Will Australia burn down before it dries up and blows away?

I have read that the evidence is that the climate of Australia has always been very arid, and that what we call droughts have always been common. The flora and fauna evolved to live in the climate. Of course, three hundred years ago, there weren't nearly so many people, nor all that fuel lying around.

...Hence the popularity of BBQ down-under!

Or get inundated by increasing tropical cyclones and washed out to sea? Not to mention get our inland sea back as the all the ice melts. Plus as the tropics move south die from nasty tropical diseases or go crazy because we can't go to the beach any more because of the jelly fish inundations.

Apart from that, i take it you're having a wonderful time . . .

Right now the weather is lovely.....be a bit warmish today ....31C and 34 C tomorrow....(88F and 94 F roughly) but after the roughly 114F we had, it's lovely. We had some lovely rain the other day. Where I live now is almost always cooler than the city. But global warming looks pretty nasty for us....sigh.

I guess the upside is I may soon have an esplanade property!

Should that be "burn up" and "dry down?"

When it blows away, will the Coriolis make it turn clockwise or anti-clockwise?

Depends.....

This subject came up at dinner because my brother said he was taking his whole family to Australia next summer to see the vineyards and I said "If they haven't burned down or blown away yet. " and he said "What?"
I asked him if he had been following the news reports regarding the Big Dry and the wildfires and the desalination plants being installed all over the continent (except up Darwin way) and he said "No.
Thus reassuring me that my brother is a true American.

So, what is the outlook for the outback?

When do you stop exporting rice and start importing ICE?

Joe(It's not every day that we lose a continent.)Nation

In my part of Australia we don't get cyclones, but we do have a massive bushfire going at the moment, 62,000 hectares so far. The weather today is not too hot, but tomorrow is expected to be very hot and windy, with a wind change bringing the fire in our direction. So to answer your question, this part of Australia will burn down before it blows away.

Bushfires, droughts, floods, cyclones...

This is a pretty fierce country and then there's all those dangerous critters: deadly snakes, venomous spiders, hungry crocodiles, poisonous jellyfish.

Jeez - we're a hardy lot to live here! Fortunately, we don't have much at all of those really deadly creatures - men with guns.

I think some aspect of global warming will get us in the end. In the interim, Deb and I may both have waterfront properties, for a time.

Glad your brother is coming, Joe - why don't you join him?

Is your brother as nice as you?

I live amongst the vineyards and would be happy to show them around my part of the world if it's possible....if they're as fabulous as you. Well, a bit less fabulous would be ok.

I thought Australia served as a safety valve for those English speaking people that become disenchanted with their current national identity, and decide to "go to Australia," for the ability to think that their great grandchildren will be able to live there in relative calm. Therefore, it cannot burn down, nor dry up. It has a purpose for the English speaking world.

I'm betting the drollery would evaporate if your one liner related to forest fires throughout the western states of the USA.

I responded to this topic earlier, but have thought about it a bit more since then. I suppose it is easy to be flippant about something when you are on the other side of the world, and it's not affecting you personally. As I said in my last post, there is a large fire just near me [65,000 hectares now burnt], the air is full of smoke, and we are expecting a wind change tomorrow which is going to make things a lot worse for us. At the other end of this fire homes have been lost and one person has died, so far.

This question might have been amusing if it hadn't come at such a bad time.

it looks like the cheap but good Australian wines are toast, other than that idk.

Australia is always going to burn.....but it is highly unlikely to burn down.

We'd better get used to it and have a look at our land care practices and where we choose to live

I get what you are saying and it's always horrible when lives are lost...I hadn't heard that about this fire until right now and i am really sorry this has happened....but black humour is a coping mechanism I love.

I could be wrong about this, but i believe that Fobvious is Australian. As for fires in the U.S., forest fires don't take place in densely populated areas; they don't take place in even moderately populated areas. Forest fireas also take place all over the country, not just in western states. That's because there are forests all over the country. The most costly wild fires in the U.S. take place in California, in areas near Los Angeles, and are brush fires, where people have built their homes in fire prone areas--they already pay through the nose for insurance precisely because they're building where they shouldn't, and they get little sympathy from the rest of the country. They really only get a lot of news coverage because they're taking place near the center of the U.S. television media industry.

The United States manages wild fires pretty well, and i suspect that Australia does, too. But referring to forest fires is a case of comparing apples to chick peas.

I know what you are saying - about fires and about black humour - and I agree with you, sometimes laughing is the only way to cope with a disaster, but I just had fire-fighters knocking on my door to check who was going to be home tomorrow so they don't have to waste time checking empty houses if the fire front comes through here, or we get spot fires. It all starts getting serious when that happens, and it's a little hard to keep laughing.

And, yes I know Australia isn't going to burn down, but nor is it going to dry up and blow away.

I think we will dry up and blow away in the fullness of time.