Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Doomblade187]

Uh Oh, a dam may be threatened by the fire.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Nah it's fine, Sydney is made of 100% pure asbestos.

[Iduno]

Uh Oh, a dam may be threatened by the fire.

Good news is, we don't need no water.

[Reelya]

Uh Oh, a dam may be threatened by the fire.

The biggest risk here is actually what happens when it rains, since the ash will run off into the reservoir.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/nsw-water-agencies-working-around-the-clock-20191223-p53mhc.html

WaterNSW has since deployed floating booms and curtains across the Warragamba catchment to serve as a barrier to block ash from filtering into the untreated part of the water supply, while water quality scientists are monitoring the dam using sophisticated, real-time technology.

"The current priority is to protect against ash or debris being washed into the storage following a rain event," the WaterNSW spokesman said.

[Kagus]

Pfft, the threat of ash getting in the water? That's a lye.

[Trolldefender99]

That is depressing as hell. I don't have a link, but at least on twitter (I know I know its twitter, but it popped up on my phone) supposedly over 500 million animals have been killed by the fires in australia. That is really depressing.

[feelotraveller]

It's okay, the not true right-wing wackos have it covered, courtesy of our Federal Enviroment Minister when asked if we needed more action on climate change:

“Look, it’s certainly the case that 200 years of human settlement in this relatively young continent is catching up with us,” Ms Ley told AM.
Koalas are an example. We like to live where they live on the coastal plain and we have introduced an extraordinary range of invasive species - not just animals, but cats and rabbits.”

https://au.news.yahoo.com/environment-minister-apologises-for-saying-australia-has-only-been-inhabited-for-200-years-055418245.html

The 'apology' was perhaps even more disturbing; while admitting her mistake she was "sure that I would have said ‘European settlement’."  Egads, what would Freud make of that?

[Jimmy]

Another Australian politician makes an ass of himself on TV

Reading from the party songbook about climate change like a boss. How encouraging to know he's chair of the backbench environment and energy committee.

[Reelya]

Just reading about the worst-ever bushfire season in Australia, in terms of land burnt. It was 1974. The current season is 10 million hectares, while 1974 saw 117 million hectares burnt.

[feelotraveller]

"Lies, damn lies and statistics." 

To keep perspective for our international guests (yes that's cheeky) the recent Amazon bushfires have been tallied to 900 000 hectares and the not so distant Californian fires to 800 000.

Personally I have never been blanketed by vision obscuring smoke for pretty much eight weeks straight - with a total of three almost clear days - ever before, though of course that is anecdotal and highly subjective, but still definitively true. 

Since we also know that camera never lies (beware the humour) thought folks might be interested in a perspective (or is that panorama) from New Zealand:
https://www.insider.com/photos-australia-bushfires-new-zealand-sky-2020-1
"According to Radio New Zealand, the police in Auckland have asked residents to stop calling the emergency line regarding the orange-colored skies."

[Iduno]

To be fair, nobody should expect the Australian government to be able to fight climate change. Machine guns just don't work.

[scriver]

Spoiler: War... War never changes (click to show/hide)

[Reelya]

The logging industry is now saying that the government should open up more areas for logging and that this will reduce the bushfire risk.

However, reading up about the issue turned up the fact that logged forests increase bushfire risk according to academics. The East Gippland area and the South Coast of NSW where the fires have been fiercest have been hotspots of the timber industry for decades.

https://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/6582795/logging-makes-forest-fires-worse-experts/

Researchers found logged forests burned at a "significantly" higher severity during the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria.

"It's not something we should be entertaining anymore," he said.

"It's not a profitable industry. It's adding dramatically to the fire risk. This is crazy."

Recent calls by the forestry industry to selectively log national parks in a bid to reduce the bushfire risk are "lacking science", Prof Lindenmayer argues.

Yeah, so they haven't caused enough damage by turning the existing commercial logging areas into fire deathtraps, now they want to use the fear of bushfires to open up national parks to the same thing. Bloody nature: what's it ever done for us?

https://theconversation.com/victorias-logged-landscapes-are-at-increased-risk-of-bushfire-30611

Victoria’s forest management policies need to be urgently reviewed in response to the discovery that logging can contribute to the severity of bushfires in wet forests, like the devastating fires on Black Saturday in February 2009.

Our recent study, based on data from areas that burned on Black Saturday, clearly shows how extensive logging can increase the severity of bushfires in mountain ash forests. We found that the risk of “crown” fires, which burn severely and spread rapidly through the forest canopy, is greatest in mountain ash forests that have been regrowing for about 15 years. Before the 2009 fires, these young trees were established following clearfell logging.

https://districtbulletin.com.au/day-shame-south-coast-forestry-destructive-logging/

“They have systematically strip mined the South Coast forests for logs from Eden to Nowra for nearly 50 years and caused immense damage to nature. It is industrial logging at its worst – smash and grab as much as you can, as quickly as you can and then move on before the community really understand what they have lost. Shame on Forestry Corp.”

This seems to be a pretty major factor in the whole thing that hasn't got enough attention. Intensive logging creates a lot of debris and causes extensive moisture loss / lack of moisture holding while also contributing to regrow of lots of thin spindly trees which burn faster than mature trees.

[Loud Whispers]

When will the cult of free market die

[Kagus]

When will the cult of free market die

When someone else offers the same or better fanaticism for lower prices