their effects have been exacerbated by the adoption of green policies? Surely he is in a good position to stand up to green idiocy, given the public awareness of green policies and arsonists but will he cave in? Will the BBC demonize Murdoch? The coming year is going to be turbulent.
About 180 arsonists have been arrested so far in Australia this fire season. Its been deliberately kept quiet in the press. Many of them are mentally challenged, a lot are children not knowing the danger of what they do, some are elderly who didnt realise anymore. But its going to be interesting to see who the rest are, and what affiliations they have.
“Its been deliberately kept quiet in the press.”
No, it was trumpeted by the Murdoch press. And it’s a lie.
Its a lie just because you say so, Nick? Comments on this blog suggest your statements are often not very accurate, but I guess you know best in this case. Better than my contacts in Victoria Police.
Comments on this thread, not just by me, show why it isn’t true. They took a report listing total numbers of charges and warnings resulting from all bushfire-related offences, including things like dropping a cigarette on the pavement, and listed them as the “arson arrest toll”.
Here is a story about the resulting internal ructions at the Australian.
If the magnitude of the arson is as the police are saying, and its being kept from the press, then comments from press sources are perhaps not the best guide.
So as I said at the top of this thread, “Its going to be interesting to see who the rest are……
This graph was posted in a Jo Nova article from March 2019, long before the present fires, showing that as preventative burns in WA decreased, so wildfires increased. The link appears to be abundantly clear, and yet still the Greens refuse to allow logic to overcome emotion.
You cannot run a nation or a civilisation on emotion.
http://joannenova.com.au/2019/03/too-much-fuel-causes-extreme-bush-fires-not-climate-change
My little niece stumped me one day by saying “what is a lefty liberal”. Had to think about that one for a moment, but came up with “someone who makes decisions based upon fantasies and emotions”.
Ralph
“someone who makes decisions based upon fantasies and emotions”
That could apply to just about any ideology.
I’m a farmer and an economist. I live 100km south of Australia’s capital Canberra. We farm beef cattle.
My farm has bush fire on three sides encroaching to as close as 8kms. We have been on alert for two weeks.
The national park on my western boundary is mostly dense eucalyptus forest. It is more than 240,000 acres in size. It has not had hazard reduction burns in at least 20 years.
We work to keep eucalyptus out of our cleared pastures. I have one paddock adjoining the national park forest of around 50 acres where, which after rotating it out of production for two years, had eucalyptus regrowth that quickly took over. We are not allowed to clear this regrowth as the trees are more than 2m tall.
I would like to do a controlled burn in this paddock to reduce fallen tree limbs and grass before the bushfire gets here. This is allowed, but only if I have a 40m cleared boundary between the paddock and the forest, .but I am not allowed to clear the boundary.
So we watch and wait. When the wind blows from the west we evacuate our children.
It is not climate change. It is stupid policy.
When the royal commission is announced lodge a submission stating the case, the more of us that do it the more they can not ignore it.
Good luck mate.
In the previous solar minimum in 2009, significantly more people died.
“The most deadly conflagration, which claimed 121 lives, was sparked by a faulty power pole near the township of Kilmore East, 37 miles (60 km) north of Melbourne.”
“On February 7, Victorians were told to brace for a record heat wave—with temperatures soaring to 115.5 °F (46.4 °C)—combined with gale-force winds of up to 56 miles per hour (90 km/hr). That day more than 47 major fires erupted across the state, 14 of them claiming lives or causing significant damage. With its abundant forests and hot, dry climate, Australia had often suffered from deadly bushfires, most notably the 1939 “Black Friday” blaze in Victoria, in which 71 people were killed, and the 1983 “Ash Wednesday” fires in Victoria and South Australia, where 75 people perished. The scale of the 2009 fires—attributed to extreme weather conditions coupled with a severe and protracted drought that had created tinder-dry vegetation across the state—was unprecedented and left the country in a state of shock.”
https://www.britannica.com/event/Australia-bushfires-of-2009
It is entirely the fault of the Leftists that most of the fuel feeding the fires is there feeding the fires.
Their fault and they need to pay huge fines and reparations.
Announce a large prescribed* burn (after the fire calms down, of course) and invite the media. Bring your own camera people, etc. When the “we don’t really oppose prescribed burns” crowd comes to protest, film and post all over the internet. Repeat as often as possible.
(*term used in California because these burns may or may not remain controlled)
The Volunteer Firefighters Association (VFFA), the body representing the Voice of Volunteer Rural Firefighters in NSW refutes the claim by green alarmists that climate change is the cause of the recent bushfires in New South Wales.
So, where are the firefighters pointing the finger?
The VFFA is angered by comments from the green lobby groups that tackling climate change was more important than prescribed burning of forest fuels to reduce bushfire risk. The real blame rests with the greens and their ideology as they continue to oppose and undermine our efforts to conduct hazard reduction in the cooler months and to prevent private landowners from clearing their lands to reduce bushfire risk.
Hazard reduction is the only proven management tool rural firefighters have to reduce the intensity and spread of bushfires and this has been recognised in numerous bushfire enquires since the Stretton enquiry into the 1939 Victorian Bushfires.
The 2009 Black Saturday commission reinforced the message:
Prescribed burning is one of the main tools for fire management on public land. it cannot prevent bushfire, but it decreases fuel loads and so reduces the spread and intensity of bushfires. By reducing the spread and intensity of bushfires, it also helps protect flora and fauna. Ironically, maintaining pristine forests untouched by fuel reduction can predispose those forests to greater destruction in the event of a bushfire.
The Greens are trying to frantically re-write history by insisting that they support hazard reduction burning. What they don’t say is that they make sure that hazard reduction is choked by green tape.
The amount of ‘green tape’ we have to go through to get a burn approved is beyond frustrating; says Peter Cannon [President of the VFFA]. The VFFA is calling on the NSW State Government to reduce the amount of green tape involved in planning and conducting hazard reductions, so that our Volunteer Firefighters can get on with the job of conducting fire prevention works in the cooler months to prevent the inevitable summer bushfire disasters that are now becoming a more regular feature […]To increase the area treated by prescribed burning on bushfire prone lands from the current level of less than 1% per annum to a minimum of 5% per annum, as recommended by the Victorian Royal Commission and many leading bushfire experts.
volunteerfirefighters.org.au/green-tape-prevents-volunteer-rural-firefighters-reducing-bushfire-risk
Prescribed burning is not the sole answer to Australia’s bushfire problem, but it’s one of the biggies. One way or the other, vegetation needs to be stopped from building up to catastrophic levels.
In the meantime, the green lobby needs to stop trying to falsely blame climate change. Trying to scare everyone with imaginary bogey-men is not just nonsense, it’s deadly nonsense.
The VFFA are entitled to their opinion, but it should be pointed out that they only represent a small fraction of volunteer firefighters. The RFSA represents over 70,000 volunteers. The VFFA won’t say how many members they have. They campaign for and donate to the Shooters and Fishers party.
That’s fine. They’re allowed to.
But calling them “the body representing the Voice of Volunteer Rural Firefighters in NSW” without mentioning those details is a bit weak.
The line from the firefighter regarding not to take photos is just typical Aussie humour. Volunteer firefighters are not inner city greenies and this comment is just a bit of anti-green bantor to generate a laugh between the firies. The reporting of the joke as evidence of a Murdock conspiracy to squash the climate debate is typical of green alarmists who don’t even realise the joke is on them.