"Thank you, Mr Clarke. I wondered how long it would take you to come back with a rebuttal that is really not a rebuttal at all. I might start a sweepstake on this, in future. 😁

Jan 12, 2020 at 7:28 PM Radical Rodent"

The Climate Science Emergency Defence Team is having to work overtime including weekends at the moment. They know there is a lot of trouble brewing down under.

coral reef death,
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jan/12/how-scientists-are-coping-with-environmental-grief
Jan 12, 2020 at 7:29 PM Mark Hodgson

Scientists are going to learn how to deal with grief as JCU has had more Green Blobbers exposed as liars, cheaters and fabricators concerning Great Barrier Reef death reports

http://joannenova.com.au/2020/01/busted-reef-fish-arent-bothered-by-acidification-scientific-fraud-ok-at-james-cook-uni/

This is the “replication crisis” Peter Ridd warned about, and he was sacked

All I've seen by way of anti-burn protests is that one in Nowa Nowa. According to reports there was a rally of about 50 people protesting the burn as they were not convinced the authorities had performed an adequate audit on the effect on wildlife and biodiversity. A few protestors trespassed the burn itself, causing a short delay.

And that's it. That's the Green Blob.

http://geg.org.au/?paged=2&cat=1

a rebuttal that is really not a rebuttal at all.

Was your number for area burned this year out by a factor of 2 or not?

The date you gave was 10 days ago, no link given to the 'original author'. If 14 million acres are burning every 10 days, well...

Sky 'News'.

You believe this stuff? Really?

Some 27 people have so far been killed - including four firefighters - and an estimated 10 million hectares of bush, forest and parks across Australia has burned.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-50951043

10m hectare = 24.7m acre.

Jan 13, 2020 at 1:14 AM Phil Clarke
Climate Science has been full of deliberate mathematical errors

Phil, it seems you believe what you want to believe, and disregard the rest. It also seems that no news source is reliable:

"Some 27 people have so far been killed - including four firefighters - and an estimated 10 million hectares of bush, forest and parks across Australia has burned.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-50951043

10m hectare = 24.7m acre."

Quite right. But then the BBC also tells us this, as Radical Rodent points out:

"More than 6.3 million hectares (63,000 sq km or 15.6 million acres) have been burned so far - one hectare is roughly the size of a sports field."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-51036608

That last story was dated 11th January 2020. The BBC story you linked to was dated 10th January 2020. So, according to the BBC, on 10th January "an estimated" 10m hectares had burned, and by the following day "More than 6.3m hectares" had been burned.

Well, which is it? Why you can trust the BBC? I don't think so.

Relevant to this discussion, I think:

"Debunked – BBC News Video Which Supposedly ‘Debunks’ #ArsonEmergency Claim"

https://cliscep.com/2020/01/12/debunked-bbc-news-video-which-supposedly-debunks-arsonemergency-claim/

The conclusion I draw is that nothing in the media is to be trusted, and certainly nothing that appears on the BBC or in the Guardian (both of which I used to trust) is to be trusted any more than the stuff that appears in the likes of the Sun or the Daily Mail.

Mark, "an estimated" 10m hectares had burned", and "More than 6.3m hectares" had been burned" are equivalent. The difference could well be the result of different methodologies being used or different regions being considered. In any case, what does it matter? To the overwhelming number of viewers/listeners both are "very large numbers". The best representation I have seen was used by BBC News: a red disk representing the area burnt overlying, at the same scale, an outline of Great Britain. It covered an area from the Irish Sea to East Anglia covering all of England excepting the Southwestern Peninsula and the far North. That's putting it into perspective.

http://joannenova.com.au/2020/01/the-hotter-drier-climate-change-myth-the-rain-in-australia-is-the-same/

"Blame the ocean currents for our bush fires
The biggest cause of bush-fires in Australia is the drought. A lack of rain allows the nation to get scorching hot days and dries out the fuel. Yet our long term records show that obscene megatons of CO2 from China has no detectable effect on our long term rainfall. Not in the fire zones, and not across the whole country either. The main driver of droughts and fires therefore is the El Nino oscillation, the IOD, and the SOI. Tax the ocean! Stop the currents! Hold back the tide and pray to Karl Marx!"

