NSW Boeing 737 Fire Bomber

[fly_tornado]

farmers are smart, if the kids pleads guilty to arson its on their juvenile record and gets expunged.

 

 

[turboplanner]

farmers are smart, if the kids pleads guilty to arson its on their juvenile record and gets expunged.

 

Queensland Gov is dynamite on land clearing and they've heard all the excuses.

 

Wouldn't surprise me if the penalties go to the property, so they nail Mum, grandparents, kids, uncles, cousins wives/partners/temps, employees + repeat the earier farm relations, friends, neighbours etc. They can flick the screen by date and find a single tree gone and when it went.

 

 

[skippydiesel]

A fair bit of crap in the article in the Australian, from Flannery and the other alarmists, who believe that shutting coal-fired power stations today, will reverse the currently-dry seasons, almost immediately.

 

I had to laugh at his opinion (which is all it is, it's not backed by any study or studies), that "Perth will become the first Australian Ghost capital, based on its scarce water".

 

He obviously knows SFA about W.A.'s water supplies - which are carefully managed, and extensive (with numerous untapped large aquifers), and all backed by two very large and capable natural gas-fired desalination plants, that have been in operation for several years.

 

There has never been any study or studies provided by anyone - let alone Flannery - that shutting down all the coal-burning operations in the world, is going to reverse rising temperatures and the current low rainfall in Australia - that's if the activists could shut down the majority of coal-burning operations. Remember, there are thousands of coal-burning operations worldwide, and many countries have no intention of shutting them down overnight.

 

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/tim-flannery-climate-group-funding-exfire-chiefs-going-it-alone/news-story/fd55e5bd69cc54288e071d07808438c9

 

Can't help it, must comment ! :-

 

Anyone who thinks there is no direct link between rainfall/ surface water/ subterranean/aquifer water, is having themselves on. They are essentially the one resource. Australia's expanding population and increasing industrial consumption will take our water resources to the limit and possibly beyond.

 

The use of expensive  desalination plants ( that are energy hungry & polluting - localised salt concentration & atmospheric) is a best a short term stop gap measure that, with existing technology, cannot meet demand and just exacerbates global warming - "desal" is at best a placebo and at worst, tantamount to a fraud on the Australian people. 

 

Global warming/cooling is a naturally occurring phenomena.  For millennia Earth's organisms have either adapted to these changes or died out (extinction).  Pre industrial climatic changes have , in general, been slow, allowing plants /animals to try & adapt. There have been natural exceptions to this - volcanic activity and meteorite impacts, have created sudden changes, with devastating results for all living things. What is different now is that we have RAPID change brought on by mans industrial activity, particularly the consumption of fossilised hydrocarbons. The rapidity of this change will overall have a negative impact (some minor benefits may occur) on our environment.  Most organisms will struggle to adapt such a fast change, resulting in mass extinction. There are certainly other factors at play including the decimation of our forests, the acidification of our oceans AND the squandering of fresh water.

 

Population is at the root of all our problems - if we were a small group, our excessive behaviour would be easily accommodated by the environment but we are not - our species is in plague proportions. Nature has strategies to restore balance - starvation, disease even war. We in our "intelligent" but stupid arrogance, are able to avoid or moderate these controls but strangely not our fecundity and go on to increase our abuse of this World.

 

Those trying to predict what our future Earth may look like, can only do so by extrapolating known (historic) data. This is not actually science - it is the same sort of process that  all managers (assets/financial/etc) use to try and plan for the future  - IT DOES NOT ALWAYS PAN OUT but as far as I know is the only way we have of trying to make good decision now, for a chance at a better future.

 

The science is irrefutable, how it is extrapolated  may be debatable, however I don't think the there is any doubt that generations to come will curse their forebears for their greed, short term planning and failure of environmental stewardship.

 

The crazy thing is this is was/is preventable/reversible but those we put into power are doing virtually nothing other than "muddy the waters"  with politically inspired "fake news" designed to keep them in power longer.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

Queensland Gov is dynamite on land clearing and they've heard all the excuses.

 

Wouldn't surprise me if the penalties go to the property, so they nail Mum, grandparents, kids, uncles, cousins wives/partners/temps, employees + repeat the earier farm relations, friends, neighbours etc. They can flick the screen by date and find a single tree gone and when it went.

 

Farmers know the loop holes, not much you can do about vandalism. 

 

 

[spacesailor]

What will Earth look like !.

 

MARS 

 

BUT 

 

If we didn't change to burning coal.

 

There would be no more Wales left in the sea.

 

So choping down all the trees to make charcoal, to me, doesn't make any sense.

