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Putting the flame to blame : Comments
By Andrew Hamilton, published 13/2/2009It is momentarily satisfying to find someone on whom to fix blame for the fires. But it is unhelpful to be fixated in blame.
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Posted by Rainier, Sunday, 15 February 2009 9:13:41 PM
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daggett: "The bush fires further confirm the views of those who have been arguing for years that runaway population growth, particularly when urban planning is as abysmal as it is in Australia (largely thanks to Malcolm Fraser having abolished Whitlam's Department of Urban and Regional Development) is unsustainable".
The above claim's "out" is implied in the conditional emphasis on urban planning and the parenthesized comment on the Fraser government's abolition of "Whitlam's Department of Urban and Regional Development". That clause apparently poses a confusing distraction from daggett's essential (and repeatedly Malthusian) argument against people reproducing towards a demographic balance sheet in the black, as it were. A minor problem, or other distraction, in daggett's claim is its assumption that such growth is "runaway". Running away from what? An innate population "stasis" figure, or a preferred target of degeneracy by say 1-2 million a year? How many as an ultimate population target? Say a million or so as in pre-white settlement? 3 million of early C20th? How many human beings can daggett and fellow Malthusians tolerate for populating this continent? But the claim's most apparent problem to me is its principle of opposition to population growth in the first place. Does this mean that more people somehow create bushfires or make them more devastating and lethal? If the burning bushland is almost entirely "unproductive" by normal civilized human definitions, and green-inspired policies and laws all but prohibit clearance and burn-off, how can more people be causal here? Of course, more people in such unmanaged bushfire conditions mean greater likelihood of more human fatalities and other casualties - a situation that seems to please other Malthusians like dickie, who seemingly trumpets "it appears innovative man to whom you refer is no match for Mother Nature" (see: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=8409#134490) - the superstitious bile of a primordial Gaia cult. And you're the guys claiming to be conscientiously mindful of my kids' future? Posted by mil-observer, Monday, 16 February 2009 8:54:02 AM
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Fires require dry fuel, wind and ignition. The only part of that list that can be reliably managed is the fuel load. This has been the fundamental tenant of fire management for centuries.
To see daggert and other people challenge this leads me to doubt Victoria's success in preventing a repeat of this disaster. The guidelines for levels of fuel load necessary to prevent devastating fire have changed little in 40 years and it is patently obvious that the fuel loads in the areas worst affected by the fires where not within a bulls roar of the guidelines. The red herrings (such as, residential development,endangered species, global warming, wet forests, access roads, "its nature", arsonists, etc) are being trotted out to conceal the fundamental problem of high fuel loads. I personally have heard all the green rhetoric when trying to organise controlled burns both from local residents and the bureaucracy. These people are not always card carrying greens but often have other motives as simple as not changing their washing day, discomfort from the smell of smoke, or didn't want to work this weekend. The reason for sheeting it home to the broad group "greens" in their multitudinous guises is they treat their pronouncements as a mantra their are never doubts or an if or but. If you decide to discuss the issue with them they never have a good grasp of the science yet they have heavily resourced the publicity campaign. The level of doubt and fear in the only achievement in the community no attempt is made to foster understanding. I wish we didn't need to push these issues so soon, but many people quickly move on from these issues and fuel loads far above the guidelines have been reported as a fundamental problem in every major fire in the last 30 years. After every major fire we set out the manage the fuel load but quickly find hundreds of reasons not to. Posted by For Choice, Monday, 16 February 2009 7:59:48 PM
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Maurie Killeen, CFA Captain, Maffra, Victoria (2003, p. 4).