Families with babies are stranded in Mallacoota - where the sky has once again turned “pitch black” - after being told they would not be evacuated via Navy ships because their children were under five.

Emergency Management Victoria said “vulnerable individuals” - including families with children under school age, the elderly and people with disabilities - would be prioritised for airlift.

However, some remain stuck in Mallacoota after flights out were grounded due to the smoke.

In a briefing on Saturday evening ADF Brigadier Doug Laidlaw said some small children and elderly people had been evacuated on HMAS Choules.

 

Read more:

https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/families-stuck-in-mallacoota-af...

Farmers grapple with how to dispose of livestock killed in bushfires

Images of fleeing kangaroos and dehydrated koalas have captured the world's attention during Australia's bushfire crisis — but heartbreaking photos of perished livestock paint an equally devastating picture.

Key points:

• Tens of thousands of livestock are likely to have perished in the bushfires
• Their carcasses are scattered across fire-devastated communities, with agricultural body Agforce saying there are biosecurity and health reasons to dispose of them as soon as possible
• Prime Minister Scott Morrison has established a national agency to deal with logistical challenges of bushfire recovery

 

In fire-scorched Batlow, New South Wales, animal carcasses line the sides of the road, with farmers beginning the slow, difficult and grim work of loading the bodies onto the trays of utes.

Most are sheep and cattle held on surrounding properties. Most are clumped together, their bodies blackened.

Farmers said they were as prepared for the fire as they could be, and while some animals had survived, they could not save them all.

With stock losses estimated to be at least in the tens of thousands, and public health and biosecurity risks to consider, logistical arrangements for the removal of carcasses are being factored into recovery efforts.

Graphic content warning: this article contains images that may distress some readers.

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-05/fire-bushfire-dead-livestock-farmers-agforce-animal-carcasses/11841868

Australia’s leader has been harshly criticized for what many see as a nonchalant response to the disaster.

Mr. Morrison has minimized the connection between climate change and Australia’s extreme environmental conditions, even as the country just completed its hottest and driest year on record. He has derided calls to end coal mining as “reckless,” prioritizing economic interests and loyalty to a powerful lobby. He has opposed taxing heat-trapping emissions or taking other significant steps to reduce them, although a majority of Australians say the government should take stronger action.

And he has signaled no change in his policies even as 24 people have died, hundreds of homes have been destroyed, and more than 12 million acres have burned, an area larger than Denmark. 

“The thing that strikes everyone about the present situation is the federal government’s disengagement and lethargy, to put it politely,” said Bill Hare, director of Climate Analytics, a policy institute.

“People are just bewildered,” he added.

As the fire conditions worsened over the weekend, Mr. Morrison defended his government’s response and announced a military mobilization — one that he quickly promoted in a video on social media, drawing widespread criticism. He also denied that his government had played down the links between global warming and changes in Australia’s weather patterns.

“The government has always made this connection, and that has never been in dispute,” he said.

The prime minister said he was undeterred by the anger directed at him. “There has been a lot of blame being thrown around,” he said. “Blame: It doesn’t help anybody at this time, and over-analysis of these things is not a productive exercise.”

Mr. Morrison’s attempt at damage control came as Australians have been voicing a growing sense since November, when the fires arrived early and with far more force than usual, that the government is no longer protecting them in the way it once did.

 

Read more:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/04/world/australia/fires-scott-morrison.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

 

 

The more Scumpoodungshitson says no change to his policies on climate change, the more he entrenches himself (and his cronies) in the sewers of history... History AND THE PRESENT cannot be kind to such a person. WE HAVE TO RUBBISH HIM. We know he won't turn around but he might crack... though with people like him, evangelical sociopaths (people who walk on other people to get where they are — i.e. what he did to Turnbull), never crack. They just knit a new story...

 

 

 

Read from top.

A key small business lobby group has urged any climate change sceptics on the Coalition frontbench to quit their ministries, arguing they stymied preparations for this bushfire season.

