I have written about the ABC before. It is an organisation and a service that has been important to me throughout my life. Our radio is tuned to Classic FM and its music is ‘the soundtrack of our life’ from the moment I wake up until I go to sleep. But the ABC vexes me. Yesterday one of the presenters, doing one of the Corporation’s far-too-frequent recorded self-promotions, told us that New Year’s Eve would bring in not just a new year but a new decade. It wasn’t long at all before a listener sent in a message to the effect that the new decade would start in 2021. ‘I guess you’re right,’ said the actual presenter. How did someone get away with that boo-boo? It was still on air today. A commenter on this website, some days earlier, had asked ‘How far has the ABC fallen. “Two firefighters died after a car was struck by a tree”.
For what seems like weeks now, I have been told over the air how 54,000 people responded to the ABC’s call for Australians to respond to a survey, and how the results tell us what is really important to Aussies. Well, I wasn’t one of those who responded, time being short, but I did reflect that the ABC has about 14 per cent of the television audience and about 20 per cent of the radio audience, so that those who took part in the survey presumably represent about twenty per cent of the nation. What did the other eighty per cent think? I guess we’ll never know.
Tony Thomas wrote an essay for The Spectator on indigenous quotas on the ABC. It is a fascinating piece, based on the ABC’s Reconciliation Action Plans. In 2017, apparently, more than one hundred Aboriginal focused programs, perspective or issues ran across the full gamut of the broadcaster’s domain. Thomas says that his family times how long it takes to sight an Aboriginal-identifying Australian on ABC TV at 6 pm. ‘Typically, it’s under three minutes…’ he writes. Why so many? After all, there are about as many Buddhists as Aboriginals, and three times as many Chinese. Ah well, despite the ABC’s need to show impartiality, Reconciliation is somehow more important. My listening to Classic FM means I can’t comment.
What can or should be done about this? In Britain it seems that the new Government of Boris Johnson is considering whether or not to decriminalise evading payment of the TV Licence (£100 a year) which provides the BBC with funds. Why is it doing that? The Conservative Government thinks that the BBC was blatantly partisan over Brexit and indeed in the recent election campaign. We have no equivalent to the fee here, though there is no doubt that many members of the Coalition Government see the ABC is biased against it, and in favour of trendy left-wing causes. I think it is easy to show that their feeling is justified.
What to do about the public broadcaster that decides its view of the world is the right one is something that troubled Antony Jay, one of the authors of Yes, Minister.. He wrote the Foreword to Christopher Booker’s GWPF report The BBC and Climate Change: A Triple Betrayal. What follows are some extracts that are relevant to Australia as well as the UK.
Anyone familiar with large organisations knows that over the years they develop and perpetuate their own ethos, their own value system, their own corporate beliefs and standards. The police, the Army, the National Health Service, the Civil Service – they all subscribe to their own central orthodoxy, even if not every member accepts every item of it. Connoisseurs of Whitehall are aware that different Ministries have different and even conflicting attitudes… Those at the top of the tree are the custodians of corporate orthodoxy; they recruit applicants in their own image, and the applicants are steadily indoctrinated with the organisation’s principles and practices. Heretics tend to leave fairly early in their careers.
It would be astonishing if the BBC did not have its own orthodoxy. It has been around for 85 years, recruiting bright graduates, mostly with arts degrees, and deeply involved in current affairs issues and news reporting. And of course for all that time it has been supported by public money. One result of this has been an implicit belief in government funding and government regulation. Another is a remarkable lack of interest in industry and a deep hostility to business and commerce.
[Jay explains that his first real job was with the BBC, and he imbibed all the culture.] …[W]hen our colleagues, who we had thought were good BBC men, left to join commercial broadcasters, they became pariahs. We could hardly bring ourselves to speak to them again. They had not just gone to join a rival company; they had sinned against the true faith, they were traitors, deserters, heretics.This deep hostility to people and organisations who made and sold things was not of course exclusive to the BBC. It permeated a lot of upper middle class English society (and has not vanished yet). But it was wider and deeper in the BBC than anywhere else, and it is still very much a part of the BBC ethos. Very few of the BBC producers and executives have any real experience of the business world, and as so often happens, this ignorance, far from giving rise to doubt, increases their certainty.
We were masters of the techniques of promoting our point of view under the cloak of impartiality. The simplest was to hold a discussion between a fluent and persuasive proponent of the view you favoured, and a humourless bigot representing the other side… The issue of man-made global warming could have been designed for the BBC. On the one side are the industrialists, the businessmen, the giant corporations and the bankers (or at least those who are not receiving generous grants, subsidies and contracts from their government for climate-related projects such as wind farms or electric cars), on the other the environmentalists, the opponents of commercial expansion and industrial growth… The costs to Britain of trying to combat global warming are horrifying, and the BBC’s role in promoting the alarmist cause is, quite simply, shameful.
So what do we do about the BBC? One course of action that would be doomed from the start is to try and change its ethos, its social attitudes and its political slant. They have been unchanged for over half a century and just about all the influential and creative people involved in political programme commissioning and production are thoroughly indoctrinated. So do we abolish the BBC? After all, we do not have any newspapers or magazines that are subsidised with nearly four billion pounds of taxpayers’ money; why should broadcasting be different?
…Of course no government would actually face up to the problem of privatising the BBC. And there are strong arguments for keeping it: some of its production units are among the best in the world. There is also a case for leaving its news and current affairs operation alone; it may have a built-in liberal/statist bias, but there are lots of other news channels which are commercially funded, so there is no great damage done if one of them is run by the middle class liberal elite.
No, what really needs changing is the size of the BBC. All we need from it is one television channel and one speech radio station – Radio 4, in effect. All its other mass of activities – publishing, websites, orchestras, digital channels, music and local radio stations – could be disposed of without any noticeable loss to the cultural life of the country, and the licence fee could probably be cut by two-thirds.
There’s a lot of thoughtful stuff in this Foreword. In my view it applies in large part to our own country, but, like the late Sir Antony, I can’t see any Australian Government having the nerve to privatise the ABC, let alone to abolish it. How big should it be, though, and what should its core activities consist of?
And a Happy New Year to all. The past year was not a great one for me, so I’m hoping for the best!
Endnote The BBC asked Charles Moore, the editor of The Telegraph, to act as a guest editor (Greta Thunberg is to be another). He gave the BBC a hard rap over the knuckles:‘The BBC has decided to be a secular church and it preaches and tells us what we ought to think about things. So it tells us we shouldn’t support Brexit and we should accept climate change alarmism and we have to all kowtow to the doctrines of diversity.”
Jay wrote in 2011, Moore in 2019, Nothing seems to have changed in Britain, or here, for that matter.
Thanks once again Don, for an essential discussion particularly at this point in time.
Yes, “our” ABC also needs severely reducing to focus on areas where there is no commercial coverage and the rest of it turned out to pasture.
We know now that it is impossible to change the spots and it would give the majority of Australians great satisfaction to see these ivory tower dwellers face the real world for a change.
I feel this current govt has the authority and legitimacy to proceed.
BB/Tessa
The arguement against privatising the ABC has always been on cultural grounds – Australian shows wth Australian accents about Australia. “Neighbours” is an international success – OS people loved an insight in to life in Australia. This show was privately funded.
I remember speaking to an Exec from SAFM when JJJ was launched – they thought it was unfair that this station should have a bottomless pit of money and was not bringing anything new to the market.
The current employees and shows are straight from the university student union. Considered nut jobs back then by the majority of students which is now being projected to the general population.
There is no need for a public broadcaster. Even a networked country station could be funded privately.
I also raise the nepotism in the ABC. Barry Cassidy and that laddydoes the outback show, PAul Barry And the producer of the “current affairs show” and Tony Jones and Adele Ferguson.
Privatise it and it’s employees may grow up.
I have been following the “decade” debate in various parts of the media. Don is of course correct, given that our 2019 dates from some mythical event way back that gave rise somehow to a year one, not zero, back calculated to said myth.
However it has been common practice for some time now to associate things with “decades”, the roaring twenties etc and think back to the fuss over the generally accepted millennium change in 2000. So we should not be too pedantic about an ABC presenter calling a new decade now. As with speech and the dictionary common usage is the final arbiter. English is a living and evolving means of communication.
Happy New Year to all and safety to those in danger at present due to the fire situation. May it rain soon and plentifully, but that looks unlikely.
Nicely argued, but it is not pedantry to insist that the numeral 1 is the start of sequences, and that zero is the end of any sequence that is ten or a multiplier of ten. Not to do so can get you into a lot of trouble in practical terms, no matter what some usage suggests.
And then we still have the argument as to why we say January 1 is when it is. Perihelion might make more sense but Gregory stuffed that up or we could follow one of the other cultures with some system based on lunar cycles. Whatever, we are now in the 20’s and yet, perhaps, we can celebrate the new decade all over again next December 31
0 to 1 is the first is the series. Let us not go back to the dim distant past before the concept of zero. The decade runs as thus. 0-1, 1-2, 2-3, 3-4, 4-5, 5-6, 6-7, 7-8, 8-9, 9-10. The next in the series starts 10-11.
Lets uys stop all of this BS.
“Two firefighters died after a car was struck by a tree” I can’t see the issue with this? I know what has happened. Perhaps “struck by a falling tree” might be better. Cars also get struck by lightning.
I think it was an ABC compere but anyway someone observed that bias was an art form. Certainly the ABC has raised it to that level. In addition to the strategies in Dons essay there the practice of criticising from the left, pitchforking sceptics and the whole area of fake news
In this house, I am prohibited from watching any ABC current affairs program because the shouting disturbs the neighbours.
I hope 2020 treats you more kindly. Best wishes from Don1.
The BBC is subject to a ruling by the Office of Communications which requires that anything said against the prevailing climate-change theory must be immediately corrected by a climate scientist. But despite the BBC’s obligation to observe ‘balance’ in debate, there is no requirement that anything said by a climate scientists be immediately challenged by a climate change sceptic.
That sounds reasonable to me. A bit like covering the gravity story really.
When there is nothing happening today with climate that has not happened during the history of civilisation, please explain how that is anything like the black and white “gravity story”?
Prove that please. No, don’t bother I know what you will write and we have been around this circular path before.
Stu
Back again?
Given your clear belief that increasing levels of atmospheric CO2 will lead to catastrophic global warming, a belief strongly supported by Their ABC, I am surprised that you are not away making your preparations for the future you consider to be inevitable.
After all, China and India are each increasing their CO2 emissions annually by more than the total Australian annual emissions, and intend to keep doing. Surely the only rational course for the committed believer would be to prepare to ride the disaster out in a secure (mountain top) refuge?
Stock up on solar cells and lithium batteries. Also gunns, ammo, animal traps and boxes of aspirin.
FFS stu
You are the one making the alarmist claims.
Name just one of those “alarms” happening now that haven’t occurred in the history of civilisation.
There is nothing “circular” here.
It is just you always failing to put up empirical evidence or facts.
Put up or shut up, stu!
Even in The Australian newspaper I am forever reading “scientists” say this and that, whether it is about energy or climate change. Why won’t the Editor insist on “some scientists” for example, for this is obviously correct? The business section of this paper is the worse offender and would seem to encourage the many rent seekers.
Don, I hope this new year brings better health to you.
Why does ABC FM kow-tow to social media? Who cares what Jane Doe from outer Whoop Whoop heard when she was ten? Answer: nobody but Jane, who is thrilled to hear her name on radio.
Thanks Don very relevant to the ABC which is very much past its use by date. I am one of those who was an avid follower of the ABC but no more. If you were to apply the charter to Sky News they would be a much closer match than the ABC is. Political commentary and news are very biased and really represent inner cities. The ABC’s idea to get regional viewpoints was to go to Bankstown. Paul Murray live during the election period and after covered the whole country. He is an interviewer who actually listens to the interviewed rather than try to aggrandise himself. I watch the entertainment component of the ABC but why should the taxpayer finance that? Could an argument be made and put to the public that the majority of what the ABC does could be dispensed with. After all much of it are rebroadcast of material produced overseas. I enjoy classical music and opera but should the general taxpayer be asked to pay for this? There are other sources. There have been many damaging actions of the ABC over the past decade and before that. One problem seems to be that the ABC is regarded overseas as the voice of Australia but it is anything but that. It would be a good thing to restrict the ABC by only funding those things that are distinctly ABC. On another matter there should be a long hard look at why the ABC has a small audience which it seems is diminishing.
It is well known that MSM thrive on bad news because it makes people pay attention but the very point of taxpayer funded news sources is they are meant to produce a balanced report of news and not just bleat with the sheep.
When the Danish Meteorological Institute shows that winter temperatures near the North Pole were 5-10C cooler than 2016, and that summer temperatures were below the 1968-2002 mean why can’t taxpayer funded reports tell us about this?
https://realclimatescience.com/2019/12/near-record-fraudulent-arctic-reporting/
Instead of producing this sort of ignorance:
https://realclimatescience.com/2019/12/science-is-the-belief-in-the-ignorance-of-the-experts-2/
” Boris Johnson is considering whether or not to decriminalise evading payment of the TV Licence (£100 a year” Boris’s actual thoughts were to turn the BBC into a voluntary subscription service. Imagine what that would do to the BBC’s funding!
The same could be done to the ABC. Year one devolve the ABC’s current funding to the populace by way of an online voucher valued at the current budget divided by the population. This voucher is used to gain access to the ABC
Year two the ABC’ funding is the total of the actual subscriptions. Has complications but the ABC’ funding would be decimated. No such bad thing?
“…not just bleat with the sheep.”
IMO, they should always be taking the “unpopular” side – the side against the mainstream.
So for example, climate change: at the start, when the MSM weren’t interested, they should have pushed it. Then, once “everyone knows” and the MSM is pushing it, they should be asking the hard questions and making them justify everything about it.
Ditto gay marriage, Native title, even sporting events, cultural events – everything.
They would say, no doubt, something about “balance”, but that is the point – when everyone in the media is saying “buy tulip futures”, the ABC should be asking “How long will the tulip bubble last?”. They’ll be wrong a lot, but when they are right, it will be a great “save”, and show they are worth the $.
It may once have been the case that a large proportion of the population had no other media access, but those days are long past…
The Jay essay is a beauty, but I worry that everyone who dislikes the BBC’s and the ABC’s violation of their charters because of the political and scientific prejudices always on display tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater by advocating complete dismemberment of all parts of the organisations.
To focus on the ABC in the Australian context, I think its Classic FM and jazz internet ‘radio’ are actually culturally good value, despite the continuous and partly successful attempts by the Green Left to colonise music as successfully as they have every other part of the organisation. These music outlets (I exclude JJJ) are important channels of cultural education for new generations of Australians and new ‘new Australians’, as we used to call them (very revealingly of expectations of assimilation in one culture). They also provide an invaluable opportunity for remote and rural residents to share in the concert opportunities and touring artists otherwise restricted to Sydney and Melbourne residents. It’s true that anyone already education in these genres can find impressive content for free on the WWW. But if you’re not already alert to the genres, the ABC’s presenters add a lot of value as curators of the traditions any well educated Australian ought to know about.
On of the ironies of my position is that the ABC core is actually slightly embarrassed by its custodianship of Western and Australian musical high culture – too many dead white males.
I’d like to think a path forward would involve breaking up the ABC into specialised units (Classic FM, post-modern gender-queer climate catastrophism current affairs, etc) that could be offered on a subscription basis with rapidly declining public funding.
Tezza
“On of the ironies of my position is that the ABC core is actually slightly embarrassed by its custodianship of Western and Australian musical high culture – too many dead white males.”
Spare Their ABC the embarrassment. Split those elements and their budget/frequency allocation off into a separate organisation, staffed by people with no connection to the current organisation.
Matt Ridley gives us some inside info on BBC “balance”:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/12/31/the-bbc-bob-ward-the-climate-catastrophists-attack-on-dissent/
The ABC’s deep insight about surviving hot weather: “know where you can access air conditioning – particularly if power fails”.
Stuck in Termeil with (unfortunately) inability to block drongo comments.
Shouldn’t anyone apologise for its inane splatter?
If you want to know about climate change – try talking to the firies and locals down here.
“Thomas says that his family times how long it takes to sight an Aboriginal-identifying Australian on ABC TV at 6 pm. ‘Typically, it’s under three minutes…’ he writes. ”
Obnoxious fake news being peddled here.
These are the tricks some will stoop to.
Chris
I’m sure it was an oversight, but you didn’t get round on an earlier thread to advising how long you estimate it would take for all land ice to melt. And since both China and India clearly intend to continue to inceease their CO2 emissions, and you keep telling us that this will cause temperature to continue to increase, we really need your wisdom on when to build the sea walls.
Never mind, blith, just because you think that droughts and bushfires never happened before in Australia…….
We know you never put your head outside the door and your real world experience is somewhat limited.
But I’ve been a firey since 1955.
“… you think that droughts and bushfires never happened before in Australia…….”
Absilute, blatant denialist lie.
See why we all should block the drongo.
Read about ’em just recently, did you blith?
Keep it up, you’ll learn something yet.
But it’s always better to go outside and get involved.
Don’t forget to check those king tides now.
Thanks Spangled – your efforts are greatly appreciated – from a city dweller
Here’s more recent evidence that their ABC should be made to employ at least 50% conservatives as presenters and on staff.
