Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please. If you would like to receive my (hopefully) regular email news, please sign up using the following link
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John Quiggin 
Where I live, the flowers have bloomed much earlier than they used to. It’s almost as if the climate is changing.
I am a bird watcher and I notice that the Eastern Koel which frequents New Guinea, Queensland and northern NSW is now common in Melbourne during summer. It was previously very rare this far south. It’s almost as if the climate s changing.
There are many indications – already – that the climate is changing. Here in Canberra, we’ve had what was probably our ‘warmest’ (or ‘least cold’) winter on record, plants have sprouted new leaves or flowered about a month earlier that, say 10 yeard ago, and some oak trees are keeping green leaves throughout winter, showing signs of becoming evergreen. On top of that, the NSW Rural Fire Service put forward the official start of the bushfire season from October 1 to August 1, due to climate warming and the drought.
Where I live…It’s almost as if the climate is changing. +1 smith9
– Fire restrictions in effect 1 month earlier and 1 month later (rfs already decided in place for end of fire season than usual end … unless drought breaking rains – no more funding tho.). RFS also said “permits suspended and will NOT be approved anyway”. If I want to cook a snag outside I have to have… permanent fireplace no bigger than 1m x 1m. 2m clear ground – goodbye grass, and must be extinguished after snags cooked! What about the marshmellows? “Sorry kids… It’s almost as if the climate is changing.” Snags = galrlic ginger n soy chicken / prawns / fish w potato roasted in coals. I’m missing thus taken for granted aussie luxury already. I had an outside fire last weekend… the fire brigade -4 of them in big fire truck – turn up at 7pm and I had to extinguish even tho I have brick lined, water 10m radius befirehand, hose ready on town water. 3 were sympathetic but ” well have to let captain decide”. “Extinguish” ( said in a darlek like manner). 2nd time last 15yrs.
– level 1 water restrictions – mainly because we have a dam for feeding cotton upstream or we’d be like dubbo – level 4 and looking at 5 and no water. Freshias (a noxious weed Im told banned in WA – they will go after this flowering – much to my kids distress) in lawn flowering 2 weeks early and already so hot and dry they last 2 days only before frizzling on stalk. This fact may suppress some weed types tho so small silver lining? Blue and red gums out front showing signs of stress as new growth has 1-2%? leaf brown and ready to drop. Most pinus radiatas already dead or dying as last yr broke most temp, heat length and low humidity records.
– grape bud burst early – as the grape geowers have been telling government for a decade or more
– cattle already gone, sheep too.
– in town grass receding and I’d estimate 20% of usual grass cover gone and therefore dust in town like never before. No water to water tho except playing fields.
– i know 1) property 60km away on back of great divide with super hi qual spring ( coca cola bought property next door for ‘permanent’ spring) with overflow just running away. True luxury! Yet creek now drying – in winter! They are hoping Bylong Kepco coal mine doesn’t drop water table too much and 2) oppisite direction a property although having to cart water occasionally they cart water and have had to do so for the last 2 years. Taxing on vehicles and emotions. About 950 litres a cube tank. The house paddock now a dust bowl.
– 22.5mm or rain last 3 months and historically it would be more than 90mm. Nyngan – 9mm!
Mrkenfabian, I hope you have acess to water.
Re voting age. I asked RFS about volunteering.
12 join as cadet.
16 years old full firefighter.
So you may die protecting us, and NOT vote.
The RFS is one of the greatest organizations in Australia, For people to volunteer to stand in front of a raging bushfire and defend someone else’s property says a lot about their great character. I have seen the RFS in action in the Hunter region and around my own region. Once they surrounded a petrol station to protect it from a bushfire. That is bravery beyond and above any norm. The social benefits provided by these volunteers is of a great magnitude. Add to that the protection of LAND wealth and you have one essential service that deserves that name.
