I take it the author thinks a golf course is an example of a well managed native forest. At least the implausible claim isn't being made that frequent burning reduces CO2 emissions. The problem with burnoffs is that they sometimes go wrong and many people have asthma or respiratory problems. I suggest keeping fire out of the equation by sending in large mulchers with bin trailers. The mulch can be composted or burned offsite, perhaps converted to charcoal. In Germany they make Sundiesel (biomass-to-liquids) from forest waste. I agree we have to do something, I just don't think more fire is the answer.

Good article up to a point.
But why the typically provocative right wing title.

"I take it the author thinks a golf course is an example of a well managed native forest."
Aborigines knew what it took to manage a native forest. Fire, lots of it, regularly, in a mosaic pattern. Keep the fuel load on the forest floor low so as not to get really hot fires, which is what we get. Not burning off was fine when people weren't living in or near the forests, but they do. Management of this fuel load would seem a more prudent course of action.

"At least the implausible claim isn't being made that frequent burning reduces CO2 emissions."
No but neither does it increase CO2 emissions, it is CO2 neutral.

"The problem with burnoffs is that they sometimes go wrong"
Not on quite the same scale as the hyper bush fires...1 house vs 100 houses.

"The mulch can be composted or burned offsite, perhaps converted to charcoal."
I actually like this idea. Using this precious resource to generate greenhouse neutral energy is certainly an attractive proposition. I suspect green groups would object strongly to the removal of large amounts of the forest litter however (insert you own mantra here...eg. skink habitat destruction!).

The provocative title may well be deserved. Green groups seem to make a habit of living by mantras which end up harming ecosystems more than helping them.

John, re:
"Whatever man does to alter his environment, if nature does not like it, the venture will fail."

Unfortunately, a simple approach will not solve a complex problem unless it is along the "you can't make an omolette without breaking eggs" line of attack.

There is also a question of how long it takes a human alteration to affect the environment, and for nature to "decide" it does not like it", and thus, for the project to fail.

What if Mother Nature decides, 20 years down the track, that she doesn't like the approach that +your+ actions have (hypothetically, successfully)promoted? After all, you are proposing an approach which can be no doubt argued reasonably against, rather than simply trodden over by some anonymous, all-powerful bureaucrat. You have, after all, given only one side of the argument.

I would be interested to see more links about indigenous burning practices, if you can provide them.

Assume that your argument, about policy failure resulting in more intense burns, is correct. Then there is still an open possibility of more than one cause for increased fire intensity and damage. Changing weather conditions cannot be excluded as a factor.

Human activities are widely accepted as a significant factor in global warming, and government policies, at all levels, are changing to address our contribution to this problem. Are you suggesting that we stop working on global warming and simply do more cool-weather fuel reduction burns, to solve the problem of hyper-fires?

John, a well thought out article that confirms what an expert Forest Fire Ecologist once told me that our drier eucalypt forests owe their current range entirely to past fires and are continuously growing more and more fuel for the next fire.
Such fires are vital for the renewal of all living things in these forests. We should be all made aware of this approaching fundamental natural inevitability.
The inevitable fire can be an uncontrolled bushfire or some form of controlled burn.
Long unburnt forests have low animal populations because of less food.
New green pick after fire increases feed for herbivores and other animals and birds return and multiply as the fire-regenerated forest develops. A fact that our aboriginals knew well and were able to exploit to enhance their hunting.
A former Victorian Chief Fire Officer Athol Hodgson also made a good point that forest politics has removed the work force from the bush and we no longer have an immediate reaction firefighting capability.
Mr Hodgson said about 3000 people worked in the forests in the early 1980s, in forestry, the electricity commission and saw-milling. It was a condition of the saw-milling licences that if a fire broke out, the workers had an obligation to fight it. (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20919273-2702,00.html )

There is a lot of ignorance about the issue of carbon emissions by fuel reduction burns. Cold burns only combust the litter that has fallen off the trees since the previous burn. And generally, if the forest is anywhere near healthy, the amount of carbon that has fallen to the forest floor in that interval is less than the amount of carbon that the trees have absorbed in new growth during that time.

And this means that a continuous cycle of cold burns will rarely be carbon negative.

But what is not widely understood is the role of cold burns in the long-term storage of carbon in the form of charcoal. The carbon in charcoal will remain stable in the soil for more than a thousand years. It also plays a key role in improving soil moisture retention capacity and enhances the building of soil fertility by soil microbes.

The production of charcoal is dependent on slow combustion with minimal addition of oxygen. In natural conditions it is formed when cool fires pass through, burning the outside of the wood but then being extinguished when the critical heat mass has passed by.

This is not the case in the hot, DNRM/EPA induced wildfires. These conflagrations produce the oxygen inflows of a belows to a blast furnace. They take place at times of the year when critical heat mass remains longer at any location. And this means much more wood is burned and that would is burned completely, producing nothing but residual ash.

The hot fires also burn the two primary capital stocks of in situ carbon, the living trees above ground and the accumulated charcoal from past cool burns both on and below ground. And all of that capital stock of carbon is emitted as CO2.

If carbon emissions really do pose a serious threat to planetary existence then it clearly follows that Green forest management poses a serious threat to planetary existence as well.

I'm sure forests could be managed better, but I'm not so sure that climatic factors can be totally excluded as something that contributes to the "hyper fire" problem.

I seem to remember (and I apologise if I've got it wrong) that there has been a fairly severe drought across much of Australia over the last decade or so, and also that average summer temperatures have been rising over the same period. Surely hotter and drier conditions could be at least partly responsible?

That's not to say that it's all the fault of global warming,either (assuming it exists, which I am not entirely convinced about). Having excess fuel in the forests seems like a pretty obvious contributor too.

Cheers!

Rhys.

An astute article. The Canberra press gallery tend to follow the media pack leaders and if you accept the total package of global warming (and who doesn't?), then one also must accept the fact that there will be more mega fires.

What the author has highlighted here is something well known in science and that is that hyper fires may have a number of sources and/or that their enormity is compounded by a number of factors which the Greens certainly don't want put on the political agenda - undergrowth clearing.

