Piers Morgan grills Craig Kelly for denying climate link to bushfires

In a combative television interview with the conservative British commentator Piers Morgan and the meteorologist Laura Tobin, the Australian conservative Liberal MP Craig Kelly is lambasted for his assertion that climate change is not driving the fires 

The Guardian YouTube network:

[biggywood]

Like Piers "phone hacking" Morgan can preach to us about Climate change while driving around in his Aston martins and the like. RIP to those who died.

[rightsarentwrong]

What about HAARP and it’s link to this bushfire?? Why no mention of HAARP?

[SkandiaAUS]

I'm an Australian and dead set embarrassed by the Liberals who just won't budge. We're at the point where we say "ok you don't have to believe in climate change, but you have to react to the changes occurring". They're like the Kodak or Nokia of governments refusing to back anything except for what's worked. I'm glad other countries are perplexed at our boomers in charge because I know most of us are too, it's frankly embarassing.

[pacomacaw]

City dwellers and foreigners simply dont understand that much of Australian ecology needs fire to propagate. It is our natural cycle of drought, flood and rebirth. Aborigines new how to manage the land with fire and did not allow fuel to build up on the ground, where it is a disaster waiting to happen.
We dont need climate hysteria from the UK thanks. We just need some sensible land management, a forgotten skill.

[givemeusernameplease]

who is this Australian MP? he sounds sensible. He has facts but Piers & Co won’t allow him to speak.

[ultramag]

What does Peirs think about the British exploding nuclear bombs in Australia

[jaffleman]

0:12 His expression and response is gold. it's like he is a teenager who's been caught looking up something really inappropriate on Google.

[TheresaPowers]

Australian fires were arson...and ONLY ARSON. Globull warming is a satanic lie,

[TheTlost]

So are these bushfires due to climate change?
"We find it very difficult in general to attribute climate change impacts to a specific event, particularly while the event is running, " said Dr Richard Thornton, chief executive of the Bushfires & Natural Hazards Co-operative Research Centre.
"But what we do know is that the average temperature in Australia now is running about 1C above the long-term average." He added fire seasons were starting earlier and "the cumulative fire danger" in many areas was growing.
Prof Glenda Wardle, an ecologist from the University of Sydney, agreed: "It's not every weather event that is the direct result of climate change. But when you see trends... it becomes undeniably linked to global climate change." She said there was a "collective shift" in the timing and intensity of weather events.
Australian National University climate scientist Dr Imran Ahmed called it a direct link: "Because what climate change does is exacerbate the conditions in which the bushfires happen."

[borisjohnson]

I recommend the Caribbean as a fantastic way to get away from the nation’s woes. Hawaii was not elitist enough.

[gerrykingstone]

Haven't the strips which were set alight on purpose, to act as a burnt out barrier, to stop fires spreading, been banned by the green people ? Silly mistake.

[BennstantonFavorites]

Not really a grilling was it? More of a light telling off!

[davidcurr]

"Do you believe in climate change?" "yes". That shut him up. bahahahahahahahahahha

[deelea]

Don't Brits know how predictable they are? Often coming across as patronising twits.
Sea levels here in Victoria, Australia (and England) were about 5 metres higher 5000 years ago, which of course means temperatures were warmer then than now. And you'll be hard pressed to find an Industrial Revolution in that epoch.
How can a serious journalist profess to have an opinion on the causes of climate change without acknowledging this?

Many of these phenomena (radical changes in sea level) are so recent in Australia they are still in clear and detailed aural histories in Australian Aboriginal culture.
Climate change is constant. Changing cycles are the norm for the planet. What makes some people think the 21st. Century is exempt?
We are currently at least 1.5 degrees cooler than what one could expect for this stage in this Interglacial era.
Ask a Geologist.