At least those who respect intelligent,rational behavior would then have something worthwhile to look at or listen to for a change.
This is from the Bruce Pascoe fiasco, endlessly promoted and encouraged by these ABC donkeys and forensically pulled apart by the Bolter and Dark Emu exposed online.
A lot of reading and info here if you are interested.
Happy clicking, but at least you might learn something about real Aboriginal history , instead of the usual ABC bull dust and fantasy.
https://www.dark-emu-exposed.org/
The ABC does some good stuff. Try this piece for size SD, I think they have you down perfectly.
“
Local door salesman and part-time internet expert Rob ‘The Door Guy’ Banner has today declared online that climate change is a hoax, and Australia’s fires are totally normal, citing many verified feelings in his gut. “Wake up people, stop buying into the MSM agenda,” Rick posted on Facebook under a post pointing out that the current bushfires had been predicted by climate scientists ten years ago. “Can’t you people see this is all just a big plot by greenies to clean our planet from pollution while poor struggling oil barons are barely making ends meet?”
“I mean sure NASA, the CSIRO, the Academy of Science, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Bureau of Meteorology, the Institute of Physics, Australian Medical Association, David Attenborough, and 200 other peak scientific bodies all conclusively state that the evidence of climate change is irrefutable and we must act now to fix it, but on the other hand an anonymous person on YouTube also made a video stating that global warming is a hoax, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to go with the random guy on YouTube in this case over thousands of people who study this kind of thing for a living. I mean, vested interests much?”
“After all,” Rob continued, “believing that I have access to secret knowledge, which everyone else is too stupid and normie to know about helps me feel superior and intelligent in the face of the crushing reality that I am in no way outstanding or special and am actually just a very average person with an outsized platform thanks to the internet through which I can spread nonsense and feel validated for it through the likes of equally uninformed strangers.”
“Unlike those idiot scientists, I’m actually informed,” Rob explained. “After all, I bet these scientists haven’t even watched SkyTruth89’s video on how the dinosaurs were wiped out by vaccinations. What amateurs.”
LOL
What stu-pid and blith [and the ABC] totally fail to get is that blaming climate change will never solve the problem.
In fact it is that stupidity that is the root cause of the problem:
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/01/abc-deleting-facebook-posts-on-how-protesters-stop-prescribed-burns-more-worried-about-climate-change-than-wildfires/
SD, sorry I did not realise you lacked a sense of humour.
And you wrote “blaming climate change will never solve the problem.”. Very true. But admitting we face a problem and that commencing action to reduce the growth of emissions and eventually reverse them would be a good start.
As Marr wrote:
“If Morrison could face the truth, he might speak not only to his country but the world. If Australia were taking effective action against climate change, this catastrophe would give us the right to demand better of the great rogue states on climate, China and the USA. We’re doing our bit, he says as the country burns and the world looks on with a mix of pity and scorn.”
And that is the answer to the US, China, India problem. You can’t use moral pressure if you do nothing first. We in fact played along with all the petro states to destroy the recent climate talks.
And meantime asking for a date when the Arctic ice will disappear is childish nonsense demonstrating a wilful ignorance of what is actually predicted.
Stu,
You and Marr make a sad pair that really lack humour.
Both of you have no idea but love your moral superiority.
You are the ones making the predictions of doom when there is nothing happening with climate that hasn’t happened before when CO2 was at all sorts of levels.
And when your predictions don’t happen you have the temerity to blame the critics of your silly predictions.
Isn’t it better to let people suspect you are silly than to make predictions and prove it?
Stu
“And you wrote “blaming climate change will never solve the problem.”. Very true. But admitting we face a problem and that commencing action to reduce the growth of emissions and eventually reverse them would be a good start.”
To quote one of our American cousins, “Don’t get stuck on stupid!”
Let me change your words to something sensible:
“But admitting we face a problem and that commencing action to reduce the level of fuel on the forest floor would be a good start.”
Reducing atmospheric CO2 might, if you are correct about climate change, have an impact several decades in the future, but ONLY if China and India also move to cut emissions. We live in the here and now. There are three elements to a fire: oxygen, fuel, ignition source. We can’t do anything about oxygen or lightning strikes, we could shoot arsonists on sight, but this is not likely, but we can reduce fuel loads in the bush.
Join current reality, rather than dreaming about an unattainable future.
Stu
“And meantime asking for a date when the Arctic ice will disappear is childish nonsense demonstrating a wilful ignorance of what is actually predicted.”
Actually, the question related to land ice, and was in response to hysterical comments from your colleague Chris.
Improve your reading comprehension.
As for Marr, not sure what he’s smoking, but I doubt that it is legal.
“You are the ones making the predictions of doom when there is nothing happening with climate that hasn’t happened before when CO2 was at all sorts of levels.”
I do wish you would stop repeating that drivel, it is totally bullshit. Do some research of the data, and not from your usual sources.
“And when your predictions don’t happen you have the temerity to blame the critics of your silly predictions.”
The predictions are not about here and now. What part of 2050 and 2100 don’t you comprehend? This is why the younger generations (now including the NSW Young Libs) are concerned, it will affect them. Whereas “risk” is not an issue for silly old white guys in their dotage. Perhaps you are not as old as your head in the sand writing suggests, but I would be surprised if not. And they are not MY predictions, I quote learned sources. I think the Chaser grasped it perfectly.
If it’s total bullshit, stu, you should be able to name many things that are newly happening.
How come you can’t name one?
You are in complete denial that you have been making catastrophic predictions for so long now that many of them have expired and have been shown up for what they are.
Real bullshit!
So what do you do?
Why, move the goal posts, of course. And keep pushing you stu-pid predictions further over the horizon.
It also gives you more time to brainwash more kiddies.
So STFU and let the adults handle the serious problems.
Stu
“The predictions are not about here and now. What part of 2050 and 2100 don’t you comprehend?”
Did you not see the recent revival of an old US DoD report from the very early 2000s, predicting flooded cities and other disasters to occur by the end of 2019? Predicting is hard, particularly about the future! That is probably why many climate alarmists now predict events for long after they expect to be dead!
This relates a bit to land ice. I recently saw an alarmist prediction of a 33 metre sea level rise – in 10,000 years! What is the practical use of such drivel?
The last time co2 was at present levels the earth was warmer, there were no ice caps and sea level way higher. And yes it does take the earth time to adjust and we have moved the dial quickly, putting back in the air in 100 years what it took the earth systems 100 million years to sequester.
“The last time co2 was at present levels the earth was warmer, there were no ice caps and sea level way higher.”
Is that right, stu?
http://joannenova.com.au/2017/11/unknown-miocene-mystery-where-co2-didnt-fit-models-solved/
You still haven’t answered my question that you claim is total bullshit. Why can’t you refute it? And provide evidence to the contrary?
Just name one thing happening today that proves climate catastrophe?
And if you can’t, instead of ducking and weaving, be honest for a change and admit you can’t.
And why can’t you admit that providing fire breaks to prevent disaster to people awa huge carbon emissions is more important than allowing ever-increasing fire problems as a result of ever-increasing tree-changers.
Australia happens to have the greatest investment per capita in clean energy of any country in the world yet we produce only 1.3% of the world’s emissions.
It’s time you stopped wetting your pants with alarmism and paid attention to the real problems.
The miocene! Tell me you are joking. the layout of the continents did not even match today. Typical of the straw clutching of denial. Try again.
READ it. Then convince me they [or you] know what you are talking about.
Who does it remind you of?
This is typical of alarmists’ lying predictions:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/01/01/glacier-national-park-quietly-removed-gone-by-2020-signs-in-2019-update/
More exaggeration and misrepresentation. Here is what USGS says about GNP.
“In Glacier National Park (GNP) some effects of climate change are strikingly clear. Glaciers are melting, and many glaciers have already disappeared. The rapid retreat of these small alpine glaciers reflects changes in recent climate as glaciers respond to altered temperature and precipitation. It has been estimated that there were approximately 150 glaciers present in 1850, around the end of the Little Ice Age and most glaciers were still present in 1910 when the park was established. In 2015, measurements of glacier area indicate that there were 26 remaining glaciers larger than 25 acres, the size criteria used by USGS researchers to define a glacier.“
But go ahead keep finding more straws to cling to.
“Glaciers are melting, and many glaciers have already disappeared”
A recent inspection shows:
But by 2019 NOT EVEN ONE of the glaciers had disappeared.
I think you are the straw man.
So try dealing with the false predictions and the prime question I continually ask and you continually dodge;
What is happening today climate-wise that has not happened previously?
And stop dodging the issue.
You can obviously read so it must be comprehension you have a problem with. “150 glaciers present in 1850, around the end of the Little Ice Age and most glaciers were still present in 1910 when the park was established. In 2015, measurements of glacier area indicate that there were 26 remaining glaciers”
Even the USGS admit that they probably didn’t exist before 7,000 years ago and reached their max during the LIA about 1850.
But your false predictions still apply.
Stop dodging and answer the question.
this is why the drongo needs to be blocked.
It says ” by 2019 NOT EVEN ONE of the glaciers had disappeared.”
But “Glaciologists researching the North Cascades found that all 47 monitored glaciers are receding while four glaciers—Spider Glacier, Lewis Glacier, Milk Lake Glacier and David Glacier—have disappeared completely since 1985.”
and;
“and numerous smaller glaciers have disappeared completely. ”
Non-denialists should read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retreat_of_glaciers_since_1850
I will be back home soon and will be drongo free.
Block the drongo.
Like I said Chris, he is grasping at straws. Making a fuss about GNP, whatever its history, is a side show to the melting of Arctic Ice, Greenland and the tundra generally. These guys always look for a distraction, a red herring, and even resort to obfuscation quite often. Notice it is always a reference to a dodgy contrarian web site with second, third and fourth hand accounts of some claimed scientific fact. Rarely do they refer directly to actual published science sources. They can deny all they like but have to admit (but won’t) that they are on the slender end of the very unbalanced array of published work. They don’t like consensus, but it beggars belief when they refuse to accept the consensus of evidential material. Facts are facts unless one is of the Trumpian/Morrisonian ilk. And Nova and Heller or whatever their names are do not qualify as rated science sources.
Stu
“side show to the melting of Arctic Ice, Greenland and the tundra generally.”
Hang on, earlier you said that “asking for a date when the Arctic ice will disappear is childish nonsense demonstrating a wilful ignorance of what is actually predicted.”
Is the ice melting a sideshow, or is it childish nonsense to ask when it will happen?
Mate, comprehension again. How do you jump from “melting” to totally disappeared because it all “meltED”? Quite a difference in time scale there. Try working on the concepts of trend, scale and sign. Another example of trying to mislead by blurring the argument by false premise (time)
Stu
Catch up with previous tgreads.
It was your colleague Chris who raised thecspectre of all the land ice melting.
Note the word “all”.
Still no answer, stu?
Nah! Much easier to shoot the messenger, hey?
What a pair of dodgers and weavers you two are!
That’s the way, blith. When all else fails and you can’t answer a simple question, remove the questioner.
Any honest person would answer the question.
Go on, give it a shot.
Currently stuck at Ulladulla Community Centre. They have closed the Prices Highway again.
Cannot wait to get home and get the fakery of the drongo out of my computer.
I hear the fires have moved to Tasmania and there is no snow in Moscow and the UK has had its higherst december on record.
Denialists be damned.
Chris
“I hear the fires have moved to Tasmania and there is no snow in Moscow and the UK has had its higherst december on record.”
Is it true, or did you hear it on the ABC or BBC?
See how idiotic that response was.
This is why this denialist fool is forever to be ignored.
Must be terrible for a real world denier like you blith to be stuck outside, hey?
Who knows? you might even get to like it and join the RFS vollies?
But then again I can understand that doing something useful would always make you feel uncomfortable.
And I don’t know about peak temperature but we all thought we had reached peak climate BS in 2019.
But I’m sure you can rise to the challenge in 2020, blith.
Chris
You mentioned the fires in Tasmania. You might find this interesting.
““The Mangana Road fire is believed to have been deliberately lit and is currently being investigated by police,” Tasmania Fire Service regional controller Ian Bounds said in a statement on Wednesday.
“It is disappointing for the community to see this type of behaviour occurring where lives and communities are put at risk”.
“Police have reason to believe the main fire, as well as other fires in the area have been deliberately lit,” Northern District Commander Brett Smith said…
The fire has been burning since Monday and investigators are looking for the arsonist…
https://www.northerndailyleader.com.au/story/6562468/cops-hunt-tas-arsonist-amid-emergency-fire/?cs=9397”
I am not sure that climate change causes pyromania. Three elements to fires: oxygen, fuel, ignition source. Oxygen is always here. No fuel (or much reduced fuel), no fire (or much reduced fire).
Reduce the fuel, and jail arsonists. But we can do nothing about lightning strikes.
The answer is totally obvious and should not need to be spelled out. Or to put it another way, you know the answer but are just being obtuse. The answer, for the uninitiated, is centuries to Millenia. But there is a lot of ice so even in the short term (this century) the effects of sea level may be catastrophic. And that is without factoring the effects of fresh water melt on ocean currents such as the AMOC in the Atlantic and resultant climate changes. Go and read some science.
Stu
So the total melting of land ice is centuries or millenia away?
Wonderful. Please tell Chris, he will be mist relieved.
Now, for the next century, what ice-melt caused sea level rise do you predict? Remember that you wrote “effects of sea level may be catastrophic.”
“May” is not the same as “will”, we need to stay focussed on reality, not scare stories.
BTW, how are you going with your prepping? Make sure that the forest floor around your selected mountain refuge is kept clear of debris.
A metre, which is now seen as probable by 2100, will be catastrophic for low lying, high population zones. But you can relax, poor old white bugger, you will be dead. But that does not absolve us from working to reduce the problem for current (young) generations and future ones. Such is the nature of collective responsibility in face of risk. But of course you say there is no risk.
As for your other “prep” stuff, give up, it is not funny and not relevant. Time to move on.
Stu
When will you take your campaign to Beijing and Delhi? That is where the fight to reduce CO2 emissions, if it must be won, must occur.
And ignore that crap from Marr. They will not destroy their economies, just because we are silly enough to destroy ours.
Stu
” Go and read some science.”
Denialists don’t read science- they are allergic to it.
Chris
Discussion getting too complicated for you? So back to snide remarks, as per usual.
Stu,
I take it that with your run and hide from my question means you agree with me that there is nothing happening today, climate wise, that has not happened in recent millennia?
And you think that maybe when Hannibal took his elephants across the alps to attack Rome the glaciers may have been a bit smaller, too?
In that case, congratulations on a big mental breakthrough.
There’s hope for alarmists yet.
this drongo pest obviously needs a spray.
current events are completely unprecedented and, as the cause increases, will only get worse in the future.
glaciers have never melted when milancovitch cycles were a cause for a new ice age as now.
there have never been bushfires that have burnt an area across Australia equvalent to the area of Victoria.
so when was the road from Ulladulla blocked to the north like this?
when you talk to real people here they are pretty solid on admitting that their predicament is due to climate change although one older guy still maintains that it is all a ten-year cycle.
when in the past were all roads to canberra blocked?
drono lives in a fantasy land with all the other tin-hat nutters.
Stupid drongo.
Block the drongo.
Denialists be damned.
its a pity my battery is running low as I need 240v to charge it and all the facilities are being used.
Chris
“current events are completely unprecedented”
Expand your reading from climate pseudo-science to bushfire history. Roger Underwood and Phil Cheney might be a good start.
Yeah, 5 million hectares burned before Jan 1 is an everyday occurrence. Oh I forgot you rate fires by number of deaths.
Stu
You give two short planks a bad name.
Chris said “current events are completely unprecedented”
Go away and look at the historical record. Here is an example from the State Library of Victoria.
“Widespread bushfires occurred in Victoria in early February 1851. The height of the destruction happened on Black Thursday, 6 February 1851.
‘Fires covered a quarter of what is now Victoria (approximately 5 million hectares). Areas affected include Portland, Plenty Ranges, Westernport, the Wimmera and Dandenong districts.”
Population of Victoria in 1850’s was some 70,000. I guess it was sparsely populated, reporting slow and unreliable, resources for fire fighting limited to knap sack sprays and milk churns on horse drawn carts. Please try and be realistic old chap.
BJ, as you appear slow on the uptake I will spell that out for you. Back then, in the absence of any realistic fire fighting capability, and somewhat suspect reporting and measurement, it is claimed a large area burned. Imagine just for a minute the scale of the recent inferno if left unchecked by modern equipment, methods and communications. I worry about you poor old soul. Meantime if all this turns out to be a hoax and we are all freezing soon I will apologise and applaud you. Can you say the same in reverse scenario. Cheers pet.
Stu
I am certain that the State Library of Victoria will be pleased to receive your detailed paper on the subject.
Until then, the statistics stand.
Still haven’t taken your anti CO2 emissions campaign to Beijing and Delhi? Hurry, time is running out. That top climate scientist Prince Charles recently gave a speech telling us we have under two years to take decisive action.
Or have you decided to accept the inevitable, and started preparing your mountain retreat?
Stu
Are you a bushfire denialist?
