jdmh, "As for the issue about native vegetation management in Victoria, I agree with the comments about it being sensible to clear trees from close to houses in fire prone areas."

That is one grudging admission at least.

People generally understand that if they stored heaps of paper, clothing and other flammable materials in their house, a fire could claim the lot and probably their lives as well. The same logic applies in the forests where fuel has to be reduced regularly.

What the Greens and other keyboard environmentalists have done over the years is to prevail upon government not to undertake those sensible, proven fire control strategies. In addition, hopelessly naive 'green' hobby farmers who have fled to the country built in scrub land.

The devastation of these fires resulted from the availability of huge amounts of fuel in and around human habitation and property. That and naive, over-civilized modern folk who believed that government had fire risks in control.

If anything, this is a wake-up call to all that we cannot depend on government to give the best advice or protect us, ultimately that is up to ourselves.

We have a view across well-populated suburbs spread across ridges in a major metropolitan city. The suburbs, which back onto eucalyptus scrub lands are well planted with towering Australian native trees and shrubs. Grey-green scrub weaves through the suburbs. One day it will catch fire and if the wind is in the wrong direction whole suburbs will be ablaze.

Will that be said to be attributable to global warming too (once God was blamed!) or will the foolish council policies that prevent the thinning and removal of trees be changed as a result of the Victorian catastrophe?

There is no way the public is going to let the Greens and government off scot-free for the lack of fire breaks and the reduction of winter burns. The fires could have been far smaller and less threatening to property and life. The ducking for cover is already occurring. Global warming, which didn't provide the fuel or the ignition, is one such diversion.

Cornflower! It is over population my friend. These radical natural events will keep increasing as our population intrudes into the natural world.
It's not that there are more car accidents and it not that there are more shark attacks, it's just more people getting in the way and that's a fact.

P.s. Nature is going to kick our arse.
As for bush fires people know the dangers so why did they stay when they had plenty of warning and knowledge of the world they have invaded.

EVO

The Royal Commission into Victoria’s devastating fires will hear evidence of the causes of those fires, the conditions which were conducive to their ferocity and any link to climate change.

The highest temperatures on record and very low humidity resulted in fire-storms which increased wind speeds causing their very rapid movement. So rapid, so ferocious that properties a hundred metres or more from the nearest trees were destroyed by massive ember attacks.

Meteorologists and other scientists have long warned that climate change would result in drier warmer conditions in south east Australia and wetter conditions in the north. They have warned that our climate will become more extreme.

Reducing Australian greenhouse gas emissions, about 1.4% of global emissions, will change that prognosis. Such a change will only be brought about by global action, particularly by major emitters. What Australia can and must do is set a good example to major emitters. It can do this by being seen to actively work for CO2 emissions reduction through development and adoption of new technology and an effective environmental trading scheme (ETS).

Governments at all levels have the opportunity to do this in the context of the Commonwealth’s stimulus package. Mr Rudd has proposed implementation of an ETS aimed at reducing CO2 emissions by 5% and meeting 20% of electricity needs from renewable sources by 2020.

However, he has undermined those far too modest targets by proposing to issue the worst CO2 emitters with free licenses, providing multi-billion subsidies to the coal industry, agreeing to over-compensate electricity end users and providing $170m. enabling Holden to perpetuate vehicle emissions and dependence on oil imports.

Ominously, Treasurer Swann has announced Government proposals for an ETS are now to be referred to a Parliament Committee which will advise on whether an ETS is the best way of reducing CO2 emissions. Is this the prelude to abandonment of an ETS?

In the context of all of these developments, we are entitled to demand that the Prime Minister treat climate change and its likely effects on Australia more seriously and in an exemplary way.

MP - really? the royal commission will have in in its terms of reference "and any link to climate change", I'm sure it will if people are trying to find that conclusion.

I sure hope they consider build up of fuel in the forests, you've somehow missed that in your haste to find the conclusion and only possible result ... man made climate change! (Hysterical frightening of children stuff - as Robin Williams of the ABC says, "you have to alarm people to get their attention")

Can I ask - do we sit up and pay attention to every country who sets some example, then change our behavior? So, what if Australia is a shining example of reducing CO2 output, or cornering the market in self inflicted poverty. I don't believe anyone will even notice let alone care - then what do you do? Won't we look like a tad foolish? With a very self satisfied attitude of course, we'll explain to our children that we do have the moral high ground!

"20% of our energy by renewable means by 2020", sorry I just break up every time I hear these fairy tales and dreams. That's 11 years out and we have not a chance of getting off coal fired power, with our increasing population and need for energy to ADAPT to the changing climate, within our lifetimes.

Sounds like Swann is waking up to what we can and cannot afford ..

"we are entitled to demand that the Prime Minister.." so you are, but others can equally demand other things, like not destroying the future for our children by trying to stop the climate changing.

We should be investing in adapting to the changing climate - whatever causes it, not trying to stop it - that's flat earth or Luddite thinking. The climate changes and you have as much chance of stopping that as stopping tectonic plate movement.

Is there any science to support a "we can stop it" or "we can set the thermostat" or even "we can reverse the climate" on the planet?

No, Q&A, I am not appealing to authority - I'll leave that to the churches.

All I was trying to do was deflect AGW proponents favourite epithet, "denier", with its possibly deliberate semantic linkage to "holocaust denier" and definite allusions to the willful ignorance of the doubter, by pointing out that I am aware of the scientific background of the issue, I can read, and I can make up my own mind, thank you very much.

And no, I don't think that any religion has got it right. Again, I am merely pointing to what I see as a strongly cultural influence on the debate: The Western/Christian tradition of reading events in terms of apocalyptic millenarianism.

I will also accept that my generational experience as a GenXer probably influences me: I've been listening to Baby Boomer scientific apocalyptists telling us that the end is nigh for so long, that my BS filter is probably in overdrive.

For as long as I can remember, there have been doomsayers proclaiming that the Earth is in imminent danger of some sort of manmade apocalypse "within the next twenty years - unless governments act now!" I clearly remember climate experts - some of them the same people most stridently arguing for AGW - gloomily warning of "the coming Ice Age". And they produced the scientific evidence for it, too!

"Climate change denial, this is not even worth discussing", says John Hepburn.

Again, an AGW straw man. Do I "deny" climate change? No, I don't; I just doubt very much that it's our fault, and that dressing in hair shirts and whipping ourselves is going to achieve much.

To finish, two things; first, my favourite quote:

"I slept with faith and found a corpse in my arms on awakening; I drank and danced all night with doubt and found her a virgin in the morning" - Aleister Crowley (otherwise, my favourite nutjob).

Secondly, something I ask of every AGW proponent: How many times have you travelled overseas in the last ten years?

You might be interested in http://www.theage.com.au/face-global-warming-or-lives-will-be-at-risk-20090211-84od.html