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Sorry but your comment is sensationalist, bandwagon tripe which has been demonstrated by those that know to be absolute rubbish: (apologies for the lengthy text)Originally posted by robusto View Post
Greenies are quick to scream "climate change" as the demon responsible for everything...But in their blind wisdom scream just as loud at any suggestion the forest floor needs clearing of excess fuel.
NSW Rural Fire Service’s Shane Fitzsimmons
When he talks about bushfires the easy laughter leaves Shane Fitzsimmons and he is intent and systematic. His words are urgent; his expression, solemn. Fire management, he tells me, is complex, difficult and extremely emotive. Fire is different from any other hazard or disaster: it has a high-risk tempo and an intensity that is unique. Unlike with storms or earthquakes, you’re not dealing with the consequences – managing fire means you’re making decisions as it ignites and flares in front of you.
Fitzsimmons has been the commissioner of the New South Wales Rural Fire Service since 2007. The reality of his job, he says, is that he doesn’t really get a break from it. “My job, and that of so many of our people, is one of 24 hours… It is a business that doesn’t conform to the conventional working week. If I look at the past six weeks, we are averaging 500 to 900 people deployed across fire grounds every day. We have more than 72,000 volunteers – that’s 90 per cent of our workforce – working shoulder to shoulder with salaried counterparts. For all fire practitioners the responsibility weighs very heavily.” Fitzsimmons’ father was killed in a bushfire during a hazard-reduction burn a few kilometres from where we meet, beyond Sydney’s north at the Rural Fire Service at Cowan. We are surrounded by the grey-green reaches of Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, spreading over 14,882 hectares from St Ives on the north shore to the Hawkesbury River at Brooklyn and Barrenjoey Head at Palm Beach.
Fire behaviour is driven by underlying conditions, Fitzsimmons says. The structure, composition, terrain and aspect of the vegetation, and the condition of available fuel, determine the risk and danger. How dry is it? Is it surface fuel, intermediate-level fuel or forest canopies? Overlay the weather: is it hot, dry and windy? Strong winds result in spotting activity: embers burn kilometres ahead of the fire front and start new blazes. The pyro-convective influence of large fires can create their own weather system, resulting in lightning activity and more ignitions. Spot fires accelerate the main fire front. Fire will spread faster with an increased slope. Grassfires burn and spread two to three times faster than bushfires. Ninety per cent of homes catch fire and burn down through ember attacks – living streets away from bush or grassland still puts you and your property at risk.
We have settled our homes and townships in fire paths, and we travel through places where fire naturally burns, Fitzsimmons says. The Australian vegetation and ecosystem has adapted through fire and much of it relies on fire for renewal and regeneration. “The earliest of stories from our Indigenous people … will demonstrate time and time again that Australia was a landscape that was often on fire,” he says. “The real challenge we have today is that right across Australia we have people in areas where, traditionally, fire would have burnt through. You get fires today – no matter where they start – that impact very quickly upon people and property and the natural environment. It is difficult to access some of that country. There are a lot of people who love their remoteness and isolation, but with that comes an extraordinary inherent risk.”
Climate change, Fitzsimmons says, has been a consideration in the Rural Fire Service’s planning for more than a decade and the business is underpinned by that thinking. “The research indicates, and our experience validates, that fire seasons are becoming longer … and with a drought scenario you get increased intensification. The science indicates increased likelihoods of more frequent, more intense weather events, and longer, hotter, drier fire seasons – and with that comes more organisational planning. Longer and hotter fire seasons equate to shorter periods of opportunity to do critical hazard-reduction burning to reduce fuel loads. More than 50 per cent of that is done in the autumn period, but if that is being compromised we have shrinking opportunity for controlled burning. Our seasons are starting earlier and finishing later, but so too is the northern hemisphere’s… The seasons are starting to overlap each other. When we look at global resourcing: trying to access significant assets like aircraft – if the Americans or Canadians or Europeans are holding them longer, then our ability to get them earlier becomes compromised… You have competing contracts around the world.”
He continues: “This summer we are expecting above-normal fire conditions driven by this extraordinary drought. The moisture level in the landscape is the lowest on record. Large tracts of NSW are absolutely moisture depleted. We are already experiencing a very early, a very intense, very devastating start to this fire season. The outlook for the next three months is dominated by above-average temperatures and below-average rainfall – there is simply nothing in the predictions for any meaningful rain: no normal rain, let alone drought-breaking rain. The risk is real – for people living in urban areas, too. As we hit the December–January period when we traditionally see some of our most intense and damaging fire seasons, there will be many more communities that come under threat.”
