Delingpole: Greta Thunberg Could Not Be More Wrong About the Australian Bush Fires
By Paul Homewood
From Dellers:
With all the subtlety and insight of a dead kangaroo, Greta Thunberg has pronounced on the bush fires currently ravaging Australia.
If there’s one person doesn’t know what she’s talking about, it’s the pig-tailed Swedish school drop out St Greta. And if it’s another, it’s that former Australian fireman who is quoted, approvingly, in the article Thunberg cites from the left-leaning Sydney Morning Herald.
Of course, this season’s Australian bush fires are dramatic and upsetting: they’ve claimed at least three lives and more than 150 houses in New South Wales alone and a currently threatening parts of Sydney. Of course, various interested parties are trying to make political capital out of it – because that’s what activists do: especially the disaster vultures of the climate emergency movement.
But the evidence does not support the eco loons’ claims that these fires are uncharacteristic or historically unprecedented, let alone that man-made global warming or ‘climate change’ has anything to do with it.
As Andrew Bolt points out on this Sky News Australia bulletin, a recent NASA study found that in the last 18 years bush fires in terms of land burned have decreased not increased.
Jo Nova, meanwhile, wrote earlier this year that — as in the U.S. — what is really making these fires so destructive is poor management. Australian states that burn off the underbrush in rotation – such as Western Australia – experience far less wildfire damage. (In many parts of Australia, green policies forbid farmers and landowners from cutting down trees on their property because the trees on their land supposedly act as a ‘carbon sink’.)
After 67 years of fire management in the giant, hot, dry state of WA, the trend is clear — the more prescribed area we burn, the less wildfire does. In the graph below the prescribed burns declined for forty years and wildfires increased for thirty. After the Dwellingup Fire in 1961 the state ramped up the preventative burns, and reduced wildfires.
As the BushFireFront team say:
“We can’t control the weather but we can control the fuel loads“
Tough call — what do we do, redesign our energy system, pay billions, change our cars, our houses and our light globes in the hope that bush fires will be nicer, or do we just go back to doing what we used to do that worked?
If anyone is responsible for turning natural disasters into a tragedy, you could argue, it’s green campaigners like St Greta who treat humans as a nuisance.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Reblogged this on Climate- Science.press.
“We can’t control the weather but we can control the fuel loads“
Controlling fuels means removing the gasoline needed to transport people and those delivering food and water to those fighting fires.
Brilliant idea from policy-makers?
Reminds me of the recent report of a California policeman in a ‘Leccy’ car who was chasing a suspect. he had to drive at high speed to keep up so his battery drained and he ran out of volts. Policeman in leccy car marooned at side of road and suspect got away. brilliant.
I wouldn’t take such stories at face value
An article quotes saying the pursuit was already being stood down cos of the danger.
Down here “fuel loads” means combustible material on the forest floor. For millennia the aborigines regularly burned under-storey to keep the timbered areas open but us whities knew better. Bushfire experts constantly call for more clearing to be done but are howled down by people who call themselves environmentalists.
If (note the if) the Aussies have repeated the mistakes of California re. forest management, or lack of same, they may well get similar results.
Yes. Because both California and Australia have the Mediterranean Sclerophyll Forest formations. They consist of trees and shrubs which have coriaceous (leathery) leaves which contain a lot of resins. This protects from desiccation but also burns readily. Not surprisingly, these formations are fire-maintained and naturally subject to frequent flash fires which do not kill the roots, but keep other species out. When fire is suppressed for long periods of time, an extensive litter layer is built up which fuels a major fire. This is what we are seeing in both places.
St. Greta asserts: “The numbers don’t lie and the science is clear” Indeed it is: One part-per-million of oxidized carbon is almost 8,000 million metric tons. Try to remove that from the atmosphere by 2030 to save the planet. 800 million a year… just one ppm?
The poor little girl only regurgitates the propaganda fed to her under the aegis of her parents and the big eco green money – follow the money and you will get no surprises.
It was pointed out recently in Oz that wet weather promotes the bush growth that becomes a problem, if not managed properly with pro-active controlled burning. It will be interesting to see what happens in the area which only recently received rain after a 5 year drought -perhapse wild fires.
I think this is the problem in California as Trump pointed out.
Letting nature take its course means natural wildfires.
