'They are incinerators from hell': Biologist blames GUM TREES for Australia's brutal bushfire season - and says they should be banned anywhere near human settlements

I really like our native gum trees and would oppose any attack on them but there is undoubtedly some truth in the colorful claim below. They do burn easily.

It is irrelevant, however.  Fuel reduction will prevent the fires regardless of which trees the fuel comes from.  Fuel reduction is the Holy Grail.  With it, there CAN be no big fires.  Anything else is passing the buck

A prominent Australian biologist has blamed the country's bushfires on gum trees, labelling them 'incinerators from hell dressed up as trees'.

Also known as eucalyptus trees, gum trees are native to every Australian state and their leaves make up most of the diet of koalas and some possum species.

Despite being a source of food for iconic native animals, biologist Jeremy Griffith attributed Australia's current bushfire crisis to the widespread tree on Saturday.

The biologist, who is also an author, even went as far to say that people should be banned from growing eucalyptus trees anywhere near human settlements.  

'Humans can't live near them, and they are an extremely dangerous habitat for wildlife,' Mr Griffith wrote in The Spectator.

Australia's current bushfire season has claimed the lives of 28 people and an estimated one billion animals so far.

Mr Griffith explained eucalyptus trees actively encourage bushfires as their waxy and oily leaves are very flammable.

In addition, he said gum trees have epicormic buds hidden under their bark that are protected from flames and allow them quickly sprout back after bushfires.

'Eucalypts can survive an intense fire when few other species can; and since they can survive fire they can afford to encourage fire because it will eliminate competition from other species,' Mr Griffith said.

He pointed out that gum trees heavily shed leaves and peeling bark, which he believes is in order to generate tinder for fires. 

Mr Griffith likened gum trees to 'dangerous crocodiles planted tail-down ready to destroy lives and our world'.

'There has to be a complete change of mindset when thinking about eucalypts that recognises their true nature. The stark reality is there should be legislation in Australia preventing eucalypts from growing in quantity near people,' he said.   

The biologist said there needs to be more regular hazard reduction burns in eucalypt forests, like those practiced by Indigenous Australians thousands of years before British settlement.

He explained that because Indigenous Australians would start small fires regularly, the intensity of fires would decrease, which would allow for safe fires in the summer.

Mr Griffith warned of the dangers that eucalyptus trees pose in other parts of the world where they have been introduced, such as California. [And China]

Australian gold miners introduced gum trees to California in the 1850s before the local state government began encouraging their plantation in the early 1900s.

During the Oakland firestorm in 1991, it is estimated that 70 per cent of the energy released from blazes was through eucalyptus trees.

In California, which has similar dry conditions to Australia, wildfires are a yearly occurrence and recently took the lives of five people in 2019.

Australia's current bushfire season arrived early in October 2019. So far, a total of 28 people have died in the horror blazes and more than 2,000 homes have been destroyed.

SOURCE  






Victorian government to launch an attack on free speech about sex-change

The Victorian government intends to pass a law very soon that may see ordinary citizens imprisoned if they speak up against the chemical, psychological and physical mutilation of confused adolescents. Labor Attorney-General-Hennessey wants to outlaw conversion practices. They are defined in her discussion paper about the proposed Bill as

…any practice or treatment that seeks to change, suppress or eliminate an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to reduce or eliminate sexual and/or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same gender, or efforts to change gender expressions.

Queensland already has a similar bill before its parliament. It would authorise imprisonment for those who perform what is called conversion “therapy” in that state. Such therapy is defined as a treatment or other practice that attempts to change or suppress a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. That’s very broad. While it is directed to those who provide a health service it includes “alternative” ones, and  will very arguably capture pastors, concerned family members, or other lay people who attempt to dissuade a young person they know from embarking upon a “transition” from their natal sex to its opposite.

It is almost unnecessary for me to tell you that the Queensland legislation specifically quarantines from criminal liability the actual conversion practices that carry the real risks for children — those promoted by the medical and quasi medical cadres of the gender industry, opportunistically exploiting a child’s hesitant and often confused explorations of her or his identity and sexual nature and independence as they enter puberty, when frayed family dynamics or peer pressure are often making such experience more difficult. In such a context  any treatment that consists of undeviating and reflexive “affirmation” of the “choice” of such a child or adolescent is not treatment at all. It is better described as enlistment and it is  being done in the furtherance of political and not medical imperatives.

Astonishingly, the fact the person you are trying to assist is a child aggravates rather than mitigates the seriousness of the offence: then it carries a maximum of 18-month, rather than the standard 12, term of imprisonment.

If you are in any doubt about the risks and the scientific irregularities associated with the diagnosis and treatment of gender dysphoria (real and imaginary) in Australia then read what Professor John Whitehall, Professor of Paediatrics at Western Sydney University, has written in Quadrant and elsewhere many times in recent years. He is compelling and the stridency of his call for urgent scrutiny of the medico-gender complex is supported by eminent psychiatrists and paediatricians in Australia and overseas. He is persona non grata with the ideologues, of course; that only raises the index of his authoritativeness even higher.

The Andrews government has plotted this attack on free speech very carefully, as you would expect. First, the Health Complaints Commissioner was given wide power under laws brought in by Ms. Hennessey in 2017 to conduct investigations on her own initiative; she duly and promptly reported on the urgent need to address conversion practices.