One other point (and this was certainly a key factor in Greece recently) is that people had built their houses right next to forests which had not been well maintained. The ground litter acted like a blow torch.

Perseus, you are a bloody genius. You summed up the process very succinctly.

One other factor that has been left out of the equation, is the contribution that can be made to the reduction of fuel by the cattle which have been excluded from the high country. Not only are they reducing the available fuel, but they are also adding to our food supply which is currently in danger of severe depletion.

Our Green friends have a lot to answer for.

David

This article starts with a strawman. Isn't that obvious?

"There can be little doubt that, in metropolitan areas around Australia, there is a great deal of support for the Greens. Rural folk are not so easily hoodwinked."

http://enrol.com.au/mumblestuff/images/federal/polls/nielsenoct08.gif
7% of the 2004 Election vote to Greens was from City areas.
9%..yes NINE PERCENT... of the vote was from RURAL areas.

I read the profile of this Cribbes and he is a complete joke.

"a retired, 68 year old public service accountant"
The guy is a bitter, old dinosaur who has archaic views on just about anything.

Just die off already and spare the rest of the population your pain Cribbes.

Steel, I liked the first part of your post but take exception to the second.

The author's age has no bearing on whether or not his argument is sound.

Cheers,

Rhys.

Ok but let me urge you to consider the reality for one second. It is not altogether untrue that old people are more conservative and let old views die hard. They are the single age group that is allowing the Liberal party to keep it's firm choking grip on the neck of Australia to progress and become a better nation (to confirm this check that link i posted before that splits the groups by age).

Now I would be the first to recognise that a large proportion of older people are opposite to the stereotype and contribute to society in many constructive ways, but they don't eliminate the trend or general rule shown by the electoral data. If any old person is an exception to this rule then they should recognise that they are not included. I think I should have perhaps made that point in my original comment.

Steel, if all you can offer is a blatantly political personal attack on the Author then take your moronic baggage and crawl back under your rock. The slime mould is probably getting lonely.

David is right, the other part of effective fuel reduction is cattle grazing. This does not mean overgrazing, as the green movement has tried to pin on the mountain cattlemen. On many, if not most, farms in Australia, the most effective fire risk minimisation tool is the grazing rotation itself. Most farmers know perfectly well where the worst fires will come from and they know which paddock they must ensure has the least ground cover at the worst time of the year.

But I have lost count of the number of times I have heard self righteous departmental pups criticise a farmer for the supposed "crime" of overgrazing in a particular paddock when Blind Freddy could see that the heavily grazed section was across a critical fire corridor.

The problem for many farmers is that this critical fire corridor, these days, equates to every paddock that adjoins any type of national park, public land or land owned by absentee urban "prickle farmers" who have no idea of the impact of their neglected paddocks.

In any event, it works well because in 2003 when 700,000ha of NSW parks went up in smoke there was only 70,000ha of State Forest destroyed and only about 7,000ha of private forest and woodland. And rest assured, the wildlife know where to be. At least they can get a decent drink from sheep and cattle troughs.

Perseus, thanks for your pertinent description of the carbon retention implications of cold vs. hot burns and of the relative invulnerability of well-maintained paddocks and forests to bushfires.

Application of charcoal to soils is an excellent way to improve them in almost any context. It is thought to be the way that the original inhabitants of the Amazon rainforest territory maintained agriculture on those notoriously poor soils, before introduced diseases depopulated the region:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta

I do take exception, on behalf of ABC journalists and the Greens political party (though I speak for neither), to the snide language used to describe them by Perseus and the article author John Cribbes.

Poor forest fuel load management is not a policy of the Greens party, whatever Cribbes thinks on the matter, and belief in anthropogenic global warming is not something on which Greens and ABC journalists have a monopoly.

Steel, thanks for the poll statistics but no thanks for the escalation of ad hominems.

The Greens have a strong commitment to sustainable exploitation of forest resources, and a very strong opposition to clearfelling. Sustainable exploitation of healthy eucalypt forests most certainly includes fuel control and cold burning, and no Green will tell you otherwise. No environment advocacy group I'm aware of advocates a complete hands-off approach to dry eucalypt forests. Cold burns are, unfortunately, illegal in most areas with wildlife protection, but this is a consequence of long-standing government policies introduced and maintained by Labor and Liberal parties (against National/Country Party protests), in conjunction with underfunding of national park and forestry services.

The implication by reporters that climate change has some impact on fire intensity and frequency is not unfounded. Dry forests burn well; rainfall has declined in south-eastern Australia; and that rainfall decline is an expected consequence of long-term global temperature increase and can reasonably be expected to become worse.

That the rainfall decline is not intimately correlated with measured world temperature increases reflects merely the fact that rainfall has always been notoriously fickle in this country.

Alzo, CSIRO's climate reports are meticulous, impartial and conservative. And therefore reliable.

In 1642 Abel Tasman, then 1773 Furneaux both described burning in Tasmania. Commented upon the trees that were "thinly scattered".
Captain Cook & Banks in 1770 described the place of his landing as covered with vast quantities of grass and later "trees stood seperate from each other without the least underwood".
The famous anthropologist Alfred Howitt in his 1890 essay regarding the Eucalypts of Gippsland stated that the Snowy River valley was grassy, very open "with but a few scattered trees". Similar comments on the Tambo Valley and around Omeo.
Angus Mcmillan was told to explore Gippsland to see if there is drought proof pasture there. McMillan started in 1831 and his writings confirm open grassy plains with trees interspersed.
The point of fuel reduction measures is to reduce the ferocity of these fires.
DSE people visited Western Australia to review their spring and autumn burning practices in 2005 and were impressed.
The author isn't looking for arguments but a practical way to manage native animal habitat to give them a chance of survival. Current situation doesn't achieve this.
Refer National Geographioc magazine September 1996 pages 122 & 123 to see an illustration of good fire management.
Esplin and the ACF TWS et.al would love to make a case where the cause of all this is global warming. Just not true.

You can not plant spuds and question why you are not harvesting Tomato's.
Yet we are doing so in forest management all over NSW.
Lady's who do not know a tree from a carrot are writing letters to the editor about the few winter burn offs we see.
Far too few burn offs, far too many uninformed.
This fire year in NSW will be a very bad one, maybe our worst yet, but it will not take long for a new record we are miss managing our bush.
Deaths will be worse loss, and the strangest thing, our forests will be the victims of too much love not enough understanding.