This makes me wonder if anyone had every estimated the value to the National Wealth from volunteer organizations like the RFS. National Account calculations may not cover the benefits accrued by the work of volunteers in this country.
What does ‘innovation’ in tertiary education teaching (advertised on various university websites) stand for?
Innovations to cut the costs of teaching, while making it look like an effort to improve teaching?
Why are people able to claim that they are improving student engagenent/education by redirecting teaching budget toward menagement salaries (thus exploiting students and casual academics)?
That’s a very good question.
I thought I’d look at the website of the University of Queensland, because that’s John Quiggin’s home institution.
You can find at this URL a list of projects which have been funded with ‘Teaching Innovation Grants’:
https://teaching-learning.uq.edu.au/past-grant-fellowship-recipients
The one-sentence descriptions are not as informative as longer ones would be, but perhaps they’re better than nothing.
Climate changers deniers are getting the flick from the Conversation.
https://theconversation.com/climate-change-deniers-are-dangerous-they-dont-deserve-a-place-on-our-site-123164
It would be good if the conversation could speak non-Orwellian English. That would be a good start ahead of clearer thinking on the subject.
Rog, it’s long been overdue. Moderation there has been patchy on articles directly concerning climate change science and mostly absent on those somewhat indirectly related, eg., the alternate ‘fishy’ facts commenting recently here. It’s about time they were finally and completely ridd of ’em. Good riddance to bad rubbish! (A lesson in there too for Qld Labour misspending taxpayer funds on crazy travelling road shows, and buying into huge Townsville coal rail and port developments.)
https://theconversation.com/the-great-barrier-reef-is-in-trouble-there-are-a-whopping-45-reasons-why-122930
Shorten and Gordon are taking on ROBODEBT by initiating a class action. Both heard today saying the slomo initiated scam is illegal. In reply Minister Roberts was heard stating there was no problem with the legality of robodebt and misdirecting with conflated numbers.
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/pm/bill-shorten-announces-class-action-against-robodebt-scheme/11521522
Robodebt threatens sanctions just short of out sourced knee capping debt recovery thugs, restrictions on travel, heavy penalty interest charges, confiscation of tax refunds and government payments, and garnisheeing wages and/or bank accounts simply by notice without a court order.
Robodebt has ripped off pensioners and other recipients of income support by withholding payments, and by swiping personal income tax refunds due from the ATO (who btw are involved in the scam up to their necks by wittingly supplying dodgy data matches to DHS / Centrelink). Slomos’s robodebt now routinely pockets funds whilst held in government hands, often without warning.
AFAIK robodebt has not yet swiped funds by way of garnishee of personal bank accounts, other personal funds, or wages due. If that’s so I think it puts the lie to the government claim that all is above board and legal and proper. If robodebt is in future judged to be illegal, the pocketing of funds whilst in government hands is one thing probably explained away in mitigation as due to maladministration and misunderstandings and any criminality disappeared into grey legal areas, but swiping funds from a person’s bank account or any other personally held property is no doubt criminal. There’s a whole swag of mandarins who are wittingly criminally liable…
Over a year ago I invited DHS and ATO to try swiping their fraudulently based alleged debt from my funds so that I may then complain to AFP and/or commence a personal prosecution of the government for the theft. A little nuisance from the ATO ensued before they went quiet. DHS went quiet immediately. Such a prosecution would enable the entire underbelly of this rotten scam and those involved to be fully exposed in ways and areas where the Senate Community affairs Committee inquiry and several Senate budget estimates examination attempts have been limited.
“overblown rhetoric, exaggeration, and unsupportable doomist framing can be counteractive to climate action”
https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/09/im-having-a-hard-time-coping-with-scary-climate-news-what-should-i-do/
…..”doomist framing can be counteractive to climate action.”
No, not framing things in the most pessimistic way will be counteractive to climate action.
But even more importantly the fate of the planet is now for the most part out of our hands.
