Tasmanian Life

We can’t get enough of this winter weather. Sure beats bushfire smoke. This is Judbury.

Tasmania’s soil and fuel dryness for mid-2019 is more severe than mid-2018, which went on to produce one of Tasmania’s worst fire seasons.

Take a look at the maps above, borrowed from the www.Fire.Tas.gov.au and BOM websites today.

The June 2018 figures, in tabbed format, are below.

Those are impressive dry soil and fuel figures above, mainly on the east coast and midlands, but extending south to Hobart.

Prolonged, heavy rain could fix it. Let’s hope so.

I am no fire expert, but it seems clear that without rain, much of Tassie will be a tinderbox for the 2019/20 summer.

Keep in mind that the previous summer, with vast bushfires across Tasmania, lit by dry lightning, was not a new normal, but just another year in the planet’s upshift to a new, more extreme climate.

As I write this the northern hemisphere (now in summer) is alight.

Global ice is hitting record lows, some of it disappearing faster than forecast.

With Tasmania’s fire history, there’s never been a better time to remove pine trees, eucalypts and other flammable vegetation from around homes.

Where there is enough water to do so, replant with less dangerous trees.

Fire pumps and even bunkers should be considered. Have a fire escape plan.

Check out www.Fire.Tas.gov.au and other fire websites to get the good oil straight from the experts.

Key to the numbers from BOM

Drought Factor (DF)
The impact of KBDI, and any periods of recent rainfall that might dampen fine forest fuels such as ground litter, is incorporated into the fire danger index through another variable known as the Drought Factor (DF). The DF reflects the degree of availability of these fine forest fuels for combustion. It ranges from 0 to 10 with 10 representing the highest value of short-term rainfall deficiency and highest availability of fine fuels. The DF is calculated daily, once 24 hour rainfalls are available. Due to assumed interception by forest canopies, rainfall amounts of 3 mm or less are reset to zero in updating the DF.

Mount Soil Dryness Index (MSDI)
The MSDI is a measure of the longer-term dryness. The MSDI changes according to the evapo-transpiration and effective rainfall each day. It is a number between 0 and 200 mm, which roughly represents the amount of rain (in mm) needed to saturate the top layer of soil. SDI Primary uses one canopy class, and SDI Secondary has the option to use a different second canopy class.

If you didn’t already know, TEOTWAWKIT stands for “the end of the world as we know it”.

The phrase appeared so much in online banter it required an acronym.

TEOTWAWKIT has been used to title an episode in a zombie TV series, and is now the title or theme of umpteen blogs and websites.

TEOTWAWKIT is relevant to Tasmania because people across the globe are looking to the island as a potential refuge from climate change.

Tassie may be a good place to escape heat, but it is already suffering from climate change.

Is the Apple Isle a climate refuge? Here’s some discussion on another site.

Parking meters were never popular, but for today’s bricks-and-mortar retailers they have become downright terrifying.

Once-upon-a-time, councils could get away with using these as revenue raisers.

Not any more.

Online shopping gives people an easy alternative to visiting bricks-and-mortar shops.

If people are going to keep visiting shops, it has to be a pleasant experience. If not, they’ll stay away.

Hobart City Council is helping people stay away … read this and weep.

And before you say fewer vehicles taken on shopping trips is good because it creates less traffic and less CO2, consider that online purchases must be delivered, often right across the world from the land of the online bargain, China.

The material world makes greenhouse gas. There is no escape.

And here’s an external story about the crash in retail outlets in the USA, a trend quite possibly coming to a store near you in the near future.

Here’s a story about the death of shopping malls.

Retail, that great employer of young Australians, needs all the help it can get.

Tasmania’s Huon Valley Council (HVC) increased its rates by almost 6% in 2019, a huge increase over the CPI, which is 1.3%.

The HVC operates in the south of Tasmania where the annual median household income was just $38,701 in 2016 (ABS figures), compared to $47,692 nationally.

Why are cash-poor Huon ratepayers being slugged?

According to a Mercury newspaper report (paywalled), the increase was to pay for an electric vehicle and solar panels.

The amount raised however, about $700,000, appears to be far more than the cost of an electric vehicle and solar panels.

Regardless, the rate increase will increase greenhouse gas production over any benefit gained from an electric vehicle and solar panels.

Given wage stagnation, additional cost-of-living increases will force people to work more shifts or longer hours.

Everything we do, other than sitting around at home, generates greenhouse gases. Even sitting around at home produces CO2 if you have a heater on, or eat meat.

There’s no escaping it. A Huon farmer might breed an extra beast or two to cover rising costs, and the livestock will add to already skyrocketing global methane levels.

I also question how the council’s new solar panels will be helpful with regard to greenhouse gases, in an area that uses clean hydro electricity.

There are other things the council could spend its money on.

Cash must be set aside to mitigate the inevitable effects of climate change.

Money is needed to develop plans and resources to fight worsening summer bushfires, and to help people who are affected.

Fires are likely to become the Huon’s No.1 problem with climate change.

Given the surge in Antarctic ice melt since 2014, and more recently Greenland, soon enough, low-lying roads and council infrastructure along the river and coast will need raising or relocation as sea levels rise.

This is an inevitable future cost for which setting up a “future fund” may be prudent.

Separately, the Huonville tip (Southbridge Transfer Station) is, surprisingly, located on the bank of the Huon River. It should be relocated. There is an eternal pile of chemical containers and other rubbish just metres from the riverbank. Is the soil under this pile contaminated? Is it getting into the river? Regardless, this is prime real estate that should not be a tip/waste transfer station.

The HVC has an unfortunate history.

The council lost a small fortune through poor investments at the time of the Global Financial Crisis.

More recently, the council became so dysfunctional it had to be sacked. A commissioner was installed, at great cost, to get the show back on the road.

Having already wasted enough of ratepayers’ money, the least the council could do is make rate-rise decisions that reflect reality.

In a struggling economy, in a low-income municipality, in a world suffering a climate emergency, that means holding rate increases at or below CPI.

Can you visit Cradle Mountain from Hobart in one weekend?

The short answer is yes, it can be done, but it is a bit gruelling.

Cradle Mountain is in the north-west of the island, in a fairly mountainous, out-of-the way corner.

Hobart is in the far south.

We did the trip, leaving on a Saturday morning, staying overnight at the lodge at Cradle Mountain National Park, and leaving at noon the next day.

This only gave us time for the shorter walks near the mountain.

We could have visited caves near Mole Creek on the way home if someone hadn’t taken a wrong turn and driven to Forth via Wilmot …

Still, always nice to see some new road.

But the Hobart-to-Cradle-and-back-in-one-weekend gig is a bit tough, being 4.5 hours of driving each way.

A long weekend would be better.

Tasmania has a surprisingly healthy live music scene for a relatively small island.

You can find live original music in Hobart.

Here’s a list of musicians … http://www.musictasmania.org/our-music-industry/artists

And here’s where you can get a taste of Tasmanian music … http://www.musictasmania.org/whats-happening/taste-tasmania-entertainment-program

And here’s a Tasmanian drummer rockin’ a tin shed.

The Tasmanian Lifestyle Blog kicked off today.

If it’s anything like my fishing trips, expect about a post a year.