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BUSHFIRE AUSTRALIA Incendi disastrosi in Australia

Il 24 marzo a Whashington si incontreranno per parlare di Afghanistan e cambiamenti climatici il premier australiano Kevin Rudd e Barak Obama...

AUSTRALIA IS BURNING OR  ALL THE WORLD IS BURNING?

fotogallery su http://www.ga.gov.au/hazards/bushfire/where.jsp

Mini-Inchiesta di Pugliantagonista sui cambiamemti climatici:

una corrispondenza esclusiva per il nostro sito  dall'Australia

di ZOBEIDA

Victoria State 

South Australia

20/2/2009

Gli incendi disastrosi nel sud dell'Australia di quest'anno  sono un fatto locale ed episodico o rientrano nelle conseguenze dei cambiamenti climatici globali generati dal sistema capitalistico che ha depredato e distrutto O l'ecopatrimonio di tutte le specie presenti sul Pianeta Terra?Perchè il nostro interesse su quanto avviene in Australia ed il legame su ciò che avviene in Puglia?

A questa e a tante altre domande proveremo a dare alcune parziali risposte facendoci aiutare dal contributo e dalla testimonianza diretta di chi vive e sente direttamente sul proprio copro e sul suo habitat gli effetti dei climate change. proveremo anche a discutere con voi se sia possibile dare una risposta alternativa e se in a società che abolisca il capitalismo sia possibile invertire la tendenza all'autodistruzione che sembra essere divenuta patrimonio del genere umano.

Zobeida , australian, a young woman, uman rights activist  speak about bushfires in Australia

La nostra corrispondente dall'Australia , dallo stato Victoria, quello che è stato più devastato dagli incendi, è la nostra amica ZOBEIDA, una giovane attivista per i diritti umani e studiosa dei fenomeni migratori  .  Con  nostra gioia ha dato l'esclusiva alla redazione della OpenArea di Pugliantagonista  ad una serie di corrispondenze dal suo paese su questo argomento e su quello dei migranti.                                            Con molto piacere la salutiamo iniziando questa nostra intervista:-

 -Hi, Zobeida , how are you? what's happen in Australia?What's about  bushfires in Victoria? And now,  dangerous phase is finished?-

 -Hello, Pugliantagonista, j'm sorry but tomorrow, 27 /2/09, all the people  and the weathermen say is a very hot day, school, college, cinema etc are closed because the danger  for a new season of bushfires is high-

Domani dicono che ci sarebbe piu' pericolo del bushfire, perchè sara' molto caldo, hanno chiuso le scuole in tanti luoghi., e i locali dove ci si ritrova in pubblico per divertirsi 

 Zobeida, come va? eravamo un po preoccupati nei primi giorni di febbraio quando sulle nostre tv abbiamo visto le immagini degli spaventosi incendi scatenatisi nel tuo paese. Innanzitutto, sei stata coinvolta direttamente?

Ciao a  tutti i visitatori di Pugliantagonista, rispondo immediatamente dicendoti che fortunatamente io e la mia famiglia abbiamo a vuto pochi danni dai bushfires di febbraio ed io in quei giorni era in Estremo Oriente per degli impegni di lavoro e di studio. . ma le poche notizie che mi arrivavano non sono riuscite a darmi il senso di ciò che stava avvenendo nel paese.

I had only just heard about the fires and was trying to understand what had happened here...it was really strange to come home and see how affected people have been in Victoria.  It has been good to think about what to tell you, because I have been trying to understand a little better the environmental causes for the fires, which isn't really getting enough attention in Australia. 

 I think it is important to say, first of all, that bushfires are well prepared for in Australia.  There were two really huge bushfires in Victoria during the 20^th century – one in 1939 and another in 1983.  Between 50 – 100 people died in each bushfire.  I think many people believed that we had learnt a lot from the past experiences, and knew how to handle bushfires.  However, the latest bushfire was actually much worse than the earlier fires, and worse than anyone expected was possible

E  ci ho pensato bene su cosa avrei dovuto dirti, poiché io sono riuscita a capire solo in parte delle cause circostanziali gli incendi, poiché non si sta facendo abbastanza attenzione  su ciò in Australia. Io penso che sia importante dire, innanzitutto che agli incendi si è ben preparati in Australia.Vi sono stati due enormi incendi in Victoria durante il 20 secolo. Uno nel 1939 e un altro nel 1983.Tra 50 e 100 persone sono morte in ogni incendio: io penso che  molta gente ha creduto che noi abbiamo imparato molto dalle passate esperienze e quindi di sapere come controllare gli incendi. Purtroppo gli ultimi incendi sono stati molto peggiori del passato e peggiori ancora di quanto si fosse aspettato di avere.

The day of the fire: Saturday 7 February

The government and fire authorities could actually see the danger coming.  In the week before the big bushfire there had been 3 days in a row over 40 degrees C.  Everything was dried out, there had been no rain.  Although the weather briefly got cool, there were then predictions for a massively hot day, with very strong winds.  On the scale that was used to measure fire danger, it was off the scale – worse than had ever been seen before. 

