Short and medium term impacts of Australian bushfires

[SirRumpole]

Actually I think this thread could be widened to include the impact of the drought over much of eastern Australia.

Regardless of the cause, the effects are greatly reduced agricultural production, and the possibility of agricultural areas drying up, not just hydrologically but demographically as people move out of agricultural industries.

Where will they go, and what will they do ? They will probably add to congestion stress in the big cities and put more pressure on infrastructure. The investment implications seem fairly obvious, agri businesses will decline, we will have to import more food and a generation of farmers will be ruined.

 

[rederob]

We can also expect a new orchestrated urge to "fight global warming", so reduce competitiveness of Australia and lower A$, maybe even reduced export of coal due to voters pressure while benefiting EV, solar,wind, or maybe even uranium here if the Uranium lobby plays well.
Also an increased radicalisation on both sides of politics here

This was from your opening post.
You opened the door, and now want to close it.
The difference seems to be that it's the consequences which are detrimental, while there is no evidence that competitiveness is being reduced when acting on emissions reduction given the level of new job creation in renewables sectors.
And in terms of how Australia's situation affects global investment we see headlines like this.
Bushfires are seen as a symptom, and the investment community's diagnosis is to avoid the cause wherever possible.
Deny reality as much as you like, but these are effects which flow through the economy and markets.

 

[barney]

I've read the bulk of this thread and have not made any comments …. but I have to say, honestly, ….. I have appreciated all the input.

Obviously the odd few folk here don't exactly see eye to eye (slash/ would like to kill and destroy the other party with a pitchfork ... JK of course ….. hopefully)

I suspect you guys would more than likely have a great old chin wag down at the local pub cursing and ridiculing each other till the 10th beer, then probably walk home discussing the weekly footy results

Differences of opinion are what makes a Forum interesting … carry on as you were

 

[Smurf1976]

But apparently it's wrong to actually address why the thread even has importance.

Not wrong, just not the intended focus.

Someone could discuss the health impacts of being 5, 10, 20 or however many kg overweight without discussing healthy diet or exercise. That's not denial and it doesn't mean anyone's saying it's not a problem, it's just choosing to focus on the detail of what the impacts actually are rather than on how to avoid them. Same concept.

 

[rederob]

Not wrong, just not the intended focus.

Well, here is what @qldfrog wanted the focus to be as made clear in his OP:

SO let's watch this from an investor's view

@Smurf1976's analogy would hold true if the only thing that could be considered were discrete measurables such as actual costs to an affected farmer, or total cost to an affected community, etc..
But most investors are not part of the group directly affected by the discrete measurables of bushfires.
@Smurf1976 and I are investors, and I dare day everyone reading this is also likely to be "in the market."
While it would be enlightening to know the measurables, they will be far less important than me knowing that my investment in an insurance company will not just be taking a hit this year, but the likelihood is that this will be an ongoing and worsening theme.
We, as investors, will also take a broader view in that our investment decisions are based on a degree of (sometimes imperfect) knowledge. If we see a theme sweeping through the market we can ride it for a profit, eg if there's a conflict in the Strait of Hormuz then get into some oilers. Or if you are in the market for income rather than growth, you will divest your exposure in certain sectors because they are out of cycle, are being affected by changing sentiment or some other obvious reason, eg oversupply if it's into some form of commodity.
It is wholly disingenuous of @qldfrog to clearly state what he wanted from the outset, and then want his thread to be closed because he is unhappy that it is not saying the things he wanted it to say.

 

[rederob]

My ideas are not antiquated, yours are just delusional. I have a completely realistic view of coal. It's dirty etc, it'll one day be abandoned, that may be only decades away and it may be less than one decade before coal use begins to decline, but *coal use is still increasing*. It's ridiculous to call something 'antiquated' when it is still expanding. I'm not saying I love it or want it to expand or anything, but I do have a realistic understanding of the reality of the situation.

Your view is antiquated because it reflects only "demand," and there are greater influences at play, including the likelihood of a price on carbon.

It's off topic so I won't dwell on it, but obviously insurance companies will use any excuse they can to charge more money, even if it's not justified.

Venice's floods were incidental, but my point related to certain risks being either uninsurable in future (depending on location, etc.) or priced out of the market. So in the event of future bushfires affected farmers would have no capital to continue their operations.

How do you figure this makes any sense? It's comical that you assert people fall into two categories: one category understands and believes in climate change and is dying from it. The other category doesn't believe in it and isn't suffering!

This was your categorisation as my point was about the fact that if you have been affected by bushfires then you will understand the impact of climate change in a way which is real and personal.

 

[Sdajii]

Your view is antiquated because it reflects only "demand," and there are greater influences at play, including the likelihood of a price on carbon.

