Practical advice about how to survive a nuclear blast

I never, ever, thought I’d be writing a post like this, but the man in this video – Beau – makes sense. Forget the hat, the beard and the accent. He’s distilled real, practical information from a number of sources, and if you watch the video, you’ll realise how deceptive appearances can be:

Before deciding to share this video I scuttled around trying to find out who this Beau character is, and whether I should listen to him. Is he some mad survivalist who’s plucked a bunch of survival tips from thin air? Or is he someone who actually knows what he’s talking about?

For starters, Beau is a nickname and his real name is Justin King. So…is he putting it on?

”For the record, my accent is what you hear on most of the current videos. I do, at times, play it up still. Beau is a nickname, and the whole thing kind of started as a gag when other journalists found out I had an accent.”

https://www.reddit.com/r/BreadTube/comments/anlbgb/lets_talk_about_beau_aka_justin_king/

That sounds a bit like me and Meeka. I can live with that. But what is Beau, aka Justin King, about?

In his ‘About’ page he says ‘The discussions of a southern journalist who is tired of a lack of common sense’. Is he? A journalist?

According to the FCSR [Florida Citizens for Social Reform] ‘Justin currently serves as the Editor of The Fifth Column, The Pontiac Tribune, Sleeper Cells, and is an outside adviser to Greed Media.’ Okay, so he is a journalist, but what kind of news outlets does he work for?

According to the Media Bias/Fact Check website, The Fifth Column is ‘left biased’ and the reporting is factually ‘mixed’:

The Media Bias article goes on to say:

‘The Fifth Column is a news and opinion website that publishes from a mostly progressive perspective. According to their about page “The Fifth Column provides you with insights that aren’t available on other news outlets. With a focus on long-form journalism and exclusive reports, The Column strives for excellence in adversarial journalism. Our exclusive reports find their way into one of our unique sections.”

The website lacks transparency as they do not disclose ownership and article authors do not have detailed bios.’

So the Fifth Column and Justin King are Left Biased. Tick. Can definitely live with that, but the real question is still ‘how factual is the advice’?

I found the answer to that question on the www.ready.gov website. Almost every thing Beau/Justin King talked about in his video is in the official, US government info sheet on what to do in case of a nuclear attack. The only thing I didn’t see was the info. about conditioner. Everything else was there, but as a way to communicate vital information, Beau’s video does it better. Much better.

So…having done my due diligence, I feel justified in sharing Beau’s advice with you. Chances are none of us will ever need to put any of this advice into practice, but knowing the facts never hurt anyone. By contrast, ignorance kills.

hugs,
Meeks

A Bushfire A.B.C

Photo courtesy http://www.wolaver.org/animals/ostrich.htm

I wasn’t going to write a bushfire post this year [2019] because I thought there was no need, not with the devastating fires in NSW and QLD to focus everyone’s thoughts. But I’ve just been on Twitter and seen some of the misconceptions about bushfires.

So…here are some basics:

Fire needs just two things to burn: fuel and oxygen. However the size of that fire depends on many things:

• Dry fuel – makes a fire burn harder and faster. Fuel is made of up dry grass, leaves, small twigs and fallen branches that build up on the ground over time.
• Low humidity – i.e. moisture in the air and soil – makes a fire burn harder and faster.
• Strong winds – provide the oxygen to make a fire burn harder and faster. They also transport embers ahead of the main fire.
• Embers – land on dry fuel and start spot fires.
• Spot fires act like pre-ignition for the main fire.

So far, these conditions could apply to any fire, in any country of the world. In Australia though, things are a little different. As well as all of the above, we also have to contend with native vegetation that evolved with fire. Some native plants developed ways to keep the species going after a fire. In fact, the seeds of many of our natives need fire to germinate.

In a nutshell, most Australian natives evolved to burn. This includes gum trees [eucalypts].

• Gum leaves contain eucalyptus oils.
• When these oils heat up enough, they turn into a volatile gas.
• Add a spark and this gas goes ‘boom’. It’s an accelerant – like throwing petrol onto a camp fire.
• Lightning strikes from ‘dry storms’ provide the spark that starts hundreds of fires every year.

So let’s look at a couple of what-ifs. Let’s say a lightning strike starts a fire. If the humidity is high and the fuel is wet – e.g. winter – the fire doesn’t go very far.

But this is what happens in summer:

• Lightning [or human stupidity via an angle grinder creating a spark, an over-heated car starting to burn, a camp-fire left unattended, blah blah blah] starts a fire in grassland.
• The grass fire spreads into scrub land.
• The scrub land fire spreads into native forest.
• The scrub at the base of the gum trees burns hotter and hotter.
• The eucalyptus oil in the gum leaves heats up.
• The volatile oil in the gum leaves becomes a gas and suddenly the whole tree is on fire.
• As more and more trees burn, and the wind pushes the embers and superheated air ahead of it, the conditions for a ‘crown fire’ emerge.

