Bushfires blind alarmists in media to climate reality

The misinformation about the recent bushfires was even worse than we thought.

Just over a week ago Fran Kelly said on Insiders “the fire warning had been increased to catastrophic for the first time ever in this country”.

And around the world CNN viewers saw Channel Nine’s Airlie Walsh declare it was the “first time in history that Sydney has even been met with such catastrophic conditions”. On news.com.au the headline screamed “Worst bushfire conditions ever seen”. And so it went across the media.

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The catastrophic or code red category was only introduced a decade ago. Previously such conditions were confronted many times but were covered by the “extreme” range. Still, in the decade the category has existed it has been invoked numerous times in Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and even parts of NSW, and was used again last week in SA and Victoria.

The only new aspect in the latest fires was the declaration of “catastrophic” for the first time in the greater Sydney area — not a first for those conditions, just in the 10 years of the category.

Fran Kelly.

Jane Caro. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Hysterical efforts to blame the fires on climate change continue, even though we have always faced this threat and always will. With warming, some areas face longer fire seasons and therefore confront a terrible annual threat for longer. There are many variables and the threat has always been dire; the only aspects we can control are fuel load and fire preparedness.

Tinder-dry conditions on the eastern seaboard this year are attributable to drought but as I have reported before, according to the head of the UNSW Centre for Climate Extremes, Professor Andy Pitman, there is insufficient evidence to directly link the drought to climate change. Much media ignores the history of worse conditions and fires, and the lack of long-term rainfall trends, and runs hard on climate causal links.

Even the smoke haze got them going. Commentator Jane Caro tweeted: “We really do seem to be fiddling while Australia burns … It’s not even summer.”

The smoke haze in Sydney is unbelievable this morning. We really do seem to be fiddling while Australia burns. Are there any leaders in either of our major parties prepared to speak out? Or will they be labelled ‘extremists’ or ‘tribalists’ for even noticing? It’s not even summer

— Jane Caro (@JaneCaro) November 20, 2019

Ten minutes of online research could have told her that in ­November 1951 the Goulburn Evening Post reported “haze from bushfires” closed all air traffic across Sydney. And in 1936, even earlier in the year, smoke from bushfires created drama on Sydney Harbour.

We live in an age of instant access to facts, yet they are ignored. Public debate seems to have forgotten the ills of socialism and the fall of the wall 30 years ago, so how do we expect it to consider bushfires and droughts in the 1960s, 1930s or 1890s? You sense that when this drought ends, as they almost invariably do, in flood, we can expect this too, to be hailed as evidence of increased climate extremes.

The essence of virtue-signalling is journalists and commentators running with rampant alarmism, without a thought about practical solutions. As usual there is a Seinfeld analogy: George screams “fire, fire, get out of the way” as he panics, knocks aside women and children, and escapes a kitchen fire at a kids’ party. “I was trying to lead the way,” he defends himself later.

It is the same with commentators who outdo each other with alarmist hyperbole but offer no sensible contribution to policy remedies. They kid themselves they are leading the way and pretend Australia can do the same.

Journalist Hugh Riminton. Picture: John Appleyard

We saw classic examples of this last week from Channel 10 journalist and presenter Hugh Riminton, whose twitter feed is so green-left he could get a gig at the ABC — oh, too late, he’s already hosting on Radio National. Riminton ranted about fires and climate in an online article and podcast last week. He noted scientific predictions of hotter, drier summers and extrapolated: “So no one who is intelligently engaged with reality could be surprised by what we’re seeing because it’s been properly predicted by sensible people.”

Fair enough. He might just as easily have said no one would be surprised by bushfires in an Australian fire season.

“What’s astonishing in Australia,” he goes on, “is the immaturity about this, and people on this network in the past (he means Andrew Bolt) have railed against the warmists and the alarmists and all this sort of stuff, and the catastrophists, for years and they’ve been part of a process that’s forbidden us from having the proper conversation we should have about this.”

Seriously? We haven’t had a proper conversation about global warming and climate policy in this country? Was Riminton not around for the 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016 or 2019 elections?

Still, enough of his catastrophising — what should we do?

“I think we need to be more serious about doing our bit for reducing the rate of climate warming around the world,” says Riminton, who apparently believes meeting our Paris commitments and cutting our emissions by more than 25 per cent is not enough. The trouble for Riminton and his fellow travellers is that global greenhouse emissions are rising by substantial amounts, about the total of Australia’s emissions each year.

So how can anyone benefit from the hefty cost he wants to impose on us? “There is no doubt that the total deindustrialisation of Australia won’t make any difference,” Riminton admits, which might cause him pause to think. But no.

Bushfires around Australia on Monday, November 25. Source: My FireWatch

“We didn’t beat the fascists in Europe on our own. We didn’t beat Japanese imperialism on our own. These were threats, real threats, that would have completely overwhelmed us if we were left on our own.” Oh dear.

Our climate is always changing. There is evidence it is currently warming. Human-induced emissions are likely contributing to that warming, perhaps most of it, according to the IPCC.

Whatever else is happening in our weather patterns, there is no chance in the medium term of human influences waning because emissions continue to rise substantially. Whatever action Australia takes will not change the weather, only make a proportionate gesture towards global action. In which case Paris must be more than enough.

As we know, in World War II Australia did its bit against a real and clear threat in concert with great and powerful allies. Everything we did added, in net terms, to the progress of our allies.

In the climate crusade Australia is doing more than its share against a largely unknown phenomenon which manifests in good as well as harm. Whatever we do is cancelled out many times over by the inaction of our supposed allies.

Australia’s climate response already ranks high globally and for now at least, is all cost and no benefit. But such realities don’t fit the panicked, catastrophist, virtue-signalling media mindset.