Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to an outpouring of ecological grief from Inside Climate News, the Aussie bushfires are a sign all the trees in the world are about to die from heat stress and fire.
In Australia’s Burning Forests, Signs We’ve Passed a Global Warming Tipping Point
‘Nobody saw it coming this soon,’ one scientist said. ‘It’s likely the forests won’t be coming back as we know them.’
BY BOB BERWYN, INSIDECLIMATE NEWS
JAN 8, 2020As extreme wildfires burn across large swaths of Australia, scientists say we’re witnessing how global warming can push forest ecosystems past a point of no return.
Some of those forests won’t recover in today’s warmer climate, scientists say. They expect the same in other regions scarred by flames in recent years; in semi-arid areas like parts of the American West, the Mediterranean Basin and Australia, some post-fire forest landscapes will shift to brush or grassland.
More than 17 million acres have burned in Australia over the last three months amid record heat that has dried vegetation and pulled moisture from the land. Hundreds of millions of animals, including a large number of koalas, are believed to have perished in the infernos. The survivors will face drastically changed habitats. Water flows and vegetation will change, and carbon emissions will rise as burning trees release carbon and fewer living trees are left to pull CO2 out of the air and store it.
In many ways, it’s the definition of a tipping point, as ecosystems transform from one type into another.
The surge of large, destructive forest fires from the Arctic to the tropics just in the last few years has shocked even researchers who focus on forests and fires and who have warnedof such tipping points for years.
The projections were seen as remote, “something that would happen much farther in the future,” said University of Arizona climate scientist David Breashers. “But it’s happening now. Nobody saw it coming this soon, even though it was like a freight train.
“It’s likely the forests won’t be coming back as we know them.“
…
Read more: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08012020/australia-wildfires-forest-tipping-points-climate-change-impact-wildlife-survival
The truth of course is such claims are just as absurd as “end of snow” predictions.
Will the forest change? Of course it will. Forests are dynamic systems, there is always change; especially after a major event like a large bushfire.
Will anybody notice anything different in 10 years? Hopefully what people will notice is the scorch marks of more frequent controlled burns and larger firebreaks, indications of competent forest management to ensure fewer koalas get crisped in the next large fire.
“It’s likely the forests won’t be coming back as we know them.”
This is a good thing. It means that the forests won’t be coming back as severely overstocked, decadent, and fire prone thickets of brush.
Tongue-in-cheek of course, but hope I’ve made my point. Manage your damn forests, and you won’t have such devastating bush fires.
By that “scientist’s” logic, whenever a tree dies life will never be the same.
As long as nothing ever dies, life will never change.
Wait … what?
They really have jumped the shark.
If they jumped the shark with electric bikes, we wouldn’t have to worry about them any more.
Jeff: I think I see what you mean by jumping a shark with an electric bike. Sea water is a better conductor than fresh water or distilled water. How terribly shocking !
I think you mean they’ve jumped the bark 😉
Nature is simply stepping in to manage the forests, since we have failed to do so. Nature takes the long view, so a few hundred homes and over abundent homo saps. don’t really matter.
“In many ways, it’s the definition of a tipping point, as ecosystems transform from one type into another. ”
NO, that it not the “definition” of a tipping point. The analogy of a vase tipping over represents a system going into a state where it is dominated by a positive feedback ( the further it leans the more force there is to accelerate the fall ).
A forest fire which eventually runs out of fuel and ensures there will no more forest fires in that area for some time to come is a good example of a NEGATIVE feedback.
How these halfwits are allowed to even pretend to be scientists is beyond me.
Say it loud; say it often.
Unfortunately “science” in much of the popular media has degenerated into a quasi-religious, quasi-superstitious belief system dominated by code-like language, in-crowd virtue signals, and mean-girl shunning of the uninitiated.
I will bet Mr. Breachers any amount of money that forests will grow back.
Can I get some of that action?
Faster, due to the beneficial extra CO2.
And all the nutrients left over after a fire.
I’ve just driven through bush burnt less than two months ago and it is regenerating – as it always does.
So far the current fires have taken about 8 million Ha of bush. In 1974/75 the fires accounted for 117 million Ha.
These fires are not unprecedented, not unusually large by comparison with earlier fires.
I would invite the end of earth brigade to come on down, in about three years, and wonder at mother natures recuperative powers.
yup new bushy growth on burnt trees within 3 to 6mths
and the coming rains will help that along
ditto the shrubby bushes like heaths and others if not from seed in the ground then brought in by birds in poop from nearby areas
and after winter rains new eucy saplings will rise
and they..are where the problems begin again if theyre not thinned strategically
yes we will have lost some trees but the last thing we need is dense stands recurring again
Forests grow back? That has NEVER HAPPENED. Every biome that has ever burned has remained barren and frozen in time ever since.
Life isn’t really alive, with abilities to regenerate. The natural world is more like a store display window, where nothing ever changes unless the store manager says so.
So … the ecological “scientists” insisted that it was … natttttural … to allow scrub growth and forest growth to go untouched by human intervention. Mmm OK.? And when the forests become an inferno due to those policies … it’s also … natttttural, right? So nature is doing the job you eco-zealots stopped intelligent human organisms from doing. So it should be a Win-Win? Right? Just like you declared after allowing half of Yellowstone Park burn to the ground. You all cheered the Yellowstone inferno as … natttttural. You claimed all the species of seeds that required fire to germinate were the beneficiaries of forest infernos. So … what happened to that GLEE over fire? You should all be CHEERING the Australian infernos. Right?