So China is going to start paying a price on carbon in any significant way?

Carbon tax is for the most part just an excuse to raise revenue. We're still going to see coal being burned where it's economical, and a tax may be put on it which means the government gets some revenue. In some cases this will add to the push towards alternatives, sure, but it's not like that's going to cause sudden change in the near future. I'm entirely aware that coal will be phased out eventually, and that's a good thing, but it's not like we're going to see coal consumption reduce any time soon. 10 years ago many people were saying it was already dying out, many people have been saying for 10 years or so that coal is being phased out (consumption dropping). Many people I talk to insist that China is reducing its usage of coal and they outright disbelieve me when I say they are building new coal-fueled plants and increasing consumption. A carbon tax is about reducing carbon output and not about revenue in a similar way to speeding fines being about reducing speeding. In both cases it's a game of cat and mouse the cats don't want to win. It's similar to cigarette taxes and many other examples. There may be some tangible effect of the 'efforts', but in reality the government doesn't want to eliminate the 'problem' because the revenue stream will stop. In some ways a carbon tax will cause governments to become addicted to industry using things like coal and they will actually find sneaky ways to encourage industry to stay with it, because if they can tax coal while they need to subsidise solar/wind/etc, well, it doesn't take a genius so perhaps even you can see it.

Venice's floods were incidental, but my point related to certain risks being either uninsurable in future (depending on location, etc.) or priced out of the market. So in the event of future bushfires affected farmers would have no capital to continue their operations.

Do you even know what planet you're on?

This was your categorisation as my point was about the fact that if you have been affected by bushfires then you will understand the impact of climate change in a way which is real and personal.

Apparently you don't.

Incidentally, I was in the middle of the Black Saturday fires, the family business burned down. It isn't the only bushfire I've been in.

 

[Logique]

I thought this thread had disappeared. But no, it's just in the Trading and Investment threads .

As ever, Joe is the voice of cool reason. So in this context - I think an on-ground workforce of natural area hazard reduction planners and ground crews - would be a far more efficient fiscal/ecological investment in the protection of our native bushland areas.

That is, if the General Napoleons of the NSW Rural Fire Service could live without their $$ thousands per hour airforce of show pony water bombers - and the live TV crosses standing next to the Premier (hint: ..they couldn't).

 

[Logique]

When will we ever learn? So many decades of experience-based wisdom that has been unlearned. The real casualty is natural areas biodiversity, cooked in unnecessarily hot wildfires, plus the human lives of the people caught up in these conflagrations

When Will We Ever Learn?
by Jim Hoggett & Aled Hoggett
IPA Backgrounder, Vol. 16/2, 2004
Conclusion
....The broad credo of governments is to preserve all ecological values everywhere in a centrally planned ecology. This is patently unachievable...

 

[qldfrog]

When will we ever learn? So many decades of experience-based wisdom that has been unlearned. The real casualty is natural areas biodiversity, cooked in unnecessarily hot wildfires, plus the human lives of the people caught up in these conflagrations

Indeed interesting but not pc article here with good figures
http://www.newsweekly.com.au/nwmobile/article.php?id=58792

 

[rederob]

Indeed interesting but not pc article here with good figures
http://www.newsweekly.com.au/nwmobile/article.php?id=58792

Or you could read what is found when the topic is expertly studied and the real culprit is exposed.
What is galling is that while everyone who has vast experience of recent bushfires and uses the term "unprecedented", a lickspittle to conservatism makes the claim it is not, and without any evidence.
These recent bushfires will be reviewed in depth and the truth will out, just as it did for Queensland last year when extreme bushfire events were reported on and found amongst other things, that "... unprecedented is the catastrophic fire weather that was observed at Rockhampton...."

 

[kahuna1]

An excellent article ...

factual ... and blunt. Whilst not the 1973 total, which is double where we are now ... its not even summer.

Unprecedented is used ... abused and denied ... this time however read and possibly learn ?

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...-factcheck-are-this-years-fires-unprecedented

At 1.7 million hectares, unlike most fire seasons, this one has mainly occurred in Spring and if you note the years following very bad ones not many fires thankfully break out. This year, sadly with little moisture in the soil and it being tinder dry, 2020 and the main Summer months likely to be not great.

Hope for rain, and not too much pain or loss of property or life.

Denial works if your that type of person, sadly, this clearly is not a typical fire season and reading this excellent article putting debate aside, I can only conclude this sadly is very much out of the ordinary.

Throwing a tantrum if someone mentions climate change or having record temperatures in most places early 2019 and a drought ... is what it is. They occurred and yet again records are still tumbling, ones unseen prior to now.

