Climate Change Did Influence Australia’s Unprecedented Bushfires | Hacker News Reader

Climate Change Did Influence Australia’s Unprecedented Bushfires

scientificamerican.com

59 pointspseudolus55 comments

> Yes, Climate Change Did Influence Australia’s Unprecedented Bushfires (scientificamerican.com)

THIS is a good example of why people don't trust scientists or global warming.

The narky Yes, is based on a pre-print, this isn't even published, I assume not peer reviewed yet. Good to see even the journals no long believe in peer review which they base their authority on.

The first paragraph has NOTHING to do with the study, but lets toss it in with no scientific backing.

> Such an extreme fire season is at least 30 percent more likely because of global warming

And 30% more means the 3 in a 100 year event now happens 4 times every 100 years. Which is not great but not scary either. It's still something we 100% have to mange and deal with, which we can.

Scientific American needs to scare people to get their clicks, and they are misrepresenting numbers to do that. This is not how to do real science.

Australian trees have extremely hard seed pods and require fire to open, it's the evolution of many species in the ecosystem (animals that live in-land are fast moving, slower moving animals live closer to the coast or dig into the ground). Being told for the last 10 years that you cannot clear land of bush-fire fuel (as one citizen did, and was heavily fined with new ECO laws), a practice done since Aboriginals taught settlers, contributed massively to last year's fires.

The point I'm making is the new ECO laws aren't respecting the reality of Australia's ecosystem, and bush-fires like that are the outcome.

The head of the NSW Rural Fire Fighters who are responsible for fighting bushfires and doing hazard reduction burns has stated that there have not been any ecological laws that have prevented them from doing burns.

What has prevented from from doing burns is warmer winters that has resulted in the window for when they can safely do burns being reduced.

I'd like to know what these new eco laws you are referring to and a citation for the story you made reference to about the person getting fined for doing hazard reduction on his own land.

Australians have continuously voted for parties who have a track record of either dismissing or doing nothing about climate change. The currently elected party in particular. It's extremely sad to watch all this unfold in my home country from abroad but at the same time I'm not sure how you can argue with what the general public are voting for.

> I'm not sure how you can argue with what the general public are voting for.

You can absolutely argue against the general public. General public once voted for the segregation law.

Good point

The general public votes for anyone supported by the press. Thank Murdoch for the past few governments.

The connection is not that direct, the media is influential but not the primary factor. Advertising isn't magic after all.

The Americans are currently getting a worked example of how a billionaire spending their money on advertising can ensure voters know who they are but those voters might still say "Oh that guy, he's fucking awful, No".

That is a different example though. Bloomberg is spending money on himself and is an obvious outlier.

The media/coorps in most cases of lobbying/bias are not batting for themselves directly, they're batting for their own interests in (somewhat) more subtle ways and/or supporting a candidate who aligns with their own interests.

Murdoch in Australia owns 70% of the press, and in a mostly ignorant society, that leads to the narrative being highly skewed for many decades.

There is nothing Australia could have done on its own to curb climate change. Even if we removed every single human and factory from the country it wouldn't have influenced climate change one bit. Now I know "we need to start somewhere", but this somewhere needs to be the biggest polluters not Australia. The best thing Australia could have done is to decrease their consumptions of goods manufactured by these big polluters by imposing heavy tariffs maybe, although this could have triggered a local industry to build this tariffed stuff which could have only been stopped by imposing very heavy taxation on those local industries, I don't think any politicians would like to commit political suicide though.

Australia is the largest coal exporter in the world.

...to countries [1] who need it for their societies and economies to function and grow.

Is the argument that the noble thing to do would be to refuse to sell the coal, and force these countries to use more expensive forms of energy, regardless of whether it keeps more of their people in poverty for longer?

It's an easy thing to say for those of us already living in first world countries with access to all the modern comforts.

And sure, Japan and Korea are not poor countries, but they are populous, resource-poor countries with huge manufacturing industries (producing some of the world's most fuel-efficient cars, no less), so they have to import their energy from somewhere.

[1] Major importers of Australian metallurgical coal are India, Japan and China. Major importers of Australian thermal coal are Japan, China, South Korea and Taiwan https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/minerals/mineral-res...

If you excluded metallurgical coal from our exports, we'd still be the largest exporter of coal in the world.

How is that a refutation of anything I wrote?

The coal is still important for the economic wellbeing and personal welfare of the people in those countries, whether it's used for power generation or materials production.

Keeping global warming under control is important for the economic wellbeing and personal welfare of the people in those countries.

Notice how easy and noble-seeming it is to say that, compared to saying "I believe we should force more people in developing countries to stay in poverty for longer", even though they amount to the same thing?

Please understand, I'm with you that climate change is important to mitigate; I lived through the bushfires and smoke haze this Australian summer, and I worry about the prospect of that being a more normal part of our future.

I'm also expecting a child and have concerns for their future, as well the broader effects of climate change and environmental damage on humanity and nature everywhere.

But I know that it will take more than scapegoating Australian politicians (funny how it's the conservative politicians that get attacked over this, even though their coal export policies aren't substantially different from Labor's) to fix the problem, when the whole reason for the demand for coal is that people in the developing world just want, quite reasonably, a standard of living approaching what we in the west take for granted.