"http://enrol.com.au/mumblestuff/images/federal/polls/nielsenoct08.gif
7% of the 2004 Election vote to Greens was from City areas.
9%..yes NINE PERCENT... of the vote was from RURAL areas."
I think you'll find these city/rural stats are the voter's intentions for the upcoming election not the 2004 election. Thankfully 7% of the primary vote for the Greens equates to zero seats in the house of reps.

"Ok but let me urge you to consider the reality for one second. It is not altogether untrue that old people are more conservative and let old views die hard."
Or maybe its the fact that older people have seen versions of the "emperor's new clothes" before and don't fall for it like gullible youths.

"No environment advocacy group I'm aware of advocates a complete hands-off approach to dry eucalypt forests."
How about The Wilderness Society and Cape York....just to name one.
http://capeyork.wilderness.org.au/world-heritage.shtml
"If the whole of Cape York Peninsula was listed as World Heritage, it would become the largest land-based World Heritage Area on the planet. "
Cape York is largely dry eucalypt forests. World Heritage status would forbid burning off. I think all green groups are not the same.

"Alzo, CSIRO's climate reports are meticulous, impartial and conservative. And therefore reliable."
They may be meticulous, but they are hardly impartial and are well within the realms of hysteria.

"Far too few burn offs, far too many uninformed."
Belly you have hit the nail on the head with this single sentence.

May I remind bushfire commentators of some important fire dynamics?

The big one that hit Canberra on the afternoon of January 18th 2003 had just jumped the Murrumbidgee River with considerable areas of parched farmlands on both sides. That same fire roared through pine plantations and blackberry infestations like a horizontal furnace. It’s ground speed beyond the ranges astonished everyone.

Two factors must be understood about that firestorm, tinder dry debris and hot winds created that havoc, not the bush or the summer lightening strikes days before.

Natural low intensity burns, bushfires left wandering the hills etc. may be a thing of the past. This country is again too dry. The ACT has joined NSW in the total first fire ban of the season. IMO until we factor in global warming and climate change to bushfire behaviour we won’t deal with it as we once did in any part or S. E. Australia.

Crops, including grassland annuals, pine plantations and natural woodland regrowth quickly become the next hazard in drought conditions. Dense Cootamundra type scrub dominates recovery streamside and hillside. Only a daring technician touches it up today given the gaze of administrators. Crops left alone however are prone to rapid conversion.

Cinders elsewhere points to forestry research on coupe burning after logging.

http://www.warra.com/warra/pub_html/publications_Carbon__biomass_and_coarse_woody_debris.html

E obliqua is a familiar tree. Towards the Tasmanian coast a sea breeze will drive a cool burn out of bounds and kill a big tree in the updraft in minutes. Bracken fern in stringy bark forests can be fatal when everything is so touch and go. Perhaps that’s why plantation managers must poison the weeds. Either way something in the practice remains unsustainable in terms of forest diversity.

IMO it’s the evenness of our mono crops that becomes the new bushfire threat in a much dryer country.

Taz, a friend's farm was hit by the 2003 fire which bowled straight down a long riparian corridor. We saw where parts that had been grazed by sheep had survived while those that had not been grazed were nothing but thin columns of ash.

To Xoddam, the issue of climate change is a seventh order issue. It is a plausible argument, that increased dry weather will increase the severity of bushfires, but these considerations are completely dwarfed by the real "impact multipliers", fuel load and seasonal influences.

The evidence is very clear that the main manifestation of "global warming" is not an explosion of extremely hot summers but rather, a rise in nightly minimum temperatures, and a reduction in extreme winter cold events.

And even when there is an additional day or two in a summer hot spell it is essentially more of the same. It is no use calculating the impact of an extra two hot days in late January if the whole forest was burned to cinders on Boxing Day.

If all the forest estate was divided into neat, mutually exclusive, 100ha plots then that line of argument might be valid. But they are not, and we have already seen that the forests already reach a mid-summer condition where 2 million hectares can go up in a single conflagration.

A midsummer hot fire with dry fuel in abundance and low humidity can burn at 900 degrees C with 80,000Mj of energy per square metre of fire face. But the same fuel load at the same location, but in mid-winter, at the end of a day with higher humidity (and a heavier dew) will only burn in the 300C range. The raw heat potential in the fuel is dissipated by the need to remove the moisture in both the fuel and the air.

So global warming may, at best, add one or two degrees to the temperature of a hot fire while a cold burn that removes most of the fuel in winter will substantially reduce both the intensity and extent of any fires that do start in summer.

I would hire some traditionalist aborigines (assuming they inherited the knowledge of their elders) and let them run the entire fire departments. (I'm dead serious, btw)

Perseus I find anything you say incredibly difficult to believe at face value since your prior bias against environmentalists is evident by your insults. They will have the last laugh I can assure you. Your favoured party proposed a ban on tungsten light globes.

Steel, you made it very clear from your first post that you have the kind of mind that runs every input through some sort of political, ideological filter before deciding whether to even take it in, let alone consider it. You then gave us a whole vomit load of your own prejudices, especially against anyone who did not come down in the last shower.

And that, matey, is the MO of a serious intellectual disability. So when you tell me you have difficulty accepting the things I say, you are hardly telling me something I don't already know. Your behaviour is so boorishly common these days that it has become a very tired old green cliche.

Do you seriously think that someone like me, who has spent big slabs of his life expanding and tending a native forest and all its splendid values, would suddenly wake up one day with an almost visceral loathing of the green movement? As if it just popped up without any justification or provocation? The green movement's record of deception, ignorance, incompetence and callous disregard for fairness and proper process speaks for itself.

Perhaps we should add breathtaking self delusion to that list.

alzo,

From the Wilderness Society page linked in your post:

"World Heritage celebrates and supports indigenous land management and use."

"Currently funding is hopelessly inadequate and problems such as pigs and poor fire management continue unabated."

"Traditional fire regimes also need to be funded. Communities living on the Cape could benefit from this."