Humanity, with the US political system leading the way, fucked up. What is not completely out of humanity’s hands is being able to delay the inevitable by perhaps a decade or two. But the chances of doing that get smaller and smaller each day.
You want hope. Here is all the hope that you are going to get. I am trapped inside of a computer simulation. That means that you might be trapped inside of a computer simulation as well.
That means that everything that you do and even everything that you think get recorded. That means that there is a chance that what you think, say, or do will have an impact on someone. Just not neccissarily someone on this planet.
There is no guarantee that anyone is paying attention to the computer simiulation that we are trapped in. It could be running on a computer in a realm that is operating on automatic pilot centuries or mellinium after all biological life forms have perished. But IF there is intellegence on the other side of the hard drive, or cloud, it is ruinning this simulation for a reason, either for research purposes, or educational or entertainment purposes. That means that our pain and suffering has a purpose even if we do not know what it is. Or exactly when it will end.
ps we can also work towards accountabilty,
Wait a second, no one in a position of authority told you that you were inside of a computer simulation so why should you believe my claim that I am inside of a computer simulation?
Because the scientific evidence points in that direction.
That those of us trapped in it have been unaware of our positions until recently is not at all surprising.
In our simulation those doing research on humans often decieve the participants of experiments about the purpose of the experiment. If the participants were aware of the purpose they might try to skew the results. It makes sense that we do not know the purpose of our lives, our pleasures, our suffering, or our deaths.
It is claimed the ROBODEBT algorithm for obtaining fortnightly averaged employee incomes from ATO held data provided in mandatory employer financial year gross payment summaries is illegal. It likely is. It is certainly flawed, for one thing in being so crude. It is likely never to provide a correct figure for earned income for any given fortnight.
It’s all they have, says the ATO. What use DHS makes of it doesn’t concern them, says the ATO. Rubbish. The ATO are not only wittingly engaged in an illegal conspiracy, they are phonies. The ATO also has quarterly employer and fund provided Superannuation Guarantee payment data. The use of the quarterly SG data for income averaging would be far less crude. In my case, there would be numerous others, it would entirely eliminate the fraudulently DHS claimed discrepancy between my averaged ATO financial year payment summaries data matched earnings and what I declared! Too easy, but, of course, that’s the point of slomorobodebt.
Amongst much else, I put this to ATO. They investigated then ducked and dissembled… (They’ve thus far spent at least $10k on me in time spent dealing with this, and in attempts to bite me back… The DHS robofraud try-on is for $2.2k) I’d love to get a few ATO bosses, the ones with their signatures on the various interdepartmental MOUs in the witness box…
Science sure isn’t your strong suit Svante. Don’t try it on you’ll just make an idiot of yourself mate.
Et tu GB
“If we’ve learned anything from the best-selling Diary of a Wimpy Kid children’s book series, it’s that those who see themselves surrounded by idiots are usually idiots themselves ”
“Jesse Pinkman: So you’re chasing around a fly and in your world, I’m the idiot?
Sam Catlin, Moira Walley-Beckett Fly (Breaking Bad)”
@Svante.
I too have had the government rack up $10k + for something $2k would have sufficed. I cant challenge tho.
So good on you for challenging.
I’d appreciate it if you did this and not accept sealed settlement;
…”I’m stunned that it was recalculated so easily after I took legal action,” Amato said after Friday’s hearing. ”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/sep/06/centrelink-wipes-robodebt-in-second-case-set-to-challenge-legality-of-scheme
Rain – yay. Had 33mm last 36hrs. Now at 50% of avg rainfall last 3 mths.
“In the three years since the end of the Paris climate talks, Chase has reportedly committed a hundred and ninety-six Billion dollars …
But here’s the thing: fossil-fuel financing accounts for only about seven per cent of Chase’s lending and underwriting. ”
What if the banking, asset-management, and insurance industries moved away from fossil fuels?
