Emergency crews are dealing with about 30 grassfires across Queensland, with dry conditions and high temperatures complicating the task.

Fire weather warnings are in place for a number of central and southern regions as temperatures soar to more than eight degrees above average.

Water-bombing helicopters have been called in to help battle a large grassfire in the Ipswich area, west of Brisbane.

The blaze is causing problems at Collingwood Park.

Elsewhere, nine crews are dealing with a fire that broke out on private property at Booyal in the Wide Bay region, and three crews are monitoring the aftermath of a blaze at Mudgeeraba on the Gold Coast.

Peter Varley from the Rural Fire Service (RFS) says while crews are busy, the blazes are under control.

“We’ve got a couple of fires burning around Brisbane, the main one just north of Brisbane up at Stanmore,” he said.

“That burnt all last night and crews put in some big backburns around that one to get it ready for today.

“It’s in the state forest so Parks and Wildlife and our crews are working on that one again today.

“We have it contained at the moment, but under these conditions we have to be very careful with any fires.”

Extreme fire warnings in state’s south

Fire authorities are on high alert with extreme fire dangers in southern Queensland.

There is a very high to severe fire danger for the south-west, north coast and south-east regions, and extreme conditions are predicted in the Darling Downs and Granite Belt areas.

Senior forecaster Rick Threlfall says severe to extreme fire danger warnings have been issued across much of the state.

“It’s a combination of very dry air over the south of the state, the hot temperatures and some fresh and gusty west to south-westerly winds that will develop over the south of the state as a trough moves through,” he said.

“A perfect combination to lead to those high fire dangers for today.”

The RFS is urging residents across southern Queensland to be vigilant.

Mr Varley says the hot, dry conditions and strong winds will fuel any flames.

“There may be local suspension of anybody that has a permit but we are asking anybody that does not to light up today,” he said.

“The extreme fire conditions – any sort of a spark could start a fire and there’s very very little water in any vegetation that is around.

“We are asking people to be extremely cautious with any sort of ignition sources today.”

Temperatures soar across Queensland

There has been little reprieve from the state’s recording-breaking run of hot weather.

Overnight at Richmond, east of Mount Isa, a low of 27 degrees Celsius was recorded.

The mercury is expected to rise to 41C at Doomadgee in the state’s Gulf Country, and 40C further south at Birdsville and Winton.

The weather bureau says Brisbane will hit 35C today, while Ipswich should reach 37C.

At 10:30 am (AEST), the temperature in Cloncurry, also east of Mount Isa, had reached 39C.

Stacey Robertson from Cloncurry’s pool facility says most people are staying in air-conditioning.

“The people that are coming down are saying that if they didn’t get off that couch now and out of the air-conditioning, they’d be swallowed up all day inside,” she said.

“This has been my busiest season so far.”

Mr Threlfall says the temperatures are more than eight degrees above average.

“A large part of the state – central and southern areas of the state – are well above average as well, so some places could approach around about 40 degrees,” he said.

“Certainly Mount Isa is looking at about 40 degrees but right through the southern interior of the state, generally temperatures are looking to be about five to eight degrees above average.”

The governments of Britain, Canada and Australia are trying to stamp out scientific dissent.

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 1st Ooctober 2013

It’s as clear and chilling a statement of intent as you’re likely to read. Scientists should be “the voice of reason, rather than dissent, in the public arena.”(1) Vladimir Putin? Kim Jong-un? No, Professor Ian Boyd, chief scientific adviser at the UK’s department for environment.

Boyd’s doctrine is a neat distillation of government policy in Britain, Canada and Australia. These governments have suppressed or misrepresented inconvenient findings on climate change, pollution, pesticides, fisheries and wildlife. They have shut down programmes which produce unwelcome findings and sought to muzzle scientists. This is a modern version of Soviet Lysenkoism: crushing academic dissent on behalf of bad science and corporate power(2).

Writing in an online journal, Boyd argued that if scientists speak freely, they create conflict between themselves and policy-makers, leading to a “chronically deep-seated mistrust of scientists that can undermine the delicate foundation upon which science builds relevance”(3). This, in turn, “could set back the cause of science in government”. So they should avoid “suggesting that policies are either right or wrong”. If they must speak out, they should do so through “embedded advisers (such as myself), and by being the voice of reason, rather than dissent, in the public arena.”