If you want to misrepresent the position of a particular environmental group, why bother linking to a page which says exactly the opposite of what you're telling us it says?

Taz,

Clearly forest burns in extreme dry or windy conditions are a recipe for disaster. Fuel management does not necessarily have to involve burns in situ -- Taswegian's suggestion above of mechanical removal of mulch has some credit in these situations.

The issue of burning after coupe logging is not related to traditional fire management or cold burns for fuel reduction. Even "small" coupes are usually several hectares, and each coupe is individually clear-felled, and thereafter contains new trees regrowing all together at the same stage of regrowth. A carefully-managed forest would be filled with trees and shrubs in all stages of development. Mature forests have moister soil and respire moist air much better than rapidly growing trees after clearing.

Perseus,

I didn't say global warming was a major contributor (be it first or "seventh order", whatever that means) to any individual fire -- and I certainly didn't attempt, like you (or was that a strawman?), to calculate the specific effect of mean temperature changes on the internal temperature of a conflagration. All I said was that the journalists' inference was a reasonable one and therefore didn't warrant the strong language used to dismiss it in the article -- I'll readily admit it's also tenuous.

You write

"The green movement's record of deception, ignorance, incompetence and callous disregard for fairness and proper process speaks for itself."

That's quite a heavy load of vitriol you're pouring out on us without much justification.

While individual environmentalists have certainly displayed each of the characteristics you ascribe to the movement, so have individuals in any other category or belonging to any other movement or persuasion. I do not agree or accept that "the green movement" has an established record that "speaks for itself" on such matters.

Indeed environmentalist leaders and organisations have a very impressive record of constructive engagement with many of their opponents, and of being well-informed and very much before their time with respect to other political leanings.

Perseus you are a snivelling little pussy. Here's why:

> "Steel, ................you have the kind of mind that runs every input through some sort of political, ideological filter"

This is you in a prior thread: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6429#95201

Your 1st post:

> "AND PIGS MIGHT FLY."

Your 2nd:

> "Well take your head out of the paper bag, fella"
> "rabid greens"
> "dumb Turdistas were too thick"
> "ecotrogs "
> "Everything the green movement has anything to do with is contaminated by fraud and incompetence"

Now back to this thread (more of that below):

> "Steel, if all you can offer is a blatantly political personal attack on the Author"

How it is "blatantly political"? And how are your rants against environmentalists *not* so. Dumbass.

> "then take your moronic baggage"

I think it's obvious now you're the one with moronic baggage.

> " and crawl back under your rock. The slime mould is probably getting lonely."

What was that about personal attacks? Yeh thought so.

Continuing:

> "You then gave us a whole vomit load of your own prejudices, especially against anyone who did not come down in the last shower."
I think you should check what's spewing out your own mouth. The sheer amount of crap I've listed coming from you eclipses anything I could have produced about that "Author".

> "And that, matey, is the MO of a serious intellectual disability"
> "Your behaviour is so boorishly common these days that it has become a very tired old green cliche."
> "The green movement's record of deception, ignorance, incompetence and callous disregard for fairness and proper process speaks for itself."

*yawn*

> "Perhaps we should add breathtaking self delusion to that list."

Is this my self-delusion or yours?

Since you admit to your "visceral loathing of the green movement" you thereby seal the question of your own (if there was any doubt)... what was it that you said..."blatant politicism" that you inaccurately accused me of.

You are either a conceited hypocrite or stupid. Take your pick. Btw, my politics are beyond your feeble comprehension.

My recollection of fire risk factors, from my days long ago as a fire lookout, suggests that
"a rise in average nightly minimum temperatures"
(due to global warming, for example)
would likely increase fire risk, by tilting the fuel slightly (and most risk factors, measured on a global basis, are very slight)toward lower moisture content.

If they were kept warmer at night, grasses & litter especially, both of which have high surface:volume ratios, would be drier and thus be better fuel and more easily set alight; by lightning, human carelessness or a spreading fire.

It seems some people make the mistake of thinking that factors which have large variability and/or high significance render insignificant such minor factors as a slight average shift in fuel dryness.

But particularly when non-linear feedback processes are involved, such as at the start and spread of a fire, what may seem like a comparatively small circumstance, risk or event can add up to the proverbial stroke of the butterfly's wing, which causes the turbulence that builds into a tropical storm - or Mr Cribbes' hyper-fire.

If some people here want to focus on "tree-huggers", I would say that they risk not seeing the forest, for the trees

Xoddam: Cribbes states “The causes of the hyper bush fires of recent years have nothing to do with climate change” followed by “Large infrequent fires have been caused by years of deliberate government decision making dating back to 1982 when the John Cain Government sacked the three Commissioners”. What nonsense re the recent ACT bushfire and say Tasmania again last season.

Given I was in Canberra during the 2003 event and went to Hobart in 67 while the ash was still hot to study the impact lets say all big fires depend on extreme conditions including soil dryness and high wind speeds.

Re moisture: Large trees die in droughts and shed their debris quickly. In Canberra I cut down large dead garden specimens every year now, the urban rangers luikewise. On the West Coast of Tasmania I watched bushfires doing a similar job in regrowth on drought stricken ranges.

Taswegians idea of mulching trash up on the Heemskirk Ra or Mt Reid seems far fetched from this distance. My bush bashing days round Zeehan are well and truly over.

Some time ago I asked bushfire researchers to look at our industrial experience. Fuels, drafts, combustion, energy and emissions were my bread and butter. Temperature and incineration in wildfire are mostly out of control. Nobody it seems has a good handle on how we stop fire crowning on a bad day. There is nothing fresh on the www.

Way back on privately owned blocks beyond APPM Burnie holdings we tried goats to reduce rampant blackberry infestation. Further north, the same big animals regularly roamed into crops on farms. ACT authorities were forced to spray some gullies in recovery post 2003. Large amounts of manpower are required in all cases.

Back to combustion,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire#Chemical_Reaction

Perseus, note how the forge requires an air blast for the higher temperatures

Already the debate is out of our hands, drought has played a part in no way as big a part as trying to change the nature of the Australian bush.
That sorry idea that we can better manage the bush than the million year old ways that made it what it is is wrong.
It has killed people who are not yet dead, this year some will die, more maybe than ever before.
Houses built within trees under trees are about to go forever.
And at some time in the future we will return to this debate knowing some things can not be changed.
Slow controlled burns are the best defense.