Don’t these imbeciles understand that our eucalypt forests are optimised to use fire to regenerate? The seeds need fire to pop open and can then germinate. If you burn all the leaves off them, including the crown, they just shoot new ones pretty much like deciduous trees but including new branches from the trunk.
Don’t they understand that at settlement in 1788 Australia had hauge swathes of landscape modified by the indigenous population by the relentless and skillful use of ‘cool burning’ to suit their needs and manage their risk from firestorms. It is only relatively recently that the eco fundamentalists have enforced their green tape regime that every tree is worth several human lives and all but shut down preventive buring and mechanical clearing both by government and private landholders.
We have enough problem in Oz with our local inner city green loons weeping into their soy latte as they watch the latest bushfire porn on their dumb phones and we really don’t need every green loon on the planet joining in.
The rather laconic, dry sarcasm that epitomises much of the Australian sense of humour draws from the manifest ignorance of ‘new chums’ in settle times as they tried to apply their northern hemisphere reference points to this country.
These latter day dimwits don’t have the same excuses that encouraged our forefathers to use humour in response to such ignorance. They can quite easily Google all the info they need about the Australian ecosystems and the countries history of drought and flood cycles linked to ENSO and IPO etc. If they are too arrogant, too self righteous or just too damn bone lazy to do so then we have the full range of fully weaponised expletives and insults to let rip with because frankly given the eriousness of the current fires we just don’t have the time or patience for their utter BS.
“It’s likely the forests won’t be coming back as we know them.”
Unfortunately they will. Eucalypts are pyrophytes. This is how they prevent other forms of forest from outcompeting them. Lodgepole pines use the same nasty trick on e. g. Engelmann spruce.
This is what will be happening in a few weeks:
It is known as “epicormic budding”, and is initiated by heat and/or smoke.
And if it is mallee that has been burning it will first look like this:
And in a few years like this:
“It is known as “epicormic budding”, and is initiated by heat and/or smoke.”
But this is clearly a genetic adaption by Eucalypts and genetic adaption occurs as a response to environmental stress. That means fire must have been an environmental factor for long enough for a species to genetically adapt to it (millions of years) so how can one rationally argue that fire now will destroy the forests. It is no accident that many fire prone areas involve Eucalyptus trees whether here in Aus or in California or in Peru or many other places in the world. California could greatly reduce its fire risk if they removed all Eucalyptus trees. After all, don’t the environmentalists insist one should only grow indigenous plants and since when are Eucalyptus trees indigenous to California. But then of course only arguments favouring the cause will be entertained.
They’ll probably be worse actually, at least for a time. I recently drove through St Andrews, a small town in the bush just north east of Melbourne. St Andrews was hit hard on Black Saturday in 2009. The forest around it is now a thicket of ~10 year old saplings. It’s also been very dry there for a couple of years, so there are quite a few patches of dead saplings. Long story short, it’s a tinder box.
The councils in the area had a 10 year moratorium allowing residents to cut down trees to reduce fire risk. That is now over and the green dominated council is pretty much preventing any native trees from being felled. My friend in Kinglake (a nearby town also hit hard on Black Saturday) was even told that he couldn’t cut down a him tree that he planned himself.
In other areas I’ve been recently the sapling regrowth from Black Saturday is even thicker. On the edge of Tarra Bulga National Park where they haven’t had the same dry conditions the saplings are very thick and lush.
That’s just what happens after a big fire.
Also, how about having the insane eco-fanatics NOT starting fires to burn up the heavily fuel-stocked forests causing massive fires in an attempt to force the rest of us to comply with their “Green-New-Deal” insanity!!!!
Forest fires happen every summer because it is possible to start a forest fire in almost every forest on the planet except in raining winter months.
Anyone here with wilderness camping experience? Even rainforests have dry seasons. Forest fires in Brazil.
The cult of CAGW are lost. They are fighting to push CAGW which is a dead idea, so they are using false logic.
… conceptually there is no ‘tipping’ point because the cult of CAGW’s ‘science’ is a 100% incorrect.
We did not cause the CO2 rise and the CO2 rise did not cause the temperature rise.
This Canada winter was forecasted to be warm and above normal warm because the forecasters believed the cult’s message…
https://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/news/article/british-columbia-set-for-coldest-temperatures-this-century
B.C. set for coldest temperatures this century
There are more trees in North America now than 150 years ago. They are not old growth trees but from two different developments. One is replanting and moving away from clear cutting. Except for the Tongas National Forest in Alaska which under Governor Bill Sheffield began selling to the Japanese for less than $1.00 per tree. I confronted him personally on that one. The other is in the absence of natural vast grasslands you now have scrub trees like juniper, cedar, mesquite etc that have moved in to replace the grasslands. Just wish we had antelope here in Texas. Armadillos are plentiful but are now in Oklahoma and further south and no longer in Ohio.
Jean – Not sure where to start, because you’ve got some mixed up ideas. Let’s just take one: that “Governor” Bill Sheffield “began selling (timber from the Tsongas NATIONAL FOREST) to the Japaneses for less than $1.00 per tree.” This is utter nonsense. The governor of Alaska, like the governors of all STATES, have absolutely zero responsibility over the sale of FEDERAL timber. Governor Sheffield must have been mystified by your challenge.
What will happen to a green planet when C02 is drastically reduced? https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth
Save the trees and forget about the animals-
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/extinction-rebellion-listed-as-extremist-by-anti-terror-police/ar-BBYR20u?ocid=spartanntp&fullscreen=true#image=2
No wonder the kiddies are suffering anxiety and on medication.
Please let it rain brain 😀
I’ve rarely read so much tripe in one article. That Berwyn character seems to have no grip on reality at all.
