The bushfires of 1851-52

[Old Koreelah]

Bjorn Lomborg says the area burned in Australia is deceasing, including the recent fires. I cant copy his chart. See

 

https://m.facebook.com/bjornlomborg/photos/a.221758208967/10158659486713968/?type=3&theater&fbclid=IwAR277Mm7fFm9Sm6KIA7qbDa2xnMUzcs1zSW8sIb0xgpNIYNiKWxfGec469c

 

Who is this person and how reliable is this graph? 

 

Even if this info is to be believed, it's a short historic period, and takes little account of the intensity of fires.

 

 Regular small hazard-reduction burns that allow wildlife to escape and don't hurt the tree canopy cover huge areas. Are they included?

 

 

[Marty_d]

Who is this person and how reliable is this graph? 

 

He's the guy that Tony Abbott tried to install in the University of WA, wanting to spend 4 mill to fund his think tank.

 

UWA then cancelled the idea because the centre lacked academic support.

 

Flinders University tried to grab these funds until the story broke and their staff made it clear exactly what they thought of his lack of scientific and academic credibility.

 

His scientific credibility has also been rated between "low" and "very low" by Climate Feedback, a global network of scientists who assess the accuracy of climate change media coverage.

 

To be fair to the bloke, he also called for all fossil fuel subsidies to be withdrawn, which proves he's not all bad.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

From Wikipedia:

 

Bjorn Lomborg is a Danish author and President of his think tank, Copenhagen Consensus Center. He is former director of the Danish government's Environmental Assessment Institute (EAI) in Copenhagen. He became internationally known for his best-selling and controversial book, The Skeptical Environmentalist (2001), in which he argues that many of the costly measures and actions adopted by scientists and policy makers to meet the challenges of global warming will ultimately have minimal impact on the world's rising temperature.

 

He has been attacked by climate alarmists who have tried to discredit him (as they do to all skeptics)  but so far he has been right. 

 

 

[Litespeed]

If you want to find a scientist (a purported one) getting in the bandwagon of making money......

 

Bjorn Lomberg is your man.

 

 

[old man emu]

Getting back to the idea of managing the land by the use of fire, it's about time that the anti-burn people (environmental radicals, mostly) put down their placards and took time to learn from the minority group they probably march in the streets for.

 

We must swallow our "civilised" pride and ask the people who have managed the fora and fauna of Australia for millennia, how to remove the forest conditions that led to this Summer's catastrophic forest fires. After thousands of years of living in this environment, the Aborigines learned how to generate landscapes that not only made obtaining food easier, but also ensured that stocks of foodstuffs (plant and animal) were not depleted. 

 

As you begin to understand "why?" the early European settlers thought that the Aborigines were maliciously burning the settler's crops, when in fact, the Aborigines probably saw these crops of grain as a type of grass as requiring burning to ensure green feed in Spring and Summer. Burning crop stubble was not a practice in British agriculture because the  what we consider to be stubble today was harvested with the grain head attached leaving only short lengths of stems that could be ploughed back in,

 

 

These were two types of land use whose procedures were diametrically opposed. And one culture was too proud to seek out and listen to the voice of Experience.

 

The Aborigines learned to use fire as an agricultural tool. They didn't rip out unproductive plants, or over-harvest useful ones. They used the condition of the fuel load and the seasonal weather patterns as indicators of when they could carry out controlled burns of small areas. This video gives a good explanation of the way Aborigines used fire to their benefit.

 

 

 

 

[Yenn]

The aborigines didn't have bureaucrats telling them what they could and couldn't do.

 

 

[old man emu]

It's about time that the vociferous radicals amongst the conservationists, who want to ban the use of fire in our forests, were made to complete a 6-month course in aboriginal forestry techniques. Then, perhaps, they could make a positive contribution to the preservation of our unique flora and fauna.

 

 

[Yenn]

What makes you think that student radicals will change their minds?

 

I know a couple who haven't changed much in 50 years,

 

One is a botanist of high repute, but is very much against burning,

 

 

[old man emu]

 One is a botanist of high repute, but is very much against burning,

 

That's what comes from extreme specialisation. People become so focused on the minutiae of their own work that they don't delve into other areas, so when asked to comment on something outside their knowledge, their opinion is worth no more than that of the village idiot.

 

The videos that have been posted about Cultural Burning are conspicuous in one thing. Cultural Burning produces much less smoke than the White man's "controlled burning".

