Bushfires Archives - thegoodwills.com

Extreme weather reminds us of Black Summer

black-summer-extreme-weather — Photo: View from our veranda, Yangan November 2019 (see after photo below). BW

As Australia Day passes by, is it safe yet to say the eastern seaboard of Australia has dodged a ‘Black Summer’ in 21/22? This typically runs from December to May in most parts of Australia. Too soon?

The 2020-2021 bushfire season so far is relatively subdued due to the effects of La Nina and the wet winter and spring it brought in many parts of Australia.

We’ve seen some freaky weather, though, including heat-waves, a cyclone and hail storms. Reports of bush fires from far away Western Australia this month may have sparked anxiety in those who suffered through Black Summer in 2019.

The WA coastal town of Onslow sweltered through a 50.7C day this month, equalling a 62-year-old record set in Oodnadatta. The ABC observed that if confirmed, this will be only the fourth day over 50C for an Australian location since reliable observations began.

It is apparent that climate change will rank among the top three issues debated in the upcoming Federal election.

There is concern at the top end of town, with a survey by Deloitte’s revealing that 77% of business executives think the world is at a “tipping point”. The global survey found that businesses are starting to take action, but the level of action often doesn’t match the scale and urgency of business and moral concerns expressed in the survey.

Whatever we as individuals think about how the Federal Government is handling climate change policy, the world has already judged us.

Australia’s latest climate policies are failing to “take advantage of its potential” and it ranks last among nations surveyed, according to the 2022 Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI).

Advocacy group Germanwatch ranks the performance of 63 nations and the European Union on each country’s progress working towards goals in the Paris Agreement.

Australia slipped from 54^th place overall to 59^th, well below other developed countries. Australia was rated last on the climate policy table (64^th), the worst of the bottom 15 countries rated as “very poor”.

“The (Australian) government does not have any policies on phasing out coal or gas, but CCUS (carbon capture, utilisation and storage) and hydrogen are being promoted as low-emissions technologies,” the report said.

Experts consulting to the report said Australia’s international standing has been damaged by climate denialism by politicians. A “lack of ambition” and refusal to recommit to international green finance mechanisms. https://ccpi.org/

The Climate Council’s extreme Weather Communication Guide, available in 10 different languages, explains how cyclones, flooding, bush fires, heat waves, and poor air quality are being supercharged by climate change.

The Climate Council’s Nathan Hart said Australians were already paying the price for more frequent and severe extreme weather.

He cited floods in Maryborough, QLD, and the Top End, fuelled by ex-tropical cyclone Tiffany.

The independent, not-for-profit Climate Council was launched not long after incoming Prime Minister Tony Abbott scrapped the Australian Climate Commission in September 2013.

The Climate Council’s chief councillor is Professor Tim Flannery, who also chaired the ACC. Prof Flannery and Climate Council councillor Greg Mullins (former Commissioner, Fire and Rescue NSW) are the faces behind an award-winning documentary, Burning.

The climate change documentary was first shown at the COP26 conference in Glasgow and was released on Prime Video and distributed to 260 countries.

The documentary about Australia’s devastating Black Summer was directed by Australian film-maker Eva Orner. The film recaps the Black Summer bush fires that scorched Australia in 2019-20. More than 450 Australians were killed, either directly by the fires or from the toxic air that covered three of Australia’s major cities for weeks. The fires burnt over 18 million hectares, destroyed 3,113 homes and killed 3 billion animals. Former Fire Commissioner Greg Mullins features in the film.

“I’ve never seen fires like it and I hope I never will again,” he said. “Sadly though, we are going to see more Black Summers – and even worse. Despite the extreme danger we face, the federal government refuses to ramp up emissions cuts this decade or to embrace Australia’s incredible renewable potential.

“Not long after the flames had settled, the COVID-19 pandemic rolled in and the world moved on. But for survivors, fire-fighters, business owners and mental health workers, the road to recovery was only just beginning.”

In some small way we count ourselves among the millions of Australians who suffered physical and mental anguish during the Black Summer fires.

I recall going to see a GP in late 2019 about some unrelated complaint. He scrolled through my records and asked if my asthma was worse than usual. A Monash University study found there were 6% more weekly emergency department presentations for respiratory disease and 10% more cardiovascular presentations compared to the previous two fire seasons. The study was the first to look at the impact of bush fires on actual ED attendance numbers.

In Australia, during the 2019-20 season, the density of particulate matter in the air peaked on 14 January – at fourteen times more than the historically highest level previously recorded. According to Monash’s Professor Yuming Guo, it is known that PM1.0, PM 2.5 – the two most common particle-sized matter in smoke – can cause respiratory disease, chronic obstructive disease, pulmonary disease and asthma.

“The results indicate that the unprecedented bush fires led to a huge health burden, showing a higher risk in regions with lower socio-economic areas and more bush fires,” Professor Guo said.

Hence my GP asking about asthma. At the time we were living at Yangan, 18 kms from Warwick in the foothills of the Dividing Range. Long-burning bush fires in the hills shrouded the valley in smoke most days. On occasions, it was so bad it drifted into town (Warwick). Asthma aside, the constant pall of smoke, the visible fires (at night) and the unpredictability of bush fires made us anxious.

The University of Western Australia conducted a survey of professional and volunteer fire-fighters after Black Summer which reveals the extent of mental anguish among those who battled the blazes.

The survey identified a third of volunteers and a quarter of employees had felt there was a time when their life was threatened by the fires. Some 4.6% of volunteers and 5.5% of employees had since shown very high psychological distress indicative of serious mental illness.

A study published last October found the physical and mental impacts of exposure to smoke from the black summer fires was likely greatly underestimated by official health statistics.

Prof Iain Walker of the Australian National University surveyed 2,084 adults affected by the bush fires close to Canberra.

“Virtually all of them – 97% – said they had experienced at least one physical symptom attributed to the smoke. Half of respondents reported symptoms of anxiety and depression, as well as sleep loss.

“Only one in five people sought medical attention for their symptoms, suggesting the breadth of health impacts was far greater than the number of cases officially recognised by the health system,” Walker said.

“A much wider segment of the population was exposed to bushfire smoke than bush fires directly.”

Yes, and how we still remember that late afternoon in 2019 singing Christmas carols in Warwick’s main intersection. A sudden change of wind brought clouds of bushfire smoke rolling into town like a London fog. We all ran for our cars, forced to put the lights on to drive home.

But then, after some rain…

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Native forests recover from bushfires

native-forests-bushfires — Blackdown Tableland National Park, September 2020

We were at least one kilometre into a bush walk at Blackdown Tableland National Park in central Queensland before realising it was recovering from a bushfire. Such is the extent of regrowth since September 2018, it is only when you see trees that have been completely hollowed out by fire that you become aware.

She Who Bush Walks pointed out what she called ‘epicormic growth’ which is what occurs when buds buried beneath the bark of a burned tree burst into life.

You might recall hearing about this particular fire, two years ago to the day, when eleven tourists became trapped at the park’s feature attraction, Rainbow Falls. A fire and rescue worker was winched down from a helicopter to take charge of the eight adults and three children and lead them to safety.

At the time, fire was also raging 300kms away in Carnarvon Gorge National Park, which from all reports has also bounced back from the ravages of fire.

When fire burns out a patch of bush, it is not the ecological disaster it may at first seem. Fire burns plant material above the ground surface, which clears the way for new growth once the ground has cooled and there is follow-up rain.

According to educational material prepared by the Tropical Savannas Cooperative Research Centre & Bushfire CRC, regrowth primarily comes from above-ground re-sprouting.

“ While many trees are killed by total defoliation following a fire, some can re-sprout from epicormic buds, which are buds positioned beneath the bark. Eucalyptus trees are known for their ability to vegetatively regenerate branches along their trunks from buds”.