Berwyn
WTH? How in the world did those flux lines interact?! LOL
If only these charlatans were held accountable for their Chicken Littlism.
Now you’ve hit the nail on the head. Because of their stupid policies, at least nine people have died, and nearly 800 homes destroyed and twice more again that many homes damaged. Animal losses have been estimated to be nearly one billion. Yes, the 24 arsonists contributed, but they could not have been so successful without folks like Berwyn lobbying low IQ politicians.
Politicians should be turned out of office until they start to hold eco-terrorists responsible for their misdeeds.
As long as you have land socialism nothing will change.
Land Socialism: Playing With Fire
Private markets specialize in protection of property, particularly against natural risks. If the land were privately owned, it would be protected against burning through better management. If it had to be burned, the burning would be controlled. Unexpected events like droughts and winds would be calculated into management decisions.
What’s more, there would be serious liability issues. Any owner of property who let fires rage would be directly responsible for imposing fires on others. This is the way markets work. If my bathtub overflows, floods my house, and then the waters flood my neighbor’s house, I am responsible via my insurance policy. So, yes, there would be a price to pay for fires on your land that harm others’ property.
What do we have today? We have fires that are no one’s responsibility. Oddly, and by some strange practice that dates back to, hmmm, the beginning of time, rulers are not to be held responsible for actions that take place on their watch. So the government is not liable. It should be but it isn’t. So putting government in charge is always a perfect storm for disaster without responsibility.
Your job is to flee, pay, and obey.
https://mises.org/library/land-socialism-playing-fire
I like chickens. I like all animals. They taste great!
Well now We’ve Passed a “Tipping Point” there’s no way back,
so can we stop all this nonsense & just sit back to enjoy the the unprecedented cataclysmic end of everything over the next 12,000,000 yrs
See AOC was right… she just forgot the extra six zeros on the end.
Did she get the Abbopotamus to do the hard math. for her?
No, she got the JiffyLobo. Lobotomies in 15minutes, guaranteed.
(fyi, not original; credit to peoples cube)
Add a couple more zeroes and multiple by 2, and then you’ll be close.
“Party on, Garth!”
Tim Flannery – “Even the rains that falls isn’t going to fill our dams and river systems.
This has proven to be just as false as the current alarmist BS from so-called “scientists” (“Climate Scientologists” maybe!)
“Climate Scientologists” Good one!!! Shamelessly going to steal that one.
Tim Flannery was quoted as having stated that the odds of this so-called unprecedented event happening naturally was 350 to one.
Taking them at their word and assuming no similar event since European settlement, those odds actually work out at just on a 49% chance that these events would have happened by now, through natural variability. So it’s pretty much bang on time.
That’s what they said during the last drought, so they didn’t let the dams drain. Then as usual, the rains came and the dams filled to overflowing and they had to release so much water there was widespread flooding – which is what the dams were constructed to prevent in the first place.
I wonder, did they learn from the last time or have they already forgotten?
Just how bad does it have to get before people realize that it’s a bad idea to pay attention to the warmunists?
we already have the media pushing the rains that might come this week causing flash flooding and risking the firies yet again..sigh. its never ending crap from go to whoa here;-(
I’m sure the whole climate scam community and bbc knows the names and qualifications of these “climate scientists” but I personally have never read a single word of anybody who wasn’t parroting the ipcc or u.n 😐
Do these “climate scientists” even exist??
Hate to point out the obvious, but trees that burn provide nutrients for coming generations of trees.
These people are SO dismal. How do they manage to get up in the morning and face themselves in the mirror?
Sara – to be fair, REALLY hot fires can cause changes to soils, and not in a good way. That said, I’m not too worried. Right in my backyard we have Mt. St. Helens, which had a fairly significant eruption almost 40 years ago. Temps in the pyroclastic flow that resulted were off the charts hot. The major landowner at that time, Weyerhaeuser, showed that vegetation started to return almost immediately.
It really is hard to stop trees from becoming re-established after fire.
Forty years ago?
For the sake of all of us who remember it very well can you please pretend it was only ten years ago?
Tonyb
Tonyb – I hear you. We saw the “Big One” (there were numerous other, smaller eruptions) from the picture window of the place we were renting at the time in one of the Portland, OR burbs. A week later, my oldest daughter was born.
“A week later, my oldest daughter was born.”
Wow! That’s some fast work!
Jeff – Well, according to the alarmists, correlation is causation…
Ha ha yes, I was a Post-doc at U of Alberta then. The only place I’d seen volcanic ash before was on good French cheeses, so quite surprising to see my car covered in it.
I was heading east from Chinook Pass (Sat. 8/12/2017) and saw the smoke plume from the Friday lightning strike that became the Norse Peak Fire. A USFS truck with 2 folks were along the side of the road – watching the rising smoke.
The fire landscape was studied, even while it was still hot.
Norse Peak Fire Recap
4 reports – see white-on-green links, right side.
https://www.wrra.net/norse-peak-fire-info
I recall these reports were from 2018, but don’t see dates.
Maps and photos in the “soils” one are very good.
And . . . such studies are not new:
Wildland Fire in Ecosystems Effects of Fire on Soil and Water
https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs/rmrs_gtr042_4.pdf
This is a 262 page pdf from Rocky Mountain Research Station, 2005.
@LKMiller
Sara – to be fair, REALLY hot fires
show me a cold one, please 😀
Krishna – Fires burn at widely different intensities, which depend mostly on the fuels and fuel moisture. As an example, my managed woodlot in northwest Montana could easily sustain a fire, which under all but very extreme conditions would burn on the ground in fuels that are light. The temperatures wouldn’t get very hot and a couple of years later, you wouldn’t even know there had been a wildland fire.
