The remains of a house and car destroyed by bushfires in the town of Flowerdale, Australia, on Wednesday.
(Mick Tsikas/REUTERS)Photos (1 of 1)
Is global warming driving Australia’s bushfires?
By Eoin O'Carroll | 02.12.09
The deadly wildfires that tore across southeastern Australia this past week have prompted some experts to look beyond the arsonists, lightning strikes, and carelessly discarded cigarette butts to a more complex culprit: climate change.
While all agree that it is impossible to link any single event – no matter how extreme – to global warming, scientists say that the extreme heat and dryness that helped spread the fires are becoming more common as human activity continues to produce greenhouse gases.
According to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report, released in 2007, heatwaves and brush fires are “virtually certain to increase in intensity and frequency” in Australia. Many parts of that country have been in the grips of a seven-year drought, the worst in recorded history.
As an article in Time magazine notes, in 2007 Australia’s national science agency predicted that, if climate change continues unabated, by 2020 there could be up to two-thirds more “extreme fire-danger days” compared with 1990. The organization found that there could be up to a threefold increase in such days by midcentury.
[Update: Commenter Tenebris dug up the report, which I hadn’t been able to find. You can read it here.]
Writing in the Guardian, Tim Flannery observes that Victoria, the state where the fires raged, has become hotter and drier in recent years. Mr. Flannery is a zoologist and conservationist at Sydney’s University of Macquarie and author of “The Weather Makers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change.” He describes how Victoria’s shifting winds and high temperatures, which this month have topped 115 degrees F., have in the past helped drive deadly brush fires.
“But this time the conditions were more extreme than ever before,” he writes, “and the 12-year ‘drought’ meant that plant tissues were almost bone dry.”
Flannery describes how his home state’s climate has changed so drastically:
I was born in Victoria, and over five decades I’ve watched as the state has changed. The long, wet and cold winters that seemed so insufferable to me as a young boy wishing to play outside vanished decades ago, and for the past 12 years a new, drier climate has established itself. I could measure its progress whenever I flew into Melbourne airport. Over the years the farm dams under the flight path filled ever less frequently, while the suburbs crept ever further into the countryside, their swimming pools seemingly oblivious to the great drying….
Despite narrowly missing the 1983 Victorian fires, and then losing a house to the 1994 Sydney bushfires, I had not previously appreciated the difference a degree or two of additional heat, and a dry soil, can make to the ferocity of a fire. This fire was quantitatively different from anything seen before.
Scientists are famously wary of attributing single events to climate change. The Associated Press quotes two experts – a professor of agriculture and the head of Australia’s national science advisory group – who say that no definitive link can be traced, but that climate change seems to be loading the dice:
“Australia — and particularly the southeastern corner of Australia – is fire prone, so a fire-prone environment coupled with a warmer and drier climate in the future is likely to increase the incidence of this kind of event,” said Mark Adams, a wildfire expert at the University of Sydney. “But statistically, we won’t be able to prove it for many decades.” …
Penny Whetton, leader of the climate change research group at Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, also cautioned against tying the fires too closely to global warming.
“Due to changes in the climate, the high risk of fires has increased and will increase,” she said. “But that is different than saying climate change caused these fires. It’s difficult to relate climate change to an individual weather event.”
Many news outlets covering the bushfires quote Bob Brown, the head of Australia’s Greens party, who said the fires are a reminder of the dangers of climate change.
“Global warming is predicted to make this sort of event happen 25 percent, 50 percent more,” he told Sky News.
“It’s a sobering reminder of the need for this nation and the whole world to act and put at a priority our need to tackle climate change.”
But climate activists who cite extreme weather events – if we can use that term to describe the bushfires – could be overplaying their hand, warns Vicky Pope, the head of the climate prediction program at Britain’s Met Office. Writing in Wednesday’s Guardian about exaggerations of melting Arctic ice, Ms. Pope says that reflexively attributing any bad weather to climate change is ultimately a disservice to science:
For climate scientists, having to continually rein in extraordinary claims that the latest extreme is all due to climate change is, at best, hugely frustrating and, at worst, enormously distracting. Overplaying natural variations in the weather as climate change is just as much a distortion of the science as underplaying them to claim that climate change has stopped or is not happening. Both undermine the basic facts that the implications of climate change are profound and will be severe if greenhouse gas emissions are not cut drastically and swiftly over the coming decades.
