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In this conversation (recorded before the recent record rainfall in New South Wales), Joanne Nova of JoanneNova.com.au joins us to analyze the recent Australian bushfires and debunk the notion that they were caused by climate change. We discuss the historical patterns, the lack of drought trends in the long-term data, and the reality that this type of mega-fire could be prevented with simple and well-known land management techniques like controlled burns.
Watch this video on BitChute / Minds.com / YouTube or Download the mp4
SHOW NOTES
About Joanne Nova
57 Bushfire Inquiries isn’t enough. We need one more for leaders to hide behind
178 years of Australian rain has nothing to do with CO2, worst extremes 1849, 1925, 1950
Climate change and bushfires — More rain, the same droughts, no trend, no science
On average bushfires burn an amazing 50 million ha every year in Australia
Hello James and Joanne and thank you for all your work.
I want to ask if you have researched any of the following points (they are a lot, so i hope that you bear with me) regarding the Australian bushfires:
1) The traces of Aluminum, Strontium and Barium (essentially sparkler dust) that have been allegedly sprayed over Australia’s wilderness throughout the last 2 decades, which have again allegedly resulted in fires that “cannot be put out” and 100 meter explosive fireballs, as per firefighter’s testimonies,
2) The drying-out of Australia’s wild flora and making firefighter’s work even more difficult, by closing-off and selling Australia’s water supplies out to foreign interests,
3) The mining of precious materials like lithium (for lithium batteries) by foreign interests, that are allegedly greatly profiting from the “clearing-out” that is caused by these fires, like in Kangaroo island, and lastly
4) The alleged inability of most of the residents of the burned-out areas to return and rebuild their homes, due to the areas being designated as fire hazard areas, as well as because of the lack of house insurance, caused by the extreme cost of house insurance in those specific areas.
Thank you, i hope that was not too long, cheers.
It concerns me that CLIMATE ENGINEERING was not one of the main topics discussed in this interview.
Discretion being the better part of being smart. Most people are not ready for climate engineering in the same way they were not ready for the ‘Bilderburg’ group back in the 70’s and 80’s….do you understand? 🙂
No Paul823, I do not understand. Why must we tiptoe and speak in hushed tones about CLIMATE ENGINEERING when it’s been proven that there is a massive spraying program, ongoing, WITHOUT our consent? Everyone needs to breathe……..
And a bunch of farmers are suing our useless government for their malfeasance and incompetence over at least one of the fires. Good luck to ’em, hope it sets a precedent.
https://tinyurl.com/to7589s
Yea, she got the conversion wrong when she said ‘thousand’ but she said ‘seventeen megawatts’ not ‘seventy’, Mate.
One number in the interview is not accurate. Jo said 3MW/m was equivalent to 3000 watts, when she should have said 3000 kilowatts. I would suspect she misspoke. (1000 kW equals 1 MW.) Also, she clearly stated fire intensity was reaching 70 MW/m, not 17. The NSW fires in 2019 and 2020 did reach intensities of 70,000 kW/m or 70 MW/m, according to the NSW Rural Fire Service.
Fire intensity, expressed in kilowatts per metre (kW/m), is the amount of energy released from each metre of headfire edge. One kW/m is equivalent to the energy released by a small bar radiator. Fire intensity depends upon how much fuel is burnt and how fast it burns. Severe bushfires, such as the Victorian Black Saturday fires in 2009, can generate intensities in excess of 100,000 kW/m [100MW/m], whereas prescribed fires are usually less than 500 kW/m [0.5MW/m]. Only bushfires of less than 2,000 kW/m {2MW/m] can be safely and effectively suppressed by people and machinery working directly on the flaming edge of the fire.
https://www.dpaw.wa.gov.au/management/fire/fire-and-the-environment/51-fuel-loads-and-fire-intensity
I agree, your last sentence is more accurate. The point the link makes is to do with energy released. It left out time. In physics, power is the rate of doing work or of transferring heat, i.e. the amount of energy transferred or converted per unit time.
In any event, the intensity of the fires is the issue. And what we do about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8XmlMpJSJ8&list=PLg8_Df7lKXNTlizSkpfPuiQKT8XiLxBTb&index=11&t=27s
I also read that Australia has had 20 private dams built by privately owned agribiz corporations since 2003. Some are owned by China, and that not a few cabinet membership have financial interests in these entities. The dams have perverted the natural flow of waters for years and now the pigeons are coming home to roost. It is not climate change but something simpler, political expediency, short sighted financial gains at the expense of sound sustainable management of our natural resources that have set the stage.
