AUSTRALIAN FIRES

The following is a Letter to the Editor of the Herald Journal, which was published Sunday, February 15, 2009.

HJ asks “Is global warming contributing to Australia fires?” Feb 11, 2009.

I have been emailing friends and relatives throughout Australia regarding recent events. Obviously the fires have been of great concern to the nation as a whole. I did notice a few blogs blaming global warming…some blaming government…one even blaming the USA. But I asked my friends to comment on the HJ’s question…”Is global warming contributing to Australia’s fires?” The immediate response was “No way mate!” One friend noted…”it is truly pathetic for global warming activists to attempt to gain capital from a national disaster”.

The facts are these: It is hot in Australia every summer. When it is really hot, natural flammable oils in eucalyptus trees vaporize. Under that condition, the possibility of spontaneous combustion (and a firestorm) in eucalyptus forests is real…and terrifying. No-one knows how the recent fires started, but the HJ article correctly notes that “tens of thousands of such blazes erupt across Australia every fire season”. So Australians live with the threat of bush fires. And it is an historic fact, that since 1860, there have been much larger fires in Australia, in terms of area burned. Global warming did not contribute to recent Australian fires, any more than it contributed to even larger fires, recorded over the past 150 years.

The recent loss of human life is tragic and unprecedented. The loss of animal life is sad but typical. And to those who would lament the loss of a thousand square miles of forest land…no worries…the eucalyptus forest will survive and even thrive. It is an historic fact that the original native inhabitants deliberately cleansed Australia’s forests with fire in the spirit of sustainability.

And since the issue is global warming, just yesterday a journalist friend in Melbourne reported that ABC conducted an on-line poll asking Australians…“Is Global Warming a Myth?” Of course, ABC was expecting a specific result, but after it had received 15,000 responses, 90% of which were “YES!”, ABC shut down the poll, then pulled it from its web site. As my journalist friend reported with professional concern…”it just disappeared”. And ABC bills itself as “Australia’s most trusted news source”.

Most Australians are amazed, thrilled and proud of how the nation is “coming together” in the wake of the natural disaster. So to HJ and other global warming activists, please don’t embarrass yourselves, by asking questions which my OZ friends regard as “truly pathetic”. There are more constructive questions to be asked.