Shut up, speak through me, don’t dissent, or your behaviour will ensure that science becomes irrelevant. Note that the conflicts between science and policy are caused by scientists, rather than by politicians ignoring or abusing the evidence. Or by chief scientific advisers.

In an online question and answer session hosted by his department, Professor Boyd maintained that 50% of tuberculosis infections among cattle herds are caused by badgers(4). He repeated the claim in an official document called “Science to inform TB Policy”(5). But as the analyst Jamie McMillan points out, the figure has been sexed up from inadequate data(6). Like the 45-minute claim in the Iraq debate, it is “spurious, simple to take on board, and crucial in convincing Parliament.”

The badger cull as a whole defies the findings of the £49m study the previous government commissioned. It has been thoroughly dissected by the leading scientists in the field, which might explain why Boyd is so keen to shut them up(7,8). It’s one of many ways in which his department has binned the evidence in setting its policies.

On Sunday, Boyd’s boss, Owen Paterson, told the Conservative party conference not to worry about global warming. “I think we should just accept that the climate has been changing for centuries.”(9) A few weeks ago on Any Questions, he managed to repeat ten discredited claims about climate change in one short contribution(10).

His department repeatedly misrepresents science to appease industrial lobbyists. It claimed that its field trials of neonicotinoid pesticides on bees showed that “effects on bees do not occur under normal circumstances”(11). Hopelessly contaminated, the study was in fact worthless, which is why it was not submitted to a peer-reviewed journal(12).

Similar distortions surround the department’s refusal to establish meaningful marine reserves(13), its attempt to cull buzzards on behalf of pheasant shoots(14,15) and its determination to allow farmers to start dredging streams again, turning them into featureless gutters(16).

There’s one consolation: Ian Boyd, in his efforts to establish a tinpot dictatorship, has not yet achieved the control enjoyed by his counterparts in Canada. There, scientists with government grants working on any issue that could affect industrial interests – tar sands, climate change, mining, sewage, salmon farms, water trading – are forbidden to speak freely to the public(17,18,19). They are shadowed by government minders and, when they must present their findings, given scripts to memorise and recite(20). Dozens of turbulent research programmes and institutes have either been cut to the bone or closed altogether(21).

In Australia, the new government has chosen not to appoint a science minister(22). Tony Abbott, who once described manmade climate change as “absolute crap”(23), has already shut down the government’s Climate Commission and Climate Change Authority(24). But at least Australians are fighting back: the Climate Commission has been reconvened as an NGO, funded by donations(25). Here, we allowed the government to shut down the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and the Sustainable Development Commission with scarcely a groan of protest(26).

Cameron’s government claimed that the tiny savings it made were required to reduce the deficit. Yet somehow it manages to fund a lavish range of planet-wrecking programmes. The latest is the “Centre for Doctoral Training in Oil and Gas” just launched by the Natural Environment Research Council(27). Its aim is “to support the oil and gas sector” by providing “focused training” in fracking, in exploiting tar deposits and in searching for oil in polar regions. In other words, it is subsidising fossil fuel companies while promoting climate change. How many people believe this is a good use of public money?

To be reasonable, when a government is manipulating and misrepresenting scientific findings, is to dissent. To be reasonable, when it is helping to destroy human life and the natural world, is to dissent. As Julien Benda argued in La Trahison des Clercs, democracy and civilisation depend on intellectuals resisting conformity and power(28).

A world in which scientists speak only through their minders and in which dissent is considered the antithesis of reason is a world shorn of meaningful democratic choices. You can judge a government by its treatment of inconvenient facts and the people who expose them. This one does not emerge well.

www.monbiot.com

References:

1. http://elife.elifesciences.org/content/2/e01061

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism

3. http://elife.elifesciences.org/content/2/e01061

4. http://storify.com/DefraGovUK/defra-chief-scientist-prof-ian-boyd-answers-your-a

5. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/205741/tb-eradication-presentation-130605.pdf

6. http://planetrant.wordpress.com/2013/09/13/fifty-percent-of-tb-due-to-badgers-a-spurious-statistic-and-how-it-was-created/

7. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/oct/13/badger-cull-mindless

8. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/jul/11/badger-culling-ineffective-krebs

9. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/sep/30/owen-paterson-minister-climate-change-advantages

10. http://www.skepticalscience.com/paterson-on-climate.html

11. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, March 2013. An assessment of key evidence about Neonicotinoids and bees.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/181841/pb13937-neonicotinoid-bees-20130326.pdf.pdf

12. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/29/beware-rise-government-scientists-lobbyists

13. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2013/feb/11/eu-fishing-discards-ban-richard-benyon

14. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2012/may/24/buzzards-pheasant-shoots-wildlife

15. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jun/04/wildlife-land-aristocracy

16. http://charlesrangeleywilson.com/2013/04/26/a-storm-cloud-for-rivers/

17. http://sciencewriters.ca/initiatives/muzzling_canadian_federal_scientists/

18. http://www.watershedsentinel.ca/content/harpers-war-science

19. http://www.canada.com/technology/Critics+instructions+Environment+Canada+scientists+Montreal+conference/6500175/story.html

20. http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/05/03/when-science-goes-silent/

21. http://www.watershedsentinel.ca/content/environmental-science-axed-harper-2012-2013

22. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/17/science-minister-abbott-australia

23. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/politics/the-town-that-turned-up-the-temperature/story-e6frgczf-1225809567009

24. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/19/coalition-scraps-climate-commission-flannery

25. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/sep/24/climate-council-faces-titanic-struggle

26. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/oct/03/bins-roads-wars-george-osborne

27. http://www.nerc.ac.uk/funding/available/postgrad/schemes/documents/cdt-ao.pdf

28. Julien Benda, 1927. The Treason of the Intellectuals. Translated by Richard Aldington, 2007. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick.

How governments bemoan the problem but keep stoking the fires.

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 28th September 2013

Already, a thousand blogs and columns insist that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s new report is a rabid concoction of scare stories whose purpose is to destroy the global economy. But it is, in reality, highly conservative.

Reaching agreement among hundreds of authors and reviewers ensures that only the statements which are hardest to dispute are allowed to pass. Even when the scientists have agreed, the report must be tempered in another forge, as politicians question anything they find disagreeable: the new report received 1855 comments from 32 governments(1), and the arguments raged through the night before its launch(2).

In other words, it’s perhaps the biggest and most rigorous process of peer review conducted in any scientific field, at any point in human history.

There are no radical departures in this report from the previous assessment, published in 2007; just a great deal more evidence demonstrating the extent of global temperature rises, the melting of ice sheets and sea ice, the retreat of the glaciers, the rising and acidification of the oceans and the changes in weather patterns(3). The message is both familiar and shattering: “it’s as bad as we thought it was.”

What the report describes, in its dry, meticulous language, is the collapse of the benign climate in which humans have prospered, and the loss of the conditions upon which many other lifeforms depend. Climate change and global warming are inadequate terms for what it reveals. The story it tells is of climate breakdown. This is, or so it seems, a catastrophe we are capable of foreseeing but incapable of imagining. It’s a catastrophe we are singularly ill-equipped to prevent.

The IPCC’s reports attract denial in all its forms: from a quiet turning away – the response of most people – to shrill disavowal. Despite –  or perhaps because of – their rigours, the IPCC’s reports attract a magnificent collection of conspiracy theories: the panel is trying to tax us back to the stone age or establish a Nazi/Communist dictatorship in which we are herded into camps and forced to crochet our own bicycles. (And they call the scientists scaremongers …).

In the Mail, the Telegraph and the dusty basements of the internet, today’s report (or a draft leaked a few weeks ago) has been trawled for any uncertainties or refinements that could be used to discredit the process(4,5). The panel reports that on every continent except Antarctica, manmade warming is likely to have made a substantial contribution to the surface temperature(6). So those who feel threatened by the evidence ignore the other continents and concentrate on Antarctica, as proof that climate change caused by fossil fuels can’t be happening.

They make great play of the IPCC’s acknowledgement that there has been a “reduction in surface warming trend over the period 1998–2012”(7), but somehow ignore the fact that the past decade is still the warmest in the instrumental record. They manage to overlook the panel’s conclusion that this slowing of the trend is likely to have been caused by volcanic eruptions, fluctuations in solar radiation and natural variability in the planetary cycle. Were it not for manmade global warming, these factors could have made the world significantly cooler over this period(8). That there has been a slight increase in temperature despite them shows the extraordinary power of the human contribution.

