Global Warming

[AngryAnt]

Criticism is valid if firefighters are under-resourced. But once again, whatever Australia does or does not do will not make a rat's arse of difference to climate. The movement is separated from reality on this subject.

China’s power industry calls for hundreds of new coal power plants by 2030

yeah, the old "we can't do anything so let's do nothing" argument. It worked for ScoMo last election and the Quiet Australians bought it. As long as I get my franking credits.

If they are underresourced?? - they told us they were - repeatedly - and the respective governments cut their funding further. There's nothing hypothetical about it.

 

[LeeToRainesToRoach]

that article is about 1 instance over 15 years ago.

Would you be keen to follow in that bloke's footsteps, knowing what the penalty is?

The company that (still) manages NSW electricity was fined $500K for clearing vegetation under their high voltage lines.

Maxwell Szulc went to jail.

You're only legally allowed to clear trees within 6m of your house. Not much protection, is it?

 

[LeeToRainesToRoach]

yeah, the old "we can't do anything so let's do nothing" argument. It worked for ScoMo last election and the Quiet Australians bought it. As long as I get my franking credits.

If they are underresourced?? - they told us they were - repeatedly - and the respective governments cut their funding further. There's nothing hypothetical about it.

Still waiting for cheaper power with the take-up of allegedly cheaper renewable energy, but I've only seen the prices going in one direction.

I don't know the cost-benefit workings of e.g. a permanent "Elvis" helicopter, and presumably neither do you.

 

[DavidSSS]

Meanwhile out there in the real world:

I have been a member of the Wytaliba community near Glen Innes for 40 years.
We lost two of our community members in last Friday's bushfires, and the father of my great grandson is in Royal North Shore Hospital being treated for severe burns while trying to save his house and his deceased neighbour.
Nearly 50 per cent of our able adults are members of the Wytaliba RFS, a figure envied by many other brigades. Over those 40 years on our 3500-acre property, we have had more than a dozen out-of-control bushfires that were successfully controlled, the majority in recent years.
Over the last three years, in co-operation with NSW Forestry, National Parks and the RFS, we have had very extensive controlled burning in the state forest and national park on our perimeter.
On September 14, after an outbreak of fires across the Northern Tablelands, high winds caused embers to spot more than 10 kilometres onto the the centre of Wytaliba.
After an initial emergency the fire weather abated, but over the next week the fire spread across much of the property.
In a large operation more than 20 RFS trucks, more than 100 fire fighters, bulldozers and waterbombers were successfully deployed to help defend our homes. All were saved. Much of Wytaliba was blacked out.
Carol (Glen Innes mayor with 20 year RFS service medal) and I have a large cleared area around our double brick house.
That September fire burned to our perimeter. This was just two months ago.
Everything that should be done, was done and lots more.
The fire that came last Friday was of another order of magnitude altogether. A crown fire roaring in from the west on a hot afternoon with an 80km per hour wind, it wasn't on the ground, it was a firestorm in the air, raining fire.
There was no fuel on the ground, it was already burned.
The heat ahead of the fire front ignited nearly everything in its path.
Before he saw any flame my neighbor's car exploded. They just escaped with their lives...see live footage on Monday's ABC 7.30.
Our house was severely damaged but not destroyed. We weren't home. Others were not so lucky.
Wytaliba has lost two lives and more than half our homes, our school, our bridge our wildlife and 40 years of work to build a community. What was our paradise is now ash.
Thanks to the heroics of Wytaliba RFS and residents, and the Reddestone RFS who incredibly crossed the burning bridge to help us, some was saved.
"Today's not the day to talk about climate change".....No, yesterday was the day, or the day before, or the month before, or the year before,....but it didn't get a mention.
Now we have the reality and the mention it gets is, "don't talk about it now".
So, the politicians (and the media) turn the talk to hazard reduction burns, or the lack of them, as something else to blame on the inner-city raving lunatics.
We had a bushfire two months ago that burned most of our property. It didn't matter. It burned again.
This is climate changed. We're in the worst drought recorded. A million hectares of bush has burned. Barnaby says it's Green voters and the sun's magnetic field.
Pray for rain, pray harder for leadership.
Badja Sparks is a longtime resident of Wytaliba. His home was badly damaged in Friday's fires.

