False alarm: the great rainforest fire that wasn’t

A frightening image. Pristine rainforest that has not burned for millions of years is ablaze as bushfires of unprecedented intensity roar through the hinterland of southeast Queensland. It’s difficult to imagine a more graphic illustration of the consequences of ­climate change. That is what was widely portrayed during the ­region’s fire emergency earlier this month. The only problem is, it didn’t happen.

The destruction of ancient World Heritage-listed Gondwana subtropical and temperate rainforests by fire was reported unequivocally as fact. Guardian Australia proclaimed in a headline: “Like nothing we’ve seen: Queensland bushfires tear through rainforest.” The landscape of Lamington National Park surrounding the historic Binna Burra Lodge, which was destroyed in the fires, was “blackened remnants of what used to be lush rainforest”, reported the Australian Associated Press in a story carried by many news outlets.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is working on its sixth assessment report. Australian climate scientist Joelle Gergis, a lead author of the report, declared: “What I find particularly disturbing is that World Heritage rainforest is burning. It has been hard to watch news coverage of these exceptionally rare rainforests burning … the potential loss of these areas is something I never thought I would witness in my lifetime.”

Social media lit up with expressions of despair about the rainforest losses. Typical of the angst was a tweet insisting that any journalist interviewing the Prime Minister who failed to question the climate implications of Queensland rainforests burning “isn’t doing their f..king job”.

But the Gondwana rainforests, those priceless relics of times long gone, did not burn. No news coverage showed rainforest burning. The 20,600ha Lamington ­National Park in Queensland and the adjoining 31,700ha Border Ranges National Park in NSW ­encompass the largest expanse of subtropical rainforest in the world. As on countless occasions over the centuries, fire raging in surrounding eucalypt woodland did not ­destroy the rainforest.

To be sure, bushfires of such ­intensity in the region are unusual, especially in early spring; 16 homes were lost in southern Queensland. Unlike southeast Australia with its hot and dry summers, the subtropics are usually ­afforded a degree of protection by high humidity, an absence of prolonged periods of scorching temperatures, and generous rainfall which — as in much of the country — has been in short supply lately.

Binna Burra Lodge is not encircled by rainforest, as was claimed repeatedly. The lodge is surrounded on three sides by eucalypt woodland; it came close to being lost when a control burn 20 years ago got away. This time, ­explains Binna Burra chairman Steven ­Noakes: “The fire went tearing up a steep slope through eucalypt woodland and we’re perched on a ridge at the top. With those winds there was nothing we could do.”

A camping ground and teahouse that adjoin rainforest survived the inferno; flames did not extend beyond the lodge into rainforest. A few kilometres across Lamington National Park from Binna Burra, O’Reilly’s Rainforest ­Retreat was evacuated during the fire emergency. Unlike Binna Burra, O’Reilly’s is surrounded entirely by rainforest. O’Reilly’s manager, Shane O’Reilly, says there was no need for evacuation; the nearest fires were 15km away: “The rainforest here doesn’t burn. It was pretty much eucalypt country that burned … There’s a lot of emotion surrounding this.

“A story is being propagated that it’s more of an issue about rainforest than it is.”

O’Reilly adds that an international scientific symposium at the lodge in 2011 heard the rainforest had not burned for at least three million years.

Patrick Norman, a Griffith University PhD student and former Lamington park ranger, has analysed satellite data from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite over burnt forest. The images indicate about 400ha of rainforest burned, but this was primarily dry rainforest at lower altitudes known as vine scrub. Burned areas also included wet sclerophyll, a forest type comprised of tall eucalypts with some rainforest plants.

“Drawing a line between rainforest and wet sclerophyll is a tricky task,’’ Norman says. “By and large, the rainforest that burned was on the drier end of the spectrum. I am quite confident no warm or cool temperate rainforest was burned.” The affected dry rainforest mostly burned lightly, with the ground layer impacted. Norman cautions that if the forests burn again in the foreseeable future there could be more serious impacts.

Kaye Healing, the Queensland Rural Fire Service acting southeast regional manager, played a central role in fighting the fires, which continue to smoulder. Healing says while fires “burn crazily” through eucalypt woodland, they tend to “walk through” vine scrub and wet sclerophyll forest. “When it gets to true rainforest, the fire self-extinguishes,’’ he says. “You’ve got a closed canopy in true rainforest and it holds moisture. The rainforest is not on fire. The fire is in dry eucalypt forest and woodland.”

Healing says similar conditions were experienced before, for ­instance in the early 1990s: “I’m not going to get into a climate-change conversation but climate varies between floods and drought in this country and historical records show that.”

