State-Of-Emergency ! Australia Burns !

A State-of-Emergency was called yesterday by the Premier of New South Wales, Barry O'Farrell as 65 Bush (forest) fires were still out of control across the state. There is a 300 km long front from Lithgow into the Blue Mountains threatening more hilltop towns. Already 210 homes have been destroyed with only 50% of the fire devastated areas assessed. The Australian Fire and Emergency Service says it is the worst Bush fire season since the 1960's. It seems  above-average rainfall of the preceding three years, which contradicted the diehard warmists predictions of permanent drought, caused a heavy grass fuel load throughout the grassland areas of the state, in conjunction with gale force winds, has allowed the scene to be set for a conflagration.

Flap, flap, flap. See the global warming vultures over the NSW fires, searching for a feed. The biggest is ratbag deputy Greens leader, Adam Bandt, who at the height of the fires on Friday urged us to read his latest green sermon. Showing a picture of the smoke haze over Sydney and linking to his article in the far-Left Guardian, he tweeted: ''Why Tony Abbott's plan means more bushfires for Australia and more pictures like this of Sydney.'' Click his link and you find Bandt claiming that ''by repealing the carbon tax, Tony Abbott is failing to protect his people.'' Worse, even, Bandt claims Abbott, the volunteer firefighter, is actually starting fires: ''Donning a volunteer firefighter uniform for the media is a con if you're also helping start fires that put people's lives in danger.'' says Bandt, who never fought a fire in his life.

Adam Bandt is not just an alarmist but a hypocrite, having three years ago preached that ''trying to turn a tragedy so quickly into some kind of perceived political advantage was outrageous.'' He is also deceptive, given that the cause of the fires ferocity, as I mentioned, is not global warming, but the heavy rains promoting a huge growth of grasses. The must bear the distinct burden of culpability in this ongoing tragedy with their constant refusal to allow state governments to carry on with yearly back-burning the undergrowth in state forests.

Another warmist vulture flaps around the terrible NSW fires. It's tragic that the global warmists clinging to their shredded beliefs have now become the ''deniers''. John Conner, the CEO of the Climate Institute, who should know better by now, writes,  It's time to up to real and growing climate change risks and impacts, such as the growing severity and frequency of our bushfires. Our national, state and individual interests depend on better preparation for growing climate change risks which threaten personal health and safety as well as economic stability and our fragile environment.''  (sic!)

Peter  FitzSimons

And here's an unexpected warmist that's come out of the closet; Sydney Morning Herald columnist, historian and general wiseass Peter FitzSimons (photo right) putting his inappropriate comments on Twitter. ''All strength to the firefighters. And who should be ''repenting''? The Prime Minister!  Broadly, the increase in cyclones, bushfires, droughts, floods, the lot, is entirely consistent with the model of Climate Change.''  Oh Peter, you are so delusional! The obvious points are that global temperatures have been flat for 15+ years, that Australian policies would make no difference to them, that the NSW fires are just like the ones we've had so often. The claims that FitzSimons makes turn out to be false. More Cyclones?  NO.  More bushfires? In fact the deadliest bushfires in NSW all occurred decades ago. More Droughts? NO (says latest IPCC report). More Floods? Little evidence (IPCC says again), ''The lot''? Again, the IPCC can't find it.

The Way I See It.....fossil evidence suggests that fire was a part of the Australian landscape long before the existence of human beings. It appears that, with the arrival of humans over 50,000 years ago the frequency of fire may have increased. Aboriginal people used fire skilfully....to encourage grassland development in some areas and also increase the abundance of plant foods and animals. With the arrival of Europeans the fire regimes changed. Fires are now less frequent, but when they do occur the are more intense and often cause a lot of damage as more people love to live in heavily wooded neighbourhoods.

Today, Australia's emissions are 1.5% of the global total. If we reduced that to zero overnight, it would make no difference at all to the climate. As it is, we are only planning to reduce by 5% by 2020, or in other words, 0.075% of global emissions, when the major emitters are doing close to nothing by comparison. And ''Watermelon'' Bandt thinks that will make a difference to bushfire frequency or intensity? Idiotic statements like this will ensure the Greens are consigned to the sewer of Australian political history.