Contrast that to the federally mismanaged National Forest, that abuts my property. Heavy, heavy fuel loads that, when they do burn (increasing frequency with each passing year of no management…), burn extremely hot and long. Such sites a year later are still essentially completely black, with very little vegetation coming back.
“Fires burn at widely different intensities, which depend mostly on the fuels and fuel moisture”
Don’t forget wind, which intensifies things dramatically via removing ash and providing oxygen.
“How do they manage to get up in the morning and face themselves in the mirror?”
Probably via prescription psychotropic drugs and their twitter echo chamber.
Perhaps these “scientists” could take a road trip from NYC to, say, Youngstown, Ohio? If they are not totally braindead, or totally stoned, dude, they will learn there are plenty of trees on this planet. I don’t hold out much hope for it, at least they would get out of their cubicles and actually see some sunshine for a bit.
As per usual its worse than expected… blah, blah,,blah.
Read the following on the mismanagement of Yellowstone for parallels…
https://kottke.org/15/01/yellowstone-how-not-to-manage-a-national-park
How do you “manage” a wildlife preserve ? Answer = don’t.
As in Australia similar failure caused by “managing” the fuel load by persistently extinguishing minor natural burns led eventually to much larger sterilizing fires – after which the vegetation that regrew was not the same as the vegetation destroyed.
Much of the Australian fauna need periodic fires to cause their seeds to germinate – not however these sterilizing intensity fires generated entirely by man’s bungling.
That would be the flora. The fauna is not really very keen on fires.
Zig-Zag – ID10T error on my part which I spotted just after I sent it – no edit function unfortunately.
Well spotted.
If man was not there to start small fires to “manage” the forests then wouldn’t we get these large, hot fires? So to me it means that the current fires are more natural and the fires managed by the aboriginal peoples were anthropogenic. So just maybe large fires changing the variety of plants is natural and is nature’s way of helping evolution.
You might be right, but I suspect that most naturally started small fires are suppressed if they’re near developed areas. Human management can mimic the natural process but with more control, making it less dangerous to people, property and even wildlife.
Over ten times as much bush was consumed by fire in Australia in 1974 compared with this season. Twice as much in 2004 at 20m Ha.
These people who have an agenda always wind up looking stupid when everything returns to normal. Unfortunately there are lots of very gullible people who never learn.
“Official Australian Disaster Resilience Knowledge Hub data – 1974/5 bushfire season v current situation”
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2020/01/official-australian-disaster-resilience-knowledge-hub-data-19745-bushfire-season-v-current-situation.html
A bit into the video “A Dearth of Carbon (w/ Dr. Patrick Moore, environmentalist)” Dr. Moore says something in direction of: “If we stopped using fossil fuel tomorrow, all trees would be gone in two years.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjlmFr4FMvI
So the Australian burned forests will regrow if there is enough CO₂ in the air. The Greens seems to do all they can to kill the planet and the world around us. If only they would try to look at the big picture and continue the great success our parents and grand parents, our children and grand children will undoubtedly have an even more prosperous life.
Look closely at the trees in those photos of the forests burning. You can easily pick out a few large trees that are at least 50 to 100 years old. As you look closer you will then see many trees from sapling size to those that are less than ten years old. These younger trees grow for a few years then no longer get enough sun to stay alive and then die. My property borders property like this and I have watched this progression. 50 years ago it was a dairy farm. Today it is inside city limits. 25 years ago the farmer died and the property was sold to a Yuppy that wanted a few horses for his wife and daughter. Worse the saplings, small trees and underbrush are so thick that it is impossible to walk through the 100 acres closest to my land. Last summer while playing with the dog the wind caught the frisbee and carried it less than 50 feet into the woods. Only the dog could get to it. It took me over a half hour to work my way to it as he barked wanting his frisbee stuck on top of the chokeberry and brambles .
Glad that’s over. Now we don’t need to do global socialism.
The Australian fires of ’74/75 prove him right. …. Some 247MILLION acres…. How is it that there was anything to burn this time?????
Oh, wait. The fires this time around have only burnt some 12.4Mil acres….
It’s funny the Australian fires are getting that reaction outside Australia. The Friday protest by the greens and XR8 in Australia didn’t even get 50,000 out to protest in all the cities combined. The biggest protest was estimated at 5000 in Melbourne which is pitiful as it is the only Federal Seat in Australia held by the greens.
There was more poking fun because the Greens bravely stated that at least 15,000 had registered they would attend and the number had bolstered after criticism
(https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/support-for-climate-protest-boosted-by-police-criticism-organisers-say-20200110-p53qaf.html)
At those low numbers no political party is going to pay the slightest interest.
Our children won’t even know what trees are!
” scientists say”…they just make this crap up…get away with it….and no one calls them on it
Tony Heller calls them on it
No one outside websites like this know who Tony Heller is.
Almost no prediction of the future climate by a scientist has ever come true.
“Scientists say” makes me burst out laughing.
Especially when I hear yet another prediction of doom !
Warmth and higher levels of CO2 promote the growth of plants.
There are thousands of scientific studies to prove this.
There are greenhouse owners around the world using CO2 enrichment systems, at their own expense.
Of course, what could greenhouse owners know about growing plants ?
There are NASA, and other, satellite photos proving the Earth is ‘greening’, in spite of land use changes — some green areas being cleared and used for economic growth.
Being a leftist means truth does not matter.
Our planet supported the most life, animal and plant, in the age of the dinosaurs — it was hot, and had high CO2 levels.
