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Is Climate Change Affecting Bushfires?
TapeCutter writes "After the devastating firestorm in Australia, there has been a lot of speculation in the press about the role of climate change. For the 'pro' argument the BBC article points to research by the CSIRO. For the 'con' argument they quote David Packham of Monash university, who is not alone in thinking '...excluding prescribed burning and fuel management has led to the highest fuel concentrations we have ever had...' However, the DSE's 2008 annual report states; '[The DSE] achieved a planned burning program of more than 156,000 hectares, the best result for more than a decade. The planned burning of forest undergrowth is by far the most powerful management tool available...' I drove through Kilmore on the evening of the firestorm, and in my 50 years of living with fire I have never seen a smoke plume anything like it. It was reported to be 15 km high and creating its own lightning. There were also reports of car windscreens and engine blocks melting. So what was it that made such an unusual firestorm possible, and will it happen again?"
boring, getting tired of hearing about global warming.
Quick, do something! Anything as long as we DO SOMETHING@!
you know, sometimes inspite of our best efforts shit just goes very very wrong. we are not masters of the universe. to suggest global warming is to blame for the bush fires is media whoring at it's worse, and totally disrespecting those who died and their families just to push their own agenda.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Yes, climate always changes, and since Global Warming is politically tied to Climate change, it is invariably true?
This is hand waving. This is not science.
Modding me -1 troll doesn't make me wrong.
by the way people who take any opposing view on this subject -- no matter how valid their comments -- get modded as "troll". That is not a very adult way to behave.
At least one poster above had good and true things to say, but got modded as troll anyway. Some others may not have had all their facts right, but they were no more off than people on the "other side" of the question, and they got modded as troll too, even though the people who made ridiculous statements on the "pro" side of global warming were not modded.
That really sucks, folks. You can do better. That kind of crap makes me ashamed to be here on Slashdot.
And by the way, I just want to point out: the UN "TAR" or Third Annual Report on Climate Change, which is what much of this Global Warming argument is based on, has by now been found to be seriously flawed, AND politicized. Much that was in that report was not science, either. In fact, at least one paper the report was based on was an outright fake. You can't rely on flawed and discredited data for your argument, then turn around and tell others that their argument is "not science". That would make you a hypocrite. What you really meant (whether you knew it or not), was "that is not science, either".
The current GW argument is now framed as an impossibly illogical syllogism. First they accused those with evidence against the claimed warming trend to be flat-earthers. But now that undeniable evidence shows the cracks in their warming theory, they rephrase their position as "climate change", but they do not change their conclusions. They still require massive programs to further control, tax and regulate virtually every activity.
So now they equate any climate change at all as "proof" of their models and their theories. Nobody denies that the climate changes, in ways both known and unknown, but that in no way implies that their interpretation of these changes supports their theory of anthropogenic global warming and its theoretical effects. So they have cleverly posed an irrefutable argument: Believe in "climate change" - yes or no. Neither "yes" as they interpret it is true nor is "no".
The point is we don't know. If our survival depends on a strict range of natural conditions, then removing too much CO2 from the environment could spell disaster as well.
Since you like metaphors, if you're playing poker with your existence at stake, would you go all-in before looking at your cards?
Modding me -1 troll doesn't make me wrong.
All of this sounds really clever and all, but where are your sources? It's all fine and dandy that you have these facts, but just like all the other nuts, if you can't prove it you are just adding fuel to the flames (bad pun, I know).
Or are you trying to make the case that the byproducts of fossil fuels are actually HELPING our environment?
Yes. Most of the life on earth developed when the concentration of CO2 (also known as "plant food") in the atmosphere was much higher. The biosphere is absolutely loving the (tiny) increase we might've managed to accomplish.
it's in my head