 

 

 

 

Hazard reduction, also known as fuel reduction, is a process that takes place preemptively to protect land and property before a fire approaches. It can be 'targeted burning' of certain areas by professional firefighters to reduce the spread of fires in the near future, but it doesn't always involve burning land. This preventative technique is about lowering the risk of fire spreading to nearby land or vegetation by any means, and can include chopping down trees or removing flammable leaf litter. The aim of hazard reduction is to remove potential fuel for approaching fires, thereby reducing overall risk of combustion. 

 

For thousands of years, Aboriginal people have used fire to hunt and to manage the landscape. Some scientists have argued that when people first arrived in Australia about 45,000 years ago they set a large number of these fires, which reshaped the country's ecosystems. This theory has become an accepted idea.

 

A study from the University of Tasmania examined this theory by analysing the genetic fingerprints of a particular fire-sensitive tree found across the continent. It found that fluctuations in populations of these trees across the continent since the arrival of people were driven primarily by climate, not fire. Aboriginal use of fire seems not have caused a major restructuring of vegetation across the continent. "The effect of Aboriginal landscape burning is a lot more subtle. It's still important, but it's subtle and it's region-specific," the researchers concluded.

 

 

[nomadpete]

I'm not so sure that 'cultural burning' is the answer for every case. Every picture I have seen shows large numbers of people involved in controlling the fire front, and well spread out trees.

 

It would never work in my 'back yard'.

 

Our trees are much closer together and taller. Our eucalyptus canopy is continuous.

 

And it would a very large number of minders (that we'll never find) to walk the fire through the fireground.

 

Also note that the cultural fire practices do nothing to prevent a lightning strike setting fire to the canopy, where the worst crowned out fires become firestorms.

 

Most of our recent catastrophic fires have been proven to have been started by 'dry lightning', in remote areas that have never seen 'cultural burning' because it's too rugged to hunt the frightened animals.

 

 

[old man emu]

It is agreed that cultural burning is labor intensive - but then so is fighting catastrophic fires.

 

Also agreed that cultural burning does not prevent the ignition of fires by lightning. It does, however, prevent the build up of fuel levels that perpetuate a fire started by lightning strike.

 

As for the condition of the canopy, it is clearly stated in the videos that cool burning (cultural burning) keeps fire out of the canopy so that fauna of all types has refuges high above the heat and flames of the ground fire. 

 

Why is it not possible to train the RFS members in the art of cultural burning, and let them do a multitude of small burns at the right time, rather than their hot burns that not only destroy the habitat of the fire grounds, but send polluting clouds of smoke into metropolitan areas?

 

It's time we Europeans got off our high horses and went cap in hand to the people who have the knowledge and experience to manage our forested areas.

 

 

[onetrack]

According to official records, only 15% of bushfires are started by lightning - the other 85% are lit by humans, either accidentally or by intent. Many a campfire or "controlled burn" has got away from people.

 

 

[old man emu]

"Controlled burn", a term which ranks high in the list of oxymorons with "military intelligence"

 

 

[Yenn]

We never had disastrous fires here in Central Qld until a few years ago. The first was a fire on Mt Archer in Rockhampton. It burned out a couple of houses that were at the top of the hill and backed on to the National Park. Read that as fire burned uphill from the park. National Parks do very little to control fires and feature highly in all the subsequent fires in this area.

 

We used to have big fires and at one time I spent about a week fighting them. They were grass fires, the grass would be a metre or more high and go up with a great roar, but it didn't catch the tops of the trees. Mainly because the flames were too cool by the time they got up there, but also because our eucalypts didn't give off combustible gas in the same way as Southern trees do.

 

At the end of a week of fire fighting I woke up to the fact that the landowners were using us to control their burn offs. they didn't want this area burnt and they did want that area burnt. That pissed me off, so we lit up the Southern side of the Dawson Hwy and burnt about 2 miles of backburn. Fire stopped just like that, except for the dead tree that was ablaze and fell across the hwy. but we soon dealt with that and by we I mean the SES, not the firies.

 

Now the bureaucrats control, who can burn and when and we keep getting runaway fires. Plus whenever we have a fire it always seems to feature a National Park.

 

Of course our government crows about how it has provided more and more National Parks, a lot of which were originally Forestry. They don't provide enough money to the parks to do anything more than enable them to watch the weeds grow.

 

Last year the government evacuated the town of Gracemere, which was built on grazing land, surrounded by the aforementioned grass. It would have been possible to run a grader round the edge of the town on the windward side, burn away from the graded strip and stop the fire from reaching the town. Of course it looks good for government to have stepped in and rescued the town from disaster.

 

Those in control don't know hw to control a fire and are afraid to do what is needed in case it gets away, in which case they will be blamed.

 

I see it so many times, a fire which could easily be contained, allowed to get away.