Climate change faithful are disregarding factual data

Chris Kenny blasts a hole through the portrayal of these bushfires as “unprecedented” (“Out of the bushfires and into the land management plans”, 18/1). The same advocates of climate change alarmism who are loudest in pushing scientific data to support their CO2 emission claims as the cause are deliberately ignoring the data of worse fire disasters down through history.

Ideological opportunism has its own morality when it suits to push a climate cause that has rapidly developed a mindset usually characteristic of fundamentalist sections of established traditional faiths.

Having long accused traditional faiths of ignoring secular science, these new climate change faithful are now disregarding historical factual data in favour of a blind climate fundamentalism that mimics the very behaviour that they condemn.

John Bell, Heidelberg Heights, Vic

I hope David Attenborough reads Chris Kenny’s article on Australian bushfires. He may then get a greater appreciation of the science of Australian bushfires. Armed with this insight he might then revise his recent statement, “the southeast of Australia is on fire” to just less than 10 per cent of NSW and Victoria has been burnt in the bushfires.

Mark Biss, Camberwell, Vic

There is little consolation after losing so much to be reminded that it is not a fair, rational world.

Natural disasters can cause us to lose confidence in ourselves, our jobs, homes and judgment. There is little reassurance in being reminded that a promise that grief offers is a return of happiness in time.

When our loves, dreams, possessions and places are replaced with loss, then courage is called for, then patience, then endurance. To bunker down in a cocoon that avoids physical or emotional pain, results in a bland and stunted existence.

Graeme Prosser, Shenton Park, WA

Climate change is well known as a risk multiplier for extreme weather, bushfires and drought. While the Prime Minister can’t be blamed for these fires, his demeanour and stance has made many Australian unable to recognise themselves.

We don’t want to be the people who were the last to act decisively in this defining human health issue, and nor do we buy the bogus binary prospect that the economy will tank if we lead in climate action. This smacks of vested interests.

The fires have woken many up to the harsh reality that is global climate change, and the PM should move with the facts rather than spin an outdated narrative.

Marianne Cannon, Brisbane, Qld

Those demanding action on climate change should read Denzil Bourne’s letter (20/1) quoting experts and pointing out that climate is a complex chaotic system influenced by many factors that can’t be controlled by humans. The main factors are the sun and the seas.

The brighter ones among them might then realise that concentrating on just one minor part of that complex system, CO2, is an expensive waste of time. They might also ask why the pre-industrial climate has become a benchmark when, with the same CO2 levels, Earth was warmer in the past and Canada was covered in ice 12,500 years ago.

We can’t control the climate, and if we could, there is no standard climate to aim for. The hand-wringers will have to find something else for which to blame the PM.

Doug Hurst, Chapman, ACT

Scott Morrison has several options available to reassert his authority and popularity with bushfire management, as Nick Cater outlines (“Time to come out of the wilderness and cut back the fuel”, 20/1).

He can tell state and territory governments that if they want to control future bushfires they will have to be realistic about hazard reduction and not be dictated to by Greens-controlled agencies and local councils.

While bushfire control measures are the financial responsibility of individual state and territories, the commonwealth would consider financial and material aid, as it is doing.

The PM should also be clear that his government will not be influenced by the mounting hysteria being fuelled by the Greens, Labor, climate activists and sections of the media, that the latest bushfires and floods being experienced in areas of the east coast, are the results of climate change.

Hugh Francis, Portland, Vic