As this blog noted last month as particularly frigid temperatures descended on many parts of the United States, you can’t tell much about climate change by looking only at a particular day, season, or year. But Australia’s intense fires are very much in line with what climate scientists have predicted. These same scientists say that we can expect more fires like these, all over the world.
<< Drought threatens China’s wheat crop | MainComments
2. Kevin | 02.12.09
No, you IDIOT! Why is it that whenever the weather is unusually cold and snowy, we don’t hear idiots like you talk about it being caused by global warming? Yet as soon as it gets a little warm and dry (or stormy), you cry, “See! It’s global warming!”
3. Jeff Bateman | 02.12.09
Man Made Global Warming is a LIE! People much smarter than I am have commented on it. See this web site and material.
http://www.petitionproject.org/gwdatabase/GW_Article/GWReview_OISM150.pdf
http://www.petitionproject.org/index.html
4. Steve | 02.12.09
For those who don’t know the difference between weather and climate, things are confusing. For those who do understand the difference, the evidence is very clear. California has year round forest fires where they used to have a “fire season”. Birds and other animals have shifted their habits further north (or south if they are already south of the equator). Trees and plants have migrated as well. The polar ice cap is shrinking. Those who deny the climate is changing are like the flat earth society.
5. Elef | 02.12.09
Halo anyone out there not believing in global climate change look at the science. Global climate change deniers are no different than Holocaust deniers.
The Australian fires are no different from the ones in California, Greece, Spain, Croatia that were unprecedented in size, intensity, and destruction. What is the also unprecedented is the global nature of these fires. The first scientist to propose global warming from CO2 from man’s activities was in the 1850’s, the first scientific measurements verifying the hypothesis were made in the 1880’s and by the 1930’s. Recent work simply has nailed the detail.
6. Jim | 02.12.09
This is funny…we don’t have the power to change the Sun!!! What about the millions of square miles covered with snow right now??? Global Warming caused by “greenhouse gases” is the biggest hoax of our time! The scientists who have bought into it have done so for economic reasons (whether they realize it or not)…to cast doubt on this subject means letting go of some serious greenbacks from the Govt!
Pollution IS a real problem, therefore this hype has some marginal effect on good anti-pollution work…but it comes at a higher cost to progress and the general health of the people of the world…we are naive to think that our little plans have a big impact on the cycles of Earth.
7. Argent | 02.12.09
****!!! It’s so very handy for people who want to control the world instead of allowing freedom to turn reason on its head claiming that “cause” is “effect” and the observed “effect” really the “cause”. Their argument will, in a few months or years, be that humans are causing the cooling of the sun. Instead of appreciating this world and its design by God for us, they stir up fear in the hearts of wrong headed unreasoning movie stars, and others. The article is the product of emotional, unscientific, Godless, people hating, freedom hating, selfish, obamaites. Just so much **** !!!! But to do otherwise would mean a loss of their “cause”.
8. you | 02.12.09
I would suspect extreme enviromentalism is driving it.If they do not allow forest clearing and keep natural fires from growing then the fuel for these fires would naturally be in abundance.Forests are not properly managed in favor of protecting the enviroment.
Global warming is simply a political power grab.Reality out the window.Any critics are labeled as evil idiots.Propnents have free reign to be intollerant,slanderous and bigoted.
10. Arthur LEMAY | 02.12.09
This is totally imbecilic. The world is cooling and has been for almost ten years. The southern hemisphere has never warmed the way the northern hemisphere has, and increasingly those scientists who initially were part of the scientific cadre of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are joining the ranks of the skeptics.
The UK Met Office, one of the most prominent climate research organizations in the world has denounced climate hysteria like this, and, what they call journalistic malpractice, and malpractice on the part of the IPCC.
Sorry, environmental extremists and confidence men — it’s a lie and the pendulum of public, and scientific, option is that man’s CO2 emissions have little or nothing to do with global warming (which stopped in 1998), and your obfuscation in calling it “climate change” is not only wrong — it shows us that there is no lie too big, or too stupid, to try to tell the world that “global warming” is a big problem.
It does not exist, and to make it even sillier, the climate continues to cool: so does cooling start fires? It would seem that you believe you can tell a lie loud enough and long enough people will believe you and willingly fork over billions if not trillions of dollars for a lie.
Face it, the jig is up.