Then the radical Marxists of first resort at La Trobe University and the Human Rights Commission were invited to comment on the Commissioner’s report. They did and announced that conversion therapy (only of the unapproved kind, of course) was a terrible practice that must be eliminated urgently with the full force of the law.

Here I am reminded of Andrey Vyshinsky, who always came through with the legal theorising necessary to give cover to Stalin’s latest purges of recusants; attorneys-general have always done the same for Victoria’s socialist governments. Daniel Andrews is the leader of the most illiberal and radical state government in anyone’s memory, even if its Marxism is cultural and not economic and the materialism “designer” rather than dialectical.

The discussion paper and the reports it relies on, together with Ms. Hennessey’s public utterances about them, make it clear that Victoria intends to make plain what is latent or ambiguous in Queensland’s proposed legislation. It is not just the individual transsexual or homosexual who needs protection from conversion; no, the criminality can arise outside of any therapeutic context. It is society that needs to be protected so the mere utterance of heterodox views about affirmation of gender or sexual “choice” must be extirpated.

More HERE 






Labor Party to adopt new 2050 target for emissions instead of old 2030 goal.  Enmity to coal also dropped

They are trying to find a policy that will be less open to attack, it seems.  Good luck with that


Labor will land on a 2050 emissions reduction target before it assesses its shorter term goals, as Anthony Albanese declared it was a “mistake” for the party to retain its climate change policies after losing the 2016 election.

The Australian has been told caucus will likely adopt a 2050 target by Labor’s national conference later in the year, with climate change spokesman Mark Butler expected to push for a net-zero emissions target by the middle of the century.

Senior Labor sources said the party would likely announce a 2030 or 2035 target closer to the election.

The shorter term target would be geared around meeting the 2050 goal based on Australia’s emissions at the time of the election, likely to be 2022.

The Australian revealed last year that Labor could scrap its 45 per cent 2030 target in favour of focusing on a “net-zero emissions by 2050” policy.

Speaking to Sky News on Sunday morning, Mr Albanese said Labor should have revisited its 45 per cent 2030 target after losing the 2016 election.

“I think it was a mistake in 2019 to continue to say ‘we will do exactly to do what we did in 2015 as if it hadn’t changed’,” Mr Albanese said.

“What we did (in the last) six year period was to add-on policies. So everything stayed the same and we just added more on. We have seen how that played out. It didn’t work.”

Mr Albanese declared the climate change policy would be “as ambitious as possible” but would not be drawn on a potential target.

He noted Bill Shorten’s pre-election target – to reduce greenhouse emissions by 45 per cent of 2005 levels by 2030 – was created in 2015 and allowed a 15 year time frame to be achieved.

“That was a 2015 target established for 15 years’ time,” Mr Albanese said.

“In 2022 our 15 year target will be very different. 15 years from 2022 is 2037 not 2030.

“You can’t define your point on where you will go to the election in 2022 at January 2020 because the circumstances will change.

“We will take climate change seriously. We will determine our policy. It will be as ambitious as possible. I want to have a very strong framework. I want to be ambitious and I want it to be as strong as possible but you have got to know what your starting point is.”

Mr Albanese also left the door open to amending the party’s pre-election franking credits crackdown rather than dumping it altogether. “Very clearly we won’t be taking the same policy to the next election,” Mr Albanese said. He would not say whether the negative gearing policy would be dropped.

The Labor leader said Adani’s difficulty in securing finance for its coalmine in central Queensland showed there was global uncertainty about the future of the sector.

The Opposition Leader denied claims he was “wishy washy” in his support of the coal industry despite refusing to endorse the already-approved Adani project in the Galilee Basin.

“The environmental approvals have occurred. The project wasn’t able to secure finance. That says something about what the international scene saw about the financing of a new mine in a new coal basin,” Mr Albanese told Sky News on Sunday morning.

“So they are self-financing the project. But it has been approved so it is going ahead.”

When challenged whether he was wishy washy in his support of the nation’s biggest export earner, Mr Albanese said: “that is not right”.

“People in Queensland and everywhere else know, who are involved in the industry, knows that the industry is continuing,” Mr Albanese said.

“If you gave got a 50 per cent renewable energy target, by definition there is 50 per cent coming from fossil fuels.

“So let’s be realistic there about what the framework is domestically and internationally. Of course there will continue to be coal exports; I have made that very clear.”

The Labor leader planned to go to a coalmine but his office claimed the visit was cancelled because of scheduling issues.

SOURCE  






Leftist site bans climate skeptics

And its boss is having a wonderful time with the bushfires

Last week, New Matilda announced that we have banned climate deniers (and those who deny the links between the bushfire crisis and climate change) from commenting on our website, and on our various social media channels.

It received a strong response, mostly supportive. And then, a video I filmed on Kangaroo Island of a trailer load of koalas arriving at an emergency triage centre went seriously viral (it's been seen by around 1.5 million people so far)... and the comments section has gone ballistic... and for the interim at least, we have nothing like the capacity necessary to moderate the platform. So that will be a work in progress.

Over the next few days, I'll be writing a feature on the fires on Kangaroo Island, focussed around the 'Farm Units' - an extraordinary group of men and women who operate independently from officials to fight the fires. We'll also have more coverage from our usual broader cross section of areas - as you might expect, our pretty humble resources have been heavily focussed on the bushfire crisis.

Via January 15, 2020 email from New Matilda -- chris.graham@newmatilda.com

 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here