Last night’s Catalyst was in my opinion far from sensational – in fact the excited prepublicity may have done it a disservice.

Over the past decade, there has been an alarming surge in large, uncontrollable fires across the world. We live in a time when mega-fires are reshaping landscapes in ways unprecedented in human history. Even iconic forests especially adapted to burning are being wiped out. In a climate of rising temperatures and shifting rainfall, amid debate about whether fire disasters are natural or man-made, what does the rise of mega-fires mean for life as we know it? In this Catalyst special, reporters Anja Taylor and Mark Horstman travel to opposite sides of the planet to find out. In the ‘sky islands’ of New Mexico, which have experienced frequent fire for millennia, pine forest ecosystems are suddenly being decimated by huge, tree-killing fires. In the ‘mountain islands’ of the Australian Alps, 90 percent of this 500 kilometre long bioregion has been burnt this century, as changing fire intervals over the last ten years destroy large areas of mature eucalypt forests. Ultimately this is a story about climate change, told through the prism of fire.

Though climate change was indeed a very significant part of the story, even more interesting was what was shown about ill-informed ideas of “pristine wilderness” in fact magnifying the likelihood of megafires! 

Compelling stuff, first rate I thought, and supported on the page linked above by additional material and outside links. The fact the program was not, as is so often the case with bushfire stories, merely parochial also helped.

Mentioning climate change segues into last Monday’s #QandA, though that was just one matter raised. It was not one of the better episodes – so bad in fact that I turned it off in exasperation after about 30 minutes. It did have its moments, however:

TONY JONES: Good evening and welcome to Q&A. I’m Tony Jones and answering your questions tonight: theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss, who has been touring the world promoting atheism and reason; outspoken government senator Cory Bernardi; businesswoman and former Lord Mayor of Sydney, Lucy Turnbull; advertising man-turned-commentator Rowan Dean; and the Shadow Minister for Health, Catherine King. Please welcome our panel…

CORY BERNARDI: No, that was the first question. The second – the second point you make about chaplaincy is this: I actually think that, you know, the ethos of our community, the guiding principles of our law, are based and built around Christianity. Now, you don’t have to be a Christian to recognise there are inherent benefits to that. I support the Federal Government’s chaplaincy program. I think it provides pastoral care to students, I think, in a – in a consistent manner and I think it’s a really worthy program.
LAWRENCE KRAUSS: But aren’t they told – I was reading about this and it seemed that they’re not supposed to – they’re not supposed to proselytise. So as someone was saying, it’s like paying a quarter of a billion dollars to invite clowns into the schools and tell them not to be funny.
TONY JONES: Cory Bernardi, a quick response to that and then we will go to the other panellists.
CORY BERNARDI: Yeah, it’s not about proselytising, but it’s about informing students and providing pastoral care within, I think, a moral framework, that is consistent with our laws and expectations.

Few people can make so many questionable assumptions in the space of a few seconds as Cory Bernardi has here; Lawrence Krauss’s riposte is brilliant and was not answered you will notice.

One of the main things wrong with this episode in fact was Senator Bernardi. To call him “outspoken” is euphemism.

Cory Bernardi – channelling a well-known pioneering climate change activist, without knowing it.

After I turned the show off Senator Bernardi decided drawing on his profound expertise in climate science to rebut an actual distinguished scientist – albeit not a climate scientist as such but with a fair grasp of the physics involved — was a good look.

LAWRENCE KRAUSS: You know – you know what would be really refreshing, is if – unfortunately, if people like you actually tried to base your policies on empirical evidence instead of beliefs. It would be so refreshing.
TONY JONES: Lawrence, we seriously should listen to the answer, I think, before we (Speaks indistinctly)…
LAWRENCE KRAUSS: Yeah, yeah. Well, I will listen.
CORY BERNARDI: The empirical evidence over the last 15 or 16 years is that there hasn’t been this runaway global warming that we were told was going to happen.
LAWRENCE KRAUSS: No. No. That’s…
CORY BERNARDI: No, that’s – that’s the facts. That is the truth.
LAWRENCE KRAUSS: The fact is that the last decade was the warmest in recorded history and, in fact, if you look at the graph, it’s true that it fluctuates and, in fact, it was above the average of the graph for ten years before that and now it’s a little bit below. But it’s following a line that has increased by 1.8 degrees and is exactly what you would expect. I mean it’s physics. It’s fundamental physics. You put carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, you add heat to the Earth. It’s just physics. It’s not politics.

So many people trot out that line about global warming not happening for X years that it is worth referring you to Global cooling – Is global warming still happening? And that’s where we will leave the sad spectacle that was #QandA last Monday, except to add that Rowan Dean was not an asset, while on balance Lucy Turnbull probably was. Catherine King hardly made an impression at all. Next week looks reasonably promising though.

That publicity shot for last night’s Foreign Correspondent shows people associated with the Australian Embassy in Beijing in 1989. The gist of what we saw is in this story: Tiananmen Square crisis station: the Australian embassy in 1989.

Jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiabo was offered asylum from Australia in 1989 but turned it down and went on to become China’s most famous dissident.

Following his role in supporting student protesters in the run-up to the brutal crackdown that year, the literary critic turned philosopher and agitator would be imprisoned and tortured.

After the Olympics he was picked up again and this time given an 11-year sentence for “inciting subversion of state power”. He won the peace prize from behind bars and it was awarded symbolically to an empty chair.

The Australian embassy in Beijing’s cultural counsellor at the time, Nick Jose, had become a good friend of Liu Xiaobo in the run-up to the crackdown on June 3-4 when the People’s Liberation Army opened fire on protestors to reclaim Tiananmen Square.

“I took him in my car from my flat to the embassy gates and I said ‘Well this is it, we can drive in, the gates will open and the gates will close and you will have effectively sought asylum from Australia or you can go and find friends who live nearby’, friends I also knew,” Mr Jose said.

“He thought about it, he looked at me and said ‘Thank you, but no’, he would stay in China, he was Chinese, China was his country, China was his fate…

Nicholas Jose, Claire Roberts and M at M’s Chinese New Year Party, Redfern, 2009