11. LJordan | 02.12.09
Nobody denies warming temperatures- although there is now mounting evidence that temperatures are once again on the decline. It is MAN MADE climate change that is foolish and not supported by the science.
My theory is that all the man made supporters/fanatics where particularly drawn to Henny Penny as children.
Shame on you CSM…I thought you all had better sense.
12. Frank Jones | 02.12.09
Global Warming is a crock of ****!!!!!
Come on you guys you have got to understand that this planet has been and always will be, in a constant state of change. Why do you think the Dinosaurs died off? Hmmmmmm Did the climate change? Of course it did and just like now this planet is going through another change. Think about this. Why was the Midwest called a giant dust-ball for 30 years? Did the climate change? Hmmmmmmm This has nothing to do with GLOBAL WARMING!! Stop believing what the lame mainstream media want you to believe and do a little research on your own you will see what we say is true!
13. Chris | 02.12.09
I am surprised that we STILL have climate change denialists hard at work. Four of the six previous comments are denialist. Which leads me to wonder: why is the denialist brigade so active? Do they think that posting thousands of messages on blogs will have an effect on public opinion? On one side we have thousands of scientists who are steadily assembling mountains of data in support of the overall climate change hypothesis, and on the other side we have thousands of denialists who simply repeat the same old lies. The fact that those lies have been refuted many times over doesn’t stop these people; they just keep repeating them. Denialists are no different than creationists: they refuse to consider the evidence, and rely on repetition to make their case.
14. Shane | 02.12.09
Steve, sure it’s changing. But WHY? If you say ‘because of man’, then why has it changed so drastically in the past without power plants and SUVs.
-Shane
15. Larry | 02.12.09
People should read and understand…Just ask any Government with the ablity to see into outer space. Global warming = Global change. We (Earth) is in an normal change of events. Things like “Planet X”, “2012″ Volcanic actividy world wide. The fire’s, Governments building shelters for who? For what? Scientists do know whats up. And I guess we will see. Right now professional” science people do this for money! Nothing more nothing less…economics, cash, moo la. They are not going to tell us the truth.
16. Roger | 02.12.09
How can you reason with people about legitimate questions surrounding global warming when they have the attitude that if you don’t agree completely with them it’s equivalent to saying the Earth is flat or denying the Holocaust?
It’s clear which side the ignorant fall on this issue.
17. Bob Whitford | 02.12.09
There is no way to know if a single event is caused by a world wide disruption, but there is no denying there is a world wide disruption of the planet’s atmosphere. Mankind started this in large part by burning coal in a wide scale some 200 years ago.
The deaths in London UK, in 1952 from acute coal poisoning was part of a wake up call.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_1952
The injection of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere due to actions of humans is not part of a debate: it is fact, based upon clear scientific data. The amounts and percentages can be broken down into specific sources and categories.
The effect of this increased carbon dioxide, and it’s action as a Greenhouse House Gas is also not subject to debate. Scientists can clearly show the mechanism of how CO2 increases trapping of heat energy, and the subsequent rise in the Whole Earth temperature is a clear and measurable result.
Yes, it is difficult, if not nearly impossible to claim that fires in Australia were directly caused by GCC; but I don’t doubt the effects were exacerbated by drier and warmer conditions. However, there’s really no way to clearly tell using scientific data outright. After all, some areas are having colder and wetter winters, as well.
But there is no denying the average temperature of the planet is increasing, and it’s caused directly by human use of fossil based fuels. No matter what the man on your AM radio station talk show says, this is the undeniable and inconvenient truth. Over time, your children and their children will be dealing with effects of these changes which will endanger the quality of their lives and perhaps their very lives themselves.
19. RHarrisonScott | 02.12.09
We really need to be focus on the money trail behind this global warming frenzy. Like the “philanthropic” union bosses of old who lined the pockets of organized crime with union dues, entire movement is being driven by a handful of capitalists interested in lining their pockets with government subsidies. It’s an undeniable fact that the world’s climate is warming but attributing that change to carbon emissions is a major stretch. The earth experienced similar trends in the past and long before the automobile was invented.
20. Doesn’t Matter | 02.12.09
I wish these brilliant scientists spend more time discovering affordable wildfire protection plan that imposes construction and landscaping standards – including mandatory interior fire sprinklers and broad swaths of protective landscaping etc – that homeowners can remain sheltered in their houses if they cannot evacuate.
