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@jegga said in Climate Change #3 & Other Environmental Issues:
That’s awful. My neighbor is a firefighter and might be heading over . He has been to fires in ACT and NSW before but since then he’s been trained to use drones to track the fires .
It would be interesting to discuss the differences he sees in fires in NZ versus other places. Terrain would be a huge challenge over there I imagine - hence the drones.
I once had charcoaled gum leaves falling in my back yard from a particularly bad fire season in the Blue Mountains 7 or 8 years go, meaning the wind was blowing charred matter 25 kilometres over an elevation drop of roughly 150m at the nearest point.
@Baron-Silas-Greenback said in Climate Change #3 & Other Environmental Issues:
That sucks. I was going to like your post, but seemed inappropriate.
It is sucky. For the Greater Sydney Basin itself to be affected - directly - is certainly something new in my 20ish years living here.
Fire map for NSW is here. Stupidly they don't cross the border into QLD on this map.
If you click on a given fire you get its status and size. Some of the areas (in hectares) are mind blowing.
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@NTA said in Climate Change #3 & Other Environmental Issues:
It's fucking terrifying but some of the tech available is pretty cool.
What's astonishing is how cold it was yesterday riding in the Brindabellas.
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@antipodean said in Climate Change #3 & Other Environmental Issues:
What's astonishing is how cold it was yesterday riding in the Brindabellas.
The variability this Spring has been crazy. Days well into the 30s followed by high teens and anything in between. Hardly spring-like.
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@jegga said in Climate Change #3 & Other Environmental Issues:
@NTA I’ll ask him next time I see him . Being able to detect hotspots through smoke he said was huge for them .
Particularly for waterbombing. Even if you lose a $2000 drone, you can stop the fire in its tracks.
Funding for certain emergency services has been cut here the last few years and people are genuinely concerned about summer. NSW Fire and Rescue only has 1 purpose-built water bombing aircraft I think? Whereas in the USA they've got dozens and lease them out to us like those big-arse sky crane choppers.
Ex-military Hercs can also be converted and carry a fuckton of water as well as this 737 they were trialling earlier this year - how fucking low down is this crazy US pilot?
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@NTA said in Climate Change #3 & Other Environmental Issues:
this 737 they were trialling earlier this year - how fucking low down is this crazy US pilot?
He's just having fun - and I think that I want his job.
These might also help:
Owesome machine. Don't even wait to fill up with water again - water "landing" scoops up to fill, apply power, dump on fire, repeat.
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@Baron-Silas-Greenback
The question is, can we have year on year growth and not fuck over the planet for future generations. If we have 2-3% growth in GDP and population every year the demand for stuff will continue to rise, where do all of these resources come from and where do all these people go.GDP IMO is a poor barometer on the well being of humans and the environment. What metric do you use to judge how well a society is doing? Who has the biggest house? who has the most iphones per capita? who consumes the most resources and produces the most stuff?
The US has the biggest economy in the world and has had unbelievable growth and wealth yet inequality is out of control, the treatment of the poor and those in poverty is shocking. Not sure 2% growth is helping them very much.
We are already the wealthiest generation in terms of "Money", "Assests" than any other other period in history. Does this make us happy? Not by figures showing depression, anxiety and suicide climbing.
We have enough wealth, what we need to do is redistribute that and focus on the well being of every species on the planet.
I just think the capitalist system has driven us to over-consumption and placed our focus too heavily on money, assets and stuff. This is often at the expense of social connections to other people, family, creative pursuits etc.
Why do we need to work 40-50 hours a week for 47 years so we can then spend time with family and do what we want. Why can we not work less now and spend time with those that matter and do things we enjoy. The answer is we believe we need "Stuff" to be happy and the system drives us to consume.
As for noticing impacts of climate change, maybe NZ is insulated somewhat but I can assure you Australia is not. We have had arguably the worst start to the fire season ever and parts of the country are experiencing catastrophic fire danger for the first time. Towns are running out of water, rivers are drying and fish are dying. The drought is ongoing and impacting many. We are experiencing massive flooding events, coastal erosion, coastal bleaching and many species are in threat of extinction. We had 8 days over 40 degrees at my place in one month which is a record.
