No! The Economist (!) NotesThat Australia's Wildfires May Be Linked To Climate Changes!

[hatrack]

:eyes:

A WEEK after bushfires started blazing across parts of southern Australia, the country was still coming to grips with one of the most traumatic events in its peacetime history. The fires that erupted on February 7th in Victoria, the second-most populous state, killed more than 180 people. Police say the toll could reach 300. The final count will be left to authorities with the grim task of sifting through landscapes blackened by flames so ferocious that they melted car parts and devoured buildings in seconds.

In one of Australia’s hottest summer seasons on record, about 50 fires also raged across New South Wales, the most populous state, without loss of life. But it was neighbouring Victoria that bore the most devastating brunt. The state is prone to hot winds driving in from deserts, fanning flames whose “scale and savagery”, says Stephen Pyne, an American fire expert, “have no equal elsewhere on earth.”

This week’s fires easily outstripped the worst two previous ones: “Black Friday” in January 1939, when 71 people died in Victoria; and “Ash Wednesday” in February 1983, which took 75 lives in Victoria and neighbouring South Australia. This time, a prolonged drought gripping south-east Australia, and temperatures staying above 40°C for days, made for a lethally dry terrain to fuel the flames.

EDIT

Debate has started, too, about the fire’s intensity. Some are linking Australia’s heatwave and decade-long drought to climate change. In a report to Mr Rudd’s government late last year Ross Garnaut, an economist, forecast that the number of days each year in Melbourne hotter than 35°C will rise from nine now to 21 in 2070. He said fire seasons were projected to start earlier, end later and be more intense. Mr Rudd has promised that shattered townships will be rebuilt “brick by brick”. It may also be worth considering precisely where and how they should be built.

EDIT

http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13109772

[Lost in CT]

1. The Economist has been on the Global Warming bandwagon for a while.

They have had some very good articles about the failures of the EU in actually doing anything. (All talk very little real action)

[tekisui]

2. "Global warming bandwagon"?

You think its just a hoax or a fad?

[Lost in CT]

3. No I don't... Sorry for an apparent poor choice of words. nt

[rurallib]

4. While the world focuses on Australian fires, don't forget the USA

is probably headed for yet another disastrous fire season. Fire season used to be June to October or so. I believe it has probably already started in some areas. The US has lost million and millions of acres in the past several years. Snow cover in the mountains out west is down again. So batten down the hatches. I hope people have prepared and I fear for the wildlife.

[stray cat]

5. I thought arson was to blame?

[XemaSab]

6. My question:

Have Australians moved out into the bush in larger numbers, or are the fires really worse than they were in '39? :shrug:

[Barrett808]

7. By all accounts, these are the worst fires ever, along with highest temperatures ever

I have little doubt that it's the first great climate-change disaster of the 21st century.

[Barrett808]

8. Recent study shows wildfires correlated with rapid climate change:

Wildfires caused by abrupt climate change
http://desdemonadespair.blogspot.com/2009/01/wildfires-caused-by-abrupt-climate.html