I've been thinking....
from all that has been said here and others have written it seems to me that the brush fires in Australia and California are almost entirely of our own making, due to politically motivated eco-fiddling.
Peter G explained how that Aboriginal "fire stick farming" actually altered the Australian landscape and mentioned that traces of ash layers in Lake sediments can be dated back to the before the arrival of western settlers in the region. When early explorers moved out from Sydney they referred to the forest as open forest, This is thought to have meant large but spaced trees with grass or undergrowth separating them. The Aboriginals periodically burned the build up of fire dangerous undergrowth in seasons when it was safe to do so. This also encouraged fresh grass growth to feed the kangaroos that can breed prolifically in good seasons.
Reflecting on all this I have come to believe that Ms G Thunberg and her supporters, including Extinction Rebellion, know exactly how to drastically reduce the CO2 emissions caused by the humans on this planet. They do indeed, have the solution to global warming.
Unfortunately putting their solution into place at a rate capable of achieving rapid results would destroy the human society they believe they can save. How is this?
To cut CO2 emissions as they propose would require draconian enforcement as humans are generally incapable of damaging their individual lifestyle and quality of life in the name of social betterment, so would not buy into it voluntarily. The cuts in the use of fossil fuels they demand would all but eliminate heavy industry, including the generation of electricity, the production of metals and chemicals (pharmaceuticals) and much food. It would make human travel by air, sea, road and rail and the shipment of cargo by the same means impossible.
The result would be the economies of Russia, China, India and much of South Asia and South America would stall and western society would go into meltdown, together probably triggering global conflict.
The naivety of the proponents of this solution beggars belief, yet the media and left wing governments or opposition parties claim to be committed to make it all happen, but are incapable of explaining in detail just how it would happen. Worse, they deny the knowledge and experience of the first settlers, who worked in harmony with the land.
My considered opinion is that without a radical adjustment of the approach to environmental management, moving away from the science logic of the academics, who know the numbers for everything, but understand little we cannot make change. Instead we need to accept we have made a mess and start to clear it up using "working with nature", understanding why the ancients did what they did and building on it. It is worth note that here south of Salisbury the water meadows each side of the river Avon, between Salisbury and Downton and then between Fordingbridge and Ringwood, and which were laid out between 1665 and 1690, and according to some, based on drainage set out by the Romans, have consistently ensured that none of the towns flood. No expensive modern flood remediation work has been needed, although about 15 years ago there was a flood in Downton, due mostly to lack of maintenance of the locks and gates. It is mainly as a consequence of land ownership stability that they remain unchanged, despite recent attempts by developers to build on the land.
This is an interesting paper on the way it all happened, so long ago.
https://bahs.org.uk/AGHR/ARTICLES/51n2a3.pdfThe meadows still flood, but not in quite the same controlled manner
Rant over....
