PM returning from Hawaii

[tgh]

i hadn’t noticed ...

Oh Lord it's hard to be humble when I'm……...

 

[Ekka]

These experts would be the ones to listen to....

Cut and paste from bloomberg.com

There’s a 60,000-Year-Old Way to Help Stop Australia Burning

Australia’s indigenous people say the bushfire-ravaged country is paying the price for ignoring their expertise in managing the ecology of the world’s-driest inhabited continent.



The fires have already burned more than 6 million acres -- an area the size of Massachusetts -- and caused smoke haze to blanket Sydney and other cities. With a deepening drought suggesting there’s no end in sight to the crisis, indigenous fire practitioner Victor Steffensen is calling for a radical change in how the land is managed.



“The Western mindset is always about dealing with problems while they’re doing damage -- it’s reactive,” Steffensen, 46, said from Cairns in the nation’s far northeast. “If we can use our way, these types of fires will never get the chance to start.”



Choking Haze Is Turning Sydney Into the World’s Laboratory



Australia typically relies on reducing fuel loads in bush land through controlled burns during cooler winter months, placing a priority on land surrounding residential areas.



This year, those preventative efforts have proven to be fatally inadequate as the fire season got off to a ferocious and early start due to tinder-box conditions. Dozens of blazes, usually caused by lightning strikes, quickly got out of control, often in remote areas which firefighters found difficult to access.


Six Australians have been killed and the deaths of more than 2,000 koalas in New South Wales state alone have sparked concern that the species is being pushed toward extinction.

The indigenous approach is to manage the landscape with so-called “cool, slow” controlled burns often conducted at night. They’re designed to reduce dangerous fuel loads of scrub and fallen timber on forest floors, and incrementally tackle large tracts of land with multiple small-scale burns. Such an approach is more labor intensive and takes longer. But the lower intensity and slow progress of the fire gives animals chance to escape and protects the forest canopy.

“Indigenous burns are done over smaller areas at lower intensities,” said Justin Leonard, who has spent two decades studying the risks from bushfires to life and infrastructure with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. “The innate lesson they provide is we will never defeat fire in this country, so we have to use it as a tool and adapt.”

The Sydney Harbour Bridge is shrouded in haze on Nov. 21.
Photographer: Brendon Thorne/Bloomberg
As this year’s fires destroy millions of dollars of property and choke the inhabitants of Sydney, anger has been directed at the conservative government, with accusations that policies supporting the coal industry and refusing to punish greenhouse-gas polluters may be exacerbating climate change.

Natural Disaster and Emergency Management Minister David Littleproud has ordered a parliamentary inquiry to develop a national approach on reducing fuel loads and is calling for proponents of indigenous land management techniques to make submissions.

“There’s thousands of years of experience that we need to tap into,” Littleproud told reporters last week. “We’ve been ignorant to that.”

Australia’s Bushfire Risk is Getting Worse
Conditions are becoming more severe, especially in the south and east

Source: Bureau of Meteorology
Note: The map shows trends from 1978 to 2017 in the annual summary of the Forest Fire Danger Index, an indicator of the severity of fire weather conditions.
The bushfire problem is getting worse. A trend toward longer dry seasons has reduced the time available for preventative burning in cooler months by regional fire services that are often staffed by volunteers.

With limited time and resources, firefighters focus their efforts on land close to residential areas. Their back-burns are typically conducted at a higher intensity, with bigger areas of forest burning faster and hotter -- creating a scorched earth buffer near neighborhoods but destroying more flora and fauna in the process. More remote areas are less likely to be tackled, leading to a build up of fuel that can cause catastrophic blazes in dry years.

The hazards of such a strategy were shown at the weekend when fire services lost control of a back-burn in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, resulting in the loss of at least 20 buildings.


For the first Australians, whose culture traces back at least 60,000 years, fire is central to their way of life, an important spiritual symbol as well as a tool for hunting, cooking and warmth. Many of their traditional ways of managing the land were swept away after the arrival of British settlers and convicts in 1788. In the years that followed, the indigenous people were forced from their land and their cultural beliefs were often held in disdain by white Australians. They remain the poorest and most disadvantaged group in Australian society.

A New South Wales (NSW) Rural Fire Service volunteer uses a fire-lighter during back-burning operations.
Photographer: David Gray/Bloomberg
Steffensen says expanding indigenous fire-management practices could help provide employment as trainers and reduce welfare dependence. He’d like to see other traditional practices adopted too, in areas such as land management, natural medicines and water conservation.

“All these government departments, environmentalists, national parks, farmers and pastoralists have the best intentions but they all have their different interests,” said Steffensen, who founded Firesticks, a company that provides workshops on indigenous back-burning techniques. “Doing it our way on a continent-wide scale would be costly and take up a lot of working hours, but in the long run it could save billions,” he said.

In the meantime, there’s little sign of the rains needed to quench the fires. The national weather forecaster predicts drier-than-average conditions for the nation’s east until at least March.

A NSW Rural Fire Service volunteer douses a fire during back-burning operations.
Photographer: David Gray/Bloomberg
“This fire season started earlier than normal and it’s long, protracted and testing,” said New South Wales Rural Fire Service spokesman Ben Shepherd. “It’s touched many communities that haven’t seen fires in decades.”

He said the fire service has worked with indigenous fire organizations and sees their value.

“It adds to the suite of hazard reduction-methods we use,” he said. “We know not everything is about back-burning -- we need to consider local ecology. We’ll look at anything that helps give us the upper hand.”