I personally do not believe climate is in our control, if you go as back as 12th century, you will see the droughts, wildfires,extreme cold weathers and other calamities still existed, how do you explain that?
The only way we can help and put a stop to these major disasters effecting so many people’s life is by finding way to protect ourselves & everyone as equally.
I would hope people posting comments will come up with some great ideas to achieve that:-)
21. Ankita | 02.12.09
I wish these brilliant scientists spend more time discovering affordable wildfire protection plan that imposes construction and landscaping standards – including mandatory interior fire sprinklers and broad swaths of protective landscaping etc – that homeowners can remain sheltered in their houses if they cannot evacuate.
I personally do not believe climate is in our control, if you go as back as 12th century, you will see the droughts, wildfires,extreme cold weathers and other calamities still existed, how do you explain that?
The only way we can help and put a stop to these major disasters effecting so many people’s life is by finding way to protect ourselves & everyone as equally.
I would hope people posting comments will come up with some great ideas to achieve that:-)
22. Raquel Ford | 02.12.09
No Felicia, it’s the overzealous environmentalists fueled the fire. The parks services should clean up any dead shrubs, branches that fuel the fire. But we all know, they all can’t be done. There’s also a lot of crazies everywhere, mentally or politically driven or otherwise. Don’t be so naive…I know you aren’t. You just want to push your own agenda.
23. How quaint | 02.12.09
How quaint that a bunch of right wingers think they know more than the vast majority of the world’s climate scientists. But one has to wonder, what in God’s name makes these people think they know more than the experts? Because Sen Hannity agrees with them? Thank heavens we have an intelligent president (and also it’s nice to know that Australia finally got rid of their global warming denying Pres. as well). Let’s try to solve this problem before Aust. and S. Calif. burn up. And if you’re one of those brilliant folks that thinks global warming is a myth, try reading what the experts have to say instead of just regurgitating Rush.
24. Lou | 02.12.09
Jeff Bateman wrote:
Man Made Global Warming is a LIE! People much smarter than I am have commented on it.
——————————————————-
The overwhelming majority of climate scientists agree that human-driven climate change is real, yet you think that only the tiny fraction who agree with your ideology-motivated denial are “smarter than” you.
You confess your relative ignorance, but insist the vast majority of scientists who disagree with you are promoting a “lie” because…what? Why?
Do you fear to sail the oceans because there is still a Flat Earth Society?
How smart is that?
25. Dave | 02.12.09
Interesting. Wikipedia has an expression for most of the comments here - weasel words. People parroting websites and phrases they have heard that they think represent accurate descriptions of what is happening on this planet.
For a complete and accurate report of the climate change situation go to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scientific paper index. There are hundreds of peer reviewed studies in the report and hundreds of pages of data from thousands of places around the world. For one person to spew forth “beliefs” and “opinions” on some news website declaring global warming a farce as if they are some kind of expert with “proof” is absurd and shows ignorance and laziness. Citing a study done by the Petroleum institute or its beneficiaries direct or indirect (for example, petitionproject.org) is also a farce, and has little, if any credibility.
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html
their terms of use:
http://www.ucar.edu/legal/terms_of_use.shtml
main page of the IPCC:
http://www.ipcc.ch/index.html
26. Kathy | 02.12.09
It’s very difficult for people to give up their religion and to many, global warming is exactly that-their religion.
27. nicholas mcgill | 02.12.09
Interesting! Very vociferous climate change deniers here. Obviously, Australia’s science education is about as backwards as Kansas or Texas. A triumph of neoconservatism! Make the people too stupid to understand the basic facts and evidence that are ALL around them. Good luck Australia and world, we are gonna need it.
28. Souby | 02.12.09
Most of us agree that the cause is global warming, yet there is very little being done in order to stop it. The sad part is we can’t do much about it as it is on a very large scale. You can’t make industries and all the vehicles in the world stop working in a day. Thats not gonna happen !!
So, we are definitely heading towards something we do not know about. So stop thinking and start acting now, become environment friendly and we can delay it to some extent.