Most of those huge mammals and reptiles ate vegetables, so the vegetables must have been huge, and prolific, too.
The current climate on our planet is the best it has been in 800 to 1,000 years, since before the colder Little Ice Age centuries, for humans, animals and plants.
The climate could improve with more CO2 in the air, for the plants, and warmer, for all humans, and those animals who live outdoors.
The world should be CELEBRATING the current climate.
The change of the climate since the 1880s was normal — actually quite small, assuming you can trust any global average temperature estimates before the use of satellites 1979 (and if you don’t trust those statistics, which I do not, then you should consider that the government bureaucrats who compile the statistics are strongly biased to report MORE global warming, not less … and they make repeated, arbitrary revisions that INCREASE their global warming claims).
The 330 years of global warming since the cold 1690s have been 100% good news, yet smarmy leftists tell us a continuation of that warming, which is their guess, not a fact, would be 100% bad news.
That belief makes no sense.
Wild guess, always wrong predictions of the future climate make no sense.
Yet “climate change” is nothing more than repeated wild guess predictions of the future climate — always wrong, but always stated with great confidence !
My climate science blog,
with over 52,000 page views:
http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com
I like your Honest Global Warming chart. It’s remarkable that climate is as stable as it is, though we are perhaps lucky to live in such as time that it is.
Anyway, if I were an operator of some production plant, I would be quite happy with that level of control.
@richard is your story about the nightly drones really true? – Or are just just using it as an imaginary example:
” That’s a lot of unanswered questions ! (100%)
But of course we know the global average temperature 100 years in the future ?”
The drones story is strange but true.
Google “Drones over mid-western states”
Drones are not that exciting
— UFOs are fun, and real.
I am 99.9% certain that crafts from other
planets have visited Earth, using silent
propulsion systems with no heat
or exhausts — the US Navy has released
three videos and some pilots and radar
operators confirmed what was seen.
Thy were featured in a TV show
called “Unidentified” that is serious
and VERY believable.
https://play.history.com/shows/unidentified-inside-americas-ufo-investigation#episodes
In the 1990s, altered crops from
crop circles were studied by
University of Michigan physicists,
an hour from where I live.
They had no explanation
for changes to plant stem nodes
within the real crop circles,
which had unexplained changes
completely unlike the broken stems
in fake crop circles,
made by human hoaxers.
The very complex
perfectly symmetrical
real crop circle designs
can only be seen from the sky,
and they are stunning.
No human, or even a team
of 100 humans could
create patterns like that
overnight (or ever).
This “Circles From The Sky documentary
video gives many views from the air
— there’s about 10 minutes
of unnecessary speculation
in the 40+ minute video,
but the rest is spellbinding.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x39szzs
Forests were, are, stay a dynamic system,
How in God’s name did the forests return from, say, 5000 years ago when global temperatures were as much as several degrees warmer than today’s temperature?
OK Doomer
Just like corn fields in October. Every year I assume that corn fields won’t be coming back as we know them.
Shockingly they always do seem to come back. Guess we haven’t hit that tipping point yet.
So the Eucalyptus that uses fire to spread, and the Koala’s that have developed a speciality for trees that spread by burning, will both decline because of fire ?
Honk Honk 🙂
Maybe apostrophe abuse will become a thing of the past.
No indictment for Capitalization abuse, or punctuation abuse ?
Your pedantry is slipping, old boy!
🙂
“Your pedantry is slipping, old boy!”
Didn’t want to go overboard, y’know.
Not a chance. Apostrophe’s were invented to be abused!
You have no idea how much physical pain apostrophe abuse cause’s. Please stop.
I think this is a case of capostrophic alarmism related to a climate change thread.
I’ll be ill if you take away my apostrophe.
If you like your apostrophe you can keep your apostrophe.
Eucalyptus trees are exotic to me. I’ve seen plenty in California, not sure of which varieties – though they are quite big and tall, but I don’t know much about them. I find them quite attractive and enjoy the odor of terpenes they emit. Unfortunately, the climate where I live is too harsh for them.
I suppose that the fact that they are highly flammable and grow back quickly has something to do with eliminating competition and perhaps to keeping koala populations down to improve the tree survival as a species.
Basics are here: https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/trees/eucalyptus/tips-growing-eucalyptus.htm
They can be a bit dangerous, tend to drop huge branches without warning, large enough to damage vehicles or hurt or even kill people if you are really unlucky.
Good to know.
never ever park under a eucy tree in summer. especially when its been very hot or windy
one dropped in my yard 10 days ago and across the rd a massive fall as well
mine I can cut and dry for next winters wood
across the rd?
its n a main rd controlled by Vicroads so no ones allowed to cut or remove it ..
its not hollow so nothing wil be living IN it anytime in decades
but
it now creates a trap for grasses to grow higher with shelter from any slashing machinery and for rabbits n foxes to burrow in/under as well
However, understand that there are at least 500 (probably more like 800…) species in the Genus Eucalyptus. Not all Eucalypts are the same – range from short, shrubby trees to huge giants.
Those who cannot remember the fires are condemned to repeat them.
Somehow I remember the same forecasts being made after the Yellowstone fires of 1988. My family and I went on a trip up there in either 1990 or 1991, and yes, it was quite devastating to see all the destruction.
Fast-forward thirty years, and most of the destroyed areas have recovered quite nicely. There are now thirty-year old forests growing where there was barren char, and from what I understand, quite healthy. And yes, we’ve had dry years, and wet years, and every kind of (“normal”) weather since then. When you consider that most of what burned had to struggle with just 300 ppm of CO2, and today’s forests are able to eat air with about 25% more nutrient, it’s hard to imagine that the forest is “struggling” to survive.