This is climate changed.

DS

 

[LeeToRainesToRoach]

Meanwhile out there in the real world:

This is climate changed.

DS

Barnaby didn't cover himself in glory this week, and that magnetic field comment was downright bizarre.

Must be a huge shock to have your town burn down. Unfortunate for Wytaliba that their number came up. Were the residents warned to evacuate? Interesting reference to "inner-city raving lunatics" (Greens).

There's a lot I don't understand about fires. How can a large fire advance without fuel?

Yes, climate is changing, Earth is a living planet. But it's a misguided person who believes energy policy can prevent bushfires in Australia. I think it's every bit as reprehensible to use this to push climate beliefs, as it is to blame the lot on greenies.

 

[Tigers of Old]

Some facts from the BOM.

State of the Climate 2020: Bureau of Meteorology

www.bom.gov.au

 

[Tigers of Old]

The Coalition does not want its record raked over at a time when Australians are deeply anxious, because it’s hard to control the narrative in those conditions. The government does not want people who are not particularly engaged in politics, and who make a point of not following Canberra’s periodically rancid policy debates (and climate is the most toxic of the lot), switching on to this issue at a time where they have a personal stake in the conversation.

This is what it looks like when your government sells out the climate for votes | Katharine Murphy

The real reason the Coalition doesn’t want to talk about the climate is that its record is one of unmitigated shame and failure

www.theguardian.com

 

[AngryAnt]

Still waiting for cheaper power with the take-up of allegedly cheaper renewable energy, but I've only seen the prices going in one direction.

I don't know the cost-benefit workings of e.g. a permanent "Elvis" helicopter, and presumably neither do you.

No I don't, and as you say neither do you, so it's probably a good time to start listening to the people who work in the field and tell us we need them eh?

 

[AngryAnt]

It’d be the truth though.

Privatise emergency services and then insurance companies can rationally determine what to pay them based on the prices they can get for insurance policies from the people that are actually exposed to the risk. Instigating hazard reduction burning would entail a lower premium for policy holders. Expensive insurance policies would discourage people from living in high risk areas.

No wait, let’s keep emergency services public which substitutes rational resource allocation for bureaucratic mismanagement and let’s pay for it by threatening to throw people in jail if they don’t pay for something they don’t want.

This approach was as actually tried in the early days of fire brigades, first as volunteers and then underwritten brigades. The result? Putting out fires only in insured structures doesn't work, as fires in the uninsured ones threaten and overwhelm the insured ones. So this concept was abandoned in favour of systems which just put fires out, wherever they are and whoever owns or doesn't own the land or buildings or environment that's burning.

How today’s public fire departments were born from private fire brigades

The evolution of emergency services provided by municipal fire departments and the fire service budget

www.firerescue1.com

When you have complex interlinked social, economic, environmental and technological systems libertarianism doesn't work. It fails absolutely when we start talking about existential environmental threats across political borders.

Anyway, back to reality.

 

[Tigers of Old]

Hottest day ever recorded in November happened in the Perth heatwave today. The records keep coming.....

Perth breaks temperature records as WA sizzles

Perth breaks two weather records after four days of searing temperatures across Western Australia.

www.abc.net.au

 

[LeeToRainesToRoach]

The records keep coming.....

Yes, they do.

Cold snap of historic proportions hits East Coast, over 300 records fall

If you're only hearing one thing, or only looking for one thing, you'll end up with a distorted perspective.

 

[AngryAnt]

Yes, they do.

Cold snap of historic proportions hits East Coast, over 300 records fall

If you're only hearing one thing, or only looking for one thing, you'll end up with a distorted perspective.

It's almost as if extreme weather events are becoming more common.

