My thoughts and opinions on Climate Change

Discussion in 'The big picture' started by Earth's Internet, Nov 8, 2012.

  1. Earth's Internet

    Earth's Internet Junior Member

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    Well, here is a post I did on something close to home for me in the San Jacinto Mountains above Palm Springs California. I'm wondering here if anyone else knows of any other localized experiences of climate change and plant movement uphill. I believe the fire destruction or any other vegetation removal will trigger climate differences in specific locations immediately. 1000s of them around the globe could certainly effect the entire planet climate drivers.

    Santa Rosa Mountains & Climate Change - Will Anyone Pay Attention ?

    I'm traveling back over there on April 2nd this year. Looking forward to photographing and documenting some things I saw years ago that made me question some things that were never addressed in those two very different research studies.

    -
     
  2. mouseinthehouse

    mouseinthehouse Junior Member

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  3. Gen-X

    Gen-X Junior Member

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    I would say it has been naturalised by the introduction of man-made practices, but it is not "natural" to Australian ecologies.

    Fire has been introduced like foxes - they have been naturalised by the cultures who required them. Only like most introduced practices, they tend to get out of control and dominate the environment they were not "naturally" mitigated by.

    It's only because there is a human presence close to the hot spots, that resources are deployed early. I'm not sure why you would assume if the individuals were removed from the hot spots, it would mitigate loss of property and life? Wouldn't it just give the fires more fuel load to gather more heat, to travel faster - only to have to deploy even more intense resources than present, at the urban line?

    Human dwellings in bushfire prone areas, create roads in order to reach the fire front to fight it early. I live in a fire prone area, we have roads, we have concrete tanks with water dotted around the various streets, especially for fire fighting purposes. We have a rural fire brigade which breeds a culture of fire awareness in the community. When you live in the hot spots, you are the first to get burned, so you don't get as complacent as those who dwell in more urban settings, with a paid fire brigade to deploy resources. I've lived in fire prone rural areas and urban hubs, and would have to say the rural fire brigade areas are always the first to the fire front.

    In fact, that local knowledge, passed on by the RFB chiefs who have lived in the area for decades (fought more fires personally in the area) is more valuable in fighting fires, than those who do an honourable job of migrating from urban areas to be paid to fight the fires. That knowledge can only be obtained by setting up residence in those fire prone areas. Remove the human presence from the fire front however, and you'll get more intense fires with less knowledge on how to fight it early.

    Instead of identifying "ego" as the problem of those who choose to live in bush fire prone areas, consider the advantages they provide in managing bush fires for others. Fire was an introduced practice our present culture has inherited. It doesn't bode well to consider it the natural domain of the "bush" and wipe our hands of the responsibility of managing it.
     
  4. mouseinthehouse

    mouseinthehouse Junior Member

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    Fire IS a part of Australian ecology. In fact many native species have evolved to rely on fire/smoke to regenerate. This happened WELL BEFORE humans colonised this country. In time Aboriginal people saw the natural process of fire ecology and used it to their benefit.

    Fire is also an important part of the ecology of other landscapes in other countries. We travel in Africa a lot and in Kruger National Park they have now changed their fire response to let natural caused fires burn themselves out. Only if there is a real threat to infrastructure do they take action.

    There is always the risk of fire in most rural areas - I live in one. However there is a difference between living in a rural farming area with 'normal' fire risk and living in or adjacent to hilly, mountainous areas covered in thick scrub or forest.
    Of course there is always going to be an interface between farming or bushland and the built environment somewhere and it behoves us to plan for that threat.
    But to justify living somewhere, where truly catastrophic fire conditions are a very real threat to lives and property and are difficult to manage due to topography and vegetation, with the notion that it is part of 'managing' fires is absurd.
     
  5. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    G'day Gen-X

    Welcome to the PRI Forum.

    Your basic premise is flawed:

    Fire is a natural part of the Australian environment and has been so for millions of years...

