Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Sy Borg]

Given that Australia's population has grown faster than any in the world. So gun deaths reduced somewhat in that time while the population grew by one third, from 18m to 24m.

You failed to take that into account, not to mention the increasingly fraught political landscape that has generally sees increases in violent crimes.

Whatever, climate change is far more dangerous than guns in Australia. Two thousand homes gone, and countless other assets. Half a billion animals killed, including many of our koalas. Some of our main food belts have been decimated. Many areas have air quality multiple times worse than in Delhi.

[LuckyR]

Australia's gun laws have only been slightly relaxed since the amnesty in the 90s after the Port Arthur massacre.

Universal Alien's information is completely wrong. However, I do not believe he is a bad actor. Rather, it is such an outrageous, bald-faced lie that I can only imagine that he was lied to by Fox and/or the NRA. https://www.factcheck.org/2017/10/gun-c ... a-updated/

It is disgraceful the way Fox twists good people's minds with their lying and misrepresentation.

UA's claim was clearly false. But so is the claim that Australia's 1996 gun laws substantially reduced gun homicides. They have declined since then, but so have they in other English-speaking countries. Indeed, the decline in the US since the mid-90s has been steeper than Australia's, which has liberalized its guns laws over that period.

https://fee.org/articles/the-myth-that- ... homicides/

You're right, that has a different cause.

[GE Morton]

Whatever, climate change is far more dangerous than guns in Australia. Two thousand homes gone, and countless other assets. Half a billion animals killed, including many of our koalas. Some of our main food belts have been decimated. Many areas have air quality multiple times worse than in Delhi.

Blaming Oz's fires on "climate change" is almost as specious as crediting the gun laws for the reductions in homicides. Bushfires are as common there as kangaroos. They are part of the ecosystem. This year's fires are bad, but for the previous 10 years they were quite mild, by historical standards, in terms of number of hectares burned. In only two of those years did fires consume > 100,000 ha. And this year's fires will not approach the scale of the 1974-75 fires, which consumed > 100,000,000 ha.

To be sure, the human losses from fires have increased, for the same reason the losses from hurricanes in the US have increased --- because more people are building more subdivisions and office parks in fire- or hurricane-prone areas.

http://joannenova.com.au/2019/09/its-a- ... windfarms/

[Sy Borg]

If current events around the world and the mountains of scientific backing are not enough for you, then you are operating based on political ideology rather than logic.

Why are you on a philosophy forum? I don't understand it. Why not do this on the political forum, where you can butt heads with people who are not nauseated by blatant party political bias?

[GE Morton]

If current events around the world and the mountains of scientific backing are not enough for you, then you are operating based on political ideology rather than logic.

How do events around the world bear on the question of the causes of Australia's bushfires, which have been occurring since time immemorial?

Why are you on a philosophy forum? I don't understand it. Why not do this on the political forum, where you can butt heads with people who are not nauseated by blatant party political bias?

Logic is involved in arguments on all subjects. That is a branch of philosophy.

[LuckyR]

Whatever, climate change is far more dangerous than guns in Australia. Two thousand homes gone, and countless other assets. Half a billion animals killed, including many of our koalas. Some of our main food belts have been decimated. Many areas have air quality multiple times worse than in Delhi.

Blaming Oz's fires on "climate change" is almost as specious as crediting the gun laws for the reductions in homicides. Bushfires are as common there as kangaroos. They are part of the ecosystem. This year's fires are bad, but for the previous 10 years they were quite mild, by historical standards, in terms of number of hectares burned. In only two of those years did fires consume > 100,000 ha. And this year's fires will not approach the scale of the 1974-75 fires, which consumed > 100,000,000 ha.

To be sure, the human losses from fires have increased, for the same reason the losses from hurricanes in the US have increased --- because more people are building more subdivisions and office parks in fire- or hurricane-prone areas.

http://joannenova.com.au/2019/09/its-a- ... windfarms/

Nice try. While total hurricane stats are not compelling over the centuries, the onset of severe storms (associated with higher ocean temps) is dramatic. For example, in Florida, between 1850 and 1915 there was one Category 4 storm (in 65 years), OTOH in the last 75 years there have been eight Cat 4's and two Cat 5's.

Your comments on where folks live, while true are an attempt at distraction, perhaps effective on the simple.

[Sy Borg]

If current events around the world and the mountains of scientific backing are not enough for you, then you are operating based on political ideology rather than logic.

How do events around the world bear on the question of the causes of Australia's bushfires, which have been occurring since time immemorial?

Could someone here could help me to identify the logical fallacy above?

The claim is that Australia's bushfire have been "occurring since time immemorial". This clearly ignores magnitude, frequency, season length and intensity*.

I have been trying to better understand logical fallacies, given the sad state of public conversation today: http://utminers.utep.edu/omwilliamson/E ... lacies.htm

Is the above fallacy Similar to this?

