Katoomba Monthly Temp average set to be SMASHED!!! AGAIN!!!

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Originally Posted by woodPixel

Someone asked about Canberra smoke.

For direct comparison I've no way of knowing how bad others have had it, but it has been continuous here. Some days it has been severe and dense. It tends to come and go to an extent, but I cant really recall a day in the last few weeks which was clear. It would be easy to describe it as "bad". Many building sites are closed due to it.

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The radio this morning reported that Melbourne had the worst air quality for any major city in the world today due to the smoke from the Gippsland fires.

I had to go to a medical appointment this morning and visibility on the Western Ring Road was about 500 metres on average. As I drove onto the Witton Bridge I could not see the other end of the bridge because of the smoke.

My Mother-in-law is staying with us at the moment as she lives near Benalla which is at risk of the fires up that way. She is a smoker but today she has been seen sitting on the back deck without a cigarette in her hand just inhaling.

We are expecting a wind change and rain tomorrow which should bring some relief.

Here is the answer to whether the Wollemei Pines survived the fires.

NSW fires: Wollemi pines saved by secret RFS firefighting mission

This was mentioned in Nature magazine! (I despise the SMH).

NASA, via The New York Times, has published a similar map for the world, showing we've just had the hottest decade on record.

Attachment 467273

The World Meteorological Association has stated 2019 was AUstralia's hottest and driest, and the second hottest for the world (2016 was the hottest).
Australia has 'hottest, driest' year on record as 2019 named second-hottest year worldwide, WMO says - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

As forecast, we are getting excellent fire dousing rain here right now! :clap2: :hpydans: :woot:

Attachment 467297

(We are the orange/red bit above the word Camden)


So, I've changed my mind on Climate Change - it's all bullsh.

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Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

So, I've changed my mind on Climate Change - it's all bullsh.

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When did you become a politishun.

When the weather changed.

The Wollami Pines secret location is no longer a secret, anyone in a plane can now easily find them or someone who has advanced access to satellite imagery, the only patch of green in a burnt landscape in a deep gorge, by the same token, well done to save them.

But compare that effort to what should have been done prior and contributed to the loss of life, homes, business, agriculture, infrastructure, animals, wildlife

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Originally Posted by rwbuild

The Wollemi Pines secret location is no longer a secret, anyone in a plane can now easily find them or someone who has advanced access to satellite imagery, the only patch of green in a burnt landscape in a deep gorge, by the same token, well done to save them.

But compare that effort to what should have been done prior and contributed to the loss of life, homes, business, agriculture, infrastructure, animals, wildlife

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Agreed Ray. I was going to post that anyone who can read a topographic map could actually work it out from the picture in the Guardian (in hi-res to boot), and that's a helluva lot more people than those who can fly!

WRT your second statement - if SmoKo had shown some leadership back in....oooh, I dunno, say November....those now delayed Air Tankers would have been a) cheaper (because of the short notice fiscal penalty) and b) much more importantly HERE bloody ages ago!

I have just sent an email to adam.morton@the guardian.com and I would encourage everyone else to do the same.

"Dear Sir

The publication you work for claims to be an eponymous guardian. Yet you have just revealed the location of the Wollemi Pines, which has been secret for over 25 years.

I cannot believe the gross unthinking irresponsibility in publishing the picture of the Wollemi pines. ANYONE who can read a topographic map (and I presume that does not include yourself) can now locate them! Ask someone who knows maps how they can!

A (much) lesser group of people who can now locate them are those that have access to small aircraft - not terribly hard to spot the only green parts in a burnt wilderness.

You must take that picture down immediately for the sake of the Pines - the fires didn't get them as a result of an enormous effort, but you just might have with this foolishness! If your story was approved by NPWS or the Environment Minister then they are just as foolish!

(a very irate, and practical) Brett Furniture (:D I used my normal name)
Katoomba"

The problem started well before the first fire and I suggest that a whole range of people need to share a degree of responsibility for what has happened and from various backgrounds, its very easy to single out an individual with 20/20 hindsight and it doesn't change what has happened BUT modify, change, plan or improve as best can be done with lessons learnt to mitigate/deal with future scenarios.