Key points:

Small business lobby COSBOA warned many businesses "will close and not reopen" as a result of the fires and loss of summer trade

COSBOA chief executive Peter Strong said climate change deniers in the Federal Government should "shut-up" and "go and sit at the backbench where they belong"

The lobby is urging governments to assist fire-affected regions to put on events once the fires are over to lure visitors back to those areas

The Council of Small Business Organisations Australia (COSBOA) said its members who have been affected by the fires, either directly or indirectly, are generally disappointed with the Federal Government's handling of the crisis.

 

"What I'm hearing from my members is the fact that there should have been better preparation for what was predicted by many to be very bad bushfires, worse than normal," said COSBOA's chief executive Peter Strong.

 

"The preparation at the state level, I think, was very good. But at the federal level, there are people within Government who firmly believe there is no such thing as climate change or that human beings don't have an impact upon it, and they are adamant that no extra work or extra effort should ever happen because they don't believe in climate change.

 

"That's where the disappointment is within my membership, and we want to hear from those climate change deniers in the Government ranks that they will now shut up, they will go and sit at the backbench where they belong and they will not interfere in developing processes to respond to this situation."

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-06/climate-change-deniers-hinder-fir...

 

 

Read from top.

The national bushfire recovery agency will be led by former Australian Federal Police commissioner Andrew Colvin, working closely with the states and territories to rebuild homes and critical infrastructure destroyed in the bushfires.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison made the announcement after a National Security Committee of Cabinet meeting in Canberra.

"The $2 billion commitment is an additional cost, an initial commitment, and if further funds are required, further funds will be provided," Mr Morrison said.

The new bushfire recovery agency will operate for at least two years and the new funding is separate to existing disaster relief payments.

"What we are focusing on here is the human cost and the rebuilding cost for people's lives," Mr Morrison said.

"We're focused on the financial cost, we're focused on the human costs and ensuring we can do everything we can, as quickly as we can, to support that recovery effort."

There had been speculation that costs associated with the bushfires could spoil the Government's plan to offer a surplus in the current financial year.

Mr Morrison claimed "the surplus is of no focus to me".

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-06/scott-morrison-bushfire-recovery-...

Goodo... Now we don't expect any understanding of the science of "climate change" (global warming) from the Liberals (CONservatives), nor any sense of humility. The CO2 emissions of Australia under this crazy government HAD GONE UP, and will go up and up, though some of it could be offset by individuals taking the matter into their own hands — like the farmer in "Shawn the Sheep" building his own windmill to power his TV set...

 

During a recent press conference, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the issue of fuel reduction burns was "commonly" raised with him as he visited bushfire-ravaged communities.

He also drew a link between preventative burns and people "who say they are seeking those actions on climate change", saying they could be the same people who "don't share the same urgency of dealing with hazard reduction".

Planned burning 'not a silver bullet'

Asked about the issue this afternoon, Mr Andrews said prescribed burns were part of an integrated strategy focused on protecting life but there were fewer days each year when they could be safely lit.

"Surely no-one is advocating that we put fire into the landscape in an unsafe way. That just wouldn't be sensible, that would be dangerous," he said.

He said controlled burns were "not a silver bullet".

"I think there's some good examples of where land that had been backburned quite hard — quite heavy fuel reduction burning only three or four years ago — burnt pretty hot last weekend."

The Country Fire Authority's chief officer Steve Warrington said there was a "fair amount of emotion" around the issue.

"We've had fire down the landscape here that has had burns go right through it [during colder months] and it hasn't slowed it at all," he said.

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-07/fuel-reduction-burn-debate-rubbis...

 

Read from top.

read also about the nice non-journalists opinionating at the merdoch media:

when the fox and his minions are solely responsible for global warming...

For liberals, it’s more fun to blame climate change than arsonists for Australian fires – but arrests show it’s not so simple


Damian Wilson

is a UK journalist, ex-Fleet Street editor, financial industry consultant and political communications special advisor in the UK and EU.

 

As Australia burns, Hollywood luvvies jump on the climate bandwagon. But in reality, it is the twin factors of recklessness and arson that play a decisive role in the scale of continent-wide fires.