Jan 13, 2020 at 9:11 AM AK

It is a large area. The idea that the entire area has been incinerated from the highest leaf, down to the top inches of soil is misleading.

I do not doubt that 50%+ (?) of the square miles have been incinerated, but within weeks/months of rain, aerial photography will reveal trees with new leaves and/or greenery beneath charred trees.

To the overwhelming number of viewers/listeners both are "very large numbers".

Indeed

Sea surface temperatures played a part, but these oscillations are occurring on top of summer temperatures that are 2C warmer than at the turn of the century.

Incidentally, the Garnaud Report (Broadly Australia's version of the Stern Report) predicted this 12 years ago.

Jan 13, 2020 at 10:15 AM Radical Rodent
Eucalyptus became a popular SHRUB in late Victoria England because of its attractive silver foliage that provided a good contrast. It required cutting back hard every year to maintain a fresh supply of silvery leaves, but rarely developed into a tree because a good period of freezing conditions would kill it.

In the last 40(?) years, more freeze-resistant strains of eucalyptus have been introduced to the UK, and like leylandii hedging, have grown unchecked, and very quickly into trees.

Eucalyptus have an impressive ability to send roots far, wide and deep if necessary to find water, and once established, are very drought tolerant. Planted in small gardens as attractive shrubs, they overwhelm other plants, the garden, the soil and menace the drains and foundations (subsidence) particularly on clay soils. Many UK streets, especially in London and the South East have them, growing unmunched by hungry Koalas

The ability of Eucalyptus to regenerate if pruned hard, or even cut to ground level is beyond doubt. I do not speak koalanese, so don't know whether younger fresher leaves get higher starred Michelin ratings.

I have hard pruned eucalyptus from 3-4m high down to 1m many times (annual growth) It burns (wood and leaves) very well on the bonfire, but was never sufficiently big in diameter to justify logging for a wood-burning stove. I never tested how much heat and charring the bark could withstand and still protect the life of the tree.

Despite being an "evergreen" , Eucalyptus do shed leaves as part of an ongoing process of continuous replacement. The leaf litter does not decay as quickly as deciduous leaves, and forms a slowly drying and decaying layer that is being constantly topped up. Leaves are more likely to be jettisoned by the tree during drier conditions, not colder ones.

I do not speak earthwormese either, so don't know whether they prefer to avoid eating too much eucalyptus oil composting it with humus.

From my limited UK experience, eucalyptus do produce excellent fuel load at groundlevel and higher up the living tree, but under mature trees, there could be sufficient gap between the two to prevent one incinerating the other. Footage from Australia seems to confirm that this CAN occur, but not always.

From an Environmental angle, Kangaroo Island koalas were either immune or quarantined from mainland STDs. Any human assistance towards koala recovery on the Island needs careful supervision.

Incidentally, the Garnaud Report (Broadly Australia's version of the Stern Report) predicted this 12 years ago.

Jan 13, 2020 at 10:52 AM Phil Clarke

The Stern Report was based on faked up Climate Science. Is Garnaud better or worse?

"Incidentally, the Garnaud Report (Broadly Australia's version of the Stern Report) predicted this 12 years ago.
Jan 13, 2020 at 10:52 AM Phil Clarke"

Did the Australian Green Blob conspire to make Garnaud's predictions come true?

AK - The discrepancy in the figures quoted so authoritatively by the BBC does indeed matter, because they are nothing like equivalent - one number is 50% more than the other. The difference is approximately 3.3m hectares. Coincidentally:

"Global net forest loss averaged 3.3 million hectares annually from 2010-2015"

https://environmentcounts.org/news/global-net-forest-loss-averaged-3-3-million-hectares-annually-2010-2015/

So the discrepancy is huge.

According to this:

https://www.lakedistrict.gov.uk/learning/factsandfigures

The Lake District National Park is 236,234 hectares, so the discrepancy between the two figures quoted by the BBC on successive days is the equivalent, give or take, of 14 Lake District National Parks. Why would anyone take any notice of an organisation which makes such lazy errors?

