Heated Debate
An abstract debate about the unproven cause of exaggerated climate change is not particularly useful while brave fire fighters are still busy trying to save other people’s homes, says Nick Cater.
A spell of hot, dry and windy weather on parts of the East Coast has exposed a country divided over the way to fight bush fires.
One approach, which we will call the tried-and-tested method, requires the deployment of water and machinery by skilled fire crews made up chiefly of courageous, level-headed volunteers.
The rival approach, driven by a growing sense of panic, deploys words and grand theory in an attempt to tackle the “underlying causes”.
One is a response to an emergency in which life, livelihoods and property is in real and present danger. The second is a response to a rhetorical emergency that presents no immediate danger but could do at some point in the future.
The difference between the old and new approach to bushfire management is reflected in the political battle for the seat of Warringah at the last election.
Tony Abbott, the loser in that contest, was on the frontline this week as a volunteer fireperson putting himself in harm’s ways in defence of others.
Zali Steggall, the victorious independent candidate, was fighting bushfires on the frontline of Twitter.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison posted a message last weekend extending “thoughts and prayers” to those affected by the fires.
“With respect,” Steggall responded, “Australians need more. It’s time to take that meeting with the fire chiefs and listen to their advice. Time to have a plan to cope with the hotter climate and act to prevent the further warming that is going to come if we don’t start acting now.”
The attempt to politicise a natural disaster by climate activists this week demonstrated once again how the social justice crowd has drifted from the pragmatism that once characterised the nation.
Despite the activists’ insistence that science is on their side, there is no obvious empirical evidence to back their key assumption; that the incidence and ferocity of bushfires in Australia are increasing.
Bushfires are episodic in nature relating to changing cycles in the weather that are only barely understood. They do not occur at regular intervals making patterns hard to draw.
Tracing the long-term trend is problematic in itself, even before we examine the reliability and consistency of historical data. What are we to use as the unit of measurement? Is it the number of individual bushfires, the total land area burnt, the number of lives lost or the amount of property damaged?
Each measure is problematic in its own way. It is little wonder, then, that the evidence cited this week was little more than anecdotal. It was based on folk memories that barely stand up to scrutiny.
The claim that climate change means there are likely to be more deaths from emergency events such as fire, storms and floods, run contrary to the available data.
As the accompanying graph shows, the incidence of death from emergency events has more than halved in the past 30 years. The fall is consistent across all states and territories.
There are strong arguments for public policy measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It has been bipartisan policy for the best part of a quarter of a century.
The Morrison government is comfortably on track to reduce emissions by 26 per cent of 2005 levels by 2030 in line with our international commitments.
To confuse this goal with the prevention of natural disasters, however, would be a gross over-simplification.
Australia’s share of global emissions, around 1.5 per cent and falling, is too small for unilateral action to have any real effect, particularly since emissions in China, India and other industrialising countries is increasing at a far greater rate.
Even if it was, what is the time lag between reducing emissions and the reduction of bush fire risk?
How long will it take before we can expect the climate to return to pre-civilised natural state in which birds sing happily in the trees and animals scurry on the ground without fear of an inferno? Is it years, decades or even centuries? Either way it would certainly come too late to assist Australians under threat from bushfires this summer.
In contrast to the performance of the climate warriors, the practical response on the ground this week was exceptional. It is a testimony to the ability of societies to learn from past mistakes, and the benefits of the ingenuity, resourcefulness, and human energy that separate our species from any other.
Firefighting and preventative measures have improved substantially. Tactics used by volunteer firefighters have been honed over centuries of combating the worst that nature can deliver.
Technology and government commitment to funding has allowed water bombing to become part of the standard repertoire. This week we saw once again how effective this can be as a last-ditch attempt to save property and lives. Yet it was barely an option for previous generations.
The only proven protection from bushfires is human enterprise and ingenuity to ameliorate its effects.
A clamour from a minority for aggressive emissions reductions beyond our international commitments and more ambitious than current technology allows is a distraction we could do without in a week like this.