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Bushfire - Australia (1 Viewer)

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Australia Fires: Aboriginal planners say the bush 'needs to burn'

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-australia-51043828

Personally I think we can do so much better than now.

By combining Aboriginal wisdom and practice with the science of pyrolytic combustion, and either grazing or mechanical slashing, and composting, I think we can minimize CO2 and heat emissions, add much more charcoal, carbon and fertility to the soil, while still supplying some ash and nutrients. I think that along with NSF and Regenerative Agriculture practices this could put orders more moisture back into the soil, and daily transpiration cycle. Thereby minimizing the catastrophic fire conditions we have seen, while significantly enhancing environmental mosaics, connectivity, and biodiversity.





Chosun :gh:
 
Cool burn - barefoot test ....

This is the 'barefoot test' of a cultural 'Cool Burn'
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?st...431&id=1574467079286845&fs=0&focus_composer=0

I believe we can even go further with even slower, more deoxygenated, cooler, 'pyrolitic' burns which will increase carbon matter in the soil. Difficult to do on usual contractor time and $ constraints - so probably needs something more like a permanent team of custodians of country :t:



Chosun :gh:
 
18.6 Million square kilometres burnt and counting .....

It seems that someone forgot to ask the Northern Territory the area that had burnt this season ...... well an area about the size of Ireland .....

This brings the total area burnt thusfar (there are still fires out of control) to over 18.6 Million Hectares .... that's an area the size of all of England, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Isle of Wight, plus about a quarter of Scotland ....... :eek!:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019–20_Australian_bushfire_season






Chosun :gh:
 
Ladies and gentlemen, please stay on topic. No need to take swipes at each other.
 
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The sheer number of animals killed could collapse entire ecosystems ...

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-she...-s-bushfires-could-collapse-entire-ecosystems
"Ecosystems that rely on many parts working together could collapse"

There are almost 2000 threatened species and ecosystems already in Australia ..... after these fires many more are expected to be added to the list. Even many animals that survived the bushfires are expected to perish - by starvation, or by being eaten. Feral Cats and Foxes are expected to be comparative winners.

The estimate of 1 billion animals killed, does not even include untold numbers of insects, amphibians, bats, etc, nor crucial things like soil biota - which will have been decimated by the intensity of the hot fires.





Chosun :gh:
 
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Threatened Species pushed closer to extinction

https://www.australiangeographic.co...Jk3gD81ShmTOCzbgJ3TvsfYVMrXfQdwxzKBCt0_5t2DFA

Many birds perish in the fire because they are disorientated by the smoke, overrun, and unable to combat the strong winds generated, etc.

"Many Australian animal species, particularly threatened birds, favour long-unburnt vegetation because these provide more complex vegetation structure and hollows. Such habitat is fast disappearing."







Chosun :gh:
 
Calls for an 'all-out attack' on feral plants and animals as native species struggle

https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article...1e3VstsS4vMz78SxDXfxKS89L1zAygnT_D_NzTIc8_byg

"The feral animals are going to get the upper hand because they come from other countries; our native species haven't evolved to adapt to them.

"They're decimating the wildlife in normal times, but during these bushfires -- They get even a greater edge," Mr Cox said.

"So they certainly will decimate the native animals. They'll eat them, there'll be lots of suffering, and native animals need every hope they can get."


"At least hundreds of millions"
"On Monday, the federal government announced an initial $50 million investment would go to protect wildlife and restore habitat in response to the bushfire crisis.

While the Threatened Species Commissioner will manage half of that money, Mr Cox says it won't be nearly enough, estimating 'at least hundreds of millions.'

"The scale of the needed effort is far, far bigger than we could imagine.







Chosun :gh:
 
The inconvenient facts on Australia's bushfires

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www...convenient-facts-on-australian-bushfires/amp/

I don't really want to get into the nonsense of climate politics and the way that every celebrity and their dog have been jumping on these fires to push their own barrow. If we don't get to the true root causes then any solution will prove elusive. Some of these causes have yet to have widespread scientific research catch up to them. Some of the knowledge is esoteric - held by a culture that is actively suppressed in order to perpetuate the ongoing theft of land.

A curious article which really doesn't even mention many of the main factors responsible. A recent study found that climate change was not a factor.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2018GL080959
Curiously, this same author found that it was a factor in the Amazon fires - rather incredulous when they were clearly as a result of a land grab. Multiple deliberately lit fires were merely the tool of this 'illegal' activity.

Logging, clearing, and the proliferation of dense shrubby regrowth that occurs is however a cause. As is the 'theft' of the country's water, the resultant destruction of wetlands and the moist soil sponge, and as is the erosion caused, and drying of the land. The other big factor is creeping urbanisation and the exponential growth of edge effects. These are not things I'm seeing reported very much at all.





Chosun :gh:
 
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https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www...convenient-facts-on-australian-bushfires/amp/

I don't really want to get into the nonsense of climate politics and the way that every celebrity and their dog have been jumping on these fires to push their own barrow. If we don't get to the true root causes then any solution will prove elusive. Some of these causes have yet to have widespread scientific research catch up to them. Some of the knowledge is esoteric - held by a culture that is actively suppressed in order to perpetuate the ongoing theft of land.