Weird how so many species of Pyrophytic plants could have evolved in Australia if wild fires weren’t natural. The eucalyptus even encourages the spread of fire through its oils. New Scientist noted in 2011 how many rare plants appeared following fires.
As man-made global warming causing fires is only a recent phenomenon, perhaps we need to completely re-invent the theory on how quickly species evolve? Must be pretty quick! The settled science of global warming overturning all other areas of settled science. Nothing is beyond its reach! /sarc (just in case you need it)
Rampion Wind farm has been unable to export to the Grid since October 26th, likely to not be a quick fix either. Sounds like a cable fault. So going around and around pointlessly, a bit like Greta.
Well that will have saved electricity bill-payers a fortune in subsidies.
Every cloud etc, etc.
Bet they still get public subsidy.
They probably get constraint payments which are usually higher that the payments for the electricity they actually produce. I can’t remember the figures but it was what kept the headline price of electricity of a planned huge offshore wind farm so low. Knowing the average time the farm would be off grid and receiving constraint payment they increased these payments so they could boast of a low price of electricity actually produced. But when you add the constraint payment to the payments for actual electricity and average it out the cost of the electricity was far above the current wholesale price. It would have needed governmental connivance to draw up this contract.
I take it from Greta’s tweet that she is not prepared to engage or debate. Closed minds will never advance science or humankind.
Her attitude is the equivalent of giving someone an opinion and then sticking your fingers in your ears, running off, screaming ‘I don’t want to hear this’.
You’re not going to get a lot of value in ‘debating’ about climate-change with a partially-educated 16 year old mentally-ill fool who’s convinced the world’s about to end unless there’s a communist-greenie revolution.
You may as well have a debate with a 16 year old Christian fundamentalist in 1982 about the pending apocalypse and second-coming.
The irony being that it is the internal combustion engine that gives us the mobility to manage lands, and to fight the fires.
And the reason that Greta can expect to reach about 80 years of age instead of 35, somewhat makes up for her imagined stolen childhood + interest.
Dunno. Greta looks like Anika Sorenstam, 49 years old. Maybe Greta’s youth was stolen.
Her tweet is very carefully crafted. By saying that people should just walk away she is trying to show that her type are nice, pacific unargumentative people. In fact, the reason for putting it the way she did, she is saying ‘for God’s sake don’t engage in debate. If you have to try to prove our assertions we’re f*cked. There being no science to support it.’
I filmed in Australia in the early ’80s for the BBC TV Farming programme. We were following a British family that had emigrated. We were there during a terrible drought and filmed sheep being slaughtered as they could not be fed.
Then the bush fires started in the Warrnambool area if western Victoria. We flew down there to film the devastation. My recollection was about 75 people killed, many tens of thousands of sheep and cattle, hundreds of houses destroyed.
Why did it happen? Drought (not unusual), natural stimulus to start a fire, and eucalyptus trees that give off volatile organic compounds that can carry flames over long distances. Plus the Greens would not let them cut down any tree with a trunk you could not put your two hands round – never mind it being right next to your wooden house!
So nothing to do with climate change – but don’t upset Greta with the facts!
Best memory? The astonishing resilience of the Aussies. They were not screaming for government help. They knew the risks and they knew how to survive. “She’ll be right, mate” was the normal response. I was deeply impressed and will tell that story as long as I can.
But you will never work for the BBC again with talk like that!!
Probably doesn’t as the Farming programme has gone to be replaced by Countryfile.
1983 Feb 16 Ash Wednesday bushfires 75 dead
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash_Wednesday_bushfires
The numbers don’t lie, indeed.
It is well documented that long-term records of rural weather stations indicate little or no warming over the past century.
The fires are tragic, however a search of three long-term temperature records on the BoM website of towns in the affected area indicates that there has been no net change in the average annual maximum temperature since the late 1800s – early 1900s and although extremely variable and patchy from year to year, the average rainfall overall is also about the same.
In short the affected area of NE NSW overall is probably no warmer during the day and no drier than it was 100 years ago.
Annual Mean maximum temperature (°C):
Lismore (Centre Street) 1891-1920 … 25.5. 1981-2010 … 25.4.
Grafton City Council 1891-1920 … 26.7. 1951-1980 … 25.3.