Blith has a feeling in his [enuresistic] water that “current events are completely unprecedented”
If you can’t see It’s the tree-worshipping people numbers in these areas who allow the greenies tree preservation philosophies to hold sway combined with the present-day lack of farmers who previously cleared their land of bushfire fuel, that has lead to a lack of bushfire management for the last 30 years that is unprecedented, then you don’t have a clue.
It’s a common problem right across the best coastal and near-coastal countryside probably all over Australia.
Also, most of those glaciers you refer to didn’t exist during the Holocene optimum.
I doubt somehow it’s a low battery that’s your problem.
But if your intellect runs off your battery, you could be right for once.
Tell me, blith, does blocking people who demonstrate your stupidity, increase your self esteem?
” Go and read some science.”
Stu and blith
Here are 350 peer reviewed science papers for you that say current warming is not unusual:
https://notrickszone.com/2019/12/26/350-papers-published-since-2017-subvert-the-claim-that-post-1850s-warming-has-been-unusual-global/
Oh please. Regular science has no need to assemble such crap. If it did there would be a list of 30,000 reports to the contrary. Time to accept the facts tweedledum, you are on the wrong side of the fence, except of course here in fantasy land amongst the shrinking band of climate contrarians. Enjoy the moment while it lasts.
Stu
You regularly make these points. You protest so much, it seems that you are trying to convince yourself.
Hardly. You wish, poor fellow. I just like to call out your false narrative, just for practice as there are so few places it is needed these days. You folk are literally dying out. Apologies for being so harsh but you leave little room for a softer tone.
So you are just trying to convince yourself.
Keep whistling as you walk past the graveyard of failed alarmist predictions, one day one of them might come true.
Up thread you mentioned that 1 metre of sea level rise by 2100 is “probable”. Put aside that you are once again touting around the output of models known to be incapable of providing useful projections, and recall that in around 2000, the Pentagon prepared a paper claiming that some cities would be flooded by – wait for it – ta da: 2020. That did not age well.
The modellers are now wising up, and only providing projections for beyond their personal lifetimes, displaying at least a degree of rat cunning, even if no greater wisdom!
But, but, but you just agreed that current climate is not unprecedented.
Didn’t you?
If you have some facts to quote or evidence to produce, please do.
That’s what we have been asking you for years but all you ever do is hand-wave and quote groupthink.
You blokes are wasting your time on these silly blog donkeys.
Data and evidence don’t mean zip to these fools although we’ve tried forever to get them to wake up.
Here’s NASA satellite data showing us that global wildfires have dropped by about 23% since 2003.
That’s a big drop in so short a time, but nothing will change them, because they’re in love with their fundamentalist religion. Let’s face it, they couldn’t care less about the science.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/90493/researchers-detect-a-global-drop-in-fires
BTW here’s the co2 data AGAIN for the clueless donkeys and please look at the co2 graph 1970 to 2018 and you might learn something. NOTE, China and other countries and also note that Australian co2 emissions have now dropped to just 1.1% of global emissions. Very simple sums and graphs that any 5 year old should understand, but our donkeys don’t seem to grasp any of this and readily believe anything the MSM throws at them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions
Oh Nev, once again you go off half cocked, which is probably appropriate! You quote a paper to support your whacky argument but don’t actually read the paper. If you had you would have found the reasons for the change. “Using NASA satellites to detect fires and burn scars from space, researchers have found that an ongoing transition from nomadic cultures to settled lifestyles and intensifying agriculture has led to a steep drop in the use of fire for land clearing and an overall drop in natural and human-caused fires worldwide.”
Oh well never mind, we know you are not good on detail, only misquoting sources.
Nev, Sorry I forgot to mention your other falsity. Sure our share of global emissions has fallen (as a % of total) but if you look more closely you will see it is because the total has risen quite a lot. Anyhow, brilliant eh, we are down to the level of UK, France and Italy each of which has populations more than three times ours. And if all those small percentage nations got together they could exert pressure on the big emitters to provide some help. But no, our “lump of coal adoring PM” is on board with the big emitters and stifled progress in Spain. Yes indeed our 1% contribution in WW2 was obviously unnecessary you would agree. And don’t bother contributing to the bush fire appeal, your contribution would be so minor, yes. Do you have any concept of global diplomacy?
Stu
“And if all those small percentage nations got together they could exert pressure on the big emitters to provide some help.”
Your naivete is touching. China and India, in particular, have no intention of cutting back, no matter what kind of noble “example” we give, nor will they bow to pressure from European nations.
PS, I’m certain it was an oversight, but you forgot to mention that France and the UK are big users of nuclear power. Are you happy for us to follow suit?
PPS, “but if you look more closely you will see it is because the total has risen quite a lot.” And it will continue to do so, no matter what we do. If you truly believe in CAGW, your only logical solution is to prepare for the catastrophe you believe is coming. Start that mountaintop refuge now.
The carbon market is the stu solution:
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/01/fire-policy-shift-government-says-hazard-reduction-to-stop-fires-labor-says-carbon-market/
Stu here’s the last bit from NASA above, “steep drop in the use of fire for land clearing and an overall drop in natural and human-caused fires worldwide.”
So an overall drop in natural and human caused fires worldwide, do you get it now?
And please have a look at the Wiki graph again until you start to wake up.
Of course the entire SH is a co2+ methane sink ( see CSIRO ) because just 10.5% of the world’s population live here and they emit just 7% of global co2 emissions.
But I’ve given you this data ages ago and I can’t be held responsible if you don’t understand, AGAIN. I can’t dumb it down any more.
I know we shouldn’t shock these fools by referring to the real planet earth, because they love their mad cult and their silly fantasy planet, but we can but try to add to their education.
Dr Finkel has told the Senate that we/ OZ could stop all co2 emissions today and there would be no change. And the RS and NAS also told us we could stop all human co2 emissions today and there would be no change in temp or co2 levels in a thousand years.
See their ques 20 using Zickfeld et al study. See also Petit et al ice core study that shows co2 level lag for 6,000 years after temp.
There has been no warming in Antarctic for 41 years ( UAH V 6) and the Ant peninsula has been cooling for about 20 years. See BAS, Turner et al study.
Dr Humlum has found just 1 to 1.5 mm per year global SLR or about 4 inches to 6 inches by 2020. That’s less than the SLR over the 20th century.
He also finds about 31 cm or 12 inches using adjusted satellite data in another 100 years.
I’ll leave it there for now.
Sorry above should read …… “Dr Humlum has found just 1 to 1.5 mm per year global SLR or about 4 inches to 6 inches by 2120”. NOT 2020.
Too much on my plate today, so probably shouldn’t have posted this comment. Gotta go.
Thanks Neville.
And that 1 to 1.5 mm is based on reliable tide gauges but until there is a tide gauge audit after having reliable GPS chips on them for very long periods, it is as accurate as we can expect.
However, local long term observation in your own part of the world is still the most reliable information.
And the bulk of that says there is nothing happening.
For those obsessed by the odd belief that climate change causes bushfires, a quick summary. This group seems to include many reporters and commentators on Their ABC.
There are three ingredients needed for a fire.
Oxygen. We can’t get rid of this.
Fuel. Anyone who says that “fuel load reduction does nothing significant to mitigate the risk/severity of bushfires”, demonstrates a complete lack of expertise. Clearly, they have never even turned the gas on a gas stove either up or down. Any such commentator can safely be dismissed as an idiot.
Means of ignition. There are two main causes, lightning and human action (accident or arson). Lightning will ever be with us, as will accidents. Meanwhile, I wait with bated breath for the”study” demonstrating unequivocally that climate change causes pyromania.
Reduce the fuel load, reduce the intensity of the fire. Lock up arsonists, reduce their opportunities to start fires. Treat arson as attempted murder or as manslaughter, actual if anyone dies in the fire.
BJ, wake up. Climate change is not causing the fires it is making them more likely, more ferocious and harder to contain. Regarding hazard reduction go back and read the post about the farm of the Glenn Innes mayor. They had a reduction burn in August then a low intensity bush fire in September/October. Then last month with nothing left to burn on the ground a fire came roaring through the tree tops fanned by 80km/h winds. Just like Canberra in 2003. Reminder, hazard burns do not burn out the treetops. Hot dry WEATHER exacerbated by CLIMATE change has enhanced the fuel. The heat, this weekend, which increases the hazard, is a function of unusual weather patterns, affected by a changing climate. And there are insufficient resources for the current situation.
Meantime I see your “scientist” friend Tony Abbott making waves in Israel. He should be home soon and you can compare notes on how to be a laughing stock character.
Stu
So you now deny that fuel load has anything to do with fire intensity? You are off the planet.
As for the case of the Glen Innes mayor, we need more details. Was the “reduction burn in August then a low intensity bush fire in September/October” confined to a limited area? Was there a nearby area (national park or state forest) left unburned at the time, in which there were high fuel loads? Did the 80km/hr winds spread the fire from that area to the treetops on the farm?
As for your inane statement that “Climate change is not causing the fires it is making them more likely, more ferocious and harder to contain”, do you not see the connection between more ferocious, harder to contain fires and fuel load? Are you asserting that there were no high winds before climate change? How does climate change make fires more likely? If there were very limited fuel available, would the fires still be “more ferocious and harder to contain”?
Think before you type, and broaden your outlook, you are incredibly narrow minded, one could almost say a monomaniac on the subject of climate change.
“BTW NZ rainfall data since 1960 shows little trend at all, yet NZ has exactly the same co2 levels ( about 408 ppm) that we have in OZ and the SH. Why is it so?”
You do go on. Show me where any of the climate change army are saying our rainfall and drought etc is linked to the specific level of CO2 over Oz or NZ. Geez, get real.
And how is any of the rubbish salad you just tossed linked to the content of the posts back and forth today? Once again it looks like you are drowning. Or just resorting to the standard denialist playbook of change the subject and make ludicrous linkages. Good for a laugh though.
Stu,
There is a lot you don’t know about bushfires.
Not long ago farmers had large productive farms near the coast that were almost devoid of trees.
In fact, initially, they had to clear these trees in order to retain those farm selections because those farms were non-functional with thick tree growth.
I had one such farm with 5,000 acres of millable timber on it which I had to clear to make it a productive farm. When I sold the farm it was cut up into acreage housing blocks and within a few years all that timber regrew or was replanted by tree changers.
That 5,000 acres and many more surrounding farms have gone from unburnable country to country so hazardous you would not want to live there at any price.
The people who live there are the first to tell you of their foolishness.
These bushfires aren’t caused by climate change.
They’re caused by your green “solution” to climate change.
In the winter rainfall climates were most of us live the growth is very prolific in Winter and Spring. Fuel reduction burning would have to be undertaken every three years where people choose to live. I can’t see that happening. Firebreaks and grazing help but don’t eliminate ignition. While we’re still allowed to choose what we plant in our gardens less inflammable species can be grown. In the mixed species garden where I’m standing as I write mature green oak trees with moderate litter underneath stand nearby the ribbon gums festooned with bark streamers and litter on the ground which would go up like a bomb
BJ, once again you exhibit very poor comprehension. Is that a ploy or just that you are pretty thick? Nowhere did I say there is no connection between ferocity of fires and fuel load. I fear you are just being argumentative for the sake of it. A graduate of the Donald Trump school of diplomacy perhaps.
As for Glenn Innes, since you seem incapable of research beyond quoting from dodgy websites funded by fossil fuel interests. Here is part of the letter I referred to:
“ 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.
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.”
That last bit appears quite prescient given developments this week.
The key point of quoting the letter is the fact that with bare ground (courtesy of previous burning) there was not much to burn except for a wind driven crown fire totally out of control. Sound familiar?
As for the rest of your questions, they merely exhibit a further phase of your annoying sophistry and are not worthy of response.
I am approaching a point of exhaustion responding to your misleading arguments and denial of fact. When at some point I do not bother to reply, do not take it as acceptance of whatever rubbish you wrote, merely resignation in the face of obstinate refusal to accept facts and science.
It should be fun when Abbott returns to expand on his “climate cult” ideas. He fits very much in your camp and perhaps can explain the refusal to accept the ever mounting evidence better than you can. You and he are outliers and not of the Galileo variety.
Stu,
Wytaliba is in the middle of some of the thickest forestry you are likely to find.
Why do you think 50% of their able adults are in the RFS?
Burning thick forest will possibly make it more fire-prone as that doesn’t remove the bulk of the fuel.
It only deadens and dries it and prepares it for the next fire.
You have to clear fire breaks. The wider the better. And still cool burn as much as possible.
Try and live in the real world, hey?
Stu
According to Environment NSW, “A crown fire occurs during fires of extreme intensity. A crown fire is when fire burns and spreads through the crown or canopy of trees. The influence of wind is greater in the tree canopy. When the tree canopy is interconnected or continuous, a fire can spread incredibly quickly.”
The letter states that “There was no fuel on the ground, it was already burned.”
What is not clear from the letter is the extent to which “There was no fuel on the ground, it was already burned.” Does it refer to the farmland and the periphery of the “state forest and national park on our perimeter”, or to the entirety of the “state forest and national park on our perimeter”? Given the areas involved, the latter seems unlikely.
If, as seems possible, the fire started in un-burned areas of state forest or national park, then development of the “extreme intensity” needed for a crown fire would result. If there had been no ground fuel anywhere, it would be hard for a crown fire to develop.
More research needed, and will probably (or certainly should) be part of the coroner’s investigation.
Since you have not rejected any “connection between ferocity of fires and fuel load”, perhaps you should wait for that investigation?
GEEEZZZZ Stu I suppose we’ll have to try AGAIN.
Since 1988 co2 levels have increased by 60 ppm and the NET increase has come from China, India and developing countries.
Check out the Wiki graph AGAIN. Our OZ emissions can’t make a difference at all. Ask Dr Finkel ( under oath) why he holds that POV. He even states that OZ emissions could disappear and this wouldn’t change anything at all. Why can’t you grasp any of this?
Dr Andy Pitman has also told the media that there is no direct link to drought because of their so called CAGW and he’s a IPCC lead author and a true believer.
As I’ve shown before, the SH is a NET co2 sink so their small emissions of 7% don’t count, while the NH super 93% NET emitters aren’t listening.
So I’ll ask once again, when will you wake up before you front up again with more of your incoherent nonsense?
BTW NZ rainfall data since 1960 shows little trend at all, yet NZ has exactly the same co2 levels ( about 408 ppm) that we have in OZ and the SH. Why is it so?
In case you missed the post above which should have gone here.
BTW NZ rainfall data since 1960 shows little trend at all, yet NZ has exactly the same co2 levels ( about 408 ppm) that we have in OZ and the SH. Why is it so?”
You do go on. Show me where any of the climate change army are saying our rainfall and drought etc is linked to the specific level of CO2 over Oz or NZ. Geez, get real.
And how is any of the rubbish salad you just tossed linked to the content of the posts back and forth today? Once again it looks like you are drowning. Or just resorting to the standard denialist playbook of change the subject and make ludicrous linkages. Good for a laugh though.
So you’ve finally realised that these fires are due to exceptionally dry WEATHER?
Takes some people a while, hey?
Oh, do stop splitting hairs, it is very tiresome and boring.
It’s good to see you are getting the message.
Here’s some more for you to absorb:
https://jennifermarohasy.com/2020/01/it-has-been-hotter-fires-have-burnt-larger-areas/
Geeezzzz Stu, so what has Flannery etc and most of the media like your ABC been yapping about for the last 20 to 30 years?
Also nearly every week we hear stupid donkeys telling us that Morrison must do more to fight climate change.
I presume you must have been sleeping under a rock and actually not heard any of this?
But it’s good that you now understand at least some of the data, but the next hurdle is to tell us what’s so terrible about the world’s climate today?
Then the real biggy is to tell us what to do about it and please don’t resort to your usual silly fantasies like the infantile so called mitigation of your so called CAGW.
Because it won’t make any measurable difference and China, India and the developing countries ( the monster NET emitters) are not listening.
See Dr Finkel, Dr Pitman and the RS and NAS study, using Zickfeld et al.
Neville, Drongo, just STFU. No, I do not accept any of your ravings and illogical views and am over reading bull shit posts you quote from non credible sources like Nova, Marohasy and Watts. Once again I stress you and those you rely on for your “evidence” are bit players in a game that is much bigger than all of us. Learn to differentiate science from bull shit, then get back to me.
Cheers
Stu
Pull your head out of the sand in which you have buried it.
China, India and the developing countries will not stop increasing their CO2 emjssions. Mitigation is a cloud cuckoo land fantasy.
IF you are correct, then the only rational solution for you to adopt is adaptation.
Let me stick to fires for the moment, as I have covered other adaptation options ad nauseum, without apparently having any impact on your closed mind.
Following from your Glen innes example, the current fuel reduction strategies are clearly quite inadequate. They must be expanded to the extent that there is NEVER sufficient accumulated fuel load to allow a crown fire to develop.
Can we count on your vocal support?
Neville, when you have no idea [other than the groupthink science he lives and breathes] let alone any solution of the problem, the true believer reaction is just to assume wisdom and hand-wave like our stu does.
Hey stu, there I was, thinking you might have been learning something but has it got through to you yet that with bushfires, your solution is the cause?
Two demonstrations of Stu’s “open” mind.
“am over reading bull shit posts you quote from non credible sources like Nova, Marohasy and Watts.”