29. TylerMuhl | 02.12.09
The planet is heating up, there’s no doubt about is. But is man excellerating the process? Personally, I believe so. But even if we aren’t, what do we have to lose by changing the way we power our planet? If we change and the planet keeps warming up and it wasn’t because of us, we lose nothing. If we keep doing the things we are doing and we destroy this only earth we have, we lose everything. My point is by going green we have nothing to lose and potentially everything to gain. It doesn’t hurt to build a sustainable future for generations to come. After all, this earth is our very life support. People can deny global warming all they want, but remember this: WE HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BY DEVELOPING NEW CLEAN ENERGY AND SUSTAINABLE GROWTH. The world isn’t limetless
30. James P. Kelly | 02.12.09
While humans wallow in denial, our planet’s delicate ecological balance spirals out of control. Although global warming may not have led directly to this tragedy in Victoria, the area’s record drought and record high temperatures did. Regardless whether predictions concerning pending climatic changes are accurate, global warming certainly exists and Man caused it. If we wait for mankind to reach a consensus before taking the vigorous steps needed to halt further damage and restore the ecological balance, it will be much too late…because it will never be convenient for humans to change either their self-indulgent behavior or self-affirming beliefs, even when confronted with tragic consequences of their own making, including their self destruction.
31. Huston | 02.12.09
I think it is so funny how individual people can be smart, and yet when they are put together in a group, for some reason they get dumb. Individual people are smart, but the masses are stupid and ignorant.
Does anyone here know what Earth Day was originally created for? It was created in the 70’s for a…are you ready?…for a global COOLING scare. I don’t know why everyone is getting their panties in a bunch when the temperature of the earth rises a miniscule amount in a decade. The temperature of the Earth fluctuates, it’s been doing this FOREVER. Why do you think there were Ice Ages? The temperature fluctuates.
To think that we as a human race can single-handedly bring down and destroy the entire Earth by using a couple of aerosol cans is extremely ignorant and uninformed. The Earth has been here for a loooong time. Before we even had anything that is called ‘pollution’, there were many more active volcanos that spew enough **** into the air as we as a world does in years. This whole Global Warming thing is just a farce. Look at the facts people, temperatures fluctuate, although we may like to think we have this terrible power to kill the Earth, we don’t. So get off of your pedestals, stop giving Nobel Peace Prizes to people who are speaking propaganda at all times about Global Warming, while they are flying around in their private jets with their mansions. And they want us to ride bikes.
Will someone please grow some balls to stick up to these maniac environmentalists and tell them that they are full of ****.
33. Loretta Chan | 02.12.09
Global warming is rubbish..Victorias fires are caused by many factors,all MAN MADE..Firstly we have a government that has bowed to the greenie movement..ask any farmer where there was dry grass not allowed to be slashed or backburned by Fire Department as fire breaks because the Greenies get upset! Now add to that the fact that these fires are the work of ARSONISTS and police are treating many areas as CRIME SCENES!! also even though drought has made land very dry,the government is at fault for not having infrstructure in place to store water runoff during heavy rains,thus adding to our irrigation problems.
34. liberal idiot | 02.12.09
Australia: Survivors Blame Council’s “Green Policy” for Bushfires, “We’ve Lost People Because You ******** Won’t Cut Trees Down”….
God bless the Aussies……
Angry survivors blame council ‘green’ policy- The Age
ANGRY residents last night accused local authorities of contributing to the bushfire toll by failing to let residents chop down trees and clear up bushland that posed a fire risk.
During question time at a packed community meeting in Arthurs Creek on Melbourne’s northern fringe, Warwick Spooner — whose mother Marilyn and brother Damien perished along with their home in the Strathewen blaze — criticised the Nillumbik council for the limitations it placed on residents wanting the council’s help or permission to clean up around their properties in preparation for the bushfire season. “We’ve lost two people in my family because you ******** won’t cut trees down,” he said.
“We wanted trees cut down on the side of the road … and you can’t even cut the grass for God’s sake.”
35. Chris Fisher | 02.12.09
The idea that man can alter the climate of the world and indeed the universe by a carbon trading scheme is absolute stuff and nonsense. The climate has been cycling back and forth between warming and cooling periods for millions of years and will continue to do so for millions more. The vikings were farming on Greenland 700 years ago …long before the internal cumbustion engine was even invented. Does that moron Al Gore not understand why oil can be found under the present day Arctic ice? He and the other misguided environmentalists would be better to focus their attentions on the pollutants and toxins that we are spewing into our atmosphere and waters.
36. Chris | 02.12.09
I have a resource to those who truly are open-minded about this issue (though I suspect that I am speaking to a non-existent audience). Here’s the URL:
http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics
This provides the best overall refutation of the arguments of global climate change denialists. If you think that the sun is warming, or that hundreds of scientists signed a petition against global warming, or that scientists predicted global cooling in the 1970s, or any of those other lies, you’ll find the straight story on them here.
