This story relates to the ongoing debate on ARR.News: Open for Debate – Bushfires, Logging, Burns & Forest Management
Here’s a recent headline from the ABC:
Here are what I see as the key points in the story:
Since the Black Summer bushfires, there has been fierce debate over the role hazard reduction burns played in the severity of the fires, but Dr Canadell says prescribed burning has not actually changed.
“Overall, prescribed burning really hasn’t changed at all and, perhaps most importantly, just to realise that we are burning one per cent per year of the forests, which is a really a small amount,” he said.
“I think it’s very difficult to imagine that fuel loads would be an important component in driving what we’ve seen — it’s really climate and weather.”
CSIRO scientist Mick Meyer agreed and said prescribed burning was mostly done to protect assets.
“If you tried to burn the whole of the country, you’d be changing the ecosystems in effect,” he said. “Once the fire weather gets really severe, above a fairly low threshold in fact, the fires just take off and they exceed the capacity of the agencies to suppress them.”
The scientists describe themselves as follows:
“Dr. Canadell is a chief research scientist at Climate Science Centre, CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere and Executive Director, Global Carbon Project – an international research project to study the interactions between the carbon cycle, climate, and human activities.”
“Mick Meyer is an atmospheric scientist with CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere. Mick developed the national greenhouse gas inventory methodology for savanna and forest fires used for the Australian National greenhouse gas accounts from 1995 to 2016. He was a lead author of the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for Greenhouse Gas Inventories and a member of the IPCC emission factor database board.”
Neither of the scientists appear to have any experience of land and fire management.
Dr. Canadell was absolutely correct in saying we’re burning a really small amount. I wonder why, then, he finds it difficult to imagine that fuel loads are driving megafires. As a research scientist he should have examined the published data from 60 years of forest management showing that burning 1% of the landscape can’t make any difference. Treating at least 8% of the landscape each year is essential to prevent firestorms and megafires in bad seasons.
Dr. Meyer was right in saying that burning is mostly done to protect assets. That’s the problem. The ‘Colgate Ring of Confidence’ approach doesn’t work. He’s absolutely wrong in saying that burning the whole landscape would change ecosystems. Lack of mild burning has changed our ecosystems, causing pestilence, holocaust and extinctions.
The greenhouse accounting methodology for forest fires that Meyer developed is fatally flawed because the massive preventable emissions from megafires aren’t counted. It’s interesting that the ABC journalist apparently didn’t see any need to question these scientists on any of their statements. I guess CSIRO and IPCC, like the ABC, are above public scrutiny.
CSIRO reponded to this article: Forest fires and climate change: CSIRO responds
Related stories: New research links Australia’s forest fires to climate change: CSIRO
Other related stories by Vic Jurskis: We don’t need to chew the fat, we need to rekindle the firestick : Vic Jurskis; Our megafires are a political, not a climatic crisis: Vic Jurskis; Saving our forests and controlling our climate: Vic Jurskis.
