CSIRO: 78 per cent of Australians believe in climate change

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: A five year study of Australians' views on climate change has found 78 per cent believe it is happening, but there is a surprising level of volatility in personal views.

The CSIRO study found only 28 per cent of Liberal voters believe human activity is responsible for climate change, compared to 58 per cent of Labor voters.

But one of the report's authors, Zoe Leviston, says many respondents changed their opinion over different surveys.

Dr Leviston spoke to Francis Keany in Canberra.

http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2015/s4344787.htm

Indonesian Forest Fires Have Been Burning Since August

Millions of acres of pristine, irreplaceable and invaluable Indonesian forest has been reduced to smouldering blackened ash, as 100,000 fires rage through the island region.

The sheer size and scale of the fire crisis is difficult to properly comprehend. Some of these fires have been burning since August, torching forest eons old and blanketing Papua, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and countless islands of Indonesia in thick grey hazy smoke.

Earlier in October, Indonesia's Forestry Ministry reported 4.2 million acres of forest had been burnt out, a figure which is sure to have risen since first reported.

Carbon emissions from the fires, at their peak, surpassed emissions belched out by the entire United States of America. More than half a million people have reported respiratory problems.

Results on the Pollutant Standard Index have reached toward 2000, on a scale where a reading above 300 is considered "hazardous." The cost to the region's economy? A bill of $47 billion was considered conservative at the beginning of October.

But how does a region suffer 127,000 fires? And how have these fires in Indonesia, our closest major neighbour, gone basically unnoticed in Australia?

Basically, because money.

Indonesia is the world's largest producer of palm oil. To plant great swathes of timber trees and palm oil-producing crops, Indonesian plantation companies clear huge expanses of land. The best way to quickly and cheaply clear huge tracts of dense jungle and thick forest? Burn it.

Plantation companies in Indonesia simply set fire to trees, waiting till the fire burns itself out then racing through the blackened undergrowth to plant their crops. These fires are set each year by plantation companies, seeing huge plumes of smoke and haze settle in over the region, but this year has been slightly different.

The companies have cut canals and dried out the peat, the decaying vegetation matter on or under the forest floor, turning a valuable part of the ecosystem into a veritable tinderbox for fire. Coupled with El Nino climate factors, the fires met with the dried peat to spark a firestorm the likes of which have not been seen in Indonesia for some 20 years.

The fires have also gone underground, burning and smouldering in the subterranean peat; these fires are all but impossible to extinguish and will burn almost endlessly, unable to be reached by rains or monsoon.

Burning peat can also release hundreds of times as much carbon as a regular forest fire. Greenpeace describe the Indonesian situation as a "carbon bomb."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2015/11/02/indonesia-fire_n_8447584.html

Lib voters think these sort of things occur without human influence. !!!

____ wrote on Nov 4^th, 2015 at 8:05am:


If climate change is not naturally occurring, how did the climate change before us ape descendants started burning fossil fuels? You know, the other 99.99% of the earth's history....

Swagman wrote on Nov 4^th, 2015 at 8:10am:



Do you believe an massive asteroid smashing into the antarctic or mexico could be an mass extinction trigger.

If yes.
Would that mean a mass extinction couldn't occur without one.

Maqqa wrote on Nov 4^th, 2015 at 8:21am:



I'm not your wet nurse. Ask one of your carers for help.

My intuition is that climate change is real.

My intuition is that there is nothing that can be done at a political level.

My intuition is that we just need to prepare to live in a "changed" planet.

Not a problem,

as a student of self development, change is seen as a goal to strive for, chaos is to be embraced.
There will be winners and losers.

just understand that reality and prepare for it like a good boy scout .

Dont make a little cry baby movie about it getting hotter and drier,  put in the effort to adapt.

The default position of every species that doesnt adapt is failure.

If any country should welcome climate change it is australia as we have so many natural resources.
Chinese students visiting my place couldnt believe i have a river you can see the bottom of and drink the water out of.

Truly a blessing and with climate change , it will only become more valuable.

we can become the food bowl of a barren wasteland in asia and europe and be like the saudis with our rich resources of unspoilt water and land.

Bring it on 

Maqqa wrote on Nov 4^th, 2015 at 8:24am:



Yet you want it as your evidence and since you can't supply it, it shows you bring nothing to the table besides trolling.

aquascoot wrote on Nov 4^th, 2015 at 8:25am:



Oh wise one. How is Australia to be a food bowl to asia, when we no longer have any top soil. The fertile soil loss increased due to deforestation, farming practices, and increasing extreme weather events.

Are we to export fungi grown underground. since due to the heat above ground, is now no longer inhabitable.