Bushfires.

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footyfan78 said:
Your primary school had physics ?
Where and when ?
What did they teach about fluid dynamics ?
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They showed us water getting hotter then boiling as we added heat to it.

You watch the water and you see its behaviour become more extreme and intense as you add heat.

Turns out this applies to most systems.

I went to primary school in Hobart, and that demo would have been in the 70s.

We did basic things, like burning the O2 out of a container and weighing it against another container with air to understand that air, ie gas had weight.

We also talked about the stuff we did and had teachers who encouraged us to think about it.
 
Bazzar said:
Here's a list of names who requested to appear before the 2009 royal commission and were "rejected"


Peter Attiwill, PhD, BScFor, AssocDipFor, is Principal Fellow in Botany, and Honorary Fellow, The Australian Centre,The University of Melbourne. He has researched in eucalypt ecology over 40 years, with a concentration on soils and nutrient cycles, and on bushfires and ecosystem recovery. He is a member of editorial boards of a number of Australian and overseas journals. He has published extensively in the international journals, and his latest book is Ecology: An Australian Perspective (co-editor BA Wilson, Oxford University Press 2003).

Phil Cheney, FIFA, BScFor, DipFor, is Senior Principal Research Scientist, Division of Forestry, CSIRO. He was head of CSIRO’s Bushfire Research from 1975 to 2001. He has forty years of experience in research into bushfires including bushfire behaviour, prescribed burning, mass fires, fire ecology, aerial and ground suppression, fire-fighter physiology, fire-fighter safety, heat transfer, home protection and water catchment hydrology. He was awarded the CSIRO Medal for outstanding research achievement in the application of fire science for safer fire-fighting and safer communities.

Brian Gibson, AM, BScFor, BA, began his career with the Forestry Commission, Victoria. He then moved to the private forestry sector, and was Managing Director of Australian Newsprint Mills Ltd from 1980-1989, and President of the National Association of Forest Industries from 1987-1991. He was a Liberal Senator for Tasmania from 1993 to 2001. Mr Gibson is a director of several companies.

RC (Bob) Graham, AFSM, DipForCres, has more than 40 years experience of fire prevention, suppression, and prescribed burning. He was a principal (Level 3) Controller and Operations Officer at major fires in Victoria including Ash Wednesday fire, 1983, the North-East fire, 1985 and the disastrous north-east fires, 2003. He has led task forces to South Australia and to the Blue Mountains fire, 1994. He is currently a Managing Director and consultant on wild-fire behaviour and suppression in both native forests and plantations, and in planning and conducting prescribed burns.

Athol Hodgson, BScFor, DipFor, has more than 50 years experience in fire management and forest fire research in Australia, USA, Canada, France and Spain. He was formerly Chief Fire Officer and then Commissioner for Forests, Forests Commission of Victoria. He was a Member of the Board of the Country Fire Authority and a Member of the State Disaster Committee. He was awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship to study fire management in North America, and is a graduate from the National Advanced Fire Behaviour School, Marana, Arizona.

Rod Incoll AFSM, BASocSci, GradDipBus, DipFor, developed fire management skills as a forester from 1960. Rod set up the Commission’s fire training 1971-1972. He was District Forester, Toolangi 1976-1984. From 1984 he was an SEC divisional manager, a role that included fire protection of electricity production assets. From 1990-1996 he was Chief Fire Officer for public land in Victoria, a director of the CFA Board, the State Emergency Services Council, and the Australasian Fire Authorities Council.

AD (Tony) Manderson MEnvSci, DipFor(Cres) has 43 years experience in natural resource management including native forests, plantations and agricultural land. His fire experience covers all roles from front line fire-fighting to control and logistics at major forest fires over many years. He managed fire control training for the Forests Commission, was Resources Manager for the Victorian Plantations Corporation, and developed the Regulations that formed Industry Brigades within the CFA. He is currently a farmer and consultant on rural environmental issues.

