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Bushfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia. They're Only Going to Get Worse:
Australia has deployed military planes and ships to provide aid as hundreds of wildfires rage across Australia, forcing residents to flee and destroying homes.
The Australian Defense Force is sending ships to the Victoria town of Mallacoota on a two-week supply mission and using helicopters to bring in more firefighters since roads were inaccessible, according to the Associated Press (AP).
On Tuesday, thousands of people from the town on Australia's southeastern coast fled towards the water as a fire ripped through the area.
Photos of residents taking shelter on boats circulated on social media.
[...] In New South Wales, where Sydney is located, firefighters are battling more than 100 fires, according to the state's Rural Fire Service.
Sydney's famed New Years Eve fireworks went ahead despite the fires. A petition calling on the government to cancel the display and give the funds to firefighters and farmers instead got more than 280,000 signatures.
[...] New South Wales' Rural Fire Services Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said this wildfire season is the worst on record.
"We've seen extraordinary fire behavior," he said Tuesday, according to the AP. "What we really need is meaningful rain, and we haven't got anything in the forecast at the moment that says we're going to get drought-breaking or fire-quenching rainfall."
More than 900 homes have been destroyed in the state, according to New South Wales Rural Fire Service.
A fire tracker map maintained by researchers in Western Australia shows that they are also threatening areas around every major city in the country.
Additional coverage:
- Australia fires live: two dead in Cobargo as NSW and Victoria face bushfires threat – latest updates - interactive map too
- 9news live feed
- Large parts of the NSW South Coast are expected to lose all telecommunications in coming hours
- Tens of thousands of lightning strikes spark dozens of fires across South Australia
- More than 30,000 tourists in Australia who defied orders to leave area east of Melbourne amid raging bushfires are 'TRAPPED' as roads are cut off, after locals warned staying would be 'suicide' - have the pinch of salt ready
- 4000+ blocked on Mallacoota beach as forest fire approaches
- The Navy joins fleet of military helicopters called in to help evacuate south-eastern Victoria
- A total of 33 fires are still burning across Victoria as of 7pm Tuesday, with the majority of those blazes in East Gippsland.
(Score: 3, Touché) by EventH0rizon on Friday January 03 2020, @04:49AM (9 children)
So in answer to my question then, (which by the way is agnostic on the topic of climate change):
"What sort of disaster would constitute a new event for you? What is the scale of such a disaster?
Or is it the case that any disaster, no matter how intense or unusual has to be described as 'natural' and 'regular'?"
Your answer seems to be, "no disaster, no matter how intense or strange would constitute new event. It's all just change"
Am I straw-manning your position or is that essentially it?
(Score: 2) by The Shire on Friday January 03 2020, @11:04AM (8 children)
A "new" event would by definition be one that has never happened before. Something unprecedented. Not trying to be pithy, but if something happens that is a "once in a hundred years (or more)" it is not new, only rare.
In my humble opinion, increasingly devastating disasters have more to do with population increases than any other factor. Fifty yeats ago there were significantly fewer people on the US east coast so it follows that a hurricane of equal power back then would feel less "disasterous" than today from our perspective. Thats not an indication of disasters trending worse, its only that we have more to lose today (and more people recording and reporting on it).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Friday January 03 2020, @03:14PM (7 children)
So by your logic: A very large asteroid hits the Earth, causing massive volcanic eruptions and debris in the atmosphere that the sun isn't shining anymore, plant life can't grow, and animal life, including humans, is screwed because they now have nothing to eat. Approximately 85% of species are now extinct, most likely including humans.
Ho hum. It's happened a few times before, and life on Earth has eventually recovered. No cause for concern.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by The Shire on Friday January 03 2020, @03:28PM (6 children)
Not "Ho Hum" but also not "This asteroid strike is due to man's careless treatment of the planet".
Your question, which you claim to be agnostic regarding the climate change issue, was what constitutes a new kind of disaster. I answered the only way it's possible to correctly answer such a question - a new type of disaster would have to be "new". I made no claim as to if such a disaster would be exciting or horrible or "ho hum". Only that what we are seeing today qualifies as a textbook disaster, not something new and not something man is responsible for. Such things have been going on long before man existed on this planet.
The only thing you can say is that disasters today have a much greater impact on human settlements not because the disasters are greater but because there is so much more human settlement out there. Previously a major bush fire would simply have scorched the land like it always had done before, but now we have homes out there so of course when they burn the extent of the disaster is greatly magnified.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday January 03 2020, @03:54PM (5 children)
So, if someone were to demonstrate that humans were causing something on the same scale as the asteroid impact I just described, would you agree that's maybe a bit of a problem?
That's what the threat of climate change is. That's what the ongoing Holocene Extinction [wikipedia.org] is. And just because it isn't affecting you personally right now in ways you notice or care about doesn't mean it's not happening.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 03 2020, @10:15PM (2 children)
It is funny how the deniers are the ones who think they're being logical while denying all the actual science. The brainwashing was effective beyond their wildest dreams.
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Shire on Friday January 03 2020, @10:56PM (1 child)
Whats funny is that those who take a critical eye towards often biased manipulation of sketchy statistics are summarily dismissed as "deniers" when it is we who are holding a strict accounting of the scientific evidence. Anytime climate alarmists get cornered their only retort is "Yea? Well you're just a denier!" Bullshit. The vast majority of climate alarmists belong either to the group of weak minded individuals who cling to everything they're told or they have a financial vested interest in massaging the data to fit their narrative rather than critically reviewing it.
The irony of climate alarmists accusing the those who hold research to a rigourous standard as being brainwashed rather than those who blindly believe the headlines they saw while checking out at the grocery store is beyond ludicrous.
The very idea that humans possess the kind of power it that would be necessary for such a feat is mind boggling. The sun hits the earth with about 100,000 TW every day. Total human power generation worldwide in a day? 12 TW. Which do you think has a larger impact on climate? Us? Or the variable ball of fusion energy that generates 1.2 million times more energy every day? I'm assuming you can do simple math...
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Saturday January 04 2020, @06:16AM
What does the amount of human generated energy vs. the energy from sun have to do with anything? Sure, I suppose 12 TW has to have some effect, but that's not what is heating up the planet in any significant amount.
A greenhouse is just a bunch of glass and some metal/wood to hold it together. It generates no power. So how does it get so warm inside on a sunny day?
(Score: 2) by The Shire on Friday January 03 2020, @11:07PM (1 child)
And just to rebut your link to the Holocene Extinction article, surely you understand that the extinction of these animals is due to rapid and uncontrolled expanse of the human population. These animals were eaten or replaced with domesticated creatures or forced out of their habitat by the never ending expansion of man. They didn't die of heat exhaustion because there's too much CO2. WE KILLED THEM. The climate didn't.
Also worth noting that the Holocene is also referred to as the "6th mass extinction event". The 5 that came before that? Yea, humans didn't even exist. The planet doesn't need nor care about people - it's more than capable of killing off huge swaths of life on its own without our help.
If you're arguing that we should reduce co2 emissions to restore the natural balance, I got news for you - it will have zero effect. You want to restore the previous numbers of species on earth? You're going to have to kill off about 7 billion humans to make space. Are you volunteering to go first? Ya know, to save the planet?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 04 2020, @05:01AM
Git 'ere, you git. Imma gonna volunteer you first before I go to save the planet.