THE TTALK QUOTES


On Global Trade & Investment
Published By:
The Global Business Dialogue, Inc.
Washington, DC  Tel: 202-559-9316
No.3 of 2020
THURSDAY, JANUARY 9, 2020

Click HERE for yesterday's quote from Iain Duncan Smith.
AUSTRALIA'S VERY HOT SUMMER

 "Penrith, a suburb of Sydney, was the hottest place on earth on Saturday [January 4], the Met Office confirmed to Sky News."

Wil Longbottom
Sky News
January 5, 2020
CONTEXT
From Perth on the west coast to Brisbane on the east, Australia today is a ring of fire. The worst of it is on the east coast in New South Wales and Queensland.  Wil Longbottom , the Chief sub-editor of Sky News, captured both the human agony in the Sydney area and the meteorological madness in his report last Sunday. Embedded in the same report is a video, shot in a helicopter, with the comments of a reporter viewing the tragedy from the air. That reporter, a young woman, explained “there are some 150 fires just in New South Wales alone, and more than half of them are said to be out of control.” 

As for the temperatures around Sydney last weekend, here is the paragraph from Mr. Longbottom’s article with those figures:

Fire tornadoes and dry lightning have sparked even more blazes, as temperatures soared to new highs today - 48.9C (120F) in Penrith, 45C (113F) in Sydney and 44C (111F) in Canberra.

High temperatures are not the only dramatic meteorological conditions associated with these fires. We don’t fully understand the first of these next two paragraphs from Mr. Longbottom’s article, but their significance is clear. He wrote:

The storm conditions are caused by pyrocumulonimbus clouds - thunderstorms formed from the smoke plume of a fire that causes air to rise rapidly and collide with ice particles in the higher, cooler air, and building up electrical charges that create lightning.

Rising air also produces intense updrafts that suck in so much air that strong winds develop - making fires hotter and spreading them further and faster. …  On Monday, a firefighter was killed when a pyrocumulonimbus cloud formation collapsed and flipped over his 10-tonne truck.

COMMENT
According to The Sydney Morning Herald, there were 81 firefighters from the U.S. helping to battle the blazes in Australia last week. Among them now are firefighters from Oregon, California, Montana, and Idaho. In a way, it is a reciprocal thing, as Australia and New Zealand have regularly sent firefighters to the United States to battle blazes here. 

Australia’s fires have more than gotten the world’s attention. World leaders have offered assistance and concerned citizens are chipping in. A good starting place for those who want to help is the page on the website of the Australian Embassy that answers the question How You Can Help.

***

Nothing is immune from politics and political debate, nor should it be. Politics is how we come to collective understandings about the problem we face and the actions that need to be taken. But for now, let’s leave the politics on the shelf. The first job is putting out the fires and helping those devastated by them. 

After that there will be time for the political questions – climate change or forest management, coal exports as usual or not. And there will be time too we hope for:


a major Australian exhibition at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington. It is described as an exhibit that “recreates the wonder experienced by Sir Joseph Banks and the botanists, scientists, and illustrators who travelled on the historic HMB Endeavour voyage from England to Australia in 1770. A voyage that changed the course of history.” The exhibit opened today in Washington and will be at the Museum of Natural History through July.

But first things. The fires Down Under bring to mind an old rhyme:

Fire, fire, raging all about.
Here come the firemen to put the fire out.

Not soon enough, we know. But soon, we hope, soon. 

SOURCES & LINKS
Australia Bushfires is a link to the Sky News report that was the source for today’s featured quote.

Wildfire Map is the basis for the “ring of fire” comment in the Context section of today’s entry. The same URL also includes numerous pictures of the damage being done by these fires. 

How You Can Help takes you to a page on the website of the Australian Embassy with information about the fires burning throughout Australia, including suggestion on how to help the victims of those fires.

Beauty Rich and Rare , also a page on the website of the Australian Embassy, describes the content of this special exhibit at the National Museum of Natural History.  

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