39 degrees - Sydney braces for its hottest October day on record ..
.. video, with a shot of fire .. these photos with captions from the article ..
Sydney's Lanna Roberts, 4, picked one of the hottest days on record to trek through the beach sand dunes at Burubi Point near Nelson Bay. Source: News Limited
Senior Constable Anthony McLachlan rubs water on his dog "Belle" while Constable Jared Rodger gives his dog "Bear" a drink after training in Centennial Park. Source: News Limited
Brayden Jacobson, 7, cools down at Newcastle Ocean Baths. Source: News Limited
Gale force winds on Newcastle beach blew Brayden Jacobson's body board away. Source: News Limited
Beach shot posted on Facebook by ronnietylerfan as Sydney heads towards a record temperature for an October day. Source: Supplied
Twitter pic of fire crews tackling a grass fire at Bonnyrigg. Picture: Channel 7 Source: Supplied
Andysolo posted this picture of the Bondi sunrise on Twitter this morning. Picture: Twitter Source: Twitter
.. bit of print with tweet ..
The RFS, NSW Fire and Rescue and police urged people to watch out for fire bugs and obey the fire bans.
NSW RFS @NSWRFS An Antanov has landed in #Sydney with two Aircranes on deck. First will start service next week. #NSWRFS #nswfires 9:23 AM - 10 Oct 2013
The title of the book, “Taxing Air: Facts & fallacies about climate change”, fits neatly into Abbott’s view about carbon trading. Last month he was out dog-whistling to climate denialists .. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/16/tony-abbott-climate-change-denial .. such as Carter on just that theme, when he borrowed an old phrase and said that trading carbon was a “so-called market, in the non-delivery of an invisible substance to no one.”
Is this book launch just a happy coincidence in timing, or does it amount to the launch of a new policy platform?
It is a question worth asking, because now, just days out from the election, it seems that Abbott is so convinced about the inevitability of his election victory on September 7 that he has judged it safe enough to reveal his true colours on climate policy: He still believes the science is crap.
It is hard to avoid any other conclusion, following his revelations on Monday in response to questions about his Direct Action policy at the National Press Club, and again on the ABC TV’s 7.30 Report on Monday night, that even the Coalition’s 5 per cent reduction target was no longer binding.
In an election debate where the real question on climate policy – how to reach the targets guided by the science (i.e. 25 per cent or more) – has never been raised by the mainstream parties, Abbott revealed that he was quite prepared not to even make it to first base. If the budgeted $3.2 billion proved to be insufficient to reach the 5% reduction target – as Treasury and private analysis conclude unanimously – he would not spend another dollar to ensure that it does.
In effect, on the day that it is revealed Australia has experienced a record high temperatures over the last 12 months .. http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/past-year-is-hottest-on-record-for-australia-36128 .. and just three weeks ahead of the IPCC report, Abbott is telling the world that his climate policy will end at the beginning. He simply doesn’t believe in the science.
That should not surprise anyone, because Abbott’s owes his position to the climate deniers that put him there to prevent Malcolm Turnbull agreeing to a an emissions trading scheme. And his impending election victory will owe much to a conga line of supporters who openly ridicule the science – the talk-back radio shock jocks, the Andrew Bolts, and the overwhelming majority of New Ltd columnists.
As Abbott said in a interview to The Conversation’s Michelle Grattan .. http://tiny.cc/cw7p4w , in explaining his policy position: “I think they (the public) are more conscious of the fact that the argument among the experts is not quite the one-way street that it might have seemed four or five years.”
On Monday, Abbott defended his position by stating that the Coalition would target “emissions intensity”, which is the amount of greenhouse gases emitted per unit of GDP. He says it has been falling sharply, but the point is that emissions intensity only reduces emissions from what they otherwise would be. They do not deliver an absolute cut.
The World Resources Institute, for instance, notes that in the past 15 years, China has cut its emissions intensity by 40 per cent, but absolute emissions has increased by 145 per cent. Its commitment to reducing emissions intensity by a further 45 per cent by 2020 will likely reduce emissions from “business as usual” by between 20 and 33 per cent, according to the ANU, but it will not stop another significant rise in absolute emissions.