WGD (Bill) Middleton, OAM, DipFor, has some 50 years experience in management of forests, of nurseries and of vegetation habitat in rural areas. He is a broadcaster, public speaker, lecturer and adviser on gardening, natural history, forestry and conservation. He has served on many scientific and community-based boards and committees concerned with wildlife research and landscape conservation, and is an Honorary Life Member of Birds Australia. He is a Board Member and Supervisor of the innovative Potter Farmland Plan for ecologically-sustainable agriculture, and a Board Associate and consultant for the Trust for Nature.

David Packham, OAM, MAppSci, worked for 40 years in bushfire research with CSIRO, Monash University and the Australian Emergency Management Institute. He was responsible for fire-weather services in the Bureau of Meteorology. His extensive research concentrated on the physics of bushfires, and he applied this research to practical issues including the development of aerial prescribed burning, non-evacuation of properties, modelling of fire behaviour, and forensics. He consults extensively on survival of people during bushfires, on fire risk and on coronial inquiries into deaths during fire-fighting.

Kevin Wareing, BScFor, DipForCres, is a forestry consultant and co-author of the narrative of the 2003 Alpine fires in Victoria. He was employed for some 40 years in the Forests Commission, Victoria and its successors in native forest management, plantation expansion, forest education, timber harvesting and industry development policies. He was manager from 1988-1995 of commercial forestry in Victoria’s native forests and plantations. He was awarded a national medal for forest fire fighting service.
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Did those names need to be added?

Its a genuine question, are there experts who were called who would have essentially given the same or similar answers?

Did those people have anything to add that wasn't coveted cos there is a lot of material came put of that royal comission.

No one is denying more HR and more resources are needed but the drier the lead up to fires the harder it is to get that requisite burning done and there are cases this fire season where recent HRs did nothing to stop destructive fire anyway.

In fact the only reason a royal commission is necessary would be if circumstances had somehow changed.
 

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Bazzar said:
She was also asked "what should we do if all baseload power ceased tomorrow" she said "I'm not sure... "I'll leave that to the scientists"

Here's the leader, spokesperson for the group calling for the end of all mining in Australia and the rest of the world and she couldn't even offer an alternative solution.
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Well what should we so if all baseload power ceased tomorrow?

Its a stupid question really. A dumb * gotcha that has nothing to do with the sort of active, measured shift to renewables that we should have been managing for the last 20 years.

We could have developed a decentralised independent electricity network with minimal corporate ownership in that time that would have been a national asset. Might have avoided the worst of black Saturday too.

The same questions were asked 20 years ago and things have changed a little since. Suburban solar panels are everywhere now but not much else changed.

Its a massive indictment on the governments Australia has had in the last 25 years.
 
ferball said:
Did those names need to be added?

Its a genuine question, are there experts who were called who would have essentially given the same or similar answers?

Did those people have anything to add that wasn't coveted cos there is a lot of material came put of that royal comission.

No one is denying more HR and more resources are needed but the drier the lead up to fires the harder it is to get that requisite burning done and there are cases this fire season where recent HRs did nothing to stop destructive fire anyway.

In fact the only reason a royal commission is necessary would be if circumstances had somehow changed.
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They were critical of the commission when it came to prevention experts, it was weighted too heavily with academics with no actual real world experience.
 
Bazzar said:
And she wanted Morrisons house to burn and was more than happy if Morrisons children burnt in that fire.
What a discusting and pathetic human being.
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i did not hear that. if she did say it, ouch.

Kram said:
Some of you blokes need to get out your basements and get some sun.
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sun.
cliimate
CLIMATE CHANGE!
 
Bazzar said:
She was also asked "what should we do if all baseload power ceased tomorrow" she said "I'm not sure... "I'll leave that to the scientists"

Here's the leader, spokesperson for the group calling for the end of all mining in Australia and the rest of the world and she couldn't even offer an alternative solution.
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Does she need to offer a solution? It maybe beyond her (i say that not in a bad way). If someone has an alternative, i think both sides of politics would be happy to hear and act upon it.

i find it interesting and partially fascinating that there seems to be a clear line between yes and no climate changers with each political side taking a side. There doesn't seem to be any flow or movement between the two sides. in that is there a charter in both sides that they must be yes or no to climate change
 
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ferball said:
Did those names need to be added?