 Il giorno dell’ incendio sabato 7 febbraio ’09 il governo e i vigili del fuoco possono  direttamente vedere il pericolo arrivare.

La settimana prima del grande incendio vi erano stati tre giorni con temperature (row)superiori a 40 gradi centigradi Ovunque era tutto secco / riarso) non vi erano state pioggie.  Benché il tempo si fosse in fretta rinfrescato, vi erano previsioni per un massiccio  rialzo termico, annunciante una giornata caldissima  con venti molto forti.Nella scala che noi usiamo per misurare il pericolo di incendi , si era al livello peggiore che si fosse mai visto qui sin’ora.

The day turned out just as had been feared. It was so hot that people reported seeing bats, possums and koalas falling dead in trees and from the sky.  3,000 bats have been found dead from the heat. 

i primi a morire son stati gli animali

le prime vittime della follia umana sono gli animali ritenuti esseri inferiori...

PARTE DUE

The temperature was the highest ever recorded in Victoria – in the city, it reached 46.4 degrees C, in the country, as high as 48.   Fires started being reported in the morning, and throughout the afternoon more and more reports of fires started to come in.  The fires started for different reasons: some arson, some natural (falling embers from other fires), some from electrical faults.  Around 30 different fires were burning just in the state of Victoria.  In NSW, there were also as many as 50 fires burning, but these fires were not as close to areas where people lived....

La temperatura era la più alta  che si fosse mai registrata nello stato di Victoria. In città essa raggiunse 46, 4 gradi centigradi e in campagna fino a 48 gradi. Gli incendi incominciarono ad essere segnalati sin dal mattino e in pieno pomeriggio  le segnalazioni si moltiplicarono.

Gli incendi  si innescarono per diverse ragioni: alcuni dolosi, altri per cause naturali ( tra le quali le cadute di scintille provenienti da altri incendi),  altri di origine elettrica ( cortocircuiti per sovraccarichi da utenze….condizionatori, frigo, ecc Nota del traduttore)

_( Nel paragrafo successivo  più che tradurre letteralmente quanto ci scrive Zobeida,  vogliamo darvi il senso di costernazione, di impotenza e di inadeguatezza delle forze umane , anche le più dotate di alta tecnologia ed  utilizzate in maniera scientifica,  di fronte ad eventi calamitosi come questi disastrosi incendi di cui si prevede in un prossimo futuro il ripetersi in maniera più frequente e con intensità maggiore).-

Sinteticamente Zobeida riafferma come nel suo Stato, definito a rischio incendi, l’organizzazione statale, ma anche quella civile sino all’ultimo cittadino, è pienamente cosciente ed organizzata a tutti i livelli,  da quello collettivo pubblico a quello personale individuale,  di come comportarsi e difendere il proprio territorio e le proprie cose contro il verificarsi di tali fenomeni ma…questa volta dinanzi alla potente forza della natura, scatenata dalla follia umana, nulla si è potuto anzi ,  molti,  che hanno cercato di difendere col” fai da te”  le proprie cose invece di fuggire, hanno pagato con la propria vita tale presunzione di forza.

In tutto,  per adesso, stimiamo che circa 200 persone sono morte e più di 2000 case siano andate distrutte.

Le cause degli incendi

E’ molto difficile trovare delle risposte chiare al perché il fuoco fu così intenso o perché la pianificazione e preparazione di governo e la protezione antincendi sia stata incapace di fermarlo.

Su molti media stanno discutendo  il cambiamento climatico e le relative ricadute in pericolo incendi, ma tutti sembrano voler focalizzare sulla ricerca di cause immediate- condannare  i piromani per averli innescati, le compagnie elettriche  da citare in giudizio, la classe politica da mettere sotto accusa per incapacità.

Il più caldo giorno ritornando indietro fu nel 1939, che fu chiamato  il “Venerdi Nero” con  vasti incendi e grandi perdite di vite umane. Quando fa estremamente caldo il fuoco prima o poi scoppia.  Ma,  se nel 1939 la temperatura raggiunse 45,7 gradi, nel 2009 è stata di un grado superiore

Questo dato è importante poiché gli scienziati ultimamente stavano dicendo  la temperatura media dell’Australia   ha avuto un rialzo di un grado rispetto alla media tra il 1900 e il 1950Gli ultimi dieci anni sono stati i più caldi e i più secchi registrati. La caduta delle piogge nelle aree colpite dagli incendi è stata del 20 per cento inferiore del normale e c vi sono stati 13 anni di siccità in Australia Gli scienziati avevano previsto che questo era parte del ciclo meteorologico del NINO che penso sia dovuto al riscaldamento dell’Oceano Indiano. In ogni caso, ci si aspettava che il ciclo di riscaldamento da Nino sarebbe stato contrastato da quello da raffreddamento della Nina . Purtroppo noi abbiamo avuto il caldo e la siccità ma senza nessuna compensazione di un periodo freddo e piovoso. Il problema  è stato che questo ciclo freddo  di Nina non è stato  così forte come avevano largamente anticipato- le piogge sono state nella media e per di più la pioggia è caduta nelle parti sbagliate- no sui campi coltivati o sulle dighe o dove nascono i fiumi, ovvero dove era necessario. Io non sono sicura sulle cause perché questi cicli non si sono avverati come era stato previsto e come si aspettavano.C’è bisogno di comprendere che noi non abbiamo avuto un giorno di elevata calura, bensì un lungo periodo di siccità. Condizioni secche e di scarsità di piogge non compensate da periodi di piogge e freddo