I'm referring to this gross irresponsibility:
'Dinosaur trees': firefighters save endangered Wollemi pines from NSW bushfires | Australia news | The Guardian

Actually, the World Heritage Unit of NPWS is literally just around the corner from me, about 300m away, so I'm going to go and ask them tomorrow morning what they would think if I could tell them the location of the Wollemi Pines because of a news article.

Those Wollemis are worth a million houses.

Houses can be rebuilt.

Those trees are utterly irreplaceable.

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Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

I'm referring to this gross irresponsibility:
'Dinosaur trees': firefighters save endangered Wollemi pines from NSW bushfires | Australia news | The Guardian

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Hi Brett

Don't get too p1ssed off with The Guardian and the Wollemi Pines.

The exact area of the pines can be seen on these publicly available satellite images
https://apps.sentinel-hub.com/sentin...howDates=false
and
EOS landviewer: https://eos.com/landviewer/?lat=-33.827 ... .51244&z=4 set to 'Healthy Vegetation'

It provides me with images like this, red=good

<dl class="file" style="margin-right: margin-bottom: 4px; margin- font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><dt class="attach-image" style="margin: padding: 941.004px; max- 80 auto; font-weight: bold;">http://tasmania.bushwalk.com/forum/d...486152cd555109</dt><dd style="margin: padding: color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">
</dd></dl>

Info pulled from a Bushwalking web site -- it's all public domain

Hi Ian

Well I think you would need a lot more knowledge to use the satellite techniques (over a simple Topo map), and nor is the clue splashed all over a newspaper.

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Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

Well I think you would need a lot more knowledge to use the satellite techniques (over a simple Topo map), and nor is the clue splashed all over a newspaper.

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Brett, I think you might be overestimating the average person's ability to read a topographical map.In 20 years of Army service I did not find many soldiers who were very good at that. When I got out of the Army I joined the local SES and volunteered to be the unit instructor. Like in the Army, I found that most of the "experts" could plot coordinates and calculate grid and magnetic bearings accurately. But ask them to look at the map and describe the terrain they would encounter on a walk from point A to point B and they had no clue.

Maybe Doug, but the point is that to get there you would need to be an experienced bushwalker....and they do know how to read maps. Now, you might say that such a person wouldn't want to harm the trees anyway. However, they could do so unknowingly by traipsing in weed seeds on their boots, or similar.

They have gone to all this trouble to protect the area (and I mean previous efforts of secrecy) so they must be somewhat concerned about dickheads going in there. I spent 10 minutes doing a rudimentary study this morning and I think I know roughly where they are. I couldn't be bothered spending the time to nut it out - but I could with more time, and relatively easily too, if I really wanted too. I'm not sure if I have the correct map that covers it, but I do have a library of maps.

Anyone who was in the Scouts would be able to read a topo map - it's not hard at all once you have a smattering of training.

They would be pretty easy to find now. Probably the only green patch left in the Wallemi.

Thats a lot of effort to go to, trudging in, avoiding lethal bear traps, vicious dogs, electric fences, hidden park ninjas with heat tracking cameras and now (apparently) space-based Directed Energy Weapons (lasers!)

The bought ones are all clones....

Nothing hard about growing a cutting off a $30 nursery plant.


edit - I'm a keen gardener. I've made hundred of cuttings and whatnot. Some plants are more successful than others. As a pine, however, these things are like weeds. The cones are prodigious.

Here is some direct info on growing your own: Wollemi pine (Wollemia nobilis) - Plant profile, Pictures - Nurseries Online

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Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

Maybe Doug, but the point is that to get there you would need to be an experienced bushwalker....and they do know how to read maps. Now, you might say that such a person wouldn't want to harm the trees anyway. However, they could do so unknowingly by traipsing in weed seeds on their boots, or similar.