“Below-ground roots and underground stems can also survive because soil is a good insulator. Plants survive fires by re-sprouting from basal stems, roots and horizontal rhizomes”.

We explored several tracks in the park although after about 8 kms we did not have the energy to climb down to the rockpools (and back up again), fed by Rainbow Falls. The latter is popular with central Queensland residents and holiday makers, who can either camp in the park or travel from campgrounds and accommodation at nearby Dingo or Bluff. (above, epicormic growth).

The park ecology has certainly thrived since recent rainfall. Wildflowers were proliferating along the trails and it was great to see vigorous new growth climbing up the sides of burned trees.

We encountered a group of Aboriginal families, descended from the original inhabitants, exploring the culture trail with a couple of Rangers. A bluff at Blackdown Tableland is the site of a sandstone overhang, under which rock stencils are preserved

The traditional owners, the Gunghalin people, manage the 47,950ha Blackdown Tableland in a co-operative venture with the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service. As part of this agreement, 70ha has been set aside as a conservation site for cultural purposes.

We chatted to an older woman on the cultural trail who explained why she was going ‘Cooee’ every now and then: “I’m letting the ancestors know I’m here,” she said.

Despite the progressive nature of this management agreement, I could not help but feel a twinge of white settler guilt when reading the history of the park.

Blackdown Tableland National Park was settled as a grazing homestead and perpetual lease property in 1869. Settler William Yaldwin named the tableland after the family home, Blackdown House, in Sussex, England. In more recent times, Blackdown Tableland was gazetted as a State forest and timber extraction site because of its store of valuable hardwood timbers. QPWS says most of the pastoral artefacts are being allowed to decay naturally into the landscape. Wildfires have caused damage to the cattle yards and fences at Mimosa Creek campground.

This week’s FOMM coincides with the first anniversary of the catastrophic ‘Black Summer’ bushfire season across six States and Territories.

The 2019-2020 bushfire season began as early as August in some states and at its worst in February had burned out 17 million hectares.

The statistics are confronting, so I apologise in advance to those directly affected for bringing this up again.

Across six months fire caused:

33 deaths (including nine firefighters);
the loss of 3,094 homes;
5,000 people to become homeless;
the loss of one billion native mammals, birds and reptiles;
More than 85% of the World Heritage Listed Blue Mountains reserve in NSW to be affected;
Fire damage in 153 parks and reserves, 55 of them suffering comprehensive damage;

The Bureau of Meteorology concluded that the fires were the largest by geographic area in modern times. About half of the fires were started by lighting strikes. The rest were said to be of ‘human origin’, the majority accidentally started.

In late September 2019, we left our home of 17 years in the Sunshine Coast hinterland for a new adventure on the Southern Downs. Our temporary home was a 1950s farm cottage at Yangan, 18 kms from Warwick, while waiting for settlement on the house we were buying in town.

Because of serial fires burning in the high country around Cunningham’s Gap and the surrounding areas, the whole valley was often blanketed in dense bushfire smoke. At night you could see the flames licking the tops of the hills. As the weather warmed through October and November we often had to keep the house closed up. Some days the smoke was so bad we could not go outdoors. The towns of Warwick and Stanthorpe were also affected by smoke.

The reprieve came in January with a solid day of rain, followed by heavier falls that topped up our new rainwater tank and partially replenished the town dams. We’re still on water restrictions though, despite a cumulative total of about 450mm for calender 2020.

A year on, after the public in general donated more than $500 million, many people left homeless by the Black Summer bushfires are still living in caravans and tents or sharing homes with friends and relatives.

Despite some decent winter rain, many parts of Australia are still in drought, with dozens of towns on water restrictions. Television news footage of wildfires in California’s Napa Valley this week will be provoking anxiety among survivors of last year’s bushfires.

The Bureau of Meteorology, meanwhile, is confidently forecasting La Nina weather conditions in 2020-2021, which means rain and more rain and an early wet season for the tropical north.

People in the bush, where droughts and bushfires are part of everyday life, tend to be stoic. But on our western journey, it became evident that 2020 has left its mark. COVID-19 restrictions have robbed the outback of its annual influx of tourists and much-needed revenue.

Let’s hope that workers, small businesses, farmers and bushfire victims in rural Australia are not forgotten in next week’s Federal Budget.

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Asthma and Australian Dust Storms

dust-storm-asthma — Australian dust storm September 23, 2009. Image from NASA (CC)

As a kid growing up in the North Island of New Zealand, I don’t recall ever seeing dust storms of the type seen in the Australian outback. In recent weeks, we’ve seen clouds of ochre dust blowing in from South Australia. The worst dust storms converge on the eastern seaboard, shrouding cities in an eerie, fog-like miasma.

You may recall the really bad one (September 2009) when motorists in Sydney and Brisbane drove with their lights on in the middle of the day.

Fortunately, the red dust (which gets into everything), lasts only a few days, although the customary early spring westerlies tend to blow them east in sequence.

While he was writing about the Dust of Uruzgan (Afghanistan) at the time, songwriter Fred Smith could have been describing dust storm conditions in the outback.

“It’s as fine as talcum powder on the ground and in the air
And it gets in to your eyes and it gets in to your hair…
…It gets in the machinery and foils every plan…”

Yes, and it gets in rainwater tanks when the next rains wash the dust off iron roofs. Residents of Auckland, some 1,500 kms away, have previously reported how dust storm drift from Australia turned their roofs a curious pink colour.

While New Zealand can fairly claim that it does not have dust storms in-country, it certainly sees the worst of them drifting across the Tasman. Reports of red ochre dust settling on the New Zealand Alps date back more than a century. You may have seen reports like these in recent years:

A series of dust storms in 2019, intermingling with smoke from bushfires, reached New Zealand\s Southern Alps, some 2,000 kms away. The ABC published photos, taken by adventurer Liz Carlsson, of the Mount Aspiring glacier sporting a red/pink discolouration.

University of Queensland geographer Hamish McGowan told the ABC it was not uncommon for this to occur during periods of severe drought in eastern Australia.

“In the right conditions, dust particles can be blown across the Tasman Sea by north-westerly winds, coming down on the Southern Alps in rain or snow and leaving behind an orange discolouration,” Professor McGowan said.

The same phenomenon can be seen in the Australian Alps. Black or grey discolouration is more likely to be ash falling from bushfire smoke clouds. The population in general is more aware, now that we have the technology to show images taken on mobile devices, or from satellites or drones.

Dust storms quickly remind me that I should take my asthma preventer medication as directed. Like so many asthmatics, I’m guilty of forgetting/ignoring the inhalant medication if I’m feeling free of symptoms. Australia’s 2.7 million asthmatics ought to know that asthma attacks can be random. They are also triggered by air quality factors including industrial air pollution, a high pollen count, smoke, dust and indoor environmental hazards (house dust, pet dander).

I do remember that 2009 dust storm, as we were in Brisbane for Queensland Ballet’s season launch at QPAC. People with any kind of respiratory condition should be on red alert when a dust storm comes calling. Luckily, I had my asthma inhaler with me (and needed it).

The numbers of people presenting at hospital emergency departments with respiratory symptoms were well above average on that day. Analysis of the air pollution found the 2009 dust storm to be far worse than any bushfire or dust storm event of the previous 15 years.

The Environmental Health Journal said extremely high levels of particulate matter were recorded on September 23, 2009.

Daily average levels of coarse matter (<10 microns (μm) peaked over 11,000 μg/m³ and fine (<2.5 μm) particles over 1,600 μg/m³.

The World Heath Organisation guideline is that any level of fine particulate matter over 35 μg/m is considered unhealthy.

(We should also remember that major cities known for air pollution routinely record <2.5 μm levels of 50 and higher).

