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No Yackandandah, wind farms will not stop bush fires

In less than 24 hours The Guardian can turn personal disasters into political advertising:

Climate change and the Victorian bushfires: this is not a coincidence

Klose tells us climate change is too complicated for stupid people:

“The issue of bushfires can’t be divorced from climate change. For too many people climate change remains an esoteric concept – something that may happen to someone else in the hazy, far-off future.”

Luckily gifted people, like Cambell Klose (political adviser) can “feel” the causes of climate change.

“Clearly this isn’t the case. The effects of climate change are being felt right now and it is having real impacts on Australians and people all across the world.”

Who needs computer models? (Or for that matter, thermometers?)

What not to do when faced with infernos:

“Yackandandah is trying to do something about this. The community has committed to powering themselves entirely by renewable energy by 2022.”

Some people reduce fuel-loads, others fight off the flames with a solar panel.

Wind farms may reduce bush fires if we have to chop down large tracts of forest to install them. Otherwise they make expensive fire-breaks.

What warming?

The region around Yackandanda hasn’t had much warming, or even possibly, any warming.

Yackandandah is 37 km away from Rutherglen, where the annual mean maximum is not that different now to what it was 100 years ago. In mean temperatures, the raw data showed a slight cooling trend, which was similar in neighbours like Deniliquin.

Rutherglen, Yackendandah, Wagga, Sale, Kerange, Cabramurra

Rutherglen raw compared to raw data from neighbours Wagga, Sale, Kerang, Cabramurra. This is before homogenisation which creates warming trends.

 Thanks to Ken Stewart

My sympathies go out to the families affected by the bushfires in Victoria. What they need is clear thinking and real data.

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