With the Coalition’s decade of denialism finally coming home to roost by way of the catastrophic fires mostly in New South Wales and Victoria, they are attempting to lay blame elsewhere. Apart from Barnaby Joyce’s spectacularly silly brain farts where he blamed the magnetic field of the sun1, and then his god for climate change2, he stated that the Greens were to blame for the bushfires because they prevented hazard reduction burns. This lie was duly reported in the lead outlet for climate change denial in Australia, Murdoch’s egregious drivel sheet, The Australian3. Of course, all the halfwits out in the general populace who read Murdoch’s rubbish, watch Sky News, or listen to 2GB, were quickly on the bandwagon, taking Joyce’s equine ordure as gospel, as the gullible invariably do. However, the Joyce lie was checked by the Guardian. As the Guardian said “this claim…is about the policies of a party [the Greens] that has never been in government” federally or in any state. Joyce put his claim simply, which is unsurprising, as he is very simple: “It’s not burning because they burnt off, it’s burning because they didn’t burn off.” Professor Ross Bradstock is the director of the centre for Environmental Risk Management of Bushfires at the University of Wollongong, and has been studying bushfires for 40 years. He said “These are very tired and very old conspiracy theories that get a run after most major fires. They’ve been extensively dealt with in many inquiries.” He also said that Joyce’s claims are familiar, but “without foundation” and “it’s simply conspiracy stuff. It’s an obvious attempt to deflect the conversation away from climate change”. Former New South Wales fire and rescue commissioner, Greg Mullins, stated that the hotter and drier conditions and the higher fire danger ratings were preventing agencies from carrying out prescribed burning, and added “blaming ‘greenies’ for stopping these important measures is a familiar, populist, but basically untrue claim4.
As if this was not enough for the climate change deniers in government, the idiotic leader of the National Party, Michael McCormack blamed many of the fires on children with matches. Of course, many other climate change deniers with no expertise in climate science jumped on this and blamed arsonists. Apart from McCormack, I first heard this as an explanation for the horrendous fires in Australia from a seriously deranged climate change denier who said that there were hundreds of arsonists who had been arrested. This was, um, ‘extrapolated’ from a British Broadcasting Corporation which reported one case of an arsonist being arrested. As I said; deranged. Yesterday in Canberra a man was arrested for starting a grassfire. These are isolated occurrences and only about 13% of bushfires in Australia can be attributed with certainty to arson, while 37% are suspicious in that they may be arson or caused by people breaking fire bans. In fact, many of the fires, particularly those in isolated areas are started by ‘dry’ lightning strikes from thunderstorms which have little or no rain accompanying the lightning5. To think that arsonists could travel kilometres, mostly by hiking into remote bush with a box of matches is fanciful, and only really appeals to those desperate to deflect attention from their denialism, or those too ignorant to understand how fanciful it is.
This blameshifting to Greens or arsonists seems not to have worked except among the gullible. However, now there is another blame-game afoot. Apparently in an effort to avoid any further finger pointing, and suggestions that they go and have sex with themselves, for their slow reaction to the bushfire disaster, the federal government is now backgrounding against the Coalition government of Gladys Berejiklian6. This they are doing by stating that Berejiklian refused federal assistance in evacuating people stranded on beaches. When queried about this, Berejiklian replied, in part: “I’ve not heard those comments, the prime minister and I have been in constant contact today and that’s not actually accurate.”7 The Morrison government cannot help themselves.
Sources
- http://www.blotreport.com/2019/11/16/barnabys-lost-marbles/
- http://www.blotreport.com/2019/12/27/there-goes-another-marble/
- http://www.blotreport.com/2019/11/15/how-murdoch-ruperters-operate-21/
- https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/12/is-there-really-a-green-conspiracy-to-stop-bushfire-hazard-reduction
- http://www.blotreport.com/2019/12/11/incipient-liberal-fractures/
- https://twitter.com/vanOnselenP/status/1213345101071581186
- https://www.news.com.au/national/berejiklian-says-report-she-refused-federal-help-inaccurate/video/0c5b2edf1c75078212410a5bab14ca86
LIBERAL GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE TO COMBAT BUSHFIRES, OR A SELF SERVING PROJECT FOR THE LIBERAL PARTY :
Scott Morrison has spoken out after he was slammed for tweeting a short clip spruiking the Federal Government’s latest measures to help deal with the bushfire crisis.
