Greens behaving like "Eco terrorists"

Lost User

bollocks The question is would back burning that was disallowed have changed anything and no one can answer that with any authority.

_Damian S_

I don't often disagree with what you have to say, Josh, but on this one, you are fair talking out your ass... The build up of flammable material in the forest due to the greenies opposing burn-offs is what massively contributed to the severity of the fires... It's not the embers that fall on your roof that has caused the deaths, it's the massive flaming fireballs that have engulfed everything in their path... 100m cleared around your house and you would almost certainly have survived... and probably your house as well.

-------------------------------------------------------- Knowledge is knowing that the tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in fruit salad!!

bryce

well _Damian_ made a point up above about the family who did burn off. I'd also say, yep - lets see what the fall out is and where it all winds up :) cheerypips Bryce

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_Damian S_

And I just updated it with a link to the article. ;-)

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Lost User

_Damian S_ wrote:

The build up of flammable material in the forest due to the greenies opposing burn-offs is what massively contributed to the severity of the fires...

_Damian S_ wrote:

It's not the embers that fall on your roof that has caused the deaths, it's the massive flaming fireballs that have engulfed everything in their path... 100m cleared around your house and you would almost certainly have survived... and probably your house as well.

Well are we talking about the councils not doing back burning of the forest or people being disallowed to clear the area around their homes? I don't claim to be any kind of expert but my limited understanding is that these fires were of a scale previously unknown. How any one can claim that clearing 100m around a house would make any meaningful difference is beyond me. The article Bryce linked to talks about a proposal to list prescribed burning as a threatening process which is not due for decision till 2010. It also mentions a lack of expertise and the risk of lawsuits but not who they imagine would instigate the law suits. The only mention of green groups includes he term jihad which is pretty much guaranteed to make me disregard what ever he's saying. I'm all for putting human life and property before the lives of animals who would suffer if their habitat was destroyed by back burning and I understand people need to feel that someone somewhere was responsible but to put the blame entirely on "green groups" is unfair and does nothing to help anyone.

bryce

i dunno Josh old chap - most everyone knows that regular back burning keeps the material available to a fire down to a minimum. Now whether it would have prevented a fire is debatable (and I'd say that it wouldn't have prevented a fire), its fair to say that if there is less for a fire to burn then the fire cannot do the damage it might otherwise do. Open for discussion and preferably not abuse :) cheerypips Bryce

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bryce

If there was a legitimate plan for a council to carry out back burning and it was blocked by a green group and then later there was massive damage from a fire - does not the green group bear a degree of some sort of responsibility for this damage which would have been lessened from a burn off? cheerypips Bryce

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Lost User

bryce wrote:

If there was a legitimate plan for a council to carry out back burning and it was blocked by a green group and then later there was massive damage from a fire - does not the green group bear a degree of some sort of responsibility for this damage which would have been lessened from a burn off?

Well who made the final decision? The council, the Land and Environment court? the state government? Whoever it was should have taken into account the views and wishes of the community, the green and any other lobby groups, advice on the practicality and risk of attempting sufficient controlled burn offs to protect the majority of the community etc etc. I dont think its as cut and dry as the anti-green movement would like us to believe. To say the Green Groups are solely responsible and call it Jihad is as ridiculous as saying God is punishing Victory for its abortion laws or Bob Brown saying that it's the result of the government not spending enough money to combat climate change.

bryce

Ahh but Josh i didnt say they would be "solely" responsible my queston was

Josh Gray wrote:

does not the green group bear a degree of some sort of responsibility for this damage which would have been lessened from a burn off?