Regards to all,
Vlad
Just so, Vlad! Climate Catastrophism impaled…..
I was at Yellowstone about that time too. Except then the Park Rangers kept telling us how good the fires were for the ecosystem. They probably will be unemployed, or blacklisted by the climate cabal, if they dared to say that today.
People do not realize that fires play an important role in the planet. For instance, in the southeastern US there is a pine tree called the long leaf pine. For the first 5 years of its life it hardly grows, but it is almost fireproof. Other trees grow at a steady rate. After those first 5 years, this tree grows faster than other trees. Without a fire, this tree will lose the competition for sunlight. But with a fire, this tree thrives. Why is there a tree that needs fire to survive if fire a problem in the climate change world?
Inside Climate News. Would “fake news” be more descriptive?
Weekly World News, aka Batboy Central.
https://youtu.be/upy63RIRcrc?t=76
CO2 puts out fires.
Not at 410 ppm, obviously.
But, but, but,
Why do I bother to check the CO2 fire extinguishers at work then?????
The only check is for pressure.
These predictions are invalidated by reality.
In the Mediterranean, the Roman period was, it has been proved, 1-1.5°C warmer. There were trees the and there are trees now, almost the same trees.
In southern France, wildfires used to burn thousands of hectares 20 or 25 years ago. Since then, forests have been managed differently. There are still some fires, but with a reduced extent and easier to control.
It hasn’t been “Proved”. It’s likely, but not a 100% certainty.
Some Oz sclerophyll forest botany for dummies although knowing the catastrophists they’ll likely lobby YouTube to pull it and those parks officers will go the way of Peter Ridd-
Good pick observa. For those unfamiliar with the ecology of eucalypt forests, this is a good lesson on how they have adapted to the wildfire regime. Producing prolific regrowth to promote the fuel needed for the next fire so the rotation can continue.
Thank you for finding and posting this.
I was up there12 months ago and can attest to the regeneration. The same can be said for the Mt Macedon fires a generation before. The recuperation powers of the Aussie bush is something you have to witness to believe. Now that the placard waving mobs have had their say, I hope they now get out of the way and let nature get on with the job.
and heres VERY recent fireburnt areas already doing their thing..
https://www.wakingtimes.com/2020/01/10/breathtaking-photos-show-plants-in-australia-already-regrowing-across-fire-ravaged-landscapes/
dont expect msm to rush to print this to cheer anyone up..or ruin their meme
Not only Australian forest fores are caused by CC, also Canadian forests ignited by ATV’s are due to all the horrible life-giving tax-giving CO₂ according to PM Trudeau.
“Fraud: Trudeau Uses Photo Of Forest Fire Caused By Wind Turbine Construction Project To Sell His Carbon Tax Scam”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/?s=fraud+trudeau+uses+photo+forest+fire
Everything happened before.
https://realclimatescience.com/2020/01/1937-alaskas-glaciers-shrinking-a-forest-fire-every-three-minutes/
Don’t the doomsters know we were all doomed by 2000 so there’s no need to labour the point for the kiddies sakes- https://apnews.com/bd45c372caf118ec99964ea547880cd0
Well I suppose they could tell Greta to go home and give mum and dad a serve for having her after the dooming.
Yes, we have reached a tipping point where guilt driven mindlessness has won over logical thought. Climate science is just one of many victums.
From the article: “Some of those forests won’t recover in today’s warmer climate, scientists say.”
Today’s climate is actually cooler, not warmer, having cooled by 0.3C since 2016. Those “scientists” can’t be talking about the present day, and so they are not describing reality today. They are describing a situation that only exists in their minds.
UAH satellite chart:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_December_2019_v6.jpg
“It’s likely the forests won’t be coming back as we know them.”
The trees may be the same species but they will be different trees, so no the forests won’t be coming back as we know them.”
True. Remember, you can’t bathe twice in the same river….
No the fires get rid of a lot of the introduced weed species as the locals are adapted to fire and reseed and come back quicker.
“It’s likely the forests won’t be coming back as we know them.”
Apparently we have reached peak trees.
Who needs trees? Just throw up another 50,000 wind turbines. No problem.
(Saves cutting the trees down in the first place. A win-win.)
Exactly. Clear the land to pave the way for unobstructed wind turbine and pv panel placement. Also, in addition to planned population schemes, implement sardine or crabs in a bucket population management practices. It worked for China to occupy the land, progress the Green blight, and facilitate human resource management through behavior modification – a new religion in deference to mortal gods and secular ambitions.
The best places for wind turbines have very few or no trees. The survivors are blasted by wind into interestingly twisted, living wreckage.
“It is worse than we expected, much worse”. Funny how they so often admit they were very wrong. How can they be trusted for the future. Chances are they are just as wrong in the opposite direction!
‘The End Is Nye!”
Mass psychosis, writ large…. by the latest in a looooong string of climate catastrophists.
Peak arson?
“Nobody saw it coming this soon,”
—————————-
Oh gimme a break! The econuts saw it coming much sooner than this. They’ve been setting deadlines and dates (that passed without happening) for decades. When it doesn’t happen, you’ll deny you ever said it.
Malibu is not in the news the way it was but it looks remarkably…THE SAME ! ! ! After two major fire years, Da Bu is alive and well. The thing that gets me is that if the Leftwinger Warmunist Climateers want to “live in harmony with nature” then fire, driven by hot, dry 50 mph Santa Ana winds are part of the package. Nature.