If these discussions involved sensible ideas about how developing countries could modernise their economies without fossil fuels, or acknowledged that large-scale carbon capture will have to be part of a comprehensive climate change solution, then I might be able to start taking them seriously.

But I guess that kind of discussion doesn't deliver the quick hit of sanctimony that so many people seem to crave.

We can alleviate poverty without coal.

I want to believe that too! And I'd be delighted to see evidence that it's possible and details of how it can happen.

These one-line drive-by assertions without any details don't inspire confidence.

There's no evidence to suggest that we can't alleviate poverty without coal. We can alleviate poverty any number of ways. Your hyperbolic and emotional assertions about the need for Australia to continue selling coal don't inspire confidence.

This gambit of replying with a flipped-around copy of the parent comment might feel clever but just indicates that you’re more interested in cheap point-scoring than earnestly confronting the entirety of the topic. Hacker News is not the place for crappy discourse like that.

There is ample evidence that it can’t be done yet, given that governments and private companies addressing the biggest populations/markets in the world have had many years and every incentive to do it but so far have been unable to. Despite huge investments in renewables, nuclear and gas, they still need lots of coal for the foreseeable future.

Here's a 2015 article from MIT Technology Review that explores the issue in depth: http://archive.is/SXXHl

Across the world, the percentage of fossil fuels used to generate power is dropping. This trend seems likely to continue, and Australians can accelerate it with our economic power. Coal is not required to alleviate poverty. Saying coal is required to alleviate poverty is a hyberbolic and emotional statement.

I’ve shared, without emotion, evidence and analysis of the topic, and you keep replying with what you wish to be true but with no backing data.

The countries that are moving away from coal are replacing it with natural gas, nuclear or imported energy/materials. Renewables in some cases but only where the country is endowed with natural energy resources and/or is already rich enough to do so. There are valid reasons why this is not immediately possible for India and China if they are to continue developing.

All of this would easy for you to find out if you cared to properly understand it and engage in constructive discussion.

> The countries that are moving away from coal are replacing it with natural gas, nuclear or imported energy/materials. Renewables in some cases but only where the country is endowed with natural energy resources and/or is already rich enough to do so. There are valid reasons why this is not immediately possible for India and China if they are to continue developing.

Incorrect. This isn't even true if you're talking about Australian states, let alone countries.

Sure, let's look at Australian states then.

South Australia uses just over 50% renewables [1], thanks to being endowed with natural solar, wind and geothermal resources, but still operates 15 natural gas power stations [2] - exactly as I said in the part of my comment that you chose to quote.

Tasmania uses 93% renewables [1] thanks to being endowed with natural hydro and wind resources, but still runs three natural gas power plants [3] - exactly as I said in the part of my comment that you chose to quote.

Both states are in a first-world, already-rich and already-developed country, also as per the part of my comment you quoted. And they both have tiny populations.

These conditions obviously don't apply throughout India and China. Yes they both use plenty of renewables and continue to expand their renewables investments. And they both use some natural gas but can't use much as they don't have large local gas reserves [4] (particularly relative to their population sizes), and it's costly to ship/pipe in. So, coal it is, however much you and I might wish it to be different.

If you have any independent evidence to demonstrate otherwise, I'm keen to learn, so I encourage you to share it.

[1] https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/south-australia-hits-50-as...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Sout...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Tasm...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_g...

Every country is endowed with enough natural renewable resources to service their own needs.

I agree Australia could not have prevented it on their own but given a clear, devestating example of the possible effects of climate change both parties shrug it off.

This is only a variant of the old "that big group of peoples are much larger than our group, so they need to change first". The others are always larger, so easy to accuse. Total for a country is maybe not the best metric to use. Per person emissions shows much more than total for a group of peoples called a country. Of course the largest polluter both by country and per person need to change the most, but the total pollution is the total of what you, me, and everyone else pollute

Yes, and it's scary how often this broken thinking pops up here.

Here's a quick quiz: China decides to split in two. Can each half now by rights pollute twice as much as it was before? Does the EU count as one large mega polluter or a bunch of small conscientious countries? Should we cap an Indian's emissions at 1/50th of those of an Australian, or use their economic development as an excuse to do whatever we want?

The planet doesn't care about whatever imaginary lines we draw on a map. Per capita is all that matters and Australia is doing very poorly.

Every country has to pull their weight. All of them. No excuses.

You're probably right that events like this weren't avoidable even if drastic measures had been taken a decade ago. Maybe the effects could have been reduced, or the likelihood minimised but not eliminated. That doesn't matter though. What matters is what we do now, that we and politicians take this issue seriously and do what we can to address it.

Everyone says that, even the Americans who are second place. If the Chinese had a scapegoat they would blame someone else too.

Popular opinion held by non-experts on topics where objective fact from experts exists, is the way to argue it.

Also, statistically Australians believe in climate change. They're just not voting on that issue in elections over others.

I could go into media bias/propaganda in Australia, but that is off topic, but the pertinent part is that Australians are (in my opinion) ill informed on many subjects, especially ones where experts should be listened to, and not media mouthpieces.

