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[Jojoya]

Heres a sample, starting in November and running until current. Theres more stories, but several sources are paywalled.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50568026
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-...fires/11717444
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...a6d53c66391516
https://twitter.com/7NewsSydney/stat...ting-bushfires
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/austra...tarters-in-nsw


Current speculation is that 85% of the fires in Queensland, NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania have been arson, and a few of the remainder are accidental due to cigarettes. This includes 183 arson arrests and more detained on suspicion.

Arson doesn't mean funded by extremists.

[Iscah]

Heres a sample, starting in November and running until current. Theres more stories, but several sources are paywalled.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50568026
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-...fires/11717444
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...a6d53c66391516
https://twitter.com/7NewsSydney/stat...ting-bushfires
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/austra...tarters-in-nsw

Current speculation is that 85% of the fires in Queensland, NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania have been arson, and a few of the remainder are accidental due to cigarettes. This includes 183 arson arrests and more detained on suspicion.

I didn't see any of those statistics in the articles I read.


The articles you linked aren't all relating to the current fires either, and show how easily we can count to "24 charges of arson" without it necessarily being a major cause of the fires that are happening right now. (And as I understand it, three people in one incident would be "three charges".)

From what I can gather, the actual charge seems to cover any deliberately lit destructive fire, regardless of the intent.

(The quote boxes are not quotes as such, just organising my notes.)

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50568026

- one man charged with seven counts of alleged arson since October
- "the man is not accused over [major bushfires]", but it put more strain on firefighters already fighting those fires.
- not outright stated in the article, but it sounds like those particular fires were put out, or they probably would have mentioned it led to a major fire.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-...fires/11717444

- 18 people have been "dealt with by police" in the state of Queensland regarding the recent fires, 10 of them children or teenagers

- over the past two years, a total of 136 children have been charged with deliberately lighting fires of some kind, although only 18 were convicted

- yearly numbers of 22, 88, 48 charges

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...a6d53c66391516

* The Australian is a "right-wing" newspaper and is unlikely to be attributing the increased fire risk to climate change.

In any case, the article talks about the NSW police being "set to charge more than a dozen suspected arsonists" - which is well within the stated total of 24 - plus 56 "charges or cautions" since August.

In combination with the previous article saying there were 136 charges but only 18 convictions, I gather there's no guarantee every "charge" is in fact a valid case.

https://twitter.com/7NewsSydney/stat...ting-bushfires

Two links for the price of one, and (along with The Australian) I seem to have given traffic to people I'd rather not.
The tweet is from Seven News, but the URL indicates a redirect from "Zero Hedge" (which Wikipedia tells me "has been associated with alt-right views") and the URL "nearly 200 people arrested across Australia deliberately starting bushfires".

Call me a poor journalist but it's too late at night and I don't fancy giving them any more traffic actually investigating that link, which I would assume to be one of the misinformation-articles that the ABC was warning against.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/austra...tarters-in-nsw

More about the nature of arsonists, with an interesting quote (that I thought might be a statistic but didn't know where to look) - "estimates up to half the 54,000 bushfires that hit Australia on average each year are deliberately lit or suspicious."

Note the maximum level of hyperbole - "estimates", "up to", "suspicious" (but not confirmed)... but still.

54,000 fires a year.

Assuming that statistic is accurate (it might be counting very small and unremarkable incidents), even if it was only 10% or 5% rather than "up to half", that would still mean every year thousands of fires of some degree are deliberately lit - so why is this year different?

Deliberately lit fires are (regrettably) nothing new. The people who would do such a thing haven't all come out of nowhere since last year.

The issue is that the climate right now is producing conditions where fires - however they started - are becoming more destructive and harder to fight.

I am in no way trying to absolve them. It's a monstrous thing that someone would willingly start a fire.

But at the same time, we can't just say "this year's disaster is because of arsonists". We have them every year, but we do not have these conditions and this degree of catastrophe.

[miraidensetsu]

Current speculation is that 85% of the fires in Queensland, NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania have been arson, and a few of the remainder are accidental due to cigarettes. This includes 183 arson arrests and more detained on suspicion.

Well, it is like the amazon rainforest wildfire (with its infamous fire day).

Everyone knows that local farmers is who's putting fire in it because they want to raise cattle somewhere they don't own and they don't give a damn to climate changes. Even considering that they're living in a region that will be a desert. If natives is being killed by the fire, the lack of resources or even his employees, they even like it.

[Zephera]

Arson.

Theyve arrested 200 people so far for their part in it, all of whom have received payments in the last 3 months from an organization known to fund political extremism.

As someone actually living in Australia, there are many reasons why bushfires start, but a warming climate makes bushfires a lot worse and a lot harder for emergency services to handle, it's the primary reason why this current outbreak of fires is so bad.

On another note, I do like how you don't name this organization you mention, I can't think of a single group in Australia that would pay for bushfires to be lit, and given the crisis I'm sure said organization would get slaughtered legally by our government. Also, you say 85% of the fires were started by arson but one of the articles you linked has a statement from the NSW Rural Fire Service Inspector saying that most of the fires were started by lightning or embers from already existing fires.

EDIT: On the actual topic of the thread though, I'm not really interested in getting something just because a bad crisis is happening in my country. Awful stuff happens everywhere in the world so it really wouldn't be fair on others who have a disaster and get ignored.

