Liberal Senator Christopher Back was CEO of the Bush Fires Board of Western Australia and says bushfires are best prevented not with a carbon tax but a fuel-reduction burn: Long-experienced forestry managers would regard 5 to 8 tonnes/hectare of flammable fuel as the upper, safe limit to send in crews to suppress fires. In the Black Saturday fires of 2009 in Victoria, fuel loadings of 50 to 80 tonnes per hectare and even higher were recorded – up to ten times the recommended load. It will be interesting to learn what they were in the Blue Mountains… Green groups and others opposing fuel reduction strategies need to reflect on the perverse impact of their position and the influence they have had on governments’ policies in recent years. Their efforts to ‘save the environment’ have resulted in the decimation of this very asset… The 2013 fires could contribute more than a third of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions this year… In eucalypt dominated bush, management of the South West Australian forests is the international benchmark for control of fuel loadings… In WA, the aim is to cool burn around 10% of the jarrah forests annually. In many Eastern Australian forests it is estimated the figure achieved is around 2% or less. It is simply not enough. But here is what happened to top bushfire researcher David Packham when he tried to say this to the ABC’s 7:30: Bushfire expert David Packham tried to tell 7.30 we had to burn our bush every 10 years to cut the leaf litter that turns our fires into infernos, a level of burning NSW doesn’t come close to reaching. But after just 69 words, 7.30 handed back his microphone to chatterers whose living depends on the warming scare - two green activists and a scientist from Climate System Science. Packham has told me what actually happened: Briefly, at 7.30 request I came into Melbourne a three hour drive and spent 50 minutes with the 7.30 folk. I estimate about 35 minutes was in interview. I was asked to confirm that the fires in NSW were unprecedented in being so early in the season. I said no, they were not and offered information from Luke and Mc Arthur “Bushfires in Australia -1976” (Aust Govt Publishing Service) which was not accepted. When the question was put as to the role of global warming, again I said “not involved”. That was not an acceptable answer and it was clear that it did not fit with the predetermined agenda. My sadness at the termination of my life-long love of the ABC because of this very unethical journalism - at least of the news division - is not only sadness but also a touch of fear for our democracy.
Posted on: Sat, 26 Oct 2013 01:16:28 +0000
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