Se tutto questo sia dovuto dal cambiamento climatico del pianeta non è chiaro Quello che è inquietante è che gli esperti stanno dicendo che  queste condizioni cambiate saranno peggio in un futuro di cambiamenti climatici: Vi sono previsioni dal nostro dipartimento scientifico il CSIRO, che ad un basso o moderato aumento di temperatura globale corrisponderà in un  forte incremento di probabilità  di condizioni ideali per catastrofici incendi ( siccità prolungate, temperature e venti caldi) e questo avverrà con frequenze di 5 o 7 anni. In ogni caso se vi sarà uno scenario estremo di un rilevante riscaldamento globale ( io penso sull’ordine di 2- 3 gradi) noi dovremo spettarci condizioni catastrofiche di incendi OGNI ANNO.  Condizioni simili a quelle  presenti il 7 febbraio 2009 e questo  è una cosa che  non siamo pronti a dafferrare su cosa sarà per coloro che vivono nella savana,per  la vita nelle nostre case,  per  le nostre limitate risorse idriche.

 Previsioni sono soltanto  previsioni… al momento non si sa come noi saremo capaci di rispondere all’incremento del pericolo incendi e come sia superare la difficoltà di  anticipare l’intensità dei futuri incendi.

In ogni caso, in termini politici, il collegamento tra gli incendi e il cambiamento climatico  globale non è stat fatto o lo si evita.

Io penso che il nostro primo ministro  lanci strali contro i piromani chiamandoli “ assassini di massa” anche se  vi sono poche prove che  i peggiori  incendi fossero dovuti  ad atti dolosi o intenzionali.

Nello stesso tempo i nostri obbiettivi di limitazione di emissioni e lotta al cambiamento climatico sono patetici- il tagli o da 5 a 15 % delle emissioni- . Proprio  l’altra notte , io ho visto  ( in TV ) un programma dove i politici dibattevano il costo economico degli obbiettivi di riduzione di uso del carbone e il collegamento tra gli uragani di fuoco, la distruzione che essi hanno creato e il cambiamento climatico non era menzionato.

 Sebbene vi sia un’inchiesta  sugli incendi da parte del governo dello stato di Victoria, io penso che   essa avrà forti limiti di portata  e sarà più concentrata su come prepararsi ai futuri incendi e come  i vigili del fuoco dovranno rispondere.  Non vi è la volontà di avere un approccio globale su tutto ciò

Mentre sta avvenendo questo,  vi sono fortissime inondazioni nel Nord dell’Australia di cui vengono definite come le peggiori inondazioni mai registrate sin’ora.

Qui  invece, la gente ha paura che gli incendi abbiano compromesso le nostre strutture di raccolta dell’acqua- il livello delle nostre dighe  è ad un valore basso da record e noi abbiamo continue restrizioni di acqua…  ed il governo sta dando delle risposte di ripiego ( per esempio la costruzione di impianti di desalinizzazione che assorbono molta energia,  canalizzazioni di fiumi i cui letti si disseccano e l’acqua  è pompata  via dalle campagne  per inviarla nelle città ( creando ulteriori problemi sull’ecosistema…Nota del traduttore)

 Io suppongo che in questo  sia il momento opportuno a causa delle conseguenze degli incendi e la perdita di vita umane che  prendiamo coscienza della nostra vulnerabilità di fronte al cambiamento climatico globale.molta gente è vero è ancora insensibile a questo problema. Ma vi è molta paura al momento, si ricercano cause  comprensibili a tutti …e si vogliono colpevoli da mettere sotto accusa…

Troppo facile. Troppo semplice. Nello stesso tempo, la gente in Victoria è stata spinta ad unirsi in una maniera che infonde speranza, raccogliendo soldi per le persone colpite dagli incendi e lavorando volontariamente per la ricostruzione.

Io sono veramente dispiaciuta di aver scritto tanto, - ma io avevo bisogno di pensare  e parlare su queste cose e anche per questo ho accettato di parlane e scriverle per voi.

 Io ho bisogno di comprendere che cosa sta succedendo intorno a me ( praticamente  sono fortemente colpita e frastornata di questa esperienza ed ancora non realizzo pienamente quanto influirà sul mio futuro)

Per questo motivo  vorrei capire se anche da voi i cambiamenti climatici hanno iniziato ad avere delle conseguenze serie. Mi arrivano notizie che quest’anno in Italia vi sia stato un inverno particolarmente freddo. E’ stato così anche a Brindisi?”-

 “- Sì, cara Zobeida,  in effetti quest’anno,  dopo alcuni anni in cui l’inverno di fatto ci era stato derubato, con temperature che oscillavano nelle città tra i 20 e i 30 gradi, quest’anno vi sono state molte pioggie ed anche molte nevicate in montagna  , ma  la situazione sino a pochi mesi fa era quella che ci stavamo preparando ad un’ennesima emergenza idrica con dighe ed invasi all’asciutto. Per adesso si tira un sospiro di sollievo,  ma nessuno vuol prendere la via  di una programmazione di fronte all’evenienza che sempre più,  anche qui,  andremo a forti siccità ed eventi estremi, comprese le alluvioni .