Its a genuine question, are there experts who were called who would have essentially given the same or similar answers?

Did those people have anything to add that wasn't coveted cos there is a lot of material came put of that royal comission.

No one is denying more HR and more resources are needed but the drier the lead up to fires the harder it is to get that requisite burning done and there are cases this fire season where recent HRs did nothing to stop destructive fire anyway.

In fact the only reason a royal commission is necessary would be if circumstances had somehow changed.
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It’s interesting because the whinging union is saying we need to just go back and implement the findings from other enquiries, ok.

It’s the Andrews Government that refuses to accept some of those findings, the same government Marshall was crucial in getting elected...

I’d also ask him if we are implementing previous enquiries recommendations then please point out the one which suggested removing all the career staff from the CFA. Bet he can’t find that one

But they are only complaining about the federal one, not the state enquiry which makes his arguments even more stupid.

The federal royal commission is only a suggestion at this stage and wants to look into what the Federal Government can do better. I can’t imagine that was a big part of previous royal commissions.
 
ferball said:
This article from Kevin Tolhurst is worth a read and is independent of all that Victorian fire politics. It questions the need for another RC and raises the point that there has been more than one inquiry into fires every two years for the last 80 ( is that really true?).

Among plenty of other points.

www.abc.net.au

I've given evidence at seven bushfire inquiries — this is what we should do instead of having another one

There have been 57 formal public inquiries, reviews and royal commissions related to bushfires and fire management since 1939. That is more than one inquiry every two years in the past 80 years. Do we really need yet another? asks Kevin Tolhurst.
www.abc.net.au www.abc.net.au
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Should have read that article first!

Probably if not just talking fires but the fire services, across 6 different states and two territories it could be one every 10-15 years in that area. Victoria has run a couple in recent years, then ignored the findings as they didn’t say what they wanted.
 
Navyblues09 said:
Should have read that article first!

Probably if not just talking fires but the fire services, across 6 different states and two territories it could be one every 10-15 years in that area. Victoria has run a couple in recent years, then ignored the findings as they didn’t say what they wanted.
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Most of them come up with the same findings cos the same things keep happening.

And yes most of the findings keep getting ignored.

I'm not interested in the industrial demarcation dispute in Victoria cos I don't know enough about either sides starting positions let alone everything that's followed for over 5 years.
 

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ferball said:
They showed us water getting hotter then boiling as we added heat to it.

You watch the water and you see its behaviour become more extreme and intense as you add heat.

Turns out this applies to most systems.

I went to primary school in Hobart, and that demo would have been in the 70s.

We did basic things, like burning the O2 out of a container and weighing it against another container with air to understand that air, ie gas had weight.

We also talked about the stuff we did and had teachers who encouraged us to think about it.
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Cool, I do not recall do any basic science stuff at all in primary school in the 80's. Maybe we did and I do not remember.
Tend to think the only physics students have now is maybe year 11 and then 12 as a proper full subject and even then only a small percentage would choose it.
Then you might learn about basic Newtonian physics and sound at first.Learn a bit about gravity. But to really understand the unpredictable nature of bush fires, fluid dynamics would need to be a speciality of applied maths too and that only comes up in University. not high school. Not many people are going to be doing that.

We probably only learning more with computer modelling in the last decade. But the main thing for those that not academics is to know bushfires on very windy days are extremely unpredictable and for people that do not have a proper underground bunker in fire regions to stay at home on such days is truly risking your life when being far away from area by leaving the day before is a great option to have. On Black Saturday too many people died that did not have too as they thought the fires are more predictable than they truly are. Slowly more people are getting it and way less deaths than may have happened in past. Of course these bushfires in far more remote regions. Test of how much humans learnt is when the next set of bushfires hit way closer to populated areas again like they did on Black Saturday and Ash Wednesday.
 
