Simpler Times

Jul. 28th, 2020 01:12 pm
waitingman: (Scream)
Remember back at the end of last year & the beginning of this year, when much of south-eastern Australia was on fire? Anyone??

Yes - before the Harry & Meghan Royal Family 'scandal', before Black Lives Matter (though they certainly did at the time... & always have), before Trump said... actually, he's said so many controversial & awful things, I can't remember which ones were said & done at the time... & before the Plague Pandemic

Now that the fires are out, there's a Royal Commission of Enquiry underway & the post-mortems of the blazes are being compiled... Our ABC has produced a report into the largest of the Summer fires - known as the Gospers Mountain fire, which burned over 1,000,000 hectares, destroyed over 100 houses & killed not only some of our firefighters, but god only knows how many animals

This report is essential reading... & viewing if you'd like to know how fires like this start & how difficult it was to fight it

This is also for all the armchair experts & climate-change sceptics who said the fires must have been deliberately lit... & for one guy who reckoned he was a lightning expert because he lives in Florida "the lightning capital of the world..." & assured me dry lightning doesn't exist
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Remember When...

Apr. 22nd, 2020 10:37 pm
waitingman: Cameras (Cameras)
... all Australia had to worry about was bushfires?



Simpler times...

(I found a photo embedding site that doesn't make the image quite as HUGE as the other one)

Continuing to catch up on my photo backlog, now my PC works again (Thanks John!). Taken somewhere near the border of New South Wales & Victoria in the Snowy Mountains, standing on a rock in the Snowy River. More like Smoky Mountains & River on that day... & for quite a few weeks afterwards. This was on the dirt road we found that threaded its way between 2 fire fronts, over the mountain range & into Jindabyne, south of Canberra. Within a week, there would have been no way through at all

Once the travel restrictions are lifted, I'd like to take Laura & L-SP along that road again... Not just for the scenery - which would be nice to actually see next time, but also for the adrenaline rush of the tight corners with perilous dropoffs on one side. I live for that kind of driving!!
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Look... Up In The Sky!!

Jan. 16th, 2020 08:40 am
waitingman: (Australia)
It's dark, it's grey... it's wet!!

It's raining!!

Of course, it rained on me catching public transport to work, but I'm quite happy regardless. I just hope it's raining in our depleted & fire-affected catchment areas & not just here on the coast, where I live & work. Sure, my garden will be grateful, but there are bigger issues at hand...

This being Australia, it can't be simple, good news. Heavy rain after severe bushfires brings a few problems with it - namely landslides & flooding, as there's now no vegetation in a lot of areas to anchor the soil & absorb the water, so what little topsoil there is, can easily be washed away &/or turn into mud that will travel unimpeded downhill towards whatever's in the way. And, come to think of it... a whole lot of ash & burned dirt winding up in our river system & dam catchments, doesn't make for a cool, refreshing drink... for human or animal alike

Still... it's raining & we can at least be grateful it will put a literal dampener on a few of the fires that have been burning since Winter... Can we have another 3-4 days of it, please?
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Over-Exposure?

Jan. 10th, 2020 08:53 am
waitingman: (Default)
Is it just me that finds it a bit depressing that the news Harry & Meghan have 'quit' the Royal Family, is apparently so important it's pushed the bushfire crisis off the front pages & news headlines?

I understand we're probably suffering from a bit of crisis fatigue & need a break from endless stories & photos of forests, homes & animals on fire, but I can't help feeling that this is the modern attention span in action - the fires have had their moment in the global consciousness, now onto the next thing... Pretty soon, a GoFundMe page will be set up for the ex-Royal couple, to raise money for them to get a house in Canada, because the poor dears are homeless...

Meanwhile, the mad weather continues down here. The south-east of the country is bracing for more hot, dry weather, while the north-west is under threat from cyclones!!

What next?!?!?!?
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Back To Regular Programming

Jan. 9th, 2020 10:06 am
waitingman: (Default)
With the book review out of the way... here is some good news:

Here Comes The Monsoon!. The weather pattern that has dried out Australia & made it nothing more than a fuel-supply kit for bushfires, has at last weakened & the Monsoon has started in our North... Hopefully this means some rain, or at least cooler, moist air will head down south where the fires are worst

And a response to Fake News:

An Experienced Firefighter Sets The Record Straight. I admit, I was one who thought the Greens were making hazard-reduction burns difficult, so I'm actually quite relieved to find that's not the case, given how much I support their ideals
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Need I Say More?

Jan. 7th, 2020 08:52 am
waitingman: (Australia)
Probably, but for now, I sometimes wish more people read my Journal... for all its rantings about global stupidity, interspersed with the occasional pretty picture (IMHO, anyway), I try to be at least factual, if not unbiased

So after my many posts about our current bushfires & the politics behind them - or the failure of politics behind them, you could be forgiven for thinking I'm a bit prejudiced against the current government & surely I'm overstating the case when I say it's full of coal-enriched, blinkered, greedy, fat shits...