    Source: DSE (2012) Fire Ecology

    As for the rest of your treatise, some colleagues recently found:

    Little consideration has been given in Australia to the issue of prohibiting residential development in areas of high bushfire risk. The most notable example of successful prohibition is the establishment and maintenance by successive Victorian governments of a fire buffer zone in the Dandenong Ranges, particularly on the fire prone western face. Extensive compulsory acquisition and restructuring of residential lots occurred with the objective of separating residential development from areas of high fire risk. This program prevented tens of thousands of people from developing fire prone lots and undoubtedly saved many lives and much damage to property...

    Source: Buxton, Haynes & Butt (2010) Land Use Planning for Bushfire Protection: Report prepared for the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission, p. 17

    Cheerio, Markos
     
  6. Gen-X

    Gen-X Junior Member

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    Hi Markos and thanks for the welcome. I have been here before, but not for a while.

    All information is arbitary when it hasn't been tested though, wouldn't you agree? I once lived in an urban area , threatened by bushfires. It originated in thick inaccessible forest which was assumed would burn itself out. Unfortunately it didn't, and hit the rural residential areas in those high fire prone areas first. If it wasn't for the rural fire brigade on the ground, informing their urban colleagues, the fire wouldn't have gotten under control by the time it reached the fringes of the urban area - where I lived.

    A rural fire brigade member was crippled for life (scared permanently) when following the directions given by the urban fire response team. It was the quick thinking of the rural fire brigade however, which got the residents and the rest of their crew out of the fires path, and more importantly, managed to inform the urban centre, where their information was wrong. Mistakes happen, no-one is to blame, but that local information formed the crucial response which brought the fire under control and prevented more serious loss of life.

    The only reason I know this now, is because I moved to that high fire prone location a few years later. At the time, it was not advertised to urbanites that those who did lose their property in the high fire prone areas, helped to mitigate the damage from spreading to their urban outskirts. Why? Because there was a human presence able to correct the misinformation. I guess it struck some importance to me, because I remember being on the edge of an urban street, where we didn't know if the fire would jump the highway. We were completely dependent on the response of others, but I didn't fully appreciate to what extent. I got to know those members of the community much, much later, and frankly, felt jiffed they were never given any credit, but rather more cruelly, continue to be labelled those ignorant people who like to live in the bush. As the uninformed urbanite, I thought they were silly for living in those areas too. Much to my shame, I would discover how cricial they really were.

    As for the treatise your colleagues have found, it will change when the buffer zone proves to be ineffective - as it will. Aborigines were the original custodians of fire practices in Australia, and even they were able to kill members of their own tribes accidently. They did not have the protection of a fire buffer zone, yet had more knowledge than we do about fire managment. This notion one can control loss of life by removing people from fires, shows a lack of understanding of how fire management works. And that's the real problem.

    While I completely understand the logic of your colleagues, people cannot out run (or out drive) fires, especially in built-up urban centres. But the more we push people into their defenceless position of depending on an urban response to fire management, the more victim prone they will become. I've lived in both realms, and know the difference. There was a fire incident this summer, again originating in an inaccessible area, but because the rural fire brigade had elected a lookout point on a high residential property (owned by a rural fire brigade volunteer) they were able to see the path of the fire, and deploy resources to save the neighbouring property in time. They got a large fire under control, very quickly and with minimal resources. There wasn't that kind of immediate response in the urban area I once lived in, when it came to bushfire. Because by the time it approached the urban outskirts (feeding on all that fuel) the fire was not so small. The fire could jump and that was the real threat to life that day.

    Perhaps we should consider the lessons learned from the Canberra bushfires, rather than focussing exclusively on the avoidance approach learned from the Victorian bushfires. That's not to say avoidance cannot be relevant, but it's not a fire management practice anyone can really use when the bushfire decides to throw our manual out the window - which it quite often does. How far do we cram people together, before they realise bushfires don't respect human boundaries? You can choose to be an urbanite, completely dependant on centralised authority for your protection, or you can choose to live in the more volatile terrain and learn how a community approaches fire management. There really is no "right" way I am supposing here. But I don't accept the notion it's more life threatening to gain knowledge from the culture of bushfire management within these communities, as opposed to becoming completely dependent on the centralised authority for protection.

