I’ve had enough of summer.
I’ve had enough of summer.
Catastrophic fire warning for Sydney on Tuesday for the first time ever.
That’s great. Glad that this govt is busily preoccupying itself with suppressing reports that mention the words ‘climate change’
I read earlier that the NSW Government cut funding to fire fighting by $75 million. I didn’t read the details but that’s not surprising.
In a strange contrast, it’s also been snowing in some parts of NSW and I have been rugged up over the past few days while it’s been 2 degrees overnight around Canberra.
It hasn’t been super hot. It’s been ridiculously windy and the humidity has been really low. Coupled with the dry tinder, it was only a matter of time.
That said, Northern NSW feels like it’s been on fire for the last six months…
It’s been at least 4 months based on the interview I heard from a Firey.
I think it was the RFS budget that was cut by 75%.
The state of Michael McCormack carrying on over the last day or so.
If you are concerned about climate change, you are clearly just a raving, inner-city lunatic.
Here on the Northern Rivers the last decent rain we had was in July. I had a reunion in Kyogle on the weekend and I have never seen it so dry (over 25 years). My mate has a small property and is down to the last couple of weeks of water for his stock. His dam is one of those classic drought images with the big cracks through the solidified mud. He’s lost a few cows because they’re too weak to pull themselves out of the mud when they get stuck.
Lismore has been shrouded in smoke since last Thursday. It’s a situation that has been occurring on and off for the last 2 months. We’re essentially surrounded by fires although not in any danger. Regardless of which way the wind blows smoke from a fire will inevitably enshroud the town.
There’s fires that have been alight for 3 months and due to their inaccessibility range from advice level to emergency. For example the Tuntable Creek fire right now, the one threatening Nimbin, has been going for that long as well as the one near Armidale and also the one that destroyed Rappville. It’s so dry that strengthening winds are enough to fan the smouldering ashes and make the blaze flare up again.
The big problem is that there is very little to no water to be able to fight the fires aerially with dams dry and the Clarence River long stopped running from Tabulam upstream. There has been instances where the fireys have had to let properties burn as they had no access to water.
There’s so many stories I’ve heard, first hand and anecdotally, that confirm that this is the worst situation the region has seen. It just beggars belief that people, obviously so far detached form the situation, can still claim that climate change & global warming is a hoax.
It’s crazy that climate change and weather is politicised in this country.
It won’t be long before a lot of regional property will be uninsurable.
The politicising of climate change is pretty much happening everywhere to varying degrees, it’s just that mining is such a huge industry for Australia (and donor too), that any policy that reduces this will have ramifications at the ballot box. The curious thing to me is that you would think that the party who are supposed to represent farmers can’t see the correlation between the climate going to shit meaning and farming in certain places becoming more marginal.
As for the rural properties, the insurance council has already released a report recently stating that this will happen but it was laughed off as being alarmist.
Edit: To make the thing make more sense.
I think climate change deniers (particularly those with a media profile) will in time go down as all-time villains.
It’s funny how most of them are also paedophile supporters.
The thing is the farmers themselves are telling the Nats. They told them with CSG mining and they’re still fighting that fight.
An environmentally conscious conservative party would kill it in the bush at the next election. Without one One Nation and other such parties will continue to receive the Nats protest vote.
How many people in the bush work directly on the land though? Wouldn’t a lot of them be in other industries such as mining? Or like the beetrooter, who is a bean counter, doing the same jobs that people do in the city (but wearing an Akubra hat, so vote 1)?
I can only assume that they’ve decided they can live with everything going up in flames around them as long as their incineration is taking place with slightly less chance of muslims being nearby or whatever it was they decided to hang their hats on at the last election.
You may not work the land but the communities are farming communities. Once you leave the coal basin of the Greater Hunter mining isn’t that big of an industry.
What happens on the land directly affects the economy of the town. If the farmers have no money to spend then businesses close, the unemployment rate goes up, more and more people have less money to spend, more businesses close and gradually the towns die. Take a drive up the New England Highway and you may better grasp the situation.
What an absolutely disgusting comment.
Well what was it that kept these communities going back for a kicking from the coalition? I know Labor have their problems, but they were running against a coalition scare campaign tapping into all that shit - foreigners, taxes, social change etc. What was it that people took to in the election? It’s been pretty clear for a while now that the Coalition, and the Nats along for the ride, are there for shareholders and large corporations. How do the Nats even exist anymore?
Barnaby’s comments about the two people who died most likely voting Greens. I mean, fucking hell.
Your assumption that everyone in the country votes Nats is incorrect. Your assumption that those that do would rather see everything burn than have Muslim migration is as accurate as everyone in the city is a vegan woke greenie. How many farmers have you had a conversation with to base your assumption on? Just because someone votes for a particular candidate does not mean they support all of their or their parties policies.
There are plenty of examples where the bush vote has moved away from the Nats, Lismore being a case in point. Yes there is an ingrained base but that is the same in any electorate. Janelle Saffin (ALP) won the state seat through a grass roots campaign yet the candidate for Page (federal seat covering the region) was seemingly anonymous against Kevin Hogan.
There’s a perception that Labor have never been there for the farmers and can’t be trusted. The live export ban is still raw for many and further enforced that perception. Until Labor can change this perception the protest vote against the Nats will go to those candidates that campaign on local issues. This, in most cases, tends to be an independent whose preferences flow to the Nats on 2PP.
I implore you to spend time in regional towns. You’ll be surprised to find that not everyone is a racist and is more acutely aware of the changing environment than those in the city. Don’t confuse the people with the politicians.