I believe we as humans are largely responsible for this mess, If we choose to do nothing and hope technology saves us then I fear for our kids and grandkids because we will be leaving them one hell of a mess.
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@chimoaus said in Climate Change #3 & Other Environmental Issues:
@Baron-Silas-Greenback
The question is, can we have year on year growth and not fuck over the planet for future generations. If we have 2-3% growth in GDP and population every year the demand for stuff will continue to rise, where do all of these resources come from and where do all these people go.Yes of course we can. We have unlimited resources.
GDP IMO is a poor barometer on the well being of humans and the environment. What metric do you use to judge how well a society is doing? Who has the biggest house? who has the most iphones per capita? who consumes the most resources and produces the most stuff?
How about how many people are starving to death, how many are dying by diseases etc etc . And these are directly related to GDP, so actually GDP is a fucking amazing indicator.
The US has the biggest economy in the world and has had unbelievable growth and wealth yet inequality is out of control, the treatment of the poor and those in poverty is shocking. Not sure 2% growth is helping them very much.
yes and which states have the worst issues with homelessness, extreme poverty and deprivation? Ones that have ignored economic growth indicators and have instead embraced social justice and a Green agenda.
We are already the wealthiest generation in terms of "Money", "Assests" than any other other period in history. Does this make us happy? Not by figures showing depression, anxiety and suicide climbing.
But what make you happy? Being grateful, and the current generations are the most ungrateful spoilt shits in the history of the world. We have the best opportunities, lifestyle and lifespan that ever existed and we bitch and complain about everything.
And that doesnt even touch on the mass hysteria and depression caused by the death cultists in the climate change extinction movement, FFS you have people not having kids because they think the future is sooo bad. Morons.. but Darwin effect in full roar.We have enough wealth, what we need to do is redistribute that and focus on the well being of every species on the planet.
I am not even sure what that means. You are saying the current wealth is enough? We should stop growing? the current haves should just keep? It should all be redistributed? (that has NEVER worked anywhere EVER btw)
Why do we need to focus on every species?I just think the capitalist system has driven us to over-consumption and placed our focus too heavily on money, assets and stuff. This is often at the expense of social connections to other people, family, creative pursuits etc.
Capitalism hasnt done that, humans have always been greedy because they care about them and theres. Being greedy has led to the great advances you enjoy today. Would you like to point out to any time in history, under any system of govt, where basically every human on the planet hasnt focused on assets, money and stuff? This facile attack on Capitalism is just silly, what you should be attacking is cronyism and elitism, and that is nothing specific to Capitalism and is more linked to big govt.
Why do we need to work 40-50 hours a week for 47 years so we can then spend time with family and do what we want. Why can we not work less now and spend time with those that matter and do things we enjoy. The answer is we believe we need "Stuff" to be happy and the system drives us to consume.
Beats the shit out of working 40-50 hours a week to just stop your family starving and still not having any stuff and a shit life span.. which every other system except Capitalism produces.
As for noticing impacts of climate change, maybe NZ is insulated somewhat but I can assure you Australia is not. We have had arguably the worst start to the fire season ever and parts of the country are experiencing catastrophic fire danger for the first time. Towns are running out of water, rivers are drying and fish are dying. The drought is ongoing and impacting many. We are experiencing massive flooding events, coastal erosion, coastal bleaching and many species are in threat of extinction. We had 8 days over 40 degrees at my place in one month which is a record.
Not going to address that because I just so fundamentally disagree with your analysis.
I believe we as humans are largely responsible for this mess, If we choose to do nothing and hope technology saves us then I fear for our kids and grandkids because we will be leaving them one hell of a mess.
What mess? You mean record life spans? Record wealth? Least people living under poverty than any time before? Most leisure time than any humans in history? Affordable and readily accessed miracle drugs to the vast majority of the planet. I am super excited for my kids and grandkids future, I see great achievements and advances in the future to make the already great achievements of my generation look like the stone age. I hold no stock on the negative chicken little doomsday scenario that it is all down hill from here. Every era has them going back millenia, and they are ALWAYS wrong.