“incapable of research beyond quoting from dodgy websites funded by fossil fuel interests.”
Stu applies the social concepts of “U” and “non-U” to debate. If he doesn’t like the source, he rejects the data.
BTW, Stu, the second insult was directed at me. Please list the “dodgy websites funded by fossil fuel interests” from which I “quoted”. Since I was quoting you should be able to identify the actual quotes. Or were you just making it up?
For the alarmists
“Police are now working on the premise arson is to blame for much of the devastation caused this bushfire season,” reports 7 News Sydney.
Authorities in the country have formed Strike Force Indarra, comprising of detectives from homicide and arson units in an attempt to find the culprits.
Other causes for the fires include lightning strikes and a natural weather phenomenon called Dipole, again neither of which have anything to do with man-made climate change.
Many bushfires are also actually caused by environmentalist ‘green’ policies which prevent land owners from clearing their own vegetation to protect themselves.”
I’m sure the Coalition govt under Morrison will be on a winner if they start a fair dinkum clean up of the bush every Autumn, Winter and Spring.
We must start to reduce the fuel loads starting this Autumn when it is safe to do so. Labor and the Green’s nonsense of so called mitigation of their CAGW is a complete fraud and con trick and will have no measurable change on temps or climate at all.
Listening to that fool Albo over the last few days you almost have to pinch yourself to make sure you’re not dreaming.
And ditto for Turnbull and the Greens etc over the last couple of decades. But Jennifer Marohasy’s latest post about temps and fires helps us to understand more about our fire history and BOM data collection etc.
This Sky news interview with Jennifer before Xmas is very good although it’s a pity it wasn’t a bit longer.
https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6117273069001?fbclid=IwAR2wdCu_o9PL9qtazQYHOYTn779hIcXT0S_UkIe6-7u5P16CelzgUuV5wGA
In 2015 David Packham ex CSIRO scientist warned about a future disaster if the proper fuel reduction burns didn’t take place ASAP.
Of course he was correct then and we should make sure we don’t follow the clueless Labor and Green’s ideas after these latest terrible fires and loss of life.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/bushfire-scientist-david-packham-warns-of-huge-blaze-threat-urges-increase-in-fuel-reduction-burns-20150312-14259h.html
Here’s the latest Bolt interview with David Packham in Nov 2019.
This is probably the best interview from a former scientist that I’ve seen and he knows about all the BS and nonsense that the left use to try and fool us ever time we mention fuel reduction burns.
But will we ever wake up to these fraudsters and start the bush clean up this Autumn? It’s up to you Scott Morrison and please don’t listen to the haters, extremists and con merchants. Just ignore them.
https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6102485547001
Apropos the clutching at slippery straws by the climate rebels here (Nev, BJ etc) here is a summary of a paper put out by CSIRO in 2009, fairly relevant to the factors underlying current events.
“An assessment of the potential impacts of climate change on fire regimes in Australia, and the consequences of these changed fire regimes for Australia’s biodiversity was commissioned by the Australian Government to help increase our understanding of the complex interactions between climate change, fire regimes and biodiversity for future fire management.
The report synthesises understanding of the drivers of fire regimes in Australia, identifies changes to fire regimes projected from climate change and identifies the broad implications of these changes for biodiversity. ‘Fire regime’ is defined as the history of fire events at a point in the landscape.
The report finds that fire weather will become more severe in many regions, particularly southern Australia, and that the interactions between biodiversity and fire regimes are complex. It develops a national framework to assess the likely impacts of climate change on fire regimes and biodiversity for different bioregions, using a case study approach.
Climate change may affect fire regimes across the Australian landscape through changes to temperature, rainfall, humidity, wind, and the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Modeled climate projections show that much of southern Australia may become warmer and drier. This modeling suggests that, by 2020, extreme fire danger days in south-eastern Australia may occur 5 to 65 per cent more often than at present.
For example, modeling of climate change impacts on the fire regimes of Australian Capital Territory (ACT) landscapes predicts that a 2°C increase in mean annual temperature would increase fire intensity by 25%, increase the area burnt, and halve the mean interval between fires in the ACT.
Climate change is expected to have greater effects on fire regimes in regions where fire weather factors like temperature and wind strength determine fire occurrence and fire intensity. These are regions such as the temperate forests of the south-east and south-west of Australia. Climate change is expected to have less effect on fire regimes in places where fuel levels or ignition sources determine fire occurrence and intensity, such as northern tropical savannas.
Managing fire regimes to reduce risk to property, people and biodiversity under climate change will be increasingly challenging.
The assessment was undertaken by a CSIRO-led multi-disciplinary team of scientists in consultation with State, Territory and Commonwealth agencies. It was led by Dr Richard Williams.“
But I expect you guys know more about it than the team of scientists who wrote it. And if course Nova and Marohasy are “experts”.
Enjoy.
Stu
Here’s your first problem.
“Modeled climate projections show that much of southern Australia may become warmer and drier. This modeling suggests that, by 2020, extreme fire danger days in south-eastern Australia may occur 5 to 65 per cent more often than at present.”
Back tu unreliable models.
Here’s your second problem.
“Climate change is expected to have greater effects on fire regimes in regions where fire weather factors like temperature and wind strength determine fire occurrence and fire intensity. These are regions such as the temperate forests of the south-east and south-west of Australia.”
Dismissing fuel levels as a factor in fire intensity in temperate forests discredits the whole thing, particularly when it is accepted as a factor in northern tropical savannas.
On the subject of experts, have you read Roger Underwood and Phil Cheney yet, or don’t they meet your definition of “experts”?
It will be interesting, post event, if there is some analysis of when areas being burned this season were last burned by bushfire or hazard reduction. The areas are now so large it is hard to imagine that parts have not been burned over the last say ten years. Any that have will dent some of the argument regarding the so called “green” effect. And of course the contrary view.
Stu
You miss the point.
If there are large unburnt areas intermixed with other areas where fuel has been reduced, then it becomes possible for crown fires to devdlop in the areas with heavy fuel loads, and spread to areas where ground fuel has been reduced.
This could be what happened near Glen Innes.
Did you actualy read my comments at 0852?
In any event it is tasteless to continue arguing at this time. Call for a truce and respect for those lost, in danger and helping.
Well stu, it might be wise for someone with your climate change reasoning on the cause of these fires to pull your head in but when south coast residents are seething at government and councils for failing to take adequate precautions in hazard reduction burning they might be somewhat relieved to hear that there are still a few people smart enough to know what caused the problem who are prepared to support the only logical solution.
Stu here’s my quick and very easy to understand response.
You either want to achieve something or you don’t. According to ex CSIRO scientist David Packham we must reduce the fuel load as soon as we can in the cooler months and keep doing it every year until we have a much clearer floor in the bush.
Or you can forget that and try reducing our tiny co2 emissions and achieve nothing at great cost and just put up with the fires as well in the worst of summers to come.
Remember we already reduce our NET emissions to a natural sink anyway, so that’s why we should forget about any mitigation nonsense, because it’s not necessary and of course it can never work.
And the developing countries will never change, whatever you and others may think.
Or here’s a one line response. You either believe that you can change the temp/climate, by using S&W, or EVs or banning coal etc or you reduce the fuel load ASAP.
The first costs a fortune for ZERO change and the second is just plain common sense.
All very well to have more hazard reduction. But, it seems the fire season is getting longer, therefore the “cooler period” is shorter and the bush is drier. And that has been restricting the opportunities for hazard reduction burning.
Here is something from the Queanbeyan RFS notice board.
What it is though, is to establish some facts about hazard reduction burning and backburns which are two VERY different things.
To start, Hazard Reduction burns are exactly as the name suggests. They are specifically designed to minimise hazards (think: heavy ground fuel loading) around urban interface-bush areas. Usually small areas that are designed to lessen the intensity (not stop, that’s key) that a fire will impact that interface. Usually completed in the cooler months when fire behaviour is less intense and much more preferable in a strategic sense than…..
Backburning is a tactical option used AFTER a bushfire has started in attempt to burn the fire back on to itself, therefore creating the buffer zone of already burnt ground that can’t be reburnt, obviously. The problem with conducting a backburn is that they’re often done with little time to account for things like flame height, fuel loading, temperature and wind changes and can sometimes increase the size of the fire front. They are often a last resort tactic to again lessen the impact (again, not STOP) of a bushfire.
Political parties of any denomination do NOT influence the decisions of organisations like FRNSW, ACT Fire and Rescue, ACT and NSW Rural Fire Services and Parks and Wildlife Services when choosing when and how to do Hazard Reduction burns. It just doesn’t work like that. The main reason Hazard Reduction burns are cancelled or delayed is due to the predicted intensity of the burn exceeding the limits that would make it safe for firefighters, native flora and fauna and obviously you wonderful people.”
The key thing is that hazard reduction does not stop fires, but only hopefully, lessens their intensity. As per the Wytaliba fire, if conditions are right, dry, windy, hot, you can still have a fast moving intense blaze.
The parks have been copping flack. But I see today that the Minister has said that in NSW, the National Parks have been responsible for 75% of the hazard reduction over the last four years. He said “last year we did one of the three highest levels of hazard reduction burning in the Blue Mountains on record….”
The review announced will be a very good thing.
Stu flings his hands in the air in despair.
His only solution is to reduce CO2 emissions in Australia, ignoring the massive increases in emissions in, inter alia, China and India, and hope that in a couple of centuries time the temperature will drop by 0.8 degrees C, and Nirvana will be restored.
Still, this method will guarantee that his fears about climate change will be realised. Australia will be thoroughly incinerated before then.
PS, Stu. There are other methods of hazard/fuel reduction. Regular logging, with a requirement that the forest floor in the logged area be fully cleared before and after.
Copying the UK with the Drax generator (you mentioned the UK’s CO2 status favourably earlier) the collected material could be burned to generate electricity. A renewable resource! I expect your full support.
“His only solution is to reduce CO2 emissions in Australia, ignoring the massive increases in emissions in, inter alia, China and India, and hope that in a couple of centuries time the temperature will drop by 0.8 degrees C, and Nirvana will be restored.”. There you go again making stuff up. At least you have a good imagination.
Stu
So what is your solution, pray tell us?
Keep reading and learning, stu, but better still join the fireys as a volunteer like I have been most of my life.
It’s called the real world. Wonderful for perspective.
For the last 30 years I have been maintaining fire trails and trying to persuade govt departments into cool burning on a regular basis but it very rarely happens and hasn’t happened at all for the last many years.
These days I take my tractor into the NP without permission and clean their firebreaks for them.
Back burning from these fire trails is only something I’m allowed to do in really desperate situations to save lives.
Meanwhile all the greenie orgs have been busily replanting the trees that the erstwhile farmers were required to remove for a century or so.
Sooner or later we were bound to get a weather pattern that would thrive on this stupidity and guess what?
It arrived!
We have always had those weather patterns on a regular basis.
What we haven’t always had is current levels of stupidity.
Congratulations, add another spangle to your drongo, it must look very pretty now. Don’t assume anything about by my former or current contribution and experience, you do not know. Meantime you and your colleagues here display significant malice and antagonism to any contrary view. You would easily get a job on Sky or 2GB. Just try and keep it civil.
When you display for all to see your bushfire knowledge, it is easy to assume that you haven’t been in the grips of a fire-front or wielded a beater very often.
If you had, you wouldn’t need it spelling out for you, like we continually have to.
It’s impatience with your lack of understanding, not malice, stu,
Here is a reasonable, accurate coverage of the fires and quote from the SMH and the link. Importantly 87% of fires are man-made.
“At least 200 fires were burning in Australia as of Friday.”
https://time.com/5758186/australia-bushfire-size/
====
Arson, mischief and recklessness: 87 per cent of fires are man-made
https://www.smh.com.au/national/arson-mischief-and-recklessness-87-per-cent-of-fires-are-man-made-20191117-p53bcl.html
“There are, on average, 62,000 fires in Australia every year. Only a very small number strike far from populated areas and satellite studies tell us that lightning is responsible for only 13 per cent. Not so the current fires threatening to engulf Queensland and NSW. There were no lightning strikes on most of the days when the fires first started in September. Although there have been since, these fires – joining up to create a new form of mega-fire – are almost all man-made.”
Stu
Is this what you were babbling about on Saturday? ROFLMAO, you really are a precious petal, aren’t you? Very sensitive to any hint of climate heresy!
“Former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott has told Israeli public radio that many politicians appear to be in the grip of a “climate cult” and are pursuing policies which will lead to “Third World-style blackouts” in the West.
“The last thing we should be doing is driving our industries offshore, putting extra pressure on household budgets, and risking Third World-style blackouts all in the name of climate change — I mean, we’ve got to be sensible, and balanced, and proportionate about all these things,” the Australian told Israel Public Broadcasting Corporation foreign editor Eran Mor-Cicurel in an interview reported by the left-liberal Guardian.”
PS, ask South Australia about ” Third World-style blackouts all in the name of climate change”. They have had some experience.
Has anyone stopped to think about the agitating ex fire chiefs? They were clamouring for more preparation back in March/April. The response, including by those refusing to meet, was that the fire chiefs in the various states said they “had adequate resources and needed no additional…”. Is it the case that the ex-chiefs are more able to speak freely and realistically than than those who are still beholden to their (political) employers? Perhaps should be a question for the forthcoming inquiries.
Stu
Still waiting for you to tell us your solution to hazard reduction and bushfires.
What are you talking (raving) about? What problem? Yes conduct hazard reduction, it already happens. In case you had not noticed there may not be much need across a vast area for quite a while. Stop chasing shadows you will go mad (madder), poor sod.
Stu
This problem, from your 0738 post.
“All very well to have more hazard reduction. But, it seems the fire season is getting longer, therefore the “cooler period” is shorter and the bush is drier. And that has been restricting the opportunities for hazard reduction burning.”
You state that the opportunities for hazard reduction burning are restricted. You (at least implicitly) suggest that more hazard reduction is necessary. If not by burning, then what method do you propose?
Or is it your solution to have occasional wildfires to make up for lost opportunities?
Stu
The author of your Glen Innes letter?
Wytaliba had been back burning before fatal fire.
(Badja Sparks – Local News)
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,”
This Badja Sparks?
“Badja Sparks is a longtime resident of Wytaliba. His home was badly damaged in Friday’s fires.
The Badja Sparks from this March article?
Barnaby Joyce can’t even travel to Glen Innes without meeting protesters.
One lone protester met the Member for New England at the stockyards, bearing two placards.
One read “Old King Coal is Dead” and the other “Emperor Barnaby has no clothes”.
Green member Badja Sparks, husband of mayor Carol….”
Hmmmmm!
Well spotted, BJ.
“Green member Badja Sparks, husband of mayor Carol….”’
And stueyluv is so convinced he is being analytical.
Oh, dear.
This is exactly what we are trying to tell him.
The “solution” is the problem.
And they are in denial and can’t see it.
SD
Thanks, but it was another poster at Catallaxy who found the connection.
PS, one of the lefty trolls over at Catallaxy had also been making a big deal of the Wytaliba letter, causing another poster to research it.
Stu
Since you are unusually slow over the past couple of days, I will spell it out for you.
An “academic” paper that discounts fuel load as a factor in fire intensity is of less use than toilet paper, because the material the document is printed on is not absorbent.
That you touted it as the ultimate debating point says a lot about your intellectual capabilities.
Touting the Wytaliba letter without mentioning that the author is a longstanding Greens Party member and political activist was simply deceptive.
Clear enough?
The Dem’s herd of hopefuls have been yapping about their CAGW for years and yet the American people have much more important stuff to worry about.
Climate change concern hasn’t been an important issue according to the Gallup poll for the last 20 years.
Thanks to the very competent Donna Laframboise.
https://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2020/01/06/decades-of-public-opinion-climate-change-not-on-the-radar/
BTW according to the latest from CNN( 5-1-20), Biden and Sanders are STILL the two leading contenders to run against Trump in 2020. Unbelievable but true.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/05/politics/bernie-sanders-joe-biden-money-endorsements-analysis/index.html
I think Biden will run into problems with the pervert claims against him.
He’s now being called out at his rallies and the evidence against him is very strong.
Just look up numerous examples of his public displays over the last few years. I know he is a fool, but there is something much more sinister about him that people will soon have to focus on.
This video is from about a week ago and I can’t see this easing up as we head towards the nomination. And these people seem to be in the younger age bracket. Perhaps they are parents of young kids.
Oh Nev, once again you display your ready susceptibility to the Murdoch empire propaganda machine. They are the evil empire. You are being duped. Are you that easily fooled? I look forward to the day you realise you are on the wrong train (even going in the opposite direction) but I will never expect you to recant, a bridge just too far. They truly fear Biden as the candidate so are doing everything possible to destroy his campaign. Meantime you sit back cheering your imbecile mate in the White House who is guided by the most amateur team of advisers since probably the early 1800’s. I do pity your inability to differentiate facts from “false news”. And good luck to you, because you may well inherit the terrible consequences of this adventurism. And just in case you claim you are not a Trumper, please explain how you accept all the other right wing bullshit but not that bit as they are totally intermixed.
Stu
On 5 January, you posted an extract from an academiccpaper that included the following.
“Climate change is expected to have greater effects on fire regimes in regions where fire weather factors like temperature and wind strength determine fire occurrence and fire intensity. These are regions such as the temperate forests of the south-east and south-west of Australia.”