 

After coal, choose the next best energy source.

 

spacesailor

 

.

 

 

[Butch]

farmers are smart, if the kids pleads guilty to arson its on their juvenile record and gets expunged.

 

Load of crap!

 

Farmers know the loop holes, not much you can do about vandalism.

 

Second load of crap !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

[onetrack]

There have been mega-droughts and raised climatic temperature variations in many past centuries. The civilisations that failed to adapt to the warmer temperatures collapsed or died out.

 

I say it's far better to adapt to warmer temperatures and a drier rainfall pattern, than trying to reverse the climate in a short period of time, by cutting out the use immediately, of our primary energy sources.

 

I believe we are probably far better off in the long-term, to wind down the use of coal and oil - mostly because of the immediate personal high cost of those products. I hate financing gold-plated Ferraris in Saudi Arabia every time I fill up.

 

Then we have to understand that the current major beneficiaries of mining coal, and extracting oil, are the major manufacturing and service companies, and the oil companies themselves. Think Caterpillar, Schlumberger, Exxon-Mobil, Chevron. 

 

As individual Australians, we get a very poor share of our resources that are being extracted. Gina Hancock gets an outrageous share of our resources.

 

The Weeks Petroleum Royalty still provides massive wealth to many already wealthy investors, let alone Kermit Weeks with his unearned multiple billions, that allows him to play with hundreds of collectable aircraft (Fantasy of Flight museum).

 

But by not going down the road of knee-jerk decisions of the climate change activists, and trying to hold back the waves, we're far better advised to carry out incremental adjustments to reduce our anthropogenic impact on our environment, along with adjustments to our styles of living and farming, to cope with the climatic variations that have been with us since the dawn of time.

 

https://www.labroots.com/trending/earth-and-the-environment/15330/past-megadroughts-what-s

 

 

[pmccarthy]

Very recent research has shown that most atmospheric moisture comes from vegetation, mainly trees, and not evaporation from the oceans. Those charts we were shown at school, with water rising from the sea and turning into clouds, were wrong.

 

so loss of trees is even more important than we thought.

 

 

[turboplanner]

We are told that gases we emit from our Industrial Age rise and are trapped in a layer and this prevents the sun’s rays bouncing off the earth and cooling as they used to, creating a greenhouse effect.

 

can someone explain why the incoming rays don’t also bounce off this same layer?

 

 

[facthunter]

Because they are a different wavelength. A person of your resources should have been able to find that out  .Nev

 

 

[turboplanner]

It’s hard to get the truth; the gases have changed the time scale has changed, the predictions have changed etc. it’s a moving target.

 

 

[octave]

We are told that gases we emit from our Industrial Age rise and are trapped in a layer and this prevents the sun’s rays bouncing off the earth and cooling as they used to, creating a greenhouse effect.

 

can someone explain why the incoming rays don’t also bounce off this same 

 

Turbo that is an inaccurate representstion of what the theory suggests. Trapped in a layer????? The mechanisms has been understood for about 150 years. Optical wavelegths travel from the sun through the atmosphere heating the land and sea where some of this energy is reradiated as infrared  energy. Different molecules absorb infrared at different rates. That is basically the physicc if it.

 

 

[facthunter]

There's constant attempts to confuse by some whose motives would appear somewhat suspect. One comment is" the science is far from settled", usually related to predicting accurately precise aspects of the effect. Trends are more indicative than isolated "weather events". The Greenhouse EFFECT isn't refuted by any respected climatologists as far as I have been able to detect. It's not a recent "thing".nev

 

 

[NT5224]

Quote:/

 

"By your logic only city dwellers deserve fire assistance."

 

No, what I mean, is that City folk very rarely require bushfire fighters. Because they don't live in the bush.

 

Cities rarely lose multiple structures to a single fire, which is a regular outcome of bushfires due to the higher risk posed by locating the buildings too close to very large highly flammable bushland.

 

In this 'user pays'world, why should tree change people avoid proper risk management, and expect others to risk their lives to protect their Greened up tree enclosed (often quite delightful) lifestyle homes?

 

I realise my generalisation doesn't apply to all cases, but there has been a massive number of people moving out to live a better life in more rural settings, and many seem to expect that if there is a sudden danger, that there will always be someone else ready to rush to the rescue. It's the modern mindset.

 

This is absolutely true!

 

if you want to live in the bush, do your firebreaks (although these are useless with the wind behind a fire) and clear or burn around your assets to ensure fire cant reach you. Anything else is irresponsible.