Ma di questo ne parleremo presto all’interno del proseguio di quest’inchiesta sui cambiamenti climatici e fli effetti sul nostro territorio.

 Ti ringraziamo ancora Zobeida e ti auguriamo un buon lavoro

 Un abbraccio da tutta la redazione della OpenArea di Pugliantagonista e da all family.

SECOND TIME

Zobeida speak from Australia about BUSHFIRES....

The temperature was the highest ever recorded in Victoria – in the city, it reached 46.4 degrees C, in the country, as high as 48.   Fires started being reported in the morning, and throughout the afternoon more and more reports of fires started to come in.  The fires started for different reasons: some arson, some natural (falling embers from other fires), some from electrical faults.  Around 30 different fires were burning just in the state of Victoria.  In NSW, there were also as many as 50 fires burning, but these fires were not as close to areas where people lived.  The two severest Victorian fires, which engulfed entire towns, eventually joined together and created a fire front which was 100km in length.  It was simply too large a fire for the fire authorities to even try to contain.  They had all the right equipment and people, but could not control it. 

It has long been the Victorian fire safety policy which we all learn when we are living in fire danger areas - that people should either evacuate their house early, or else stay and defend their home from the fire, with a proper fire plan.  People are not forced to evacuate.  For this fire, that policy did not work: the fire came too quickly for people – before they even realised it was coming, the fire was on top of them and they were trapped.  Other people who had plans to stay and defend their homes, even people who had all the right equipment, were just unable to: the fire was too intense.  Altogether, it is now estimated that at least 200 people have died and more than 2000 homes have been destroyed.  

The causes of the fires

It is hard to look for easy answers as to why the fire was so intense, or why all of the planning and preparation of the government/fire authorities was incapable of stopping it.  Some parts of the media are discussing the climate and the environmental causes of the fire danger, but everyone seems more focused on looking for simpler causes – arsonists to blame for starting fires, power companies to sue, government policies to blame.

However, I think it needs to be emphasised that the day was the hottest, most extreme fire danger day on record.  The hottest day before it was in 1939, which is called "Black Friday" and also lead to huge fires and loss of life.  When there is extreme heat, fires are likely to occur.  The hotter it is, the worse the fires are likely to be: in 1939 the temperature reached 45.7.  In 2009, it was a full degree higher. 

This is important because scientists have also been saying that recently, the average Australian temperature has risen about 1 degree C compared to the temperatures recorded between 1900 – 1950.   The last 10 years have been the hottest and driest on record.  Rainfall in the areas affected by the fires has been up to 20% lower than normal, and there have been 13 years of drought across Australia.   Scientists predicted that this was part of the El Nino cycle of weather – which I think has to do with the warming of the Indian Ocean.  However, it was also expected that this El Nino warming cycle would be counteracted by a La Nina cycle of cooling.  We would get the heat and the drought, but it would be compensated for by a cool period with rain.  The problem has been that this La Nina cycle has not been as strong as predicated – rainfall has only been average, and rain has also fallen in the wrong places – not on farm land or in dams and rivers where it is needed.  I'm not sure really what causes these cycles – only that they are not acting the way it was expected. 

It needs to be understood therefore that we didn't just have one hot day, but a long period of drought, dry conditions and overall increased temperatures, which was not counteracted by a cooling period.  Whether this is caused by climate change alone is not clear.  What is really troubling is that scientists are saying that these changed conditions will be made worse in the future by climate change.  We can anticipate more record temperatures, rainfall to decrease and also the frequency of fire fronts to increase.   There are predictions from our key science body, the CSIRO, that even if there is only low or moderate global warming, we will still face an increase in the likelihood of catastrophic fire conditions (severe dryness, temperature and wind), and they might occur every 5 – 7 years.  However, if there is an extreme scenario of severe global warming (I think between 2 – 3 degrees C), then we could expect catastrophic fire conditions every year.  Conditions which are similar to those which occurred on the 7^th of February.  And this is something that we are just not ready to cope with: given where we live in bushland, the way our houses, our limited water resources. 

Predictions are just predictions – it is really unknown how we will be able to respond to increased fire danger, and really difficult to anticipate the intensity of future fires.  In the weeks since the fires, firefighters have become the most active group in calling for action on climate change.  It seems that they can foresee that Australia just can't cope with such increased fire danger.