From Charles Darwin University
“The most important measure of fire behaviour is fire intensity.
Fire intensity (I) represents the heat released per meter of fire front (kW/m of fire front). It is a function of (1) heat yield of fuel (kilojoules/kg), (2) amount of fuel per unit area (kg/m2) and (3) the rate of forward spread of fire front (km/h).
This relationship is described by Byram’s fire intensity equation:
I = Hwr
where,
I = intensity (kW/m)
H = heat yield of fuel (J/g)
w= fuel consumed (kg/m2)
r = spread (m/sec)”
Note the specific references to fuel.
BJ, sorry, but your point is?
Stu
Stu
Since you are unusually slow over the past couple of days, I will spell it out for you.
An “academic” paper that discounts fuel load as a factor in fire intensity is of less use than toilet paper, because the material the document is printed on is not absorbent.
That you touted it as the ultimate debating point says a lot about your intellectual capabilities.
Touting the Wytaliba letter without mentioning that the author is a longstanding Greens Party member and political activist was simply deceptive.
Clear enough?
Sorry about the double post, software issue!
Silly boy, you take short reads much too seriously. That paper did not discount fuel loads it was making the point that in some regions temperature and wind may determine intensity. You took one para and mis-interpreted (a regular problem of yours) what it actually said. But never mind we forgive you, bless you sonny.
Stu
That’s OK, I forgive you too, for incompetently (or deceptively) selecting a summary section that did notcaccurately comprehend the content of the paper.
I’m sure that you will eventually work out how to do it properly.
PS, the word “may” is interesting. Fuel availability will always impact on fire intensity, but wind and temperature “may”. A fascinating insight, surely worthy of a PhD?
Here’s Matt Ridley’s latest article about the BBC and the lies and exaggerations about their so called CAGW. Plus the link.
https://reaction.life/the-bbc-bob-ward-and-the-climate-catastrophists-attack-on-dissent/
I was asked to appear on the Today programme on Saturday 28 December by the guest editor, Charles Moore, and made the case that the BBC’s coverage of climate change is unbalanced. Despite a lot of interruption by Nick Robinson I just about got across the point that the BBC uncritically relays any old rubbish about the environment so long as it is alarmist, even if it comes from an uninformed source like the leader of Extinction Rebellion or falls well outside the range of the scientific consensus that we are on course for a warming of 1-4 degrees this century. But the Corporation has strict rules about letting guests on who might say that the climate change threat is being exaggerated, even if their view and their facts fall within that consensus range.
The BBC now has a rule that if by some oversight a lukewarmer or sceptic does get on the air, he or she must be followed by a corrective interview from a scientist, setting the record straight. Sure enough I was followed by Sir David King, former government chief science advisor. (He’s a qualified chemist, while I am a qualified biologist.)
I sat there open-mouthed as he beautifully demonstrated my point with one exaggeration after another. He said that Europe’s dash for diesel had nothing to do with greens, when green pressure groups pushed actively for it. He said that we will see 1-2 metres of sea level rise this century, when the current rate of rise is 3.4 millimetres a year with no acceleration (or 0.3 metres per century). He said that all of Greenland’s ice cap might melt and could cause 5-6 metres of sea level rise, though at current rates of melting, Greenland’s ice cap will be 99% intact in 2100. He said that wild fires were being caused by trees dying out because of rising temperatures, rather than a failure to manage increasingly luxuriant vegetation in fire-risk areas leading to a build up of tinder. He said scientists are agreed that Calcutta will have to be moved, when the Ganges delta is actually expanding in area, not shrinking.
What readers of newspapers and listeners to the radio do not see is the sustained and deliberate pressure put on editors to toe the alarmist line on climate change. Take Bob Ward, who works at the London School of Economics, where his salary is paid by a billionaire, Jeremy Grantham. Ward is not employed to do research, but to “communicate” climate science. He chooses to interpret this as a duty to put pressure on the media to censor people like me. He complains to the Times almost every time I mention climate change, often getting his facts wrong, and kicked up a huge fuss when the Times, after publishing half a dozen of his letters declined to publish another one.
Recently he has taken to complaining to the Independent Press Standards Organisation. Whenever Charles Moore, James Delingpole, David Rose, the late Christopher Booker, I or any other journalist writes an article arguing against exaggerated climate alarmism in one of the newspapers self-regulated by IPSO, he sends in a detailed and lengthy complaint. He never complains about the myriad alarmist mistakes that appear all the time like articles saying that “the science” tells us six billion people are going to die soon because of climate change.
IPSO was invented, remember, to give redress for people whose private lives were invaded by journalists, yet Ward is never complaining on his own behalf (though he probably will after this piece). To give one example, I wrote an article in the Times in 2017 about a scientist whistleblower in the United States who said his colleagues had deliberately distorted a data set to make climate change look more alarming.
Although all of this took place in America and had nothing to do with British scientists, let alone Ward himself, and although the scientist in question was happy with my article, Ward sent IPSO 11 separate lengthy complaints about supposed inaccuracies in my article. I responded with a very lengthy reply, which took two weeks to compile. IPSO asked him to respond to my response, which he did at great length. He raised several new issues that had not been in the original article. IPSO asked me to respond. I did so, at great length and effort. Ward responded a third time. (Remember: this is his day job.) This time, six months into the argument, I and the Times refused to reply and instead asked IPSO to rule on the matter. They did so and quickly found in my favour, dismissing all 11 of Mr Ward’s complaints. Every single one.
In 2019 he tried it again over an article of mine in the Telegraph about how giving up meat would make little difference to emissions, but this time IPSO rejected all of his complaints without even asking me for a response.
Let me give you a flavour of the sort of thing he says in a complaint. My article had said “A study in rural Kenya found that eating eggs made children grow five per cent faster.” Ward complained that “although the study did find that ‘a child who ate eggs once per day during the recall period grew 5% more in height than a child who ate no eggs’”, Ward thought the “claim was misleading because the study was not making a comparison with children on vegan diet”. But I had not claimed that it was. This is a very clear example of somebody being purely vexatious, not even expecting to win the point, just to waste my time.
Indeed Ward’s aim seems to be never to win the point – that would be a bonus – but to tie us down in a time-consuming process of defending ourselves, in the hope that it deters us from offering similar articles to editors in the future, and deters editors from commissioning them. It works. He has frightened away some journalists and editors from the vital topic of climate change, leaving the catastrophists with a clear field to scare children to their hearts content.
Not surprisingly some on the other side of the argument have now learned to emulate this tactic. Though with nothing like the resources of Mr Ward’s employer, the Global Warming Policy Forum has complained about mistakes in BBC programmes and newspapers in recent years, but in this case ones that exaggerate climate problems rather than underplay them. Unlike Ward, the GWPF keeps winning its cases. It got the BBC to correct an absurd claim that flooding had grown 15 times worse in ten years and another that reindeer were in steep decline due to climate change. It pointed out that a David Attenborough programme called “Climate Change: the facts” claimed that floods and storms are getting worse – contradicting what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says. It got the BBC to admit that Lord Deben (John Gummer) was guilty of misleading Today Programme listeners that there was a “ban” on onshore wind. And so on.
It turns out that calling out catastrophists on the media is a much more target-rich environment than calling out sceptics. But the BBC and others have such a cosy relationship with the alarmist green pressure groups (the fraternisation on Twitter is in plain sight) that they keep making mistakes.
Matt Ridley describes an extensive problem for free speech. Several years ago Al Gore was going around training ”Climate Champions” or whatever. In lieu of shutting down the blogosphere which they’d prefer, they must teach at global warming school how to harass climate rationalists by leading them down false leads with ever more complicated stories without ever explaining why the world hasn’t warmed as CO2 rises.
Craig Kelly has told the truth when he said that Australia must reduce our massive fuel loads as soon as possible and trying to reduce our fire threat by reducing co2 emissions is nonsense.
But we know this is just plain common sense and our Chief scientist even told the senate inquiry that we could reduce all our emissions today and the result would be “virtually nothing”. Look it up.
Then we have the Zickfeld study quoted by the UK’s RS and USA’s NAS that has made Kelly’s quote even stronger. They say we could reduce all of the world’s human emissions of co2 today and it still wouldn’t change co2 levels or temp for at least a thousand years. Again look it up for yourselves.
Then the CSIRO tell us that the SH is a NET co2 and methane sink and the NET source is the NH. Again this proves that Craig Kelly is correct beyond any doubt.
And ex CSIRO scientist David Packham told Andrew Bolt exactly the same message as Kelly told the clueless Piers Morgan. All we can do is reduce our monster, dangerous fuel loads in the bush.
Craig Kelly was correct and our clueless media doesn’t understand the first thing about their so called mitigation of their so called CAGW. Their so called mitigation is the greatest fra-d and con trick for centuries.
BTW here AGAIN is the Uni of Boulder Colorado satellite SLR page.
The graph shows an adjusted MSL of 3.1 mm a year or about 310 mm or 1 foot in 2120. This is nothing like the nonsense peddled by the BBC, ABC and other media around the world.
Why aren’t they called out for their refusal to quote the real (BUT adjusted) satellite data and evidence about SLR?
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
Of course Dr Humlum has checked the world’s tide gauges and found an average SLR of about 1 to 1.5 mm a year or about 4 to 6 inches by 2120.
As I’ve noted before, this would be less than the SLR over the last 100 years.
Oh Neville,
First Matt Ridley. I had a good laugh with that bit where he equated himself with Sir David King. Remarkable sense of self importance or even maybe Dunning/Kruger. Check the achievements (and knowledge) of both, they are not in the same league. At least Ridley has more background than the often quoted Liberal spokesperson Craig Kelly.
Second Humlum. He makes the same mistake you do repeatedly. You assume current rates of change continue, making no allowance for uptick in the rates driven by continued warming and the impact of multipliers and tipping points. Read the latest news on the Thwaites glacier and its possible impact as an example.
Stu
“First Matt Ridley. I had a good laugh with that bit where he equated himself with Sir David King. Remarkable sense of self importance”
I think he was more making the point that both are scientists, neither of them being a climate scientist. Given the usual “not a climate scientifist” bleat that comes from alarmists, it would seem that their qualifications to comment on climate science are equivalent.
PS, “chief scientists”, certainly the more recent ones in Australia, are very much political appointments.
BJ you wrote “PS, “chief scientists”, certainly the more recent ones in Australia, are very much political appointments.”. So now you are disowning Finkel. Surprising I thought you said he supported your arguments.
The first problem with the Public Broadcasters being politically biased is clear.
Should the favoured political party try to engineer a dictatorship, the Public Broadcasters would do all in their power to help that party, demonstrably against the interests of the Public.
The second problem is more subtle. A deeply politically biased Public Broadcaster, such as the ABC, is a low quality broadcaster. Because it is not dedicated to exposing the truth, (instead exposing only the politically advantageous) it misses many stories, Examples are:
a. Corruption of science in the west.
b. Corruption in political parties and factions
c. Shaky basis for many public policies, including public funding of education, the “safe schools program, climate mitigation.
d. The attack on free speech
e. The corruption of our universities, which are now low quality indoctrination machines.
There is no good solution for an organisation as deeply flawed as Their ABC. Should the libs replace all the top level staff with conservative appointees, Liebah will change it all back again when it comes to power. You then get a broadcaster which is always politically biased towards the party in power – the very crowd most likely to impose a dictatorship.
The only safe option is to reduce its funding by 100%.
Colin
Indeed. One of the most directly dangerous lines being pursued by Their ABC is that the current bushfires are principally, if not solely, the result of climate change. The issues of fuel load, fuel reduction and land management are essentially dismissed as irrelevances, and the historical record of earlier catastrophic bushfires is put down the “memory hole”.
The likely effect is that necessary changes will not happen, more will die, more properties will be destroyed, and more ecosystems will be left as barren ash deserts.
And for those with five minutes to spare here is a link to a very good video about a channel of a great list of videos about science. This guy is very methodical and rigorous in his approach so frequently comes in for derision by light weight players in the climate debate also.
It is worth watching even just to learn how to check the “facts” frequently thrown around on the internet. You will even see where he corrects Al Gore, wow.
Channel trailer
https://youtu.be/p5hhhlBqM5M
Stu
“You will even see where he corrects Al Gore, wow.”
Surely such blasphemy shoukd not go unpunished. The Goracle must be at least the scientific equivalent of Sir David King, and cannot be challenged!
That’s sarcasm, in case you didn’t notice.
Stu King is a silly fool, just read Ridley’s replies to each of his exaggerations and Craig Kelly is supported by Dr Finkel our chief scientist, the CSIRO, David Packham, plus the data & evidence etc.
When will you wake up to your stupid mitigation fra-d and con trick? BTW here’s the Wiki link and that graph AGAIN. Perhaps we should link to it every day until you silly donkeys wake up to yourselves?
But then again like all you loonies I fully understand your single minded devotion to your crazy religious cult.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions
Remind me again what Kelly’s climate credentials are, beyond selling furniture on a hot day and having the support of the PM for pre-selection.
Stu
An interesting question.
Speaking of which, remind us what your climate credentials are. Considering the amount you comment on the subject, they must bd very impressive!
I am not on TV representing the ruling party and I don’t conduct research but I am capable of reading what climate scientists put out there. And your comment is clearly in poor taste because you are really casting aspersions about everyone participating here including Don. Wake up.
Stu
Thank you for that, and for walking into a simple trap.
Actually, you are the one casting nasturtiums. You started on about Ridley’s relative qualifications in terms that dismiss Don’s and others here, now you defend yourself in terms that make Ridley’s, and Don’s, and my, and SD’s opinions at least as valid as yours.
The lesson for you is to avoid ad hom attacks in future, and judge comments by their content, as you expect yours to be judged.
I agree, your point of view and Don’s is quite valid to express, as is mine. But Ridley is in a different category, along with Kelly and even Nova, Marohasy, Heller etc. They lay claim to expertise which seems unfounded but are loud players in the blogosphere. In this DA space it is more a case of a bunch of interested amateurs with varying levels of expertise, but not in climatology or climate science in general, having fun (if not/why not) with some mostly friendly banter. But only one side can claim to be following the overwhelming weight of evidence, papers, policy and opinion. And did you watch the Hadfield video?
Stu
“But Ridley is in a different category, along with Kelly and even Nova, Marohasy, Heller etc. They lay claim to expertise which seems unfounded but are loud players in the blogosphere.”
Do you mean that they say things with which you disagree? “Seems unfounded” is your value judgement.
“But only one side can claim to be following the overwhelming weight of evidence, papers, policy and opinion.”
Another value judgement, based on your personal preferences. If you have not yet learned that science is not decided by committee or vote, then you never will. I will not waste time going through examples already listed far too often.
Here again is the link to the Concordia Uni study and note at Table 2 where they attribute 0.006 c of warming to Aussie co2 emissions over the last 200 years.
So chalk up another supporter of Craig Kelly’s claim in reply to the stupid Morgan and his parrot.
https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/982250/1/Matthews_2014_Environ_Res_Lett.pdf
Yes we were a very late starter in the game, but we are punching well above our weight now aren’t we? Would be interesting to see the same study look at just the this century.
Stu our emissions today are much less as a percentage of the world.
I’ve tried to always remind everyone that co2 levels have increased by 60 ppm since 1988 and most of that has come from Ch+IND and the developing world.
OZ emissions are tiny and as a percentage they have been dropping for a long time. And of course our co2 emissions are a NET sink because we’re in the SH. Ditto methane.
The SH has just 10.5% of the global Pop and emissions of about 7% of global co2.
Stu our emissions today are much less as a percentage of the world.
I’ve tried to always remind everyone that co2 levels have increased by 60 ppm since 1988 and most of that has come from Ch+IND and the developing world.
OZ emissions are tiny and as a percentage they have been dropping for a long time. And of course our co2 emissions are a NET sink because we’re in the SH. Ditto methane.
The SH has just 10.5% of the global Pop and emissions of about 7% of global co2.
Stu
How much are we “punching well above our weight”?
By being one of the greatest polluters per capita. And then throw in the contribution from the burning of our exports in far off places and our surrogate pollution by outsourcing all our manufacturing to Asia.
And the net sink SH thing is a bad argument. If it is a net sink it is because of the natural state of the globe and is in the same category as our “carry over Kyoto” credits bull shit.
Stu
“Per capita” is one of the sleazy techniques alarmists use to try to “guilt” people into some kind of lemming like action to make them think they are saving the world.
Unless your “reading what climate scientists put out there” has taught you something else, the theory of climate change, to the extent that it is coherent, relates to absolute levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. That is why I keep reminding you that the big increases are coming from China and India.
But, to assuage your personal guilt, please feel free to adopt a personal lifestyle that is lower in emissions than the world per capita. Of course, you will have to give up fripperies like electricity, computers, heating, air conditiining, and start cooking on a dried cattle dung fire, but you might feel better about yourself. Just don’t expect others to follow your example.
More stupidity from Boambee
The cause is per capita emissions.
Everyone knows this and denialists can squirm as much as they like, but it is the fact of life.
Any other approach leads to catastrophe when the rest of the world develops to our per capita standard.
Only the very dumbest of denialists do not understand this simple fact.
Why do you think these countries in far off places buy our coal, stu?