Nothing New Under the Sun (also, Uniformitarianism, “Seen it all before;” "Surprise, surprise;" "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."):

Fairly rare in contemporary discourse, this deeply cynical fallacy, a corruption of the argument from logos, falsely proposes that there is not and will never be any real novelty in this world. Any argument that there are truly “new” ideas or phenomena is judged a priori to be unworthy of serious discussion and dismissed with a jaded sigh and a wave of the hand as "the same old same old." E.g., “[Sigh!] Idiots! Don't you see that the current influx of refugees from the Mideast is just the same old Muslim invasion of Christendom that’s been going on for 1,400 years?” Or, “Libertarianism is nothing but re-warmed anarchism, which, in turn, is nothing but the ancient Antinomian Heresy. Like I told you before, there's nothing new under the sun!”

Or this?

Essentializing: A fallacy of logos that proposes a person or thing “is what it is and that’s all that it is,” and at its core will always be the way it is right now (E.g., "All terrorists are monsters, and will still be terrorist monsters even if they live to be 100," or "'The poor you will always have with you,' so any effort to eliminate poverty is pointless.").

Also refers to the fallacy of arguing that something is a certain way "by nature," an empty claim that no amount of proof can refute. (E.g., "Americans are cold and greedy by nature," or "Women are naturally better cooks than men.") See also "Default Bias." The opposite of this is Relativizing, the typically postmodern fallacy of blithely dismissing any and all arguments against one's standpoint by shrugging one's shoulders and responding " Whatever..., I don't feel like arguing about it;" "It all depends...;" "That's your opinion; everything's relative;" or falsely invoking Einstein's Theory of Relativity, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, Quantum Weirdness or the Theory of Multiple Universes in order to confuse, mystify or "refute" an opponent. See also, "Red Herring" and "Appeal to Nature."

* The above has been a standard line of the Murdoch media since the fires so we can safely assume that GE Morton gets his news from Fox. Murdoch has deep links with the fossil fuel industry, and his publications are known to cynically muddy the waters of the climate change debate. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/ ... rage-email

Interestingly, Murdoch media has tended to be anti-gun in Australia and pro-gun in the US.

[GE Morton]

Nice try. While total hurricane stats are not compelling over the centuries, the onset of severe storms (associated with higher ocean temps) is dramatic. For example, in Florida, between 1850 and 1915 there was one Category 4 storm (in 65 years), OTOH in the last 75 years there have been eight Cat 4's and two Cat 5's.

Measuring hurricane strength, not to mention frequency for storms not affecting the US, is not reliable prior to the post-WWII era. There has been no increase in ACE (accumulated cyclone energy) since reliable measurements began in the early 70s, and no increase in CAT3+ hurricanes landfalling in the US since the 1930s.

https://co2coalition.org/2018/10/26/rec ... rspective/

[GE Morton]

The claim is that Australia's bushfire have been "occurring since time immemorial". This clearly ignores magnitude, frequency, season length and intensity*.

A common measure of bushfire severity is the number of hectares burned per year. By that measure, as I said, Australia's fires over the last 10 years have been relatively mild, in historical terms. This year's fires are anomalous.

I have been trying to better understand logical fallacies, given the sad state of public conversation today:

* The above has been a standard line of the Murdoch media since the fires so we can safely assume that GE Morton gets his news from Fox. Murdoch has deep links with the fossil fuel industry, and his publications are known to cynically muddy the waters of the climate change debate. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/ ... rage-email

Ironic that in your inquiry re: fallacies you commit one. "GE Morton gets his news from Fox" is an ad hominem.

In fact, I got that info from the table in the Wikipedia Australia bushfire article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushfires_in_Australia

[GE Morton]

Forgot to close the quotes in above post. Sorry.

[Sy Borg]

I'll admit it's an ad hominem if you admit that Fox is not your primary news source. If not, it is remarkable that every single one of your views coincides with Fox's angles, no matter how many falsehoods they are caught perpetrating. Then again, can a consumer of Fox's lie machine be trusted to tell the truth?

Then you would say, "Oh, all the media commits falsehoods" just as your tribe say "All politicians lie" to excuse Trump's prolific output of unthruths, unparalleled in the west in my lifetime.

Meanwhile you have not admitted your own fallacy, nor do I expect you to. You think that Australia's fires have nothing to do with climate change. Somehow the second record-breaking drought in twenty years and breaking of heat records every year qualifies as "normal" for Australia - according to you, coal miners, coal investors and the Murdoch media.

Scientists, however, have a more grounded view: https://www.science.org.au/news-and-eve ... -bushfires

[GE Morton]

I'll admit it's an ad hominem if you admit that Fox is not your primary news source.

I couldn't "admit" that, because such an admission would be false. No MSM network is my primary news source. And whether an ad hominem assertion is true or false it is still a fallacy.

Meanwhile you have not admitted your own fallacy, nor do I expect you to. You think that Australia's fires have nothing to do with climate change.

Unless Australia's climate changed radically this year from the previous 10 years (or more), then no, climate change does not explain this year's fires. Mean temps have increased about 0.8C since 1880. You''re attributing a mountain-size effect to a molehill-size cause.