However, politically, the link between the fires and climate change is not being made, or it is being avoided.  I think our Prime Minister laid blame on arsonists, calling them 'mass murderers' – even though there is limited evidence that the worst fires were even lit intentionally.  At the same time, our climate change targets are pathetic – to cut emissions between 5 – 15 %.  Just last night, I saw a program where politicians debated the economic costs of carbon reductions targets, and the link between the bushfires, the destruction they caused and climate change was not even mentioned.  Although there will be an inquiry into the bushfires by the Victorian government, I think it will be pretty limited, and concentrated more on how to prepare for future fires, and how fire authorities should respond.  The broader environmental causes might not be addressed in full. 

This has all been happening at the same time as severe flooding has hit the north of Australia, which has also been said to be the worst flooding on record.  People are now starting to worry that the fires will also damage our water catchments – the amount of water in our dams is at record lows, we have continual water restrictions... lots of other issues with the way in which governments are addressing this (i.e. building desalination plants which are energy intensive, key rivers are drying up, water is being pumped from the country side to the cities). 

I guess there is some hope at the moment that given how severe the fires have been, and the amount of destruction and loss of life they have caused, that we might wake up to our vulnerability to climate change.  But it is also really worrying – people might become de-sensitized to this death, to these problems.  There is a lot of fear at the moment, looking for causes, people to blame.  Something simple.  At the same time, people in Victoria have pulled together in a way which is really inspiring, raising money for the persons affected by the fires and volunteering to assist with rebuilding.   

I am really sorry to write so much – I am sure this is much more than you expected!! I really needed to think about these issues, so I am really happy that it has got me started.  I need to wake up to what is going on around me as well.  I would like very much to hear about how things are in Italy, and especially in brindisi – I have heard only that it has been very cold this year?   

ZOBEIDA 

 VICTORIA STATE 

AUSTRALIA 

LE INCHIESTE DI PUGLIANTAGONISTA SUI CAMBIAMENTI CLIMATICI GLOBALI

altri riferimenti e notizie  scelti sulla rete e inviateci da Zobeida  , in attesa di traduzione ve li proponiamo direttamente nella lingua originale

From ZOBEIDA

BUSHFIRE IN AUSTRALIA

 Rilevant articles

Face global warming or firefighters' lives will be ever at risk

PETER MARSHALL - Peter Marshall is national secretary of the United Firefighters Union of Australia.

971 parole

12 febbraio 2009

The Age

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Inglese

© 2009 Copyright John Fairfax Holdings Limited. www.theage.com.au

VICTORIA'S DARKEST DAYS

We will be fighting more fires unless we tackle the problem's source

DEAR Mr Rudd and Mr Brumby, On behalf of more than 13,000 firefighters and support staff in Australia, I write this open letter to request a review of Australia's fire risk and our readiness to meet future catastrophic events.

The fires in Victoria have ripped through towns and suburbs, farms and forests, destroying lives and livelihoods. Ashen remains are the sorrowful legacy of the devastation they caused. Never before in Australian history have we been confronted with such destruction at the hands of fire.

Firefighters work in conditions that most of the public try to flee. We often put our lives on the line. We understand that our job is dangerous by its very nature. However, we are gravely concerned that current federal and state government policies seem destined to ensure a repeat of the recent tragic events.

Consider the devastation in Victoria. Research by the CSIRO, Climate Institute and the Bushfire Council found that a "low global warming scenario" will see catastrophic fire events happen in parts of regional Victoria every five to seven years by 2020, and every three to four years by 2050, with up to 50 per cent more extreme danger fire days. However, under a "high global warming scenario", catastrophic events are predicted to occur every year in Mildura, and firefighters have been warned to expect up to a 230 per cent increase in extreme danger fire days in Bendigo. And in Canberra, the site of devastating fires in 2003, we are being asked to prepare for a massive increase of up to 221 per cent in extreme fire days by 2050, with catastrophic events predicted as often as every eight years. Given the Federal Government's dismal greenhouse gas emissions cut of 5per cent, the science suggests we are well on the way to guaranteeing that somewhere in the country there will be an almost annual repeat of the recent disaster and more frequent extreme weather events.

Something is going on. As we battle blazes here in Victoria, firefighters are busy rescuing people from floods in Queensland. Without a massive turnaround in policies, aside from the tragic loss of life and property, we will be asking firefighters to put themselves at an unacceptable risk. Firefighters know that it is better to prevent an emergency than to have to rescue people from it, and we urge state and federal governments to follow scientific advice and keep firefighters and the community safe by halving the country's greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

Unfortunately, the scientists are advising that no matter what we do, a "low global warming" scenario is almost inevitable, and so we must make fire plans accordingly. Fire does not respect state borders and we need a national inquiry into the state of readiness of the country's fire services to meet this century's challenges.

Our existing resources cannot be expected to cope with even the "low global warming" scenario of a 25 per cent increase in extreme fire days - and catastrophic fire events every five years - in major Victorian country locations in just under 12 years' time. Likewise, when the scientists tell us that under a "low warming" scenario in 2020, Wagga Wagga faces "very extreme" events every two years, warning bells must surely be ringing.