But denial is only part of the problem. More significant is the behaviour of powerful people who claim to accept the evidence but keep stoking the fires. This week the former Irish president Mary Robinson added her voice to a call that some of us have been making for years: the only effective means of preventing climate breakdown is to leave fossil fuels in the ground(9,10). Press any minister on this matter in private and, in one way or another, they will concede the point. Yet no government will act on it.

As if to mark the publication of the new report, the department for business, innovation and skills has now plastered a giant poster across its groundfloor windows: “UK oil and gas: Energising Britain. £13.5bn is being invested in recovering UK oil and gas this year, more than any other industrial sector.” The message couldn’t have been clearer if it had said “up yours.”

This is an example of the way in which all governments collaborate in the disaster they publicly bemoan. They claim to accept the science and to support the intergovernmental panel. They sagely agree with the need to do something to avert the catastrophe it foresees, while promoting the industries that cause it.

It doesn’t matter how many windmills or solar panels or nuclear plants you build if you are not simultaneously retiring fossil fuel production. We need a global programme whose purpose is to leave most coal and oil and gas reserves in the ground, while developing new sources of power and reducing the amazing amount of energy we waste.

But, far from doing so, governments everywhere are still seeking to squeeze every drop out of their own reserves, while trying to secure access to other people’s. As more accessible reservoirs are emptied, energy companies exploit the remotest parts of the planet, bribing and bullying governments to allow them to break open unexploited places: from the deep ocean to the melting Arctic. And the governments who let them do it weep sticky black tears over the state of the planet.

www.monbiot.com

References:

1. http://www.climatechange2013.org/ipcc-process/

2. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/sep/26/ipcc-climate-report-slow-progress

3. http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/uploads/WGIAR5-SPM_Approved27Sep2013.pdf

4. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2420783/Worlds-climate-scientists-confess-Global-warming-just-QUARTER-thought–computers-got-effects-greenhouse-gases-wrong.html

5. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/10310712/Top-climate-scientists-admit-global-warming-forecasts-were-wrong.html

6. Page 13, Summary for Policy Makers. http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/uploads/WGIAR5-SPM_Approved27Sep2013.pdf

7. Page 10.

8. http://www.climatecodered.org/2013/09/is-global-warming-in-hiatus-not-if-you.html

9. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/sep/23/fossil-fuel-reserves-left-in-ground

10. http://www.monbiot.com/2007/12/11/rigged/

“Unequivocal”

Dear friends,

An important new climate science report was just released, and the results aren’t exactly cheerful.

The new report is long and dense, so we thought we would summarize it here. Since we’re quite fond of science and numbers at 350.org — after all, we’re named after the safe level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere — we wanted to share a few of the key numbers from the new climate report:

• 95-99%: that’s the level of certainty that scientists have that humans are causing the world to heat up. To put that into context, that’s the same level of certainty scientists have that cigarettes cause cancer. That’s what scientists call “unequivocal”. The debate on the basics of climate science is over.
• 1 Trillion: the global “carbon budget” in metric tons. That’s the amount of CO2 we can release into the atmosphere while keeping global warming under 2 degrees Celsius — what many scientists have identified as a red line for our planet. We’ve already burned through about half of that carbon budget.  Translation: we need action. ASAP.
• 1,2,3: the ranking of the last three decades as the “warmest decades in recorded history.” In other words: the planet is heating up, and we’re breaking new climate records every day.

But there are a few numbers you should know about climate change that aren’t in the latest report — numbers that give us reason for hope:

• 100%: that’s the expected growth in global installed solar power over the next two and a half years! That’s a doubling our solar capacity in a mere 30 months. The renewable energy revolution has begun.
• 20,000: that’s the number of events, protests, and rallies we’ve organized at 350.org. We’re everywhere, and we’re active.
• 100,000: that’s the number of new activists to have joined 350’s global network in the last few months. We’re growing — and fast.

This work will not be easy, but I believe in people power. I think social movements can force the kinds of major societal changes needed to halt climate catastrophe. That’s why I’m so proud of what we’re doing at 350.org with our partners all over the world. This new climate report has made one thing completely clear: we need to act boldly, quickly, and all together.