The 50-second video, authorised by the Liberal Party, describes the Morrison government’s plan to combat the fires, while upbeat music plays in the background.
The video has copped heat online, with Twitter users accusing the Morrison government of using the bushfires as a marketing stunt.
Mr Morrison was also blasted after social media users noted a prominent ‘Donate’ button on the Liberal Party website page that focused on the bushfires. The Donate button has since been removed.
The button linked to a page to raise funds for the Liberal Party itself, which some said was misleading.
NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons has also said he was “disappointed” that Mr Morrison’s proposal to send 3000 defence force troops to the bushfire zones was not discussed with him beforehand.
SOURCE:
https://www.seniorsnews.com.au/news/pm-defends-shameful-bushfire-ad/3914367/
Where the shameful video and donation button for Liberal Coffers can be seen.
Gordon,
That advert is symptomatic of the ham-fisted response of Morrison to this disaster, and the corruption of the government.When I saw it some hours ago, I almost exploded. Rage doesn’t explain my feelings suitably.
Morrison’s response has been both disgraceful and sickening, with the LP ad being particularly insensitive and egregious. Irrespective of their climate change beliefs there is no running away from the fact that this mob has consistently ignored calls from fire experts regarding the greatly increased risks posed this year and into the future; they didn’t respond to the NEFC request for extra funding to hire planes this season until December when fires were raging uncontrolled across the SE; and even more telling they flatly rejected the NAFC’s proposal for a national fleet of aerial tankers. That said the NSW RFS management’s (as against those on the ground) early approach to the fires was far from satisfactory imo. No other wealthy nation on the planet would have sat back and let such a catastrophic situation develop as our authorities did. If the loss of millions of animals, plants, insects, and people, homes, pets, economies being devastated hasn’t shaken the smug complacency of Australians to the core then we are totally f’ed.
The irony of one of Tony Abbott’s claims a while back is palpable. “While we still seem to be in the grip of a climate cult, the climate cult is going to produce policy outcomes that will cause people to wake up to themselves,” he said.”Sooner or later, in the end, people get hit over the head by reality.” Historical changes to the climate “make me think, as a matter of simple logic, that carbon dioxide emissions, particularly human carbon dioxide, are not the only, or even the main factor here,” he reportedly said.
Jon,
I always have a chuckle when Abbott talks about himself ‘thinking’. I doubt it is something he does much in any depth. The problem with Abbott’s drivel is that enough cretins believed it such that acting on climate change was delayed such that now it is likely too late to avoid apocalyptic change. The global average temperature has risen 1 degree C; in Australia it is likely now 1.5 degrees. We are in deep, deep shit.
The bastards actually seem to be trying to blame the environment itself. The pig thing that is our Primate Minister basically has said that now on more than one occasion over the last few days of his pathetic ad man performance. Yes lightning (and a few idiots and arsonists) started the fires, too much vegetation fed them, and drought has made them worse. Well, duh, morons. Yes lightning has always done that (and a few idiots and arsonists) but as people (scientists, fire chiefs, others with a brain) have been saying for years, decades, the dryer, hugely hotter conditions will make the fire danger times longer, and more dangerous. And gee whiz, drought, well that has nothing to do with climate change has it? The reality is that heatwave after heatwave year after year getting worse will inevitably lead to catastrophe. That is what has been happening and as someone who lives in a place that has been threatened by fire, and probably will be again in the next couple of months, I can tell you the last decade is nothing like we have ever experienced. We had 18 days over 40 degrees this year. For the last 100 years the average number in a year is 2. Over the last decade the average has risen to 8. That is what is happening. Humans have done it. Only humans can stop it, perhaps. These people are criminals. To blame the very thing we are killing for all of this makes them the most disgusting form of criminal I can imagine.
Mark,
I used to live in Alice Springs almost 40 years ago (Jeezuz!), and I remember one or two days of 45 degrees, now they have had many days above 40 degrees. While these reminiscences don’t count as data, it is clear from actual data that temperatures are rising and rising quickly. As I have said elsewhere, many of the IPCC Reports have underestimated the effects and have overestimated the timeframe at which they are likely to occur. This is extremely worrying.