Update from Shanghai.
I live in Australia, a very big, very dry, geologically very old, and very beautiful country that's been in drought for the last decade. In terms of liquid fresh water, it's the second driest continent, after Antarctica.
Australians know about fires, we have a lot of experience with them: the rejuvenating kind (we have plants adapted to only release their seeds after the heat of a fire has cracked open the seed pods); and the destructive, out-of-control kind that's caused by a combination of weather conditions, environmental neglect, human stupidity, and arson. Every summer, in bushfire season, dozens of fires over the country are started accidentally or on purpose. About fourteen years ago, when I lived in Lugarno (a hilly riverside suburb in Sydney), the road to our house was blocked one night because the opposite bank of the Georges' River was on fire, and fire fighters were afraid it would cross the water. Six years ago, more than 500 homes were burnt down in our tiny capital city, Canberra. We are used to hearing about bush fires.
But not like this.
Fuck you, morons. FUCK YOU.
You can call it another worsening effect of climate change, a natural disaster, like Katrina was a natural disaster. But that's to brush aside the inconvenient question of what might have been done that was humanly possible to ameliorate the disaster, or prevent it from happening at all.
The Australian Aboriginals practiced a form of controlled burning to routinely clear scrub, encourage new growth, and prevent wild fires from catching alight. Misunderstood for decades, some of these "resource management" techniques are now being put back to use in national reserves.
We have to expect more fires in the future as the country becomes even drier, and the temperatures rise even further, and we have to find ways of working with the land and not against it. We have to manage our beautiful, terrible continent better.
ETA: Came across this while reading the news this morning. Australian wild fires prompt return to Aboriginal bush control:
'The weekend's terrible death toll has already prompted questions about the country's "stay-and-defend" policy, which encourages homeowners to stay and fight the flames. Many victims are believed to have perished in their cars as they realised too late that they would not be safe if they had stayed.
'There are also questions about the consequences of fire risk reduction measures practised over the last few decades: preventing regular fires means the amount of burnable wood grows year-by-year, risking even greater firestorms.
'"The mismanagement of the south-eastern forests of Australia over the last 30 or 40 years by excluding prescribed burning and fuel management has lead to the highest fuel concentrations we have ever had in human occupation," said David Packham, a bush fire researcher at Monash University, Australia. "The state has never been as dangerous as what it is now and this has been quite obvious for some time."'
Australians know about fires, we have a lot of experience with them: the rejuvenating kind (we have plants adapted to only release their seeds after the heat of a fire has cracked open the seed pods); and the destructive, out-of-control kind that's caused by a combination of weather conditions, environmental neglect, human stupidity, and arson. Every summer, in bushfire season, dozens of fires over the country are started accidentally or on purpose. About fourteen years ago, when I lived in Lugarno (a hilly riverside suburb in Sydney), the road to our house was blocked one night because the opposite bank of the Georges' River was on fire, and fire fighters were afraid it would cross the water. Six years ago, more than 500 homes were burnt down in our tiny capital city, Canberra. We are used to hearing about bush fires.
But not like this.
Fuck you, morons. FUCK YOU.
You can call it another worsening effect of climate change, a natural disaster, like Katrina was a natural disaster. But that's to brush aside the inconvenient question of what might have been done that was humanly possible to ameliorate the disaster, or prevent it from happening at all.
The Australian Aboriginals practiced a form of controlled burning to routinely clear scrub, encourage new growth, and prevent wild fires from catching alight. Misunderstood for decades, some of these "resource management" techniques are now being put back to use in national reserves.
We have to expect more fires in the future as the country becomes even drier, and the temperatures rise even further, and we have to find ways of working with the land and not against it. We have to manage our beautiful, terrible continent better.
ETA: Came across this while reading the news this morning. Australian wild fires prompt return to Aboriginal bush control:
'The weekend's terrible death toll has already prompted questions about the country's "stay-and-defend" policy, which encourages homeowners to stay and fight the flames. Many victims are believed to have perished in their cars as they realised too late that they would not be safe if they had stayed.
'There are also questions about the consequences of fire risk reduction measures practised over the last few decades: preventing regular fires means the amount of burnable wood grows year-by-year, risking even greater firestorms.
'"The mismanagement of the south-eastern forests of Australia over the last 30 or 40 years by excluding prescribed burning and fuel management has lead to the highest fuel concentrations we have ever had in human occupation," said David Packham, a bush fire researcher at Monash University, Australia. "The state has never been as dangerous as what it is now and this has been quite obvious for some time."'