Glen Innes Post Office. 1891-1920 … 20.2. 1981-2010 … 20.4
Annual Decile 5 (median) rainfall (mm):
Lismore (Centre Street) 1891-1920 … 1192.2. 1981-2010 … 1274.8
Grafton City Council 1871-1900 …. 911.8. 1951-1980 … 1029.5
Glen Innes Post Office. 1891-1920 …. 767.6 1981-2010 …. 916.3
Greta wrong?
How dare you
Greta is not alone, she’s just regurgitating the claims of some Greenies.
The backlash against them has been huge, they have lost a lot of political ground, as most people know political nonsense.
As was drilled into me at various times about industrial fires, “A Fire needs 3 things, fuel, oxygen and a source of ignition”. We cannot do anything about the sources of ignition what with thousands of lightning strikes in storms, burning embers travelling kilometres and arsonists. Nor can we get rid of oxygen. Reducing the fuel load is the only practical way of reducing the severity of bushfires.
The problem has been made worse by ‘greens’ building houses surrounded by trees, and by ‘greens’ in the public services esp. local Councils who won’t allow dangerous trees to be removed. The last big fires in Victoria (Black Saturday 2009) took 75 lives and burnt entire towns. In the midst of one desolated town only one house survived; the owner had cleared scrub back from his house and had been fined over $50,000 for doing so.
10 years later the Victorian State (Labor) Government is banning tree removal.
On the flip side of stupidity forbidding scrub clearance in fire prone areas of Oz, who in Yorkshire thought it a Good idea to build housing in an area called Fishlake?
BabylonBee having a bit of fun with the Greta mural in San Fransicso
The climate people really really need the wildfire thing in their fearology portfolio. Pls be kind. Thank you.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/11/12/climate-change-wildfires/
I hate to tell you this old man but the area of land burned is the wrong metric. There are more people and much better equipment for a start
Perhaps why the bushfire has expanded is a better one.
Just to let you know over here it is the State government agencies who have responsibility for backburning. Greens are not part of any Government
Indeed we had quite a few academics who specialise in bushfires who have poopooed this theory.
This could not be done as it usual because either when they wanted to it rained ans was too wet something common in winter or it used to be) and because it was too dry and hot.
By the way 23 former heads of emergency services here wanted to meet with out PM both before and after the election to talk about climate change and hoe it is affecting and changing fighting bushfires.
They appear to agree with the ‘pigtailed swedish school drop out!!
\\ Australian couple will sail eco warrior Greta Thunberg 6,300km from the US to Spain for a UN climate meeting
– so she doesn’t have to take a gas-guzzling plane //
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/13/greta-thunberg-to-hitch-a-ride-to-europe-with-australian-youtube-influencers
OTT but interesting:
NASA getting back to doing real, forward-looking, science; a flat-out-prediction of a Grand Solar Minimum.
To be fair, while the cost of the boat is excessive (est €0.75 million new), this at least is relatively low carbon. The Malizia is primarily carbon fiber and the embedded emissions are quite high. This boat is primarily fiberglass composites, and has much lower embedded emissions (I estimate 50 times lower than the prior trip). It also has a longer projected life.
So the Malizia exhibited at least 10 T of embedded emissions for the trip. This boat will exhibit 0.2 T of embedded emissions.
Interesting discussions on Spiked from Michael shellenberger which adds to the issue re Amazon Fires – well worth reviewing
Hard retards doing forest management is new.
@Dan is counting minuscule tonnages of carbon for vessels and such a new hobby of autists? Better you were using these talents versus the liars at the top. And there are always liars at the top.
@James
At least I am not a liar travelling across the Atlantic and around America on a supposedly carbon free method.
Greta would have been more environmentally friendly by flying direct to Chile. Or not at all.
@Dan is counting minuscule tonnages of carbon for vessels and such a new hobby of autists? Better you were using these talents versus the liars at the top. And there are always liars at the top.
@Dan is counting minuscule tonnages of carbon for vessels and such a new hobby of autists? Better you were using these talents versus the liars at the top. And there are always liars at the top.
@Dan is counting minuscule tonnages of carbon for vessels and such a new hobby of autists? Better you were using these talents versus the liars at the top. And there are always liars at the top.
‘Greta Thunberg Could Not Be More Wrong About the Australian Bush Fires’
She has no need to be correct. This is emotional politics. Facts need not apply.