The important thing about Black Friday 1939 is that far East Gippsland had lots of fires but no disasters in the same extreme weather because the bush was grazed and deliberately burnt. By coincidence John Mulligan who was there at the time visited us yesterday. His observations and a map are in this article. https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2020/05/the-truth-about-giant-trees-and-megafires/

Disagree with most of this. The government is stupid in the use of Memtech desal. It should do desalination with deionization dialysis desalination which produces four times the volume of water for the same energy outlay.

Moreover, this superior method removes much more than salt ions. And is cost effective enough to support broad scale agriculture.

One can hang out the biggest bucket in the world, but if it doesn't rain, worthless.

As for storage, there's a lot to be said for pumping it into underground aquifers to limit evaporation losses.

All made very economically viable by a transition to nuclear energy as MSR thorium energy. And PKWH prices as low or lower than 3 cents!

Something the dullards in power will resist until their last breath!
Alan B.

It sometimes seems that some people's memories don't go back 12 months, let alone over the decades and two centuries of the history of weather patterns in Australia.

Either that, or they are allowing themselves to be brainwashed by elites who, sans the epidemic, are now whipping up climate hysteria to control the unwashed.

The idea that the weather has changed dramatically because of a whiff of carbon dioxide will go down in history as the biggest confidence trick ever.

All the lies and tricks of the politicians and carpetbaggers won't make a jot of difference to the climate; but they will certainly bring Australia to its knees quicker than natural events that have always occurred, and will continue to occur.

Most Australians know this. Sixty percent of them showed that they are smarter than the political class when they rejected the Voice. It's a shame they are not given the chance to have a say on more crucial matters regularly. Just voting for the same no-hopers every 3 or 4 years is no help.

Citizen Initiated Referenda would get this country back on track - if we had politicians who actually believed in democracy, and not the self-serving rubbish people we have now.

Flood plains should be reserved for agriculture or caravan parks. What would places like the Gold Coast look like if sea levels rise by as much as 7 metres. Something which could happen if a large body of fresh water is released from Antartica if an ice dam melts or gives way.

Something The world should avoid by a transition now to nuclear Carbon free energy, as MSR thorium.

China has ironed out the bugs in this reactor type and has the for sale sign up for these reactors. We the people should buy a few dozen and operate them via funded and facilitated co-ops.

Co-ops were the only private enterprise business model that survived the Great Depression largely intact and will do so again in the coming/happening now, world-wide downturn!

As opposed to waiting for someone else to step in and save our bacon as they charge whatever the market will bear with government compliance/cooperation!?
Alan B.

John Oxley reported flood debris high in trees in the area of Roma Street in 1823.

Imagine if it had hit that level in any subsequent Brisbane flood!

The scientists at ORNL, Tennessee largely solved the technicalities of nuclear power from Thorium, but J.F.Kennedy closed it down because it didn't produce Plutonium to make bombs.

The elephant in the room is not the temperature increase that will cause the temperature to increase, it is the increase of the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere which is causing a lowering of the pH of the sea water. The effect is particularly troubling in the cold Antarctic waters, home to the krill which are at the bottom of the food chain. The skeletons of these krill are composed of calcium carbonate which converts to soluble calcium bicarbonate which in time will lead to the decimation of krill as a food source for all of the other species, up to and including whales.

Even if we manage to stabilise the temperature, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere needs to be drastically reduced because the clock is already ticking in the Antarctic and inexorably the total fish population will die when the krill have gone.

I agree with the author 100%. But I would add that our very first priority should be to transition back to coal - we have the resources, the infrastructure and the expertise. It's tragic that there does not seem to be anyone in Federal Parliament with the gumption to denounce the global climate "change" fraud.

The global temperature change may or not be anthropogenic, my educated guess is that it is, but the increase in atmospheric CO2 certainly is, and if we don't get that back down by whatever means, our future is very problematic.

our future is very problematic.
VK3AUU,
The stupidity of so many that causes so much pollution actually emanates from the centres that proudly proclaim themselves as vital for our future.

The oceans have soaked up huge volumes of CO2. This is represented by carbonic acid that now harms many crustrations/shellfish etc.

Removing large volumes, simplicity itself with vacuum towers and compression to turn the extracted CO2 into easily separated dry ice. Further compressions turn it into a liquid able to be combined with liquid hydrogen to create all manner of carbon neutral hydrocarbons.

Not doable with costly battery or pumped hydro backed renewables! But doable with nuclear power. Particularly Molten salt thorium reactors, which can also burn nuclear waste very safely, nuclear waste we're paid annual millions to take.

Reducing the half-life from thousands of years to 3-400 in the burn and as a far less toxic material.

MSR thorium operates at ambient atmospheric pressure, does not require water and as a result, far less costly than uranium fuelled light water reactors and therefore, able to be placed well inland/almost anywhere.

Desal as described could be used on some saltwater aquifers that almost always produce large volumetric water flows.
Alan B.

Grazed goats reduce problematic fuel loads and are not constrained by the season, weather conditions and eat all manner of weeds. Can be used to protect bush dwellers by creating fire breaks.

Portable electric fences make sure they reduce the fuel load in the proscribed area. They are also a useful source of meat and or milk and or, fibre.

Moreover, less likely to destroy flora and fauna the way fires can and do! No native can outrun a wildfire and history abounds with examples of cool burns that got away and became raging wind pushed wildfires destroying all and sundry, homes and humans in their paths.