A crown fire is when the fire jumps from tree top to tree top. This is a fire that nothing can stop – no amount of water bombers, no amount of fire fighters, no amount of chemical retardants. In fact, water bombers can’t even get near this kind of fire because it creates its own weather, crazy weather that makes flying virtually impossible.

In 2009, south eastern Australia was in the grip of the Millenium drought and an El Nino weather event. For those who don’t know, during an El Nino period, south eastern Australia goes through an extended ‘dry’ spell with much less rain than normal.

In February 2009, an extended heatwave of 40+ degree temperatures, extremely low humidity, high fuel loads and a ferocious north wind [bringing even more heat from the Centre] combined to create Black Saturday, the worst bushfire event in modern Australian history. 173 people died.

Now, ten short years later, NSW is likely to have another perfect storm of fire conditions…tomorrow…at the very beginning of summer…with the worst of the fire season still to come.

I’ll be honest, I’m scared. Conditions here in Victoria are cool and wet, for now, but the worst is yet to come. How will Warrandyte fare once the grass browns off and the damp fuel load turns into dry kindling? And even if we squeak through this fire season, what about next year and the one after that?

Some years ago I attend a Climate Change rally in Melbourne, and one of the speakers [from the CFA*] said something I’ll never forget. He said words to the effect that there are no climate change deniers at the end of a fire hose.

Climate Change is not causing bushfires, it’s making them bigger and more frequent. Exactly as the climate scientists predict.

Climate Change is also extending the length of the fire season. When I was a kid, January and February were the bad months. In years to come, fire season may extend from the beginning of Spring [September] through to the end of Autumn [May].

Three people have died in NSW already. How many more have to die before we stop ‘praying’ and start doing something useful?

I hope with all my heart that the legacy of Black Saturday means that Victorians remember how helpless we all felt, and act accordingly. We’ve been there. We know. The only thing we can control, even a little, is the fuel load. Reducing the fuel load won’t stop a fire from starting, and it won’t stop a fire from spreading, but it may reduce the severity of that fire by stopping it from becoming a crown fire. Harm reduction. The life it saves could be your own.

And Warrandyte? If you haven’t cleared your block yet, what the effing hell are you waiting for? NSW and QLD may be the canaries in the coal mine this year, but make no mistake, we’re in that bloody coal mine too.

To EllaD and the GO in Taylors Arms – stay safe.

Meeks

*CFA – Country Fire Authority, the volunteer fire fighting organisation in Victoria.

 

 

Melbourne Airport – 46 C at 2:26 pm

I don’t think it got anywhere near 46 C at Warrandyte, but it was bloody hot nonetheless. Coldstream hit 43.8 C and I think Warrandyte would have been similar.

Feels almost blase saying we only reached 43.8. This is a temperature graph from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology:

I grew up in that middle bit where there are a couple of hot spikes but mostly cool to cold troughs. I remember what summers were like back then. We lived in a solid brick, Federation Edwardian house that stayed cool most of the time. We didn’t even own a fan. Back then, the priority was staying warm in winter.

Now…43.8 C, air-conditioning and multiple fans and the inside temperature of the house stayed at 30 C all day. Bearable, but only because we were lucky and only lost power for about 10 minutes.

Is this ‘proof’ of Climate Change? Or is it just weather? When I look at that graph I can’t help thinking we’re experiencing the predicted, climate change extremes already, and that scares me. If this one day was so bad, how will we cope with even worse days?

And yes, there are still those who believe that all of climate change is just some kind of global conspiracy. I’ve been arguing with a few on Twitter today. But you can’t really have a ‘meeting of minds’ when the other person attempts to use personal put downs to win the argument.

Logic doesn’t work with people like that. Facts don’t either. Yelling and name calling might, but I was brought up to believe that emotive arguments are shameful and weak. That people who use them are shameful and weak.

So I walked away with my integrity intact but a truly bad taste in my mouth. Not because I didn’t ‘win’, but because I couldn’t change things for the better.

When did facts and logic become such blunt tools?

You’d think I’d know better. My Mum was an emotive arguer and it used to drive me crazy. I guess the truth is I never found a way to discuss anything with her, not without it becoming a huge screaming match. Apparently, I still don’t know how to do it. The only difference is that I’m 66 instead of 16, and I don’t yell and scream any more…

Apologies for the rant. I’m hot, tired and angry. 😦

Meeks

 

Stubbing your toe will hurt – that is a fact

First came the Women’s March. Now comes the March for Science. Given the ongoing protests sweeping the US, one might assume that scientists are organizing to voice their general disagreement with Donald Trump’s policies—or perhaps that they simply want to protect their grants and jobs from federal funding cuts. But what’s at stake is much…

via The March for Science isn’t partisan or anti-Trump—it’s pro-facts — Quartz

This article is about facts and the threat facing science in tRump’s America. Not ‘alternate facts’ but the kind that always hurt, no matter how much you may try to explain them away. One such fact is that the US became great because of its science. The only way to make it great again is to give science, and facts, the respect they deserve.