37. Joe in Alaska | 02.12.09
I live where it is -55F on a warm day.
I am thankful for global warming!
If current global temperatures were not up 2 F more than the average low during the current ice age — Alaska, Canada, Europe and the upper 2/3 of the Untied States would be under hundreds of feet of ice!
The current Ice Age is expected to continue till the poles and Greenland’s ice cap melts.
Sorry sports fans! CO2 helps keep Earth warm.
The last serious cold snap in 1709 wiped out an estimated 1,000,000 Europeans!
The current world population is around 9 billion; a cold spell and the collapse of agriculture would wipe out billions from starvation and warfare!
Be careful what you wish for! Because your wish could be granted.
38. Anthony Pantz | 02.12.09
In response to Huston’s comment: “The temperature of the Earth fluctuates, it’s been doing this FOREVER. Why do you think there were Ice Ages? The temperature fluctuates.”
Sure this is true, but usually it happens over hundreds of thousands of years, not a couple of decades. And those volcanoes you mentioned existed, but guess what? Before they started spewing **** into the air, the Earth was actually too cold to support life.
39. Tenebris | 02.12.09
This CSIRO 2007 report was commissioned by the government of New South Wales. Among other things, it anticipates an increased drought and high fire risk in the southeast. Make of it what you will.
http://www.csiro.au/resources/Climate-Change-Technical-Report-2007.html
40. Stan from Alaska | 02.12.09
I’m sure Joe in Alaska is happy for the the spruce bark beetle plague that has wiped out so much of Alaska’s beautiful forests and is currently devastating forests in Canada.
http://www.wohlforth.net/SpruceBarkBeetles.htm
He claims that “I live where it is -55F on a warm day”. Perhaps he lives farther north than Fairbanks, where you can see that the normal low temperature is never below -10F for the month of February.
Truth somehow never matters to the deniers. I recomment the link in comment 36 above for analysis of all the claims made by GW deniers.
42. Vandervekken | 02.12.09
I live in Australia. My family lost our farm in the fires of January 1962 and I worked for the State Coroner removing the victims of the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires. Yes Victoria is in drought but overall Australia is continuing to experience above average annual rainfall, thats an infrastructure problem not the weather. The reason this fire caused so many deaths and so much destruction was that where in the past the Government, prior to the Bushfire Season, issied warnings and instructed people to clear land around their houses it has now made it illegal to do so because of the environmental movement. Another factor, over the past 10 years many City people moved into the bush an they loved having trees, bushes and grass comming right up to their homes. Simply put these fires had more FUEL than any in the past and that is a direct result of Government legislation and environmentalists who live in cities and do not understand the dynasmic of bushfires near housing.
43. Vandervekken | 02.12.09
All Victoria’s Great Bushfires were on days of strong Northwesterly wind. This wind heats up and dries out as it crosses Australias central deserts. Since the 1860’s various scientists at varying intervals have tried to get the Federal Government to pump Sea water into lake Eyre, the resultant evapouration would bring moist air to South Eastern Australia and end droughts and reduce bushfires. FACT water in lake Eyre means rain in Victoria and NSW.
44. Glenwriter | 02.12.09
You know what?
If not one house or life had been lost these bushfires would not have even reached the news.
What has touched the nation is that fire has reached the middle-class by killing them and destroying their homes because they chose to life in the bush.
They chose to live in the bush because they did not choose to live in a city.
Your second word of the story is “deadly”. The word is “deadly” because the fires took a human life or is it because it took the life of a tree?”
A human life. Therefore your story is biased. It took the lives of trees . . . and carbon was released into the atmosphere to pollute the atmosphere.
45. Vandervekken | 02.13.09
Some people seem to have a problem with their priorities. I have spent most of my life risking my life to save People then animals then plants. I have done so wearing different uniforms, but always, people first, then animals then plants. If these are not your priorities I doubt your humanity, common sense and compassion.
46. Glenwriter | 02.13.09
Yes I agree with you.
I have no humanity, commonsense, (one word) and compassion. I am a tree.