 

And the same applies at a more strategic level.  We need to be much, much better prepared as climate change intensifies fires and risks. Fuel reduction burns and enhanced forestry and landscape management may not have the high drama impact of jet water bombers (and thus appeal to politicans) but realistically informed land management is the only way  Australia will prevent these catastrophic fires in future years.

 

Alan

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

Very recent research has shown that most atmospheric moisture comes from vegetation, mainly trees, and not evaporation from the oceans. Those charts we were shown at school, with water rising from the sea and turning into clouds, were wrong...

 

That would surprise me, PM. Do you have a link to that research?

 

I recall reading, in the early days of radar mapping our oceans, that huge areas of very warm tropical seas lost so much to evaporation that the drop in surface level was measurable.

 

 

 

...so loss of trees is even more important than we thought.

 

So it's even more stupid that LNP governments have watered down laws to stop land clearing.

 

 

[NT5224]

Most capital is spent on cities. Nothing changes there. The majority of people live near the coast and in the cities  Dog knows what will happen to regional and rural areas. Continuing decline I would think. .Looks as though it will turn to desert with a lot of weeds taking over, where there's still enough rain. Nev

 

Agreed

 

This country is undergoing a slow decline in its rural and outback populations  (the people who produce the food that the 90% urban population eat, and who manage the land and keep things in check to prevent natural catastrophes like the current fires).

 

With current round of drought, fires and downwood pressure on agricultural prices  from wholesalers,  we are experiencing increased urban flight. At present, in my area we have on average one soul to manage every 300 square kilometres of country. That isn't enough, and people (especially the young) are fleeing to the cities and intensifying the pattern of urban flight. You can expect more and bigger fires as a consequence of nobody managing the land.

 

Im sorry to come across as negative, but that's the reality of the situation from my perspective.  The problem is so much bigger than 'Can we solve this problem with purchase of a fancy new water bomber?'

 

Alan     

 

 

[kgwilson]

Very recent research has shown that most atmospheric moisture comes from vegetation, mainly trees, and not evaporation from the oceans. Those charts we were shown at school, with water rising from the sea and turning into clouds, were wrong.

 

so loss of trees is even more important than we thought.

 

Most of the atmospheric moisture comes from evaporation of oceanic water in the tropics according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Atmospheric rivers are formed in the tropics and carry the moisture to the higher latitudes. These atmospheric rivers are also generated by equatorial forests such as the Amazon basin and this one sends water vapour in a South Easterly direction that provides a lot of rain to the rest of Brazil. The Amazon has 400 billion trees producing 20 trillion litres of water vapour each day but that is dropping dramatically as the forest is cut down to make way for farming etc. Most though comes from the sea which as we know covers 70% of the earths surface.

 

 

[Yenn]

All well and good to say if you want to live in the bush, cut firebreaks, but we are governed by bureaucrats, who know far better than we do, all about safety.

 

We have to get their permission to do anything, so it doesn’t get done.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

That would surprise me, PM. Do you have a link to that research?

 

I recall reading, in the early days of radar mapping our oceans, that huge areas of very warm tropical seas lost so much to evaporation that the drop in surface level was measurable.

 

So it's even more stupid that LNP governments have watered down laws to stop land clearing.

 

Here’s a link to the article that I read. It seems that I can’t forward the whole article to non- subscribers. Will look further.

 

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24432540-600-earths-most-important-rivers-are-in-the-sky-and-theyre-drying-up/

 

 

[Butch]

Might be of interest!

 

CLIMATE DRIVERS FOR EARLY 2020

 

I will start this section by repeating the warning that I have been sharing with all my readers for many years.

 

An unprecedented extended drought period is developing in this present period. I have forecast this based on

 

the very rare combination of the five strongest drought drivers in our climate system, all being in play at this time.

 

In broad terms, the gravity and solar forces exerted on our climate system by the Sun, Moon and the planetary

 

system produces short-term and long-term climate extremes. This is especially so for Eastern Australia. Regular

 

wet extremes are produced each 37.2 years and then 9-10 years later the dry extremes are produced. During

 

this present drought extreme, these combined drought forces are producing a very rare 297-year low extreme.

 

There is nothing we can do on this earth to counter these cosmic forces, other than to prepare for their impact.

 

Only a very warm Sea Surface Temperature (SST) anomaly “near Australia” can counter these drought forces.

 

Presently there is little sign of that developing. Only a little warming in recent weeks along the northwest coastal

 

regions of WA has occurred which I believe is not enough to reverse the current dry trend.

 

The first of three weak Northeast Air Tide surges came through in early November. The recent Bourke rain event

 

was helped along by the increased moisture flow from the warming of sea surfaces to the northwest of Australia.