The EHJ authors reported that the dust storm returned on September 26, with elevated PM (particulate matter) levels of an “unprecedented order of magnitude higher than those experienced during previous years.”

The fine particles are the main problem for people with respiratory complaints, as they deeply penetrate the airways.

The 2009 dust storm originated in drought-stricken western New South Wales. Last week’s storms reportedly started in outback South Australia.

Reports of giant dust storms in Australia pre-date the technology which can now spot them from above. Dust storms were common during the series of droughts that afflicted Australia in the last decade of the 19^th century. Still, scientists are predicting that climate change will make dust storms larger and more frequent.

A Science Daily report predicts that climate change will amplify dust activity in parts of the US in the latter half of the 21st century.

A statistical model developed by researchers at Princeton University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts that climate change may lead to the increased frequency of spectacular dust storms that will have far-reaching impacts on public health and infrastructure.

Despite their dramatic visual impact, Australia’s dust storms are a blip on the the global chart. The World Meteorological Organisation says most sand and dust storms occur in the arid and semi-arid regions of Northern Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Central Asia and China. Australia, America and South Africa make minor, but still important, contributions.

The WMO estimates that 40% of aerosols in the troposphere (the lowest layer of Earth’s atmosphere) are dust particles from wind erosion. Global estimates of dust emissions vary between one and three gigatons per year.

Spectacular though they are when they appear on the horizon, dust storms are infrequent and often blow over in a day or two. Bushfire smoke, however, as the 2019/2020 Black Summer bushfires demonstrated, have far more serious ongoing health effects.

An Asthma Australia report details the effects of the bushfire smoke between July 2019 and March 2020. The air pollution caused a public health emergency, adding to the direct bushfire impacts already felt by communities. Bushfire smoke contains high concentrations of fine particulate matter.

“At its worst, the smoke resulted in the Air Quality Index reaching more than 25 times the hazardous level (in Canberra, January 1 2020),” the report states.

The Air Quality Index reached greater than 10 times the hazardous rating on multiple occasions in certain areas of Sydney between November and January.

“It is estimated the bushfire smoke was responsible for more than 400 deaths, 2,000 respiratory hospitalisations and 1,300 presentations to the Emergency Department for asthma.”

The most recent study by the Australian Bureau of Statistics found that 2.7 million Australians (one in nine or 11.2% of the total population) had asthma in 2017-18.

“Over the last 10 years, the prevalence of asthma increased in the Australian population from 9.9% in 2007-08 to 11.2% in 2017-18″.

This is as good a time as any to remind you that September 1-7 is National Asthma Awareness Week.

Don’t leave home without your puffer.

Bushfires, Methane and the Climate Crisis

methane-climate-change — Nature’s resilience – regrowth in the fire-ravaged Cunningham’s Gap. Photo Laurel Wilson

You’d think those with an interest in promoting the climate crisis would have made more of James Murdoch quitting the family media business.

While there is much to be wary of when considering Murdoch Jnr’s defection, he did make it crystal clear that he and his wife Kathryn disagreed with News Corp’s climate agenda. The first real signs of family business friction emerged last year. James accused News Corp of promoting climate denialism during its coverage of last summer’s Australian bushfires.

University of Sydney professor Rodney Tiffen’s thorough examination of James Murdoch’s chequered history points out that it was James who first persuaded Rupert Murdoch (in 2006) to embrace the climate change cause. While Rupert soon drifted away, James remained committed. Tiffen makes a trenchant point, that Rupert’s conversion had little impact on the company’s journalism:

“Its upper editorial echelons contained a large number of climate denialists, and Rupert seems to have never made any effort to change their views.”

This is an interesting read if you want to be reminded of James Murdoch’s role in the UK phone hacking scandal and management of News Corp’s global satellite TV business.

Despite the claims about climate denialism within News Corp, its Australian flagship has kept up with the topic. You won’t be able to read about it unless you subscribe, but Erin Lyons filed a story on July 29 from a Senate inquiry headlined ‘Unequivocal link between extreme bushfires and climate crisis’.

I note with interest the use of language officially adopted by The Guardian to describe climate change as a ‘crisis’.

Lyons quoted Bureau of Meteorology chief executive Dr Andrew Johnson who said a rise in global emissions was driving up temperatures, which was likely to increase the risk of bushfires.

“Bushfires are starting earlier and ending later. There’s a climate signal in that,” he told the panel. “How that plays out in the future will very much depend on how humanity responds.”

Lyons followed up next day with a story about firefighters and bushfire survivors calling for the fossil fuel industry to pay for the damage.

Almost on cue, the weather map showed the first signs of an early bushfire season, with large swathes of central Western Australia painted red for danger. In southern California, not all that far as the crow flies, the northern summer’s first forest fire forced thousands to flee their homes south of Los Angeles. Here we go again: “There’s always been bush fires.” (Climate change deniers drag out last year’s talking points). No, it’s because of the dangerous build-up of methane in the atmosphere. (Ed: He said, interpreting science, which is a danged dangerous thing for a journalist to do).

The thing is, such is the media pre-occupation with COVID-19 and the risks to Australian (and global) economies, the topic of climate change barely gets a look in. Allow me to fill in the gaps and maybe do a bit of fact checking while I’m here.

My attention was dragged back to this subject when reading a four paragraph filler in The Guardian about methane. Animal farming and fossil fuels have driven levels of the greenhouse gas to the highest on record, it stated. The Guardian cited the Methane Budget study, published by Earth System Science Data, which stated that discharges of methane gas have risen about 9% on the 2000-2006 average, to 600 million tonnes a year.

It’s no easy task, quantifying methane emissions, which occur naturally in wetlands and inland water sources, but also from biofuel, waste, coal mining, oil and gas production and agriculture. A global team of more than 90 researchers from 70 institutions contributed to this latest update. Ironically (well, I think it’s ironic), melting permafrost contributes to the release of methane.

The increase of atmospheric methane is important, in that its global warming potential is estimated to be up to 34 times higher than CO2 (over 100 years). That’s why you will see large-scale industrial plants like oil refineries burning off methane (converting it to CO2). Besides, methane build-up within an industrial complex can be quite lethal because of its explosive nature. Major oil companies including Shell and Exxon made commitments several years ago to cut methane emissions by up to 15%. (I read that 2018 report in The Australian, while fruitlessly searching the database to see if it had published anything about the Methane Budget study). The most recent reports involving methane were to do with the explosion at the Moura coal mine.

As we were saying at the outset, James Murdoch’s resignation from the board of News Corp came with a statement in which he castigated the chairman (Dad) and the company over its climate change denialism. It’s not so much about bias as choosing which stories to cover (and when) .

While the Methane Budget study might be deemed by editors of mainstream tabloids to be ‘boring as batshit’, nevertheless its key findings were reported by outlets including the ABC, Washington Post, The Guardian, the Straits Times, Nature and quality monthlies that report on science. There is a good analysis by carbonbrief-org where the key points can be grasped by the lay person. Methane is often ignored in climate change discussions, despite having a more deleterious effect than CO2 (more carbon per molecule) – thanks Dr John.

One thing I missed on the first read through was that South East Asia and Oceania were in the top three regions for recording increased methane emissions. Global methane emissions were 1875 parts per billion at the end of 2019 – two and a half times higher than pre-industrial levels.

Why this topic caught my attention was an awareness, given a wetter winter than usual (building up fuel loads), that we could be heading into an early bushfire season. This was the case in 2019, with the first reports of serious bushfires alerts emerging in early August.

Those engaged in fire fighting know why bushfires are getting earlier and nastier. A report by volunteer firefighters published in the University of Melbourne’s Voice magazine in early 2015 flagged a few warnings about bush fire prevention. It also cited the role of bushfires in escalating the release of methane and CO2 into the atmosphere.