47. Eve | 02.13.09
Despite still being far from possessing full power in any country, the environmentalists are already responsible for approximately 96 million deaths from malaria across the world. These deaths are the result of the environmentalist-led ban on the use of DDT, which could easily have prevented them and, before its ban, was on the verge of wiping out malaria. The environmentalists brought about the ban because they deemed the survival of a species of vultures, to whom DDT was apparently poisonous, more important than the lives of millions of human beings.
The deaths that have already been caused by environmentalism approximate the combined number of deaths caused by the Nazis and Communists.
If and when the environmentalists take full power, and begin imposing and then progressively increasing the severity of such things as carbon taxes and carbon caps, in order to reach their goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 90 percent, the number of deaths that will result will rise into the billions, which is in accord with the movement’s openly professed agenda of large-scale depopulation. (The policy will have little or no effect on global mean temperatures, the reduction of which is the rationalization for its adoption, but it will have a great effect on the size of human population.)
It is not at all accidental that environmentalism is evil and that its leading spokesmen hold or sanction ideas that are indistinguishable from those of sociopaths. Its evil springs from a fundamental philosophical doctrine that lies at the very core and deepest foundations of the movement, a doctrine that directly implies the movement’s destructiveness and hatred of the human race. This is the doctrine of the alleged intrinsic value of nature, i.e., that nature is valuable in and of itself, apart from all connection to human life and well being. This doctrine is accepted by the movement without any internal challenge, and, indeed, is the very basis of environmentalism’s existence.
48. Eoin | 02.13.09
Eve, you’re getting some important facts wrong.
DDT was never banned for use against malaria. Both the 1972 ban in the United States and the 2001 Stockholm Convention allow the pesticide for use in controlling insect-borne diseases. According to the New Scientist, each year about 1,000 tons of DDT are still released worldwide.
In any case overusing DDT tends to create resistant species of mosquito. By 1972, when the US ban went into effect, 19 species of mosquitoes thought to transmit malaria were resistant to DDT.
Also, DDT isn’t always the best way to fight malaria. In 1991, Vietnam switched from a DDT-based campaign to one focusing on rapid treatment, mosquito nets, and a different type of insecticide. The World Health Organization reports [PDF] that malaria fatalities dropped by 97 percent. Similar methods have reduced fatalities by 50 percent in Rwanda and Ethiopia.
Reasonable people can disagree over how much of a toxic chemical is appropriate for trying to prevent a horrible disease. But if you’re going to have a reasonable debate, then you need to acknowledge all the facts.
49. Vandervekken | 02.14.09
Just one more point, Global Warming is not Global! The Southern Hemisphere has been consistantly cooling for nearly half a century. Also do yourselves a favour and check average temperatures for the last 80 years taken at 3.00 AM and compare them to the results of average temperatures taken at 3.00PM. exclude all other times and temperatures and you will find something interesting.
50. Steve | 02.15.09
There are many sources and causes of changes in the weather and climate. There are geological processes like volcanoes, biological processes of plants and animals, extra-terrestrial events like solar activity and comets and meteor strikes, and human generated processes like deforestation and agriculture and burning of fossil fuels. All these processes fluctuate over time. When the net changes result in random variations around a mean level, we say things are “in equilibrium”.
Some processes, like the interlocking biological systems, have some characteristics that tend to bring activity back to their mean level. If animals eat too many plants and multiply, there are not enough plants to sustain the animals and the animals die off and the plants grow back.
Not all systems are self-regulating. Even biological systems will often tend toward extremes and the result is not a return to the way things were, but to a new equilibrium that is different than the past.
Human activity is different than that of other creatures because humans have the brainpower to initiate sustained activities on a massive scale for reasons other than their immediate biological needs. Humans will build cities and roads and launch satellites into space. You could say that what separates man from the animals is that man is the only creature that will sit in front of a computer all day and feel good about it. ;-)
With the discovery that we can burn oil and coal to generate energy, we started a new process on a global scale that has no precedent. We derive great benefits from burning these fuels, which is why the practice has grown to such a large scale. One effect of this practice has been the release of large quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere.
There are two points to consider here. One, the earth is enormous. Humans can dump a lot of stuff before it starts to have a lasting effect. Two, there is a physical phenomenon that scientists call “the greenhouse effect”. Some gases are transparent to visible light, but opaque to infrared. These gases in the atmosphere let sunlight strike the earth but don’t let the resulting infrared energy radiate back into space. Since the earth normally radiates energy back into space, that doesn’t necessarily result in any lasting change as long as there is a net equilibrium among all the heat generating and absorbing processes.