 

The second and strongest Northeast Air Tide surge for this year just passed through in late November and - as

 

you have observed - no drought breaking rain was delivered. Only a few small rain events developed across the

 

inland regions of the MDB.

 

The Top End of Australia has one more chance during the last two weeks of 2019 for this Northeast Air Tide

 

system to enhance the monsoon rain systems. Then the first three months of next year will be dominated by the

 

drier Transition Phase of this lunar-driven cycle.

 

Due to the extensive cool sea surface temperature anomalies dominating most coastal regions around Australia,

 

I forecast a general failure of this year’s Summer monsoons. The very cool SST’s currently along all of

 

Queensland’s coastal regions makes it impossible for any strong cyclonic systems to approach Australia from

 

the Pacific. Hence the current MDB drought shows no sign of ending during this Summer and Autumn period.

 

CLIMATE DRIVERS FOR AUTUMN 2020

 

The recent collapse of the late-Winter La Nina trends has been confirmed by further recent declines of the SOI.

 

It now appears we are heading back towards El Nino-type conditions once again. The central and eastern

 

Pacific Ocean surface has also started to warm once again. Thus the cool SST anomalies along the QLD

 

coastal regions are very likely to be maintained. These local cool SST’s are currently enhancing the “cosmicdriven”

 

Eastern Australian drought.

 

During mid to late-Autumn 2020, we will be relying only on the Southern Lunar Air Tides (the weakest for 18.6

 

years) to provide a small positive force for the southern regions of Australia. Unlike last Autumn, these weak

 

Southern Air Tides will not be supported or enhanced by the positive planetary forces that were in play during

 

May-June 2019.

 

This lack of support is because the lunar and planetary cycles shift on an annual basis (i.e. the Lunar Air Tide

 

peak period moves 10 days earlier each year, while the planetary cycle peak moves about one month later each

 

year.) Hence during 2020, these two positive forces will be working separately (about 6 weeks apart) and most

 

likely will not be as productive as they were during the Autumn and early-Winter periods of 2019.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

Who wrote that?

 

 

[Butch]

One of the best weather forecasters in the nation!

 

He has forecast this drought more than 5 years ago.

 

Can't revile who it is as you are supposed to subscribe to get his report.

 

He puts up a good argument that climate change doesn't exist........it is the climate that is changing.

 

Look back in history ...Ice age ....inland seas....nothing is the same as 10,000 years ago.

 

We only have weather records of a few hundred years ... One good volcano eruption or asteroid strike will do more damage in a few minutes than humans have done in the last 400 years!

 

It might be a bit deep and meaningful , but don't get caught up in the MEDIA hype. 

 

 

[skippydiesel]

There have been mega-droughts and raised climatic temperature variations in many past centuries. The civilisations that failed to adapt to the warmer temperatures collapsed or died out.

 

I say it's far better to adapt to warmer temperatures and a drier rainfall pattern, than trying to reverse the climate in a short period of time, by cutting out the use immediately, of our primary energy sources.

 

I believe we are probably far better off in the long-term, to wind down the use of coal and oil - mostly because of the immediate personal high cost of those products. I hate financing gold-plated Ferraris in Saudi Arabia every time I fill up.

 

Then we have to understand that the current major beneficiaries of mining coal, and extracting oil, are the major manufacturing and service companies, and the oil companies themselves. Think Caterpillar, Schlumberger, Exxon-Mobil, Chevron. 

 

As individual Australians, we get a very poor share of our resources that are being extracted. Gina Hancock gets an outrageous share of our resources.

 

The Weeks Petroleum Royalty still provides massive wealth to many already wealthy investors, let alone Kermit Weeks with his unearned multiple billions, that allows him to play with hundreds of collectable aircraft (Fantasy of Flight museum).

 

But by not going down the road of knee-jerk decisions of the climate change activists, and trying to hold back the waves, we're far better advised to carry out incremental adjustments to reduce our anthropogenic impact on our environment, along with adjustments to our styles of living and farming, to cope with the climatic variations that have been with us since the dawn of time.

 

https://www.labroots.com/trending/earth-and-the-environment/15330/past-megadroughts-what-s

 

So we just breed on, regardless of the planet's ability to cope with our consumption &  waste ??? Good plan if your the proverbial " lemming"

 

 

[fly_tornado]

He has forecast this drought more than 5 years ago.

 

predicting droughts is easy, predicting when they break not so much.

 

 

[octave]

It might be a bit deep and meaningful , but don't get caught up in the MEDIA hype.

 

 I would agree don't just rely on the media but look to the most reliable scientific sources. CSIRO, Bom, NASA etc.