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Are we dead set sure that these bushfires are caused neatly and certainly by climate change?
Seems to me that fires in Aus have been a permanent thing. Now, the human habitats affected by fires has increased for sure, but did the climate cause these fires?
Looks all a bit like recency bias.
Happy to be wrong, (Christ happy to learn anything authentic about climate change!)
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@Siam said in Climate Change #3 & Other Environmental Issues:
Are we dead set sure that these bushfires are caused neatly and certainly by climate change?
Seems to me that fires in Aus have been a permanent thing. Now, the human habitats affected by fires has increased for sure, but did the climate cause these fires?
Looks all a bit like recency bias.
Happy to be wrong, (Christ happy to learn anything authentic about climate change!)
That's impossible to know.
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This is not normal: what's different about the NSW mega fires
I write this piece reluctantly, because there are still possible fire victims unaccounted for; people have lost loved ones; and hundreds of families have lost their homes. My heart goes out to them. I don’t want to detract in any way from the vital safety messages that our fire commissioners and Premier will be making about Tuesday’s fire potential.
Everyone needs to heed the fire service warnings to prepare, to have a plan, and to leave early if you’re not properly prepared. Know that the best firefighters in the world – volunteer and paid – will be out in force from NSW agencies and interstate to do battle with the worst that an angry Mother Nature can throw at us. But as we saw on Friday, the sheer scale and ferocity of mega fires can defy even the best efforts.
In the past I’ve have heard some federal politicians dodge the question of the influence of climate change on extreme weather and fires by saying, "It’s terrible that this matter is being raised while the fires are still burning." But if not now, then when?
"Unprecedented" is a word that we are hearing a lot: from fire chiefs, politicians, and the weather bureau. I have just returned from California where I spoke to fire chiefs still battling unseasonal fires. The same word, "unprecedented", came up.
Unprecedented dryness; reductions in long-term rainfall; low humidity; high temperatures; wind velocities; fire danger indices; fire spread and ferocity; instances of pyro-convective fires (fire storms – making their own weather); early starts and late finishes to bushfire seasons. An established long-term trend driven by a warming, drying climate. The numbers don’t lie, and the science is clear.
If anyone tells you, "This is part of a normal cycle" or "We’ve had fires like this before", smile politely and walk away, because they don’t know what they’re talking about.
In NSW, our worst fire years were almost always during an El Nino event, and major property losses generally occurred from late November to February. Based on more than a century of weather observations our official fire danger season is legislated from October 1 to March 31. During the 2000s though, major fires have regularly started in August and September, and sometimes go through to April.
The October 2013 fires that destroyed more than 200 homes were the earliest large-loss fires in NSW history – again, not during an El Nino.
This year, by the beginning of November, we had already lost about as many homes as during the disastrous 2001-2002 bushfire season. We’ve now eclipsed 1994 fire losses.
Fires are burning in places and at intensities never before experienced – rainforests in northern NSW, tropical Queensland, and the formerly wet old-growth forests in Tasmania.
On Friday, the NSW Rural Fire Service sent out an alert that fires were creating thunderstorms – pyro-convective events. In my 47 years of fighting fires I don’t remember this happening much. Now it happens quite regularly. On Friday, the atmosphere was relatively stable and therefore shouldn’t have been conducive to these wildly unpredictable and dangerous events. Yet it happened. Unprecedented.
The drought we are facing is more intense than the Millennium Drought, with higher levels of evaporation due to higher temperatures. This has dried out the bush and made it easier for fires to start, easier for them to spread quickly, and as we saw on Friday, enabling spot fires to start twice as far ahead of the main fires as we would normally expect.
Warmer, drier conditions with higher fire danger are preventing agencies from conducting as much hazard reduction burning – it is often either too wet, or too dry and windy to burn safely. Blaming "greenies" for stopping these important measures is a familiar, populist, but basically untrue claim.