    As for the Fire Ecology link you supplied, I didn't read all of it, just the first page. But I will say it's a common misconception that fire ignited by lightning, is somehow the same thing as the cutural burning of ancestral lands of the original inhabitants. Fire due to lightning strikes were not as common or widespread in our ecology, as yearly burn offs of indigenous people's. One was more prevelant, and therefore became responsible for shaping the ecology. Nature didn't get a chance to evolve it's diversity (as a response to lighting strikes) before it was burned off again by cultural practices of the fire stick. Hence my original statement that fire has been naturalised by cultural practices to this land, not a natural phenonemon of nature to ritually burn itself down every year to match the need of the spreading inhabitants.

    One is a natural process balanced out by evolution, so that one species does not "dominate" the environment. The other becomes a tribal custom (whether white or indigenous) to control the ecology, ie: dominate. They are two very different approaches with two very different results. But they get touted as exactly the same thing. The only reason it gets referred to as our natural ecology however, is because it's easier for centralised authorities to deliever management plans. If we can make the origin of fire, the environment's predisposition, it makes a centralised approach of intervention more necessary. But it was never natures plan in Australia, to burn the ecology to produce only fire prone plants. That was the ancestral plan at the time, which shaped the landscape to adapt to continual and unnaturally widespread burning practices.

    It's important to differenciate, so we can look at the alternatives nature never got to evolve to. I can thoroughly understand (and fully appreciate) David Holgrems essays on better fire management practices for individual communites in this regard. If we can manage the environment in the communities we reside in better, then we can break the fire cycle better. That's why I actually moved here - the land degradation appealed to me. Not just because I wanted to start greening things rather than have them burn, but I also have ancestral blood in my veins and the land is calling for better understanding. It's time to stop pretending the fire stick was a natural occurance we mimicked, when it merely inspired an ancestral practice of great significance to individual tribes. Tribes of which, I might add, sometimes had conflicting agendas. They did not consult with one another what they did to their individual ancestral lands, therefore, over burning occurred quite often (lives were occassionally lost) but most importantly, the fire stick started to dominate the natural cycles more and more.

    If the europeans hadn't arrived, I have no doubt indigenous tribes would have caused some the the land degredation we are seeing today too. Maybe not to the same extent, but you cannot keep burning land year after year, and expect no degradation (or loss of diversity) to occur. What you can expect on the other hand is an environment specialising in burning quickly, in order to rejuvinate quickly, so they are ready to burn again the next season. There is an escallation of fire in other words, but not necessarily better fire managment practices.
     
  7. Gen-X

    Gen-X Junior Member

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    That is like saying, because Colonists noticed how trees burned in the environment, we applied the same natural concept to meet the needs of our growing population here. Thus creating Australia's natural ecology, where trees in large numbers are harvested every season to restore balance.

    No other tribal culture on earth, has used fire to shape the natural ecology to the extent indigenous Australians have.

    The description I explained to Markos, was quite interesting in the range of terrain the fires crossed that day. It started in inaccessible scrub terrain, crossed the path of farm land, entered the hilly slopes of high fire prone areas - which ironically, all led uphill to an urban city sitting on top of a mountain. It wasn't a small country city, but quite a large metropolitan hub.

    Canberra was not located on hilly terrain either, but the fire got momentum from the hills surrounding our Nation's capital.

    I would argue, having lived in hilly terrains the community has learned to navigate, many advantage points are available to spot the fire front from - and those advantage points have been used to tackle large fires with minimal resources successfully in the past. But then if you've only heard about the dangers of hilly terrain, without knowing the advantages they provide, you are going to recite (as I did in the past) how silly people are for moving to those dangerous locations.

    I don't believe I said it justified it, merely that it had some advantages to deploy resources early. This can impact in how far fires spread.
     
  8. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    Not exactly true. There have been "slash and burn" cultures since pre-historic man; it's basic anthropology once pre-historic man saw what nature did and copied it for their own uses. Native American (Not Northern, or Southern, but both) have used it for numerous reasons from the Aztecs & Mayans all the way up through Canada.

    Here in the US, the various states, in some areas, even do controlled burns to re-grow forests since it is part of the natural systems here in the Western US. Before it is asked, yes, they do go out of control sometimes but the fact of the matter is we still do it to help the forests.
     
