Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Dr. Willie Soon; Nature predicts decades of worsening bushfires, and urges Australia to “show us what climate action looks like”.
Australia: show the world what climate action looks like
The fires are a wake-up call. The country’s leaders must now act on overwhelming evidence and public opinion.
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The top priority is to protect lives and ecosystems. But the nation’s leaders must surely realize that they not only need to talk about climate change, but also need to act decisively to reduce the emissions that are driving it.
Australia’s leaders have known for many years that climate change would make bush fires worse. They were warned in an independent report commissioned by the national and state governments in 2008 that from 2020 onwards, fire seasons would start earlier, end later and be more intense.
But as Nature has frequently reported, the country’s politicians delayed meaningful action through a wasted decade of arguments over whether human activities are causing climate change — in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence that they are. Undoubtedly, one reason for this is that Australia — which is the world’s largest coal exporter — has repeatedly prioritized the coal industry’s needs over the planet’s.
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Australia’s tragedy is that more-extreme fires are already forecast. Centuries of greenhouse-gas emissions have locked the world into several decades of warming, even if global emissions were to drop to zero now. If the Morrison government continues its current trajectory, then the country is likely to experience even more severe droughts and fires.
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Read more: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00152-y
Just one problem with this prediction – what exactly would these “more extreme fires” burn?
Once a forest suffers a severe fire, it takes years of regrowth before fire becomes a serious threat again. If climate change is causing droughts to worsen, if Australia is steadily drying and heating up because of climate change, there would not be a lot of regrowth. The tracks of the extreme fires which do burn would eventually function as massive firebreaks, preventing further large scale conflagration.
My point is, predictions that fires will get worse apparently without limit are absurd. Not only would these predicted superfires fairly rapidly run out of trees to burn, if all else fails, eventually people would bulldoze any trees which threaten humans, and cut firebreaks on a sufficient scale to contain any fires which do start; something the Australian government arguably should be doing anyway.
It all comes down to CO2 and CO2 is driving nothing. People with their heads up their ideology are the dangerous people on the planet.
Well, by golly, it looks a lot like…er….um…it looks a lot like, ahem, poverty.
Yeah Kevin, the canary died.
Never ceases to amaze me how things are always getting worse..
https://realclimatescience.com/2020/01/1974-fires-burned-15-of-australia/
You’ll note that the 1974 fires came when an ice age was pending….
“the country’s politicians delayed meaningful action through a wasted decade of arguments over whether human activities are causing climate change — in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence that they are”
At the foundation of AGW is the assumption that fossil fuel emissions cause atmospheric CO2 concentration to rise. Where is the overwhelming scientific evidence for that relationship?
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/12/19/co2responsiveness/
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/08/03/confirmationbias/
Where will the fuel come from? Why, reforestation of course: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/01/24/negative-co2-emissions/
‘Just one problem with this prediction – what exactly would these “more extreme fires” burn?’
Based on our leader’s track record, I’m confident that the government of my country will allocate enough funding from carbon taxes and offsets (while ballooning the deficit) to fund tree-planting so that the forests can continue to burn regardless of what the climate does.
Based on what I’ve been reading about Australia, its government may even be ahead of ours at ensuring a fuel supply.
Interesting. I have asked the same question—what is there to burn? I guess reality is not part of the AGW mantra.
As I now point out, people better hope the AGW crowd is wrong and the “cut the fuel” group is right. AGW solutions give you a decrease in lifestyle standards, less ability to fight the fire. more misery and suffering for DECADES when MAYBE things get better. “Cut the fuel” has an immediate effect. It works well over 90 percent of the time. It’s scary that people actually push for the decades of misery. What kind of a person does that?????
But…but….I extrapolated those figures and the curve has no end….Maths don’t lie!
(I really shouldn’t have to put the /sarc her)
Anders Valland January 24, 2020 at 7:06 am
But…but….I extrapolated those figures and the curve has no end….Maths don’t lie!
____________________________________
Anders, Math’s is a mental construct as language is a mental construct.
It gives you the answer you asked for.
The oracles of delphi.
https://www.google.com/search?q=oracles+of+delph&oq=oracles+of+delph&aqs=chrome.
In naturally arid hot climates that fuel will burn eventually. Clear it and burn it a little at a time, or let it all go up in one mighty life-threatening inferno. Those are the choices. Trying to reduce the global temperature by a fraction of a degree in 80 years time is an irrelevant and totally wasteful exercise in hubris, the rewards for which are almost certainly going to be imperceptible to life on planet Earth. Very telling that the authors cite two reasons for politicians to act: overwhelming evidence of human causation of climate change (which apparently the dog ate as they fail to present any conclusive evidence), and public opinion, which the authors are clearly trying to shape toward their preferred policy choices.
In the U.S., particularly the western portion, the volume of merchantable timber has expanded greatly since the early 1980s when we shut down most of our forest products industry. The growth rate of sub-merchantable material has expanded even more rapidly. With the additional impact of CO2 fertilization the fuel load is growing even more rapidly. A back of the envelope calculation indicates that the fuel load is expanding 15 times more rapidly than the volume burned in our worst recent fire years.