The danger is not that there are variations in temperature. Even changes in climate are not necessarily a problem.
The danger is a runaway process. As CO2 rises in the atmosphere, the global temperature rises, not linearly, not uniformly, not without fluctuations, but the trend is rising. As the temperature rises, tundra thaws and releases CO2, ice sheets melt and release CO2 trapped in the ice. Humans burn more fuel to stay cool and to grow food in a more arid climate.
The question is whether the system is heading toward runaway levels. There is a clear scientific consensus that we are.
The question is not what *the* source is, there are many sources. The real question is what is pushing things past equilibrium? Again, there is a clear scientific consensus that human industrial activity is a new factor that has grown to significant enough levels to throw the climate out of equilibrium.
Will the earth survive? Of course it will! The real question is will humans survive on a much hotter earth. I’ll be dead long before the earth is uninhabitable. Before that happens though, there will massive disruptions to agriculture, water supplies, and weather patterns that will likely result in large scale war. Sometimes when large groups of people find they can’t get food or water in ways they have for centuries, they decide to go elsewhere and take it.
Surely we can do better than that.
If you really want to understand what is happening, I suggest reading some of the scientific research. Not the summaries in the popular press, but the real papers. These scientists are trying to understand what is happening. They are not trying to promote a political cause.
51. FadingFast | 02.16.09
Those of you (author and commenters) who are so certain that the fires in Victoria are a result of AGW really ought to read “Her beauty and her terror” by Tony Wright in the 14Feb NEW-AGE (www.theage.com.au/national/her-beauty-and-her-terror-20090214-87a2.html) which quotes extensively from Judge Leonard Stretton’s Royal Commission report on the Black Friday tragedy of January 1939, as well as covering consequences of well-intended, but misguided “green practices” which contributed to buildup the fuel load and lack of fire-breaks and residential perimeters in the present tragedy. His gist of it is summarized by the following (unedited) passage:
“There was much made over the past week of the unbearable heatwave that preceded the latest bushfires, and it remains true that the run of plus-40-degree temperatures is the most severe since accurate records began.
“Yet it is worth knowing that Victoria’s single-highest maximum temperature, 50.8 degrees, was recorded in Mildura on January 7, 1906. On January10, 1939, three days before Black Friday, it was 47.2 degrees in Mildura. It remained fiercely hot around the state until the cataclysm, when Melbourne recorded 45.6degrees, a record that remained until February9 this year when the city hit an appalling 46.4degrees.
“None of this disproves the theory that climate change is upon us - a notion almost universally accepted by climatologists and scientists in related fields, and which grants a new urgency to the need to prepare for more frequent extremes in weather and their repercussions.
“However, the spooky similarities in events 70years apart do give undeniable support to Stretton’s conviction about nature’s “abnormal” seasons encouraging major fires that consume Victoria’s forests.
“Last Saturday was no unique event. It is part of a savage south-east Australian continuum. To it could be added Ash Wednesday, February16, 1983 - another drought, another period of high temperatures (43degrees on the day of the fires), another day of fierce dry wind. Seventy-five lives were extinguished - 47 in Victoria and 28 in South Australia - and more than 2000 homes went up in smoke.”
Not so cut and dried, is it?
52. joe herron | 02.22.09
For a good study on Climate Change, please read “The Great Planet” by Brian Fagan. This book looks at the world during the 11th 13th centuries when Europe experienced great weather and long growing periods. At the same time, every semi-arid region in the world turned into desert with California having 50 year droughts. The used scientific methods to come up with their conclusions and Mr. Fagan believes the earth’s population will decline by 20% this century due to climate change-drought, wars, etc.
53. Dr. Herbert, PhD | 05.18.09
To all those people out there who think that climate change is a joke, look at the facts! ask any respectable scientist and they will show you the facts on how humans have contributed to the dramatic changes in climate.
If you deny this, you are just like those who denied that the world was round, or the people who denied the holocaust. You should all pull your head out of the sand and open up your minds!
54. anita | 05.31.09
this is no joke we have got to change our ways b4 it gets even worse and to the point that we canot save this great planet and not only will we suffer but also the animals ……. like the polar bears.. they are endangerd becuase of us and our green house effect
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1. Ben | 02.12.09
Are you kidding me??? This is propaganda at its finest!