Belly,
re:
"That sorry idea that we can better manage the bush than the million year old ways that made it what it is is wrong."

what does the millions years refer to, exactly? There is scant, if any, evidence that Australia has been inhabited by humans for more than 70,000 years.

And Mr Cribbes, I still am wondering about your information on aboriginal land management in forested areas. Any links?

It seems that we might need a judicial review of global warming and fire.

Perhaps we could ask MR JUSTICE BURTON of the England and Wales High Court. He recently examined Al Gore's award winning documentary. His findings can be read at http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2007/2288.html and include these gems:
"insofar as it suggests that sea level rises of 7 metres might occur in the immediate future, is not in line with the scientific consensus"
and
"In scene 20, Mr Gore states "that's why the citizens of these Pacific nations have all had to evacuate to New Zealand". There is no evidence of any such evacuation having yet happened"
as well as even more damning errors.
This has forced the judge to order that all school children be told "AIT promotes partisan political views (that is to say, one sided views about political issues)" before watching the film.
Perhaps this could become a standard disclaimer in any promotion of the extreme perils and alarmist claims about climate change.

The problem with Cribbes' article is that he wrote from a Victorian point of view.
He was a member of the ALP's Conservation & Environment Policy Cttee 1986 to 1989 when Joan Kirner was Minister. At meetings various policies were proposed, usually by ALP members who were also members of the ACF or TWS or some such. In the early 1980's (Steel, the value of old age is having had the experience) the green NGO's were a dominant factor in Victorian environment policies. Thus, the 'lock it up and leave it' philosophy.
He was Treasurer of what is now Environment Victoria for two years and was submerged in green politics.
Few respondents to this article recognise that, while we argue over dotting the 'i's and crossing the 't's, the authorities in Victoria are gearing up for another fire season by claiming that global warming is a really big factor that is beyond their control.
The only thing that is within our control is the fuel load and while we procrastinate and argue, native animal habitat is destroyed, not just damaged.
What does it feel like to be faced with fire and listen to the screams of trapped animals? How does it feel to have a two metre wall of mud and detrius assault your home? What does it feel like to have a flood rip right through your town?
Why not talk to my mate Ralph Barraclough at Licola on (03) 5148 8792 and ask him, He has had the lot.
Just help him have good land management reintroduced/started and cut the academic arguments and name calling.

Thanks for the link, Taz, especially the fire temp numbers. I knew there were 300's and 900's but left out the 1 in front.

Sir Vivor, you still don't get it. Most of the, as yet, only minimal global warming is in warmer minimums in the cooler parts of the year. That is, when bush fire danger is lowest.

A warmer annual mean temperature for any location is the average of all nightly minimums and all daily maximums. And that means a total of 730 records with only a small proportion of them in the bushfire season. Take away the fuel load with a mosaic of cool burns in winter and any wildfires in summer are restricted in area, restricted in heat intensity and restricted in impact to the severity of a lightning strike on a golf course.

Perseus, you say
"Most of the, as yet, only minimal global warming is in warmer minimums in the cooler parts of the year. That is, when bush fire danger is lowest."
although you offer no figures or sources to back your statement.

But it seems to me that the summary below supports my argument about the significance of increased minimum temperatures in Victoria. Note that an increased risk of bush fire is identified.

http://www.aius.org.au/indicators/sectiontype.cfm?ThemeID=4&SectionTypeID=2

“From 1910 to 2000 Australia’s average temperature increased by 0.76[degrees]C (0.08[degrees]C per decade) with the minimum temperature increasing by 0.96[degrees]C (0.11 [degrees]C per decade) and maximum by 0.56[degrees]C(0.06[degrees]C per decade).

“The rate of increase has been more rapid in the period since 1950 (0.13[degrees]C per decade for maximum temperature and 0.21[degrees]C for minimum temperature).”

“The frequency of extremely warm days and nights has increased since 1957, while that of extremely cool days and nights has decreased.”

(snip)

“Small changes in average temperature can have massive impacts on our weather pattern (the last iceage was the result of an average temperature 5[degrees]C lower than today’s temperature). In environmental terms the predicted changes in Victorian climate would:

increase bushfire frequency

decrease available water for an increasing population

increase impact on coastal communities and ecosystems (from a rise in sea level)”

(snip)

Small changes in average temperature can have "massive impacts" on weather because you are dealing with nonlinear systems. Nonlinear systems include electronic circuits, where controlled changes of a few microamperes can change and control much larger currents. Or economic systems: there you may find extreme feedbacks, like the stock market crash of October 1987, which started out as a set of sell orders, which then cascaded and multiplied through a global network dependent on “expert” software for some decisions.

Or bushfires, where one area can be burnt through to the soil and a nearby area can be left nearly untouched, by chance.

Please be clear that I am not arguing either-or. Climate change and forest management policies are both are important factors in bushfire risk. Do you believe otherwise?

Sir Vivor, your own quote pointed out that the number of extreme cold events has been reduced over time. You also mentioned the claim that total rise in mean temp over the century had been 0.73C so this analysis of a single decadal change of 0.53C in the UK will give a good indication of where the changes are when changes of that magnitude occur.

See the graph at; http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002119.html

Observe that the mid summer maximums have not changed while the winter minimums have risen significantly. Note also that the mild Spring and Autumn periods have extended. This is what makes up a major rise in an annual mean temperature record, movements that are almost entirely WITHIN the historical range of variation.

Your link has the usual bunch of plausible words but they are totally lacking in substance.

The BoM Climate Education site provides oodles of valuable information and insight into Australian Climate Extremes. Incidentally, with all this talk about resurrecting history in school curricula, a study of Australia's known climate history would dispel a lot of nonsense.

On 'Fire' the BoM explains the close relationship between fires and El Niño-Southern Oscillation events.

If you want to call this climate change, fine, but there is no reason to blame 'man', except those men and women who have implemented this daft 'wilderness' idea.

http://www.bom.gov.au/lam/climate/levelthree/c20thc/fire.htm

Persues, thank you for your comments and your link.

