Want to help? 2020-01-07

I've had some requests via Facebook for ways to donate to support those affected by the bushfires.

Here's a pretty comprehensive list: https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/bushfire-crisis-how-can-i-donate-and-help/11839842 Rural Fire Service (RFS) and Country Fire Authority (CFA) are the volunteer fire departments in New South Wales (Sydney) & Australian Capital Territory (Canberra) and Victoria (Melbourne), respectively. If you're keen on the animals, scroll down to the bottom of the article to find some charities that are taking care of wildlife. I also recommend two great animal sanctuaries in Tasmania that you could donate to who will surely be tending wildlife injured in the fires:

• The Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary https://www.bonorong.com.au/  
• Devils @ Cradle: https://devilsatcradle.com/

And if you're up for supporting the recovery nature will need, a friend who works in the environmental sector recommends Greening Australia: https://www.greeningaustralia.org.au/

If you aren't in Australia and don't want to get tagged with foreign fees for donating,  you can donate to the the Nature Conservancy or the World Wildlife Fund - they are doing great work with habitat, environment, and wildlife conservation/restoration/preservation. Both have Australian and US chapters.

• Nature Conservancy Australia https://www.natureaustralia.org.au/ 
• Nature Conservancy US https://www.nature.org/en-us/
• WWF Australia https://www.wwf.org.au/
• WWF US https://www.worldwildlife.org/

And if you are here and are able - give blood! https://www.donateblood.com.au/one-step-closer

And finally - if you see a bushfire ad or other message from our Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, on Facebook - don't click on donate without checking. I saw a post that his link goes to his political party, the Liberals, here in Australia. This is like donating to the Republican Party in the US. Always a good idea to double check where you're donating before you get out the credit card or go to paypal! 

Rural firefighters are volunteers - 2020-01-07

In rural Australia, most of the firefighters outside of the metropolitan areas are volunteers. Abbreviations like RFS (Rural Fire Service) and CFA (Country Fire Authority) refer to the organizations of volunteers. In serious situations, the national guard and other armed forces are brought in to support - and often even firefighters from places like the US, but the volunteers are the first line of defense for their families and their neighbors.

Volunteer firefighters are people like my friend Steve, who have full time jobs, but spend evenings and weekends training to fight bushfires in the off season (see https://g4ceinoz.blogspot.com/2013/03/hallam-comp-9-feb-13.html), so that they can spend days and weeks fighting fires during bushfire season. Particularly in a year like this one, this volunteer service can result it lost wages, PTSD, and in a few cases already, lost lives. Steve and his partner Ash are in London these days, but I suspect his dad and brothers are probably out helping tackle fires here. As the bushfire season has gotten longer over the past several years, it's starting to overlap with the end of fire season in the US, meaning that it's more difficult to get trained firefighters from there over here to help, which has been a stopgap in the past.

An Aussie friend posted this letter on her fb page from an RFS volunteer and I thought it was worth sharing. (Thanks KrisFS!)

"Letter to PM.. from a 70 yr old RFS volunteer.Please share this.
A letter to the minister by Peter Clark:
'Dear Prime Minister,
No doubt you have received many letters recently, many of them will be far more eloquent than mine, but here it is anyway to add to your list.
I am a 70 year old RFS volunteer. I am not the oldest member in our brigade. Our brigade has been constantly out fighting multiple fires since the ‘Bees Nest’ fire invaded our area on Sept 6. Our lives and the lives of all the people affected by the fires both here and in other parts of Australia have been put on hold since then. Some of our brigade members have lost thousands of dollars in income because most of us work for ourselves or are semi retired. We didn’t stop fighting the fires and go home after a couple of days. We just kept going because it’s our community, our friends our neighbours. Of course other strike teams were sent to help but ultimately the only thing that extinguished our fires was rain.

Let me assure you Prime Minister none of us WANT to be here. All of us would rather be somewhere else, doing something else. We’d rather be with our families and friends doing other activities. Even working so we can feed our families and pay bills. Perhaps even going on holidays or spending Christmas together. Normal, everyday activities, anything except fighting fires, dreading the sound of the pager going off calling us to another fire.