Australia has also reduced its emissions intensity, and will continue to do so. But it won’t deliver a cut in emissions, as this graph using data from the Department of Climate Change shows.
The Climate Institute noted on Tuesday that if the Coalition wanted to reach even a 5 per cent reduction target, then it would have to rely on regulation, just like Barrack Obama.
But to get some idea on the Coalition’s position on regulation, it is worth recapping Abbott’s speech to the IPA’s 70th birthday party back in April, where he sat alongside Rupert Murdoch and Gina Rinehart, and other noted climate denialists like Bolt, Hugh Morgan, and Cardinal George Pell, and what Crikey described as .. http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/04/05/abbott-bolt-rinehart-fawn-in-the-ipa-court-of-king-murdoch/ .. a sea of “elderly Caucasian males.” He was joined by Corey Bernardi, Greg Hunt, George Brandis and Victorian Premier Dennis Napthine, Crikey reported.
Abbott’s praise was effusive: “The IPA, I want to say, has been freedom’s discerning friend. It has supported capitalism, but capitalism with a conscience. Not for the IPA, a single-minded dogmatism or opposition to all restraint; rather a sophisticated appreciation that freedom requires a social context and that much is expected from those to whom so much has been given. You’ve understood that freedom is both an end and a means; a good in itself, as well as necessary for full human flourishing. I particularly congratulate the IPA and its marvelous director, John Roskam, for your work in defence of Western civilisation.”
The IPA has, at the top of its 75 ideas for a better Australia .. http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/ugh-75-radical-ideas-to-transform-australia , demanded three actions: the repeal of the carbon tax (and don’t replace it); the abolition of the Department of Climate Change; and the abolition of the Clean Energy Fund (Clean Energy Finance Corp). The remaining 72 consist of removing regulations of the type that the Climate Institute would deem necessary to meet climate targets.
Abbott’s ability to do so will only be restricted by the opposition he faces in the Senate. The Greens will be implacable in their opposition. Greens leader Christine Milne, who revealed to Point Carbon this week that she had never had a conversation with Abbott, described the Coalition’s position as “laughable” if it wasn’t so serious. And she questioned an Abbott government’s ability, or even commitment, to try to bring the big four polluters together to negotiate a binding treaty.
“By abandoning even the meagre bipartisan 5%-25% target for emissions reduction, he has relegated Australia to global laggard as negotiations are now underway for a 2015 treaty,” Milne said. ”Once a sceptic, always a sceptic is the best way to describe the would-be PM. A man who maintains that global warming is ‘crap’.”
The position of Labor, however, is still not clear. When pushed by ABC Radio National’s Fran Kelly this morning, climate change minister Mark Butler said the ALP had also decided to “repeal” the carbon tax, and replace it with an emissions trading system. He danced all around the question about giving a binding commitment to oppose Abbott’s move to do the same, instead launching an attack on the Greens.
This is not surprising. Depending on who is left within the ALP carcass next week, it is likely that the right wing faction of the party will be out for revenge for being disenfranchised by the Greens these past three years. There may be little appetite to protect the carbon price, or commit to a double dissolution.
Abbott is possibly right about that. The fact that Carter’s book will be launched by Gary Johns, a former Labor minister and prominent member of its right faction, gives some idea about where that faction sits on climate issues. The position of agriculture minister Joel Fitzgibbon, gives another .. http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/why-coal-fitzgibbon-can-dump-on-solar-but-other-mps-cant-71378 .
So despite the fact that yet another survey – this time by ReachTel – says that 77 per cent of Australians believe it is important for the next Australian Government to deliver on the bipartisan promise to reduce carbon pollution by between 5-25 per cent by 2020, the country is in danger of kissing the carbon price goodbye, and being left with a mechanism that will give it no international credibility, and no price signal or incentive for de-carbonising the domestic economy.
And the irony of it all? Direct Action is actually a Socialist construct. Check it out here .. http://directaction.org.au/ . Some of the posters are a bit of a giggle.
It would take days to fully assess the loss, but the Premier was grateful that no lives had been lost.