Looking at the link, I can't help but notice that the patterns you use to make your point are based on UK figures. The centrepiece of the link is a graph titled UK MET Decadal Change 1980 - 1989.

I based my comments on Victorian data posted by the Australian Institute of Urban Studies. I am convinced that Australian data is more pertinent to this discussion than UK data. Do have another look before you exclude the possibility that local climate change patterns can contribute to bushfire risk in Victoria.

Let’s knock up another argument for climate change and it’s impact on S E Australian forests. Bad bushfires behave like a furnace on the run.

Recall: big fired running over continuously weeks need two conditions besides ignition, 1) light dry fuel. 2) Strong winds to mix it with O2 in combustion. The fronts must roll over and on.

Note; I’m considering conversion rates in regard to temperatures that enable the event to become self sustaining. Note two; big trees are not part of the equation. I see them only as a pyramid of moisture in the flash through fire dynamics.

In the end any furnace is all about gas. The art of control is all about smoke watching. Bushfire is no exception.

I also recommend looking at Bass Strait SST anomalies during the summer months. Last season it showed us enough rise to account for the super cell storms and other unusual weather up right up the east coast. IMO any discussion on current forest practice must take account of these phenomena.

Turbulence makes wildfires more like man made furnaces. Baked clays and molten sands are hardly life supporting. Extremes not averages become the new issue for all in calculating response to hazardous situations.

Finally, at atmospheric pressures, fuel rich gases including organic dust storms will explode on the slightest compression in the presence of ignition sources.

An understandable response, Sir Vivor, but the UK Met data was used because it was such a significant change over just two decades. The Australian data sets show much milder changes over a longer period but the same sort of changes take place. Shift the UK data to suit the southern hemisphere and you will have a useful guide to what is taking place here as well.

The other important thing to note is that the "global warming causes extreme bushfires" argument appears to be directly at variance with the majority theory on CO2 feedbacks. If GW is being driven by CO2 emissions etc then it certainly will show up as warmer nights rather than hotter days because the CO2 allows the short wavelength solar heat to pass through during the day but traps the long-wave radiation at night.

If this were the other way round, and GW was in the form of higher daytime temperatures, then that would mean that Global Warming was being caused by an increase in solar radiation, not by greenhouse gas.

So the people who are arguing that global warming is caused by CO2 cannot then turn around and claim that it is exhibiting the attributes of a warming caused by increased solar forcing.

You cannot have it both ways. But clearly, elements of the CO2 Flux Clan don't seem to bother about such fundamental inconsistencies.

Perseus re:
" ... UK Met data was used because it was such a significant change over just two decades. The Australian data sets show much milder changes over a longer period but the same sort of changes take place. Shift the UK data to suit the southern hemisphere and you will have a useful guide to what is taking place here as well.

1. UK Met data was used by you in your argument. My guess is that you are an amateur, like myself. I doubt an expert would so boldly assume that UK data is good for predicting to local Victorian climate trends.

2. "The same sort of changes take place". Do they? I'm skeptical of your evidence and your interpretation. What sort? How much the same? All very vague, but somehow meant to imply certainty?

3. Taz' comments about SST and storm cells are interesting and relevant to the question of whether greenhouse warming will increase the risk of bushfires. Likewise Admiral von Schneider's remarks on ENSO.

There is no clear picture at the present about how ENSO will be affected by CO2 increases - the models give divided results, according to a 2006 study. The wikipedia article,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Nino#ENSO_and_global_warming
which offers an introduction, states:

"ENSO and global warming"
"A few years ago, attribution of recent changes (if any) in ENSO or predictions of future changes were very weak.[10] More recent results[11] tend to suggest that the projected tropical warming may follow a somewhat El Niño-like spatial pattern, without necessarily altering the variability about this pattern, while the ENSO cycle may be minimally shortened[12]."

[12] is at:
http://www.ocgy.ubc.ca/~yzq/books/paper5_IPCC_revised/Merryfield2006.pdf
It is a very dense read - the conclusion is worth the struggle. The Wikipedia article seems to me to be a fair summary. The upshot, IMHO, is that on the average, Australia will get warmer, bush fuel will get dryer, maximum and minimum summer temperatures will increase and bushfire risk will also increase.

Perhaps we can hear from an expert on the subject, or perhaps you have a more pertinent link than your UK climate data?

What a convenient sidestep for you Sir Vivor. Is the current warming being driven by increased solar activity or increased greenhouse gas? If it is from increased CO2 then it will be manifest as higher night time and winter minimums, not higher summer maximums. And if the summer maximums are essentially the same then the GW bushfires "scarenario" goes out the window.

If you accept that global temperatures have increased by only 0.7C over the past century then you must also accept that a change of 0.53C from the 1980's to the 1990's, as in the UK Met data, is very significant. The changes in global mean temperature over the same decade to decade average was only 0.16C, from a mean 14.051C over 1980-1989 to a mean 14.210C over 1990-1999. So to suggest that the 3.3 times more extreme change for the UK cannot inform us as to the nature and extent of local changes is pure sophistry. It beggars belief that a change that is 3.3 times more extreme than the global change would comprise abnormally mild and unrepresentative elements of that change.

Blind Freddy would conclude that a more modest change in temperature, like we have had in Australia, is likely to comprise of even more modest elements of change, not more extreme ones. That is, the rise is even more likely to have come from higher winter and overnight minimums. This is especially the case when the recently revised North American data (NOAA) shows that the recent highs have not exceeded those of the 1930's.

I hesitate to interrupt an intriguing debate between Persues and Sir Vivor but ....
From 1944 to 1982 there were 'cool' burns undertaken by graziers, timber etc interests as well as deliberate burns by what was the Lands Department. One of the Three Commissioners of the old Victorian Forestry Commission was Mr Athol Hodgson who has told me personally that in those days there was an annual total around 350,000 ha of cool burns.
The vast majority of those burns were autumn burns because it was often too wet in winter and spring burning could be very damaging to some flora and fauna. Burning was usually upwards from the riparian zone because lightning always strikes the tops of hills, never the valleys.
In Western Australia they burn in autumn and quite a lot of burning in spring, but they protect sites that could be damaged by any fire. With mosaic burning around sensitive areas they protect those habitats that are essential for some species to survive. This reduces the risk of a hyper or feral fire wiping it out that habitat completely.
IF GLOBAL WARMING is going to dry out our vegetation, isn't it just feasible that we will be able to cool burn in winter?
While your discussion is intriguing and most enlightening (and I really am enjoying it), we are still left with the question of what to do with millions of hectares of public land in Victoria that needs cool burning OR ANY OTHER PRESCRIPTION to reduce fuel levels.
At the rate we are going there will be very little native flora and fauna left to protect.
Are we, I wonder, interested in the fate of the natural flora and fauna or are we just having an educated debate?