Claims about Australian rainforest burning for the first time also circulated late last year when 121,000ha of land around Eungella National Park near Mackay were scorched. At the time, the ABC published a photograph of a fire-stricken area; the caption said it had been a “rich green subtropical rainforest”. Although it was pointed out that the area had been grassland and shrubs, the captioned photograph remains on ABC websites.

The ABC reported that Eungella rainforests were reduced to cinders and would take hundreds of years to recover. Rural Fire Service manager for the Mackay ­region Andrew Houley, a former forester, says rainforest that burned around Eungella was largely regrowth on cleared land. Recent images show tree ferns and some other rainforest plants regrowing. However, the heat was so intense that 10m-15m of the edge of pristine rainforest in places was destroyed before the fires stopped. Houley adds: “Headlines say the fires are once in a lifetime but these weather patterns affect us every 25 years or so.”

A crisis facing rainforest is under way not in Australia but in Southeast Asia, the Amazon Basin and central Africa. Huge tracts of forest are being intensively logged or bulldozed for livestock or crops. Extensively damaged rainforest remnants and felled trees are then burned. In some countries, such as Indonesia, sound environmental laws are in place but are largely unenforced or ignored. In others, such as Brazil, governments are unapologetically pursuing polices to develop rainforest. Australia is fortunate its World Heritage rainforests are standing tall.

SOURCE  






Revealed: The thousands of jobs young Australians don't want because of 'snobbery' as the government encourage school leavers to take up trades

An increasing number of young Australians are turning their nose up at thousands of well-paying blue collar jobs because of 'job snobbery'.

The federal government is encouraging students to drop out of school in year 10 and take up a trade instead of going to university.

Nearly 290,000 Australians started apprenticeships in 2008, but just a decade on only 156,000 people took up a trade in 2018.

Employment Minister Michaelia Cash is encouraging students to leave school in year 10, and said they could be better off than those who opt to finish school and go to university.

Senator Cash said she wants any negative stigma around blue collar jobs to be eradicated and thinks apprentices should be proud of being a tradie. 

But Labor is encouraging students to stay in school. 'You've got a much better chance of getting a job if you finish school than if you don't finish school,' Shadow Education and Training Minister Tanya Plibersek told 7 News.

More than half of the government's list of the highest earning careers are jobs from vocational training and not university degrees.

Construction managers can earn as much as $3,500 per week ($182,000 a year).

SOURCE  





Same-sex unions divide what used to be the Methodist church

Uniting Church ministers who ­oppose same-sex marriage say they are being “pushed, harassed and bullied” out of the church by progressives at the helm of Australia’s third-largest denomination.

The Reverend Lu Senituli, minister of the Assembly of Confessing Congregations of the Uniting Church Sunnybank on Brisbane’s south side, said a fissure in the church was widening between large conservative congregations such as his mostly Tongan church, and inner-city churches and leadership “who want to drive us out to make way for the new church”.

Mr Senituli said the issue had come to a head since the “yes” vote in the national plebiscite on same-sex marriage. “They are using church procedures and withholding of funding and all sorts of tactics to get us to toe the line,” he said. “I have people sitting in my congregation taking notes so they can report on me to the church and have disciplinary measures enacted against me.”

However, the Uniting Church says ministers have freedom to refuse to conduct same-sex mar­riages and can continue to teach their belief that marriage may only be between a man and a woman.

Mr Senituli’s church is a member of a breakaway body in the Uniting Church established in 2004 called the Assembly of Confessing Congregations, set up for congregations that reject the progressive line on accepting gay ­clergy and same-sex marriage.

“The church now has two faith statements, or integrities on marriage,” Mr Senituli said. “One is that marriage is between a man and a woman, as according to holy scripture. But the second integrity is the covenant of love between two persons, regardless of sex.

“In practice it’s impossible to live our faith under these two integ­rities as they are contradictory. When a minister makes a statement to a presbytery to say we will not celebrate same-sex marriage, from that point the presbyteries, the regional body, begin to put the pressure on in every way.

“They start turning off the funding tap if you don’t toe the line. Life becomes extremely difficult. Regional bodies are working in collusion with liberals in congregations who find orthodox preaching offensive.

“I was removed from the nat­ional body on doctrine because my views didn’t represent the diversity of the Uniting Church. But I represent a thriving church with hundreds of members who hold traditional, scriptural views and my church has six services every Sunday.”

The president of the Uniting Church, Deirdre Palmer, was unavailable for comment, but a spokesman for the Uniting Church in Australia Assembly and the Synod of Queensland said ministers and celebrants authorised by the Uniting Church had the freedom to conduct or to refuse to conduct same-gender marriages.

