Thread: Climate Change and our Land of Fire, Flood and Drought.

Originally Posted by NavyDiver

If those fly boys and girls crash and scratch our nice ships side grey doing it on some one else ship makes a lot of sense to any warship skipper I bet

So wot you sayin' Willis? Sycamore is not strictly an RAN vessel? Under Charter?

It can mount a 76mm Main Gun & two 20mm canons so it better not be a private vessel FFS. Cap'n Hook I presume?

Ah, I see it is operated by TeeKay & has a civvie crew.

Originally Posted by 350RRC

Thanks Rick,

I read the 'Oz' because it has the a decent sudoko option every day and the Times cryptic and also because I have an interest in how things are reported.

I also read other news sources that could be viewed by some as 'leftish', like the Giardia, etc.

The 'Oz' certainly isn't trying to report that nothing is happening, it seems more like ' business as usual, nothing to see here'.

The 'Oz' has had the fires on the front page the last couple of days and this morning it got page 2 and 3 as well. Lots of pics and hero type text and pics, but no actual graphics of the area extent of the damage done.

Looking at things live atm (even just on the weather radar, FFS, to see where fires are going full bore in SE Aus) it seems tonight / tomorrow will see something seriously bad happen.

Sadly, very sadly.

I'll wait to see how it gets reported tomorrow and the next day, because people should be informed about the reality of this situation, whether they can read or not, whether they can read to a reading age of 11 (the target audience of the 'little paper'), etc.

DL

Ive bought the Oz and SMH at the same time just to see the slant on various articles.

The totally different take on anything that's considered remotely political these days is remarkable.
in wider journo circles the days of the Oz being regarded as Australia's premier news source has long passed. It's not quite the Fox News of Australia (I think Sky is angling for that ) but it's become pretty bad.
I tend to go to the Guardian (mostly) and SMH, occasionally a News Ltd source if it's a straight, non political news item, even Reuters, BBC, Bloomberg, Huffpost (don't laugh! ) etc for some local stuff.

We were just really lucky up here on the north coast that everytime a fire was heading toward a beachside town the wind changed and the water bombers plus fireys kept things in check

Originally Posted by AK83

Out of touch with what?
How bad have the fires been around Vic, since '09?
Have they got any worse?
Have they got any worse since 1983.
Has there yet been any catastrophic fires on the same scale as the two biggest in 1938-39 and 1851 here in Vic?



This is where the issue is. Those that fall under the spell of the shysters and so called scientific experts will all have some kind of emotional experience relating to a fire event at some point.
And no, I don't live in or near a fire prone area if this is relevant in any way.
How does this affect anything tho?
Why is old growth forest immune to fires?
Before humans changed the landscapes, where there any other types of forest to burn?

in 1851 where 5 million ha burned in Vic alone .. which hypothetical new growth forest would have been affected by this fire.

Again folks fall into the trap of ingesting news when their emotional condition may be slightly more fragile than normal.
What you guys are reading is, that a large scale fire has and is currently threatening peoples lives, which hasn't happened in these areas previously.
And I'd bet my last dollar that these areas have been affected at some earlier time by fire, maybe not in living memory, but the probability that they haven't would be close to zero.
Populations move into potential fire risk areas, those areas haven't been affected by fires in many many years, maybe generations since!... then the fires do finally come back, now there are more people to be affected, and somehow this is the worst fire in history.

Pure and utter BS!
There have been worse fires in history .. that you choose to ignore historical records doesn't diminish those occurrences, and the breadth of their reach has been greater than even this years NSW/QLD fire. But again folks continue to ignore these facts

As has been pointed out in prior posts, in this current era of climate conditions, the frequency of large scale bushfires has been reduced considerably.

So no! .... Not out of touch.
Until the rhetoric is backed up with some actual hard data, it's all BS.
My mind is happy to be changed with facts and numbers, but will not succumb to BS hyperbole feeding on the heightened emotional situation.

Therefore: will be looking forward to Goingbush's supply of some facts to backup this notion that fires are worse now than before.
Gusthedog .. same BS info as Discomick posts. Someones opinion that fires are worse, isn't proof that fires are worse.
Proof is data, actual facts that this is the worst fire. Yes, it's a bad one, and up there with some of the worst, but do you have any idea of when those other really bad fires happened?



Would love to see this 'evidence'. Saying it exists doesn't mean it exists. Relying on someone thoughts and notions of 'worse', and or 'extreme', isn't the same thing as proof .. it's just someone elses opinion.