By Bill McKibben
“So what would happen if, tomorrow, Chase announced that it was going to phase out lending to the fossil-fuel industry—probably first by restricting loans for particular projects, and then by ending general corporate lending and banning the underwriting of new debt and equity for fossil-fuel companies? “Wells Fargo and Citi would follow within days,” according to Tim Buckley, a former managing director at Citi, who now serves as the director of energy-finance studies for Australasia at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (I.E.E.F.A.), a Cleveland-based nonprofit research group. In fact, “they’d look to go one step further, so as to pretend they weren’t really sheep. And this would have global ramifications—the music would stop, very suddenly.” Wall Street, Buckley said, “can be very deaf to warnings for years, but the financial-market lemmings will suddenly act in unison” once the biggest players send a signal. Everyone knows that the fossil-fuel era will come to an end sooner or later; a giant bank pulling back would send an unmistakable signal that it will be sooner. The biggest oil companies might still be able to self-finance their continuing operations, but “the pure-play frackers will find finance impossible,” Buckley said. “Coal-dependent rail carriers and port owners and coal-mine contracting firms will all be hit.”
Done badly, this halt could wreak chaos: the governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, warned four years ago that the “stranded assets”—the coal, gas, and oil that need to be left underground—amount to a twenty-trillion-dollar “carbon bubble” that far exceeds the housing bubble that sparked the 2008 financial conflagration. Carney has been diligently trying to deflate the bubble ever since, in hopes of avoiding another crisis.”
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/money-is-the-oxygen-on-which-the-fire-of-global-warming-burns
KT2 – we got through the fires okay, although in the end it was a very near thing; we fled not long after my post saying it had been stopped and our home was safe. Famous last words. We had to drive off as flames came up to our house yard on one side. Met 2 firetrucks and teams at our front gate, who got there just in time. Since then we had a spot fire across the main road opposite that must have been a kilometre or more ahead of the fire front, so despite the burned area between us and the fire we still had to watch for embers.
We probably would have lost any attempt to defend our home without help, although shed and other outbuilding may have been savable (or vice versa). Lost fences and water pipes and what little grass (for a couple of horses) that was left.
A few mm’s of rain yesterday washed the ash and soot off the roof – I had disconnected downpipes, knowing the roof needed a rinse before reconnecting to tanks.
We do have tank water left and our dam still has some water we can use once we get piping sorted, but hot weather will increase the evaporation, which takes more of that water than we use; it is unlikely to last through Summer.
Seems like the Morrison government has chosen it’s message – yes they will stay on script and say the climate problem is real whilst relevant policy remains based on it not being real.
THE NEW DIGITAL FUTURE FOR WELFARE: DEBTS WITHOUT LEGAL PROOFS OR MORAL AUTHORITY?
TERRY CARNEY AO – UNSW Law Journal Forum 2018 (December 17? see links below) [PDF, 16pp]
Click to access 006-Carney.pdf
Robo-debt illegality: The seven veils of failed guarantees of the rule of law?
Terry Carney – First Published December 17, 2018
****journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1037969X18815913
A summary of the above –
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1074826493941837824.html
****theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/sep/17/robodebt-class-action-shorten-unveils-david-and-goliath-legal-battle-into-centrelink-scheme
Svante: ASAIK, Robodebt has been used to garnish a person’s tax return from their bank account, without even notifying them prior to doing it. One person was preparing a case to go to court, and suddenly their entire debt was wiped, and then the dept argued there was no (longer a) case to answer. Bill Shorten and Peter Gordon’s announcement of a class action hopefully changes the circumstances. All up, Robodebt is being misused and abused, with no regard or respect shown to the individuals who are at the pointy end of the process.
mrkenfabian. “Met 2 firetrucks and teams at our front gate, who got there just in time.”
Very sensible of you to disconnect roof from tank.
Firey’s. Luv ’em.
I checked after your post and followed until rain 48hrs ago – humidity down to 8% three days in a row by -11am! – early spring! One grinder, one rock under a slasher at such a low humidity and … call the rfs.