The study authors found that levels of carbon and greenhouse gases released in Eucalypt wildfires could be reduced by fuel reduction burning, or planned burns conducted prior to the bushfire season in high risk forests.

“The results of these actions could inform land management decisions as well as government policy regarding planned burning. Also, it could enable more accurate estimations of the contribution that bushfires make to Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory.”

As we head into the spring of 2020, I can but offer this insight on the left and right of politics, still bickering about hazard reduction burning (and whether it works or not). What was that about Rome burning?

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A collection of must-reads for 2020

must-read-2020 — Image: Forest fires in the Amazon: www.pixabay.com https://www.facebook.com/pages/PixFertig/550895548346133 Bushfires in Australia ripped through 1.6 million hectares between August and December, 60% more than the Amazon forest fires which burned out 900,000ha earlier this year.

In seeing out 2019, I thought it might be useful to direct you to some insightful essays and analysis on the burning issues of the year.

Make no mistake, when the clock counts down the seconds to midnight on December 31, the honeymoon will be short. Australia is entering 2020 with a serious list of challenges. Not necessarily in order of importance, they include drought, fire, water security, the climate crisis, a stagnant domestic economy, the spiralling cost of housing and a widening gulf between the seriously wealthy and the working poor. Welfare recipients, the mentally ill and homeless people need taxpayer-funded help more than anyone.

To date, our peerless leaders of both State and Federal governments appear to have few answers to these questions. In their stead, we rely on informed and educated commentators.

An incisive piece by Everald Compton, an 89-year-old essayist posed the question ‘Will a candidate from the left ever win an election again?”

A fair question, given the pasting politicians of the Left have received at the ballot box in Australia, the UK, America, South America and key European countries.

In reviewing the global swing to the right and why so-called social justice parties have fallen so far out of favour, Compton concludes the Left had blurred complex messages. Politicians of the Right, meanwhile, worked hard to become popular with voters.

For example, in the most recent UK election, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn campaigned on a manifesto of radical policies, such as buying back the British Rail System and freeing up traffic congestion by allowing free rail travel.

His opponent Boris Johnson simply said (over and over): “Let’s get Brexit done; let’s get rid of the pain of recent years.”

As Everald wrote, that is what most people had on their minds when they filled out their ballot papers.

Likewise with Labor’s crushing electoral defeat in May 2019, Labor Leader Bill Shorten came up with 145 policies, none of which he managed to sell to voters. His opponent Scott Morrison had one mantra: “Don’t trust Shorten, he will take all your money in high taxes.” It worked!

In the US election campaign of 2016, Donald Trump had one speech only: “I am going to drain the swamp in Washington.”

Hilary Clinton, according to Compton, directed all her speeches “to please the great and the mighty”.

“In the end, most voters did not trust her. They believed that she was not one of them.

“Voters respond to ideas and visions, not policies. They vote for Leaders not Parties.

“It is a lesson that those on the Left have not learned. They simply don’t talk the language of the average voter.”

In an article about Europe’s cult of personality, Politico’s Matthew Karnitschnig wrote that the UK election demonstrated how ‘personality rules’. Polls consistently showed Johnson to be better liked than Jeremy Corbyn. (Polls showed much the same trend in Australia, with Morrison edging out Shorten as preferred leader for months on end).

“In today’s political landscape, where ideology and principle have been supplanted by pragmatism and raw opportunism, parties often serve as little more than wrapping for the larger-than-life personalities who lead them,” Karnitschnig wrote.

The list of cheeky mavericks includes “BoJo” (Johnson), “Basti” (Austrian conservative leader Sebastian Kurz) and “Manu” (French president Emmanuel Macron).

The big question is where Europe’s personality-driven politics will lead.

“They may be like fireworks that burn very bright and then burn out,” said Robin Niblett, the director of Chatham House, the London-based think tank.

Politics aside (for now), the news story of the year was Westpac’s egregious mishandling of some 23 million transactions that breached money laundering rules. So far, the scandal has claimed the scalps of the chief executive and chairman and no doubt internal reviews will result in staff being sacked or demoted. Westpac’s share price has slumped from just under $30 at the end of September to a pre-Christmas low of $24.21 That’s a 20% loss in share value, which cynics might suggest investors will find more alarming than yet another scandal for a bank which, like its three rivals, has seen more than a few over the decades.

The Australian Financial Review had the bright idea of contacting former Westpac boss Bob Joss (now dean of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business) for comment.

Joss appeared disappointed that the strong risk management culture he injected into the Sydney-based bank had failed.

“What is needed right now is a thorough investigation and analysis of the facts so the breakdown in risk management can be understood and fixed, and accountability for failure can be assigned.”

Analysis of Australia’s waning economy (like a fully laden iron ore train going uphill), is best left to experts. Here, the AFR looks at Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s determination to hold on to the first Budget surplus in more than a decade. In so doing, he is ignoring the call from the Reserve Bank to open the coffers and stimulate the economy. The Christmas shopping figures will come out soon and then we will know if the much-discussed retail recession will spread to other sectors of the economy.

Direct action by farmers who organised a rally to Canberra to protest water security and drought management is one example that PM Morrison’s constituents may be having second thoughts. The same applies to veteran firefighters who sent a delegation to the nation’s capital seeking a meeting with the PM. He didn’t want to face them either.

The government’s main response to rising public angst about bushfires, drought, water management and the climate crisis is to champion tougher penalties against those who choose the right to protest. This mean-spirited, ‘blame the victim’ response is, alas, typical of Right-wing governments the world over.

The Guardian let writer Richard Flanagan loose in an opinion piece titled “Scott Morrison and the climate change lie – does he think we are that stupid?”

Flanagan railed against the view of some commentators that Morrison is a political genius – the winner of the unwinnable election.

“But history may judge him differently: a Brezhnevian figure; the last of the dinosaurs, presiding over an era of stagnation at the head of a dying political class imprisoned within and believing its own vast raft of lies as the world lived a fundamentally different reality of economic decay, environmental pillage and social breakdown.”

Flanagan ended his well-argued tirade with an observation that Morrison is held in thrall and thus influenced by his Pentecostal religion.

When the Rapture comes, Flanagan wrote, the Chosen are saved and the unbelievers left to “a world of fires, famine and floods in which we all are to suffer and the majority of us to die wretchedly”.

“Could it be that the Prime Minister in his heart is – unlike the overwhelming majority of Australians – not concerned with the prospect of a coming catastrophe when his own salvation is assured?”

Yep, someone had to say it.

I will leave you with scientific insights (as suggested by Mr Shiraz), into what happens to native forests, particularly wet sclerophyll forests, once they have ‘recovered’ from the ‘unprecedented’ bush fires that burned across Australia between August and December 2019.

If that is all too depressing, here is a fluffy piece of nostalgia about a man and his typewriter (recommended by Franky’s Dad).

The team here at FOMM (two people and a dog) wish you all a safe, healthy and smoke-free 2020. We will need more than thoughts and prayers.

The future for bushfire volunteers

On my late evening dog walks in the rural village of Yangan near Warwick, it has become customary to wave to the volunteer firefighters as they arrive back at base. If they can lift their arms, they wave back.

These volunteers, known in Australia as ‘firies’, are holding containment lines around multiple fires burning in the ranges around Cunningham’s Gap. The Cunningham Highway between Warwick and Brisbane has been closed for two weeks due to poor visibility and debris on the road. The highway opened yesterday, with restricted speeds on several sections.

As a result of fires at Spicer’s Gap, Swanfels, Clumber and elsewhere in the district, we have been ‘smoked in’ on multiple occasions. On Wednesday, a wind change brought smoke down to ground level as district people turned out for the Festival of Small Halls gig at Freestone.