It is the sound and the feeling of fire, Fitzsimmons says, that is not often spoken about: the intense heat and noise, the furious winds, blanketing smoke… Your visibility is gone, your breathing is compromised, your throat is dry, you are coughing, your eyes are full of smoke and dirt, you can be standing beside someone and they won’t hear you scream or shout.
Research by the Rural Fire Service shows every time a fire impacts a community the overwhelming response is that the people affected didn’t think it would happen to them – and they wish they had done more, prepared more, Fitzsimmons says. He wants people to be on the front foot. Prepare. Log on to the website. Have a bushfire survival plan. Download the app. Doing those things now, he says, rather than when fire is bearing down on your property, can, and does, make all the difference.
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on Nov 2, 2019 as "Heat of the moment". Subscribe here.
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Flashpix, totally agree with what you are saying and the article. I am guessing what Robusto is saying is there isn't only one solurion or way to move on these issues. These aren't exclusive points of view. I deal with farmers daily, many have had the urban sprawl come out to meet them, then have to deal with the conflict of idealogies. One was telling me how he had a large thick windbreak which he was burning in winter, the neighbour called the Council, Police and Fire. He thought it was illegal and stated he didn't want to look at burn out bush. Same neighbour (how we got onto the subject) comes out everytime the farmer shoots foxes and shines a large spotlight around as far as he can see on the farmers property to warn the foxes. He doesn't do the same when the farmer has to shoot alive but half eaten lambs in the morning.
All anecdotal, but there isn't just one solution here or one way. I can see both points of view but to move into an area then push your point of view, by calling authorities never negotiation isn't great.
I think everyone agrees climate change is real and something needs to be done from a personal up to a governmental level. But Robusto comments about clearing fuel are valid and those who stood against it should look again at their position.
Really we are in the midst of another Australian tragedy, there is no one solution and we shouldn't be pushing agendas at this time. Now is the time to do what we can for those in the middle of their own tragedies.
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The problem is that everyone does not agree that climate change is real, well anthropogenic climate change, that is. A great deal of the frustration towards political leaders is the fact that they were told this was going to happen but they didn't do enough to try to limit it.Originally posted by 338 View PostI think everyone agrees climate change is real and something needs to be done from a personal up to a governmental level. But Robusto comments about clearing fuel are valid and those who stood against it should look again at their position.
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The Victorian government is beholden to the greens in so many policies, including land protection, as its rival party erodes Labor's support base and claims inner-city seats that once were Labor strongholds.
The weak, failed minister for police, was also the failed minister for the environment, overseeing a confused, bewildered and greens-infested department of environment, land, water and planning.
She abolished the annual clearing target of 5% of public land as recommended by the Black Saturday bushfires royal commission, wrapping the decision in some typical warm fuzzy nonsense about reducing risk to communities.
One scientist said at least 10% should be the target.
Greens are at the forefront of protests in forests, stopping hazard reduction burning.
This is not bandwagon tripe.
It is fact.
In addition to the visible protests, they in the more powerful position of being bureaucrats who use the stroke of a pen rather an a placard do dictate terms.
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Hi
Last year I went to a conference and one of the topics was the separation between your house and bush to have a chance of being defended. It's now recommended as 100m minimum and 250m is best if there are trees that can crown. I think many of you would be familiar with that concept of bush-house separation. What the person also mentioned is that modelling and tests show that the minimum separation between houses in a residential environment was 6m !I'm feeling quite safe here in suburban Adelaide ....
In most Councils the minimum house to house separation is just 1m and that's what the developers use. The Canberra fires in 2003 showed that fires can enter and propagate house-house in suburbia.
I don't feel that I'm 100% safe in in my suburb in Sydney.