I spoke with BoM last summer re humidity and unfortunately they have less and less farmers willing or able to do evap test as still ‘fill pan at 9 and measure later”.
Imho a humidity alert for any and all may be of value. As it stands temp is main driver of alerts to machinery operators. Darwin – 33 and 80%rh, elsewhere 33 and 8%rh. Easy to see where fire will start.
And it is just the start if spring.
Good luck.
And just noticed – the mozzies have appeared already.
Don, “One person was preparing a case to go to court”. Make that two now, Don, two shifty legal moves to dodge testing scomorobodebt legality, but the second is going ahead and listed for December. Two test cases for a class action proposal initiated by Vic Legal Aid. But those two person’s tax return funds due to be paid to them by the ATO were swiped whilst held in the hands of the ATO and not swiped from any personal bank account. AFAIK, though it is threatened, funds have not been garnisheed from anyone’s bank account. People have not been thrown on the street and seen their house and contents auctioned off to Morrison’s mates to pay their fake robodebts. I assume that to do so fraudulently would be plain old theft and the abbott-turnbull-slomo government, and their culpable mandarins, have the professional crooks rat cunning not to try that on.
Anyone know of other rulings invoking intergenerational impacts with such a definitive statement.
JQ I hope you can / will use this paragraph in an article…
“The predicted economic benefits would accrue to the present generation but the long-term environmental, heritage and agricultural costs will be borne by the future generations.”
NSW’s Bylong coal mine proposal knocked back on ‘environmental impacts’
https://abc.net.au/news/2019-09-18/bylong-coal-mine-proposal-knocked-back/11523856
https://www.ipcn.nsw.gov.au/projects/2018/10/bylong-coal-project
The government/bureaucrat criminal conspirators would have no defence or indemnity against criminal charges. They likely would not have the crown representing them at trial either…
Anyone know of other rulings invoking intergenerational impacts with such a definitive statement.
JQ I hope you can / will use this paragraph in an article…
“The predicted economic benefits would accrue to the present generation but the long-term environmental, heritage and agricultural costs will be borne by the future generations.”
NSW’s Bylong coal mine proposal knocked back on ‘environmental impacts’
https://abc.net.au/news/2019-09-18/bylong-coal-mine-proposal-knocked-back/11523856
https://www.ipcn.nsw.gov.au/projects/2018/10/bylong-coal-project
Robo-Debt Illegality: A Failure of Rule of Law Protections?
30/04/2018 / AUSPUBLAW
BY TERRY CARNEY
Robo-debts lack any legal foundation
https://auspublaw.org/2018/04/robo-debt-illegality/
“Darwin – 33 and 80%rh, elsewhere 33 and 8%rh. Easy to see where fire will start.”
There’s been plenty of bushfire fighting in the Top End lately.
KT2 – I have long speculated that hitting dew point overnight plays an important but largely overlooked role in cool weather hazard reduction fires; it has assisted in managing fires (perhaps more for grassy areas than dense bush) so they go out by themselves, reasonably reliably. Low humidity and raised temperatures mean large areas are NOT going to hit dew point and that natural fire retardant affect is more likely, under global warming, to be absent entirely – which greatly raises the manpower and equipment requirement for safe hazard reduction burning.
I also think we are still suffering the consequences of 200 years of arrogant presumption that the Australian vegetation mix colonist encountered was natural and Aboriginal burning practices were innately inferior – and dangerous – compared to the land use practices Europeans brought with them. I don’t know that such practices would cope unchanged with continuing global warming, but we are finally beginning to understand their significance and value. Not sure it can cope with risks of litigation in the modern context either – and that has been one more factor that sees landholders hold back from using fire as a land management tool.
From what I have read, the aborigines were working under a different set of guidelines, the unintended consequences of their traditional burning was to deny colonists feed for their cattle, which became another point of conflict.
