https://www.spectator.co.uk/2011/07/bushfires-are-the-real-emissions-problem/
Lefties,
Sussex Street says this is OK to read................... Barry was a Minister in the Hawke Government ............so No Worries.Bushfiresare the real emissions problem
So why is Australia so slow to adopt provenfire detection technology?
Carbon cap, carbon dioxide, carbon emissions, carbon fibre, carbon footprint,carbon market, carbon monoxide, carbon permits, carbon sequestration, carbonsink, carbon tax. Had enough? These are just a sample of the 40-odd words andphrases you can find that dominate the headlines of the Australian media. Ifyou skip all articles with carbon in the headline you can read a paper in fiveminutes. I’ve reached the point where I yearn for a carbon monoxide diet.
As I wrote in theAustralian in 2009, ‘I cannot recall an issue where, to coin a phrase, so muchis debated by so many, knowing so little.’ If anything the situation hasworsened, and I suspect the great majority have tuned out.
Most appear to acceptthat global warming is occurring, but disagree on who causes it and how toameliorate it. No single form of energy appears acceptable. Hydroelectricity,nuclear power, coal and oil are no-nos, leaving us with wind and solar.
They were the flavourof the month until it was found that wind farms were sending those living closeto them batty. Solar looked like the sole survivor until we learned that it wasoutrageously expensive. Just ask Barry O’Farrell.
Among the millions ofwords spoken and written about carbon emissions, the fact that a third of Australia’semissions come from bushfires is never mentioned. As one who has spent the twoyears since Black Saturday trying to convince politicians of the massivebenefits of early warning bushfire detection systems, it’s difficult tounderstand why.
When I asked an‘expert’ why bushfires were not part of the equation, he replied: ‘Naturaldisasters were excluded from the Kyotoagreement because they are uncontrollable.’
He had a point — butnot a very good one. It is undeniable that earthquakes, volcanos, cyclones,floods, tsunamis and twisters are uncontrollable and no country should be heldresponsible for carbon emissions that occur as a result. But bushfires? Thereare natural disasters during heatwaves and electrical storms and because ofspontaneous combustion, but a large proportion of bushfires are anything but‘natural’.Mark Burgess, chief executive of the Police Federation of Australia, quoted areport by the Australian Institute of Criminology and MonashUniversity, which stated that Australiaaverages 54,000 bushfires per year, of which between 20,000 and 30,000 were dueto arson.What has been missing from the bushfire debate is that a great many of them canbe prevented if the modern technology available is used. Cameras can not onlyidentify the bushfires but in many cases the arsonists as well. Paul Collins, in his bookBurn, states that the number of reports of arson increased from 1,200 in 1975to 10,000 in 1995. The cost: $500 million per year. Imagine what it will be likeif the ‘Big Australians’ have a win and we continue to build in the bush.
Professor Mark Adams ofthe Bushfire Co-operative Research Centre estimates that the 2003 and 2006-7bushfires could have put 20 to 30 million tonnes of carbon (70 to 105 milliontones of carbon dioxide) into the atmosphere; that the 2009 bushfires (BlackSaturday) created 165 million tones of CO2 emissions, and that Australia’stotal annual emissions are approximately 330 million tonnes, of which 110million are from bushfires.
All of the above raisesthe question: why have the politicians and bureaucrats made no effort to usethe early warning technology developed by the German aerospace industry andNASA in planning the Mars Pathfinder mission? The technology, known asFireWatch, has reduced the number of fires in Germanyby 92 per cent and is being introduced in Lithuaniaand trialled in Mexico, Portugal, Spain,Estonia, Croatia, Greece,Cyprus, Kazakhstan and Montenegro.
The technology ‘candetect precisely the existence of smoke and its location before the bushfirehas taken hold enabling emergency services to deploy the resources toextinguish the fire … a sensor can scan an arc of 400 sq km and rotateautomatically through 360 degrees every six minutes, 24/7. It can detect thedifference between smoke, cloud and mist. Now with night vision it can operateround the clock.’ Fires can be spotted in six minutes rather than six hours.
What is extraordinaryis that to the best of my knowledge neither the Prime Minister nor the Leaderof the Opposition has mentioned the technology or the way in which it canreduce Australia’scarbon emissions.
To his credit, urgedon by the then member for McEwen, Fran Bailey (Liberal) and Labor’s BillShorten, PM Rudd funded trials in the OtwayRanges in Victoria and Tumut in NSW conducted by theCSIRO.
I’m not qualified tocomment on the final CSIRO report, but David Packham, a former principalresearch scientist in the CSIRO Bushfire Section in Victoria, certainly is.
After a scathingcritique of the trials, in which he stated that the report showed ‘a lack ofwillingness to explore new ideas and concepts’, he urged its rejection.
The CSIRO report andstate emergency services prefer ‘human fire-spotters’ who can’t see at night orwork around the clock.
Most surprising is thetotal lack of interest in using the new technology. We are unlikely to match Germany’s 92 per cent reduction in forest firesbecause we have billions of flammable eucalypts, but a substantial reduction inAustralia’semissions is certain.
Australia’s ignoring of earlywarning bushfire systems commenced at Kyotoand has existed to this day.
If more than half ourbushfires are caused by arsonists and a third of our carbon emissions came frombushfires, why isn’t Australiadoing everything we can to reduce these emissions, particularly when we havethe technology to do so? What does it matter where the carbon abatement occurs,so long as it happens? Bushfires should not be lumped in with volcanos. Australia caneasily exceed our goals of reducing carbon emissions by 5 per cent by 2020 and20 per cent by 2050.
Not only should Australia do everything possible to reduce ouremissions, but by using fire detection technology we can inspire the rest ofthe world to follow suit: Australiais not the only country with a serious bush or forest fire problem. And notonly will we reduce emissions, but we will save hundreds of lives and billionsof dollars’ worth of property.
Barry Cohen, a formerLabor minister in the Hawke government, was an adviser to FireWatch untilrecently.
MI