  9. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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  10. Gen-X

    Gen-X Junior Member

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    I certainly accept that perspective Pakanohida, but a lot of the cultures you are referring to had land mass and access to seasonal moisture, so fire was not able to dominate the ecology to shape it exclusively. That's why now in the US you have to initiate controlled burns - because they don't start as readily in nature by themselves. Why? Too much moisture and the plants haven't adapted to burn every year. How thick the snows fall, is how nature regulates how often the forests burn.

    We have no such natural regulatory proces in Australia, however. We have the capacity to burn year round - especially when there was so many fire sticks ready to go. It's interesting to note, the Mauri's in our neighbouring island of New Zealand, didn't use fire to the same extent the indigenous inhabitants of Australia did. Why? Again, too much moisture. Why waste precious energy trying to make something burn that simply couldn't?

    David Holgrem and Peter Andrews both turned to European, deciduous plants to address building a more resilient ecology to retard fires in Australia.
     
  11. Gen-X

    Gen-X Junior Member

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    Thanks for the link Markos.

    I'm not sure about the use of the term in brackets (resolve) when the article clearly mentions the data for when Aboriginals settled in Australia was inconclusive. They have succeeded at extracting charcoal samples and analysing the patchy data available: but it raises as many questions as it attempts to answer. The article clearly stated they chose to focus on one particular period, because that was where the data was most reliable.

    I would have thought the time the Aboriginals settled Australia, would have been the conclusive evidence to suit the claim of "resolve" though. As it wasn't included, no evidence was supplied to build the relationship between fire, climate and humans.

    I'm curious to know what you thought the article resolved and how?
     
  12. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    G'day Gen-X

    According to the last two sentences contained in the abstract:

    There is no distinct change in fire regime corresponding to the arrival of humans in Australia at 50 [plus or minus] 10 ka [thousand years before present] and no correlation between archaeological evidence of increased human activity during the past 40 ka and the history of biomass burning. However, changes in biomass burning in the last 200 years may have been exacerbated or influenced by humans.

    Therefore, 'fire is a natural part of the Australian environment and has been so for millions of years'.

    Cheerio, Markos
     
  13. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    G'day Gen-X

    Just to clarify:

    In sum, fire has always been (and most likely will always continue to be) a natural part of many Australian ecologies.

    Cheerio, Markos
     
  14. mouseinthehouse

    mouseinthehouse Junior Member

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    The two words 'fire regime' in the short paragraph from the abstract Markos has given are very important. Aboriginal people had a thorough and intimate knowledge of the natural fire regime and the differing and complex ecological effects on various vegetation types and their associated wildlife. (A fire ecology that had evolved over millions of years). They could choose to use fire to alter a local landscape temporarily through an isolated and controlled burn (both in size and intensity) or in the longer term by burning more often to change the composition of vegetation species. Other factors at play were the population density and distribution of grazers, the ability of aboriginal people to be nomadic and the prevailing climate. To my mind the paper referenced by Markos shows that Aborginal people did not burn in such a widespread, uncontrolled way that it left a bio-geological record of marked fire regime change.

    Since colonisation fire ecology has not changed. What has changed is vegetation composition and distribution, the introduction of agriculture and associated land clearing, vegetation disturbance, introduced species of both flora and fauna and large settled populations living in built environments. We can now add to this the developing effects of climate change.

    The challenge in fire management is to:
    1). Understand the complex ecological relationships between fire and different ecosystems ie. alpine, rainforest, dry schlerophyll forest, grasslands etc
    2). Put in place management regimes that account for what we do know about the above (ie maintaining biodiversity and ecological integrity of natural areas) and provide for the safety of people and property.

    I believe there are some environments where it is reckless to establish homes. I also believe that we currently have a good, well trained and knowledgeable rural fire brigade system in this country which serves rural people well in conjunction with ongoing education of the public regarding fire prevention and response.
    There will always be a problematic interface in places for example like Canberra and Sydney where 'bush meets urban'. How we manage those areas is a complex and contentious issue.
     
  15. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    G'day All

    ...and accounts for many of my waking (and even some of my sleeping) hours.