Together with 22 other retired fire and emergency service chiefs, I spoke out earlier this year. We felt we had a duty to tell people how climate change is super-charging our natural disaster risks. I wish we were wrong, but we’re not.
I’m confident that our national government, when the smoke and dust settles, will finally see the obvious and understand the word "unprecedented". I’m sure it will then start to take decisive action to tackle the base cause – greenhouse emissions - then use the high moral ground to lean on other countries to also do the right thing.
In the meantime, please, please play it safe, and act on the vital fire service warnings.
Greg Mullins is a former Fire and Rescue NSW commissioner and a councillor on the Climate Council.
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@Siam said in Climate Change #3 & Other Environmental Issues:
Are we dead set sure that these bushfires are caused neatly and certainly by climate change?
Here's what BOM has to say:
http://www.bom.gov.au/weather-services/fire-weather-centre/bushfire-weather/index.shtml
Bottom of page:
Climate change and bushfire risk in Australia
Climate change is influencing the frequency and severity of dangerous bushfire conditions in Australia and other regions of the world, including through influencing temperature, environmental moisture, weather patterns and fuel conditions. There have been significant changes observed in recent decades towards more dangerous bushfire weather conditions for various regions of Australia.
In particular, observed changes in southern and eastern Australia include more extreme conditions during summer, as well as an earlier start to the bushfire season with dangerous weather conditions occurring significantly earlier in spring than they used to. These trends towards more dangerous bushfire conditions are at least partly attributable to human-caused climate change, including through increased temperatures. Northern Australia, which sees significant fire activity during the dry season, has experienced increases in monsoonal rainfall that have increased fuel growth in recent decades, as a key factor influencing fire danger in that region.
In relation to fire ignition, there is some indication that climate change could influence the risk of ignitions from dry-lightning (i.e., lightning that occurs without significant rainfall) while noting relatively large uncertainties in currently available model representations of this phenomenon. Additionally, there has recently been a number of devastating fire events in Australia associated with extreme pyroconvection (including thunderstorm development in a fire plume), with recent research indicating a long-term trend towards increased risk factors associated with pyroconvection in southeast Australia. Bushfire weather conditions in future years are projected to increase in severity for many regions of Australasia, including due to more extreme heat events, with the rate and magnitude of change increasing with greenhouse gas concentrations (and emissions).
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@NTA said in Climate Change #3 & Other Environmental Issues:
@jegga said in Climate Change #3 & Other Environmental Issues:
That’s awful. My neighbor is a firefighter and might be heading over . He has been to fires in ACT and NSW before but since then he’s been trained to use drones to track the fires .
It would be interesting to discuss the differences he sees in fires in NZ versus other places. Terrain would be a huge challenge over there I imagine - hence the drones.
I once had charcoaled gum leaves falling in my back yard from a particularly bad fire season in the Blue Mountains 7 or 8 years go, meaning the wind was blowing charred matter 25 kilometres over an elevation drop of roughly 150m at the nearest point.
@Baron-Silas-Greenback said in Climate Change #3 & Other Environmental Issues:
That sucks. I was going to like your post, but seemed inappropriate.
It is sucky. For the Greater Sydney Basin itself to be affected - directly - is certainly something new in my 20ish years living here.
Fire map for NSW is here. Stupidly they don't cross the border into QLD on this map.
If you click on a given fire you get its status and size. Some of the areas (in hectares) are mind blowing.
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@chimoaus said in Climate Change #3 & Other Environmental Issues:
We are already the wealthiest generation in terms of "Money", "Assests" than any other other period in history. Does this make us happy? Not by figures showing depression, anxiety and suicide climbing.
Just on this - being happy is nothing more than a fleeting emotion and doesn't sustain us in any way, particularly when we go through hard times. The problem many people have is a lack of meaning in their lives. There are ample ways to live a meaningful life, but it does require you to take some responsibility for something. I don't think we are doing a good job teaching our youth the importance of having meaning in your life; but that's a topic for another thread.