Scientists, however, have a more grounded view: https://www.science.org.au/news-and-eve ... -bushfires

Well, your scientist uttered a falsehood in his second sentence: "The scale of these bushfires is unprecedented anywhere in the world."

Australia has had at least two fire seasons worse than this one, in 1974-75 and in 2002. The former was far worse. 1851 and 1951-52 were nearly as bad.

[Sy Borg]

Morton, those like you who wilfully who peddle untruths for political purposes and never admit it deserve ad hominem attacks. I note that you have stood firm on your misinformation.

The fires of 74/75 are not even close to the the scale of current fires - not in fuel, not in deaths, not in property damage, not on loss of arabale land or extinctions. Those were mostly scrub and grass fires, far in the outback, burning relatively very little fuel, and creating a far smaller carbon footprint (since you don't believe that carbon is a greenhouse gas, I realise this info will mean nothing to you).

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-n ... ire-season

In NSW alone, 4.9m hectares burned was the largest area destroyed in the state since records began, Associate Professor Owen Price from the University of Wollongong said.

According to data collected by the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage, the previous NSW record was 3.54m hectares burned in the widespread grassfires of 1974–75.

Figures compiled by the 2004 National Inquiry into Bushfire Mitigation and Management record that 4.5m hectares were burned in 1974–75 – higher than the NSW OEH figures, but still below this year’s record.

As well as setting a record for area burned, Price said this year’s fires were burning through a large amount of forest, rather than grasslands.

This has made the current fires more devastating, harder to fight and more dangerous to people and to wildlife, he told Guardian Australia.

“The 1974 fires were 4.5m, and that was mostly in the arid and semi-arid grasslands,” Price said. “The actual impact of that was far less. What we’re talking about here is forest fire.

“In forest, the fires are far more intense, they produce far more smoke, they burn far more material, so there is a bigger greenhouse gas output and they take longer to recover. When they reach homes, they are harder to stop.

“Some of the fires in the north of the state in November were going through rainforest. There are areas, say Kanangra national park, west of the Blue Mountains, that has not been burnt in recorded history.”

Dozens of current and former fire chiefs have also described this year’s fires as unprecedented. The RFS commissioner, Shane Fitzsimmons, said in December this season was “absolutely” the state’s worst on record.

“The biggest fire seasons in the past have burnt about 20% of the forest,” Price said. “But this time it is going to be more than half, which puts animals at a much higher risk.

“It’s a new record by any measure,” he said.

In December, the federal environment minister, Sussan Ley, said up to 30% of the koala population on the NSW mid-north coast could have been killed in the fires, and a NSW government inquiry heard from an expert that the fires were so large “we will probably never find the bodies”.

In January, the bureau of meteorology confirmed that 2019 was Australia’s hottest year on record, while the record for the hottest day across the country was broken two days in a row – on Tuesday 16 December and Wednesday 17 December.

In its annual climate statement, released on Tuesday, the Bureau of Meteorology said 2019 was also Australia’s driest with a national average rainfall total of 277mm – the lowest on record.

“The immediate reason [for these fires] is the drought,” Price said. “Basically all the moisture has been sucked out of the landscape and the plants. Then you have to ask the question, what has caused the drought?

“Drought is a natural periodic thing, but the fact that this is the worst drought on record, and we’ve broken temperature records many times this year, is a pretty unequivocal indication that climate change has made this worse.”

Australia has been breaking temperature and drought records constantly this century. Climate change deniers like you have convinced half the world that worse drought and higher temperatures have nothing to do with bushfires.

I look forward to your admission of error LOL!

[Sculptor1]

Morton, those like you who wilfully who peddle untruths for political purposes and never admit it deserve ad hominem attacks. I note that you have stood firm on your misinformation.
...
I look forward to your admission of error LOL!

Don't hold your breath.

[GE Morton]

The fires of 74/75 are not even close to the the scale of current fires - not in fuel, not in deaths, not in property damage, not on loss of arabale land or extinctions.

Well, first, you're comparing apples and oranges. The figures I cited were for Oz a whole. The figures you cite are for NSW. And of course losses of life, property, arable land will be greater in NSW than in WA or NT. NSW and Victoria are where most of the country's people live, and where most of their buildings and farmlands are. Keep in mind, too, that more people means not only more economic losses, but a greater RISK of fires, because a large fraction of them are caused by people in one way or another --- careless campfires, fallen power lines, sparks from railroad equipment, tossed cigarettes, arson, etc.

The argument was about the extent to which "climate change" is to blame for this year's fires. The point I made earlier remains --- Australia's climate this year is not perceptibly different from last year, or the year before, or for the prior 10 years, for that matter, during which years fire losses were around historical averages. This seems to be NSW's year for a bad fire season. For Australia as a whole it will set no records, in terms of acreage burned.

People need to quit leaping mindlessly aboard the "climate change" bandwagon to explain every natural or semi-natural disaster and consider the historical context.

. . (since you don't believe that carbon is a greenhouse gas, I realise this info will mean nothing to you).

Why do you persist in imputing beliefs and positions to me which I've never held or asserted?