Jara

Thanks Wrecker - I should have realised Demonland would contain all the expertise I needed. Could have saved myself a lot of trouble. Hope you enjoy the book.

Oh yeah, sorry, misread that. I must get out of the habit of reading these things so late at night. It was Grape who made the comment about Tim - and since he was kind enough to buy my book (well, I assume you bought it, Grape - I only get about a cent if you got it from the library) I'm certainly not going to harass him.

Hi Wrecker Finally had a look at those two articles - sorry for delay - was busy - wouldn't have thought that either of them was particularly 'dogmatic' - both simply scientists doing what they do - using their knowledge to put hypotheses out there - haven't spoken to any of the BOM guys for a while, but I believe that they do accept, as a general rule, that the climate is warming and that this is man-made. Since they are the best climate specialists we have, I'd be listening to them. One thing I learnt from studying the weather is that it's bloody complicated - funny that we can put a robot on Mars but we can't accurately predict next week's weather. But the temperatures are definitely trending upwards - I heard a scientist interviewed - think on The Science Show - just a few weeks ago - said we've broken something like 30 records for high temperatures in Australia in recent years, and only one at the other end. . Still waiting for you to show me where Flannery says that drought will be 'permanent' - and for you to prove him wrong (depends on what time scale he uses I suppose- I'm not doubting you're right, but I'd like to see it, if you can find it.). Cheers

Thanks Grapeviney - wow, you were there on the Monday? - totally weird, wasn't it? A nightmare really, and the news just kept getting worse. I'll never forget those first few days. We kept trying to find friends and discovering that they hadn't made it. Yep, I'm still in St Andrews Cheers

Hey Wrecker The people you are quoting are pretty knowledgeable types. I'd be listening to what they say. Sure, we haven't had a bad drought since the 12 year one leading up to 2009, but it does seem pretty certain that the general temperature patterns are only going one way, and that will inevitably lead to drought - and increased risk of fire. As I said in my first post, the fact that we had such terrible fires in early October should be enough to put the wind up anybody with eyes in their head. This probably all seems rather academic to people down in the city (though I don't know where you live) , but it's not to me. We lost so many friends on Black Saturday - nine, all up, their ages ranging from 4 to 70 - I can't help but find it dispiriting when I see our society doing nothing about global warming. Also, as a firefighter and a person whose family lives in the bush, I'm rather worried about the forthcoming summer. Anyway, I don't like getting into arguments - intelligent dialogue works better for me. All the best

Hey Grape Haven't read Tims book for a few years - The Weathermakers, wasn't it,? So I don't recall him saying that specifically and I'm not sure what timeframe he was referring to. At present, I gather we're heading for an increase of somewhere between 2 and 4 degrees by the end of the century. I believe anything like the latter will lead us into a situation in which - well, I don't know if you could say "permanent" drought but pretty close to it. My own book was called Kinglake-350. I did a lot of research about fire history, science etc Spent a solid eighteen months harassing every fire scientist, meteorologist, environmental historian, etc I could lay my hands on. I discuss these things much more comprehensively in the book. The fire history of our own nation is quite extraordinary. In a nutshell, Europeans entered an environment which had been shaped by constant mosaic burning by nomads. They then did two things: first they burnt furiously, to clear the land (which had the unexpected result of increasing pyrophiliac plants) Then, when they had established farms, fences, roads, etc, they tried to suppress fire all together. Both activities had a terrible effect upon the environment; meant that when fires did come, they would be monsters. Daisy, if you happen to read this, yes, thanks for the Wikipedia thing about Black Thursday. I've read it, of course, but my scientist friend was a little sceptical about some of the reports. Suspects that they were somewhat exaggerated due to the (quite understandable) terror these misplaced Englishmen felt upon encountering the "red steer". I'm not denying that monster fires have always been a feature of the Australian landscape; there are even Aboriginal myths describing what sound very much like crown fires. The problem is just that they seem to be getting worse with global warming. Cheers

Hi DaisyHmmm ...this is such a complicated business - I'm also reporting on conversations I had a few years ago - but he was quite clear that Black Saturday was the worst we've had since record keeping began - they use an index called the Forest Fire Danger Index - it was developed by a scientist called MacArthur - using Black Friday (which at the time they believed was as bad as a fire could be) as the hallmark - the top of the range was set at 100 - the Black Saturday fires reached levels of between 200-300 - almost unbelievable - as I said in one of the other answers, the one fire he was unsure about was Black Thursday, the monster in the 1851, since obviously, as you said, there were no scientists around. But there were some ways of checking - ie studying historical records etc. for example, I believe Black Thursday was the result of a year or two of drought; Black Saturday was the result of 12. Melbourne also had its hottest day ever on Black Saturday. Sorry, not a very complete answer. Bit tired. Will finish reply tomorrow

Hey Daisy - he was an incredibly smart guy, and extremely precise and measured in his comments. I don't quite get the reference to Flannery - the scientist I interviewed was only commenting on strictly measurable factors, such as the record -breaking temperatures and drought conditions leading up to the fire. Some things I asked about (such as wind speed) he wouldn't make definitive statements about because they were impossible to verify (he did make estimates, judging by, for example, the depths of the roots of some of the trees that had been swept away - he thought the cyclonic winds around the fire would have reached speeds of up to 200 kph (I thought this was impossible, since the BOM forecasts of the day were only around 120 kph, but he said the fires generate their own winds)It's been a while since I spoke to him, but he was definitely aware of the statistics concerning earlier fires (we had an interesting discussion about this) He was of the opinion that the Black Saturday fires were worse than Ash Wednesday or Black Friday. He was unsure about Black Thursday (in the 1850s) because record-keeping was a bit haphazard then. Sorry for such a rambling, incoherent reply. If you're interested I can follow up and get you more info (I wrote a book about Black Saturday which discussed a lot of this stuff, but I'm tired right now) Cheers

Thanks Wrecker. Yep, the fire severity is a reflection of several factors, one of which is the fuel load (interestingly, it seems to peak at about 15 years) When I mentioned "temperature" I meant the temperature of the day, which broke numerous records. Don't know that I've ever seen anybody predicting that drought would be permanent. Surely nobody would be that dogmatic. I just think the general idea is that droughts and other extreme weather events will become more frequent and more severe. I suspect the Lancefield fires were an example of this.

