Hero, in my opinion, is a word often wrongfully used. The word can extol a well-paid athlete who is proficient in his or her chosen profession. We can use the word to define one who risks one’s life in battle or to rescue people from forest fire or floods.

I don’t know of a word that can be applied to those people who make heroes less necessary. However, I would extol those people. If a war can be prevented heroism in the face of the enemy is unnecessary. If people do not build on a flood plain, on shore line which will be inundated by sea level rise or surrounded by woody areas heroic rescues from flood or fire are less necessary.

We more or less know the basic cause of war. Too many people fighting for too few resources with the belligerence exacerbated by nationalism, racism, religion and ideology drives wars.

I would pay homage to those who opposed some of the wars in which Australia has been involved. Albert Foster is one of them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Foster_(judge)

The bushfires which have ravaged Australia were predicted.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7670937/NSW-bushfires-Greg-Mullins-former-Fire-Rescue-chief-climate-change-warning-ignored.html

"A former top firefighter claims he and 22 emergency services chiefs were 'fobbed off' by Prime Minister Scott Morrison when they penned a chilling warning about impending bushfires and catastrophic weather in Australia months ago.

Greg Mullins, the NSW Fire & Rescue commissioner from 2003 until 2016, and almost two dozen heavyweights sent a letter to Mr Morrison in April demanding an urgent meeting.

The letter said the ex-chiefs wanted to speak to the PM because 'increasingly catastrophic extreme weather events' would 'put lives, properties and livelihoods at greater risk and overwhelm our emergency services'."

After sending the letter, Mr Mullins did not hear from the prime minister's office for three months, when he was eventually offered a meeting with a lesser official, the energy minister Angus Taylor.
Mr Mullins and his colleagues were ignored as was Mr Foster and his supporters.

We need to listen to those with the wisdom to lessen the need for heroes.

top firefighter claims he and 22 emergency services chiefs were 'fobbed off' by Prime Minister Scott Morrison when they penned a chilling warning about impending bushfires and catastrophic weather in Australia months ago.
David F,
Forgive my ignorance but what has the PM got to do with firefighters failing to do what they're trained & paid to do ?

doing the right thing by clearing forests rather than trying to protect gay frogs would be far more important than listening to 'experts' who are blinded by failed narratives. Look at the gw 'experts' like Greta. What a joke.

Every Tom, Dick and Harry gets called a 'hero' these days for just doing what they are paid and trained to do. Small-minded, childish people seem to need someone to look up to. Perhaps they like to think that there will always be someone there to protect them from the bogey man, the government or whatever. They once believed in God. Now they have replaced God with mere human beings no better than, or different from, themselves.

And BTW, David - I hope you are not calling those 22 wackjobs you mentioned heroes.

One problem with forests - maybe it always has been - is that they are constant work. They constantly grow, especially after fires, and then rains. Weeds, local and foreign, shoot up and make the forest floor impenetrable, and competing with native species for space.

So there is, if anything, more work for national park workers all the time. There never has been, or will be, a time when forests are somehow self-managing.

As Allan B. has proposed many times, send in the sheep and cattle and goats, to keep the weeds down. Will they have an impact ? Of course, everything does.

Build in fire-breaks, fragmenting forests maybe but making it easier to inhibit fires and reach hot-pots. Keep roadways clear, maybe 10-20 metres each side. Remove much of the dead wood, leaving some for the cute little animals and lizards, so that it does not build up, and turn manageable fires into infernos [inferni]. Set aside refuge areas, for both animals and humans.

All that means a hell of a lot more work in national parks, so it also means much better funding. So there's work for young people, in their 'gap year': if they are environmentally inclined, they could do a year in forest maintenance. Or, of course, if effort is not their style, they could stay out of the way, in the cities, with their smashed avos, talking about climate change. Who knows, we might even see a Green supporter out there one day, actually working.

Joe



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