Nearly 200 people, who have been arrested by police in five of Australia’s seven states since September, are to blame for many of these killer blazes, while the tinder-dry undergrowth and long-term drought have created the perfect conditions which allow the fires to rage.

As a journalist in rural Victoria earlier in my career – decades before climate crisis became a term - I often saw bushfires flare up in the drier months, racing up and down grasslands with incredible speed and sending balls of fire from treetop to treetop. It was a frightening but impressive sight and made for startling photography, even in a black and white newspaper.

So sleepy was the town that my colleagues and I used to joke it could be the firemen starting these fires, just to have something to do.

Incidentally, in November a volunteer firefighter was arrested and charged with seven counts of arson in one Australian state, just as this fire season started.

So maybe there was more truth to that claim than we thought. But troubled souls in that profession are just a small part of what is actually a genuine problem.

Deliberate or suspected arson is to blame for nearly 50 per cent of the blazes (and lightning strikes for another 10), with nearly half of those lit by adolescents. And school holidays are a bad time for bushfires.
Back in late-1980s Australia, farmers and landholders would periodically burn off the undergrowth of dry vegetation in the cooler months, which would reduce the amount of fuel an uncontrolled blaze could access. It was considered the lesser of two evils.


As climate issues came onto the agenda, this type of controlled burning became frowned upon by environmentalists.

The argumentgoes back and forth over the benefits of prescribed burning, with the green lobby having the upper hand in recent years – arguing in favor of deliberately setting fires makes for poor PR.

And you can’t help but laugh imagining for a second that, instead of blathering valiantly about climate change, Cate Blanchett or Jennifer Aniston would give an impassioned speech about the benefits of controlled burning, or the importance of harsher sentences for arsonists.

Even if those measures could save millions of acres of bush, and thousands of their beloved koalas.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/477667-climate-change-australia-fires/

——————————


Id…. Sorry, I was about to insult Damian Wilson… And I promised I would not. So let me just say that Damian Wilson is completely wrong and his opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT, thus they should not be shared.

What has induce this horror bushfire season has been climate change (aka GLOBAL WARMING). Whether people like you, Mr Wilson, don’t see the point and are happy to promote falsehoods, the fact of the matter is that Australia’s average temperature for 2019 was 1.5 degree Celsius above the new average which does not include the cooler years prior 1940. The high temperatures which have happened for the last few years in this country have created an unusual longer drought — itself following another drought with only a few rainy days in between. Of course, this isn’t the same everywhere as the continent stretches 9 million square kilometres from way above the tropics to below 45 south, but on the whole, this increase of drought conditions which had been predicted by serious scientists more than 20 years ago, are now with us. Australia is the second driest continent on earth after Antarctica. 

Some of the points you make are erroneous, especially concerning arson. You quote the infamous denialist Australian newspaper The Australian as the source of your claim for “nearly 200 people have been arrested by police” being blamed for the fires… This is an unconfirmed number, only quoted by the Murdoch media — a denialist of climate change media. This number actually includes many people "smoking a cigarette" during a TOTAL FIRE BAN, and who did not and would not start a "new fire"...  The great majority of fires were started by lightning strikes and flying ambers...

The other point you make re the "burning of the undergrowth" is a sore point — as fire-chiefs also have pointed out that many “back-burned areas during the winter months” got ravaged by the present bushfires. Many other areas that have burnt, especially in Queensland “rainforest” never saw a fire for the last 5 million years as far as we can record. Some of the forests fires were in areas that have not been burnt by the traditional Aboriginal method in 20,000 years of so. The major factor is the lack of water. This “climate change” was also predicted more than 25 years ago by Mary E white, a palaeobotanist, in her book After the Greening: The Browning of Australia…

The title of the book refers to White's 1983 book, The Greening of Gondwana, which covers the 400 million years history of the flora and vegetation of Australia. This book, After the Greening: The Browning of Australia, covers the same time period but focuses more on climate, tectonic plate movement, and human influence on Australia's vegetation. The two books compliment each other with little overlap. Like its predecessor, this book is well written - easy accessible to an interested layperson yet satisfactory to any botanist - with many color photos, maps, illustrations and drawings that convey the essence of the modern Australian botanical landscape and the historical factors that have led to its development.