“They can continue to teach their belief that marriage may only be between a man and a woman, and can continue to use a marriage liturgy that reflects that conviction,” the spokesman said.

“At the same time, we expect all our members to respectfully engage with those who may hold different biblical and theological views to their own, and to show respect to LGBTIQ Uniting Church members, who are full members, exercising a variety of ministries, both ordained and lay within and through the life of the Uniting Church.

“All parts of the church are accountable to our governance and regulations and when matters of concern arise in particular congregations, the Uniting Church has systems in place to manage those concerns.

“The matters raised with The Australian are known to the Uniting Church and are being addressed through appropriate processes, with ongoing consultation and support provided to the congregations. They are entirely un­related to the minister’s or the congregation’s Christian understanding of marriage.”

Mr Senituli’s church adopted its current name last month, changing its signage from Sunny­bank Uniting Church in defiance of church leadership to make clear its opposition to same-sex marriage and as a protest against allegedly being bullied on the issue.

The national chairman of the Assembly of Confessing Congregations, Hedley Fihaki, backed Mr Senituli’s claims, saying about 150 of the Uniting Church’s 800 congregations were ACC members.

He said ACC assemblies that had changed signs and logos to distinguish themselves from progressive congregations had received letters warning them they would no longer be under the protection of the church for issues such as insurance.

“The Uniting Church doesn’t see the dilemma we are in. The push to embrace diversity is an oxymoron, the two statements on marriage — you can’t have these two doctrines co-­existing together, in our opinion,” Dr Fihaki said.

“The Bible is very clear on this. Assembly doesn’t get why we can’t exist in this diversity framework. They are forcing us to accept it, but we can’t.”

SOURCE  






   
‘Lucky escape’: 39 vegan activists ordered to pay $100 to charity for protest which shut down CBD

A group of animal rights protesters who brought Melbourne’s CBD to a halt have escaped criminal conviction.

The 39 vegan protesters chained themselves to three vehicles to block the intersection of Flinders and Swanston streets for four hours in April.

The group caused chaos, blocking Melbourne’s busiest tram corridor throughout the morning peak, at the same time as bus replacement services were running on several train lines.

The Vegan Rising activists appeared at the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court this morning, pleading guilty to charges of obstruction.

They have each been ordered to pay $100 to an animal rescue sanctuary, Edgar’s Mission.

The group have also received three-month good behaviour bonds.

Seven News court reporter Sharnelle Vella said it was a light punishment. “They’ve had a lucky escape, that’s despite the Prime Minister at the time saying they should face the full force of the law,” she told 3AW’s Tom Elliott.

Outside court the protesters failed to apologise for disrupting the city.

Vegan Rising Campaign Director Kristen Leigh said the protest had the desired effect. “We are trying to get people to watch the documentary film Dominion, which exposes the reality of what millions of animals suffer in this country,” she told Tom Elliott. “We really wanted to draw attention to that film, and our actions did, thankfully. We had about 50,000+ people watch the film after that.”

The animal rights group refused to say if they had any future protests planned.

SOURCE 

 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here

Labor ‘dragging heels’ in drought efforts

The Labor party is in the grip of the Greenies, who hate dams.  But building more dams is the only way to cope with drought

Deputy Nationals leader Bridget McKenzie has lashed the Labor state governments of Queensland and Victoria for “dragging their heels” when it comes to building new dams.

Senator McKenzie told Sky News on Sunday the lack of co-operation between the Federal government and their state counterparts meant “drought busting” infrastructure was being prevented from “getting off the ground.”

“This is one of the most frustrating topics I think as a National Party MP and somebody that cares about rural and regional Australia,” she said. “We’re a government that has been able to manage the economy well enough we’ve got money on the table to build infrastructure … that helps us to be able to droughtproof for the next time.”

“The reality is the Commonwealth government can’t just roll in with our diggers and graders and roll into a state and start digging,” Senator McKenzie said. “We have to have a partner in this in state because the sovereignty of states to actually build the things the money’s on the table.”

As revealed by The Australian, the Victorian government has ruled out building any new dams, saying climate change will mean not enough water will flow into them to make them worthwhile.

“At the end of the day if you’ve got Lisa Neville here in Victoria saying no more dams despite the CSIRO saying we should get on with it and you’ve got [Anastasia] Palaszczuk up in Queensland dragging her heels on Rookwood and other drought-busting infrastructure and you get NSW finally coming to the table today with $84 million dollars, which is fantastic news, the reality is we’ve been here this whole time waiting.”

Senator McKenzie also announced the Farm Household Allowance would be extended and made available to farmers for four years every decade instead of once over the lifetime of a farmer.

