So the bushfire commission isn't jumping on the green hobby horse du jour? Cry me a river.

To claim that the Black Saturday bushfires were somehow exceptional, is to completely ignore Victoria's history for the last couple of centuries.

The only exceptional thing about Black Saturday was the loss of life, which is more likely attributable to changing demographic patterns in rural areas. Previous big fires dwarfed Black Saturday in terms of the area burned and the intensity of the fires.

OLO Forum again confirms its reputation as a sheltered workshop for climate change deniers.

Does anyone here know how to use a URL smart-key that is embedded in the text of my article:

"Yet it was already clear to the public in the days after the fires that Victoria was in new climate territory. **A feature article** by Michael Bachelard and Melissa Fyfe in The Age reported climate scientists' views that these were “fires of climate change”."

The article referred to is

http://www.theage.com.au/national/lessons-from-the-ashes-20090215-8810.html

"Lessons from the Ashes", Michael Bachelard and Melissa Fyfe, The Age,15 February 2009

The role of climate change in exacerbating the ferocity of the fires on Black Saturday is fully explained in the last section of that article (which I summarised). Yes, there is a little bit of mathematics-based discussion there of Forest Fire Danger Indexes. (This is how scientists measure and compare complex multi-cause things like bushfire danger). And the authors talked to a scientific expert, one of Australia's top meteorologists.

I won't respond to the personal abuse

Tony, the fact that a bunch of greenie journalists, & academics jumped onto the AGW band wagon, after the fires says much more about the ethics of these people, than the cause of the fires.

In fact it was mostly greenie obstructionism, in preventing fuel reduction burns, & the clearing of adequate private firebreaks, that killed so many people. Shame is not something greens do well.

Greenies have much to pay for where real people live.

This is a most inappropriate suggestion, by an author who should know better.

It has been drawn to his attention many times, that there is no scientific basis for the assertion of anthropogenic global warming. The IPCC’s assertion, of "very likely", is a guess, with no scientific basis.

The peer reviewed, and well accepted science shows that the warming comes about from natural causes, leaving no room for the assertion of any input by human emissions.

There is nothing unprecedented about the conditions, and no basis for looking at “climate change”, to investigate the destruction wrought by the bush fires.

What is worth investigating, is how one landholder, in the area, bush fire proofed his property, by breaching laws instigated by the environazis, incurring fines and legal costs totalling over $100,000.00, to save his property from bushfire, using tried and true, but now outlawed methods.

This is the true scandal, of this regrettable situation. The cover up of the true causes of the disaster, and the proven methods of prevention of bushfire damage.

The causes have nothing to do with climate change, and everything to do with green fanatacism.

What a nonsensical article you reference, Tony. Did you read it?

“The smoke generated by fuel reduction burning affects people’s respiratory health, particularly asthma sufferers. Another constraint is the environment itself.”

What would be preferable, a little respitory discomfort, or being burnt to death?

Our victim property owner, cruelly punished for saving his home from bushfire, by taking appropriate preventative action, should be consulted, instead of the dunces used as the source of the information in this article.

I am sure that his first advice would be to carry out action on the ground, on the day, and to disregard the nonsense of the “experts” who contributed input to the article which our AGW alarmist, Tony, recommends.

By the way, Tony, I am a realist, not a denier. You are the denier, of the science in relation to AGW. You have no science which supports your assertions, and deny the science which disproves them.

Our prevention successful property owner’s advice would be incredibly valuable, worth far more than the $100,000.00 taken from him, in costs and fines, for protecting his own property. It would be money well spent, if he could be persuaded to impart his wisdom.

tonykevy "OLO Forum again confirms its reputation as a sheltered workshop for climate change deniers"

Throws the usual personal insults at skeptics .. then, after sprouting that an article from the Age, of all places, is now holy writ ..

Leaves the field with a cry of "I won't respond to the personal abuse"

The AGW cause is pretty well done now, so we just get to watch the frantic and hysterical final throes of the hypocrites and their anguish.