This event, featuring local lads the Fern Brothers, well-travelled duo Hat Fitz and Cara and British songwriter Blair Dunlop, was a much-needed morale boost after two years of drought and two months of bushfire concerns.

You could be forgiven for not knowing there are tens of thousands of Australians who volunteer as firies. When not involved in extinguishing and containing bush fires, they are often out and about cutting firebreaks. Apart from periodic encounters outside bush fire brigade sheds or local pubs, we don’t see these people, who melt back into the community once the danger has passed. It is important that we do not take for granted the vital services they provide to rural communities.

You hear stories – a note left inside a house, surrounded by charred vegetation. “We saved the house…we owe you a bottle of milk.”

Friends who had a rural property in the Grampians returned from travels, unaware that bushfires had swept through the district. Once again, the land was charred but the house saved.

If there is a risk to the heroic status of rural firefighters, headlines announcing that a teenage volunteer in NSW had been charged with multiple counts of arson, were not what the fire services needed. While the volunteer is yet to have his day in court, he has been charged with setting seven fires in the Bega district and then returning to help fight them.

“Our members will be rightly angry that the alleged actions of one individual can tarnish the reputation and hard work of so many,” RFS commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said in a statement to the media.

As explained on The Feed (TV station SBS programme ), bush fires are best managed by a predominantly local, volunteer workforce.

Stuart Ellis, a former Chief Officer of the Country Fire Service in South Australia, said that as fire seasons intensify, the need for firefighters at any one time will vary across Australia.

“It’s difficult to predict when and where the largest bushfires will be; even once fires start, a shift in wind direction can rapidly change things.

“When volunteers are required, they need to be present in significant numbers and often close to the areas where the fires will occur.”

Local firies are more likely to have the knowledge, familiarity and expertise in fuel, weather conditions and topography

The numbers are impressive – 70,000 volunteers keep the NSW Fire Service going – the largest such brigade in the world. The size implies a huge management task for co-ordinating fire brigades, involving around 900 paid staff. A further 7,000 paid firefighters are employed by Fire and Rescue NSW to handle the metropolitan areas, via some 335 fire stations.

In Queensland, 36,000 people have signed up to the Rural Fire Service, with 5,000 currently active. Volunteers (hereafter known in Australian parlance as ‘vollies’), are in the same category as those enlisting with Emergency Services. They never know when they will get the call, but when they do, it’s an open-ended job with no ‘knock-off’ (quitting) time.

Ellis told The Feed that Australia would be unable to manage the largest fire events without the ‘surge capacity’ volunteers represent.

If you have ever met a ‘firie’, they will tell you they are doing it for the community. Signing up to be a bush brigade volunteer is a selfless task, which for the past 30 years has drawn reliable numbers of people.

But despite the large numbers answering the call to fight spring bushfires in NSW, Victoria, South Australia,Tasmania and Queensland, volunteer numbers are dropping.

A Productivity Commission report shows that 17,000 volunteer firefighters have quit over the past five years. Stuart Robb of the NSW Rural Fire Service told The World Today the main issue was that long-serving firefighters were getting older. In NSW, where vollies outnumber career firefighters 10-1, 40% of firies are over 50.

Robb said people in the age group 25-45 were less able to be involved in community firefighting because of work and family responsibilities.an

The trend is also evident in the US, where a study showed that volunteer numbers dropped from 814,850 in 2015 to 682,600 in 2017. The National Volunteer Fire Council said these were the lowest numbers since the survey began in 1983. The decline in volunteer activity is most noticeable in communities of fewer than 2,500 people. Ageing is a noticeable factor, with 53% of volunteers aged over 40 and 32% over 50.

The US government is working to alleviate this issue, with a grant of $40 million to help pay for volunteer recruitment and retention. Congress is working towards making volunteer firefighters eligible for student loan forgiveness and housing assistance.

Meanwhile, the Australian government has been lobbied by a group of 23 former fire and emergency service leaders. They want the government to declare a climate emergency and commit to investing in more water-bombing aircraft and firefighting resources.

Researcher Blythe McLennan of the Centre for Urban Research at RMIT University says that bushfire volunteering is at a crossroads.

If we are fighting bushfires into the next decade with the same or declining numbers of volunteers, using the same approaches we use today, then clearly the job will be much harder and the demands on volunteers will become more extreme.

One of the major reasons for a decline in volunteer numbers, particularly after prolonged and serious fires, is that volunteer firies may suffer financial hardship as a result of missing days at work.

The Volunteer Fire Fighters Association (NSW) has asked the NSW Rural Fire Service to investigate the feasibility of providing financial support via a welfare/relief fund to volunteer fire-fighters during protracted bushfire emergencies.

Eukey Qld Fire Brigade volunteer Rob Simcocks says it’s not just about time off and lost income, but also the sheer exhaustion and mental health concerns after such big efforts.

“It’s not just the time on the fireline, but also a lot of recovery time where you just have to rest, getting nothing else done.”

He agrees volunteer numbers are declining but thinks the age estimates are conservative, given that his local brigade has an average age of 60.

This reminds me of the story my late father-in-law used to tell, of his time fighting forest fires in the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia.

“I retired when I turned 75 because I was embarrassing the young blokes who told me they couldn’t keep up with me.”

That may be a shaggy dog story, but it typifies the attitude of people who take on a dangerous job to keep their neighbours out of harm’s way.

Bushfire smoke, dust storms and asthma

Bushfire-smoke-Brtisbane — Image: Bushfire smoke over Brisbane CBD from the Convention Centre, November 11, 2019. David Kapernick © David Kapernick Photography

Images of Brisbane shrouded in an asthma-inducing smoky haze on Monday reminded me of Queensland Ballet’s season launch in 2009. We had driven down for the matinee on a day when a massive dust storm was predicted. By the time we came out, the dust haze was so thick you could barely see the ABC headquarters across the road from the Lyric Theatre.

No doubt those of you who remember that were reliving it on Monday, only this time it was bushfire smoke, drifting in from all sides: NSW, the Sunshine Coast or from Cunningham’s Gap where the highway has been closed since Sunday .

ABC’s 7.30 report invited an air quality specialist on to the programme who judged Brisbane’s air quality on November 11 to be 6 times above the level when air pollution starts to cause problems for people with respiratory problems. On that day, air quality in Queensland’s capital city (population 2.28 million) was worse than China’s biggest city, Beijing (population 21.24 million).

We tend not to get such alarmist warnings on days when plain vanilla air pollution is bad. It is the obvious nature of bushfire smoke (the smell, the poor visibility, the 24/7 media attention), that raises it to public alert level.

The reason health authorities get worried about bushfire smoke in the atmosphere is that the fine particulate matter in the smoke is hazardous to health. Moreover, the longer it takes to clear, the more serious the risk of exposure becomes. Particulate matter known as P10 and P2.5 are harmful to humans and animals: other sources of these fine particulates include power stations, vehicles, aircraft, and dust from unsealed roads, residential wood fire smoke, bushfires and dust storms.

Brisbane’s topography doesn’t help – the city lies in a basin and is prone to temperature inversions, which trap polluted air. Many cities around the world share this fate. Temperature inversions happen when the air is warmer above the pollution that the air on the ground. The smog is trapped, to the detriment of inhabitants in cities including Beijing, Los Angeles, Chengdu, Lima, Milan and Mexico City.

Before we get into air pollution and air quality monitoring, let’s run a short history of asthma, for the benefit of the nine out of 10 lucky Australians who don’t suffer from it.

In 400 BC, Hippocrates came up with the Greek word for asthma (άσθμα), to describe noisy breathing, the characteristic wheezing which so often signals an asthma attack. Hippocrates (himself) was the first physician to link asthma to environmental triggers and specific, hazardous trades like metalwork.