INDUSTRIALIZED NATURE: Brute Force Technology and the Transformation of the Natural World is a great book on where this mindset of controlling nature began and is resulting in a juggernaut of devastation that is building speed.Max Igan made six videos that are worth watching. They are not so simple for me to find. The link above should be to Australian Fire Series Part 2: Drought by Design – The Genociding of Australia
Or reptillian aliens, they banned that guy last year as well. 🙂
And don’t plan any public talks or you might get hit with a huge bill from the guberment like Lauren Southern and Stephan Molyneux did (they were smart enough not to pay it though).
Should be OK as long as he stays clear of the Israel lobby and their demon love child “little Jonny Howard” …may remember him from the illegal Iraq invasion.
Good on ya mates!
I sure can’t understand what you Aussies say when you open your mouths, but thank god I can read Aussie.
I flunked the Broc West video challenge to James Corbett
The Australian Slang Challenge – Subscriber Exclusive #064.
The video can be seen at this Corbett Report article (if you are a member)
March 6, 2017 Bitcoin Over Gold: What Does It Mean?
https://www.corbettreport.com/bitcoin-over-gold-what-does-it-mean/
Well, I had my morning cuppa coffee.
Time to grab a durry and hit the thunder box.
Oh! I guess I just spruiked Corbett Report Membership.
Thanks for the tip. I’ll move away from texting and use the spoken word more often. Even if it is just to infuriate the NSA!
Some of these fires were set by arsonists, with 200 such persons under investigation according to one Australian media release. Interestingly the same sort of information has come out of Brazil and its Amazon fires.
Tony Heller, an American scientist/engineer and educator has done an excellent job in looking at Australian weather and climate history that puts these fires, floods and temperatures into the context that this year’s terrible fires are really not that much out of the ordinary for Australia at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMrV9qnmeeg
Thanks Blad.
I would like to give my input on this issue. I graduated from college with a degree in Forestry, concentrating in Wildland Fire and Fuels Management, so this kind of talk is right up my alley.
The primary reason for raging, out-of-control wildfires that burn intensely and decimate large areas of forest is excessive fuel loading, as Jo Nova stated.
In the early 1900’s there formed two competing philosophies of how forests should be managed. Gifford Pinchot stood behind the management strategy of Conservation. This involves managing forests almost like farmers manage crops, by responsibly harvesting portions of a forest for economic benefit and to maintain lesser fuel loads. John Muir, a Preservationist, believed that forests should remain relatively untouched by humans, including for logging purposes.
In the spirit of the preservationist approach, the “Smokey The Bear” campaign began with the goal of preventing as many forest fires as possible. The campaign, and the general belief of how to manage forests, suppressed the natural phenomena of a forest to manage itself through periodic fires. Without human interference, these fires would burn and clear out the forest understory and built up fuel loads. By suppressing fire, fuel loads grow and grow, resulting in extremely severe fires when they do eventually burn.
I’d recommend listening to this 5-minute NPR segment where they do a good job of covering this issue.
https://www.npr.org/2012/08/23/159373691/how-the-smokey-bear-effect-led-to-raging-wildfires
Conservation vs. Preservation
https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2016/03/22/conservation-versus-preservation
I would agree with John Muir for rainforest or wet forest (leave them alone) but definitely agree with Gifford Pinchot or the smokey bear campaign for the management of eucalypt dominated forest. It’s not nice to see all the beautiful under-story plants being destroyed by fire but that’s the way eucalypt forests have been managed for millennia.
“Honest Government Ad | After the fires” “Get F*ckin used to it…” The Juice Media https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BmbvTvFQ3g
If we go back further into the past, to the time before any humans lived on the Australian continent, almost the entire eastern seaboard and much of the south east was rainforest. With the arrival of aboriginal people and their methods of forest management (fire), much of the rainforest flora perished. The thick jungle floor was regularly burned to provide easy pedestrian access and to make it easier to hunt game. This regular burning destroyed many of the rainforest tree saplings and seedlings, causing a wave of extinction. The parent trees eventually died of old age but there were no seedlings to replace them.