 

[Giardiasis]

This approach was as actually tried in the early days of fire brigades, first as volunteers and then underwritten brigades. The result? Putting out fires only in insured structures doesn't work, as fires in the uninsured ones threaten and overwhelm the insured ones. So this concept was abandoned in favour of systems which just put fires out, wherever they are and whoever owns or doesn't own the land or buildings or environment that's burning.

When you have complex interlinked social, economic, environmental and technological systems libertarianism doesn't work. It fails absolutely when we start talking about existential environmental threats across political borders.

No the concept was abandoned when the government got into bed with the insurance agencies. So now we waste resources to ensure all buildings have fire department services. Resources that would be directed to more urgent uses. Instead of making the insurance agencies work hard to find a way to profitability deliver value, we give them a free hand. Instead of making people that want to live in high risk areas fully appreciate the costs of doing so, we subsidise it and encourage them to do it.

Markets and prices are the only method we have that can overcome the complex interlinked social, economic, environmental and technological systems. It is the only way to allow the diffuse information spread out across billions of people to come together to make rational decisions on resource allocation via the common yardstick of prices. Central planning doesn’t work, it is by nature anti-social, as it relies on expropriation in the attempt to meet utilitarian goals that it ultimately can’t do, it has no way to determine trade-offs outside of relying on other prices set in the economy, which it works to actually distort and it is ripe for political influence and corruption to direct how decisions are made.

 

[artball]

It's almost as if extreme weather events are becoming more common.

the weather world wide is nuts. last night a mate told me they haven't had rain on Bali since July !

 

[LeeToRainesToRoach]

the weather world wide is nuts. last night a mate told me they haven't had rain on Bali since July !

Yes, much of Indonesia has endured a more intense drought than usual due to a strong El Nino. The chart below, with rainfall at the bottom in blue, clearly shows the difference between the dry and wet seasons in Bali.

 

[AngryAnt]

Yes, much of Indonesia has endured a more intense drought than usual due to a strong El Nino. The chart below, with rainfall at the bottom in blue, clearly shows the difference between the dry and wet seasons in Bali.

And El Nino events are becoming more frequent and more extreme due to.... guess what.

Here's How Climate Change Is Going to Affect 'Super El Niño' Events in The Future

Climate change is reshaping the evolution and intensity of El Niño events in a way that favors the occurrence of more "super" El Niños, according to a study published Monday.

www.sciencealert.com

[/QUOTE]

 

[LeeToRainesToRoach]

And El Nino events are becoming more frequent and more extreme due to.... guess what.

Here's How Climate Change Is Going to Affect 'Super El Niño' Events in The Future

Climate change is reshaping the evolution and intensity of El Niño events in a way that favors the occurrence of more "super" El Niños, according to a study published Monday.

www.sciencealert.com

"How El Niño will change in a warming world has been an elusive but important question for researchers, and there remain many uncertainties."

The infant science of climate change in a nutshell.

 

[artball]

Yes, much of Indonesia has endured a more intense drought than usual due to a strong El Nino. The chart below, with rainfall at the bottom in blue, clearly shows the difference between the dry and wet seasons in Bali.

sure re: wet / dry season... but it is more extreme.. the other thing my mate was saying is it is "super hot", and he's lived just out of Ubud for a decade.
I'd listen to the folk whose home it is over everyone, whatever their perspective on this 'interuption of deep time' we are experiencing ..

 

[AngryAnt]

sure re: wet / dry season... but it is more extreme.. the other thing my mate was saying is it is "super hot", and he's lived just out of Ubud for a decade.
I'd listen to the folk whose home it is over everyone, whatever their perspective on this 'interuption of deep time' we are experiencing ..

I'm between Jakarta and Bali regularly and it feels super hot in both locations. Very little rain in Jakarta either... anecdotal evidence of course.

 

[AngryAnt]

"How El Niño will change in a warming world has been an elusive but important question for researchers, and there remain many uncertainties."

The infant science of climate change in a nutshell.

Good quote, I'll try to find something a bit more definitive about El Nino if I can.