I've linked to many reliable sources of info on the topic, but it's constantly ignored.

If people choose to ignore historical data, and rely on todays news instead for their version of history, then that's their choice .. and for them, every summer will subsequently be "the worst" bushfire season in history.
But in terms of reality, history is the the determinant and my choice is to review all historical facts.
If that's considered "out of touch", then I'd much prefer this situation when the time comes for me to decide which part of the bush I'll end up moving into.

Add this to your history list.

Western Sydney is the hottest place on Earth today as the mercury hits 48.9C

Originally Posted by bob10

Add this to your history list.

Western Sydney is the hottest place on Earth today as the mercury hits 48.9C

The pertinent word is "today". And assuming the journalist checked all the other meteorological station records today in all countries that are now in their Summer.

FYI "The hottest air temperature ever recorded in Death Valley was 134 °F (56.7 °C) on July 10, 1913, at Greenland Ranch (now Furnace Creek), which is the highest atmospheric temperature ever recorded on earth." Death Valley - Wikipedia

Mike

Originally Posted by goingbush

Many brigade chiefs really do have no idea, Fire experience gleaned over the past 50 years does not apply to cataclysmic fires that generate their own weather. There have been a few of these in Victoria but never before in NSW.

I'm sure I saw in one of the TV crosses to the Fire Fighting HQ's, they said the fire modelling software was battling to predict the spread of these fires because they are so ferocious.

Originally Posted by NavyDiver

HMAS Adelaide joining the effort now. That's one big baby.

Navy Boys and Girls back from leave clearly. Unlike some who needed media to force them back to their job

Kings Cross and Woolloomooloo are a joke. Bottles and jugs over taken by home in bed by 10Blg 215 did a little sea time

That's more like it, I must say I wasn't impressed with the evac efforts so far, not when you consider Dunkirk, "

The year 2020 will mark the 80th anniversary of the evacuation of more than 300,000 Allied soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk, France between May 26th and June 4th

1940"

The Evacuation of Dunkirk - May 1940

Governments, bureaucrats and news publishers have memories of convenience for various reasons.
Facts can be reported with a spin that that barely resembles actuality. Brisbane has always been prone to catastrophic flooding, with major events in 1841/90/93, 1931/74 and 2011. I was in Brisbane for the latter two. 1974 was a bigger flood than 2011yet the media had to beat up the latest event in their sensationalist manner, in order to attract the gullible, ergo sell more advertising space.The media reports were not wrong, but they were far from the truth.
FACT. The water was deeper in the Brisbane River and low lying suburbs in 1974.
REPORTED. 2011 floods are worst on record. Places flooded that were not flooded in '74. More buildings flood effected than in 1974.
ACTUALLY. Land previously designated floodprone had been approved for development. Floodplains built up, covered with houses, concrete and bitumen causing houses that didn't flood in '74 to go under in '11.
It was only a worse flood for people who were inundated in 2011, but not in '74.
Are the gullible going to blame climate change for Brisbane flooding? Bear in mind until the early 1660s, when the Dutch and Spanish had a quick squiz from the water, white folk hadn't seen the east coast. Then Jimmy breezed up the coast in 1770, camping at Cooktown for a month or two, but he seemed to be preoccupied with boat building so didn't get much chance to do any significant climate change stuff. Flinders (take note Pedro) had a bit of a scout around, a couple of times around the turn of the century but didn't leave a footprint. Just before midway through the 1800s, Oxley, Petie and Lockyer paved the way for settlement. Admittedly, it's in the timeframe of the first recorded flood but I don't think Europeans had time to cause it. Maybe there were previous floods that the Aborigines didn't notice, or were too inconsiderate to record and measure.

Without trivialising the heartbreak and trauma of the current bushfires, they are regular, natural events. They are the worst for the poor souls who are directly affected, the press who sensationalise for revenue and the gullible.
In 1967 the nation was stopped by a newsflash, The Prime Minister has disappeared off Cheviot Beach. A significant event, worthy of the description breaking news. These days, the Prime Minister's chauffeur getting a parking ticket would be considered breaking news. Hardly a week goes by without a newsflash, breaking or unfolding story about some relatively minor issue.
There endeth the history lesson.

Originally Posted by V8Ian

……………………...
There endeth the history lesson.

Quick revision of the history lesson, 2011 might actually have been worse than 1974 because Wivenhoe Dam had been built since (1984) for "

the dual purpose of providing a safe and reliable water supply for the region and flood mitigation."

and that is why people were shocked that Bne had flooded again

Wivenhoe | Seqwater