A curious article which really doesn't even mention many of the main factors responsible. A recent study found that climate change was not a factor.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2018GL080959
Curiously, this same author found that it was a factor in the Amazon fires - rather incredulous when they were clearly as a result of a land grab. Multiple deliberately lit fires were merely the tool of this 'illegal' activity.

Logging, clearing, and the proliferation of dense shrubby regrowth that occurs is however a cause. As is the 'theft' of the country's water, the resultant destruction of wetlands and the moist soil sponge, and as is the erosion caused, and drying of the land. The other big factor is creeping urbanisation and the exponential growth of edge effects. These are not things I'm seeing reported very much at all. Chosun :gh:

You covered a lot of ground in these short paragraphs, CJ. Taking your last one, it's certainly the case that media coverage tends towards the more interesting or controversial, but much of that is due to the almost complete disappearance of correspondents with specialist knowledge or at least the ability to interpret it. However, only last week, the BBC News website had a lengthy article on how indigenous knowledge had been sidelined, and not just in Australia; it discussed many of the points you've been making, and criticised the wilful ignorance of doing so.

Now on to what you call 'a curious article'. It isn't at all curious, for it describes a set of metrics which the authors suggest is another useful tool to add to the armoury of research knowledge on the subject of fire ecology. Because it isn't claimed as a catch-all, it refers only to specifics relating to anthropegenic climatic impact of climate change: it's a way of refining our understanding of parts that previously seemed chaotic.

You say that the study found that climate change is not a factor in the fires in Australia. It did not find that at all. I've been through the paper, which contains much necessary technical information meningless to the lay person. What I found most pertinent was:

"For comparison, the multimodel median standard deviation calculated over the baseline period shows relatively high interannual variability in FWI metrics across portions of Australia which impede emergence based on a signal-to-noise ratio."

Put simply, that means that their set of metrics as they stand cannot be applied to Australia because the metrics are confounded by large year-on-year variability masking the ability of their system to distinguish 'signal' from background 'noise' in the data. The authors are pointing out the current limitations of their sytem, which is good science.

In the case of the Amazon, they found there is a low year-on-year variability (perhaps better described as a relatively stable dynamic system annually across the years), and so they were able to detect that their metrics could distinguish a signal. This does not assume that anthropogenic climate change was the main driver, only that their system could distinguish its contribution, even against all the deliberate fires. So, not curious at all.

I'm not accusing you of being underhand in any way in addressing the conclusions of this paper. I consider you are mistaken in your interpretation of the paper, which, to be fair, is not aimed at the general public.

Keep on posting!:t:
MJB
 
MJB, thanks for delving through the minutae of the signal to noise ratio. I did understand that this formed part of the basis for the author's conclusions, but given the wider assumptions and limitations, I wasn't being disingenuous or mistaken in what I said.

I know the authors stated limitations, but I meant "curious" only in terms of the models (and FWI system metrics) being limited by the assumpions used to arrive at the conclusions. Much of the science to quantify the exclusions/ blacked out unknowns/ simplifications/ oversights, and the linkages between them, does not yet exist - that doesn't mean that the knowledge is not known :cat:

Governance is a root cause on both continents in particular, yet this is not even quantified. There are a lot of variables in the system which are a lot more interdependent than they are being given credit (or analysis) for.

Media coverage is a big problem. A problem because of the way the whole mainstream industry uses psychological manipulations to suit a different agenda, and also because of the severe resource limitations of genuine independent journalists.

I only have to look for example at the work done by our national broadcaster (incredulous in itself that they are leading the charge with daylight back to the commercial services) to uncover the corruption and issues around water extraction, management, and environmental health, in this country. They are also the one's (completely different set of journalists) who have championed the pioneering (rediscovery) work of Peter Andrews and Natural Sequence Farming. Yet even with these good works, no-one is putting these two together with drought, with fire, with species threatened with extinction, with climate, with Indegenous dispossesion and suppression, with land use/ societal direction, and with governance. My view is that these factors are orders of magnitude more influential than the 'models' of reality being discussed. Plenty of research opportunity there .....

I know a lot of what I am trying to express (really I'm just dusting the tip of the iceberg of what is) is difficult to identify with or reconcile within existing paradigms. I appreciate folks endeavouring to follow, dipping a toe into the esoteric waters as much as they can manage (or even just a little beyond :) - we need every one we can reach if we are to turn this ship around.





Chosun :gh:
 
Bushfires: can ecosystems recover from such dramatic losses of biodiversity?

https://theconversation.com/bushfir...IGnFsd4bVyp2zbWYrYvbwO4mzqCCqhzOkE2_Jr9xuP4Hc

Serious questions raised.

The heavy rain that has fallen in places is likely to cause massive erosion. Any erosion control works were too slow. So much soil being washed out into the oceans - expect sea levels to rise.
There needs to be an all out assault on feral animals.
I would like to see a moritorium on chemical use on agricultural, private and crown lands - sometimes they will be the only refugia for insect populations to recover from. Any weed issues amongst the regrowth will need to be dealt with manually.
The rape of the land must stop.
Good luck Australia - your gonna need it.






Chosun :gh:
 
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