Someone forgot to tell the trees they won’t recover.
http://countryconservatives.proboards.com/thread/10165/australia?page=2
In my area of Australia in 2009 we had large bushfires and sadly , as we did not have the warning systems we have today, 173 lives were lost.
A few week after the fires I stood in a car layby outside the totally devasted town of Kinglake. It was totally burnt from floor to canopy, black as far as you could see and devoid of any sound or life. The same spot today is healthy young forest. The people are doom spreaders and have no idea of natural cycles and how nature recovers. We have had some rain over much of the fireground area, the process will already have begun.
Ditto Yarpos. I came up to the area in early March 2009 to visit our daughter who had had a harrowing time (we were living back in England at the time of the fires). There was the long way round drive to get here as the Black Spur road was still closed. Everything was black and brown for miles and miles but it rained and the first shoots of growth were already showing. In Marysville, on the 15th March, where our old place had been, there were loads of new shoots and now, 11 years later, everything is burgeoning…too much in fact.
Just try stopping robust old nature…
The tipping point claim should be the turning point for the direction of government action. Once the tipping point has been past which is claimed then all attempts to change things should cease. The passing of the tipping point implies all actions to avert the coming calamity is futile. No more funds spent on subsidies for renewables , no need to develop electric vehicles , no point in having an Emmission Trading Scheme, no funding of climate change research ( the science is settled anyway). Whatever funds or wealth being created should be spent not on trying to change the climate from it cataclysmic direction but keeping your financial ammunition dry to fight climate change by spending those resources on adaption. Spend money on forest management, cheap electricity , seaside walls, coal fired power stations. It’s too late to stop the consequences of climate change, the best way to manage is to make sure every human being has access to air conditioning and the only way to do that is with affordable electricity.
So the only conclusion one can make is that there has to be a complete stop to spending on trying to stop climate change for the sake of future generations.
Most of the World today is too cold or too dry, or both, for trees to grow.
50 million years ago, during the Eocene hothouse the World was essentially one huge forest, from Pole to Pole.
“Hundreds of millions of animals”…
Did they count all the ants?…
Now, it is actually true that this interglacial is unique in Australia. In earlier interglacials eucalypts were much less dominant. There was a lot more of e. g. Dacrydium, rain forests and other forest types.
However about 40,000 years ago things changed. Here is a pollen profile from Lynch’s Crrater on Atherton Tablelands:
This is one of the longest continuous records in Australia and goes right back to MIS 7, the second interglacial back. Notice how rainforest and Dacrydium dominate during interglacials and Araucaria during ice-ages. Eucalypts are a not very common, though they do increase a bit during (the drier) glacial periods. (For those not familiar with the Pleistocene, MIS 2, 4 and 6 were glaciations, MIS 1, 5 and 7 interglacial. MIS 3 was a milder interval during the last glaciation, an “interstadial”.)
Then, about 40,000 years ago something happens. Eucalypts and Poaceae (=grasses) increase abruptly, and everything else almost disappears. The reason? Look at the right column, charcoal, previously quite rare, suddenly becomes common. The aborigines, and with them fire, had come to Australia.
If only it were possible to avoid all bushfires for several centuries it is quite likely that Australian forests would ultimately change into something much more like earlier interglacials, and much less fire-prone than the current eucalypt-dominated forests.
If only…., or as my grandmother used to say, “if it hadn’t been for the “if”, the farmer would have gored the bull”.
I’m not totally convinced that the rise of the eucalypts was entirely to do with fires, although that certainly played a crucial part. The change to a drier climate along with regular burning would seem to have been a perfect storm for many competing vegetation types.
In short, eucalypts dominate a continent and one of the World’s largest islands partly due to climate change. Real climate change. This cannot have been the only climate change the lineage experienced either. The likelihood is that, as possibly with marsupials as well, their origins were outside Australia (but still in old Gondwana). The break-up of Gondwana and subsequent continental drift is just one major change that they obviously survived.
Releasing a bit of plant food into the atmosphere isn’t going to kill them off. Anyone who thinks otherwise is not listening to the science.
Notice the climate hysterics are frantically trying to keep the “global warming” narrative going as a cause for the bushfires. There is no other cause, apparently, just the usual cause of everything: evil man-made carbon dioxide.
Of course, the Guardian is in the forefront of the hysteria with their daily headlines about “disinformation” being spread via social media (what else?) and how easily it’s done:
See their headline: “Disinformation and lies are spreading faster than Australia’s bushfires”
….. “Esteemed climate change expert professor Will Steffen, a member of Australia’s Climate Council and the inaugural director of Australian National University’s Climate Change Institute, is concerned at how disinformation has spread with such ease.
“In my mind, I think it’s a serious issue and it is potentially very dangerous,” Steffen told the Guardian. “That’s because the bushfire situation is very dangerous … the evidence is overwhelming that climate change is playing a prominent role in worsening bushfire conditions across Australia. [Actually, it isn’t and none is produced here.]
“People who are for whatever reason trying to put out false or extremely misleading information are actually doing a huge disservice to the risk to human life in the future, the risk to property, the risk to the natural world, and indeed the risk to economy.”
etc.
Read their latest ravings here –
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jan/12/disinformation-and-lies-are-spreading-faster-than-australias-bushfires
…….. and observe the Guardian‘s usual trick of not allowing any Readers’ Comments.
The Guardian not allowing readers comments is precisely why I never go near the website and have not for five years.
Easiest way to destroy the Guardian is to encourage folks to stop reading it.
Do not argue with closed minds: just try and wean any potentially open minds away from them.
Augh-how on earth does such crap get published. The stupid it burns-hotter than the fires!