In layman’s terms, asthma is describes the situation in which you can breathe in but have difficulty breathing out. Someone in the throes of a bad asthma attack is over-inflating their lungs, quite possibly making it worse by hyperventilating.

Medically, it is described as a narrowing of the airways, usually averted by the administering of an inhaled bronchodilator medication or a steroid-based preventer.

Patients presenting at emergency departments with severe asthma are often put on a nebuliser, a machine which administers an inhaled bronchodilator through a mask worn over the mouth and nose. As I recall, last time I was on a nebuliser (when suffering anaphylaxis), relief was rapid and restorative.

Excuse me if I sound really old, but I recall taking tablets for asthma, before inhalers became commonly prescribed. In the 1940s and 50s, asthmatics were either given epinephrine injections (adrenaline) or aminophylline tablets. As I recall, the latter made me jittery, wakeful and a bit weird, although childhood friends would tell you I was like that already.

Statistics maintained by Asthma Australia reveal the burden of the disease on individuals, their carers and Australia’s health system. The cost of the disease, measured by its long-term impacts, was $28 billion in 2015 ($11,740 per person).

In 2017-208, there were 38,792 hospitalisations in which asthma was the main diagnosis; 44% were for children aged 14 or younger,

People with asthma are more likely to report a poor quality of life, but medical practitioners now are more pro-active about encouraging patients to have an asthma plan. But more needs to be done, with fewer than one in five asthmatics aged 15 and older having a written plan.

bushfire-smoke-astham — Bushfire smoke at Yangan, drifting in from Spicer’s Gap. Photo by Bob Wilson

(Note to self: this includes you, Bob. Make sure you have a spare puffer for times when (a) the puffer runs out (b) you have lost or misplaced it or c) the air looks like this).

The rate of deaths from asthma has remained stable since 2011. There were 441 deaths due to asthma in 2016-2017.

Mortality rates are higher for people living in remote or lower socioeconomic areas, and for Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.

Meanwhile, parts of Queensland and NSW remain shrouded in bushfire smoke. Numerous scientists and firefighters have voiced concerns that this may only be the beginnings of a long, dry and bushfire-prone summer. Climate change-denying pollies bewilderingly blamed the Greens for conspiring to limit hazard reduction burns. Cathy Wilcox brilliantly summed this up in a four frame satirical cartoon (2^nd one down the page).

The Guardian took the fact-checking route.

On November 11, the World Air Quality Index rated several areas of Brisbane including Rocklea, South Brisbane, Woolloongabba, Wynnum, Wynnum West, Lytton and Cannon Hill as ‘very unhealthy’.

The state’s chief health officer Jeannette Young told the ABC that everyone should stay indoors for the next 24 to 48 hours.

“Treat this seriously and don’t be complacent. Whether you’re in Logan or Lowood or anywhere in between, everyone needs to limit time spent outdoors while these conditions remain,” Dr Young said.

The term “particulate matter” – also known as particle pollution or PM, describes the extremely small solid particles and liquid droplets suspended in air. PM can include soil dust and allergens and their size affects their potential to cause health problems.

PM10 refers to particles with a diameter of 10 micrometres or less (small enough to pass through the throat and nose and enter the lungs).

PM2.5 refers to smaller particles able to enter the blood stream, causing serious adverse health effects over time.

So what’s ‘normal’ and how does that compare to Remembrance Day in Brisbane? The World Health Organisation (WHO) says the average PM2.5 level of cities across the globe measured over a 24-hour period is 35µg/m (or 3.5 micrograms per cubic metre). An ideal level of pollution (no negative health impacts), is 25µg/m.

The Brisbane CBD was at a PM10 and 180µg/m at 9:00am on Monday – 10 times the amount of pollution on an average day.

As we so often blithely say: ‘it’s a first-world problem’.

The WHO estimates that 1.6 million people die every year in India from air pollution. India has some of the most polluted cities in the world. This report from the BBC attributes air pollution in Delhi to motor vehicles, construction and industrial emissions, the burning of crop stubble and the residue of fireworks set off for a Hindu festival.

In early November P2.5 levels in Delhi were seven times higher than Beijing in early November, the report said.

If you were paying attention, those comparisons also applied to Brisbane on Remembrance Day, 2019. Lest we forget.

Further reading: https://blissair.com/what-is-pm-2-5.htm

https://bobwords.com.au/whipping-dust-storm/

Where there’s (bush) fire there’s smoke

Oops- the tail light is out- better get that fixed! Fast forward to King St. Mechanical in Warwick. John came out and promptly fixed it- ‘No worries, mate. No charge’! It would have been the perfect introductory day in a new town, had it not been for the pall of bushfire smoke hanging over Warwick and communities to the east. At Yangan, 18 kms East, smoke from two fires burning in inaccessible country around Swanfels infiltrated the town. Residents closed windows and doors and tried to stay indoors as much as possible.

A tired looking bush fire brigade chap having a cold ale at the local pub told me he’d never seen it as bad in this district, Yangan and Swanfels were not alone. As today’s photo attests, the fires are still burning. It is probably overkill, but we have packed an emergency evacuation bag.

Bushfires, grass fires and controlled burns that got out of control have been burning all over South- East Queensland and Northern New South Wales for weeks. When we drove from Maleny to Warwick via the Lockyer Valley, the mercury peaked at 40 degrees Celsius, which even a Kiwi could tell you is unseasonably hot for Queensland in early October. The Lockyer Valley, ostensibly the region’s premier vegetable producing centre, looked brown and dead, bar a few irrigated fields. Up in the hills, fires were burning. A friend rang us while we driving through Ma Ma Creek.

“Why are you in the Lockyer Valley? Don’t you know there are fires burning and you need to leave there at once!”

We saw the smoke plume to which she referred and had heard on the radio news that a house was destroyed in Laidley.

So we kept on driving and emerged on the Toowoomba-Warwick road, just as a blood red sun was setting behind a shroud of smoke.

People who know about such things were predicting a long hot summer and an early start to the ‘bushfire season’ back in August.

As Yangan residents fretted and waited for a possible call to evacuate, I mentally prepared an emergency kit: phone, charger, keys, wallet, essential medications, scrips, passports, journal and pen, change of clothes, water bottle, dog food (and bowl). Strange feeling it is to compress one’s life into one essential package.

This is second nature for residents of Australia’s more bushfire-prone areas such as the Blue Mountains and the uplands of northern New South Wales.

The Guardian’s Lisa Martin wrote that fire authorities were bracing for a challenging bushfire season across the continent. The Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre’s seasonal outlook warned six States they faced ‘above-normal’ potential fire threat because of very warm and dry conditions and below average rainfall.

Queensland and New South Wales bore the brunt of it in September, when gusty winds and high temperatures fanned relatively small grassfires into uncontrollable bush fires. In Southern Queensland and Northern NSW, fire authorities dealt with 1,200 fires in the first two weeks of September, with 130 fires erupting in just one day. Fifty-five homes were lost and the iconic Gold Coast hinterland tourism attraction, Binna Burra Lodge, was destroyed.

Travel journalist Lee Mylne wrote about the determination of Binna Burra’s owners to rebuild. Amidst the rubble, the bell which hung in the lodge dining room since1934 has been found intact – a symbol of hope, Lee wrote.

The adjacent campground and café was spared and the Binna Burra board says it plans to open for Christmas holidays. It is also hoped the Sky Lodges can be repaired in time for the summer holidays.

Coincidentally, I am reading The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells, a blunt instrument of a book which beats you about the head with unassailable facts and frightening scenarios about what will happen to our bodies as the planet warms. So I was more sharply concerned to read an ABC story yesterday which asserts that Australia is not prepared for what lies ahead. Key points of the story are:

The national aerial firefighting centre (NAFC) still awaits a Federal Government decision about its urgent request two years ago for $11 million in funding;
The Government has not guaranteed funding for the only national body researching the future of bushfires;
Emergency services experts who asked the Government to consider the threat of climate change in fire planning have not received a response.

