** the climate change thread, fires in Australia **

[iandriver]

I cycled Pisa to Rome last year. 300 odd miles and 4 long hilly days. Difference in flight time was about 20 minutes.

[Mike Sales]

W
Still I saw this image online last winter(or was it the one before!) taken by a passenger on route to Dublin.
N Wales under snow with the Great Orme prominently jutting out into the sea.
I have been on practically all of the summits pictured over many years and had actually cycled around the Orme (unusually snowy) in the days before.
So I was taken by the new perspective!image.jpg

Thanks for the picture. I know those peaks well, in all seasons. It is interesting to see them from above, but frustrating too. So much better to know them intimately.
I've cycled all the roads too. Never the Orme under snow, which must be very rare.
I miss Eryri.
My few photos are really only prompts for my many memories.

[pete75]

^^



For all it's faults and sins the modern airliner is a technological wonder on many levels.

I guess it is: I wish it was impossible!
On a school trip we went to Heathrow to gaze at the planes from the viewing gallery. Even then they left me cold.
I was once outside an airport, at the end of the runway, under the taking off planes. It was quite a sight to see the great things defying gravity, but what chiefly hit me was the appalling noise.

Annual Lincolnshire school's trip to London? I can remember us being bussed to Deeping St Nick station to get the special train one year but after that we always got on it at Peterborough. We went to Heathrow one year. Best one I can remember was a boat trip along the Thames.

[Mike Sales]

Annual Lincolnshire school's trip to London? I can remember us being bussed to Deeping St Nick station to get the special train one year but after that we always got on it at Peterborough. We went to Heathrow one year. Best one I can remember was a boat trip along the Thames.

My memory tells me we got on the train in Spalding, and I thought it was just SGS, but I was only eleven. The Planetarium is a strong memory. More than fifty years ago. How did that happen?

[pete75]

Annual Lincolnshire school's trip to London? I can remember us being bussed to Deeping St Nick station to get the special train one year but after that we always got on it at Peterborough. We went to Heathrow one year. Best one I can remember was a boat trip along the Thames.

My memory tells me we got on the train in Spalding, and I thought it was just SGS, but I was only eleven. The Planetarium is a strong memory. More than fifty years ago. How did that happen?

We only went on annual London trip at primary school.
BGS did trips to places like Wimbledon. 15 shillings all in for bus and Wimbledon ticket.

[Mike_Ayling]

Responding to a PM from Cyril Haearn:
Hello Mike
I started 'the climate change thread' to talk about bush fires and the like
The Guardian has quite a lot of coverage but one knows that Australia is huge, are the fires actually quite small in comparison?

Well yes but they have done AUD millions in damage,in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and also Western Australia. Drought/lack of rain has not helped but this is a two edged sword as good rain provides a lot of growth in the bush providing fuel for the next years fire season.It is peak holiday season in Australia and eastern Victoria going into New South Wales coastal towns are ghost towns. People losing their homes and incomes. Huge wild life losses but human losses are quite small compared to previous bad fires as people are being told to evacuate much earlier than last time. It may not be over yet as there is still a lot of fire prone areas all over Australia not yet affected.
Stock losses of sheep and cattle are high and we noticed that our Aldi 170 gramme steaks which used to cost AUD $5 has now jumped to AUD $6 each.I am expecting milk shortages

I read that the smoke reached NZ, Japan, went round the world

What is public opinion, are people wanting change?

[b]Yes, the usual Left/Right dichotomy The right wing who are in Government are quit happy to continue exporting coal for China, India etc to burn. Everybody is still boarding aircraft for their overseas holidays and due to the inadequate public transport, particularly in rural areas there a heap of motor ve-hicles around burning fossil fuels.Meanwhile the Green influenced local authorities bear some share of the blame for their policies against tree and undergrowth removal.

My personal opinion is that there is also a cyclic element to the climate change - This from Wikipedia for example -Marble Bar has a hot desert climate (Köppen BWh) with sweltering summers and warm winters. Most of the annual rainfall occurs in the summer. The town set a world record of most consecutive days of 100 °F (37.8 °C) or above, during a period of 160 days from 31 October 1923 to 7 April 1924. That was nearly 100 years ago, folks

Would be great if you could post some info on the thread mentioned


Thanks very much
Br
Bp

[661-Pete]

Today's news: cutting air passenger duty in an attempt to bail out the airline Flybe.