Another EDIT: By the way, if anyone wants to donate directly to the firefighters instead of through a third party charity, here's a link to the NSW rural fire service: https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/about-us/fundraising

[Iscah]

I haven't read it as it is quite long and quite late for me and I do not know how accurate and serious this source is but I found https://www.spectator.com.au/2020/01...on-crisis-too/

and the first sentence state as follow:

"According to my calculations and estimates, the number of individuals around Australia whose arson has contributed to the current bushfire crisis has now passed 200."

No mention of a shadowy conspiracy of people being paid by political extremists though. It outright says there are "no conspiracies here", just a string of incidents with individuals.

I also don't have time to check the reliability of the website and they don't have an easy-to-find mission statement, but the "other articles to read next" selection sounds dubious to me.

[Duskane]

I don't see this really happening
It would be nice but this game is pretty AU unfriendly just with promotional events,Servers and Mogstation not even able to do AUD

[Lium]

As someone who lives in California, I can definitely empathize with Aussies currently going through this. It sucks. And the reason I asked what Australia's position on climate change was is because here in the US, we have an administration that is doing everything in its power to deny climate change, including withdrawing from the Paris Agreement and many other smaller things that all add up.

As a result, any time there is a natural disaster in the United States, it makes dealing with them by our emergency services so much more difficult than it already is. I just really don't understand what people have to gain from denying climate change. It doesn't matter if you're liberal, conservative, independent or even non-political, what's happening to the planet quite literally affects all life on it. And I really do mean all life. That includes us.

[Iscah]

This sounds familiar.

Part of an article at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-...media/11846434 (ABC being our public broadcaster):

Fires misinformation being spread through social media

One area of misinformation has been the hashtag #ArsonEmergency on Twitter.

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) researcher Dr Timothy Graham analysed 315 accounts posting #ArsonEmergency and said a third of them displayed highly-automated and inauthentic behaviour.

He said the topic appeared to be attracting a "suspiciously high number of bot-like and troll-like accounts".

The ABC found many of the suspicious accounts were amplifying unproven suggestions arson had been the overwhelming cause of Australia's disastrous bushfire season.

Several Twitter users were misrepresenting a media report about police investigating whether some of the fires were deliberately lit, despite the same report noting the blazes on the NSW South Coast were likely caused by lightning strikes.

Some incorrectly quoted Australian police as having dismissed the link between the fires and climate change.

An article posted by an American far-right figure went one step further, claiming left-wing ecoterrorists were responsible for lighting the blazes.

The "nearly 200 people arrested" claim is also shown as an example of social media misinformation.

Links shared on social media are NOT a reliable news source.

[MrKusakabe]

Alright, people, the climate change hype train started again *choo chooo*

Let's be honest: No one of you would change your life considerably to even remotely avoid in future what is happening right now. I've recorded Germany's "Friday for Future" protests and could overhear a local radio station's interview. What people said there was absolutely ridiculous: "I do not drink so much from plastic bottles anymore" - but I heard nobody saying: "I walk or use the bicycle to work".


Let's see what is causing bad effects on the climate:


* You would stop having bananas, coffee, soy, chocolate - here 80% of the people already put down the "Safe the climate" signs. The cargo ships take bananas from Costa Rica for weeks, then transports it to production and then again to the stores via trucks.
* Computers and cellphones have a horrible ecological footprints as their parts are made of precious materials, gathered by kids whose childhood really has been stolen (not like a spoiled kid names Greta).
* For the U.S. (and Australian) residents: Who of you would sell your car and use the bicycle?
* Who of you would allow the gas price to climb by several times tomorrow?
* Who of you would stop using general heating and wake up with a sore throat in winter because it has 4°C in your home?
* Who of you are supporting equal hot spots in the African and Indian world?
* Who of you are care only about temporary incidents (fire) unlike long-term problems (agriculture)?
* Who of you would donate ONCE for the Fire Services instead of a monthly fee? (I get "Charlie Hebdo" flashbacks with the 2-week hype that stopped over night)
* Who of you would want to have your power bill increased by 550% in order for renewal energy taxes starting tomorrow (I can tell you: It's not so fun!)
* What is your profession to make a living? Think about the following: Do you drive? Do you use a computer? Do you trade with locally grown/manufactured goods? Do you want to stall international trading?
* Server parks for games like this consume lots of power and hardware - see above.
* Check where your clothes are coming from. How does it come from India or Pakistan to the U.S.A.?
* Check your refrigerator: What's packaged in plastic?
* Do you like to take cold showers? I don't.

This list goes on and on. By merely being an "Internet Greta" you won't change anything, and you must do almost the full list above to have a significant impact on the climate. Forever. Not just "a couple of days without coffee". Which will send you back into the stone age basically. I am sure at one or two bulletins, many of you go "Nah! Never" already, but everything else is placebo. There always have been bushfires. There also have been absolutely catastrophal winters in Central Europe ('78 IIRC for example) that happened once and never again, but nobody ever made a fuzz about it. Now there is a massive fire spreading, just a bit more massive then the fires back then. No need to go full 2012!


So, go ahead and enlist for the fire services or donate $100/month and not just for the next two weeks. I am fully aware of the change. I have no car. I ride the bike or walk. I live in a small home with almost no power and heating consumption. I do not drink coffee or smoke (tobacco imports). I was never on a ship or plane for travel. All that stuff you don't care about anyways. But how about YOU?