Step forward, Craig Kelly MP... I'll hold your beer while you shoot yourself & your government in the foot... with an F88 automatic rifle

To have this ignoramus described on international television as a "senior Australian politician" is as laughable as it is, thankfully, inaccurate. The guy is not a Minister, thankfully, he's a back-bencher with no portfolio responsibility, thankfully. But he is, unfortunately, a member of the Liberal Party's right-wing faction & an enthusiastic spokesman (until the current PM tried to muzzle him - unsuccessfully, it turns out) on Sky News' evening smorgasbord of proto-fascists, for what's been called the Coal-ition - members of Parliament who are so pro-coal, they've been known to bring it into work with them, to spruik its merits. And yes - that's the current Prime Minister who actually did that... Craig Kelly is, unfortunately, also one of the movers & shakers in the back-room who brought down the last Prime Minister, because he didn't love coal enough

I don't often, in fact I pretty much never, find myself in agreement with Piers Morgan, but if even that idiot can see the connection between carbon emissions, climate change & the worst bushfires we've seen in Australia, then could he please emigrate & then run for office in Craig Kelly's electorate at the next election. Anything to get another one of those aforementioned blinkered fat shits out of office...
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(Probably Not) My Final Word...

Jan. 6th, 2020 10:08 am
waitingman: (Default)
... on the current fire emergency down here. I left a comment on somebody's Journal that was so long, apparently it got marked as spam, so may not get posted. In that case - here it is, in response to a post & many comments about the loss of our wildlife & the dismal state of our politicians - mostly the Federal ones, I must add... the State leaders have been doing a pretty good job with what they have

Greetings from a burning continent... davesmusictank reposted your entry, which brought me here - thanks Dave!

And yes - it's as bad as they say... Across 3 states, we've lost more livestock & wildlife than you can physically count. The worst affected is Kangaroo Island, off South Australia, where, due to its geographic isolation, unique species evolved & were always endangered, due to low numbers, but the fire which has wiped out 1/3 of the island's habitat, may have wiped out a few species as well. Until the fire is out, we can't even guess...

Koalas are the hardest hit, nationally. Again, their numbers have never been huge, so to lose what is conservatively estimated as half the national population, is a blow that will take generations to repair. The poor little guys aren't exactly built for speed at the best of times, so fires that have raced through at more than 60km/h meant they were doomed

I can't/won't defend our inept Federal Government full of coal-enriched climate change deniers, but the problem is certainly political as well as environmental. The Greens voted down a carbon emissions tax almost 10 years ago, that would have changed the way Australia managed its pollution & they did it for no good reason other than spite, because of in-fighting within the party & a beef with the then Labor Government. They also put pressure on State Governments every time a back-burning, or hazard reduction burn was scheduled, saying it was bad for the environment, which is one reason there's been so much material to burn in these fires. The fact there's been a Liberal Government in power since 2013, full of those aforementioned deniers, has only made both the political & natural landscapes even worse - their blinkered focus on the economy has alienated many other parties & has divided the country down a strict left vs right battle line, with the supposed 'left' being in favour of refugee rights, climate change action & better social policy & the 'right' being supporters of an ever-more intolerant & intransigent status quo that excludes migrants & thinks coal is the only power source on the planet. I'd like to say it's a generational thing & it's just the older people spouting that kind of bile, but there's a bunch of younger people listening... & believing them

The other reason nowhere near enough hazard clearance burning has been done, is the nation-wide drought we've had for years now. Plants & soil have become drier & therefore infinitely more combustible, so it's quite dangerous to even do small reduction burns, because of the risk it could become something much worse. This is actually how at least one of the fires recently started, when a back-burning operation was hit with a strong wind change & rapidly got out of control

If you want to blame anything, blame the Indian Ocean Dipole, a weather system that is causing flooding in Eastern Africa & drought in Australia - all the water is going to the wrong places! You can also blame the El Nino/La Nina weather systems in the South Pacific. These have both been causing problems for Australia for decades, but, it must be said, global warming has exacerbated their effects & there's no indication it's going to get any better...

Welcome to the new 'normal'. The world has changed & will keep changing. WE need to keep up!!

Again, I'd like to think I've now ranted enough, but I somehow doubt it. This crisis isn't over...
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The Problem With Our Prime Minister...

Jan. 3rd, 2020 09:40 am
waitingman: (Scream)
Can be explained by reading these 2 articles...

Our Current Climate Policy Will Protect You says PM

23 Fire Experts Snubbed By PM 6 Months Before Fire Disaster

Is it any wonder the insensitive, greedy, blinkered, fat shit was abused & virtually run out of town when he visited a fire-affected area yesterday?

His defence of a woefully inadequate climate policy is as incredible as his blinkered focus on getting the budget "back in the black", while presiding over a stagnant economy which every qualified expert is telling him needs infrastructure spending to get it going, but he just sits there, clutching at his balance sheet, squawking about how responsible economic management is all about clearing national debt at all costs & repairing the'damage' the Labor Party did when it was in power... 8 years ago... I think that paltry excuse for political point-scoring has reached its expiry date, Scott

And may I remind you, Scott, that's not your money you're sitting on... it's ours. Some of it even belongs to the experts you refuse to listen to. It's the height of arrogance to think that, just because you were Federal Treasurer for 5 minutes, you know better than people who have spent years... decades... both studying & working in both the national & global economies & are trying to HELP your sorry excuse of a government do the job we mistakenly elected you for...
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Won't Someone Think Of The...

Jan. 2nd, 2020 03:12 pm
waitingman: (Australia)
Animals... & their children


Is it inhuman(e) of me to not really be too heartbroken over the loss of human lives in this ongoing bushfire disaster, yet hearing about the deaths of millions of animals affects me deeply?

To clarify, I am certainly saddened by the human deaths - especially the firefighters who have been killed - but the human race is not endangered, or on the brink of extinction, unlike the koalas, flying foxes & countless other smaller animals, birds, lizards, frogs... that we were already World Leaders in eradicating from our country, even before it started to burn
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