Local emergency crews need to be allowed to override the whims of the bureaudroids in Govt circles Fed, State & Local.
People who know rather than experts need to have the say. Also, people who insist in living in remote & difficult to access areas should not be able to claim being neglected as they knowingly neglect themselves from emergency services. At the same time, EPA should not be allowed to constrain people in areas that none in the EPA have any clue of.

The Cyclone Jasper damage is expected to be a Billion.

Add a few more Dollars !

CO2 traps the spectrum of infrared heat close to the earth and prevents it from normally reflecting back into space.

CO2 is a super plant fertilizer that promotes increased plant growth/production almost like that as happens in a greenhouse. And that why it is called the greenhouse effect and CO2, greenhouse gas.

This increased plant growth/activity comes with increased plant aspirated moisture which as increased humidity, traps thermal heat across the heat spectrum. Just as clouds does on a mild winter night!

We are not talking about natural climate which does will occur. Nobody is arguing that fact! e.g. we should now be experiencing a cooling phase as part of the natural cycle. And reduced solar activity!

Instead, we have seen record heats, heat waves and English summers more like Australia than is traditional. Ditto northern Europe. We are not concerned with this or that year but what is happening over decades as trendlines.

There's is no question in recent decades there has been extreme weather events outside living memory. Brisbane would have been all but washed away not that long ago, but for Somerset and Wivernhoe dams.

If the facts don't suit your belief system? Ignore the facts why doncha. And this rings true for most if not all climate change deniers.

It's all a money making they will claim as the park their brains in the dustbin. I mean, believing in a flat earth never made it flat!
Alan B.

firstpeoplesvic.org
Another disaster for our money to be spent on.

The cost of replacing our coal-fired power stations with the nuclear option, i.e., SMRs or MSR thorium, is less than refurbishing our current coal-fired power stations.

Search the world over for one example where the privatisation of energy supply has resulted in cheaper prices or more reliable service! I couldn't find a single example. Or in any public service amenity!

Recently the Chinese not confounded by bureaucracy, unions and officialdom managed to iron out all the bugs in MSR thorium and have made them available on the market for prices we couldn't duplicate here!

We should bite the bullet and buy as many as we need to replace use by date coalfired power. Some before then as the price of coal becomes even more prohibitive!

There's a huge upside in the production in medical isotopes from MSR thorium, the most notable, the alpha particle, miracle cancer cure, bismuth 213. Which reportedly has cured many death sentence cancers. Ovarian and some very nasty inoperable brain cancers.

The fossil fuel energy barons don't yet control our uranium or our thorium reserves, which by the way comes as a byproduct of rare earth mining and act as an indicator mineral that can be seen in aerial surveys.

And makes power at 3 cents or less, PKWH. This will reduce the cost of building/producing all manner of building materials and their transport etc. And negate the need to build on flood plains or remote fire prone regions to produce affordable housing.

And councils must have rezoning taken from them to further bring down the price. And speculators must develop land banks within a year of purchase, to further ameliorate price barriers.

Governments must not allow our current debt burden to prevent any of this as, this is the only way to draw down debt/put affordable housing back on the table.

And done off budget via internal means as social credit. All doable and done elsewhere in the past!
Alan B.

Only 40% of El Nino comes with disastrous droughts. Albeit with reduced rainfall.

While we make 1.2% of all global emissions our energy exports may make as much as 40% of them?

Transitioning to nuclear energy as MSR thorium and MSR nuclear waste burners, will turn us into an energy exporting superpower. As we export reliable, dispatchable, clean, safe, affordable electricity to all who want it. Via undersea cables.

The national debt is a problem that can only be drawn down via increased economic activity and has always been thus.

The changes suggested will not tank our economy! Just the very opposite as energy dependant high tech manufacturers beat a path to our door!

And if supported by genuine root and branch, tax reform, as
a 15% flat tax collected above a generous tax-free threshold.

It could be a virtual stampede of manufacturers and their operational cash reserves. Could be trillions in total. Moreover, such changes/reforms, could make us a manufacturing and energy exporting superpower, self-reliant economy, able to compete with allcomers/China/Hong Kong and the like, for market share.

Face facts, the above scenario is never going to happen or even possible with coal, gas or renewable power! But is possible of we transition to nuclear power ASAP or yesterday.

Leadership with future foresight would have transitioned to nuclear power 20 years ago! And the national fleet would been kept, modernised and powered by nuclear power. Ditto our railways!
Alan B.

Australian railways run at a loss. That's because they have hardly been upgraded since they were built, are slow and even electric trains are still powered by coal-fired power stations.

It's all so 19th century! And not assisted by a national sovereignty that's hardly still ours or Australian. The theory being, if others own it, they will defend it.

The national fleet is just a memory and a disgrace on missing/AWOL Australian "leadership". If we owned more of our economic sovereignty, we could do more to ameliorate the disaster season.

Rapid rail could serve to evacuate areas at risk/or ground zero and decent undergrounds could double as air raid shelters, even if we were attacked with nuclear warheads.

Transmission lines that crisscross the country are extremely vulnerable to attack and or natural disasters.

And without power we are all but defenceless.

Our leaders seem to be trapped in a time warp and still think and act as if this was the 1950s.

Insurance companies make those who have taken sensible decisions about where they live, to pay a premium to support those that didn't!

Thus, insurance costs are part of inflation. As is the ever-rising cost of energy/fossil fuel!
Alan B.