If you think carbon taxes are going to stop a 3 year drought from occasionally hitting Australia, a region with thousands of years of documented dry spells, I don't know what to say. We don't control the rain. The only sensible thing Australia can do is prescribed burning and bush thinning.
Sorry let me rephrase, a carbon tax would have done these things:
- reduced Australia's carbon emissions (not a massive deal by itself)
- built up a public repository of cash that could have been allocated to something useful, like funding the fire services
- lead by example; we will now never know if Australia's leading by example would have encouraged a wider implementation of carbon tax schemes and a reduction in carbon emissions
You are correct that it would have not by itself mitigated the natural drought cycle in Australia, however the opportunity to reduce the impact was lost - and Australia is poorer for it.
Finally, I did not suggest that a carbon tax would have stopped these fires, only that I would like to do an analysis between what the potential sum of taxes would have been versus the donation totals.
If you think carbon taxes are going to stop a 3 year drought from occasionally hitting Australia, a region with thousands of years of documented dry spells
Are you implying that the rate and duration of dry spells have been the constant for thousands of years? If so, do you have data back this up?
If not, is it possible that we're living in exceptional weather conditions? A quick google gives me an article from the Bureau of Meteorology, an organization with a wealth of data, the requisite compute power to analyze the data, and actual expects of climate modelling:
The only sensible thing Australia can do is prescribed burning and bush thinning.
Do you think that fire authorities haven't been doing this already?
If anything their capacity has been reduced by recent budget cuts from NSW Liberal Party - the core policies of the Liberal Party are smaller government, individual responsibility, and hence lower taxes across the board. The Victorian Labor party, on the other hand, increased their capability.
Unfortunately there's a number of forests that are exceptionally dry due to recent long term trends, and Australia just needs more and more resources to manage its land.
So sensible things to do are:
- provide more resources for land management
- stop making the world hotter
This is a deep drought but it's coming on the tail end of a wetter than average decade. So plants have had plenty of time to build up combustible fuel over the past decade.
"As former State Fire Chiefs call for a summit on bushfires, expert and scientist David Packham explains that it has nothing to do with climate change and everything to do with fuel-loads."
David Packham warned about the fuel loads in 2015.
Bushfire scientist David Packham warns of huge blaze threat, urges increase in fuel reduction burns
Darren Gray
By Darren Gray
Updated March 12, 2015 — 4.05pm
You've done some exceptional work here cherry picking a world view that matches your own.
Australia has generally gotten wetter over the past 50 years than the first 50 years of the 20th century
Even if I take Roy Spencer at his word, higher rainfall isn't in opposition with some areas of the continent becoming drier, or hot, dry weather systems getting more intense. As with the link I provided from the Bureau of Meteorology, the rainfall patterns are changing and certain places are actually becoming wetter, but some places much drier - particularly the south east of Australia. You might want to read it.
Worse still, they actively discouraged and fined people for attempting to remove firewood from national parks:
> That's negligence of the highest order.
That's hyperbole of the highest order. I'm not sure how you back your claim that local residents taking firewood (which is habitat for many endangered native birds) makes a significant impact on fuel load.
And fuel reduction burns are not a perfect strategy. Even when timed as best as possible, they are often not enough to solve the problem, and won't prevent canopy fires when you have catastrophic level weather patterns.
This article was published today and provides a nuanced view on the topic.
The only sensible thing Australia can do is prescribed burning and bush thinning.
Which we are doing. But the opportunities to do prescribed burns aren't what they once were because the climate is changing and the window for these types of activities is smaller annually. We need more than just prescribed burns.
Comments
If you think carbon taxes are going to stop a 3 year drought from occasionally hitting Australia, a region with thousands of years of documented dry spells, I don't know what to say. We don't control the rain. The only sensible thing Australia can do is prescribed burning and bush thinning.
Sorry let me rephrase, a carbon tax would have done these things:
- reduced Australia's carbon emissions (not a massive deal by itself)
- built up a public repository of cash that could have been allocated to something useful, like funding the fire services
- lead by example; we will now never know if Australia's leading by example would have encouraged a wider implementation of carbon tax schemes and a reduction in carbon emissions
You are correct that it would have not by itself mitigated the natural drought cycle in Australia, however the opportunity to reduce the impact was lost - and Australia is poorer for it.
Finally, I did not suggest that a carbon tax would have stopped these fires, only that I would like to do an analysis between what the potential sum of taxes would have been versus the donation totals.
Cheers.
Also relatively unquantifiable but:
-divert funding to sustainable and productive industries which would further reduce Australian carbon emissions
-create commercial opportunities in exportable industries that would have positive impact on GDP and net exports.
Also, notably, it does nothing to impact arson rates - which are the primary cause of the crisis.
This is plain wrong and is misinformation.
https://theconversation.com/bushfires-bots-and-arson-claims-...
Are you implying that the rate and duration of dry spells have been the constant for thousands of years? If so, do you have data back this up?
If not, is it possible that we're living in exceptional weather conditions? A quick google gives me an article from the Bureau of Meteorology, an organization with a wealth of data, the requisite compute power to analyze the data, and actual expects of climate modelling:
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/updates/articles/a010-southern...
Do you think that fire authorities haven't been doing this already?
If anything their capacity has been reduced by recent budget cuts from NSW Liberal Party - the core policies of the Liberal Party are smaller government, individual responsibility, and hence lower taxes across the board. The Victorian Labor party, on the other hand, increased their capability.
Unfortunately there's a number of forests that are exceptionally dry due to recent long term trends, and Australia just needs more and more resources to manage its land.
So sensible things to do are:
- provide more resources for land management - stop making the world hotter
Australia has generally gotten wetter over the past 50 years than the first 50 years of the 20th century: http://www.drroyspencer.com/2020/01/are-australia-bushfires-...
This is a deep drought but it's coming on the tail end of a wetter than average decade. So plants have had plenty of time to build up combustible fuel over the past decade.
"As former State Fire Chiefs call for a summit on bushfires, expert and scientist David Packham explains that it has nothing to do with climate change and everything to do with fuel-loads."
https://volunteerfirefighters.org.au/scientist-david-packham...
David Packham warned about the fuel loads in 2015.
Bushfire scientist David Packham warns of huge blaze threat, urges increase in fuel reduction burns Darren Gray By Darren Gray Updated March 12, 2015 — 4.05pm
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/bushfire-scienti...
The Aussie government apparently didn't listen to its own experts on this 4 years ago.
Worse still, they actively discouraged and fined people for attempting to remove firewood from national parks:
https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/news/removing-firewood-fr...
That's negligence of the highest order.
You've done some exceptional work here cherry picking a world view that matches your own.
Even if I take Roy Spencer at his word, higher rainfall isn't in opposition with some areas of the continent becoming drier, or hot, dry weather systems getting more intense. As with the link I provided from the Bureau of Meteorology, the rainfall patterns are changing and certain places are actually becoming wetter, but some places much drier - particularly the south east of Australia. You might want to read it.
That's hyperbole of the highest order. I'm not sure how you back your claim that local residents taking firewood (which is habitat for many endangered native birds) makes a significant impact on fuel load.
And fuel reduction burns are not a perfect strategy. Even when timed as best as possible, they are often not enough to solve the problem, and won't prevent canopy fires when you have catastrophic level weather patterns.
This article was published today and provides a nuanced view on the topic.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-10/hazard-reduction-burn...
Which we are doing. But the opportunities to do prescribed burns aren't what they once were because the climate is changing and the window for these types of activities is smaller annually. We need more than just prescribed burns.