[GlenMunday]

lol clickbait title and at least dont cut it off. Where was the grilling? I was looking foward to it

[tzone]

It seems Craig Kelly lacks the educational credential

[johnwoodrow]

Based upon the current rate of average warming in Australia of 0.1C per decade, and the component of that warming attributed to human activity of 65% (even the IPCC says it is "most", being something greater than 50%). If it was at the upper range they would have said "nearly all", they never miss an opportunity to paint the worst picture. The 65% figure comes from a study that attempted to quantify the amount.
This means that if the next disastrous bush-fire season occurs in say 20 years, we will have irresponsibility allowed Australia to get 0.13C degrees hotter than if we get the whole planet to immediately stop all global green-house gas emissions (co2, methane, etc, etc).
Reckon we should stop procrastinating and get cracking on that task immediately. Not as hard as you might initially think, just start with the 4 countries who contribute over 50% as a starting point, and then the rest should be easy after that. Who wants to put their hand up to talk to China, India, Russia, and the USA?

[onsonginternational]

POLITICS
Australia’s arson crisis (updated)
January 3, 2020 - by Arthur Chrenkoff
arson


According to my calculations and estimates, the number of individuals around Australia whose arson has contributed to the current bushfire crisis has now passed 200.


This figure is not presented as a counter-argument to those who blame the fires on climate change. Most people (I hope) understand that trees tend not to spontaneously combust, no matter what the air temperature is; when we talk about bushfires starting naturally, we are talking about lightning strikes igniting tinder. The climate change argument posits that the more extreme weather conditions – higher temperatures, drought, etc. – make fires, however, started, much more destructive and much more difficult to control and extinguish. These are debates to be had between climatologists, forestry experts and firefighters. What is painfully clear, however, that Australia has a firebug crisis. It will no doubt be up to future royal commissions and inquiries to calculate exactly what proportion of the current loss and destruction can be attributed to human action, but I suspect it will be a significant one. Man might be making climate change, but man is most definitely making fires start.


Below, a sample of news reports from around the country for the past several months.


August 24:


Three teenage girls have been arrested for arson over 13 grassfires police allege were deliberately lit on the New South Wales mid-north coast.


The girls, aged 12, 13 and 14, were arrested in South Kempsey on Wednesday by officers from Strike Force Tronto, which was set up to investigate the fires.


No-one was hurt in the blazes, which damaged grassland before being controlled by rural firefighters.


The teens will be dealt with under the Young Offenders Act.


September 10:


Police have located a 12-year-old boy in Queensland who allegedly lit a fire deliberately that destroyed bushland and part of a storage facility in Slacks Creek in Logan, about 5pm Monday.


The boy was with a group of juveniles in bushland off Kingston Rd, behind Woodridge Skate Park, when he allegedly started the fire, which spread quickly to a nearby storage facility, destroying a fence, two shipping containers and their contents, and police say he will be dealt with under the provisions of the Youth Justice Act.


Another two 14-year-old girls are also assisting police with their inquiries after allegedly deliberately lighting a fire in bushland in Ormeau on the Gold Coast this morning.


November 13:


NSW police believe 12 bushfires may have been deliberately lit by arsonists during Tuesday’s “catastrophic” fire conditions…


A suspected arsonist was ­arrested after a chase through the Royal National Park, south of Sydney by an army Black Hawk helicopter. The crew of the 6th Aviation Regiment unit in the Black Hawk spotted a man “acting suspiciously” in the northern area of the park, The Daily Telegraph reported. A fire had begun nearby. After co-ordinating with police on the ground, the man was arrested late in the evening and was being questioned.


A crime scene has been established near scorched bushland at South Turramurra where police are investigating the origins of the fire to try to confirm whether it was sparked by an arsonist…


Authorities are also probing the circumstances around several suspicious fires at Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, at Berkeley near Wollongong, and at Moonbi near Tamworth.


November 14:


Police allege a teenager started a central Queensland bushfire that has destroyed 14 homes…

[Dotcomnieuwscom]

check videos of Tony Heller for the other side the CO2 dogma

[johnwoodrow]

Just read a CSIRO report covering the Batesman's Bay bushfire. Describes in some graphic detail fires burning from the mountains all the way to the coast. The sun completely obscured by smoke and people having to turn on lamps in their houses during the day it was so dark. Towns right through the mountains to Adaminaby completely destroyed. People having to take shelter in the water. Horrific stuff.
CSIRO report written in July 1976 describing the fires which devastated the Bateman's Bay area through to the Snowy Mountains in 1907. Its all happen before.