    As an aside, I came across these comments (my emphasis in bold) today after reading Professor Fred Hilmer's opinion piece on the value of climate science:

    There are certainties in life. If you build a house next to a pub you're going to get your letter box smashed. If you build a house near an airport you're going to witness flight movements. If you build a house on a flood plain eventually someone there will get their feet wet. If you build a house on a sand hill someone will eventually see something crumble. If you build a house next to the bush you are playing with fire.

    Cheerio, Markos
     
  16. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    G'day All

    Further to the topic:

    ...it is estimated that currently within Australia there are roughly 250,000 houses within 50 m of an urban-bushland interface, and that this interface edge is roughly 10,000-15,000 km in length. On average, the probability that a major wildfire will occur at any particular interface within a 50 year period is about 2%. This is a sufficient risk that it needs to be taken seriously, yet it is too infrequent for local residents to learn to cope with the hazard through personal experience (Leicester & Handmer, 2007, p. 245).

    I would also like to add, historically it has also been 'too infrequent' for it to be the subject of serious and continuing political debate. However, given the recent frequency and intensity of major wildfire events occurring across peri-urban Australia, I would suggest the time is once again right to reignite (pardon the pun) policy discourse regarding this issue in the public arena. As such, I offer the following:

    ...if there is the political and community will, it would be quite feasible to apply our current knowledge to modify and/or develop urban-bushland interface zones in such a way that communities can live there in comparative safety and even with reduced property loss. To do this protection strategies must be developed on the assumption that attacks by high-intensity wildfires could occur at any specified interface and that communities should develop protection strategies that do not rely on fire services to protect them when these attacks happen.

    An example of such a protection strategy would be one based on the fact that the frequency of destruction of property is small for dwellings that are more than 500 m from a high-intensity wildfire front. Thus the risk of destruction can be minimised if all land within 500 m of houses is subject to land management and town planning controls that are designed to minimise the severity of potential [wildfire] attacks... (ibid, p. 250).


    Reference:

    Leicester, R, Handmer, J (2007) Bushfire. In Newton, P (Ed.) Transitions: Pathways Towards More Sustainable Urban Development in Australia. CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne, pp. 245–252 (Chapter 15)

    Cheerio, Markos
     
  17. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    Pre-1491 exposure Native Americans along the Mississippi river were doing slash and burn techniques in order to have wind breaks to plant corn & other crops. They had very large pyramid like buildings, changed course ways of creeks, and basically created and used food forest techniques that did indeed include burning the forests.

    Secondly, in the Amazon, they have had 10, 20 & 50 year droughts in antiquity. The very large tribal communities that lived on the river used a combination of chimpanas and slash / burn techniques, this is partially how and why it is theorized that they find biochar in various sites all across South and Central America.
     
  18. Gen-X

    Gen-X Junior Member

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    I don't doubt what you say is true about the Native American's and Amazonian tribes activities. But the proof of the impact due to those burning techniques, is in the ecology which dominates the environment today. The diversity of plants are both arid AND moisture adapted. In Australia we have less plants which are moisture adapted, compared to those which are fire adapted.

    Thanks for sharing the background details from your neck of the woods. :)
     
  19. Gen-X

    Gen-X Junior Member

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    Hello again Markos

    Thanks for sharing what the paper revealed to you. However, does the paper show in any way, humans absolutely weren't involved more than climate factors were? I looked, I couldn't find the conclusive evidence to resolve the issue for me. If fire was present by human hand, then it was "naturalised" by humans, not nature.

    The article shows fire was present, but their estimation of "resolve" for the human aspect, aligned precisely with the evidence provided - which was exactly none. An omission of evidence is not evidence to prove humans had no major impact.
     
  20. mouseinthehouse

    mouseinthehouse Junior Member

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    An omission of evidence is when you have evidence and choose not to provide it or perhaps forget to provide it. Which is certainly not the case with this paper. Or are you suggesting professional misconduct?

    'There is no distinct change in fire regime corresponding to the arrival of humans in Australia ... and no correlation between archaeological evidence of increased human activity ... and the history of biomass burning...'
     

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