They have gone to all this trouble to protect the area (and I mean previous efforts of secrecy) so they must be somewhat concerned about dickheads going in there. I spent 10 minutes doing a rudimentary study this morning and I think I know roughly where they are. I couldn't be bothered spending the time to nut it out - but I could with more time, and relatively easily too, if I really wanted too.

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Brett
I'm pretty certain that the location of the Wollemi Pines has been an open secret since the pines were discovered by Dave Noble back in 1994.

Those in the know are not telling and by the same token the "closed" area is not signed as being closed. Presumably this is because by not publicising the location of the area, the location can be kept sort of secret. (In one of the links I came across, there was a comment to the effect that in future the pine's location might need to be disclosed in order to keep visitors away from the area.)

I had previously thought that the Wollemi area was top secret and virtually classified. I believe it will be clearly identifiable now by the irrigation pipes in place to (wet down the surrounding vegetation).

My own experience of growing Wollemi Pines was dismal to put it mildly. They all died and then it seemed they were pulled off the market. They were nowhere near as easy to grow as was originally purported. I had not realised they were on sale again. At $89 a pop (reduced from $99) plus freight out of Brisbane, I assume, they are an expensive exercise if it all goes to "pot."

Regards
Paul

Speaking of "pot", there won't be much growing anywhere now for a while and if they do it will be fairly easy to find

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Originally Posted by rwbuild

Speaking of "pot", there won't be much growing anywhere now for a while and if they do it will be fairly easy to find

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Those who are growing it hydroponically in their garage will be doing alright for a while.

Sir David Attenborough's view of the link between CC and the current fires. Interesting comment on China at the end.

The family watched a BBC doco last night on the oceans.

Talk about dire.

It was done a year ago.

The areas that were labelled in that doco are these very areas identified in this article today on collapse: Huge ‘hot blob’ in Pacific Ocean killed nearly a million seabirds | Environment | The Guardian


Im reminded of an old investment maxim: "One goes broke slowly, then fast".

The end for us humans? I think so.

Wollemi pines discovered in 1994? Rubbish! The old timber cutters new of them 100 years ago. My old neighbour (94 years old) used to talk about them back in the 1970's and his dad before that. It's just the boffins have managed to fall over them now.

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Originally Posted by rwbuild

Speaking of "pot", there won't be much growing anywhere now for a while and if they do it will be fairly easy to find

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Funny story time. We had been at a relatively small bush fire and just closed a main road to deal with it when a few of the local Lads showed up and then ran into the bush and everyone knew they were trying to recover their dope garden. The controller in charge decided to get on the PA in one of the trucks and announce we were going to start a back burn and it might be a good idea if the local lads got out. We all broke up laughing but I can't remember if they came out with anything.

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Originally Posted by rustynail

Wollemi pines discovered in 1994? Rubbish! The old timber cutters new of them 100 years ago. My old neighbour (94 years old) used to talk about them back in the 1970's and his dad before that. It's just the boffins have managed to fall over them now.

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There's a big difference. The "boffins" recognised their significance and knew enough to do something about it. The aborigines probably knew about them 50,000 years ago.

mick

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Originally Posted by Chris Parks

Funny story time. We had been at a relatively small bush fire and just closed a main road to deal with it when a few of the local Lads showed up and then ran into the bush and everyone knew they were trying to recover their dope garden. The controller in charge decided to get on the PA in one of the trucks and announce we were going to start a back burn and it might be a good idea if the local lads got out. We all broke up laughing but I can't remember if they came out with anything.

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Apparently the fires flushed out a massive meth lab here :)

40kg with the ability to make 1000 more at a time.

Bet that caused some consternation!

Such an uncomplicated, straight forward process. They'll never get it under control. We need to treat these things medically rather than criminally.

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Originally Posted by Glider

There's a big difference. The "boffins" recognised their significance and knew enough to do something about it. The aborigines probably knew about them 50,000 years ago.

mick

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I think the old guys were well aware of their significance. That's why they were a talking point. As for the boffins knowing enough to do something about it, we shall wait and see.