Bryce

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Lost User

bryce wrote:

Ahh but Josh i didnt say they would be "solely" responsible my queston was Josh Gray wrote: does not the green group bear a degree of some sort of responsibility for this damage which would have been lessened from a burn off? Bryce

yes yes very cleaver. "The green group", not sure exactly who this is, but yes if they lobbied to have back burning banned they probably do have some responsibility but not as much as those who made the final decision. As I said somewhere else I'm all for putting the protection of life and property before environmental concerns but this is just a media beat up out of all proportion to the culpability of these evil evil green groups. The fact the guy in the article used the word Jihad is a dead give away.

bryce

Josh Gray wrote:

The fact the guy in the article used the word Jihad is a dead give away.

well i'd say hes pretty angry and upset like a lot of people down there are right now so i can understand him using that type of language cheerypips Bryce

MCAD --- To paraphrase Fred Dagg - the views expressed in this post are bloody good ones. --
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Lost User

bryce wrote:

well i'd say hes pretty angry and upset like a lot of people down there are right now so i can understand him using that type of language

The article you linked to described him as a meteorologist and made no reference to him having been personally affected by this disaster. What I see is a bunch of people attempting to use this situation as a means to advance their own agenda which gives me the shits.

_Damian S_

Josh Gray wrote:

a bunch of people attempting to use this situation as a means to advance their own agenda

Absolutely. The difference being that of the lunatic fringe, ie: "this is proof of global warming" or "this is god punishing Victoria for allowing abortions" vs those who are making commentary on things that are both tangible and true. These fires were made worse by the lack of preventative backburning (forestry maintenance) and maintenance of fire breaks. The reduction in these activities can most certainly be attributed (at least in part) to the vocal greenies (you know, watermelons) who put trees and wildlife above humans.

-------------------------------------------------------- Knowledge is knowing that the tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in fruit salad!!

Lost User

Same in California. If you dont burn back the dead growth and scrub every few years you build up a massive tinder box just waiting to go up. And in fact many plant species depend on fire to reproduce, and also the clearance of the forest floor of dead litter and scrub allows other plants to grow. Enviros are fuckwits. Truly. We had one next door to us once. Wanted her kittens all 'natural' so didnt get them spayed. Then she fucked off and left them for us to deal with. Mind you, her teeth were natural too. Un brushed for a decade by the looks of it. Right fucking idiot. Absoloutely off with the faries.

Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription

Lost User

I live in the south of France, nit far from the Med. Think Greece, or Turkey. Very hot, very dry in the summer, and pine trees. I have been told on numerous occasions that keeping the scrub and dead matter clear by burning off actually stops the trees catching fire because the tree canopy is too high for the flames produced by low scrub burning. It os only when scrub and dead material build up to the height of a man that the flames produced are big enough to reach the 30-40 feet or so to the tree canopy. It is also aparently beter for the forest, and wildlife to have occasional clearing by fire. SOme plants reproduce by fire, and clearing the forest floor allows for new growth, so I have been told.

Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription

John Carson

bryce wrote:

well _Damian_ made a point up above about the family who did burn off.

They didn't burn off. They removed over 200 trees.

John Carson

John Carson

_Damian S_ wrote:

It's not the embers that fall on your roof that has caused the deaths, it's the massive flaming fireballs that have engulfed everything in their path... 100m cleared around your house and you would almost certainly have survived... and probably your house as well.

Here is another story about a couple who died:

The Martins were fire-savvy and well prepared, with pumps and hoses and a 10-metre-deep dam. Debris was routinely cleared from around their house, which was surrounded by forest but buffered by 16 hectares of paddocks that drought had reduced to stubble barely 10 centimetres high.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/stay-or-go-advice-is-nonsense-20090211-84rb.html?page=-1[^] 16 hectares is 400 metres by 400 metres. <edit> The issue of clearance around houses is something of a red herring anyway. Most people living in these areas don't want to be surrounded by a desolate moonscape. Many live in towns where tree-lined streets are a central part of residential amenity. Fires can spread from one house to another even in the absence of trees. The issue of burn offs to reduce fuel in forests is a separate one. It may be that more should have been done, but I am not in a position to make a judgement on this. On any issue (road safety, hospitals, prison sentences...) there is always one side saying "do more" and another side saying "do less". The fact that someone dies in a road accident or someone dies in hospital or a prisoner re-offends is not automatic proof that the "do more" crowd was right. There is always a balance to be struck in making these decisions. </edit>

John Carson

modified on Thursday, February 12, 2009 4:09 AM

bryce

oh Christ you really are a pedantic little twerp aren't you Bryce

MCAD --- To paraphrase Fred Dagg - the views expressed in this post are bloody good ones. --
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