Sorry guys, but you can call what somebody says bs, but please don't use derogatory terms to insult each other or I'll be forced to change them to ever more endearing terms. 

I'm trying to keep my moderation as even and as moderate as possible. If you can't help yourselves and say something insulting, then just realise that I'm not omnipresent as I do actually work and I  have a life outside the internet. So there is just a slight possibility that I didn't notice it.

You don't present much either Grendel - mostly just a bunch of people who make the same baseless claim as yourself.

Quote:


But he couldn't come up with a single example of a greenie actually espousing such a policy. All he could produce was other people making the same accusation, in the absence of evidence or fact. The closest he came was an 'alpine activist' espousing the opposite. Pretty weak argument if you ask me.

I think we need to apply Occam's razor here. On the one hand we have government commissioned studies blaming the government for not putting enough money in to get the job done etc. On the other we have a bunch of anti-greens trying to blame something on the greenies for which they have no actual evidence - despite the fact that it is something that should be on the website of environmental groups if what they are saying is true.

mozzaok wrote on Feb 17^th, 2009 at 9:09pm:


When the retards get it through their thick heads the GREENS  dont run governments in this country maybe some REAL debate can take place ,until such time,DWMT.
Oh and mozz, dont bother comming in to flame me, you dont cut the mustard son. 

muso wrote on Feb 18^th, 2009 at 11:39am:

Spot on, now watch the idiots who hang off every word of Divine and Bolt come a running to rip it apart.

I think we all agree that trying to make political mileage from this tragedy is pretty low, but that does not mean that we should stick our heads in the sand, and ignore the reality of the situation.

Now we see people using the term greens, or greenies, and that is a catch all description for those whose philosophy of leaving nature untouched, was the best policy, merely because it fitted the "idea" of living naturally, and harmoniously, with nature.
It is a nice idea, but impractical, and often implemented far too dogmatically, by these greenies, who are represented in all levels of government, but even where they are not, the influence of the green voting block, has led many councils to implement green policies to placate this group.

This is not an attack on "The Greens" political party, it is just a statement of what I, and most others have observed, and to see people getting so defensive, in denying these facts, is an example of political pigheadedness, where they will ignore the argument, because they don't like the politics of those who present the topic for discussion.

We have seen skippy going feral over it, because if Grendel says it is daytime, then skip, on principle, must declare it to be night, and that does not portray a thoughtful argument, just bloody minded belligerence.

It is unfortunate that it has taken a tragedy of this magnitude, to make governments realise that they need to use world's best scientific principles to manage our forests, not just feel good greenie idealism, because, while well intentioned, it is poorly thought out.

We can expect to see the new policies retain much of the same green conservation ideals, but just with more careful consideration of the implications, and with far better, and more scientifically sound, forest management principles implemented, which is what we should have had all along.

Rather than blaming one side or the other, we just need to accept these facts, and get on and work together to ensure the new systems work as well as possible.

Well I guess all those submissions from green groups, who opposed fuel reduction burns, because it threatened the natural biodiversity, was just in people's imagination then FD?

I suppose all the requests to remove trees and vegetation close to dwellings, that were refused on environmental grounds, was also nothing to do with pressure from green groups, to keep the native bush pristine.

Who exactly lobbied for the closing of fire trails in the Alpine National Parks?

Lets see what one man says, from his article in The Australian;
   
David Packham | February 10, 2009
Article from:  The Australian

VICTORIA has suffered the most tragic bushfire disaster to have occurred on this continent throughout its period of human habitation.

The deaths, loss of homes and businesses and the blow to our feeling of security will take decades to fade into history. The trauma will live with the victims, who, to a greater or lesser extent, are all of us.

How could this happen when we have been told in a withering, continuous barrage of public relations that with technology and well-polished uniforms, we can cope with the unleashing of huge forces of nature.

I have been a bushfire scientist for more than 50 years, dealing with all aspects of bushfires, from prescribed burning to flame chemistry, and serving as supervisor of fire weather services for Australia. We need to understand what has happened so that we can accept or prevent future fire disasters.

That this disaster was about to happen became clear when the weather bureau issued an accurate fire weather forecast last Wednesday, which prompted me, as a private citizen, to raise the alarm through a memo distributed to concerned residents.

The science is simple. A fire disaster of this nature requires a combination of hot, dry, windy weather in drought conditions. It also requires a source of ignition. In the past, this purpose has been served by lightning. In this disaster, lightning has not played a big part, and for this Victorians should be grateful. But other sources of ignition are ever-present. When the temperature and wind increase to extreme levels, small events -- perhaps the scrape of metal across a rock, a transformer overheating or sparks from a diesel engine -- are capable of starting a fire that can in minutes become unstoppable if the fuel is present.

The third and only controllable factor in this deadly triangle is fuel: the dead leaves, pieces of bark and grass that become the gas that feeds the 50m high flames that roar through the bush with the sound of jet engines.

Fuels build up year after year at an approximate rate of one tonne a hectare a year, up to a maximum of about 30 tonnes a hectare. If the fuels exceed about eight tonnes a hectare, disastrous fires can and will occur. Every objective analysis of the dynamics of fuel and fire concludes that unless the fuels are maintained at near the levels that our indigenous stewards of the land achieved, then we will have unhealthy and unsafe forests that from time to time will generate disasters such as the one that erupted on saturday.

It has been a difficult lesson for me to accept that despite the severe damage to our forests and even a fatal fire in our nation's capital, the political decision has been to do nothing that will change the extreme threat to which our forests and rural lands are exposed.

The decision to ignore the threat has been encouraged by some shocking pseudo-science from a few academics who use arguments that may have a place in political discourse but should have no place in managing our environment and protecting it and us from the bushfire threat.

The conclusion of these academics is that high intensity fires are good for the environment and that the resulting mudslides after rains are merely localised and serve to redistribute nutrients. The purpose of this failed policy is to secure uninformed city votes.

Only a few expert retired fire managers, experienced bushies and some courageous politicians are prepared to buck the decision to lock up our bush and leave it to burn.

The politicians who willingly accept this rubbish use it to justify the perpetuation of the greatest threat to our forests, water supplies, homes and lives in order to secure a minority green vote. They continue to throw millions (and no doubt soon billions) at ineffective suppression toys, while the few foresters and bush people who know how to manage our public lands are starved of the resources they need to reduce fuel loads.

It is hard for me to see this perversion of public policy and to accept that the folk of the bush have lost their battle to live a safe life in a cared-for rural and forest environment, all because of the environmental fantasies of outraged extremists and latte conservationists.

In a letter to my local paper, the Weekly Times, on January 25, I predicted we were facing a very critical situation in which 1000 to 2000 homes could be lost in the Yarra catchment, the Otways and/or the Strezleckies; that 100 souls could be lost in a most horrible and violent way; and that there was even a threat to Melbourne's water supply, which could be rendered unusable by the ash and debris. Horrifically, much of this has come to pass, and it is not yet the end of the bushfire season.

Continued below...........