Rog – yet in the end regular burning became – and is still – widely used by Australian graziers, for the fresh, green and more nutritious growth afterwards as well as bushfire safety, in echo of those traditional practices.
Interesting anecdatum from CoalWire:
American insurer AIG is under pressure to drop coverage of Adani’s proposed Carmichael coal mine.
“An email from a company employee revealed that AIG’s head office in the US had directed AIG not to renew the coverage due to public pressure and concern that it could jeopardise its sponsorship deal with Rugby New Zealand (Rugby NZ).”
Hard-headed cynics will doubt whether PR concerns can really sway major commercial decisions. But there is no a priori reason why not. The mine is a poor risk, and AIG is a retail insurer for whom public reputation is important.
Svante says “There’s been plenty of bushfire fighting in the Top End lately.” “Plenty” detailed…
After reading articles below, it would seem education and culture effects will alter fire ammount, location and intensity. Ever thus but very sobering read.
Regarding bushfires NT…
“27 percent of fires were deliberate, but the cause of 67 percent of fires was unknown. Hence, deliberate causes accounted for 81 percent of all cases where a cause was delineated”.
And it states 46% are grass fires less than a hectare.
“Understanding bushfire: trends in deliberate vegetation fires in Australia
http://aic.gov.au/publications/bfab/bfab052
Cont…
“A sharp decline in humidity and surface soil moisture content occurs with the rapid arrival of the dry season. Continued dry conditions over subsequent months leads to curing of grasses and other vegetation, and the land becomes primed for fire activity. … (Australian Bureau of Meteorology 2007a,b).
“Changes in previously established patterns, whether through land management or, most pertinent to this discussion, the activity of arsonists can induce major environmental changes and loss of biodiversity. Intense fires are particularly damaging, resulting in a significant decrease in abundance and diversity across most faunal species.
“27 percent of fires were deliberate, but the cause of 67 percent of fires was unknown. Hence, deliberate causes accounted for 81 percent of all cases where a cause was delineated. The proportion of unknown causes varied markedly between centres, hampering attempts to delineate regional differences in the extent of deliberate fire setting or to establish a definitive estimate of the rate in urban centres territory-wide.”
“Time of the day
Most vegetation fires occurred between 11 am and 6 pm, but subtle differences were evident depending on the cause of ignition (Figure 30). The number of accidental fires rose sharply between 9 and 11 am, plateau until roughly 7 pm, before sharply declining over the next couple of hours (Figure 30). In contrast, suspicious fires peaked at 6 to 7 pm. The highest incidence of incendiary fires occurred between 7 and 9 pm. It was not uncommon to see a discrepancy between the times at which the highest number of deliberate and non-deliberate fires occurred. However, in both instances the peak number of fires occurred at a slightly later time than in most other jurisdictions.”
“Twenty-seven percent of vegetation fires were deliberate (0.7% incendiary; 25.8% suspicious), with the cause of 67.2 percent of fires being unknown. Hence, deliberate fires comprised 81 percent of known causes. The percentage of deliberate fires annually remained uniform.” End AIC report.
The BoM looks like it will need to change this paragraph to ‘early spring’ – not summer;;
“Southeast Australia—summer and autumn
“…During late spring and early summer grass and forest fuels hold some moisture but fires can occur on hot days with strong winds. Fuels dry out in mid and late summer but winds are typically not as strong… “.
The fuel locally at START of spring -central west nsw – is already dry and 8% r humidity UNusual at this time of year. If you use BoM averages it looks as if relative humidity high. Yet 3+hrs everyday last week at 8% before midday. And winds -again avgs belie over 70km gust during these times of very low humidity.