If they didn’t get this high quality coal they would burn a lower quality coal.
That’s what’s called a win/win.
And we spend more on emission reduction per capita than any other country.
For a country that emits so little, we don’t do too badly.
When you add to that the fact that it would make no difference to world temperatures whatever amount we reduced, to do more is just stupid.
Chris
“The cause is per capita emissions.”
Even by your standards, this is pathetic.
The measure used is parts per million, not parts per capita. That you resort to this sleazy alarmist trick demonstrates that you have some other, hidden, agenda.
Are you seriously saying that the massive increases in absolute emissions in China and India do not affect the climate (according to the climate change hypothesis, reality might be different)? You are, if effect, rewriting the whole hypothesis.
Chris
“Any other approach leads to catastrophe when the rest of the world develops to our per capita standard.”
So, your proposal is that the undeveloped parts of the world must remain undeveloped? And exactly how do you propose to enforce this? How will you prevent the population of the undeveloped countries from migrating to the developed countries, where their per capita emissions will rise to the developed level?
This doesn’t even rate as a half formed thought bubble. I could use a harsher description, but will refrain out of courtesy to Don.
Neville
You know this is completely irrelevant.
It is global warming – not Australian warming.
Chris
To the extent that the CAGW hypothesis has any validity, it relates to global CO2 levels and emissions, not simply to Australian ones.
If you genuinely believe the hypothesis, and are not simply using it to advance another agenda, you should be worrying about the massively increasing CO2 emissions in already major emitters like China and india.
Take your campaign to Beijing and Delhi.
And there I was, thinking our blith must have had a Damascene conversion while dancing with the bushfires.
SD “For a country that emits so little, we don’t do too badly.”. So little, but it is more than the UK, France, Italy, France, Poland and Spain etc. Significant in the general scheme of things I would say, but you stick to your story.
Considering it includes total continental land use, it is small.
But when you can’t produce any measurable evidence that this has any effect on warming or what proportion is natural climate variability, you just stick to your feeble story and I’ll stick to mine.
Stu
As I have mentioned previously, it must have been an oversight that led you to forget the high usage of nuclear power in the UK and France (mentioned twice!). Other EU countries can access source this via interconnectors.
Also, the UK uses wood chips in its Drax plant, this is accepted as renewable. It seems to me that we here have a great opportunity to increase our level of renewables. Don’t conduct hazard reduction burns, harvest the fuel from the forest floor by mechanical means, burn it in existing stations. Win-win, less fuel load, more renewables.
Are you with me?
Just in case you missed it, here is what the RFS Commissioner had to say about hazard reduction.
“ NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons insists hazard reduction is an important element of fire prevention, but it’s not a panacea.
“Let’s not forget, only a matter of months ago in New South Wales, we and the land management agencies, particularly national parks and forestry, we were public enemy number one because a byproduct of hazard reduction burning is smoke and yes, there’s a very significant health issue with smoke,” he said.
Hazardous air quality ratings have been common and, on some days, Sydney has been classified as the most polluted city in the world.
Federal Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce in November called for more hazard-reduction burns during winter in a bid to reduce bushfire fuel.
He attacked the Greens, claiming they did not support the practice — something the party’s politicians deny.
The Commissioner has also defended fire management agencies saying claims by some politicians that “Greenies” have disrupted prescribed burning were not true.
“We are not environmental bastards, we actually work through a sensible, environmental regime,” he said.
“Our priorities are life, property and that environment ranks third.”
He said hazard reduction burns were being disrupted by changing weather conditions and longer fire seasons.
He also said the burns did nothing to combat the massive “mega-fires” burning in NSW.
“Hazard reduction burns that are only two years old, we’re seeing these fires on these bad days just skip straight through it,” he said.
“We’re only seeing effective amelioration on fire spread through hazard reduction areas that have been done so in the last 12 months.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian dismissed suggestions NSW had not conducted enough hazard reduction burns.
“Our focus at the moment in NSW is on the recovery effort,” the Premier told ABC Radio Sydney.
“I think everybody that has their own agenda to push should actually think about the people who we have to support at this time.”
Ms Berejiklian promised her Government would review the state’s fire management strategies once the immediate crisis was over.”
Sounds a lot like climate climate change is having an effect on fires and fire seasons.
Stu
“Sounds a lot like climate climate change is having an effect on fires and fire seasons.”
As Mandy Rice-Davies might say, “Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?”
More seriously, I see a place in the future for mechanical clearing of the forest floor, and using the collected material as fuel for power stations. Those pillars of environmental integrity, the EU, apparently recognise this process, used in the UK at Drax, as being renewable. This solves the smoke etc problems, as scrubbers are already used in coal fired power stations. Thinning the new growth will also produce a healthier forest.
I expect your full support for this proposal!
Mate, I don’t know how much bush walking you have done, but your idea of little machines prowling around in the bush collecting wood is lunacy. On the same scale as the Donald and his raking of the forests. Geez, why do you think it is so hard to get into these places to fight the fires? The topography of a large part of the national park and state forest inventory is very inaccessible. Dream on.
Stu
I am not thinking about small machines. I am contemplating forests managed on a large scale, starting from the periphery and working inwards. Clear all the deadfall, remove woody weeds, and thin regrowth to provide a healthier forest. Opening forests up to productive grazing should also be an option for less accessible areas.
You, OTOH, post a statement from Fitzsimmons about the difficulties of conducting hazard reduction burns, and how the necessary work cannot be done, but, as I noted earlier, seem to have no solution but to throw your hands up in the air and despair.
As for the deeper and less accessible parts of national parks, once the areas near human habitation and infrastructure are properly managed, the limited (as claimed) reduction burns can then be concentrated on them.
But you keep up your crying about how it is all too hard, and dream that CO2 mitigation measures will solve the problem.
Started on your new, less than world per capita average CO2 emissions, lifestyle yet?
Don’t believe the blither these people use for alibis, stu.
I have 150 acres with National Parks on either side and I can demonstrate just how slack these Qld govt operators are. They can only access their fire trails through my place and where once, many years ago, they would be coming through at least once a month, for the last 10 years they haven’t been near the place. They have their own lock on my gate so they can come and go when they please. And they did once. But not any more.
It’s the door that normally doesn’t squeak so it gets no oil. But in this sort of dry fire weather it squeaks louder than most so they alibi themselves like there’s no tomorrow.
Come on go the whole hog and tells us all the fires are lit by arsonists and that without them all would have been good this summer. Go on.
Stu
Don’t be so pathetic.
Based on media reports, the arsonists have certainly exacerbated the problem, but lightning is an uncontrollable factor.
If we believed all would otherwise have been wonderful without the arsonists, we would not be having this discussion. Reminder, this discussion has been about hazard reduction, not about unicorns dancing in the moonlight,
I’m telling you what I know for a fact.
What I deal with on a daily basis.
Where I have lived for the last 30 years.
Not blithering about my take on something I have read in alarmist promotions.
There is a slight difference.
It’s a pity you couldn’t produce some facts from personal experience, occasionally, stu.
Canberra Times front page:
“Hottest year on Record”
So what slander will denialists hurl now?
Never mind blith, sea levels are still falling:
http://www.bom.gov.au/ntc/IDO70000/IDO70000_60370_SLD.shtml
So maybe the homogenising is a little exaggerated?
Or the records a bit limited?
They don’t mention those 40 year droughts we used to have.
When soil contains high moisture content, much of the sun’s energy is used in evaporation and consequently there is limited heating of the surface. However, during drought, soil moisture content is low and consequently nearly all of the incoming radiation is converted into heating the surface. The result is that air temperatures rise significantly.
So drought makes heat, and not the other way round.
Chris
1. For Canberra, Australia, or the world?
2. When is the start point of the record? Careful selection of the start point will usually produce the desired result.
3. How is the “hottest” measurement calculated? Is it another “average of averages”?
Without knowing these, this is not a useful statement.
PS, requests for details of the methodology are only “slander” to those with something to hide. Slandering others as “denialists” demonstrates the weakness of your argument.
Chris
PS, how much hotter was it, what are the margins of error in the calculations?
Or are these minor points passed over without comment?
Dr Roy Spencer blows apart the fra-d that Aussie bushfires are caused by their CAGW nonsense.
In fact the most extreme year was in 1974 -75 when rainfall was very high and temps were lower.
Many graphs to look at and perhaps Jennifer and Jo etc are onto something when they are doubtful of the BOM homogenised ???? temperature data?
Interesting that Dr Spencer was confident enough to use Wiki as a source. I too use Wiki for co2 data because they get the data from the IEA and EIA and BP etc.
But Dr Spencer is correct that most fires are accidentally or deliberately started by human activity. Let’s hope Don has the time to read Roy’s very important post.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2020/01/are-australia-bushfires-worsening-from-human-caused-climate-change/#comments
Stu
You might want to track this group down. When rabid Greens are rejecting ruinables, what next?
“Deep Green Resistance (DGR), [is] an international environmental organization that calls for the total destruction of what it refers to as the “global industrial economy,” a.k.a. capitalism. Given the group’s hard-left credentials, its call for dismantling capitalism throughout the world is not surprising.
What is surprising is that in an unusual show of progressive candor, Deep Green Resistance openly acknowledges what skeptical scientists have been saying for more than two decades: that renewable energy is a government-backed hoax that enriches big corporations — and green energy investors like Al Gore — at the expense of taxpayers and the environment. If you find that admission hard to believe, please keep reading. The questions and answers below are verbatim from the FAQ page on the organization’s website.”
Another accurate column by Miranda Devine in the NY Post.
The Green eco-loons, so called celebs and arsonists etc should be made to accept ownership of some of the misery.
Yet so many fools listen to these con merchants?
https://nypost.com/2020/01/08/celebrities-activists-using-australia-bushfire-crisis-to-push-dangerous-climate-change-myth-devine/?utm_source=twitter_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons
Wow! denialists deny “Hottest year on record”…
Is this record denialism???
Chris
So, no response to my entirely reasonable questions? Alarmists not interested in actual facts?
Is this peak alarmist alarmism?
Chris
Are you still denying that parts per million world wide is the measure of CO2 in the atmosphere, NOT kilograms per capita specific to each country?
Stu
A bit more on ruinables.
“Environmentalists have long promoted renewable energy sources like solar panels and wind farms to save the climate. But what about when those technologies destroy the environment? In this provocative talk, Time Magazine “Hero of the Environment” and energy expert, Michael Shellenberger explains why solar and wind farms require so much land for mining and energy production, and an alternative path to saving both the climate and the natural environment. Michael Shellenberger is a Time Magazine Hero of the Environment and President of Environmental Progress, a research and policy organization. A lifelong environmentalist, Michael changed his mind about nuclear energy and has helped save enough nuclear reactors to prevent an increase in carbon emissions equivalent to adding more than 10 million cars to the road. He lives in Berkeley, California. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx“
Our blith sez:
Is this record denialism???
Is this more record fakery?:
https://realclimatescience.com/2020/01/new-video-nasa-confirms-their-own-conspiracy-theory/
Nifty says “Dr Roy Spencer blows apart the fra-d that Aussie bushfires are caused by their CAGW nonsense.
In fact the most extreme year was in 1974 -75 when rainfall was very high and temps were lower.”
Now can you tell me if the Greens were stopping controlled burning back then.
Also have you realised that the big change with arsonists is that now they can successfully burn rain forests that were previously almost impregnable.
Just saying, LOL.
Also Neville, even if your claim for 74-75 were true (I doubt it) can I point out this current event is nowhere finished yet.
Poor ol’ stu, doesn’t have a clue when it comes to his view of the real world. [you could set it to music]
Stueyluv, it doesn’t need long periods of drought to produce extreme bushfire conditions. It just needs a couple of months of hot, dry weather.
Something that happens all the time in this country.
As Dr Spencer suggests, you should read this:
https://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/6C98BB75496A5AD1CA2569DE00267E48
“Our history, and the experience of countries overseas with similar fire climates, are that disasters on the urban bushland interface are likely to be more serious in the future.”
Following the enormous growth in ’74, ’75 from extremely good rainfall it only needed a short dry spell for this extreme growth to produce loads of dry, flammable fuel.
If the people in charge don’t pay attention it can bite them very quickly.
You did not answer my questions, merely changed subject as usual, moving the goal posts, obfuscation etc. Standard denier trick, almost bot like. And to state the obvious you missed the point completely. As expected, true to form.
Stu
What is your reaction to Deep Green resistance on the ruinables scam? Just to remind you:
“Deep Green Resistance openly acknowledges what skeptical scientists have been saying for more than two decades: that renewable energy is a government-backed hoax that enriches big corporations — and green energy investors like Al Gore — at the expense of taxpayers and the environment.”
And what about “Time Magazine “Hero of the Environment” and energy expert, Michael Shellenberger explains why solar and wind farms require so much land for mining and energy production” on the environmental damage caused by ruinables? I hesitate to sya “I told you so”, but not for long!
Never mind your waffling. I will spell things out for you. You and your ilk have been banging on about the issue with the fires is that the greens are stopping hazard reduction burns. So, how busy were they back in 74 as you claim, for a similar result. But also this season is not over yet.
And as for the wasted land for renewables. Have you visited the Hunter Valley lately to view the awful landscape provided by the mines and their insatiable demand for water.
Time to be realistic old pet.
Stu continues, ever more desperately, to deny reality.
Dream on Stu, one day, veeeerrrry soon, ruinables will be built from unicorn farts (which, everyone knows, contain no methane), the elves will dance in the forests, and all will be well in the world.
Stu asks how busy the Slime were back in 1974, stopping hazard reduction burns. Stu forgets that 1974 was when the world’s climate scientists were panicking about a New Ice Age, and that paragon of climate excellence, the BBC, was calling for increasing the level of CO2 in the atmosphere to prevent disaster. Stu knows much less than he thinks he does.
Taken your anti CO2 campaign to Beijing or Delhi yet? Started reducing your personal CO2 profile to less than the world per capita level yet? Or just continuing to bleat that “someone should do something”?
Geez you are thick, you keep missing the point. You said the fires were worse back in 74 so rhetorical question “how did that happen if there were no greenies to stop hazard burns etc?” In other words it is not the greens and not arson, read the statements by Fitzsimmons and company.
As for the bit about the climate scientists panicking about an ice age – bull shit! That has been discredited totally. A couple of newspaper articles quoting the equivalent of the dickheads you rely on now put out garbage reports. It shows how shallow is your research and how easily lead you are.Try again.
Ah yes China. True they are building more coal power and are now number one emitter. But how can we put any kind of pressure on for change if we don’t do it ourselves. And did you notice the uptick in building there came after Trump tore up the Paris agreement. Also it should be obvious that the problem is what it is now because of the accumulation of CO2 over the last century. Who do you think put most if that up there. Cutting CO2 pollution going forward is about reducing the future degradation.
Oh and you support us sending troops to Iraq when we only have 1% of the worlds soldiers, yes?
And finally stopping making up things I am saying. I did not mention renewables in any recent post, we are nor discussing that at present. It shows that you go off half cocked independent of facts.
Stu
Your reading comprehension problems continue. I did not introduce the subject of fires in 1974. I only mentioned it after you inaccurately attributed the subject to me last night.
As for this silliness:
“As for the bit about the climate scientists panicking about an ice age – bull shit! That has been discredited totally. A couple of newspaper articles quoting the equivalent of the dickheads you rely on now put out garbage reports. It shows how shallow is your research and how easily lead you are.Try again.”, let me try again. The paragon of environmental truth, the BBC, did a TV show and published an associated book, The weather Machine and the Threat of Ice on that very subject. The author was Nigel Calder, and it was published in , wait for it, 1974! At one stage, I had a copy of the book.
If your belief is that there were only a “couple of newspaper articles”, then perhaps you should look more closely at those who claim, inaccurately, that the story is discredited, and at other stories the same people claim are “discredited”. These characters might not be entirely reliable. Or you could continue to deny reality.
You recently suggested in relation to another matter that a sceptic here did not understand “international diplomacy”. Your suggestion that China might follow us if we destroy our economy indicates that you know less than nothing about “international diplomacy”.
My comment about ruinables was to draw your attention to two items I had posted about alarmists criticising them as scams and environmentally damaging. Obviously, that dose of truth was too much for you.
The stupid ABC extremists had headline news this morning that there were protest marches in Europe condemning Aussies for lack of action on climate change.
This mind boggling lunacy would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious.
Over the last 30 years co2 levels have increased by about 60 ppm or about 2 ppm per year and OZ emits about 1.1% of that total today, or about 0.02 ppm per year.
But our population was only 17 M in 1989 and today is about 25.2 M or nearly 50% higher. And of course our tiny so called increase of 0.02 ppm per year is easily sequestered by the SH NATURAL NET co2+ methane sink.
But their ABC couldn’t care less about the data and is happy to kick us in the guts just to try and promote another stupid headline.
But then again our blog donkeys endlessly tell us that we should be doing more to fight their CAGW and every little bit helps, yet huge emitters like China and the developing world are basically ignored month by month, year by year.
Their ABC and the donkeys couldn’t care less about the climate or data/ evidence, but pursue the left wing political angle every chance they get.
