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.
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.