Australia’s former chief scientist, Ian Chubb, said it was clear the climate was changing.

“It’s not just some passing phase that it didn’t rain this decade,” he said. “The implications of that for fire are pretty obvious.”

Recent fires in NSW ushered in a new phenomenon in firefighting dubbed Black Swan events. This describes what happens when a bush fire has reached such a point of ferocity that it interacts with extreme weather events.

The Sir Ivan fire near Dunedoo burned through 55,000 hectares, creating its own thunderstorm about seven kilometres high, according to a report by the NSW Coroner’s Court. Clouds of smoke shot lightning bolts up to 80 kilometres away, starting more fires.

Emergency experts and senior scientists have told a joint ABC investigation that a comprehensive national plan is needed to tackle the fires of the future. They are concerned about the lack of financial commitment from the Federal Government for resources and research.

The ABC’s Background Briefing cited documents that show the proportion of federal funding for NAFC has more than halved since 2003. Minister for Natural Disaster and Emergency Management David Littleproud said he would raise the business case at the next Ministerial Council meeting.

“We haven’t made a decision around the aerial assets,” he told Background Briefing. “We’ll continue to work with the states in a mature way.”

Mr Littleproud told Background Briefing the Government did acknowledge the role climate change had played in escalating fire risks.

“I haven’t seen this in my life before and I don’t know where it’s going to end,” he said. “I think it would be remiss of anybody not to suggest that it is not climate change that has caused a lot of this.”

As I write, a storm has brought decent rainfall to the Yangan district, which should help firefighters no end. Nevertheless, given my asthmatic tendencies, I’m staying indoors today, curled up with a good book. The choices are (a) persevere with The Uninhabitable Earth or (b) Carl Hiaasen’s Stormy Weather, a satirical yarn about a couple of con artists trying to capitalise on the aftermath of a hurricane sweeping through Florida.

In Chapter two of Wallace-Wells’s book he reminds us about a deadly European heatwave in 2003 which killed as many as 2,000 people per day. On page 47 he cites research that by 2050, 255,000 people are expected to die from direct heat events. Already a third of the world’s population is subject to deadly heat waves on at least 20 days of the year. Blimey, so let’s hope the old folk’s home has air conditioning for 101-year-old me.

Meanwhile in chapter five of Stormy Weather, a Rhesus monkey has stolen Max’s video camera, on which he had filmed the aftermath of the hurricane (with the aim of selling footage to a TV station).

His new bride, Bonnie, who is beginning to go off her exploitative husband (who has mysteriously vanished), is befriended by a strange fellow scouring the Everglades for (escaped) monkeys.

It’s no contest, really.

FOMM back pages, August 2017:

https://bobwords.com.au/bushfires-burning-hot-early/

Climate debate burning fiercely

bushfires-burning-climate — Peregian bushfire image by Rob Maccoll

As we prepared to move from the Sunshine Coast hinterland after 17 years, the air was full of bushfire smoke, dust and haze from an early, hot start to spring. It blew a gale up there for the best part of a week; strong south-westerlies, the last thing you need in an early bushfire season.

Multiple properties were lost around Stanthorpe and in the Gold Coast hinterland between Sarabah and Canungra as hot gusty winds sent bushfires out of control.

We all know how dry it has been around the Southern Downs and across the border in towns like Tenterfield and Armidale. The aforementioned towns join Stanthorpe and Warwick and at least six other regional New South Wales towns at risk of running out of water.

I recall being sent on assignment to Warwick in 1992 with a Courier-Mail photographer. We walked along the dry bed of the Condamine River with then mayor Bruce Green, commenting on the sparse pools of water here and there. The town’s main water supply, Leslie Dam, was at 3% capacity at the time.

In January 2011, I was marooned in Warwick. So much rain fell authorities had no choice but to open all seven floodgates on the Leslie Dam. Creeks rose and the main roads to Brisbane and Toowoomba were closed.

People who have at least one foot in the climate change denial camp will tell you it was always thus in Australia: floods, droughts, bushfires, insect swarms, dust storms and sometimes all five inside a few months.

The key differences between the long-lasting droughts of the late 1800s and what is happening now is a notable rise in average temperatures.

The CSIRO, the nation’s pre-eminent science organisation, states that Australia’s climate has warmed by just over 1C since 1910. Eight of Australia’s top ten warmest years on record have occurred since 2005.

University of Melbourne PhD researcher Mandy Freund and colleague Benjamin Henley studied climatic changes in Australia by studying seasonal rainfall patterns over an 800-year period.

“Our new records show that parts of Northern Australia are wetter than ever before, and that major droughts of the late 20th and early 21st centuries in southern Australia are likely without precedent over the past 400 years.

“This new knowledge gives us a clearer understanding of how droughts and flooding rains may be changing in the context of a rapidly warming world”.

The debate between those who accept what 97% of the world’s scientists are telling us and the contrarians who think it is a left wing plot is increasingly polarising people.

The Australian, our only national newspaper, has kept up a steady flow of news stories and opinion articles which by and large support the views of those in denial about climate change. Similar views are consistently espoused by Sky News and populist radio shock jocks. Some would say that it is a good thing someone is putting the other side of the story.

What the Guardian Weekly now terms the “climate crisis” is well and truly on the agenda today with Strike4Climate, a globally coordinated series of rallies to emphasise the gravity of the situation.

The main idea is to support teenagers who have taken the day off school to protest. They, after all, will be the generation left to clean up problems left by their parents’ and grand-parents’ generations. The international protest movement was started by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg. She called on school students who have concerns about inaction over climate change to go on strike and support climate rallies.

Given the increasingly strident coverage of climate change news and opinion from the both sides, it isn’t hard to mount an argument for having both points of view up for public debate, although you need a subscription to The Australian to read its coverage.

So let me summarise an opinion piece, forwarded to me by a reader.

On July 8, New Zealand geologist David Shelley refuted climate activist assertions that temperatures are at record highs, glaciers and sea ice are melting at unprecedented rates, and sea levels rising dangerously.

“A cursory examination of the geological literature shows that the first two assertions are simply not true, and that rising sea levels are par for the course.

“To assert that today’s temperatures are record highs is mischief-making of the highest order. Earth has been much hotter (up to 10C hotter) for the vast majority of geological time”.

Shelley goes on to say that sea levels were also significantly higher in the last interglacial 125,000 years ago.

“Florida Keys, for example, is the remains of a coral reef that grew then”.

David Shelley’s views are moderate compared to those of the Top 10 climate deniers.

Brendan Demelle, executive director of DeSmog, lists names including Fred Singer, Christopher Monkton and Bjorn Lomborg. Demelle says many climate change deniers start their pronouncements with: “I’m not a scientist, but…”

(Lord) Monkton, a former UK politician with a degree in the classics once said: “global warming will not affect us for the next 2,000 years, and if it does, it won’t have been caused by us.”

Did I suggest the debate between believe and don’t believe is getting more strident? Environmentalist Tim Flannery went so far this week as to suggest that ‘predatory’ climate change deniers are “a threat to our children”.

A despairing Flannery now admits that his 20 years of climate activism has been ‘a colossal failure’.

“Each year the situation becomes more critical. In 2018, global emissions of greenhouse gases rose by 1.7% while the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere jumped by 3.5 parts per million – the largest ever observed increase.

“No climate report or warning, no political agreement nor technological innovation has altered the ever-upward trajectory of the pollution”.

On Tuesday, The Conversation’s Misha Ketchell announced a surprise ban on those promoting climate denial views through the portal.

