Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been under fire, – first for taking a Hawaiin vacation as the current bush-fire catastrophe set in – and more broadly for his staunch climate denial positions.
Great ABC reporting here. Evolving story.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been under fire, – first for taking a Hawaiin vacation as the current bush-fire catastrophe set in – and more broadly for his staunch climate denial positions.
Great ABC reporting here. Evolving story.
Several prominent climate scientists (and probably many less prominent scientists) and science reports have stated that fire seasons would be longer and more intense as fossil fuel emitted GHG’s accumulate and temperature rise. Arrogantly ignore science at your own peril – that is what senior politicians and financiers have been doing.
Before arsonists, the press were using a very positive “Indian Ocean Dipole” as the main excuse. Those things existed before, they have not just been created in the year 2019/2020. Inaction has got us to this appalling and abysmal state of affairs together with an arrogant disregard for warnings from respectable science.
This must change.
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Australian government report predicted severe wildfires 11 years ago
A 2008 report commissioned by the Australian government predicted that climate change would cause the fire season to start earlier and be more intense after about 2020
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24532643-500-australian-government-report-predicted-severe-wildfires-11-years-ago/
The Garnaut Climate Change Review (2008)
Projecting australian climate change:
The Garnaut Climate Change Review
Recent projections of fire weather (lucas et al. 2007) suggest that fire seasons will start earlier, end slightly later, and generally be more intense. This effect increases over time, but should be directly observable by 2020.
https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20190509080516/http://www.garnautreview.org.au/pdf/Garnaut_Chapter5.pdf
A little story. Late evening, returning home after babysitting, internal city environment. Switched on radio and heard an emergency announcement
First words were ‘do not approach fire, the radiant heat is so high it will kill you before you reach the flames’.
Calmly continued to systematically list areas where:- ‘leave if safe to do so, otherwise seek shelter.’ What roads were fire closed, which ones were not (seemed damn few) and on and on. Still continuing when we reached home 10 minutes later.
A new, interesting, sobering and Oh Shit experience foe me.
Whereabouts are you? Looks like Perth is getting that sort of treatment at the moment. I saw also that the fires were not far from the airport, if ever that is cut off by fire, Perth is in deep shit.
This from the local Mayor’s husband at Wytaliba should send a chill down every spine.
“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.” https://tinyurl.com/vvsgkqm
The deniers really have no clue about how ferocious this is already, and how its going to be for all of us before it is done with us.
In Adelaide, the announcement was for Kangaroo Island. Reporting outside the populous states is limited.
The emergency bulletins are regular, this was just the first I heard and the first sentence was the mind blowing content!
After all, this is a first world, white English speaking country. This sort of thing is against the RULES!
Kangaroo Island is over half burnt with 200k + hectares lost. Wonder if Mother Nature has taken care of their other problem of too many Koalas? Practice for removing the plaque of humans?
I saw a report today that smoke from the Australia fires has reached Buenos Aries, Argentina.
Nice to see Scott Morrison is home.
Tangent: At one point Morrison brought up the issue that the Federal Government could only act “at the insistence of the states”. This was a major problem for the Katrina response in Louisiana. Dithering Governor Kathleen Blanco delayed officially requesting Federal help because of sovereignty issues.
Total BS of course. No such sovereignty issues exist, and any interstate or federal help is expected, accepted and cheered. Have noted that military helicopters can be on the scene as soon as the cyclone’s winds drop and so on.
Also recall that a marine hospital ship was on site after Katrina, ready to go, and was not utilized.!?! To the chagrin of the crew. FM.
That is, does not exist in OZ. Nobody in the world understands Mericans, even Mericans.