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Matilda

(6,384 posts)
Mon Feb 4, 2019, 09:05 PM Feb 2019

Tasmania is burning. The climate disaster future has arrived while those in power laugh at us

"As I write this, fire is 500 metres from the largest King Billy pine forest in the world on Mt Bobs, an ancient forest that dates back to the last Ice Age and has trees over 1,000 years old. Fire has broached the boundaries of Mt Field national park with its glorious alpine vegetation, unlike anything on the planet. Fire laps at the edges of Federation Peak, Australia’s grandest mountain, and around the base of Mt Anne with its exquisite rainforest and alpine gardens. Fire laps at the border of the Walls of Jerusalem national park with its labyrinthine landscapes of tarns and iconic stands of ancient pencil pine and its beautiful alpine landscape, ecosystems described by their most eminent scholar, the ecologist Prof Jamie Kirkpatrick, as “like the vision of a Japanese garden made more complex, and developed in paradise, in amongst this gothic scenery”.

(snip)

"Today Tasmania is burning. Its fires are so large that a firefighting team was reportedly called out in New Zealand to investigate a heavy smoke haze that turned out to have drifted across 2,500km of ocean from the Tasmanian fires. Firefighters are confronted with 1,629km of fire front, with fires having consumed 190,000 hectares, or 3% of Tasmania’s land, with authorities warning there is no sign of the fires abating for several weeks, and the potential for catastrophic consequences still a distinct possibility.

To date, Tasmania has had the extraordinary luck this summer to not have had the gale-force winds that characterised the tragic 1967 fires, in which 62 people perished within a few hours. But luck is only that, and one day soon, this summer or next, or the one after, that fatal day will dawn, and the catastrophe that will result will dwarf all previous Tasmanian fires in its fatal tragedy because everything else has changed, and all for the worse.

The Tasmanian fires have attracted little national media attention because there has been as yet, thankfully, no loss of life and only a handful of homes burnt. And yet these fires signal a terrifying new reality, as disturbing and ultimately almost certainly as tragic as the coral reef bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef."


https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/05/tasmania-is-burning-the-climate-disaster-future-has-arrived-while-those-in-power-laugh-at-us


Please read this excellent article by Richard Flanagan, and think about what our leaders worldwide are really doing about climate change. That's right - sweet FA.

We are cursed, mainly through the efforts of Rupert Murdoch and a dominant right-wing media, with a ruling party concerned only with grabbing all the cash they can before they get thrown out of power, and with a dim-witted "leader" who is clueless and gutless.

The express train is charging down the track with its whistle blowing, but they think if they don't look at it, it won't hit them. I think there are few countries where this attitude doesn't prevail.

Polling all over Australia shows that amongst a clear majority of voters, climate change is one of the biggest things on their minds. They're worried, and crying out for action, but our rulers have their minds and their ears closed.

Three months until we can vote this mob out, although politics being what it is, I'm not sure we can really count on a new Labor government to act on climate change either. Something happens when parties get voted into power - their prime concern is just to hang on as long as they can.

Makes you wish for some kind of universal revolution. But instead, I fear we'll all go out with a whimper, and sooner than we like to think.

13 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Tasmania is burning. The climate disaster future has arrived while those in power laugh at us (Original Post) Matilda Feb 2019 OP
Heartbreaking. femmedem Feb 2019 #1
K&R for visibility. nt tblue37 Feb 2019 #2
By the time the deniers realize global warming and climate change is real democratisphere Feb 2019 #3
That's also my feeling. Matilda Feb 2019 #4
It sure doesn't have to be that way, but good luck convincing them otherwise. democratisphere Feb 2019 #5
I checked that 3% figure gristy Feb 2019 #6
Thank you for this post. K&R for visibility. c-rational Feb 2019 #7
More ecosystems and species wiped out every year. KY_EnviroGuy Feb 2019 #8
Please, please cross-post this in General Discussion. Duppers Feb 2019 #9
It really is tragic what is happening in Tassie... Thyla Feb 2019 #10
I have never understood the Nationals' mindset Matilda Feb 2019 #11
Well only last week Thyla Feb 2019 #12
Labor needs to ask itself why Gough has been elevated to hero status. Matilda Feb 2019 #13

femmedem

(8,187 posts)
1. Heartbreaking.
Mon Feb 4, 2019, 09:08 PM
Feb 2019

So painful to read--but thank you for posting it. More hearts have to break, apparently, before we take action.

KY_EnviroGuy

(14,483 posts)
8. More ecosystems and species wiped out every year.
Tue Feb 5, 2019, 12:01 AM
Feb 2019

Would the last billionaire standing on his private island please turn the lights out?.......

Duppers

(28,094 posts)
9. Please, please cross-post this in General Discussion.
Tue Feb 5, 2019, 04:33 AM
Feb 2019

This OP needs max attention. These threats need to be recognized as not being in some distant future but here, now. And it will become exponentially worse.


😞🌳Gone in a Generation: How climate change is disrupting American lives - WaPo

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/gone-in-a-generation/



🌳 📣🌳 Will These Massive Geoengineering Projects Fix the Earth—or Break It?

