Claim: Bushfires have not been affected by climate change, and are affected by impeded hazard reduction
- Thread starter TheNZThrower
- Start date
Mendel
Senior Member.
I quoted several segments of a single article, not several articles.
The phrase "The full list of inclusions, exclusions, and the application process for those actions that aren't allowed is viewable here" is linked to https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environme...hfire-management-and-national-environment-law , where you can confirm the article's list of permitted activities.
More to the point, that page also states what requires a permit:
Article: This page aims to provide guidance on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act), and its role in regulating bushfire management activities carried out by state and territory governments, local councils, other authorities such as fire and emergency services, and individuals.
Fire prevention activities may require federal approval if there is likely to be a significant impact on a nationally protected matter and no exemption applies (see What activities might be exempt?). These activities may result in irreversible or permanent loss of nationally threatened communities or key habitats for threatened species and could include:
The above list focuses on impacts on nationally threatened species and ecological communities, as these are the nationally protected matters most likely to be affected by fire prevention activities. However, fire prevention activities could require approval if they are likely to have a significant impact on any nationally protected matter, such as migratory species, Ramsar wetlands or Commonwealth land (see Where can I get more information?)
- constructing substantial new fire breaks, asset protection zones, access roads or tracks on a significant scale, in habitat for nationally threatened species or areas that form part of a nationally threatened ecological community
- one-off fuel reduction burns in remnant forest that is important habitat for nationally threatened species and has not been previously subject to burning regimes
- proposed new burning regimes in world heritage sites, national heritage places or Ramsar wetlands
- trial or experimental ecological burns, on a significant scale, in habitat for nationally threatened species or areas that form part of a nationally threatened ecological community
- one-off burns in listed or high habitat value ecological communities that are not fire tolerant (for example, littoral rainforests and wet schlerophyll forests)
- burning that may cause substantive indirect (downstream) damage to nationally protected matters as a result post-fire erosion (for example, water quality within a Ramsar wetland).
TheNZThrower
Active Member
According to the AJW video again, which I will embed:
A study has found that environmentally conscious consumers are more likely to engage in theft and dishonest behaviour. He says:
Mazar and Zhong were studying the effects of moral licensing in regards to ethical decisions pertaining to the environment. Moral licensing is the effect where when people do something that causes moral cognitive dissonance, they have a greater incentive to engage in behaviour that soothes the dissonance in favour of their moral image (e.g. engaging in altruistic acts) to prove that they aren't immoral. Consequently, people who engage in behaviours that soothe their moral image subsequently lack that incentive as they've already proven their morality, and thus are less likely to be charitable and even more likely to engage in transgressive behaviour. Per Behavioural Economics:
However, this is logically fallacious, or specifically a fallacy of division. It assumes a phenomenon that applies to the general population must apply to a subset of it that is particularly environmentally conscious, which is not logically coherent. If AJW was right, then we would have to conclude that people who dedicated their time to community service by cleaning up trash must hate homeless people, as the following experiment from Vsauce demonstrates:
A study has found that environmentally conscious consumers are more likely to engage in theft and dishonest behaviour. He says:
He cites this article from The Guardian, which summarises the findings of this 2010 study by psychologists Mazar and Zhong.
Mazar and Zhong were studying the effects of moral licensing in regards to ethical decisions pertaining to the environment. Moral licensing is the effect where when people do something that causes moral cognitive dissonance, they have a greater incentive to engage in behaviour that soothes the dissonance in favour of their moral image (e.g. engaging in altruistic acts) to prove that they aren't immoral. Consequently, people who engage in behaviours that soothe their moral image subsequently lack that incentive as they've already proven their morality, and thus are less likely to be charitable and even more likely to engage in transgressive behaviour. Per Behavioural Economics:
So what Mazar and Zhong actually did was not study people who consider themselves more environmentally conscious. Rather, they randomly assigned a random sample of experiment volunteers to purchase from a store stocked with either green or conventional products, and then asked them to perform several tests to gauge their subsequent ethical behaviour:
So they were studying how does moral licensing affect your average Joe or Jane in relation to environmental ethics, rather than studying the behaviours of a non-random sample of environmentalists. So at best AJW can claim that if your average Joe or Jane thinks that it's ok to steal or be dishonest after engaging in a bit of green consumerism, then it must follow that environmentalists who regularly and actively buy green when they do need to consume must also engage in such behaviour since if this phenomena applies to your average person, and if average people think it is noble to be considerate of the environment, then it must also apply to dedicated environmentalists.
However, this is logically fallacious, or specifically a fallacy of division. It assumes a phenomenon that applies to the general population must apply to a subset of it that is particularly environmentally conscious, which is not logically coherent. If AJW was right, then we would have to conclude that people who dedicated their time to community service by cleaning up trash must hate homeless people, as the following experiment from Vsauce demonstrates:
TheNZThrower
Active Member
Regarding the above video, AJW argues that Australia should ditch net-zero carbon policies and just go business as usual because foreign inventions will save the day:
On top of that, thinking that you don't need to do your part to solve a problem because others aren't doing anything is foolish. It's like saying that you don't need to reduce food waste because it ain't going to make a dent in the total amount of food waste produced.
The main issue with this argument is what exactly would incentivise those vague ''innovations'' from being developed in time to mitigate the effects of climate change? If it is solely the effects of climate change, then those inventions would be too late to the party. In addition, AJW seems to realise that climate change is a problem that requires international co-operation, because it's through co-operation (e.g. the Paris Accords) that Australia can punch above its weight in solving the issue. Australia is itself an economic powerhouse who can help significantly to develop ''innovations'' to mitigate climate change with other nations, and then adopt them to decarbonise while minimising any side effects of decarbonisation on the economy and potentially gain money in patenting them.External Quote:
On top of that, thinking that you don't need to do your part to solve a problem because others aren't doing anything is foolish. It's like saying that you don't need to reduce food waste because it ain't going to make a dent in the total amount of food waste produced.