“Right now farm household allowance you’re only able to access for four years in your entire lifetime as a farmer, which is just ridiculous,” she said. “In this country every two decades we’re going through a period of significant hardship, as we are now, so we’ve made a change now that every decade, farmers will be able to access this payment for up to four years.”

It comes as Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced an additional $100 million in drought relief funding.

Of this, more than $50 million will be put towards expanding and simplifying the Farm Household Allowance, a payment for farmers struggling to pay bills. The latest package comes on top of the $7 billion set aside in drought relief funding.

Senator McKenzie said the subsidy program wouldn’t affect Australia’s free trade agreements.

“This is this is not an American or US-style farm bill subsidy program at all and as an exporter that exports 70 per cent of what we produce we don’t want to be doing anything here at home that puts us at risk our ability to trade.”

SOURCE  






Scott Morrison is flying to the Queensland Outback today to help drought-stricken farmers. The Prime Minister, who has been criticised for not doing enough for rural communities, will announce $100million in aid.

The money will go to 13 local government areas to help farmers pay for food, water and fuel and have access to counselling.

Mr Morrison will land in Sydney after his state visit to the US and will immediately take a flight to Dalby in south Queensland.  He said: 'We know we can't make it rain, but we must keep finding ways to do everything we can to make life just a bit easier and remove some of the burden.'

Earlier this month Labor agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon said Mr Morrison was doing too little for drought-affected farmers.

'The farmers have become Scott Morrison's forgotten people,' he said. 'No real action on his part despite the fact that it's very, very clear based on all the advice that this thing is not going to get better any time soon.'

On the Today Show on Friday morning Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton defended the Prime Minister. 'This is not our first trip out. This money builds on a mountain of support that is already there,' he said.

Labor frontbencher Chris Bowen said his party would look at the proposals but said 'we doubt they will be enough after years of inaction'.

It comes after farmers slammed Mr Morrison for plegding $150million to support a NASA mission to Mars.

Amanda Bolton, who runs Birkwood Farm in the Queensland town of Mutdapilly, posted a photo to Facebook of her dried-up dam. 'The Australian Prime Minister has just announced that the Australian government will be contributing 150 MILLION dollars to the upcoming Mars missions,' she wrote.

'150 MILLION dollars is a lot of money that could buy some pretty cool stuff. 7.5 million small square bales of hay, roughly 880,000 large round bales, 7.5 million bags of basic stock pellets, roughly 30 BILLION litres of water from our local council water collection station.

'Worst drought in recorded history, a number of regional towns will run out of water within weeks, record bushfire season, record dust storm activity etc... This country is desperate. 'But yeah, sure, the Moon is fun too, I guess.'

The deal between the Australian Space Agency and NASA was announced in Washington DC on Saturday.

Ms Bolton's confronting post has been shared more than 50,000 times with thousands of Australians slamming Morrison for turning his back on battling farmers. 'Scott Morrison, please pay attention, stop rubbing up to that Trump moron and look after our farmers. They die, we die,' one person wrote.

'Too busy making himself look good on the World Stage while a major portion of his own country is if not dead its dieing! (sic),' read another comment.

Australia is currently on the grips of the most severe drought on record.

SOURCE  







Do sharks have a right to eat us?

That seems to be the Queensland Labor government's position

FOR almost 60 years, the State Government's shark control program has been making Queensland beaches safer. The program has been one of very few public policies to have endured for such a time while remaining blessedly free from the foibles of partisan politics.

The reason for this has been simple. Who would dare argue with the results? From 1915 to 1962 there were 36 recorded cases of shark attacks in Queensland. These resulted in 19 deaths. But since the dragnet of baited drumlines was introduced in 1962, there's been only one fatal shark attack at a protected Queensland beach.

Little wonder the program has been gradually expanded. However, the program finally found a naysayer in the shape of fringe environmental group, the Humane Society. And inexplicably, the Federal Court has agreed with the group's view that the drumlines do little to protect swimmers.

How the court came to such a view simply beggars belief. Surely, they only had to look at the statistics of recent attacks in northern NSW where there are no permanent drumlines to realise how effective the Queensland program is? What was required here was a bipartisan approach and a plan to ensure swimmers were protected

The court's decision was clearly out of step with public sentiment and requires the politicians who've supported the program to fix it. Given the long history of bipartisan support, not to mention the implications for. Queensland's tourism industry, you'd like to think it would be a relatively quick fix.

However, what has ensued instead has been an unedifying display of pointless political point scoring that has done nothing but advertise to the world that some of the Sunshine State's most famous northern beaches are less safe now than they were a few weeks ago.

