Greens behaving like "Eco terrorists"

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

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