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@No-Quarter said in Climate Change #3 & Other Environmental Issues:
@chimoaus said in Climate Change #3 & Other Environmental Issues:
We are already the wealthiest generation in terms of "Money", "Assests" than any other other period in history. Does this make us happy? Not by figures showing depression, anxiety and suicide climbing.
Just on this - being happy is nothing more than a fleeting emotion and doesn't sustain us in any way, particularly when we go through hard times. The problem many people have is a lack of meaning in their lives. There are ample ways to live a meaningful life, but it does require you to take some responsibility for something. I don't think we are teaching our to youth the importance of having meaning in your life; but that's a topic for another thread.
People who say money can't buy happiness haven't flown long haul in economy.
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@antipodean AFTER flying long haul in Business.
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I don't tend to buy in to a lot of these arguments but a couple of your points triggered me.
@chimoaus said in Climate Change #3 & Other Environmental Issues:
We are already the wealthiest generation in terms of "Money", "Assests" than any other other period in history. Does this make us happy? Not by figures showing depression, anxiety and suicide climbing.
See I don't buy that. Try not having wealth, and by tgat I mean the ability to provide yourself and your family the needs as defined by Maslow and see how happy you are.
We have enough wealth, what we need to do is redistribute that and focus on the well being of every species on the planet.
I don't get how giving away stuff to people who don't contribute empowers people. You've kind of lost me here
I just think the capitalist system has driven us to over-consumption and placed our focus too heavily on money, assets and stuff. This is often at the expense of social connections to other people, family, creative pursuits etc.
I'd argue the capitalist system has gicen us the wealth to indukge in other people, family, creative pursuits etc.
Why do we need to work 40-50 hours a week for 47 years so we can then spend time with family and do what we want. Why can we not work less now
Because if people aren't working there is no wealth for us to afford to spend time with family and do what we want now. Who generates the food and clothing and pays for the shelter we need? I'm genuinely confused by your argument.
and spend time with those that matter and do things we enjoy. The answer is we believe we need "Stuff" to be happy and the system drives us to consume.
Stuff we need:
- shelter
- food
- clothing
All cost money. Where does that come from?
Everything else us nice, makes us feel good, and if we work hard we earn thise luxuries.
As for noticing impacts of climate change, maybe NZ is insulated somewhat but I can assure you Australia is not. We have had arguably the worst start to the fire season ever and parts of the country are experiencing catastrophic fire danger for the first time. Towns are running out of water, rivers are drying and fish are dying. The drought is ongoing and impacting many. We are experiencing massive flooding events, coastal erosion, coastal bleaching and many species are in threat of extinction. We had 8 days over 40 degrees at my place in one month which is a record.
So us the answer not finding ways for society to benefit as a whole? Find a way to make fighting climate change benefit people, rather than punish tham?
I believe we as humans are largely responsible for this mess, If we choose to do nothing and hope technology saves us then I fear for our kids and grandkids because we will be leaving them one hell of a mess.
But hoping punishing people for working hard is an answer?
I haven't got to @Baron-Silas-Greenback 's reply (or replies) as yet, but I await with baited breath. I suspect he's put it rather more bluntly than me, but I believe the answer to climaye change, and it is a problem in my opinion, is finding a way where people will vdnefit, rather than making them suffer.
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@Siam said in Climate Change #3 & Other Environmental Issues:
Are we dead set sure that these bushfires are caused neatly and certainly by climate change?
Seems to me that fires in Aus have been a permanent thing. Now, the human habitats affected by fires has increased for sure, but did the climate cause these fires?
Looks all a bit like recency bias.
Happy to be wrong, (Christ happy to learn anything authentic about climate change!)
It's the severity and time of year.
It's bushfire season in Qld. Late spring is when it's dry and warm. But we've (apparently) never had a State of Emergency declared. We have now across 49 odd Councils. Unprecedented.
It is NOT bushfire season in NSW. It doesn't get bushfirey till late Jan into Feb.
And the new "catastrophic" level of fire risk is down to weather patterns not experienced until recent years.
It's not right this time of year.
My personal opinion is that climate change has something to do with it.
Climate Change