The problem with all the would be scientists is the “must wait” for the event to be over before reaching any conclusions.

My problem in minding practical measurements for the math buffs to analyse was how to tell them what situation the peaks and troughs were really leading too. Good engineers need to work to the worst case scenarios ie those times when the road disappears as the bridge collapses or the length of time a gas leak can go undetected before some thing ignites it. An unreported fire a week was about the average in one of our largest petro chem. Complexes. Elsewhere lightening put a lot of sludge pumps out of action at the same nominal frequency. Muggins learned to extract important instruments with a hammer and chisel to speed up recovery with much of it still raining down. Science isn’t particularly good in such circumstances.

The global warming time frame can be quite short given the possibility of positive feedback in the drivers both natural and unnatural. Using our imagination is all that is needed to get a handle on the size of the chaos from just a few minor bumps in the old order of things. By that I mean only those conditions that we would normally expect to weather in a lifetime.

Climate change is measured in many ways. Look around at the ground and see what it grows today compared to what it used too. Count the number of “perfect days,” ie. cloudless skies and no wind! Seasons are early again going by blossom and migrating birds. Inshore fishing will be another tale.

Gaia for what she is worth has her job cut out ramping up negative feedback allover.

Pheonix94: Cool burns up any gulley in my region today, the ACT, the Monaro, the Snowy etc would have to be all out by say 11 AM which was the time the first big gust smashed my old cheval mirror at the markets. All surface moisture after the odd showers over winter was blown away weeks ago.

There is one other way to explain why global warming will have a minimal effect on bushfire intensity, that is raw probability.

The global mean temperature number is made up of a large number of annual means from individual stations all over the world (but with a heavy bias towards settled land based stations) Each of these annual mean temperature numbers is made up of 12 monthly mean daily maxima and 12 monthly mean nightly minima. That is 24 records that make an annual mean.

So in a theoretical scenario where every one of those 24 records exhibits an equal rise in temperature consistent with the global trend, only 3, the summer daytime maximums, are known to exacerbate bushfire intensity. The other 21 inputs to the annual mean (87.5%) do so at times that do not exacerbate bushfire intensity.

In all, 18 of the inputs (75%) take place right outside the bushfire danger periods while another 3 (12.5%), the summer nighttime minimums, merely reduce the normal nightly dampening of daytime intensity.

So even in a theoretical sense, with an evenly weighted input to the annual mean figure, MOST GLOBAL WARMING DOES NOT EXACERBATE BUSHFIRE INTENSITY.

And in the real world we know that these inputs are not evenly weighted. The source of the recorded increases in mean temperature are strongly weighted towards the records that have no relevance to bushfire intensity.

Nightly minimums contribute more to global warming than daily maximums and the contribution of both are heavily weighted towards winter, autumn and spring.

Global warming induced bushfires are such a marginal event that any mention of them can only regarded as a deliberate attempt to obscure the real causes, that is, incompetent forest management and insufficient fuel reduction burning.

A question for all to ponder:

Why was Al Gore awarded the Nobel Peace prize for his efforts on Global Warming, instead of the Nobel Prize for Physics or Chemistry?

The answer is that Global Warming is not science.

re:
"So in a theoretical scenario where every one of those 24 records exhibits an equal rise in temperature consistent with the global trend, only 3, the summer daytime maximums, are known to exacerbate bushfire intensity. The other 21 inputs to the annual mean (87.5%) do so at times that do not exacerbate bushfire intensity."

I would allow the possibility that your other 21 inputs may not +directly+ exacerbate bushfire intensity. However, they may well have indirect effects. If they contribute to drought, to lack of watershed recharge and fuel drying over the winter, for example, then they may well indeed be significant factors in a nonlinear process, and increase the risk of bushfires.

I do not understand why you are so entrenched against the idea of global warming contributing, along with poor policy (where it is demonstrated), to bushfire risk. I would have thought that good policy would encompass a changing, warming environment. Surely a bushfire policy which accounts for the possibility (which is generally well accepted these days) of global warming is to be preferred, in line with the precautionary principle.

Do you not believe in the precautionary principle?

Sir Vivor, you may not be aware of the fact that the precautionary principle has two parts, the principle itself and a test of significance. Without a test of significance it is nothing more than a blank cheque for any spiv who can dream up a scary scenario, "a scarenario", in support of their favoured action.

That test is embodied in the words, "Where there are threats of serious or irreparable harm", which then leads to the second, overly quoted part of the principle, which states, "the absolute certainty of harm should not be used to postpone measures to prevent harm".

The second part, by itself, has been seriously abused by the green movement to avoid any burden of substantiation of the need for their proposals. The first part, and the fact that it is subordinate, in the Intergovernmental Agreement on the Environment to the requirement to employ cost effective measures and conduct thorough investigations of threats etc, clearly establishes a need to reach "reasonable certainty of harm", or a "substantial risk or probability of harm", before implementing a measure.

And in terms of bushfire risk and intensity, the substantial risk or probability of harm is already clearly established in the case of fuel reduction burning. The decision by EPA/DNRM to stop fuel reduction burning was not subjected to the level of rigour demanded by the precautionary principle. Indeed, they did what their political whims desired without any consideration of the consequences.

Ditto for the claimed impact of global warming on fire intensity. There is no "reasonable certainty of harm" from global warming and compared to the clearly demonstrated harm that is taking place already from other measures (the lack of action), it would amount to a serious abuse of the precautionary principle to apply it when more immediate threats are ignored.

There is also the duty of care requirement to take all resonable and practical steps to prevent harm.