Best idea from the article (my hubs and another NASA scientist, a DUer in fact, also had THIS very idea!!):

"Researchers are also looking into launching a giant parasol into space to manage the amount of solar radiation hitting Earth. This idea has been around for decades, but has only recently gained momentum.

For example, a 2018 paper from the Journal of Aerospace Technology and Management describes launching what the authors call the HSS, or Huge Space Shield. The plan is to put a thin, wide sheet of carbon fiber into a Lagrange point, which is a relatively stable point in the complex system of gravitational pulls between the Earth, moon, and sun. The sheet would only block a small portion of solar radiation, but it could be enough to drop global temperatures below the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit set by the International Panel on Climate Change.


We voters need to champion these ideas. Our very lives will depend on our actions.


Thank you, Matilda! 🙏


Thyla

(791 posts)
10. It really is tragic what is happening in Tassie...
Tue Feb 5, 2019, 04:52 AM
Feb 2019

And up north with the flooding. I have friends from both regions.


Polling all over Australia shows that amongst a clear majority of voters, climate change is one of the biggest things on their minds. They're worried, and crying out for action, but our rulers have their minds and their ears closed.


Are the electorate crying out for action though?
I bet they aren't when they get to the ballots, and as much as one can blame Murdoch and certainly the elected officials over the years, ultimately it comes down to the voters to enact changes. You can't be crying out for change and then vote Libs(not that I imagine any of the Aussies on DU would), seems just as futile voting for Lab as well. But we both know that is exactly what is going to happen.
And dog forbid anyone whispers the one set of changes that were made and was shown to have an positive effect climate wise, hint it rhymes with farbon max, and one mention of it is political suicide even if they learnt from the past mistakes with it's implementation. You know, because that electorate are screaming for action and all.
It just annoys me is all.

It should also be said that despite the many foibles of the Australian voting system at least voters have a chance to make some difference and again they rarely do. We are unique as we get over 90 percent voter turnout, this is a good thing and our system of preferences means if you use them you can shape changes yet over 90 percent of voters vote above the line which honestly is a number that surprises me. I think most are probably more engaged in their sausage in bread then at the ballot box.


Three months until we can vote this mob out, although politics being what it is, I'm not sure we can really count on a new Labor government to act on climate change either.


Yes, hopefully there will be change and whilst I hope it is Labor(only because reality demands it will be them) they have not exactly done anything to fill me with confidence and when in power previously they have not righted many wrongs that they could of or at least start to even address them in a serious manner.
I'd like to see many changes but hey it's like pushing shit uphill. My seat will likely never change from the Libs despite it being a mainly rural seat at the wrong end of the Murray that has suffered for decades. Labor have fallen off the radar and now the only serious challenge will come from the pseudo libs center alliance.
It amazes me, these people have no water, failing crops and Family fucking First out poll the Greens.

Gahhh, rant over.

Matilda

(6,384 posts)
11. I have never understood the Nationals' mindset
Mon Feb 11, 2019, 01:19 AM
Feb 2019

Even now, when the crookedness of Barnaby Joyce has been exposed, and we've all looked at a million dead fish thanks to his mismanagement (to put it politely), you know these twits out in rural Australia will still vote for the people who did this.

But one hopeful sign is the fact that in Warringah, Zali Steggall is currently outpolling Abbott. I live in Warringah, and it's mainly the Mosman voters who've kept Abbott in power over the years. But Zali is one of them, and they're listening to her. Maybe, just maybe, it's going to change, and what's so good is that Zali's number one issue is action on climate change. Abbott's answer is to mumble about maybe bringing back his Direct Action policy, which has been dead in the water for the past five years. Even now, he doesn't get it.

I hope Zali's high polling numbers will give heart to those other independents challenging rusted-on Libs, and bring out the best in the voters.

To quote Gough: "It's Time!".

Thyla

(791 posts)
12. Well only last week
Mon Feb 11, 2019, 08:54 AM
Feb 2019

I was reading an article about how the Nats base are fed up with Joyce and what they see as becoming more like the Liberal party so they are abandoning them.
Fair enough until you realise they are only moving as far as One Nation, Katter or the shooters party.

Yeah I have seen a bit about Zali, she seems to be one of the better ones and I'd laugh my arse off if she ousted Abbott. Liberal aligned though.

I'm an overseas voter so I'm stuck in one of the only electorates that has never changed hands off Liberal. It's a bit depressing and harder to get a read on things from over here but it's a mostly rural area and people are stuck in their ways. I hope it changes but I wont hold my breath.

I miss Gough, the left needs another leader like him before it is dissolved completely to center politics.

Matilda

(6,384 posts)
13. Labor needs to ask itself why Gough has been elevated to hero status.
Mon Feb 11, 2019, 09:12 PM
Feb 2019

There's a story there, if they'd just pay some attention.

Shorten isn't very well-liked even by Labor supporters, but he's been very steady these past couple of years, and not put a foot wrong.
(Personally, I wish he'd find the courage to say he'll block Adani, but that's pie-in-the-sky stuff, I guess.)

But this election is going to be interesting, not least because of the number of Independents running (except for Palmer, of course - I thought we'd finally got rid of him, but no such luck. Hope he gets well and truly done!)

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