A pretty short-sighted and retrograde step, if you ask me. Where have the disincentives to flying - the Flygskam as it's called in Sweden - gone to now? If domestic flying becomes scarcer and less affordable, there's always the train: which we should be making more affordable.

[Oldjohnw]

Today's news: cutting air passenger duty in an attempt to bail out the airline Flybe.

A pretty short-sighted and retrograde step, if you ask me. Where have the disincentives to flying - the Flygskam as it's called in Sweden - gone to now? If domestic flying becomes scarcer and less affordable, there's always the train: which we should be making more affordable.

Seems the government simply does not understand their own committment to zero carbon.

I also see that following a poor quarter the Government wants to stimulate growth. Historically normal but continual growth means people buying more and more stuff. He economic model has miserably failed.

[roubaixtuesday]

Today's news: cutting air passenger duty in an attempt to bail out the airline Flybe.

A pretty short-sighted and retrograde step, if you ask me. Where have the disincentives to flying - the Flygskam as it's called in Sweden - gone to now? If domestic flying becomes scarcer and less affordable, there's always the train: which we should be making more affordable.

Seems the government simply does not understand their own committment to zero carbon.

I also see that following a poor quarter the Government wants to stimulate growth. Historically normal but continual growth means people buying more and more stuff. He economic model has miserably failed.

UK government policy has been absolutely consistent for a couple of decades:

Make grandiose long term commitments to carbon reduction whilst implementing expedient short term policy which is in direct contradiction of those commitments.

[Vorpal]

The aboriginal folk in Australia have been saying for a very long time that the bush is mismanaged. In areas where aboriginal 'cultural' burning has been incorporated into land management, they have fared better in the current fire season. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-51043828

[Hobbs1951]

Whilst not trying to deviate from the thread topic, do you appreciate that for example, in NSW and Victoria over 3 million hectares (of land) is owned by foreigners ?

One of leading foreign interests is China, it is estimated that China owns over 3 million hectares of agricultural land; including one of the largest cattle stations in the country.

Australia's largest coal mining company BHP, is 50% owned by Mitsubishi. Asia is the biggest consumer of Australian coal (Japan, China, Korea - in that order...India to a lesser extent but still 14% of Australia's exported coal).

John.

[Cyril Haearn]

So the Australian government is beholden to foreign countries and businesses?
It is a queer business, an 'advanced' country exporting raw materials to 'less-developed' countries

The First Nations thrived for 40 000 years, scattered groups developed quite seperately, not so many people

Then the whitepersons took over, introduced intensive livestock rearing, brought alien animals that killed native species (we know about that already)

[Mike Sales]

Item on Today this morning.
An airline which runs services to the SW of England is going bust and so argues that Air Passenger Duty should be forgone to keep their planes flying!
This is a microcosm of the problem. Superficially good local reasons to encourage air miles to help an economically backward area, but if we do not cut fossil fuel use our world economy is done for, to say the least.

[Hobbs1951]

Whilst not trying to deviate from the thread topic, do you appreciate that for example, in NSW and Victoria over 3 million hectares (of land) is owned by foreigners ?

One of leading foreign interests is China, it is estimated that China owns over 3 million hectares of agricultural land; including one of the largest cattle stations in the country.

Australia's largest coal mining company BHP, is 50% owned by Mitsubishi. Asia is the biggest consumer of Australian coal (Japan, China, Korea - in that order...India to a lesser extent but still 14% of Australia's exported coal).

John.

I meant to add that one Australian corporation is the world's 19th largest corporate polluter.

John

[Mike Sales]

When my family lived on an island in the Bass Strait, my father, a teacher, so a government representative, had to take on some other posts. One was the job of fighting bush fires.
I remember that he did have to put one out. I wonder how the island is faring now. Tassie, to the south, and Kangaroo Island, to the north, have been burning.