Whilst not a peak, at my property up north the temp hit 42 degrees the other day, not a record as that was 43 degrees but humidity was 9% ... and yes we have droughts, this one has 23% of the average rain for the last 7 years having hit the ground.

 

[Logique]

Indeed interesting but not pc article here with good figures http://www.newsweekly.com.au/nwmobile/article.php?id=58792

Excellent piece, and a good summary of the issues.

...“burning 1-2 per cent [of forested areas in WA] is largely ineffective”. There is “a tipping point … We need to get up to the 8 per cent mark for it to have any significant effect for reducing the severity and scale of wildfires”...(above link)

 

[Jack Aubrey]

Indeed interesting but not pc article here with good figures
http://www.newsweekly.com.au/nwmobile/article.php?id=58792

Some good points but the "data" is cherry-picked. Several of those Inquiries, going back to the 1939 fires, also pointed to fires starting as a result of ill-timed, privately organised hazard reduction burning.

I also wonder why it concentrates on the Victorian situation when most of the recent/current fires are in NSW and SE Queensland. Most States have a 5% to 8% target for off-season hazard reduction but have 1) failed to resource the responsible agencies to achieve it, and 2) have been struggling to find a sufficient weather widows to do it safely. Getting the volunteers trained and out in the field week after week is also becoming harder for a range of reasons.

Even achieving their targets would not help in many cases. The NSW RFS Chief is on record as saying that some of the NSW fires actually started in areas that did have recent burns. The exceptionally dry weather causes Eucalyptus to shed bark and leaves at an increased rate and many undergrowth shrubs to die back to a dry, twiggy mess, meaning a couple of years is all that is needed to accumulate sufficient fuel loads. Once one of these fires starts in these conditions and reaches canopy height in strong winds and low humidity, no amount of prior hazard reduction will help stop its rapid spread.

Like others, I'd like to see the results of a proper inquiry before any blame gets laid (if, indeed, blame is required).

This "blame the Greens" stuff is, IMO, just a politically motivated diversion. They have no power (except here in the ACT, where hazard reduction burns are a standard feature of our winters) and have policies in support of hazard reduction. Of the three "extreme" greenies I know, two live in the country and are volunteers with their local RFS and spend their winter weekends on standby for prescribed burns. The other participates in regular hazard reduction through National Parks Volunteers. I certainly don't deny that in some localities residents may raise "green" concerns about particular off-season burning plans but these are generally motivated by property or health concerns.

That article also seems to be based on a beef about Victorian forest policy which I don't really understand. But contrasting some mythical nirvana of "selective logging" with a total "no-go - lock-it-up" policy totally ignores the fact that most State Forestry authorities have a) been on notice for at least 30 years that their practices must change on both environmental and economic grounds, and b) most of them have anyway moved to extraction by large-scale clear-felling of native and plantation forests in order to remain even slightly viable. I haven't seen a traditional "selective-logging" commercial operation in the southern States for a long time.

Finally, on the issue of the term "unprecedented", I'd just note that the term was used by fire chiefs in relation to the number of major fires out of control at the same time so early in the fire season, and, possibly, to the coincidence of very dry conditions (drought) and the “sudden stratospheric warming” which generated the extreme heat and wind over Eastern Australia. Sudden stratospheric warming is real and not related, as far as I know, to AGW. They were not talking about the actual scale of the fires or damage to property and human life.

Like any complex event, there will be different interpretations of causes and "what we should have done" but making it ideological seems silly to me. I always subscribe to two maxims:

1) If there is a choice between a stuff-up and a conspiracy, go with the stuff-up every time (P. J. Keating); and

2) For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. (H. L. Mencken)

 

[Value Collector]

The medium term impact of the fires is increased demand and increased economic activity as the affected areas are rebuilt.

 

[qldfrog]

Some good points but the "data" is cherry-picked. Several of those Inquiries, going back to the 1939 fires, also pointed to fires starting as a result of ill-timed, privately organised hazard reduction burning.

I also wonder why it concentrates on the Victorian situation when most of the recent/current fires are in NSW and SE Queensland. Most States have a 5% to 8% target for off-season hazard reduction but have 1) failed to resource the responsible agencies to achieve it, and 2) have been struggling to find a sufficient weather widows to do it safely. Getting the volunteers trained and out in the field week after week is also becoming harder for a range of reasons.

Even achieving their targets would not help in many cases. The NSW RFS Chief is on record as saying that some of the NSW fires actually started in areas that did have recent burns. The exceptionally dry weather causes Eucalyptus to shed bark and leaves at an increased rate and many undergrowth shrubs to die back to a dry, twiggy mess, meaning a couple of years is all that is needed to accumulate sufficient fuel loads. Once one of these fires starts in these conditions and reaches canopy height in strong winds and low humidity, no amount of prior hazard reduction will help stop its rapid spread.