Folks, per problem isn’t going away, it will only get worse, but unlike CO2 levels in the atmosphere, we could start to deal with the fuel load issue immediately!!!
For a proper fire you need dry, premium fuel in the right places, a good wind to supply plentiful oxygen and propagating power… and lastly an ignition source.
85% of ignition is by human sources with a depressing 50% confirmed or suspected arson, carelessness and accidents making up the remaining 35%.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2019-11-20/bushfire-ignition-source-how-we-know/11701132
Although urgent attention to preventing those who would set fire to their country would seem logical, given the already known profiles of those actually caught, politicians as brave as firefighters would be needed.
https://aic.gov.au/publications/bfab/bfab046
CO2 -> increased plant growth
increased plant growth -> more fuel
more fuel (if allowed to dry out) -> more fires
Of course….
increased plant growth -> better crop yields and increased biodiversity
This is why CO2 is bad!
Well windmill turbines and EVs make for interesting fires.
From the article: “But as Nature has frequently reported, the country’s politicians delayed meaningful action through a wasted decade of arguments over whether human activities are causing climate change — in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence that they are.”
Here we have Nature making unsubstantiated claims about human-caused climate change.
The claim that there is “overwhelming scientific evidence” is just a flat-out Lie.
The prestigious Nature is lying to the public. They couldn’t prove what they claim if their lives depended on it.
How low can they go?
Human-caused Climate Change has had a serious corrupting effect on the whole of science, and now Nature shows its own corruption with trying to pass these unsubstantiated claims off as evidence.
Nature has no evidence. Someone ought to challenge them to produce what they claim they have. They probably wouldn’t reply because they have no legitimate reply to make. They are liars. There’s no fixing that, other than admitting to it.
Why are we talking about increased drought when precipitation levels have been increasing slightly over a decades long duration (that fits into the definition of CLIMATE) vs the one year drought (definition of WEATHER ANOMALY).
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/index.shtml#tabs=Tracker&tracker=timeseries&tQ=graph%3Drranom%26area%3Daus%26season%3D0112%26ave_yr%3D0
“… If the Morrison government continues its current trajectory, then the country is likely to experience even more severe droughts and fires …” (Nature).
If we are expected to believe that there is a causal link between the atmospheric CO2 concentration and drought in Australia, as CO2 has increased the continent has got wetter …
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/#tabs=Tracker&tracker=trend-maps&tQ=map%3Drain%26area%3Daus%26season%3D0112%26period%3D1910
… and less susceptible to drought:
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/#tabs=Tracker&tracker=timeseries&tQ=graph%3Drranom%26area%3Daus%26season%3D0112%26ave_yr%3D0
1919 betz limits is not
. supported with fact needed to prevent new superior design as intended by big polutting energy corporations that finance every usa election, Bejesus windmills on you tube lonien windmill have no gaps rather they open and close walls of blades instantly .horizontally and or vertically..your brainwashed no defense no knowledge defence.
Try posting again when tbe drugs wear off.
”Undoubtedly, one reason for this is that Australia — which is the world’s largest coal exporter — has repeatedly prioritized the coal industry’s needs over the planet’s.”
Absolute bullocks. If Australia stopped exporting coal overnight, other countries would simply export instead at our expense. Whats more Australian coal burns cleaner than most other countries so emissions would be greater.
So if we did stop exporting coal, is that going to prevent further bushfires??
The stupid, it burns. (no pun intended)
Yesterday I saw a show on TV where the indigenous peoples of Australia were discussing the methods they have used for centuries to control forest fires. SURPRISE! They use PLANNED BURNS! It USED to work in California, until the liberals stopped it! Common sense methods seem to be out of favor, these days! I’m sure the ‘new’ modern methods of the beurocrats are MUCH better, right?
Off topic . . .
I’m getting two adverts with this page. The first is “A better class of sale” for “Emirates” under a pic of a tidy looking blonde sheila spooning something into her mouth. Can’t open it but I guess it’s for the airline.
The other is “Joe Biden for President” with the come-on “Donate Now”. I opened it to find ol’ Joe’s boosters, an outfit called ActBlue, want me to send them money to “defeat Donald Trump”.
Happily, as a Kiwi, I am disqualified from parting with my cash under ActBlue’s Contribution Rule #1. I am also disqualified under my own rule of restricting my actions to those which fall into the category of “sane”.
Advertisements don’t bother me . . . I see them as a necessary part of a capitalist economy and have used plenty myself over the years. And I’m happy for Anthony to cop the income.
But isn’t their placement supposed to be governed by algorithms?
First up, I can’t see Creepy Joe, who’s all-in on the Green New Deal, having too many potential supporters on a website dedicated to spreading the truth about climate change. And can’t the algorithms detect that I’m opening the page an entire hemisphere and multiple time zones away from where a qualified customer has to reside?
A couple of weeks back, a relative tried to convince me that Google or Facebook or Cambridge Analytica or someone had influenced the 2016 US elections by some mystic method on the interwebs. Maybe. But I’m guessing that’s another “science” that isn’t settled yet.