Much of the controversy has centred around the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries' decision to remove 160 drumlines from within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. The court's decision only related to the marine park zone and that's why the department only removed drumlines in this area.

Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley has been particularly vocal. She's accused the Palaszczuk Government of choosing "public alarm over personal safety" by removing the drumlines when the court only said caught sharks should not be killed.

"Queensland should reinstate the existing drum lines, while increasing surveillance and exploring modern complementary technologies such as drones, smart drum lines and tags," she said.

There's ample reason for Ley to be sceptical about the Palaszczuk Government's motives in ordering the removal of the drumlines within hours of the court ruling. After all, the administration isn't exactly known for doing anything at pace.

And the States handling of last year's Cid Harbour shark attacks —when it first said drumlines were the answer but then recanted and claimed all it could do was erect signs instead — hardly inspired confidence.

However, what on Earth is Ley suggesting when she says the State Government should just drop the drumlines back in and increase surveillance? Is she saying to hell with what the court has ordered? Or does Ley reckon fisheries officers should just harden up and start arming themselves with a decent set of pliers so they can simply release the sharks?

It might be news to the minister but these officers are dealing with marine life a bit bigger than the cod they catch in the Murray River in her electorate. In fact, cutting a cranky 4m tiger shark loose from a hook is nearly as dangerous as getting between Ley and a bargain Gold Coast apartment buy, something she's somewhat famed for.

Yet, while Ley is happily ordering fisheries officers back into the water, the Morrison Government hasn't come up with a timeline for a legislative fix to what the court has ordered.

The LNP Opposition might be right when they say SMART drumlines, where sharks are caught and released,should be considered as temporary solution. However, it would take time to train officers and whether that's worthwhile depends primarily on how long it's going to take their federal colleagues to come up with a legislative answer.

Dropping in new drumlines at 17 locations just outside the marine park was a prudent move by the State but that still leaves 27 beaches no longer with protection.

However, what wasn't needed was State Fisheries Minister Mark Furner's ham-fisted suggestion that Ley would be blamed if there was an attack.

While the politicians squabble, the reputation of Queensland beaches is taking a further battering, the last thing the tourism industry needs after those terrible Cid Harbour attacks.

From the start, what was required here was a bipartisan approach and a plan to ensure swimmers were protected by drumlines again as soon as practical. Instead what happened was the political sharks began circling as soon as they saw an opportunity for a cheap feed.

"Courier Mail" 27 Sept. 2019






Queensland Public Hospitals still missing targets as delays blow out

QUEENSLAND hospitals, are failing to meet their own benchniarks to see emergency patients in time and have abandoned elective surgery targets they can't reach.

The Courier-Mail can reveal that not one hospital and health service (HHS) saw all of its sickest patients within recommended times, with hospitals south of Brisbane and on the Gold Coast performing the worst

While most came close to seeing the most critical patients within two minutes, many wait times blew past the 10-minute and 30-minute markers for those with conditions "imminently" or "potentially" life-threatening.

Only three of the state's 15 HHS met the previous 25-day target for elective surgery waits used in 2017-18. The target is now missing from the 2018-19 annual reports released yesterday.

The results come amid presare on Health Minister Steven Miles to fix blown-out wait times, ambulance ramping and IT bungles relating to the integrated electronic medical record system (ieMR) and ordering system.

The worst elective surgery results were in regional areas, with Central Queensland and Central West recording the longest wait of 59 days. Patients in the. South West district covering Roma and Charleville waited 55 days, Gold Coast residents waited 49 days and Mackay residents waited 43.

Those in the Torres Strait waited just a week for elective surgery and an average of five minutes in ED.

More than half of the services recorded deficits. West Moreton recorded a $26.88 million deficit because of projects like ieMR. The Sunshine Coast also recorded a staggering $222 million deficit, up from the $13.9 million deficit in 2017-18, and attributed the result to increased demand.

The troubled Metro South HHS recorded a $15 million deficit and blamed increased demand on population ageing and the prevalence of chronic disease conditions.

The Children's Health Queensland HHS, which runs the Queensland Children's Hospital, finished the financial year with an operating surplus of $27.79 million. It found the implementation of the ieMR "has continued to result in increased efficiencies and service improvements".

The hospital was one of the state's best-performing hospitals. It exceeded its target of treating the second-most serious category on time.

"Courier Mail" 27 Sept. 2019

 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 28, 2019
by Tony Wikrent
Economics Action Group, North Carolina Democratic Party Progressive Caucus

Strategic Political Economy

DC Court: State Secrets Privilege Trumps Any Citizens’ Right To Know Whether Or Not Their Own Gov’t Is Trying To Kill Them