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footyfan78 said:
Too long ago for me to remember smoke haze from Ash Wednesday. Wonder if it hanged around like it did in past week or so.
I do remember the dust storm though, that seemed to happen about 24 hours before the bushfires ?
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The Ash actually reached New Zealand, unlike this year with only smoke
 
peternorth said:
Does she need to offer a solution? It maybe beyond her (i say that not in a bad way). If someone has an alternative, i think both sides of politics would be happy to hear and act upon it.
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Jordy to the rescue!



~3:30 onward.

Most people can't change the world. If you live in Melbourne where most of your power comes from dirty brown coal then that is the power you will use. You can choose to install solar panels but if you want to be connected to the grid then you must accept that if you follow the power line from your house to the street to the nearest transformer and so forth it eventually leads back to a coal fired power station. The move away from coal in the electricity sector is happening at a very slow pace, it's not like switching from full fat to skim milk. Even if someone does come up with a good idea, making something scalable and economic isn't always feasible. Elon Musk (billionaire, not a guy in his back shed) has been at it building electric cars for 15 years or so with the first ones going on sale in 2013. They are still a low volume producer and and the cars are out of reach of most people. You can get one here, but the charging infrastructure is still lagging well behind in comparison to networks of petrol stations. These technological shifts take time.

Everyone likes to have an opinion, most people just want someone else to do the work or take the hit. I am comfortably greener than friends of mine who make a big deal of telling everyone how green they are. I mean setting up a vege patch and growing some tomatoes is great, but you have two cars and never take PT, don't think twice about going on long haul flights, live in a big house and run your AC... let's not pretend your #1 focus isn't still your own convenience.

And that's one of the issues people touch on. When people say they want clean, renewable energy what they usually mean is that they want to have reliable electricity in their home 24/7 and they want to be able to drive 500-1000km at a time and they don't want to pay any more than they do now or change any of their consumption habits. You see the same thing with people ranting about excessive packaging (bugbear of mine) and then they just go to Coles and keep buying plastic bagged apples and so on. If you keep buying packaged foods, Coles will keep selling them. If you keep buying new iPhones every 6 months, Apple will keep releasing new iPhones every 6 months. Etc. People want to maintain their standard of living and feel good about it rather than look too deeply at their own level of impact.

peternorth said:
i find it interesting and partially fascinating that there seems to be a clear line between yes and no climate changers with each political side taking a side. There doesn't seem to be any flow or movement between the two sides. in that is there a charter in both sides that they must be yes or no to climate change
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Both sides are just in it for votes. The Liberals have some that believe in it and some that don't, and an agreed position to do a very small amount about it. I don't know if there are any non believers in the ALP, but their agreed position is to a very small amount about it plus a little bit more. The only party who actually wants to do anything are the Greens and they only ever come up with pie in the sky policies because they aren't targeting actually being elected to govt.
 
Scotland said:
The only party who actually wants to do anything are the Greens and they only ever come up with pie in the sky policies because they aren't targeting actually being elected to govt.
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Both major parties need the dumb vote or they will be wiped Greens dont need to play that game
 
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Even though it’s apparently considered trolling to suggest anything other than these fires will burn for months and they are the worst ever and it’s not really raining...

Lots of crews being sent home today from the Victorian fires and some future deployments being cancelled.

My local weather station which missed the torrential downpour yesterday that nearly wiped out a few suburbs is still already well above its January average with more rain to come!
 
Navyblues09 said:
Even though it’s apparently considered trolling to suggest anything other than these fires will burn for months and they are the worst ever and it’s not really raining...

Lots of crews being sent home today from the Victorian fires and some future deployments being cancelled.

My local weather station which missed the torrential downpour yesterday that nearly wiped out a few suburbs is still already well above its January average with more rain to come!
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Climate change fixed ?
 
footyfan78 said:
What are EPA saying about air quality here. Are we almost back to normal after these showers?
Certainly seems to be bothering me less in last 24 to 30 hours.
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I think the showers helped
www.epa.vic.gov.au

EPA AirWatch

We display information about Victoria’s air quality on EPA AirWatch.
www.epa.vic.gov.au www.epa.vic.gov.au
 
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