Mike
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This local focus on lowering Australia's greenhouse emissions (globally 1-2%) being an answer to our climate problem is frustrating. These bushfires are contributing an immense amount of greenhouse gases as well as the loss of the vegetation that removes CO2 and releases oxygen. A more constructive focus for instance would be to strongly advocate for better first strike capabilities in the form of fire-fighting equipment and manpower to ensure that fires don't have a chance to spread as they have in the first place. Funding from Government is crucial. Also looking to find those with true Forest management experience rather the Greenie types who have planted themselves in the Dept of Sustainability and Environment here in Vic. There's good reason they're known as the Dept of Scorched Earth (DSE) due to their poor forest management. One of their feats was locking up many bush tracks to recreational 4WDs meaning that these tracks are no longer kept clear of fallen timber etc by the 4WD people. Access to some remote areas for firefighting is restricted as a result when it's most needed.
Sending goods manufacture offshore to countries that are the main contributors to global greenhouse emissions is shortsighted. Closing down responsible local timber production in favor of the cheaper imported product from countries that don't have any real environmental protections likewise. This is where Australia contributes most to our & the Global climate problem, not through local emissions. Nothing wrong with aiming to do the best we can by improving local practices but sending the problem offshore has a much higher overall Global environmental cost with subsequent climate change consequences.
Less hysteria and a bit more perspective is called for maybe?Last edited by CafeLotta; 4 January 2020, 01:06 PM.
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Our emissions are 1.3% of the total world-wide.
Yet the hysterical Greens are now using language like "climate criminals" aimed at government ministers and blaming them for the bushfires.
1.3% of emissions is causing our bushfires?
Yeah, people like Adam Brandt and Greta Thunberg are so expert in the ways of the world and are omniscient messiahs to be worshipped.
I've even heard of calls to shut down every coal-fired power station in Australia, and stop all coal exports to big emitters like China.
Simplistic and easy to say...but do we really want to become a third-world economy?
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No doubt Coal Exports is an area that Australia should take a hard look at. Maybe investment in advancing clean coal technologies and making implementation affordable is a good place to start. The Coal producers should probably be funding this anyway as it's in their best interest to develop a better solution for third world countries, helping them in turn to live up to their global responsibility in emissions reduction. Having said that I think I read somewhere that the USA is 50% reliant on coal fired power stations for their electricity.Originally posted by noonar View PostAssuming the data is correct, 1% plus fossil fuel exports makes about 3.5% contribution to global emissions by Oz. Australia is about 0.33% of global population.
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Coal is Australia's number one export earner, followed by iron ore and gold. Every hiccough in coal export revenue costs us plenty as it is, and affects our balance of payments, standard of living.
It affects government royalties and revenues without which I doubt any government would have enough money with which to buy even a hose to deal with bushfires.
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Hi
> Our emissions are 1.3% of the total world-wide.
I use less than 1.3% of the Council and State roads so why should I pay for roads that other people use?
> 1.3% of emissions is causing our bushfires?
Past and continuing emissions have significantly contributed to the current global and Australian warming this decade. Warming and evaporation are not linear, it's higher than that. For each 1C in temp the atmosphere can hold 7% more water vapor and depending on the wind speed, surface evaporation (i.e. the drying of our forests, including rain forests) has been exacerbated over the last few decades. That has led to the extent and ferocity of the these fires. Emissions and bushfires is not a direct causal link but strongly correlated.
> I've even heard of calls to shut down every coal-fired power station in Australia, and stop all coal exports to big emitters like China.
Well if humans and our activity continue on the current trajectory by 2030, and if we then decide that we **have to act** the amount of catching up to forestall a 2C rise might mandate such an action across all countries. When it's an emergency all actions are on the table. So far the climate change predictions have been tracking the upper range of predictions and new studies are showing that the change is accelerating.
> Simplistic and easy to say...but do we really want to become a third-world economy?
Its not simplistic. It's complex science which can be communicated to citizens, mixed with economic trade-offs versus lifestyle choices, plus some media, industry and government pushing biased viewpoints with deceptive information* whilst other media, industry and govts understand the implications for climate change and are planning ahead.
Misleading information example: Our Govt reiterating that our per-capita emissions have been decreasing so we''' meet our targets "in a canter".
and an example of not a biased view point but a simple stupid one; Tony Abbott tells Israeli radio the world is 'in the grip of a climate cult' https://www.theguardian.com/australi...a-climate-cult
Mike
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... and here is a view point from overseas: MIT Technology Review:
"Yes, climate change is intensifying Australia’s fires" https://www.technologyreview.com/f/6...tralias-fires/
Mike
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