“The editorial team in Australia is implementing a zero-tolerance approach to moderating climate change deniers, and sceptics,” he wrote. “Not only will we be removing their comments, we’ll be locking their accounts”.

“We believe conversations are integral to sharing knowledge, but those who are fixated on dodgy ideas in the face of decades of peer-reviewed science are nothing but dangerous”.

The Australian’s Chris Kenny said The Conversation’s decision was a fundamental assault on freedom of speech and intellectual integrity.

“This action flies in the face of scientific endeavour, where the scientific method is founded on the presumption of rigorous scepticism”, he wrote.

Kenny added: “The Conversation was founded with taxpayers’ support and still relies heavily on the involvement of publicly-funded universities. This is taxpayers’ money used for the silencing of dissent and the deliberate shrinking and censoring of scientific, academic, environmental, economic and political debate”.

“Who will decide what level of scepticism is acceptable?”

The user-friendly website Skeptical Science (getting skeptical about global warming skepticism) should help clarify that question. The website lists 100+ common climate change myths, matching each one with the scientific facts.

I encourage you all to do your own research into this most urgent of issues. As the Joan of Arc of climate change Greta Thunberg said last year: “I want you to act as if our house is on fire, Because it is’.

Due to unforeseen circumstance I am unable to attend the Brisbane rally. I guess they’ll start without me!

Climate extremes – from bushfires to a polar vortex

snow-polar-vortex — February snow at White Rock, BC, image by George Davidge

February is the one month of the year when the climate extremes of the northern and southern hemisphere starkly remind us of the threat to civilisation posed by climate change.

In the northern hemisphere, a polar vortex in January and February brought record low sub-zero temperatures to the UK, Europe, USA and Canada. Cars disappeared beneath mounds of snow; Chicago’s river froze as temperatures dropped to a rare -46 degrees Celcius (wind chill temperature). The regular temperature at -30 degrees was just 2 degrees warmer than a 34-year-old record low.

I’m reliably informed that if you go outside in this kind of extreme weather, don’t blink – your eyelids will freeze shut. Mind you, there are enough selfies and images on social media to suggest that some happy snappers took the risk.

The image above was taken this week at White Rock, a coastal town in southern British Columbia, where the average winter high and low temperatures are Celsius 8 degrees and 2 degrees. It is rare to have extreme weather there (snow storms, ice pellets and freezing rain).

Even though I live Down Under, I’m attached to songs which evoke the wintry romance of the frozen north. They include Joni Mitchell, wishing she had a river to skate away on, Dar Williams, throwing her lover’s car keys into the water (where they froze, halfway down), and Dave Goulder’s song about northern hemisphere seasons, the January Man. “The January man he goes around in woollen coat and boots of leather The February man still shakes the snow from off his clothes and blows his hands…”

Meanwhile on the other side of the planet, Australians have just survived the hottest January since 1910 to suffer more of the same in February. On January 19, Melbourne residents endured 44° Celsius (it got to 47 in some outer suburbs).

In terms of climate extremes, most of Australia received less than 20% of normal rainfall in January. Canberra, the nation’s capital, normally known for bitter cold, had a record run of four days above 40C. A Bureau of Meteorology report also highlighted record long runs of consecutive hot days.

They included:

Birdsville (Qld) 10 consecutive days over 45C
Alice Springs (NT) 16 days in a row above 42C
Cloncurry (Qld) 43 consecutive days over 40C*
Camooweal (Qld) 40 consecutive days over 40C
Walungurru (NT) 27 consecutive days above 40C
Bourke (NSW) 21 consecutive days above 40C*

*broke State records

Australians also suffered through the highest overnight minimums on record, peaking at 36.6 degrees at Wanaaring in NSW.

February-bushfires-climate-change — Bushfire burning at Girraween National Park, image by Penny Davies

Searing hot temperatures sustained over many weeks turns native forest and grasslands into tinder-dry fuel. A stray cigarette butt, a lightning strike or a spark from a tractor-slasher is all it takes. Stanthorpe, normally the coldest place in Queensland, recorded a maximum temperature of 36.9°C on January 19. This was one of the few places in the country to offer some overnight respite (10°C ). A lack of rain and sustained high temperatures contributed to a massive bushfire which started at Wallangarra on the Qld/NSW border and quickly spread to Girraween National Park.

The fire started on February 12 on the outskirts of Wallangarra, cutting a swathe through 43,000ha of bush and pasture. As of yesterday, the fire was still smouldering, although the threat to people and property around Wyberba, Ballendean and Eukey has abated. However, there’s a windy weekend ahead, so bush fire brigade volunteers will be on high alert until it rains.

Last Saturday, Queensland Fire and Emergency Services warned Granite Belt residents that a large, unpredictable fire was heading in a north-westerly direction through Girraween National Park with the potential to cross Pyramids Road. Residents of Eukey and surrounds were put on notice to be ready to evacuate.

Climate change skeptics will tell you Australia has always had climate extremes; bushfires, floods and droughts (as they drive their diesel 4WDs to a ridge for a better view – they can get 2GB reception up there too).

In the interests of balanced journalism, it seems only fair to provide a link to their view of the world):

But as we never tire of repeating here at FOMM HQ, 97% of the world’s climate scientists think climates extremes are happening and they are aggravated by human behaviour

We Aussies, sweltering through weeks of temperatures above 30°C in many locations where humidity is 70% or more, yearn for the hopefully cooler days of March. In the northern hemisphere, those enduring the extreme winter can but hope for an early thaw.

The climate change deniers and those who just don’t want to think about it need to be reminded in ways that have become obvious to a generation of bright young things who skipped school to make the point.

As you’d know, there are climate change skeptics in Australia, as there are in other industrial nations. They may be in the minority, but some of them are in government, which makes their opinions matter.

A Lowy Institute Poll of 1,200 Australians quizzed about climate change and energy found that 59% agreed with the statement: “climate change is a serious and pressing problem. We should begin taking steps now even if this involves significant costs.”

Furthermore, 84% agreed that “the government should focus on renewables, even if this means we may need to invest more in infrastructure to make the system more reliable”.

It is now five months since a United Nations climate panel warned that the world has about 12 years left to limit global warming to 1.5° Celsius. Australia and the rest of the world must virtually eliminate the use of coal for electricity within 22 years if there is to be a chance to save even some of the Great Barrier Reef. At 1.5°C, coral reefs are expected to decline by a further 70% to 90%, the report said.

More than 90 scientists drew together thousands of pieces of climate research for the report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The conclusion was that global emissions of greenhouse gas pollution must reach zero by about 2050 in order to stop global warming at 1.5° Celsius. At current rates, 1.5C would be breached as early as 2040 (just in time for those born today to celebrate their 21st birthdays – Ed).

Ah me, there’s more to come on this story, with the Kids vs Climate Change movement started by then 15-year-old Swede Greta Thunberg gathering pace. Following Greta’s lone, 20-day strike in August, Australia was one of the first countries to respond. Despite scornful rhetoric and table-thumping from Prime Minister Scott Morrison, 15,000 students went on strike in November. Contrary to claims that the protests were partisan (and organised by hardcore greenies), this week students protested outside the electorate office of Opposition Leader Bill Shorten. Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan branded the ongoing protests as “appalling political manipulation”.

On March 15, teens around the world will absent themselves from school to demand action from adults in power about climate extremes. As people with teenagers know full well, they are the cohort least likely to be manipulated, politically or otherwise.

Footnote: I almost forgot to leave you with this link to Dar Williams’ beautiful song February, which has been interpreted by some as being about a couple with Alzheimer’s, using winter as a metaphor. My friend Rebecca Wright, who like me sees it as more of an ending and a new beginning song, does a fine version.