Just a thought on your Southern Hemisphere net sink baloney. Are you suggesting that all the southern lands can do what they like emitting carbon until the supposed net balance is used up, sort of like the much derided Kyoto credits? If there is a net sink here, then there always has been and it is not just ours to fritter away, wouldn’t you say? No of course you would not.
Again the silly donkey ignores the data/evidence. The SH pop is just 10.5% of global pop and we emit about 7% of global emissions.
And yes we are also a net co2 and methane sink whether you understand this or not.
But it’s revealing that you want to support the NH countries and rush to the aid of the 93% super emitters.
If you think that our ( OZ) already absorbed 0.02 ppm per year will really make a difference you are way beyond help. But like I said you really love your BS and LW politics.
I’ll leave you to your fantasy planet.
That’s exactly what’s happening. The sooner the ABC moves to subscription funding the better. An earlier respondent to this thread offered a model for consideration
JCU continues to find itself in trouble with the latest study about reef fish known as Clark et al 2020.
But I’m sure their ABC will say ZIP about this study, if they run true to form.
Dr Peter Ridd comes out strongly against these con merchants and the JCU link to another recent fra-dulent study involving a Swedish scientist.
Surely the Fed govt must step in and clean up the JCU administration or the GBR studies etc will be even more of a scandal and their future so called Science will not be trusted by anyone.
I’m surprised by how many times the F word is used at the link. Dr Peter Ridd and the late Prof Bob Carter are two of my heroes and we can only hope that this fra-dulent mess can be cleaned up quickly.
https://www.thegwpf.com/peter-ridd-scientific-misconduct-at-james-cook-university-confirms-my-worst-fears/
Very interesting link Neville.
Hope the judge who is handling the JCU appeal reads it.
Oh stu, stu, the best you can do,
Is gargle it, gag it and roll it in pooh,
Then wave your hands, believer true,
We know what to expect from sciency stu.
Equating our defence with our emissions is desperate stuff.
And you expect us to take your hare-brained, thought-of-the-moment questions seriously and give you a detailed reply when you completely and rudely ignore simple questions that the whole CAGW debate hangs on, month after month, year after year.
Yes, the gift that keeps on delivering, you never disappoint. You perform as expected every time.
Stu
Have you researched the BBC work on The Weather Machine and the Threat of Ice that I mentioned at 0941. I have mentioned it multiple times in earlier threads on this site.
That you made those laughable comments, if I might borrow some of your words from above, “shows how shallow is your research and how easily lead you are. Try again.”
And for you it is vital that inaction on climate change, not inaction on hazard reduction, be the focus.
You just refuse to understand that your solution to the problem is the cause of the problem.
Your future in all aspects is not bright.
Stu at 2048 yesterday.
“And as for the wasted land for renewables. Have you visited the Hunter Valley lately to view the awful landscape provided by the mines and their insatiable demand for water.”
Stu at 0854 today.
“And finally stopping making up things I am saying. I did not mention renewables in any recent post, we are nor discussing that at present. It shows that you go off half cocked independent of facts.”
Problem with short term memory old son?
Sorry, that should be “old pet”, not “old son”.
See your post at 2048.
No, I did not raise the subject, you did, so I was responding to your post. Stop nit picking, nit.
And re the BBC program, you are still in that space that equates TV and newspaper articles as science. Poor judgement.
Stu
Little testy this morning?
So what was your deeply thought through reaction to the two posts, in which known climate alarmists decried ruinables as scams and environmentally damaging? To bury your head in the sand?
Still, I am encouraged that you accept that TV stations and newspapers can be completely ignored on matters scientific.
Have you realised yet that I did not raise the 1974 issue, or is that mere nit picking? Probably is, as you are a witless nit.
BJ, it is just that you and Nev and the drongo are basically clones so it is easy to be confused about which posted what, as it is all the same stuff, especially when reading it on a smart phone rather than a computer screen or pad.
As for mistrusting TV and newspapers your statement is wrong. They can publish very useful and correct information, what I implied is that one has to be discerning about sources and their veracity. That is how I can say that sometimes even you write correct and sensible stuff, just not often enough.
Stu
“BJ, it is just that you and Nev and the drongo are basically clones so it is easy to be confused about which posted what, as it is all the same stuff,”
Rough translation: “Surely you don’t expect me to read things carefully before I shoot from the lip with a smart-@rse reply!”
“As for mistrusting TV and newspapers your statement is wrong. They can publish very useful and correct information, what I implied is that one has to be discerning about sources and their veracity. That is how I can say that sometimes even you write correct and sensible stuff, just not often enough.”
Rough translation: “Oops, shot myself in the foot there, need to walk that back a bit, otherwise 90% of what I post here will be discredited.”
Still, your advice about being “discerning about sources and their veracity” is good, you should heed it!
And to help you get with the times BJ here is the letter from Prof Shine. Note that at the end it points you to the Academy of Science website where it explains climate change in simple but scientific terms so you can understand it.
“The Australian Academy of Science acknowledges the devastating impact the Australian bushfires are having—and will continue to have—on people, our environment and our economy.
The scale of these bushfires is unprecedented anywhere in the world.
The Academy extends its support and sympathy to all those who have lost loved ones and whose lives are directly and indirectly impacted. We thank the many volunteers, individuals, leaders and foreign nations for their efforts and contributions.
As an independent and authoritative scientific adviser to the parliament and to the nation, the Academy draws on the scientific expertise of Australia’s leading scientists—the Fellows of the Academy.
The scientific evidence base shows that as the world warms due to human induced climate change, we experience an increase in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events.
As a nation, we must deal with extreme weather events more effectively than we currently do. As such events become more frequent and severe, we must adapt Australia and Australians accordingly, as well as strengthen mitigation efforts.
Bushfires, along with other weather and climate challenges, pose complex and wide-ranging problems. Population growth, climate change, temperature extremes, droughts, storms, wind and floods are intersecting in ways that are difficult to untangle and address.
The good news is that there is already abundant evidence available to help us understand the environment we live in and to design and build the future we want for Australia. There has never been a more important time to draw on that scientific evidence base to help guide Australia’s short- and long-term responses to the devastating bushfires ravaging our nation and that are causing uncertainty about our future.
The Academy’s Fellows are contributing and will continue to contribute their scientific expertise to government and other decision makers in the interest of advancing our nation.
The Academy is resolute that the response to the bushfires must extend beyond the immediate and essential need to rebuild and recover.
Everything, including urban planning; building standards; habitat restoration; biodiversity and species preservation; and land, water and wildlife management will need careful and measured consideration.
We must further improve our ability to forecast changing environmental threats and continually improve climate modelling predictions. We must improve our understanding of fire behaviour and other adverse weather events, and we must continually develop new technologies, practices and behaviours to assist our nation to respond and adapt to, manage, and mitigate against such extreme events.
All the while, Australia must take stronger action as its part of the worldwide commitment to limit global warming to 1.5° C above the long-term average to reduce the worst impacts of climate change.
To have the best chance of succeeding, we must draw on all the available evidence and knowledge, including working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and undertaking further research where it will have the most benefit.
The Academy is aware that Australians are looking for trustworthy information and answers about the links between climate change and the bushfires. With much misinformation in the public domain about the cause and impacts of the bushfires, we urge Australians to continue to consult reputable sources of evidence-based information such as the Australian Academy of Science, CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology.
In this context, visits to the Academy’s website are up 30 per cent compared to the same period last year, and the top visited page is What is Climate Change? Viewing and sharing of the Academy’s video series on this matter published across social media platforms are rapidly rising.
Professor John Shine AC PresAA
President
Australian Academy of Science.
Stu
Bland, anodyne, bureaucratese, wrapped around a profoundly unscientific assertion that “The scale of these bushfires is unprecedented anywhere in the world.”
With a bit of advertising for work as highly paid consultants for the fellows.
There you go again!
No stueyluv, there YOU go again with your meaningless blither quotes.
Go and get some real world experience!
Stu
“There you go again”.
I didn’t know you were a fan of Ronald Reagan!
Before the good professor made that “unprecedented” comment, he (or more likely, the junior staffer who drafted the letter) should have thought a bit.
The memory of the recent Amazon fires, in true rain forest, should have been relatively fresh. Perhaps it might have been a bit far back for the Indonesian fires of a few years ago to spring to mind, but the smoke from them covered extensive areas of Indonesia, Malaysia andnearby states, being so thick that many embassy staff and families were evacuated because of feared health effects.
That kind of broad generalisation has no place in what should be carefully phrased advice of reality.
Very true BJ but if these fools really believe that load of nonsense we really do have big problems.
They ignore the science and very simple maths and yet these people are supposed to believe in the scientific method?
But I suppose their deluded nonsense will bring comfort to the other silly donkeys who can’t add up simple sums and ignore the science.
Their ABC would be so proud of them.
Neville, Neville, Neville, pet,
These words you just penned really amaze me and I have recorded them for posterity both as text and a screenshot. One day not too far off they will be the cause of much mirth when published as an example of the bone headed stupidity going around in 2020. Talk about pot calling the kettle black. Astounding.
“Very true BJ but if these fools really believe that load of nonsense we really do have big problems.
They ignore the science and very simple maths and yet these people are supposed to believe in the scientific method?
But I suppose their deluded nonsense will bring comfort to the other silly donkeys who can’t add up simple sums and ignore the science.”
I must go back and get the bit where you reckon the sea level is falling also for the complete picture.
No need, stueyluv, it’s right here:
http://www.bom.gov.au/ntc/IDO70000/IDO70000_60370_SLD.shtml
According to your heroes [the BoM] it’s dropped 113 mm in the last 105 years.
And here’s another of you heroes with his usual “scientific” approach:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/01/09/how-i-was-manned/
As I thought, you simply made a very unscientific comparison of monthly data to make your case. The actual mean sea level calculation is much more complex than that and your conclusion is simplistic nonsense. Go and read the detailed analysis at BoM to get the real story.
Of course Dr Finkel has a two word response to Australia completely removing our 1.1% of co2 emissions.
And the difference it would make according to our chief scientist is, “VIRTUALLY NOTHING”.
That statement by the Australian Academy of Science is a joke and of course no mention of the monster co2 emitters in the NH, like China and the developing countries. With hundreds of new coal fired stns to be built now and into the future. Here’s Dr Finkel’s answer in the senate at about 20 seconds.
Globally about 9,000 people lost their lives through extreme events in 2019. Importantly this low number includes all extreme events not just “extreme weather” events.
We are very fortunate to be living today and we know over the last century deaths from extreme weather events have dropped by more than 95% per year. Here’s a quote from the link—-
“Globally, in 2019, about 9,000 people lost their lives in natural catastrophes compared with 15,000 in 2018. This confirms the overall trend towards lower numbers of victims thanks to better prevention measures. On average over the past 30 years, about 52,000 people per year have lost their lives in natural catastrophes”.
https://www.thegwpf.com/global-deaths-from-natural-disasters-drop-to-record-low/?utm_source=CCNet+Newsletter&utm_campaign=dfcd2a4aba-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_01_09_12_25&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fe4b2f45ef-dfcd2a4aba-36463321&mc_cid=dfcd2a4aba&mc_eid=dcbe0ef09b
Here is Prof Andy Pitman at 1 min 25 secs explaining that there is no link to drought because of global warming. Just thought I should throw this in again because so many seem to very confused about some of the claims.
Neville,
You are continuing the misrepresentation by Jones, Bolt etc. Pitman clarified his statement and you can see that in this clip. As he and the CRC says, the issue is more nuanced, “climate change may cause more rain in some places (eg The north west of Australia) and less in others (eg the South East in winter). There is a reference there also to what BoM say on the matter. Replaying the misquote (note it is only an audio clip) is disingenuous.
https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/episodes/pitman/11601084
Bolt, Jones and others have already covered this and the addition of “NO DIRECT” in Pitman’s statement.
Here’s Jo Nova’s coverage of the terrible 1939 JAN fires and the subsequent Royal Commission and co2 levels then were about 310 ppm.
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/01/black-friday-1939-victoria-45-degrees-c-71-deaths-leaping-balls-of-fire-and-lit-by-the-hand-of-man/#comments
Here is the first time in 20 years graph that 90% of the USA has not experienced drought.
Thanks to Dr Roger Pielke jnr, who had to school silly Obama and Holdren on the USA drought record a few years ago. We should have sent a copy to Andy Pitman and their ABC.
Also here’s the annual Aussie rainfall data again from the BOM. Check out the graph, but yes we’ve just had the lowest rainfall since 1902. We need a la nina and hopefully a neg IOD in late winter/ spring.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rranom&area=aus&season=0112&ave_yr=6
https://rogerpielkejr.com/2019/05/16/a-new-us-areal-no-drought-record/
Many, possibly all, of our previous bad fires were the result of positive IODs yet somehow, with this happening during another positive IOD, this one is somehow the result of our CO2 emissions.
Even when it is commonly recognised by all those closely involved, that authorities have been increasingly slack in carrying out fuel reduction burns for the last couple of decades.
A third reason is the move of thousands of greenie tree-planting tree-changers to these fire-prone areas, adding enormously to the fuel load.
Those first two reasons are perfectly sufficient to cause what we are going through without the third and inventing additional problems and excuses we can do nothing about is childish.
If we address fuel reduction and fire breaks properly we can at least solve the problem better than we have done in the past.
To waste time and money on more silly enquiries when we know the answers does not make sense.
SD, “this one is somehow the result of our CO2 emissions.”. No, you still don’t get it. Changes in weather reflecting a changing climate are partly the result of the CO2 emissions of the entire world over more than 100 years. As someone (possibly you) wrote here, “the global weather system is a very complicated, interwoven system affecting and effected by many elements including, jet streams, ice cover, ocean currents etc.” (or words similar) . And the current situation is that much research has shown climate to be changing at a much faster rate in the Arctic than elsewhere. It is warming twice as fast in the high latitudes than lower and it then affects weather over a wider area. In the southern hemisphere the jet stream winds have moved which is having an effect on the pattern of high pressure systems over southern australia.
Stu have a look at Greenland temps and ice over the last 7,000 years and don’t forget that the AMO has been in the warm phase and will probably change back to the cool phase this decade.
And there has been no warming in Antarctica for the last 41 years according to the satellite data. The antarctic peninsula has been cooling for the last 20 years, see BAS study of Turner et al.
And Antarctica and Greenland together have 99% of all the land- ice on earth.
Regarding the Antarctic it is a big call that there has been no warming for 41 years. It is a complicated place and process to determine average temperature. Here is what NASA says.
“ Climate scientists who want to know how average temperatures on Antarctica might be changing must wrestle with the fact that ground-based weather stations are few and far between, especially in the continent’s high-altitude interior. Although automated weather stations are generally assumed to be the most accurate record-keepers, their sparseness makes it hard for scientists to be confident of what is happening across the entire continent. In addition, the harsh environment takes a toll on equipment, and long gaps of missing data interrupt the time series of some stations.
Although satellite-based temperature records have their own limitations (most significantly, cloud interference), they provide a complete, continuous view of the continent from the early 1980s onward. Scientists from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center have been working for several years to create and refine a satellite map of long-term temperature change in Antarctica. This image illustrates long-term changes in yearly surface temperature in and around Antarctica between 1981 and 2007. (An earlier version of this map is pictured in a previous posting on the Earth Observatory.) Places where it warmed over time are red, places where it cooled are blue, and places where there was no change are white.
The map is based on thermal infrared (heat) observations made by a series of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite sensors. Because the satellite is observing energy radiated from the Earth’s surface, the image shows trends in skin temperatures—temperatures from roughly the top millimeter of the land, sea ice, or sea surface—not air temperatures. Making a long-term record out of data from different sensors is challenging because each sensor has its own quirks and may measure temperatures a bit differently. None of the sensors were in orbit at the same time, so scientists could not compare simultaneous observations from different sensors to make sure each was recording temperatures exactly the same. Instead, the team checked the satellite records against ground-based weather station data to inter-calibrate them and make the 26-year satellite record. The scientists estimate the level of uncertainty in the measurements is between 2-3 degrees Celsius.
Across most of the continent and the surrounding Southern Ocean, temperatures climbed. In some places the rate of warming approached a tenth of a degree Celsius each year, which would translate to more than two degrees over the entire period. The most dramatic changes appear as solid red streaks and splotches. In most cases, these changes are likely linked to major iceberg calving events on the ice shelves that fringe the Antarctic coastline, including the Ross Ice Shelf and the West and Shackleton Ice Shelves in East Antarctica. In the case of the Larsen B Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula, the entire ice shelf collapsed. After the calving or collapse, the satellite saw open water where there had previously been ice, so the temperature increase was stark.
The temperature increases were greater and more widespread in West Antarctica than in East Antarctica, where some areas showed little change or even a cooling trend. This variability in temperature patterns across Antarctica complicates the work of scientists who are trying to understand the relative influence of natural cycles and human-caused climate change in Antarctica.
NASA image by Robert Simmon, based on data from Joey Comiso, GSFC.“
I will get back to you re Greenland, cheers
The link with the diagram is here https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/8239/two-decades-of-temperature-change-in-antarctica
Stu
A long response re Antarctica has disappeared into the ether.
Short summary, the NASA paper finds an increase of two degrees, with the “level of uncertainty in the measurements … between 2-3 degrees Celsius.”