Like others, I'd like to see the results of a proper inquiry before any blame gets laid (if, indeed, blame is required).

This "blame the Greens" stuff is, IMO, just a politically motivated diversion. They have no power (except here in the ACT, where hazard reduction burns are a standard feature of our winters) and have policies in support of hazard reduction. Of the three "extreme" greenies I know, two live in the country and are volunteers with their local RFS and spend their winter weekends on standby for prescribed burns. The other participates in regular hazard reduction through National Parks Volunteers. I certainly don't deny that in some localities residents may raise "green" concerns about particular off-season burning plans but these are generally motivated by property or health concerns.

That article also seems to be based on a beef about Victorian forest policy which I don't really understand. But contrasting some mythical nirvana of "selective logging" with a total "no-go - lock-it-up" policy totally ignores the fact that most State Forestry authorities have a) been on notice for at least 30 years that their practices must change on both environmental and economic grounds, and b) most of them have anyway moved to extraction by large-scale clear-felling of native and plantation forests in order to remain even slightly viable. I haven't seen a traditional "selective-logging" commercial operation in the southern States for a long time.

Finally, on the issue of the term "unprecedented", I'd just note that the term was used by fire chiefs in relation to the number of major fires out of control at the same time so early in the fire season, and, possibly, to the coincidence of very dry conditions (drought) and the “sudden stratospheric warming” which generated the extreme heat and wind over Eastern Australia. Sudden stratospheric warming is real and not related, as far as I know, to AGW. They were not talking about the actual scale of the fires or damage to property and human life.

Like any complex event, there will be different interpretations of causes and "what we should have done" but making it ideological seems silly to me. I always subscribe to two maxims:

1) If there is a choice between a stuff-up and a conspiracy, go with the stuff-up every time (P. J. Keating); and

2) For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. (H. L. Mencken)

Jack i liked not that i agree with all points but neither should anyone expect that unless with fanatics, but at last a sensible argumented answer.thanks
Wish there was more of this in the GW thread
Have a nice week end
I can definitively tell you that when my land will burn in Brisbane hinterland, it will be catastrophic and primarily due to burn off failure and vegetation laws as well as planning of development
As to victoria no local clue

 

[Jack Aubrey]

Jack i liked not that i agree with all points but neither should anyone expect that unless with fanatics, but at last a sensible argumented answer.thanks
Wish there was more of this in the GW thread
Have a nice week end
I can definitively tell you that when my land will burn in Brisbane hinterland, it will be catastrophic and primarily due to burn off failure and vegetation laws as well as planning of development
As to victoria no local clue

Thanks. Stay safe frog.

 

[rederob]

The medium term impact of the fires is increased demand and increased economic activity as the affected areas are rebuilt.

The short term impact is "rebuilding," with materials and labour being sourced beyond immediately affected communities.
The other impacts relate to increased debt and the consequent ability to service that debt in communities with lesser disposable incomes and livelihoods that are more borderline as each year passes.
You will need to explain how increasing levels of debt can lead to increasing economic activity as, for example, with livestock farming it takes years to get herd sizes to viable levels.

 

[rederob]

Excellent piece, and a good summary of the issues.

@qldfrog's linked article said this, and it was false:

"Contrary to claims by the Greens and environment ideologues that this season’s fires are the result of human-caused climate change, the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) warned in September that a severe drought was likely, due to a40-degree warming of the atmosphere 30 kilometres above Antarctica in just a few days."​

Dr Hendon, (not Heddon) actually said:

"We looked at what happened over that period and we're pretty confident that we will see an increase in temperatures and a decrease in rainfall in central-eastern Australia in the following months."​

Ill informed ideologues like Pat Byrne fail to understand that attribution and severity are categorically separate to climate change.
The issue of “sudden stratospheric warming” is a bit like that of hurricanes/cyclones. They are natural phenomena, but are being amplified by the increased energy in the climate system. That is a simple fact of physics.

 

[Value Collector]

The short term impact is "rebuilding," with materials and labour being sourced beyond immediately affected communities.
The other impacts relate to increased debt and the consequent ability to service that debt in communities with lesser disposable incomes and livelihoods that are more borderline as each year passes.
You will need to explain how increasing levels of debt can lead to increasing economic activity as, for example, with livestock farming it takes years to get herd sizes to viable levels.

a large proportion of the rebuilt will be funded by multinational insurance companies, so you will have a lot of funds that are currently stored in US bonds and equities flow into the hands of local tradesmen and women.