Climate change, however, is only one factor. There are many other pressures on our fire services. As cities expand into formerly rural areas and "growth corridors", many volunteer brigades find their new members have full-time jobs in the city and all the pressures of urban life, and therefore less time to devote to firefighting. These areas need more resources. And professional firefighters routinely perform duties from rescue to emergency medical response, and we are now trained to be part of the front-line response to any terrorist attacks: duties we are proud to perform but which will increasingly put us under strain as we respond to more and more fires.

The real question now must be whether the nation as a whole is devoting the resources it needs to fire prevention and suppression. We are gravely concerned that the royal commission to be set up in Victoria will have a narrow brief to investigate a geographically specific disaster. It cannot have the scope needed to provide an overview of Australia's fire readiness. Further, we want to ensure that it is not a whitewash, with narrow terms of reference designed to ensure political cover for the Victorian Government. The proposed Victorian royal commission should be folded into a broader national inquiry into the nature of Australia's fire risk and our preparedness to meet that risk.

Consideration must also be given to massive new federal and state investment in infrastructure and firefighters. A portion of any stimulus package must go towards preventing future disaster, as well as rebuilding after the current one.

Finally, now is not the time to play a "blame game" with respect to the Victorian fires. But at the appropriate time, we hope to be able to publicly air the concerns we have been conveying over many years to those in power about the state of readiness of our fire services. A national inquiry would allow Australia to get to the bottom of what happened, but also to work out how to ensure that nowhere in the country will it happen again. We urge state and federal governments to make sure this tragedy wasn't completely in vain: grasp this opportunity to develop Australia's first-ever …..

THE END OF CERTAINTY [Corrected 16/02/2009]

Marian Wilkinson and Ben Cubby.

2373 parole

14 febbraio 2009

The Sydney Morning Herald

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© 2009 Copyright John Fairfax Holdings Limited. www.smh.com.au

THE NATION'S PAIN - HONOURING THE VICTIMS Correction: A report on February 14, "The end of certainty", wrongly reported data from a Bureau of Meteorology-CSIRO report co-written by Kevin Hennessy on fire risk and climate change. The report should have read: Under a "no-mitigation scenario" - meaning no action taken to reduce greenhouse gases - there would be between 5 and 25 per cent more days each year when Australians face extreme fire danger by 2020 (for a low-emissions scenario), compared with the baseline year of 1990. By 2020, for a high-emissions scenario, it might rise to between 15 and 65 per cent more days a year. The threat would rise quickly. In 2050, for a high-emissions scenario, when the global average temperature might be 2.9 degrees hotter than in 1990, there might be 100 to 300 per cent more days of extreme fire danger a year. This effect increased over time but should be directly observable by 2020, the Garnaut report noted

A report on February 14, "The end of certainty", wrongly reported data from a Bureau of Meteorology-CSIRO report co-written by Kevin Hennessy on fire risk and climate change.

The report should have read: Under a "no-mitigation scenario" - meaning no action taken to reduce greenhouse gases - there would be between 5 and 25 per cent more days each year when Australians face extreme fire danger by 2020 (for a low-emissions scenario), compared with the baseline year of 1990. By 2020, for a high-emissions scenario, it might rise to between 15 and 65 per cent more days a year.

The threat would rise quickly. In 2050, for a high-emissions scenario, when the global average temperature might be 2.9 degrees hotter than in 1990, there might be 100 to 300 per cent more days of extreme fire danger a year.

This effect increased over time but should be directly observable by 2020, the Garnaut report noted.

VICTORIAN BUSHFIRES - SPECIAL EDITION - THE NATION'S PAIN

All signs point to the climate becomingmore extreme, write Marian Wilkinson and Ben Cubby.

When hundreds of small, grey-headed flying foxes began falling from the sky at Yarra Bend in suburban Melbourne, for some it heralded the awful events that would later unfold. It was Wednesday, January 28, one day into the ferocious heatwave that would wax and wane before returning with terrible intensity last weekend.

That first day, calls began pouring into Wildlife Victoria. As the bats were dying en masse in the city, ringtail possums were falling out of trees in the bush and distressed kangaroos, too weak to jump, were baulking at fences.

"It was just unbelievable," said Fiona Corke, a Wildlife Victoria rescuer. "The animals were behaving very strangely. We were telling people to leave dishes of water by the side of the roads."

By January 30, Melbourne's temperature topped 45.1 degrees. A climate scientist, Dr David Karoly, noticed the city's plane trees had begun to shed their leaves under the stress of the heat.

In Tasmania, half the state recorded its hottest day on record. Launceston Airport hit 39.9 degrees, well over two degrees higher than its last record temperature.

In Adelaide, in the early hours of January 29, the city experienced its hottest night on record, 33.9 degrees.

Just north of the city, the air base at RAAF Edinburgh recorded an extraordinary 41.7 degrees at 3am. "Such an event appears to be without known precedent in southern Australia," the Bureau of Meteorology said.

People began turning up in the public hospitals, felled by the heat. As the days wore on and on, heat-related hospital admissions would ultimately reach more than 700.

To climate scientists and professional forecasters, it was clear that Australia was experiencing "an extreme weather event". But few among the public realised at the time, these first awful days would be just phase one of the heatwave.