This on a continent for which Wikipedia notes “The mean annual temperature of the interior is ?57 °C (?70.6 °F). The coast is warmer; on the coast Antarctic average temperatures are around ?10 °C (14.0 °F) (in the warmest parts of Antarctica) and in the elevated inland they average about ?55 °C (?67.0 °F) in Vostok.”
The NASA people also qualify for an award for best use of colour in a deceptive image, for using red to not so subtly suggest that there was some actual warmth involved.
Stu
A softwarecquirk, the question marks in the Wiki quote should be minus signs!
Stu,
Strictly for the sake of argument, let us accept that you are correct about climate change.
Are you asserting that the effects of “the CO2 emissions of the entire world over more than 100 years” can be reversed in short order? If you are, then you are in a fantasy world.
The question then arises, what can be done at short notice to mitigate the current powerful fires? Cutting out the use of coal power tomorrow will not do it. Building solar and wind power stations will not do it (except to the extent that forests and their high fuel loads are cleared to build them and their associated extended transmission lines).
The only short term action that will have any immediate impact is reducing fuel loads in the landscape (though imprisonment of arsonists would help).
So, do you agree that it is time for “forests [to be] managed on a large scale, starting from the periphery and working inwards. Clear all the deadfall, remove woody weeds, and thin regrowth to provide a healthier forest. Opening forests up to productive grazing should also be an option for less accessible areas.
As for the deeper and less accessible parts of national parks, once the areas near human habitation and infrastructure are properly managed, the limited (as claimed) reduction burns can then be concentrated on them.”
Or do you just throw your hands up in the air in despair, and go back to fantasising about reducing CO2 emissions in Australia as an example for the world of noble self-sacrifice?
BJ,
Ok. “Can it be reversed in short order”. Clearly no with current knowledge.
“Cutting coal power tomorrow will not do it”. Agreed but no one sensible is saying cut it tomorrow. But it would be helpful to start scaling back and stop building new ones. China was doing that till Trump pulled the pin on Paris.
“…immediate impact is Reducing fuel loads in the landscape”.
Nah, see the comments about forest management not being a panacea. Anyhow, trees growing and burning is sort of current carbon cycle, therefore offsetting each other.
“….manage forests on a large scale”. Probably too costly and disruptive except around population and infrastructure where it obviously makes sense,
“example of noble self-sacrifice”. No, not at all. There are significant benefits to be gained from becoming a leader in new energy sources. We lead for a time with solar R&D until we gave it all away. But new opportunities will present themselves. Time to think positive. We continue to present ourselves as a middle power (often to our detriment eg Iraq) so can have an influence on policy, more so as we are a major producer, directly and indirectly of CO2 emissions. We also possess one of the great climates for exploiting renewable energy assets. Consider the remarkable solar powered, desal fed, tomato farm in South Australia as an example.
Anything else I can help you with?
Stu
You say that managing forests on a large scale is “Probably too costly and disruptive except around population and infrastructure where it obviously makes sense”.
Too costly compared to the current operations? Perhaps you might like to justify that statement. The present operations have been going on for months now, NSW and the Commonwealth have kicked in over $3 billion just for recovery, not the current operations. The fires have also been somewhat disruptive.
“There are significant benefits to be gained from becoming a leader in new energy sources.”
I refer you back to the two posts I put up about renewables. Even dedicated alarmists have their doubts about the prospects for renewables, while the benefits at present seem largely to be going to the wealthy and well connected. But, dream on …
In the meantime, I am sure that those in the fire affected areas would be comforted by your belief that “Anyhow, trees growing and burning is sort of current carbon cycle, therefore offsetting each other.”
Still it is good to see that you have grown out of your infatuation with Saint Greta, when you note that “no one sensible is saying cut” coal power tomorrow. She and the fascist fanatics of Extinction Rebellion do not agree with you.
To sum up, you position seems to be that forest management is all too hard, so people will just have to live with fires until we reach a new Nirvana of base load renewable power sometime in the distant and indeterminate future.
So you have nothing practical to offer.
BJ you keep on misinterpreting. It is not too hard, it is a question of scale and location, just like the present. You don’t need to burn every friggIng forest.
Stu
OK, let’s narrow it down.
You say “Probably too costly and disruptive except around population and infrastructure where it obviously makes sense,”
Given the distances ember attacks can carry, how about out to 5 kms from “population and infrastructure”? That is less than ember attacks can carry, but probably adequate to allow defence.
From my point of view, if the huge, unmanageable (a description you seem to accept), unhabited “national parks” burn to the ground every few years, it is just uncontrolled (uncontrollable?) hazard reduction. Let Wollemi, Morton, large parts of Gippsland and the Snowys, and other uninhabited areas, burn, but protect people and infrastructure BAMN, as the protesters like to say.
Can you support that?
But they don’t “burn to the ground every few years” do they. This is becoming a silly storyline again.
Stu
No, they don’t burn to the ground every few years. That demonstrates the beneficial effect of hazard reduction burns. That said, as I clearly indicated, as long as people or infrastructure are not affected, the interval is only of academic interest.
Second, you did not answer my specific question. Do you accept stringent hazard reduction within 5 kms of population or infrastructure?
Finally, that tomato farm, is that the one that was reported to be in financial difficulties about a year ago?
Stu
Are you seriously saying that we have never had weather like the last few months of drought we have just experienced?
You are the one that doesn’t get it.
When did I say that? You are making stuff up again. And the current drought will end and likely will rain like buggery in some places. Yes
Nev, regarding Greenland, here is what I found. “Recent temperatures in Greenland are still likely below those experienced in the early Holocene. This is similar to what is found in global Holocene temperature reconstructions, such as the one published by Prof Shaun Marcott and colleagues in Science in 2013, which suggested that “current global temperatures of the past decade have not yet exceeded peak interglacial values, but are warmer than during ~75% of the Holocene temperature history”.
Recent temperatures are clearly higher than any seen in Greenland over the past two millennia. ”
You can find the full paper here:
https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-what-greenland-ice-cores-say-about-past-and-present-climate-change
Stu I’ll just link to Willis’s post on the Vinther study. His graphs are their graphs but he does show that there has been cooling for about 7,000 years while co2 levels were rising.
And the Vinther instrumental study for the last 200 years also showed that there were cool temps up to about 2000. I’ll have to find it again.
Here’s that study link to Vinther through Willis and he got the tip from Steve McIntyre at that time.
Also I’ll just say I trust the UAH V 6 sat Antarctic data and it shows no warming for 41 years.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/01/08/greenland-is-way-cool/
Here is a quote from the BAS Turner study of the Antarctic peninsula. Since the late 1990s there has been stat significant cooling and this was once one of the fastest warming areas in the SH. Don’t forget Gore and his advisers made a lot of noise about the peninsula when launching AIT book and movie.
http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/514089/1/Turner%20Nature%20with%20figures.pdf
“Here we use a stacked temperature record to show an absence of 18 regional warming since the late 1990s. The annual mean temperature has decreased at a 19 statistically significant rate, with the most rapid cooling during the Austral summer. 20 Temperatures have decreased as a consequence of a greater frequency of cold, east to 21 south-easterly winds resulting from more cyclonic conditions in the northern Weddell 22 Sea associated with a strengthening mid-latitude jet. These circulation changes have 23 also increased the advection of sea ice towards the east coast of the peninsula, 24 amplifying their effects”.
Here’s the 2006 Vinther instrument study of Greenland, with Jones and Briffa as co authors. And their TABLE 8 from the study shows that the last 2 decades were colder than the previous 6 decades back to 1920.
And the last 2 decades compare well with some of the 19th century decades. TABLE 8 is well down in the study link.
My attempts at copying their TABLE 8 is a bit messy.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/251433478_Extending_Greenland_temperature_records_into_the_late_eighteenth_century
nual, ?C DJF, ?C MAM, ?C JJA, ?C SON, ?C
1811 – 20 (?4.4) (?13.1) (?7.1) (4.6) 2.8
1821 – 30 – – – – –
1831 – 40 – ?12.3 (?4.5) – –
1841 – 50 ?2.5 ?10.1 ?3.2 5.8 ?1.6
1851 – 60 (?2.1) ?9.4 ?3.7 (6.3) ?1.3
1861 – 70 ?3.6 ?11.8 ?5.6 5.0 ?1.9
1871 – 80 ?1.7 ?9.1 ?3.5 6.3 ?0.4
1881 – 90 ?3.3 ?11.7 ?4.6 5.6 ?2.0
1891 – 1900 ?2.9 ?10.9 ?4.6 6.4 ?1.5
1901 – 10 ?2.6 ?11.1 ?4.4 6.4 ?1.0
1911 – 20 ?2.4 ?9.9 ?4.0 6.1 ?1.1
1921 – 30 ?1.1 ?8.4 ?2.1 6.9 ?0.1
1931 – 40 ?0.8 ?8.0 ?2.1 7.3 ?0.1
1941 – 50 ?0.8 ?7.2 ?2.8 7.4 ?0.3
1951 – 60 ?1.1 ?8.4 ?2.5 7.0 0.1
1961 – 70 ?1.0 ?6.9 ?3.1 6.3 ?0.4
1971 – 80 ?1.7 ?8.6 ?3.6 6.0 ?0.6
1981 – 90 ?2.5 ?10.1 ?5.2 6.0 ?0.9
1991 – 2000 ?2.1 ?10.3 ?4.6 6.3 ?0.4
Slippery stu is being very non specific and evasive as usual because he just hasn’t got a point to make but feels that he has to protest somehow.
Here is something that might help your confused mind, stueyluv:
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/01/quick-dick-mcdick-explains-to-protestors-the-secret-of-vegan-margarine/
Yes SD I think that video is brilliant and very accurate, but then again I’m biased towards proper data and evidence.
Silly me.
Gosh even the BBC are correct sometimes and it helps when you understand the proper data and science.
Here they give a good clear account of the very strong positive 2019 IOD and why it has caused massive floods in east Africa and a terrible drought and bushfires in Australia in 2019 and ongoing now into 2020.
Everyone should read this link although Labor and the Greens think we should reduce our co2 emissions by 50% and use S&W, EVs etc to secure better temps,climate and rainfall. Unbelievable but true.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-50602971
Here’s the excellent BOM IOD video again and how it sometimes ties in with el nino, and la nina events in the Pacific.
The Dutch have shown how to live below sea level and have a very strong economy, healthy, wealthy people, who are living longer etc.
This adaptation has been done on the cheap , with very small maintenance over the years. Just check out the cost up to now and likely future costs as a percentage of GDP.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/01/12/breaking-the-bank-for-climate-emergencies/
Now even the Government members of parliament have been forced to say “we accept the science” it is clear that any remaining denialists or faux skeptics are either immune to science or blind to the rights of humanity.
The damage now wrought on businesses, families and the environment (included many species) is way beyond any manner of comprehension.
Even though fires are still burning the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning has prepared initial advice on the biodiversity costs of Victoria’s bushfires emergency.
It warned that 31 per cent of the state’s rainforests had already gone up in flames, as well as 24 per cent of wet or damp forests, and 34 per cent of lowland forests.
Of 104 parks managed by Parks Victoria, 34 were entirely burnt out including the Alfred National Park in Cann River and the Lind National Park between Cann River and Orbost.
Leading conservation biologist Professor David Lindenmayersaid it would take more than 100 years for wet and damp forests to recover from the ferocity of this season’s fires.
Of more concern was the increasing severity and regularity of fire seasons, with many of the areas that have already burnt or which are predicted to burn in 2020 being ravaged as recently as 2014.
[ https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/leaked-report-lays-bare-environmental-devastation-of-victorian-fires-20200110-p53qep.html ]
Denialists be damned – the few that are left.
Are you serious? How have you become so involved with the climate cult?
Chris
“Of 104 parks managed by Parks Victoria, 34 were entirely burnt out including the Alfred National Park in Cann River and the Lind National Park between Cann River and Orbost.”
Perhaps the use of the word “managed” might be reconsidered?
Allowing massive quantities of fuel to build up on the forest floor hardly constitutes “management”!
BJ he is either very dumb or he can’t read or doesn’t understand “management” or where OZ rainfall comes from, it seems it’s a bits of all these problems.
I’ve even repeatedly linked to the BOM videos for IOD, SAM and ENSO, but he still doesn’t get it.
Even the clueless BBC sort of get it now and we’ve just got to look at the recent floods in east Africa to help to further understand the IOD.
But then he has to tell us how our removal of 1.1% of global emissions will make a difference?
While China and the developing countries have increased co2 levels by about 60 ppm since 1989. Or about 2 ppm per year.
OH and OZ has contributed about 0.60 ppm since 1989 or about 0.02 ppm per year over that time.
Anyone not see a problem with their calculations? Then we have the fact that the SH is a NET co2 sink as well.
CSIRO scientist David Chapham is correct, we must cool burn as soon as it is safe to do so and follow up for years, because of the neglect of the past decades.
Neville, even the Germans know that our 1974-5 bushfires were many times greater than 2019-20.
You’d think maybe our blith might have a clue.
What was the “climate” doing in 1974-5, blith?
Check the map:
“Since the big bushfires started in October 2019, more than 100,000 square kilometers of land have been burned across Australia, which is roughly the size of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg combined. Thousands of houses were destroyed.
“But it is even more powerful: in the summer of 1974/1975, the flames blazed over an area of ??around one million square kilometers. This corresponds to an area that is about three times larger than Germany.”
https://www.wetteronline.de/wetterticker/australien-neues-gewaltiges-feuer-202001112507611
Interesting to watch our creepy denialists trying to deny that today’s bushfires are unprecedented.
Of course this denialist crap is spread by the Murdoch maniacs. here is the latest example:
“But the most destructive event, which happened in 1974 and burned 117 million hectares,…”
Murdoch crap is here: https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/how-the-2019-australian-bushfire-season-compares-to-other-fire-disasters/news-story/7924ce9c58b5d2f435d0ed73ffe34174
There was no event that burned 117 million hectares in 1974.
The total area burnt from summing a list of many events for the entire bushfire season 1974 PLUS 1975 amounted to 117 million hectares and most of this was in areas not covered by water dumping aircraft, fire retardants, or contained by firefighters from interstate or overseas.
The fires so far this season in NSW have exceeded the total NSW area burnt in the entire 1974 to 1975 season.
Data is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushfires_in_Australia
And the fires continue…
Denialists be damned.
Chris
“water dumping aircraft”
What water bombers were in use in 1974, and how many were? What size were they?
How much of this season’s burnt area was not covered by “water dumping aircraft”? I suspect that most usage of aiecraft was on the actual fire fronts, and extensive uninhabited areas like Wollemi and Morton national parks and major parts of the Gippsland fires were not subject to them.
But I’m sure you have the detailed data at your fingertips.
PS, by how much would the areas burnt have been reduced had Australia reduced per capita CO2 emissions by an extra 10 percent?
Again, I am confident you have the numbers readily to hand.
Do you own homework – denialist.
So you just made that up?
Alarmist!!
Liar – I never make stuff up.
Please focus your slander elsewhere.
Chris
Perhaps it was the ignorant alarmists from whom you get your talking points?
What an ignorant, arrogant hypocrite our blith is.
In complete denial of our drought-stricken and bushfire-riddled past.
In complete denial of the reasons for current fire levels.
In complete denial that the green “solution” is the cause of current fire levels.
Yet screams “denialist” at anyone with the patience to point this out to him.
What the CSIRO said in 2009;
“Modeled climate projections show that much of southern Australia may become warmer and drier. This modeling suggests that, by 2020, extreme fire danger days in south-eastern Australia may occur 5 to 65 per cent more often than at present.”
Even knuckle-dragging denialists can hardly ignore the outcome in 2020 – they can only deny it and stick their heads in the ashes.
If the CSIRO stands behind its climate modelling it should also recommend warm crops. Why don’t they do this? After all servicing agriculture is certainly in their charter
Michael Burston
How dare you imply any such thing.
You obviously do not know what you are talking about.
https://research.csiro.au/climate/themes/agriculture/crops-ready-different-future-climate/
Chris
“How dare you!”
How very Greta. Are you also an Indian IPCC staffer?
Blith,
Do you deny our drought-stricken and bushfire-riddled past?
Do you deny the reason for current fire levels are high fuel loads?
Do you deny that the green “solution” to atmospheric CO2 of planting more trees and not reducing fuel loads adds to these fuel loads?
SD
Chris denies anything and everything that might challenge his pre-conceived outcomes.
BJ
What a pity he hasn’t the brains to do anything but DENY himself a good education:
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/01/global-patsy-since-1990-each-australian-have-already-cut-co2-emissions-by-40/
SD that’s a great post by Jo and OZ pop has increased by nearly 50% since 1990.
Therefore we are way ahead of their co2 game.
And here’s that Wiki post + GRAPH , just for our silly donkeys AGAIN.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions
Someone may have already referenced this document, but it is a very interesting read on fire history and characteristics in Australia so worth mentioning again.
It is from a good ol ABS Yearbook which remain a wonderful source of information for a wide variety of subjects. In this instance there is good information on both sides of the current discussion.
https://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/6C98BB75496A5AD1CA2569DE00267E48
Stu
Have you read Roger Underwood and Phil Cheney yet?
Do you support proper land management within 5kms of population centres and infrastructure?
Underwood and Cheney are also very good on fire history and characteristics in Oz.