The North-East is Queensland

Don't forget ScoMo said on Q&A that Christine Nixon going out for dinner on Black Saturday was an example of poor judgement. That she should have been in the incident centre etc. And then he heads off on holiday to the US - and worse, to open a branch of the Hillsong church. At which event, he will NOT be introduced as a no-name member of the public, but as PM of Australia, thus implying that our country somehow supports these nutters. It's not a good look at the best of times, but while half the country is on fire, it's appalling.

ETA: it's worth knowing too that ScoMo's cult WANTS the world to end, and they also believe that if bad things happen to you, it's because you didn't pray enough, and if you are poor it's because you didn't tithe enough (because their version of god rewards people who give money to their version of a church) , and if you get sick, you deserve that too because you didn't pray enough. I could go on. But it's worth listening to this 7am podcast. I was appalled after listening to it that this man is leader of a secular nation.

So our PM is not permitted a week off, although it is a state problem, which has nothing to do with him?

 

[Ekka]

It probably doesn't, in terms of outcomes. But he is the leader of the country, and perhaps there's an argument he should be standing with the country. Not off on holidays while there's severe droughts, fires raging, and plenty of very unfortunate folk who can't take the time off to relax as he is doing.

Surely you jest? How many teachers and their pupils are working hard at their books? None, I would imagine.
How many of them are fighting fires? Very few, no doubt.
I do not live in an inner-suburban enclave and my anxiety was relieved for the moment by a recent storm, an anxiety it appears is irrelevant to you.
We also exist who live with bushfires at our back-doors, MEL-Traveller, and we do not blame the PM, even if you do.

 

[Hvr]

So our PM is not permitted a week off, although it is a state problem, which has nothing to do with him?

No one cares that he had a holiday, indeed the more he takes the better. The problem is he lied about it. Protocol is that when the PM goes on holiday that the media is advised and the deputy PM takes over, The PMs office refused to say he was on leave and the Deputy PMs office referred people to the PMs office.

A major crisis in a state is when the PM should be consulting with the state Premier and if appropriate offering assistance.

 

[Ekka]

No one cares that he had a holiday, indeed the more he takes the better. The problem is he lied about it. Protocol is that when the PM goes on holiday that the media is advised and the deputy PM takes over, The PMs office refused to say he was on leave and the Deputy PMs office referred people to the PMs office.

A major crisis in a state is when the PM should be consulting with the state Premier and if appropriate offering assistance.

He did not lie about it, Hvr; it was a state problem; where was the premier of that state, Hvr?

 

[DC3]

He did not lie about it, Hvr; it was a state problem; where was the premier of that state, Hvr?

Deception at the very least.

Where was the Premier? Well, not wearing a grass skirt with a frangipani flower in the ear. ☺ ... and stop pickin‘ on Hvr.

 

[RooFlyer]

No one cares that he had a holiday, indeed the more he takes the better. The problem is he lied about it.

Oh Lord , you can’t get over it can you? Lie was it? A falsehood told?

Really? Show us.

 

[amaroo]

The North-East is Queensland

Not if you’re sitting in QLD shaking hands with a stubby holder

 

[DC3]

... and the honorary mod from Taswegia re-enters the building. Watch out.

 

[RooFlyer]

... and the honorary mod from Taswegia re-enters the building. Watch out.

sure, if you like. Just wondering if a lie can be identified, or if it was just abuse. YMMV.

 

[DC3]

Well, at least we are in the Playground.

 

[Ekka]

You are totally wrong about protocol, by the way. We live in a commonwealth, with several state governments, which have certain rights and responsibilities, some of which they ceded to the Commonwealth Government at 1/1/1901, and others later (such as

He did not lie about it, Hvr; it was a state problem; where was the premier of that state, Hvr?

Have you ever wondered why we have state governments and parliaments? Well, I'm sure you know the basics; but basically state governments are there to do what Scott Morrison should not have to do, i.e. justify himself to you or to any of your ilk.

 

[zenyattamondatta]

sure, if you like.

As has been suggested elsewhere, perhaps get a grip?

Maybe even Google some people that can help you get one?

 

[RooFlyer]

As has been suggested elsewhere, perhaps get a grip?

Maybe even Google some people that can help you get one?

Sure I’ve seen it. and I’ve commentated that some would be better participating in a thread topic, or even just be constructive than being personally abusive. YMMV.

 

[zenyattamondatta]

Sure I’ve seen it. and I’ve commentated that some would be better participating in a thread topic, or even just be constructive than being personally abusive. YMMV.

You've been the most one-on-one of anyone, and I'm pretty sure you realise that too.

So, please, get a grip.

 

[DC3]

Oh, a lie. Silly me. I thought that we were talking about a lei.

Yes, stolen from post # 2:

 

[RooFlyer]

You've been the most one-on-one of anyone, and I'm pretty sure you realise that too.

Oh dear. Honestly, tell me the problem of being ‘one on one’ on AFF. Is it against the rules?

And you may need to explain your obsession with ‘getting a grip’.

I suggest you may need to block me, if my contributions upset you so much. It isn’t heathy to be so obsessed.

 

[zenyattamondatta]

Oh dear. Honestly, tell me the problem of being ‘one one’ on AFF. Is it against the rules?

I thought you were big on playing the argument, not playing the man or woman, but you appear to struggle with that. But that's fine. And keep on wiggling your weaselly way around the "rules". I'm sure your folks would have been so proud.

 

[zenyattamondatta]

if my contributions upset you so much

All just data to us, mate.

Maybe you should take the time to sit back and analyse some of your own.

 

[RooFlyer]

I'm sure your folks would have been so proud.

And now you bring in my family. I’ll just leave that there for you to contemplate. Again, I suggest you use the block feature to maintain some personal equanimity.

Now, Ta ta. Happy new year! A Rockford sparkling Shiraz awaits! Cheers