At exactly what point in this parade of ignorance are real scientists going to stand up and say “NO these are political lies, not science”. Exactly how far down the road of ignorance does mainstream media lies lead before rebellion??
It’s beyond time humanity started worrying about things worthy of that concern- and there are many.
”As extreme wildfires burn across large swaths of Australia, scientists say we’re witnessing how global warming can push forest ecosystems past a point of no return.
Some of those forests won’t recover in today’s warmer climate, scientists say. They expect the same in other regions scarred by flames in recent years; in semi-arid areas like parts of the American West, the Mediterranean Basin and Australia, some post-fire forest landscapes will shift to brush or grassland.”
Care to put a wager on that?
Zhu et al (2016). “Greening of the Earth and it’s drivers”.
Persistent and widespread greening of 25 to 50% of the global vegetated area versus less than 4% of the Earth showing ‘browning’.
Also the ‘Science’ or ‘Nature’ paper estimating 15% greening of the planet since 1990.
Didn’t Greta say “let’s follow the science”.
Oops,
For shame.
“ it’s drivers” should be “ its drivers”.
Joke: “Apostrophe Campaigner give’s up”.
“They expect the same in other regions scarred by flames in recent years; in semi-arid areas like parts of the American West, the Mediterranean Basin and Australia, some post-fire forest landscapes will shift to brush or grassland.”
—
Which is actually the opposite of what’s been occurring since about 1980. The ‘Desertification’ scares during the 1960s and 1970s were reversed in the warmer 1980s, and the drier parts of continents greened and received more rain. Deserts retreated, and the scrub thickened. It’s on-going for ~40 years, opposite to the doom-mongers narratives.
But now these extremist misanthropes want us all to believe humans destroyed the trees, and the Koalas? But how much was burned, and at what intensity? Most not at high intensity
And if 1% of the land mass burned at high intensity that means 99% didn’t burned. This is not even a ‘crisis’, it’s just a severe bushfire season, with a multitude of unsolicited hysterics bloviating about certain doom.
VIC Premier Daniel Andrews and the VIC Police just got through asserting the Gippsland bushfires started from dry-lightning within a drought, i.e. not caused by humans. But now it’s humans all the way down, whenever it suits the panic-merchants spreading their stupid tales of perpetual-doom and “inevitable” ecosystem failure.
But not in China.
Bob Berwyn’s Bio reads,
Journalist. Climate, water, forests, wildlife. Dad, skier, traveler, muffin-maker.
https://muckrack.com/bob-berwyn
I think its safe to add “click baiter” to that list.
Anyone who has driven thru Yellowstone Park recently would immediately notice large tracts of previously burnt areas and the vigorous regrowth of trees (mostly Lodgepole pines, which are adapted to fire-prone sites).
One upside to all this nonsense is that the left is back to calling it “global warming” outright, rather than the hedged “climate change” that they adopted after the warming hiatus.
It would be a good idea to get them pinned down on that term this time around, so that the next hiatus, or outright change in direction, can be used more effectively to show them wrong.
This could be a tipping point as well, … https://watchers.news/2020/01/12/powerful-eruption-taal-volcano-philippines-january-2020/
These ignorant idiots merely show the world how ignorant they are.
Historical records are quite clear that raging fire is one of nature’s great regenerative mechanisms: it burns down all the unhealthy trees leaving space for new healthy ones to take their place.
Do these lunatics not know that several tree species have seed which ONLY germinate in response to the heat generated by fire?
Well do they??
Next they will say that volcanoes will stop all food growing, knowing nothing that volcanic ash, lava and magma create the most fertile conditions for rapid growth. If they do not believe me, tell them to go read all the reports filed after Mt St Helens erupted in the late 1970s/early 1980s (cannot remember which): the regeneration was rapid, astonishing and wholly healthy.
Scientists who bullshit are not scientists, they are fifth rate peddlers of lies to bleed more money for their selfish schemes.
Aussie forests just got a bit of a boost, at least near the coast, Lots of our native plants need fire to regenerate so expect good regrow things. Greenies are bad enough but the uneducated idiots calling themselves journalists are a severe embarrassment to the universities that produce them.
What a load of rubbish ! The bush is already starting to sprout new leaves.
This is the way it has always been, just this time it came at the end of an eight year drought. The country is as dry as a chip.
We know what the problem is, it is the huge fuel load built up over years due to
local laws prohibiting back burning to clear out the dead wood etc.
Farmers are threatening to burn off and plead necessity of survival.
It has got that silly.
Hooray; it is raining today ! First time in years !
I really wish people that should know better aka “scientists” would look before they leap into print. Quite apart from the fact that our current fires are not unprecedented, our forests are actually designed to burn as many of the eucalyptus species need fire to either germinate or to overtake the other species in the forest. Our eucalypts, much as I love them, are in fact a danger to everything in the forest and any humans daft enough to live in a wooden house in forests that tend to go up like skyrockets when there is an ignition source. We have had quite a few ignitions sources this summer – we call them arsonists. They appear to be protected species as the police do not reveal their identities when most of us with a bit more commonsense think they should be treated the same way as looters ought to be – and we have had a few of them this year as well.
This has not been helped by idiots in local governments that refuse to allow the removal of eucalyts in close proximity to houses. We have a bloody big one next door to us and it will take out at least three homes when it goes. I have informed our local council in writing that i intend to sue them and the individual personally that made the decision to prevent removal. Yes I know it is over 100 years old but it is UNSAFE! And oddly enough, trees will grow again, especially the Roman candles we call gum trees here in OZ. On hot days , you can see the oil haze just above the treeline and believe me, it goes up like a firecracker with wind and a source of ignition.