Ah, it's the climate's fault. Not shitty forestry management policies by the various government entities who are "responsible" for that kind of stuff.

Letting underbrush accumulate because you have a zero tolerance burn policy is the problem everywhere there's been a severe fire.

We thought we'd improved a million year old system, but all we did was make it a tail end event.

The article doesn't talk about fault - it simply says such events are more likely now that temperatures are higher.

If I do a postmortem at work and conclude that, say, kernel X.Y's page cache makes deadlocks under unusually high load more likely, that doesn't mean that kernel X.Y caused the outage. Something had to provide the high load in the first place. But the kernel was a contributing factor - we could have survived the unusually high load otherwise.

You're correct. But it never says what the base likelihood of a severe even is.

30% higher than a base of 0.01%? 30% higher than a base of 10% probability?

That makes a difference.

Especially if other factors have much higher contributory rates. Like "letting underbrush accumulate increases chances of severe events by 400% YoY".

And it's not a postmortem if you only discuss a single factor. It's an opinion/position piece.

>letting underbrush accumulate increases chances of severe events by 400% YoY

It's interesting you use this example because this has been covered by the RFS - the period during which hazard reduction burns can be safely done to clear the underbrush is shrinking because the fire season is longer and winter is shorter. They can only do those burns when it's both safe and not raining, so a change in climate can indirectly impact the severity.

It's like not sleeping for a week and then when your organs start failing and you're deeply depressed and have to sleep for 4 days saying "it's the culture's fault!"

No, it's your fault for thinking you're better than a billion year old process.

> Letting underbrush accumulate because you have a zero tolerance burn policy is the problem everywhere there's been a severe fire.

Australia doesn't have a zero tolerance burn policy. New South Wales alone burned ("bushfire hazard reduction") 187,041 hectares in the 2018-19 financial year[1].

Your comment comes across as an American who doesn't actually know anything about Australia.

[1]: https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/12989...

I'll comb through that document and find it myself if you don't have it offhand, but do you know what section I'll find information about controlled / planned burns? And / or underbrush removal policies?

Strike that, found it after rereading your post

Winters are shorter and summers longer in Australia compared to 70 years ago:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-51697803

This means a reduction in the length of the cooler stable weather periods when prescribed burns are able to be performed:

https://www.dpaw.wa.gov.au/management/fire/prescribed-burnin...

So the opportunities when the weather is "just right" for conducting a fuel reduction burn are fewer. Various regional fire departments have stated they are not able to complete their planned burns as a result.

https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/hazard-reduction-may-be...

Not risking a prescribed burn getting out of control due to unfavorable weather conditions doesn't sound like shitty forest management policy.

Another factor leading to fuel load build up is the decimation of native wild life like quendas and woylies due to predation by feral cats, dogs and foxes:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-06/quenda-poo-helps-tree...

These small marsupials eat the leaves or dig the leaf litter into the soil while foraging. This reduces the build up of dry leaves on the ground and thus reduces the fuel load.

Our group did a ScienceBrief showing climate change increases the risk of wildfires (https://sciencebrief.org/topics/climate-change-science/wildf...)

Everywhere, or in Australia specifically?

The review was global and included Australia. It is linked from above. :)

>Yes, Climate Change Did Influence Australia’s Unprecedented Bushfires

>Such an extreme fire season is at least 30 percent more likely because of global warming, a new analysis finds

What? What am I missing here?

By making it more likely to occur?

That's not what the headline said, though.

Yeah, it's still statistically impossible to attribute individual events to Climate Change with any amount of confidence.

Climate change is about global averages. It makes satisfying headlines to blame climate change, but it's poor science.

It's this sort of thing that makes climate change deniers even more emboldened in the conviction that they're right and that it's all a politically motivated hoax or whatever. It's extremely irresponsible. Especially because the headline directly contradicts the subheadline right below it.

Not disagreeing with the conclusion but given that climate change itself is real what would it even take for the contrary to be true ? Or for any other natural phenomena/disaster, hell if the covid19 virus reproduces/mutates better on average at warmer temperatures even its impact can be attributed to climate change.

Although it's most likely the opposite for covid19 (it survives better at colder temperatures), climate change does have an impact today on the population and habitat surface of ticks (spreading Lyme disease) and invasive tropical mosquitoes (carriers of yellow fever, dengue fever, Chinkungunya, ...). This impact is already visible today.

I'm not entirely clear what point you are making, or what question you are asking.

A conclusion may 'seem obvious' to some people while still being doubted by others. Careful analysis of the evidence allowing us to put credible and defensible numbers to the influence of climate change is important work. This research isn't making a vague claim along the lines of warmer temperatures 'maybe' amplifying the effect of a disease, it's quantitative study putting real numbers on a measurable effect.

2020

1. Find extreme weather event 2. Blame it on climate change 3. Write article about it 4. Profit

Yes, that's called "doing responsible journalism in a capitalist society." You find something newsworthy, you reports the news, and you get paid for it. What part would you like to change?

There is not much profit though, you'd get much more if you said it wasn't related.

When did we ever have Climate!Change?

Get this crap off HN.

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