CSIRO

Tragedy on the Derwent: Remembering the 1975 Tasman Bridge Disaster, 50 Years Later

3 January 2025 / 2 Comments

Between 1967-75, Hobart endured a series of catastrophic events. It all started with the Black Tuesday fires in February 1967 that claimed 62 lives. Several other tragedies followed that to Hobartians, seemed like they would never end. August 1969 saw the disappearance of Lucille Butterworth, October 1973 the Blythe Star was wrecked off southern Tasmanian waters with three men drowning and seven survivors spending eight days adrift in a lifeboat, and the Mt St Canice boiler explosion in September 1974 that took eight lives.

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The year Santa never made it to Darwin

20 December 2024 / 1 Comment

It began as a deep distant rumbling, like the stirring of some gargantuan subterranean beast.

It was unsettling at first, ominous, something you felt in your guts more than you heard with your ears, an eerie subsonic vibration that seemed to rise from the bowels of Hades.

As the she-devil crept closer, the wailing began.

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Fudging the figures

1 March 2024 / 4 Comments

“The fundamentals of science are you do not tamper with the original evidence. That has happened with our temperature record, where the past has been cooled and it makes it look as if we’re warming. That is fraud.” Ian Plimer

“BOM are right often enough to be considered, but wrong often enough not to be relied upon.

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Killing koalas to “save” polar bears

22 February 2024 / 6 Comments

“They are farming us of our money, not farming the wind or solar.”

“Queensland will be covered in glass and steel to meet ambitious renewable energy targets”

In a previous post, I wrote about the mad scramble by federal and state governments to force a rapid transition to renewable energy despite insurmountable engineering constraints, costs blowouts by a factor of 20 from $78 billion to $1.5 trillion in 2030 and $9 trillion by 2050, and the refusal of our federal minister, Chris Bowen to face up to reality, even after a relentless stream of delays to major renewable projects hits the news each month.

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Three days of hell in the valley

26 December 2023 / 10 Comments

Introduction

This month marks the 55th anniversary of the worst fires experienced in the Bellinger Valley since European settlement. The late spring and early summer of 1968 was one of the worst fire seasons experienced in New South Wales. Spring was exceptionally dry in coastal areas, with Sydney only receiving 29.5 mm for the season, easily the driest on record.

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What does a forester do? (Part 2)

25 May 2023 / 7 Comments

Because the forestry profession is far from simple and the work highly variable, I have tried to describe what a forester does by outlining the development of the profession in Australia. In Part 1, I outlined the broad principles of forestry and the development of the forestry profession up until WWII.… Read more

A case study in folly #2 – the 2003 Canberra firestorm

27 March 2024 / 11 Comments

“But there is a sad symbolism in the tragedy of the burning bush capital, for Canberra was not merely sited in the political middle ground between Sydney and Melbourne but in an environmental middle ground between two Australia’s: that of the bush and that of the metropolis. When slammed together, the matter and anti-matter of Australian ecology are likely to explode.… Read more

The insect that created the Aussie salute

9 September 2022 / 2 Comments

Flies! Damn flies! Everywhere in Australia, there are flies. Some areas have more than their fair share of annoying flies.

Sometimes it can be impossible to do anything outside without applying something to ward them off. This is because they are so persistent in trying to land on us. Unfortunately, all we can do is feebly adopt the Aussie salute to try and deter them from our face.… Read more