Any introduction of climate politics into fire management is at best a distraction and at worst, culpable negligence or the criminal supression of evidence of misconduct.

Perseus, thank you for that very cogent and interesting reply, concerning the precautionary principle.

I have no concrete information on whether any forest management agencies have implemented any recommendations based on IPCC findings.

As an informed layperson, as one with some understanding (however amateur) about systems science and the key nature of nonlinear feedback in living systems at all levels, from subcellular through global ecosystem pathways, I feel at liberty to apply my layman's understanding and offer my qualified opinion to others, about the pertinence of IPPC model scenarios to bushfire management in Victoria (and elsewhere in Australia).

It may be that some forest managers have done so, in a more accountable manner; that they have incorporated the precautionary principle after duly evaluating a "reasonable certainty of harm", or a "substantial risk or probability of harm". Naturally I would be interested in hearing from someone who can provide pertinent links.

And I do hope that their precautionary-principle-based forest management policies are not so narrow and blindly prescriptive as to eventually render them liable to charges of criminal negligence.

I concede that there may be non-linear influences from winter warming, etc, but in the case of dryer fuel, that will only apply from the last rainfall event. So warming and drying prior to that will have no relevance. And again, these non-linear events are really marginal in the broader scheme of things.

The last post by Perseus bothers me particularly this bit “in the case of dryer fuel, that will only apply from the last rainfall event” as both grass and trees die despite the odd showers.

Grass dies over weeks of warm windy weather trees die over years of drought. I see more birches, spruces and eucalypts failing to recover every summer. The pines get a sad look months before shedding a critical mass of needles, eucalypts tend to bounce back after each winter cool. All living tree giants drag a pyramid of moisture from the sub soils unless of course it is too dry.

Unfortunately green stem moistures are not recorded on a weekly basis.

It’s worth noting here, even heavy showers don’t penetrate the hardened soils on the slopes of the Murrumbidgee, neither do they reach the river with much more than a trickle. Dry winds are the enemy of long term flows.

Much of NSW remains in drought, See the Dept maps and the variation month to month (May-Oct 2007)

http://www.agric.nsw.gov.au/reader/drt-area

“So warming and drying prior to that will have no relevance” ?

“these non-linear events are really marginal in the broader scheme of things” ?

When the pines dried out in 2002 their needles fell and they burned in January 2003 like gas in a furnace

Sir Vivor,
You ask for links re aboriginal burning. Can't give you an Internet link but I suggest the book, "Burning Bush - A Fire History of Australia'" by Prof. Stephen J Pyne, Arizona University. University of Washington Press ISBN0-295-97677-2.
I wouldn't like to confuse 'STEEL' but this is an old fashioned paper book,such as we oldies have always read.
To the best of my belief, Prof Pyne is still a leading world expert on the history of fire. The book explains the origin of the belief that aboriginees undertook many 'mosaic' burns. I must admit that none of them made a record of their activities.
Perseus.
Please maintain this engagement with Sir Vivor. Many of my friends and associates are commenting on your sensible reasoned arguments.
Steel.
Haven't heard from you recently. Despite your youth, your lack of input is missed.

Thanks, Phoenix94, but the story is pretty well told. Taz is tossing in his usual bunch of fuzzy anecdotes masquerading as information.

The important thing is to use the information in educating the unwashed, for all that is worth. I have lost count of the number of times I have patiently explained things to green committee members and departmental boofheads etc and gone away thinking that some of it might have sunk in, only to find that they have moved on and been replaced by this months turkey with no clue whatsoever.

My faith and confidence in these people, both individually and collectively, is zero. We are in a situation similar to the early stages of the North Korean experiment. The ideological die has been cast and the only way out is to let incompetence run its full course.

And only when the full horror of public forest ecosystem collapse is unable to be ignored, will there be any chance of improvement. To provide any assistance to this corrupt regime will only prolong the suffering of the dependent species and delay their day of reckoning.

It is already very clear that ignorant electoral majorities get the environment they deserve.

Perseus,
Probably because my generation hobnobbed with the real bushies of old, there has been an unanswered question regarding the possible corelation between bushfire events and rain.
Are you aware of any research that is investigating why, after bushfires, there is often a short sharp shower of rain?
Could it be that the smoke in the atmosphere is causing an effect far away that ev entually gets here?
The mountain cattlemen tell me that on a clear day without a cloud at daybreak they have seen clouds form by noon and storms develop by nightfall. They couldn't get moisture out of smoke so where did it come from?
The thought comes to mind that the cessation of most cool burning has a corelation with our drought.

“They couldn't get moisture out of smoke so where did it come from?” is a curious question.

The atmosphere contains a lot of water vapor and so does the forest normally contain a lot of moisture Bushfire smoke should also contain moisture, but a forest in drought may have seriously depleted moisture levels above and below ground. The colour of smoke is the best indication of what it contains at any level, the brown means fine particles are suspended in the clouds. Steam on the other hand is white.

For years I watched regular forestry burn offs from a distance of about 18-20 km. Simultaneously I could see a pulp mill steam column about 12 km away. Both formed upper atmosphere clouds on a clear day and both condensed as they drifted over uplands on the horizon. Lightening and rain could occur in the distance on a perfect day given a sea breeze. A stationary water spout off the coast had the same effect but that was a once in a lifetime sighting.

The uplift of moisture from wet forested gullies is something I have studied on a daily basis. An airflow rising one hundred meters is enough to create a mist and clag like clouds shrouding the hills. Down draft smoke suppression leads to small scale inversions on the same slopes. The thin blue line is a warning to those seeking to start home fires. Draft control of flues can be tricky on the slopes. Rule of thumb the outlet must be six diameters above the nearest ridge

But none of this is appropriate for describing our drought affected country much further north. From experience dust storms preceding big bushfires contain fuel but no moisture.

These days I won’t do the physics of combustion efficiency, methods of shifting atmospheric contaminants away from the source etc however other folk can start by looking into atomization, vortex cones and compression, cloud rolls, wind shear and so on from the various points of view.

Hot tip from another blog-

http://www.auf.asn.au/meteorology/section3.html

Then there is this lot

http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/climanal1.htm