Bushfires: Coalition deploys straw man against burning issue of climate change
Government is desperate to keep bushfires and climate change apart for fear its emissions reduction policy will be found wanting
Lenore Taylor
The Abbott government is desperately constructing a straw man to help it fight the potentially big political problem of rising public concern about climate change and scrutiny of its Direct Action policy.
The straw man is the contention that anyone making a perfectly reasonable and scientifically justifiable point – that climate change is likely to cause a higher prevalence of the weather conditions that pose a bushfire risk – has actually been making the unreasonable and scientifically unjustifiable point that climate change has caused a particular fire.
And once the straw man contention has been ridiculed, the Coalition quickly skips over the justifiable connection and contends that fires are “part of the Australian experience” and that nothing different is happening.
The straw man was wielded most recently against the executive secretary of the United Nations framework convention on climate change, Christiana Figueres, who said in an interview with CNN there was “absolutely” a link between climate change and bushfires.
She did not say that climate change causes bushfires. She did say climate change causes increasing heatwaves – in other words, bushfire weather.
interesting to note no major bush fire since European settlement has occurred before December.
The Canberra Times, August 21, 1994:
EARLY start to bushfire season.
The Canberra Times, September 27, 1965:
HOTTEST September Day. Early bushfires widespread.
Sydney Morning Herald, October 24, 1951:
FIREFIGHTERS battled yesterday with more than 100 bushfires near Sydney and in the country.
SMH, October 25, 1951:
HUGE N.T. Blaze ... Biggest Fire Ever.
SMH October 25, 1951:
BUSHFIRES Devastate 64 State Forests ... described as "the worst in history".
SMH October 25, 1951:
BUSHFIRE in N.S.W. in the last 10 days have destroyed at least 250 million super feet of timber
SMH October 12, 1948:
QUEENSLAND'S Director of Meteorological Services, Mr. A. S. Richards, last night described the dust storm as one of the worst in ... history.
SMH, October 13, 1948:
MORE than 40 homes were threatened by bushfires in the Mount Colah district yesterday.
SMH October 22, 1948:
BUSH Fire Threatens Farms Near Mona Vale. Thirty firemen, police, and civilians fought throughout last night and early this morning to prevent bushfires engulfing two Mona Vale farm properties.
SMH, October 28, 1948:
MANY Bushfires ... as the temperature again soared over 90 degrees to set a four-year record.
The Brisbane Courier, September 27, 1932:
HUGE Bushfire. Farms In Danger. Rockhampton Menace.
SMH, October 8, 1928:
FIRES and Storm. The city was encircled by bushfires, and many buildings were Unroofed. ... In common with the greater part of NSW and the whole of the southern states, the city experienced an exceptional wind storm and excessive heat, which created a maximum of discomfort. In the early afternoon, great volumes of dust from inland districts and smoke from extensive bush fires produced a thick yellow haze.
Townsville Daily Bulletin, September 26, 1918:
A TERRIFIC Bushfire - Enormous Damage In Tambo District. Mitchell
... “Twenty-nine years, 14, 11, nine, six, four … you might detect a pattern in that in that the gap between the fires is getting shorter,” he noted ...
BHP boss rejects climate change criticism
You should juxtapose natural bushfires, accidental bushfires and deliberately-lit bushfires against those gaps.
Also some measure of development in those areas.
Else totally misleading!!!
Just completely untrue, syd and Knobby. See Calliope's list (which I was about to go and dig out from my copy of The Australian).interesting to note no major bush fire since European settlement has occurred before December.
It may be interesting, but it is also bullsh!t.And this list doesn't include November!
Nice comment from The Guardian which identifies and skewers) the straw man argument Tony Abbott is using with regard to bushfires in Australia.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/24/bushfires-coalition-straw-man-against-burning-issue
Nope nothing happening here keep moving........... WA's records every time I look at them I weep
http://www.watercorporation.com.au/water-supply-and-services/rainfall-and-dams/streamflow
The real problem, with your data and argument is, iFocus, that warmists have overegged it.
We are looking at computer projections and data input.
You may very well be correct, you may be not.
It has been presented though in an anorak and thong method of political debate, akin to godbothering, by sad sacks agin everything modern.
"Repent ye eejits, or ye will burn." type people.
We need to look at data sans godbothering.
Flannery and his ilk have damaged the cause of science for decades.
gg
Wildfires have been occurring long before man started 'polluting the atmosphere with carbon'.
Our original inhabitants were well aware of this and took steps to mitigate this by burning off when appropriate.
Something that Greens have slapped a massive handbrake on.
Who is more responsible for, and aware of, the environment - the original Aborigines or the Greens?
I was right next to the bushfires in Kelmscott, in the Perth Hills, a couple of years ago. The only thing that stopped that fire from sweeping down the hill front that faces us and annihilating our neighbours was the prescribed burning and clearing of paths for firefighting units that happened only 6 months before.
Eye witness proof that prescribed burns work. No amount of climate change would have burnt that hillside.
If you wish to look for a reason for the prevelance of large bush fires, look no further than the levels of fuel load & the number of miscreant humans populating the earth (arsonists, cigarette butt flickers etc).
Was the army not responsible for the fires in NSW?
When you have an agenda (Bandt) it is more convenient to point to what suits your cause.
... Or as most people here believe "the issue that isn't real"
I agree with your thoughts GG unfortunately CC is real for the SW corner of WA and the fire seasons issues that go with it I get my fire pumps out tomorrow.
Basilio, as you either:
a) are having difficulties with English comprehension, or
b) just being a petulant child,
allow me to clarify something.
There has never been any directive that climate change cannot be discussed, ever. There was however a suggestion that the Abbott thread was not the place for alarmist propaganda and evangelizing. That is all.
Now, would you please behave in manner commensurate with your chronological age.
Thanks
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