“Australia’s fire weather seasons… While these are traditional peaks of the bushfire season, local conditions can drive dangerous bushfire activity at any time…”
http://www.bom.gov.au/weather-services/fire-weather-centre/bushfire-weather/index.shtml
“People are esponsible for most of the fires that occur in northern Australia — prescribed fires, accidental fires and those started by arson. Fires are lit by a variety of land managers including the Bushfires Council, conservationists, traditional owners, rural block owners and pastoralists.” And, it liiks like NT has more intensive lightening. See lightening intensity maps…
http://learnline.cdu.edu.au/units/env207/fundamentals/ignition.html
So you were correct to point out NT fires Svante. Any references and data appreciated to flesh out ‘plenty’ next time.
JQ has posts on bushfires…
https://johnquiggin.com/?s=bushfire
Would you, JQ, reference this please?
“Meanwhile, back in the real world, I’m starting a long-postponed project on bushfires and climate change with a former postdoc of mine who’s been working in the US for some years and is back for a long visit, having arrived just as the Tasmanian fires started it.”
https://johnquiggin.com/2013/01/09/wouldnt-even-know/
“… if their a**e was on fire. That’s just about literally true of Australia’s climate delusionists. As the hottest temperatures on record set off the predictable (and predicted) bushfires, they keep on with the same old stuff.”
KT2, re entreaty – “plenty” from the NT – “I heard it on the radio, saw it on the television” – a quick look at ABC News for “northern territory bushfire 2019” shows:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-15/northern-territory-on-alert-bushfires-threaten-property-darwin/11514770
Firefighters on Saturday battled a number of erratic spot fires in the rural Darwin suburbs of Girraween and Howard Springs. Fire and emergency services remained on high alert on Sunday with strong winds forecast across the Top End.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-16/northern-territory-bushfire-family-home-rural-area-lucky-escape/11517602
Top End blazes ‘apocalyptic’
Multiple emergency alerts and watch and act warnings were triggered in the Top End between Friday and Monday, as powder-keg weather conditions saw fires spark in the suburbs of Girraween, Howard Springs, Humpty Doo, Dundee, Berry Springs and more.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-28/bushfire-outlook-not-good-news-but-will-we-heed-the-warnings/11434778
Meanwhile, the Northern Territory is already in its fire season. The dry conditions have led to reduced growth, but conditions are expected to remain normal until the wet comes to offer some relief.
Craig Kelly has said to school students that everything they are told about climate change is a lie.
But if that is true, that means that what he is telling them about climate change is a lie, including his claim that what everybody else is telling them is a lie.
And if it is false, it means everything they are told about climate change is true.
But that then includes what he is telling them, including that it’s a lie.
These logical contradictions are enough to do your head in.
that’s the point
Email from my daughter’s primary school this arvo.
UPDATED: Early Departure: Friday 20 September
Dear Families,
The school is aware that many families will be withdrawing their children from class early tomorrow so that they can attend the Climate Strike. To make this manageable for the school office, I request that these students are collected before 12.45pm while students are still in the classrooms – before going out to lunch play. Parents are to sign their children out at the office and then collect them from their classrooms.
UPDATED INFORMATION: If another parent is taking your child from school to attend the Climate Strike, please send the school an email stating that you give permission for that adult to collect your child from school. We need written permission to release children to adults that would not normally collect your child.
A reminder that we have an assembly at 1:30pm and a 2pm dismissal.
Kind regards,
[removed]
Principal
The Guardian said the government spends close to 8 billion $ on the job network system ‘helping ‘ the unemployed. At 1 M unemployed that is $8000 each per year. . Why arent these self proclaimed prudent economic managers whipped mercilessly in the press about that ? I believe K Rudds wife got very rich off the JNMember system.
Todays climate strike should be huge because the last one was and this time it has more mainstream media coverage in the lead up. There is a growing democratic tide that cant be held back forever .
Nick, I’ll just mention that Climate Strike events can be at different times depending on location.
Svante I’m glad you agree with me that humidity is a problem…
“as powder-keg weather conditions” in nsw or nt.