As the weather bureau would later report: "After a slight drop in temperature during the first few days of February, extreme heat returned to the south-east on February 6. Temperatures rose sharply in South Australia and western Victoria on the 6th but it was the 7th which saw the most exceptional heat of the whole event."

As the nation reels from the toll in the bushfires, climate scientists are trying to carefully assess what lessons can be learnt from the unprecedented heatwave of 2009 and the deadly fires that accompanied it.

While state authorities focus on the crucial investigations into arson, emergency advice, town planning and tree clearing, looming over all these is what role human-induced climate change is playing in Australia's weather patterns. And, critically, how much of country will become more at risk from bushfire because of climate change?

The Victorian Premier, John Brumby, bluntly acknowledged this week that climate change cannot be ignored in the future debate over the bushfires.

"There is clear evidence now that the climate is becoming more extreme," Brumby told The 7.30 Report. And, announcing a royal commission on Australia's worst natural disaster, he insisted it would look at all aspects of the events. "I want everything on the table."

On the day the bushfires started claiming lives, Melbourne reached a record 46.4 degrees for the first time in 154 years of record-keeping, overshooting the high set on Black Friday, January 13, 1939 by 0.8 degrees and far exceeding the temperature on Ash Wednesday in 1983.

Climate scientists who spoke to the Herald this week repeatedly stressed that, despite these extraordinary temperatures, one extreme weather event cannot be taken as evidence of climate change.

But nearly all made the following points. Australia has experienced a general warming trend over the past 50 years which is consistent with human-induced climate change. The south-east of Australia is also experiencing a long period of unusually dry weather which may also be related to climate change.

Both these trends will increase the number of days where the bushfire risk will be more extreme and bushfires will be more intense. Most importantly, unless global greenhouse gas emissions are curbed, these trends will get worse over the next decades.

"The projections are based on climate models which include increases in greenhouse gases and that tells us that we can expect higher temperatures and much drier conditions over southern Australia," a CSIRO bushfire researcher, Kevin Hennessy, told the Herald.

"They are two of the critical elements that are needed to create a fire. The other two are low humidity and high wind speeds. Not only are we estimating there will be an increase in the frequency of extreme fire danger days but the duration of the fire season will be longer and the intensity of some of the biggest fires may increase."

Mr Hennessy co-authored a landmark report on the increased risk of fire weather due to climate change in 2007 which was cited in the Garnaut Climate Change Review. The study defined two new categories of fire weather - "very extreme" and "catastrophic". Under a "no mitigation scenario", in which no action is taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, there would be between five and 25 more days each year when Australians face extreme fire dangers by 2013, compared to the baseline year of 1990.

And the threat would rise quickly. By 2030, it may rise to between 15 and 65 days a year. In 2067, when Australia's average temperature may be 2.9 degrees hotter than in 1990, there would be between 100 to 300 days of extreme fire danger each year. "This effect increases over time but should be directly observable by 2020," the report noted.

The soaring heatwave temperatures last weekend, while unprecedented, are consistent with a general warming trend as a result of growing global greenhouse gas emissions. The 1990s were the warmest decade ever recorded instrumentally, and the last 100 years were the warmest of the millennium.

In 2007, Victoria recorded its warmest year on record, 1.2 degrees above the average. In the decade before, it experienced its driest years on record. Then, briefly, the end of 2007 promised relief. It was supposed to be a cooling, "La Nina" year. Rain fell in spring last year and temperatures dropped, but this summer hopes were dashed. From January 4 to February 7, virtually no rain fell in Melbourne, "equal to the second-longest dry spell on record for the city", according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

The mighty forces determining Australia's climate are complex and only partly understood, but research published in the past month has added significantly to the stock of knowledge. It also overturns some of the popular understanding of the "La Nina" influence.

The University of NSW research showed that the Indian Ocean Dipole, a swirling current that circulates warm water off Australia's north-west coast, appears to have a major influence on our weather and can override La Nina.

Dr Caroline Ummenhofer and Professor Matthew England at the university's Climate Change Research Centre showed that when "positive" dipole cycles send unusually hot, dry winds down to south-east Australia, drought is often the result. The big dry that straddled the start of the 20th century and ruined thousands of outback pioneers corresponded to a positive dipole, and so did the drought that spanned World War II.

The severe drought across southern Australia, the backdrop to this week's fires, has been accompanied by a run of three positive dipoles. The researchers believe this is why the La Nina event in the Pacific in 2007-08, which traditionally brings rain, was unable to break the drought. Three consecutive positive cycles is unprecedented, Ummenhofer said. Whether this is linked to human-induced climate change needs further investigation, the researchers say. And the El Nino-La Nina cycle of warm and cool atmospheric phenomena in the Pacific will still have a major influence over Australia's climate, even though not as much as previously thought.Another, separate force driving weather patterns in southern Australia is the haze of air pollution over Asia. The aerosol haze, a stew of industrial output, fires, exhaust fumes, dust and plankton respiration, cools Asia, acting like a shield for the sun's heat and keeping much of Asia a degree or two cooler than it would otherwise be. This can actively force changes in wind and ocean currents by changing the distribution of solar heat on the Earth's surface, said the lead researcher, Dr Leon Rotstayn, of the CSIRO's Marine and Atmospheric team.