Malcolm Turnbull's view on CC (quote from a BBC interview, via the Guardian):

“If you go to any of the rightwing thinktanks or read the Murdoch press it is just full of climate denialism,” he said. “And it is designed to deflect from the real objective which has to be to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

“To be a climate change denier is a badge of honour on the right wing of politics here and in the US, and it is mad.”


Turnbull said Australia was “in the frontline of the consequences” and needed to act on the climate crisis to show the world that it was important.


“How many more coral reefs have to be bleached, how many more million hectares of forest have to be burned?” he asked. “How many more lives and homes have to be lost before the climate change deniers acknowledge they are wrong?


“If a country like Australia is not prepared to grapple with this issue seriously, itself being in the frontline of the consequences and being an advanced, prosperous, technologically sophisticated country, with the means to do so, then why would other countries take the issue as seriously as they should?”

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Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

Malcolm Turnbull's view on CC (quote from a BBC interview, via the Guardian):

“If you go to any of the rightwing thinktanks or read the Murdoch press it is just full of climate denialism,” he said. “And it is designed to deflect from the real objective which has to be to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

“To be a climate change denier is a badge of honour on the right wing of politics here and in the US, and it is mad.”


Turnbull said Australia was “in the frontline of the consequences” and needed to act on the climate crisis to show the world that it was important.


“How many more coral reefs have to be bleached, how many more million hectares of forest have to be burned?” he asked. “How many more lives and homes have to be lost before the climate change deniers acknowledge they are wrong?


“If a country like Australia is not prepared to grapple with this issue seriously, itself being in the frontline of the consequences and being an advanced, prosperous, technologically sophisticated country, with the means to do so, then why would other countries take the issue as seriously as they should?”

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Brett,
I unfortunately think some deniers will get to this stage, before they change there attitude.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...fa21816788.jpg

Cheers Matt.

The last 3 weeks we've had here:

- two record maximum hot days - 44°
- a dozen days over 36° (see *)
- two galactic firestorms within spitting distance
- weeks of choking heavy smoke
- hail the size of golf balls that smashed an ENTIRE region to absolute bits
- 3 bloody ripper lightning storms
- 2 huge damaging winds
- a dust storm "Habood" (today)
- 2 big bushfires at Queanbeyan (again, with 10km's of Canberra city)

These are ALL SEPERATE EVENTS.... it all good mate. No Climate Change at all.... cos this is NORMAL**

* Daily Maximum Temperature - 070351 - Bureau of Meteorology
** My effing hairy ass it is.

What about before the BOM actually kept good records...

I wonder what happened in the previous 200, 2000, or 200000 years of Australia????

Just curious, as we don't have records and none of us were here!

I just get sick of the media spin;
it's always sensational news headlines designed to draw the public in as the more viewers they get the more advertisements they can air,
and thus more revenue for the media owners.

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Originally Posted by crowie

What about before the BOM actually kept good records...

I wonder what happened in the previous 200, 2000, or 200000 years of Australia????

Just curious, as we don't have records and none of us were here!

I just get sick of the media spin;
it's always sensational news headlines designed to draw the public in as the more viewers they get the more advertisements they can air,
and thus more revenue for the media owners.

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We do have records !
Recovers from core drilling’s showing the environmental conditions thousands of years ago.
Scientists have been drilling for core samples .
Which give us a window of the environment 1000 of years ago.
An we know the air an water was a lot nicer(there kind of important stuff).

Cheers Matt

I feel Crowie, that what we are experiencing is far from normal.

This anthropological article was published today which would be of interest: DNA from child burials reveals ‘profoundly different’ human landscape in ancient Africa | Science | AAAS

It shows that our population and DNA has changed pretty aggressively with the change in environment.

We learn more about the deep past every day.

I dont think what happened 200,000 years ago is even vaguely relevant - what matters is NOW. Can we live here NOW as we'd like?

It isn't conspiracy theories, its scientific fact.

