My Say
As a newly inaugurated Melbournean, I have understandably seen a fair bit of the media coverage of the Victorian firestorms and their distressing results. As was to be expected, a lot of people are now looking for something to blame.
One of the most popular subjects of blame was…you guessed it. Cliiimate chaaaiinge. (With a silent “anthropogenic” in front of it).
Reading The (r)Age on Monday, I was annoyed (though not exactly surprised) to see nearly the whole letters page filled with alarmist rants blaming the disaster on (anthropogenic) climate change and how it’s gonna get worse and how the government’s not doing anything about it; in short, recitals of the mainstream party line. To avoid repetition, I ain’t gonna go over my views on ACC (aka AGW) in here. To see them, go to Gorey Story.
Anyways, I personally blame 6 factors for the disaster:
- The bleedin’ hot weather. This one’s fairly self-explanatory. It could well be due to natural climate variability; linking it to human-caused warming is wishful thinking.
- The stupid “green” legislation preventing a proper hazard reduction program. Certain green groups feel they are doing the environment a fat lot of good by campaigning against prescription burning to rid the bush of fuel (the like of dry leaves and eucalyptus bark). These are probably the do-gooder “rainforest admirers” who obviously don’t know a lot about the long-running role of bushfire in Australia’s ecosystems. Speaking of which, I want to point out that, from personal experience, the fire-prone heathlands and woodlands contain a lot more interesting plant species per area than the dark, stuffy and wet rainforests, which displace wet sclerophyll forests when the last are not burnt frequently enough. But I digress…
- The incompetent planning of suburbs. It goes without saying that suburbs with excessive amounts of flammable vegetation, and those encroaching into natural bushland, are extremely susceptible to fires. A buffer zone of some kind must exist around all suburbs and towns. (That said, I’m not saying people should not use native plants in their gardens. It’s just that they should be reasonably isolated from the natural bushland.)
- The ütkrönkkëröüsly incompetent design of houses. Australia surely has some of the world’s most poorly-designed houses. Where else would you see single-layered weatherboard (styrofoam and plastic) or timber external walls with no proper thermo-insulation, and internal walls made of cardboard? Such houses are unbearable to live in, both in the Australian summer and the winter. (Trust me – I’ve done it for the past 11 years. Okay, it was a brick-outside house, but still no proper insulation). It is certain that most of the houses involved were of this highly flammable type – in fact, viewing some of the photos, one can see that the only thing left standing of many of the burnt houses was the fireplace, which was the only thing consisting of bricks. This is blatantly inappropriate for bushfire-prone areas, yet this topic (as far as I know) has received very little attention in the media.
- Too many civil liberties and not enough early warnings. If the people in the areas known to be under threat had been made to leave as early as possible, numerous deaths would have been prevented, both in the houses and on the road. Your life should take precedence over your possessions. Speaking of which, those that left early would have had the chance to take more of their precious belongings with them than those who were forced to make a quick exit at the last minute. Logical, innit? Unfortunately, emotions often rank higher than logic in such questions.
- Finally, Arson. There are so many reasons people can find for themselves for lighting a fire that I can’t be bothered going through them all (e.g. having fun, offsetting an inferiority complex, not caring what happens if they throw a cigarette out the car window…). One thing I will say, though, is that young, impressionable minds would be less impressed with the concept of creating a blazing inferno if they weren’t exposed so much to this phenomenon in popular action films. Censorship on my part? Maybe.
- An interesting note on the last thing, though. In urban bushland remnants, fires lit by arsonists are often the only possibility for the ecosystem to regenerate the way it’s meant to (or approximately so); for example, if prescription burns are deemed too hazardous for nearby suburbs. So arson can be a bit of a two-sided sword.
These are the things we need to address – not ye olde speculative climate change.
Phew, that was a long rant…
Cheers from an annoyed Victorian,
Azarov98.
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