The aerosol haze forces more heat into the monsoon winds which douse Australia's north-west. But it also contributes to a build-up of high pressure which may contribute to less rainfall across southern Australia, according to new research released by the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology.

Human-induced climate change, while separate to these overlapping forces, has the power to exacerbate them. CSIRO's Dr Penny Whetton says the long-term trend in Australia includes about 0.9 of a degree warming through the 20th century. Australia is looking at a warming of about 1 degree by 2030 and 1.5 to 4-5 degrees by 2070 unless greenhouse gas emissions are reduced.

"You can't say we expected a 46 degree day in Melbourne this year but we would expect that it is getting increasingly easy to set new records compared to the past because of the underlying warming trend that's occurring," Whetton said.

The causes for the big dry over southern Australia are, she says, more complicated.

"The drying trend over the last 10 to 12 years is consistent with the rainfall change we are projecting using climate models. It's actually a more severe decrease than the models are projecting. At the moment it's too early to say whether its climate change-related. In all likelihood it's some combination of some influences of long-term climate change and natural fluctuations of the climate system."

Whatever the immediate causes of the bushfires, for many Australians it is areminder of the potential risks of uncontrolled climate change.

As the Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong, put it last year,"As one of the hottest and driest continents on earth, Australia's economy and environment will be one of the hardest and fastest hit by climate change if we don't act now."

HEATWAVE

The heatwave came in two phases - January 28 to 31, and February 6 to 8. The immediate cause was a slow-moving high pressure system in the

Tasman Sea, combined with a tropical low off Australia's north-west coast and a monsoon trough. These allowed hot, tropical air to flow

south to the south east of the country.

RAINFALL

Melbourne had no measurable rainfall between January 4 and February 7, the second-longest spell on its record. The rest of Victoria and South Australia had already been experiencing unusual dry spells, in addition to

the drought. Many parts of Victoria, South Australia and southern NSW have recorded the driest start to a year on record.

SOUTH AUSTRALIA

South Australia's temperatures peaked at 48.2 degrees at Kyancutta on January 28 and Renmark on February

7. RAAF Edinburgh air base reached 41.7

at 3am on January 29. Local

temperature records were set at many

stations across the state.

TASMANIA

The state record of 41.5 was set on January 29 at Flinders Island Airport. It was broken the next day at four other sites as half of Tasmania had its hottest day on record.

Launceston Airport broke its record by the

second-largest margin recorded in the state.

Seven of the eight highest temperatures recorded in Tasmania occurred this year.

VICTORIA

The record temperature in Victoria has been broken eight times so far this year, peaking in Hopetoun at 48.8 - believed to be the highest

temperature recorded that far south in the

world. Melbourne reached a new high of 46.4 on February 7, breaking the record set on Black Friday in 1939.

2008 coolest since 2000

By TIM COLEBATCH, CANBERRA

427 parole

16 febbraio 2009

The Age

First

3

Inglese

© 2009 Copyright John Fairfax Holdings Limited. www.theage.com.au

LAST year was the coldest year around the world since 2000 - yet it was still the 10th hottest since records began in 1850, monitoring by British researchers has shown.

It was a similar story in Australia, and especially in Victoria, where this decade has been the hottest and driest on record - drying out vegetation and making it more bushfire-prone.

Global climate data for 2008 has been collated from thousands of sites on land and sea by the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia and the Hadley Research Centre of the UK Met Office.

It shows that even a cool year for the noughties was a hot one by historical standards. Average temperatures across the world last year were 0.325 degrees warmer than the average between 1961 and 1990, which meteorologists use as a benchmark period.

Last year was 0.69 degrees hotter than the average temperatures around the world in the 75 years from 1850 to 1924, before global temperatures really began to rise.

Temperatures in Australia are rising even faster. The Bureau of Meteorology reports that the average temperature last year across the continent was 0.41 degrees hotter than in the benchmark period. It was the coolest year since 2001, yet our 14th hottest year in 99 years of monitoring.

Bureau climatologist Blair Trewin said a La Nina event in the Pacific Ocean was associated with last year's cooling, just as a strong El Nino event in 1998 caused the hottest year so far, according to the British data, with average temperatures 0.55 degrees hotter than in the benchmark period.

"We have a reasonably high level of confidence that the decline in rainfall in the southern parts of Australia is at least partly due to climate change - especially in the south-west of Western Australia, but also in southern Victoria," Dr Trewin said. "There's probably also some natural variability there."

So far this decade, the average global temperature has been 0.41 degrees hotter than between 1961 and 1990, and 0.78 degrees hotter than between 1850 and 1924, the data reveals.

Again, temperatures in Australia have risen even more. Bureau of Meteorology data shows that the last seven years have been almost a full degree hotter than the average temperature in the first half of the 20th century.

So far in this decade, the average temperature has been 0.43 degrees above the benchmark across Australia, and 0.46 degrees higher in Victoria.