Of interest, I've always tried to consider myself as a curious mind. As a boy, I grew up in Canberra and was fascinated by the nature of the soil. It is almost dead - geologically and biologically. If one were to put a mattock into literally anywhere, it is all broken stone and dead clay. Ancient stuff with almost ZERO biological inclusion. There is no loam, there is no soil, there is no buildup of layers of aeons, millennia, centuries or decades of dirt/soil/muck.... its all rock.

Scratch under the grass and its dry, hard, broken, ancient.

Nothing like Europe and England, where I helped on an archaeological sonde - Each century was a full meter thick! Layer on layer on layer of accretion.

Not here.

It has always interested me. Hence my earlier question posted previously "why so few aboriginals".

I'm, personally, quite certain "we" arrived in a Goldilocks time.

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Originally Posted by crowie

What about before the BOM actually kept good records...
I wonder what happened in the previous 200, 2000, or 200000 years of Australia????

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Ice core samples from Antarctica give us a pretty good idea of that. Mind you, we'll need to be quick......a liquid soup will tell us nothing at all!

It also all depends on when the world was formed. Was it 14,000 years ago or was it 4543 million years ago as the science has told us for ...I don't know how long, but way before current technology?

I guess it depends upon who you trust: millions of pages of modern science with all of the excellent technology providing incontrovertible evidence
(and we really only have to look at 200 years worth to see the extraordinary acceleration - much better than any Ford is capable of.... :D)
OR
one book written buy ill-educated *males* all from one tiny region of the planet (modern Israel) (and, realistically, probably uneducated *males*).

I have very great faith in the incontrovertible science.

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Originally Posted by crowie

I just get sick of the media spin;
it's always sensational news headlines designed to draw the public in as the more viewers they get the more advertisements they can air,
and thus more revenue for the media owners.

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So watch ABC and SBS Peter - contrary to the Govt belief, they have no axe to grind - but they do adopt the Don Chipp principle, whoever the Bastards might be at the time. Furthermore, I have not seen a single advertisement, in any media that I look at, for a decade. (there have been some accidents though) I seriously do not know what 21st Century advertising looks like. No idea whatsoever. Man, I like it that way! I get to make up my own mind. (I don't even see adverts on SBS On Demand - Adblock skips over them - same if I watch Ch 9 on the puta once every 5 years)

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Originally Posted by Simplicity

We do have records !Cheers Matt

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Ah, yup. For a while yet.

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Originally Posted by woodPixel

The last 3 weeks we've had here:
- two record maximum hot days - 44°
- a dozen days over 36° (see *)
- two galactic firestorms within spitting distance
- weeks of choking heavy smoke
- hail the size of golf balls that smashed an ENTIRE region to absolute bits
- 3 bloody ripper lightning storms
- 2 huge damaging winds
- a dust storm "Habood" (today)
- 2 big bushfires at Queanbeyan (again, with 10km's of Canberra city)

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Yes indeed. I do wish that Parliament had been sitting over the last 6 weeks. Reckon there might be a few changes of mind. We have to remember that Politicians are inherently egotistical liars who only really want to serve themselves to the Public Teat of Funds. Anyone with the right character would NEVER consider a career in politics, these days anyway.

You know how huge bushfires create their own weather? Well I'm afraid I have to inform you that this particular problem is far worse, and more common in Canberra, given the considerably larger amount of hot air present. But remember - you may have been born there with no choice, but you CHOSE to stay!:firedevil:

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Originally Posted by woodPixel

** My effing hairy ass it is.

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TBH, I'd really prefer NOT to know just how hairy it is, but I'd settle for "slightly".

The climate is constantly changing. Probably always has and probably always will. The argument should not be directed at its existence but more to how to minimize the effect. As for using Canberra as a barometer, I can't think of anything more ridiculous. It would have to be one of the most inappropriately located cities in the country. Miserable climate, miserable soil and a smog trap. Lovely. And you wonder at the lack of historical Aboriginal occupation?