We don’t need you to be here in Australia instead of Hawaii. We don’t need you to wander round trying to look concerned, making glib comments comparing your trip to Hawaii with a plumber choosing between doing a job and his kids.
What we, the people of Australia NEED and WANT is this:-

•  You, our Prime Minister to announce an immediate CLIMATE EMERGENCY and take IMMEDIATE, POSITIVE, CONSTRUCTIVE ACTION to alleviate the effects of climate change. Which has, without a shadow of doubt together with the drought, made this fire season longer, hotter and more destructive. Just in case you haven’t heard, this season is unprecedented.
• STOP sucking up to media moguls and the fossil fuel industry. You have a science degree [with honours] yet you steadfastly refuse to accept the PROVEN science that multiple, destructive climate events are happening all over the world caused mostly by human action. Yet you appear to not give a toss.

Your peculiar brand of Christianity puzzles and concerns me greatly. I was raised by very religious parents who taught me the teachings of Christ. Compassion, empathy, humility, caring for others, love for fellow humans and all of God’s creatures. Yet, by your actions you seem to espouse the complete opposite of these noble ideals. You seem to value wealth, position and power. By your actions as Immigration Minister and PM you show no compassion, empathy, humility or Christian love for fellow humans. You show contempt for those less well off than yourself. You certainly appear to be totally unconcerned for the fauna and flora in our environment. I’m not standing in judgement of you, just telling you what it looks like from the outside. It is something that no amount of PR spin can overcome. Your true self shows through.

Your apparent belief, [that’s what it is, a belief, not backed up by scientific evidence] that you and other ‘believers’ will be saved after the 'end of the world’ and therefore you don’t have to do anything about climate change, shows you have an absolute conflict of interest in this matter and should exclude you from the office you hold. Your lack of action on climate change shows comprehensively you are NOT acting on behalf of the vast majority of Australians. You are certainly not acting on behalf of any young people as the recent announcement by the Young Liberals in support of action on climate change shows.

Therefore, if you are not prepared to take IMMEDIATE ACTION on climate change I respectfully request you stand down from your position of Prime Minister and leave parliament at the earliest time possible.
Your very disappointed and angry voter,
Peter Clark'"

But Melbourne is just smoky so far 2020-01-06

As the maps in my previous post show, Melbourne is not on fire, but we have the smoke from fires in East Gippsland and Tasmania (map at the bottom of this post). Today INSIDE my 8th floor apartment it smells like I'm sitting downwind from a campfire - you know the chair where the smoke is blowing right at it and the person in the chair keeps moving around to try and get out of the smoke? It smells like that. It's more fun at a campfire.

Visibility from my balcony is usually fantastic - about 48k/30 miles - this photo is at dusk, so slightly less visibility, but enough to give you an idea.

Below is what it looks like today - with visibility less than 2k/1 mile, I'm guessing. We have a bit of cloud cover today, but what is visible in the photo is smoke.

This has implications for those of us with asthma; according to the EPA our air quality rating has been increasingly poor since this morning which means:
"The air is probably dusty or smoky. Sensitive groups may experience symptoms like coughing or shortness of breath.

• If you are sensitive to air pollution, spend less time outside in the smoke or dust and follow your treatment plan. Reduce prolonged or heavy physical activity.
• If you are coughing or short of breath, avoid being outside in the smoke or dust.
• Close your windows and doors to keep smoke and dust out of your home."

Australian governments are serious about getting people to prepare for bushfires - everyone needs to have a plan for evacuation. While Melbourne is not currently at risk, if fire gets into the city it would be devastating. Today I've been thinking there's pretty much no chance of getting out of the city, so where are the nearest lakes/rivers streams I could hop into and hope for the best?