White asks: are we turning Australia into a desert island? The answer is, unfortunately, yes. Australia is unique in many ways: much of its soil is infertile, much of it is arid, and its flora and fauna are specialized and fragile. The introduction of pigs, foxes, rabbits and even cats by European settlers are "eating their way through the landscape" and having a large impact on the native biota.

Near the end of the book, White decries the biotic changes that have befallen Australia by human activities, and the effects that the introduced species have had on the land. She offers no prescription but hopes the book will help convince Australians of the uniqueness of their biota, its values and its special fragility.

(I know that White was very worried about global warming. I am prepared to state her death at 92 was accidental...)

At this stage, the observed scientific parameters of change are oscillating with a trend of increased heat and less rains. It is to be notde that every burn of forest changes the style of forest with more of some species than others regrowing… It is to be seen yet in many areas what is going to regrow if anything regrow, despite some of the Australian vegetation used to “fire”.  

So I would suggest, Mr Damian Wilson, for you to stay out of the debate because you are as ignorant as a 2be4 plank of wood. Is this restrained enough? I could have said Damian Wilson is an idi…..iiii….i. But I won’t. So, please stay out of this debate. What you think you know is completely wrong. Simple...

I would suggest also for RT to either present an alternative point of view to the erroneous "opinions" of Damian Wilson or apologise for publishing it...

The head of the NSW Rural Fire Service has dismissed claims by Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce that a lack of hazard reduction burns, not climate change, is the main culprit for Australia’s ongoing bushfire crisis.

The contrasting comments come as the official death toll from this bushfire season rose to 26 with confirmation that the death of a Forest Fire Management Victoria staff member in a car accident on Friday was related to the blazes.

The death of Matt Kavanagh was the third in Victoria, joining 20 fire-related deaths in NSW and three in South Australia.

Speaking on Channel Seven’s Sunrise program on Wednesday morning, Mr Joyce spoke of “green caveats” – the red tape he believes prevented firefighters from conducting hazard reduction burns ahead of the bushfire season.

“I believe, and this is my opinion, there are too many caveats that have been placed on people, let’s call them ‘green caveats’, that impede people’s capacities to fight fires,” the former deputy prime minister said.

But RFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said hazard reduction burning was challenging and the biggest impediment to completing burns was weather.

Mr Fitzsimmons said longer and hotter summers driven by climate change meant there was a “shrinking window of opportunity” for more favourable burning periods.

“Hazard reduction is absolutely an important factor when it comes to fire management and managing fire in the landscape, but it is not the panacea,” he told the ABC.

“When you’re running fires under severe, extreme or worse conditions, hazard reduction has very little effect at all on fire spread.

 

Read more:

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2020/01/08/barnaby-joyce-hazard-reduction/

 

Fake news spread by the Murdoch media:

 

Victoria police say there is no evidence any of the devastating bushfires in the state were caused by arson, contrary to the spread of global disinformation exaggerating arsonist arrests during the current crisis.

A misleading figure suggesting 183 arsonists have been arrested “since the start of the bushfire season” spread across the globe on Wednesday, after initial reports in News Corp were picked up by Donald Trump Jr, US far-right websites and popular alt-right personalities.

 

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jan/08/police-contradict...

Maps and pictures of Australia's unprecedented bushfires have spread widely on social media.

Users are posting them to raise awareness of the devastating fires, but some of the viral maps are misleading, spreading disinformation about the crisis.

The months-long fires have killed at least 25 people and millions of animals, and destroyed more than 2,000 houses. 

After milder weather brought brief respite last weekend, fire crews are preparing again for worsening conditions as temperatures are predicted to soar on Friday.

Artist's visualisation misinterpreted

One image shared widely by Twitter users, including by singer Rihanna, was interpreted as a map showing the live extent of fire spread, with large sections of the Australian coastline molten-red and fiery.

 

Read more:

https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-51020564

 

What should be noted though is that Australia as a whole (9 million square kilometres) was 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than the average, in 2019 — with many places breaking temperature records as well.