The survivors of this slow but sure ecological holocaust were the plants that either needed fire for propagation or were able to regenerate after fires. This greatly reduced the biodiversity of most Australian woodlands. As Joanne Nova said, eucalypts recover from fires quite quickly. It only takes a few years for the immense amount of litter that they drop (yearly shedding of bark and constant self pruning by dropping branches and twigs) to build up to dangerous proportions. Before the arrival of Europeans the indigenous people managed these eucalypt forests with fire as they had always done. The European ‘invasion’ had an extremely devastating effect on their tribal and family networks, leaving vast tracts of previously managed land vacant (of human habitation). It is this vacant land that burns with such intensity now, because the regular cool burns are not being carried out.
If we look deeper into the problem, it is the lack of biodiversity and the dominance of eucalypts that is a major problem. The cool burns, while preventing a major tragedy occurring, are also an environmental problem because they are gradually reducing the humus in the soil, causing further loss of biodiversity. So it is a complex issue and I am sure everyone in Australia would like to see it resolved but we must admit to ourselves that the eucalypt forests are not natural, they are a human modified forest.
Interesting.
I did not know that about eucalypts.
but we must admit to ourselves that the eucalyptus forests are not natural, they are a human modified forest.
Not only that, but these trees are planted because of their fast growth to achieve CO2 sequestration and to offset CO2 credit crunch. So, these trees are planted due to … climate change and then end up fueling massive fires which are in return blamed on … climate change? That actually makes sense. They were planted due to climate change, they burn due to climate change. But climate change(TM), not actual climate change.
When I wrote “not natural” it was not the best choice of words. In other countries eucalyptus trees are planted in plantations however in Australia the majority of eucalyptus forests are naturally occurring i.e. wild regrowth but modified in the sense that the original biodiversity has been reduced by centuries of regular fire.
One of the great paradoxes existing in Australia is that while there is social and political pressure to reduce carbon emissions from the transport and energy industries, the fuel reduction fires in the forests may release more carbon into the atmosphere than both of these industries combined.
People who are genuinely concerned about the ecological future of the planet may choose to attribute these forest fires to CO2 induced climate change. As far as I am aware the Australian continent has been subjected to climate extremes such as severe drought, severe wet seasons and severe storms since long before the current industrial age.
I would surmise that the most serious ecological issue we are facing today is the extreme reduction of biodiversity, the main cause of that being the destruction of old growth forest. These forests are essential to maintain the natural cycles of the atmosphere and water.
manbearpig says:
“What a pleasure to listen to so much excellently articulated info (with such a sumptuous accent!!)
What an incredible site this is.”
I agree, ManBearPig.
I was extremely impressed with Joanne Nova and enjoyed her entire demeanor.
When you women talk, we guys listen.
Smart guys are trained that way. 😉
Hammond Family Ranchers – Arson Case – Eastern Oregon
Some of you may recall watching the videos of January 2016 when protestors descended on eastern Oregon to support the rancher’s rights against the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, was shot and killed by law enforcement officers, which was recorded on YouTube video.
Backstory via Wikipedia…
The Hammond arson case was a court case culminating from 20-year-long legal disputes between Harney County, Oregon ranchers Dwight Lincoln Hammond, Jr., 73, his son Steven Dwight Hammond, 46, and federal officials. In 2012, both Hammonds were charged with several counts in relation to two fires in 2001 and 2006, and eventually convicted of two counts of arson on federal land. Knowing they would face the statutory minimum of five years, the men waived their right to appeal these convictions in exchange for dismissal of several unresolved charges. After this mid-trial agreement was entered, the Hammonds were sentenced to a few months in jail, which they served. In 2015, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit vacated these sentences because they were shorter than the statutory mandatory minimum. The Ninth Circuit remanded to the district court for resentencing. The district court subsequently re-sentenced both Hammonds to the mandatory minimum of five years in prison, with credit for time served.
By late 2015, the Hammond case had attracted the attention of Nevada activists Ammon and Ryan Bundy, who planned a protest against the re-sentencing, though the Hammonds rejected their assistance. However, the protest still went into effect on January 2, 2016, and resulted in the Bundys and associates staging a 40-day armed occupation of the headquarters area of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
On July 10, 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump issued full pardons to Dwight and Steven Hammond.