Let’s do it,

May Boeve for the whole team 350.org

P.S. Our social media team made this great graphic about the new report — can you take a moment to share it on Facebook?

One important note: some scientists criticize these reports for being both too conservative and behind the curve. The group behind the report — the “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change” or “IPCC” — is a collaboration of 800 climate scientists around the world. The body is considered the foremost global authority on climate science, and integrates the research of more than 9,000 studies. But because of the size, scope, and consensus-based nature of these reports, they are often “lowest common denominator” science, and there’s a pattern of them underestimating the scale and severity of climate change and its impacts. You can learn more about this at this Wikipedia article.

More Info and Resources 

U.N. Climate Panel Endorses Ceiling on Global Emissions – The New York Times

What 95% certainty of warming means to scientists – AP Article

IPCC climate report: human impact is ‘unequivocal’ –  The Guardian

Chart: 2/3rds of Global Solar PV Has Been Installed in the Last 2.5 Years – GreenTech

Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis – IPCC

Ocean warming and acidification deliver double blow to coral reefs

Published 4 October 2013 Media coverage Leave a Comment

Rate this:

• Share 20
• inShare0
• Email

• Oliver Milman
• theguardian.com, Friday 4 October 2013 15.13 AEST
• Jump to comments (23)

Environmental groups are concerned the Santos-led coal seam gas development could endanger koalas in the Pilliga forest. Photograph: Josh Coates/AAP

Anti-coal seam gas campaigners are gearing up to launch legal action over the decision by the federal government to approve an exploration project in the Pilliga forest in New South Wales.

The federal environment minister, Greg Hunt, has decided that the Santos-led development does not require full assessment under the national Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

Hunt has, however, added several conditions for the coal seam gas pilot project, requiring that construction cease during breeding season if the threatened Pilliga mouse, regent honeyeater or koala are found in pre-clearance surveys.

Santos will have to monitor groundwater, but it will be allowed to fell 400 hollow-bearing trees and remove up to 235 orchids.

The project, which will involve the drilling of 36 pilot production wells in the state forest, has enraged environmentalists and community groups.

More than 3,800 submissions over the development were sent to the government, most in opposition to Santos’s plans. Opponents claim Hunt should assess the project under the “water trigger” legislation that requires all development that may impact the water table be scrutinised by the federal government.

There are also concerns the project will harm threatened species, including recently discovered stygofauna – ancient water-cleansing micro-organisms that dwell beneath the ground.

Carmel Flint, co-ordinator of anti-CSG group Lock the Gate Alliance, told Guardian Australia that community activists would ramp up protests in the wake of Hunt’s decision.

“This decision will raise alarm bells throughout the country among communities who want to have a say over coal and unconventional gas mining,” she said. “This was a big test for the new federal environment minister and it’s a huge worry that he’s decided to go ahead with it without further assessment.

“I think you’ll see much greater community activism and response to this. A lot of people will be looking at this closely and getting legal advice. A number of community groups will be looking at legal action over it.

“There are genuine legal questions as to how [Hunt] reached this conclusion. He’s approved the destruction of threatened species without any assessment, which is contrary to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

“Given the rhetoric from the likes of [energy minister] Ian Macfarlane recently, it isn’t hugely surprising. But I think the government will find there is a deep and broad opposition to the free-for-all mining they are proposing.”

One of the submissions to the government, from a hydrologist, Andrea Broughton, questioned the groundwater modelling done by Santos before the project starting.

“I would’ve liked to have seen a proper environmental assessment done,” she told Guardian Australia. “The model is based on a serious lack of data. The groundwater monitoring isn’t in place to know whether the water table will be impacted.

“Santos says there will be a 0.5m drawdown in the water level over the next 500 years. I find that very hard to believe.”

Santos said it welcomed the government’s decision and insisted that its decision to refer the project for approval shows its commitment to transparency.

“Although our own independent assessment indicated the exploration program would not activate the ‘water trigger’, we wanted to be completely transparent with regard to our initial exploration and appraisal program,” said Sam Crafter, a company spokesman.

“We believed the referral was the sensible way to ensure the predicted impacts on water resources had been thoroughly assessed by all the relevant bodies.”

Crafter added that all of the assessment work done so far, along with the government’s decision, demonstrates the project won’t have a major environmental impact.