Hi Wrecker Sorry for late reply. While since I've been on here. Maybe I wasn't clear enough. What I meant was that it's very hard to measure whether a particular fire was "worse" than another fire. You can't just compare casualty figures, because they could be a reflection of population growth in the bush. But there are indicators you can measure; these include temperature, drought length and severity and fire behaviour activities like spotting. I interviewed the fire scientist who did the analysis of the Black Saturday fires for something I was writing and he told me that on all of those measures, black Saturday was the worst we've had since white settlement. A normal bushfire I suppose doesn't tell us much, but a record breaker like that (and the incredibly early October fire at Lancefield) are pretty good evidence to me that the fires weren't 'natural'. Cheers.

More uninterested than disinterested (just joking - I know the word is changing its meaning, but I liked it better when they were two distinct words)

Well, thanks Wrecker, but I must admit, I didn't actually see Tony at this one - he probably had other things on his mind. I'm still a bit shocked by it, actually - we were in the thick of it on that first afternoon, and I'm amazed that we could have a fire like that in October. And worried about what sort of world my kids will inherit. By the way, I'm not one of those people who jump on the Parks guys for lighting the thing - I know some of those guys, and they have an incredibly difficult job - the odd one always gets away. Good friend of mine is one of the most experienced fire managers in the state, and he's just resigned from it - too much pressure and stress - you're damned if you burn, and damned if you don't. All a sign of the (warming) times.

Hey Daisy I'd never point to individual weather events - that would be a bit silly - it's more a matter of overall trends - and they're only going one way. Up! Things are getting hotter (although of course there will be variations) I regard Black Saturday itself as probably a global warming event - not just the fact that it was a terrible bushfire - we've had plenty of those before - but because the drought leading up to it and the fire itself broke all kinds of records (eg hottest temp recorded in Melbourne, or, even more significant from a firefighters perspective, spotting at a distance of 35 kilometres - I think the fires in the Yarra valley were caused by embers from the Kinglake ranges ) Anyway, I just reckon we have to keep talking about these things in a rational manner - getting people's backs up won't do much good. Cheers

Hey Daisy, I was one of the fireys at Lancefield. Been CFA for years, spoke to lots of the older guys. None of them had ever seen anything like this, so early in the year. Global warming is real and terrifying. Don't care what the deniers say, the evidence is there in front of us. We'll all be bloody fireys before much longer.

What I suspect, too. Only afl player I ever knew personally reckoned there was plenty of underhand stuff going on.

Hear hear.

An excellent summary. Equalisation is a joke. We've been hit by a perfect storm - some of it of our own making, but most of it not. The driving force behind it is greed - bunch of spivs in bespoke suits have taken over a much-loved community game and squeezed the life out of it.

Me too. Not only didn't watch or listen to it, have to place a total media ban upon myself. Makes me sick. Only media I've looked at was the realestate section in yesterday's Age, which my wife left lying around. Lead article was about how the prices for mansions in Toorak etc were going absolutely gangbusters. And I thought, there's an appropriate analogy for what's happening to our sport.

Like this post, especially the last six words. Ruining football for me. If you were on top when the expansion clubs and the big bucks came in, you're laughing. If you weren't, you're stuffed (with the very odd exception). [censored] like Dill couldn't care less, as long as they get their $2 mill salaries. It's the spuds out in the burbs like us who bear the brunt, who pay the cost. As somebody else said above, we sure as hell cant change teams. I'll be a Demon supporter until I cark it, but I don't expect to ever see a premiership.

Yeah, good luck with that. Expect we'll be reaching that stage any day now. Only been fifty years.

But isn't Baysidedave right? I know lots of crowds booed him, but if memory serves me well, the West Australians were among the worst, weren't they? Baysidedave didn't say all West Aussies were scumbags; he was criticising the idiots who booed him. Fair enough, too.

Each to their own, I suppose, but I think seeing him and Lake poncing around with their premiership medallions is terrible for the weaker clubs in the competition, and will further entrench the inequality that is already ruining the game. I don't wish him well at all. I wish him to get stuffed.

sorry - not sure how to highlight a particular quote on iPad, but I wanted to take issue with your saying that that's what FA is all about. What it's all about is solidifying the power of the clubs who were at the top when it came in. Which, given that we weren't one of them, is terrible for us, and for any concept of equalisation. It's all very well to say "one day I hope to be this excited." The way the afl is these days, chances are you never will feel that excited. I've been hoping that for fifty years now - just can't see it happening. The big powers too entrenched, even more so now that it's a business and not a community sport.

Seemed pretty obvious weeks ago. What a bloody snore this season has become. And, as Lamashtu said earlier, terrible for the weaker clubs. Zzzzzz Who will bother watching the gf? Watch that walking smirk Hodge strutting around. Erk. Reminds me of one of the roosters in my yard.

Great post. So true.