Radical Rodent, I take with a pinch of salt pretty much everything I read on the internet, and don't regard any source as authoritative, though I will incline to give the benefit of the doubt to:

1. Those sources with a demonstrably good record for accuracy (though, unfortunately, accuracy can only be identified with any confidence over a lengthy period of time); and

2. Those sources which do not appear to be pushing an agenda, though even then caution is still required.

Based on 2, though not on 1 (since I have no knowledge of their track record) I would trust NSW Police ahead of the BBC and the Guardian, though even then I would question why they are making the figures public now? Is it part of routine statistical reporting? Is it to correct errors in the media? Is it to make a point? Who knows?

As I think I said on a different thread, the human condition is to accept information sources which support the conclusions we have already arrived at, and to reject those which contradict our conclusions. We all do it - you, me, AK, golf charlie, Phil Clarke. The clever part is to know that you're doing it, then try to be conscious of one's unconscious bias, and to try very hard to assess news sources on their merits rather than on whether they support or contradict your beliefs. Easy to say, difficult to do. I fear I'm no more successful at it than anyone else.

Has Australia plc been trading the fuel load it has not cleared and burned intentionally, only to see the countryside go up in smoke accidentally?

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/29/land-clearing-wipes-out-1bn-taxpayer-funded-emissions-gains

"More than $1bn of public money being spent on cutting greenhouse gas emissions by planting trees and restoring habitat under the Coalition’s Direct Action climate policy will have effectively been wiped out by little more than two years of forest-clearing elsewhere in the country, official government data suggests.

The $2.55bn emissions reduction fund pays landowners and companies to avoid emissions or store carbon dioxide using a reverse auction – the cheapest credible bids win. The government says it has signed contracts to prevent 124m tonnes of emissions through vegetation projects – mostly repairing degraded habitat, planting trees and ensuring existing forest on private land is not cleared.

Based on the average price paid by the government for a tonne of carbon dioxide, the projects will receive about $1.48bn from taxpayers as they deliver their cuts over the next decade.

Meanwhile, forest-clearing elsewhere in the country has released more than 160m tonnes of carbon dioxide since the emissions reduction fund began in 2015. Emissions projections data estimates another 60.3m tonnes will be emitted this year – equivalent to more than 10% of national emissions."

The NSW police report legal action taken against 183 individuals for fire related offences since early November. This morphed into more than 180 or nearly 200 arrests for arson in certain media outlets seeking to downplay the role of climate change. It was also tweeted by Sean Hannity and Donald Trump Jr. (The apple does not fall far from the tree).

But 'legal action' does not equate to arrest and not all the offences were arson. It includes eveything from a caution up to criminal charges. There is a total fire ban in place and the largest single category was action against people not complying with that (back garden fires, BBQs etc, operating certain machinery can get you a caution). The next largest group was people carelessly discarding matches or cigarette ends.

The number of people actually charged with arson is 24. Some were serious but the majority were bins being set on fire and small grass fires. It is a serious problem, but not a major contributor to the crisis. ABC News claim to have crunched the numbers and find 1% of the area burned in NSW can be attributed to arson, and similar or lower numbers in other states,with lightning the main culprit.

See also

https://www.politifact.com/facebook-fact-checks/statements/2020/jan/10/facebook-posts/those-claims-about-nearly-200-arrested-arson-austr/

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/australia-arrested-bushfires/

"I didn’t know they were that hostile to other plants.
Jan 13, 2020 at 2:00 PM Radical Rodent"

I don't whether they are any more hostile to other plants, than other quick growing trees. Their canopy is not dense in terms of shade and they do not cause the ground beneath to become sterile as is the case with leylandii. They are very damaging to man-made structures, particularly in urban environments, and to manplanted gardening schemes.

(The apple does not fall far from the tree).
Jan 13, 2020 at 2:48 PM Phil Clarke

If you didn't sit so obediently beneath the Hockey Teamster tree, you wouldn't get splattered by rotten apples.