And now some relevant links and info:
Here's an ad that's running regularly on TV to give you a sense of what it's like to be in one, and how the government is encouraging people to HAVE A PLAN: https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/national/victorias-new-bushfire-survival-ad/video/7c4ce6bbc35dec913fad4efe4cdde049

Here's a video heat map of the fires in East Gippsland to get some sense of what a huge bushfire looks like when it's burning: https://www.news.com.au/national/raw-aerial-footage-of-victorian-fire/video/4fa0ea76c8fbea784e37dd4ef1613a0c

The map below shows where East Gippsland is relative to Melbourne. Although the weather report today says our smoke is from the fires in Tasmania, which is to our south.If you put your cursor on the map below you can move the map up or down, or resize it to see all of Australia.



If you're interested in live updates you can go here:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2020/jan/06/nsw-fires-live-updates-victoria-bushfires-south-australia-fire-sa-australian-bushfire-near-me-rfs-cfa-latest-news-morrison

AUS is on fire 2020-01-06

I've had lots of messages and emails in the last few days asking how I'm doing as the fires down here make international news. Australia's addiction to coal and coal mining, and the government's bureaucratic efforts to keep the letter of their climate agreements but not the spirit of them (i.e., double counting to reach targets) are all being highlighted.

While bushfires are pretty common at this time of year, this year has been catastrophic due to ongoing drought conditions. The loss of human lives so far is not huge in numbers (though significant for families who have lost loved ones), but the loss of wildlife, both plant and animal, and property, is staggering.

Here's a basic map of all the places that are on fire today: https://myfirewatch.landgate.wa.gov.au/
And here's a summary of the stats across all 6 states and 2 territories from end of last week:  

• 19 dead
• 29 missing
• 303 bushfires burning (most are significant)
• 6,238,000 hectares/15.5 million acres burned (this is equivalent to Europe's ENTIRE coastline - more than 24,000 square miles)
• 209 Homes destroyed (that's expected to go up as reports come in after Saturday's big fires)

This Saturday was a huge day for fires, so those numbers are likely to go up.

Below I've included the Quick Guide on Climate Change and Bushfires from the Guardian, which is an independent Australian newspaper. Because climate is a system, the connections are not linear, but they are still pretty clear. I know there are lots of folks out there who don't believe the significant scientific evidence that climate change is happening. To you I would ask - what's the risk if you're wrong? I'd say the situation in Australia provides evidence that the risk is pretty high.

Climate change and bushfires

Does climate change cause bushfires?

The link between rising greenhouse gas emissions and increased bushfire risk is complex but, according to major science agencies, clear. Climate change does not create bushfires, but it can and does make them worse. A number of factors contribute to bushfire risk, including temperature, fuel load, dryness, wind speed and humidity.

What is the evidence on rising temperatures?

The Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO say Australia has warmed by 1C since 1910 and temperatures will increase in the future. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says it is extremely likely increased atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases since the mid-20th century is the main reason it is getting hotter. The Bushfire and Natural Hazards research centre says the variability of normal events sits on top of that. Warmer weather increases the number of days each year on which there is high or extreme bushfire risk.

What other effects do carbon emissions have?

Dry fuel load - the amount of forest and scrub available to burn - has been linked to rising emissions. Under the right conditions, carbon dioxide acts as a kind of fertiliser that increases plant growth.

So is climate change making everything dryer?

Dryness is more complicated. Complex computer models have not found a consistent climate change signal linked to rising CO2 in the decline in rain that has produced the current eastern Australian drought. But higher temperatures accelerate evaporation. They also extend the growing season for vegetation in many regions, leading to greater transpiration (the process by which water is drawn from the soil and evaporated from plant leaves and flowers). The result is that soils, vegetation and the air may be drier than they would have been with the same amount of rainfall in the past.

What do recent weather patterns show?

The year coming into the 2019-20 summer has been unusually warm and dry for large parts of Australia. Above average temperatures now occur most years and 2019 has been the fifth driest start to the year on record, and the driest since 1970.

Photograph: Regi Varghese/AAP

Also, some environmentally oriented friends just posted a link to this map on facebook - go here for the live version: https://hotspots.dea.ga.gov.au/ I included the legend so it's clear that the "hotness" is about hours since the hotspot cropped up on the satellite scan, not the hotness of the fire.

Bias and Fact Check on my sources:
Sydney Morning Hearad https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-sydney-morning-herald/
The Guardian: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-guardian/