But now…
April 2019
Fire-starting ranchers get a new blessing from BLM
The agency hopes the Hammonds’ cows will reduce fire risk in eastern Oregon.
https://www.hcn.org/issues/51.9/public-lands-fire-starting-ranchers-grazing-public-lands-again
Thanks for making this James. I live overseas and its been driving me crazy hearing all the stupid shit broadcast about my home country. Standing at the station in Europe, seeing it flick by on rotating billboards… and I sigh. Like nobody knows that Australia has heavy fires like this every 10 years, its super normal. Foreigners generally know nothing about Australia, except it has dangerous animals and some cuddly ones. That’s about it, from my experience. Its so ridiculous to hear the world going crazy about “saving it”.
Australia gets practically no natural disasters. No earthquakes, no tsunamis, only cyclones right at the top and rarely (#ripbananas). Fires are our only natural disasters and being told they are not normal is fucking weird. Its Australia’s way of refreshing itself, its the natural climate breathing new life into its bushland.
I appreciate you making this video, as I’m so used to being asked about the fires, no matter who I talk to. Having to describe Il Nino and La Nina weather cycles (http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/history/ln-2010-12/ENSO-what.shtml) and the percentage of land that gets destroyed every 10 years and how so few people have died because generally Australia has protocols of dealing with it. As its normal.
People caring about “saving the kangaroos”, man we cull kangaroos by the millions each year because there are too many of them and we killed all their natural predators (https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d63444f30556a4d/share_p.html). I appreciate hearing a structurally minded discussion on the issue and hearing at least that its not just me getting offended by the news on this issue.
Thanks for your comment Siren, there have not been many Australians on this forum. What were the predators for kangaroos? I am totally ignorant of the fact that they had a predator. I assumed it was the ‘pasturisation’ of our landscape that gave rise to the population explosion of roos. I have trained my dog not to chase marsupials, she is only allowed to chase rabbits, hares and foxes. She would love to chase a roo though.
It’s all about the sun..
geomagnetic reversal means more extreme weather until the cycle restarts. Bunker down..! Or is it hunker down..? Either way, prepare yourselves
Couldn’t this tinder, that Nature gives freely, be harvested and used to power something?
Actually that is not such a bad idea although much of the country is rugged and difficult to access. I look after a small patch of forest in Australia and I remove all of the tinder by hand. This preserves the micro-habitat and the fungi in the soil that even a ‘cool’ fire would destroy. Much of the material that I remove is made into compost piles which provide protection to small reptiles and marsupials from predators. The larger branches are either cut up for firewood or piled up for bonfires outside the forested area. These bonfires are lit on a drizzly cold day during winter.
Hats off to ya Step!
That is the epitome of being an activist and voluntaryist!
That is wonderful, Step!
Has anyone estimated how much CO2/greenhouse gasses are being emitted by these fires? Add in the ones in California and the Amazon and surely dwarfs all human activity?
I dont know the calculations but it does all seem to make a mockery of wanting me to stop having the odd BBQ in the garden.
Has anyone done the maths?
Well Taffekles; you may not need math to understand a vacuum. The scale of anthropamorphic burning is infinitesimal to the planetary systems equilibrium. Carbon is stored then released. A timeless cycle if you believe in timelessness. We live in a vacuum. You , I , us all, live in a vacuum that recycles, cycles. The equilibrium returns instantly. The only way to knock the equilibrium out of whack would be to find some way to take out the sun. Hmmm that sounds familiar.
Today the planes are staying south of me. The gosimer film is thick.
I’ll echo the take from above. All of the carbon that was sequestered by those trees is returned to the ecosphere. There is a certain time shift in effect which should be taken into account, but knowing what we know (that is carbon is the base of life as we know it) with those trees and whatnot burning down a whole lot of life bringing carbon got back on the market, ready to be sequestered all over again.
And help move along some carbon credits to boot.
WELL…I think that Jo has got a grasp on approximately 25% of what is really going on. I have lived in ‘National Forest’ (California, USA) for over 2 decades, and there can be no doubt that suppression of natural fire has lead to many woes. HOWEVER, that is not what is happening the WUI (Wildland Urban Interface). And when one attends a few ‘community’ meetings on active fires, one can see (if one is paying attention) that the Agencies and the Corporations (sorry, are they separate?) the bald-faced lies that are being fed to the public. Shame. Shame. Shame. Weather-modified drought, chemical aerosols, DEWs, and many other factors MUST be considered when viewing (literally SEEING) this issue.