"I suspect if we get through that without the loss of life, we should all thank God for miracles."
Deputy RFS Commissioner Rob Rogers said the fire situation was the worst he'd seen in more than a decade and the threat was unlikely to ease for some time.
"It was a very warm winter, a very dry winter ... we're not even one month into spring and we've already got this," he told Channel Seven.
The forecast south-westerly change could even make the situation worse.
"The worst combination is north-westerly to south-westerly and we've got that now. We've got an incredibly long fire front and there is no sign of any rain coming."
While there would be easing conditions on Friday, the sheer size of the raging fires meant they didn't "need the weather conditions" to continue.
"They are so big they create their own climatic conditions," he said.
Around 100 fires broke out across the state, ranging from Lismore and Tenterfield in NSW's north, to Gloucester and Taree and the Great Lakes on the coast, the Blue Mountains, south to Camden, Wingecarribee near Moss Vale and the Shoalhaven. The fires destroyed homes, pastures and set a petrol station on fire near Wyong. Roads were closed across the state, with back ups of up to 20km on the Hume Highway.
The worst loss of homes was at Springwood in the Blue Mountains, where at least 30 homes were lost.
Ferocious winds fanned the blaze that destroyed the dream home where Joe Moore, Springwood Country Club's golf professional, had lived with his wife and seven children, including four foster children.
"This reminds me of what happened in Melbourne a couple of years ago," Mr Moore said. "Whichever way you look, it was the impossible fire to fight."
There were unconfirmed reports of properties being lost at North Doyalson, on the Central Coast; at Lithgow; at Yanderra and Balmoral, in the Southern Highlands; and in Port Stephens. Newcastle airport was closed and evacuated except for a skeleton staff because of a bushfire at Heatherbrae, 16km away.
Late on Thursday, the NSW Emergency Services Minister Mike Gallacher said the bushfire situation across the state was "very tough going indeed".
"You only need to look out into the sky and see the bloom and ash that is hanging over Sydney," he told ABC. "That's coming from the fires burning in the Blue Mountains."
During the day, more than 8500 homes in the west, south-west and north of Sydney lost power, as wind gusts of up to 70km/h brought branches down on powerlines.
In the Blue Mountains, power was cut to about 4500 homes and businesses in Katoomba, Winmalee and parts of Leura, Blackheath and Mount Victoria.
In the Macarthur region, the worst-affected areas were Wilton, Menangle and parts of Campbelltown.
While the next 24 hours should bring a cool change, it wasn't expected to contain much rain.
In Lithgow, attempts by firefighters to waterbomb a fire were hindered by 90km/h winds, RFS spokesman Joel Kursawe said.
Those winds are capable of carrying embers up to six kilometres.
"The problem is when you've got aircraft over fires like that with [those] winds, a lot of the time they're just getting knocked around in the sky," Mr Kursawe told journalists at RFS headquarters in Sydney.
By late Thursday afternoon, the fires surrounding Sydney had turned the sun into bright red, threatening ball.
"It's an apocalypse out there," said one of the many inner-city workers and residents who were taking of the hulking grey cloud hanging over Sydney.
The clouds were reported to be sending ash down into Sydney's inner city, including as far east as Coogee, prompting NSW Health to issue a bushfire air pollution health warning. It said air quality in many areas was likely to be reduced due to smoke particles.
“Already, smoke from bushfires burning in the Blue Mountains region and Muswellbrook areas has been blown east to Sydney city and coastal suburbs,” said Professor Wayne Smith, the director of the environmental health branch.
“Particle levels are likely to be higher outdoors than indoors, so people sensitive to fine particles should limit the time they spend outside."
.. thank goodness for the firefighters risking life and limb these days! .. many volunteers, of course .. thank goodness for them all .. they do a magnificent job under most dangerous conditions ..
NSW bushfires: dozens of homes destroyed, Sydney skies darkened
Updated Fri 18 Oct 2013, 5:56am AEDT
Video: Hundreds of homes feared lost as bushfires rage across New South Wales (Lateline)
Hundreds of homes may have been lost after New South Wales suffered one of its worst bushfire days in recent memory on Thursday.
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