Mendel
Senior Member.
0.5 degrees is a huge impact
like replacing coal power with renewable energy? that's already happening everywhere, no need to wait any longer!
Mendel
Senior Member.
false dichotomy there
the economic impact of climate change is huge
that's why it's important for them to deny that bush fires have anything to do with the climate, because that's one way climate change is already costing Australia lots of money
the rest of his argument is like, "when I'm sitting in a speeding car, I should prepare for the impending crash rather than hit the brakes". It's irresponsible.
FatPhil
Senior Member.
Agreed, but the way that sentence was worded seems to display a misunderstanding of the issue. This isn't about reducing temperature, it's about decreasing the amount by which the temperature goes up.
Are you familiar with Steve Keen, author of, amongst other things, /Debunking Economics/? Quite a renegade in the world of economics, a contrarian who's at least once lost his job for countering convention. He's looked at the economic models of others regarding the impact of temperature change, and expressed dissatisfaction with them, to say the least. He occasionally releases vids on the topic, such as this one:
Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=mv_j-5tiGQY&list=UUM1ubsbE-tG9ru61mc3zX8A&index=29
They're not intended to be entertaining vids, they're variously lectures or symposia, but they're full of stuff to get your teeth into. 0.5 degrees is indeed a huge impact.
Ann K
Senior Member.
So is it 0.5 or 0.05? Not that it matters, the whole "let's not do anything if it's only a little bit" narrative is just handwashing, merely passing the problem on to someone else.
captancourgette
Active Member
for me reading this its like saying if oz cut whatever X they could lower the global temp by 0.5 degrees.
Im like sure Oz hits above their weight in a lot of things, but yep nah thats total BS
so US could lower temps by 4-5 degrees? on that scale!
Btw yes Mendel is correct fossil feul reduction is already happening, because of the marketplace
heres a semi realtime tracker, which Ive been following for a couple of years
https://app.electricitymaps.com
you can see when renewables kick in the price of power drops often by massive amounts
I still havent worked out what negative prices mean? 'they pay you to use power'?
Im like sure Oz hits above their weight in a lot of things, but yep nah thats total BS
so US could lower temps by 4-5 degrees? on that scale!
Btw yes Mendel is correct fossil feul reduction is already happening, because of the marketplace
heres a semi realtime tracker, which Ive been following for a couple of years
https://app.electricitymaps.com
you can see when renewables kick in the price of power drops often by massive amounts
I still havent worked out what negative prices mean? 'they pay you to use power'?
Mendel
Senior Member.
yes, that's what it means
Article: Negative power prices on the electricity exchange occur when a high and inflexible power generation appears simultaneously with low electricity demand. This is often the case on public holidays such as Christmas or Pentecost. Particularly in hours of (predictable) high renewable power supply (lots of wind and sun), power producers offer their electricity for negative prices on the exchange. This is often done by marketers of renewable power but also by conventional power stations like nuclear and lignite plants. In this event, the market clearing price can be set below zero (see Figure 2).
Why do power supply and demand have to be matched on the exchange?
Power can currently not be stored at a large scale in the German electricity system. To keep the power grid running stable at a frequency of 50 Hertz, the amount of electricity fed into the system and power demand have to be kept equal.
This balance has to be achieved by closely matching supply and demand – something that the power market has to deliver apart from its other purpose of shaping the trading price for electricity.
Because negative power prices are a sign of very high supply at the market, additional "cheap" renewable power is often blamed for causing the electricity price to drop below zero. But inflexible conventional power stations are equally responsible.
There are several reasons why conventional power station operators, which are either losing money or at least losing profit during times of negative prices, keep their plants running (See study by Energy Brainpool, page 4-5 and the 2016 results from Consentec). They can be technical, for example the power plant can be too inflexible to change its output, or the ramping or costs for shutting down and starting up can be too expensive. Another reason for keeping the plant running can be the obligation to provide contracted balancing power to keep the grid stable or provide re-dispatch power. Alternatively, it may be that a certain production has to be kept up to provide heat for a town household heating network.
TheNZThrower
Active Member
Regarding the false dichotomy, one third option I arrived at is of an economy tanked by climate change's effects under a no decarbonisation scenario. What other alternatives to the dichotomy can you pick out?
Mendel
Senior Member.
well, "the economy" can be improved through decarbonisation, it shouldn't "tank" because of that
German politics reduced support for PV in 2013 and support for wind in 2017, which depressed how much new generation got installed each year: you could say that with the wind energy that we're missing because of this, we could've replaced the Nord Stream 1 gas deliveries ("Der zusätzliche Windstrom hätte [..] 2022 einen Gasverbrauch im Wert von 23 Milliarden Euro vermeiden können – das ist laut den Angaben mehr Gas, als noch im vergangenen Juli durch die Pipeline Nord Stream 1 importiert wurde.", https://www.klimareporter.de/strom/den-altmaier-knick-auszubuegeln-lohnt-sich )—the current gas crisis is costing Germany a (European) billion euros, which is the (unsupported) cost cited for fully switching to renewables ("Energiewende").
Renewables are an economy sector, and there's no reason to assume that supporting renewables is going to tank the economy—it'll be bad for old fossil fuel companies, but good for newer renewable energy industries.
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