Sunshine +1
“spends close to 8 billion $ on the job network system ‘helping ‘ the unemployed. At 1 M unemployed that is $8000 each per year. . Why arent these self proclaimed prudent economic managers whipped mercilessly in the press about that ?”
3 ‘job providers’ now up from 2 of popn 10k.
Spoke with National Parks yesterday. I forgot NP as firefighters, so that makes 4 separate sets of fire managers locally.
Central west nsw – 3 bushfires, one peat bog fire and one shale fire – last week. All exxtinguished with help of 30mm rain. Peat fire from last year.
They measured to their surprise 9% humidity. BoM won’t accept Nat Parks weather data!
Journalist Paul Bongiorno said that for the last election Clive Palmer spent $60 million , the Coalition spent $30 million ,and Labor spent $18 million. Those figures do not include the value of the 6 year smear campaign that the Murdoch media empire conducted against Bill Shorten.
Also – as a counter to the argument that, being small, Australia cant make any difference to the world issue of carbon ; we are one of the top emitters per capita and the 14th biggest in absolute terms whilst being the worlds 3rd biggest exporter of carbon via fossil fuel. Apart from that we still have not managed to squander all of our soft power -we still have influence beyond our numbers.
“Journalist Paul Bongiorno said that for the last election Clive Palmer spent $60 million , the Coalition spent $30 million ,and Labor spent $18 million. Those figures do not include the value of the 6 year smear campaign that the Murdoch media empire conducted against Bill Shorten.”
Mind you, a significant fraction of that time was when Malcolm Turnbull was PM and the OZ in particular would have smeared him just as much as Shorten during that time.
Sunshine – If our share is so small it should give us reason to believe doing it will easier to achieve, not harder, but like so many obstructionist arguments the truth gets turned upside down. I think calls for Australia to NOT do it’s (not that small) share because it won’t make a difference are based on the premise that Australia will be acting entirely alone. Which has never been true. Between a quarter and a third of global emissions come from nations with emissions equal or less than Australia’s – and most appear willing to commit to doing their share. We should continue to call for Australia to do it’s full share – without any creative accounting and other kinds of cheating.
I keep thinking of war analogies – we know if everyone comes out of the trenches and charges, the enemy will be overwhelmed, but if everyone waits until others go first, no-one will and we will fail and fall. Ignominiously. Had that reluctance to act been part of our Australian ethos we would not have such pride in our military endeavors.
“Sunshine – If our share is so small it should give us reason to believe doing it will easier to achieve, not harder, but like so many obstructionist arguments the truth gets turned upside down.”
This is pointless. The science IS IN FACT SETTLED and it did not come out on Al Gore’s side. Now we all should agree that we ought to be thinking about energy economics around the clock like some of the girls in the office think about chocolate.
And we all should also agree that our hyrdro-carbon paternity will not last forever, actually it WILL, but not as an economically viable thing.
With these ingredients we should start working together. We should be thinking in terms of decades and centuries and forgetting about panics.
The Professor paved the way with his television performance when he said many times “Renewables and Storage” and he never said “Renewables” alone.
We have to work together. A bird flies on two wings. And these pseudo-religious beliefs have to sent to the fires.
Thanks Ronald. Sorry I didn’t make it very clear why I posted that. It wasn’t so much to let people know the times today. It was more a response to Craig Kelly, following Smith9 and may’s comments… good luck with your lame attempt to influence our children by calling them sheep and lemmings. Here’s what’s actually happening tomorrow.
I found it amusing he called the parents of children across Australia liars. I thought conservatives believed strongly that what parents teach their children about the world is sacrosanct, and politicians and the like are supposed to butt out. Which is in fact what the school were doing.
They do think like that in general Nick. Thats the template alright.
But this climate stuff is all lies from start to finish. There is no getting around this. Sorry you had to hear it from me. I looked into it really solidly 2005-2008. Nothings changed in the interim.
Its flat out lies. And its never going to be any different.