To my friends, family and other assorted lunatics. The fires engulfing much of Australia aren’t a fucking conspiracy. Okay?
WHO THE FUCK ARE GREENIES?
When you say that “greenies” are preventing fuel reduction. And lack of fuel reduction is why Australia decided this was the year to spontaneously combust. Well first, please define greenie. Who the fuck are these people who have such vast and unexplained power? How do they get to drive government policy? Given that we’ve got Liberal/Coalition governments both federally and in some of the states. And we’ve got what? Two Greens in the senate? The fucking senate, that doesn’t even make policy. How is it these greenies possess such magically special abilities to tell the government what to do? How the fuck do that do that?
I’d like to know because I have an amazing career ahead of me as a political adviser if I can just learn this one trick.
Greenies aren’t The Greens though are they? They can’t be. Because The Greens state unequivocally:
Our policy on this is clear and hasn’t changed recently. The Australian Greens support hazard reduction burning (before bushfire season) to reduce the impact of bushfire when guided by the best scientific, ecological and emergency service expertise.
https://greens.org.au/bushfires
Right. Glad we cleared that up. Took me about 30 seconds to Google that. It’s called fact checking. You should try it one day.
So if greenies are The Greens, they aren’t even in government, how are they doing this? Must be the AB Fucking C again.
I BLAME THE FUCKING ABC
According to the wisdom of conspiracy, the greenies have such unlimited powers because the media panders to them. You know, like the Marxist Leninists Trotskyites at the ABC. The fucking ABC. The media monolith with 12% of the TV audience. A 2% reach in Facebook. No print media at all. You know. Those guys.
If only there was some powerful, well-funded media behemoth that was shockingly and purposefully right wing. That might help balance the scales. Like, for instance, the Murdoch empire. The world’s largest media corporation. If only something like existed to balance the opinion of these over-reaching greenies. If only the guy who owned Fox News was, for instance, born in Australia, grew his media empire in Australia before expanding overseas, and had dominated the media landscape here the same way he does in the US. Hey?
Would that then prevent the greenies from manipulating public opinion via the piddly audience of the ABC?
GREENIES ARE WITCHES
We know the greenies are witches because witches don’t burn. And neither do greenies. That’s what we’re told. Greenies are preventing regular fuel reduction burning. And that caused this problem where half of Australia exploded into fire.
Except there are a load of reasons why fuel reduction isn’t the saviour you might hope it was.
But first, let’s examine how fire reduction actually happens.
The very same people who are currently fighting the fires, they go out and light a fire. This fire burns politely and predictably along clearly defined lines. It laps up the undergrowth and makes all other fires avoid this area because the most delicious twigs and leaves have all been eaten up by the nice little fire.
Except it’s not quite like that. Is it? The people who are currently fighting fires, they light fires. That bit is true. But it takes enormous resources, both from these hard working volunteers, and from the assets of finances of the fire authorities and relevant government bodies. These resources come at a cost that many right wing small government types are loath to financed due to their lower taxes smaller government mantra.
The volunteer firefighters, they have regular jobs and hobbies and stuff.
The government, they have a limited pie of money and loads of people screaming for a share.
The weather. It does it’s own thing. And you can’t set fire to massive quantities of bushland if the conditions aren’t spot on.
Most forests will, on average, be burned every 20 years. This isn’t so much a result of the almighty and powerful greenies we discussed early. It has a lot to do with what we discussed above. If you care to educate yourself, have a quick read here.
There’s also the fact that Wytaliba did all sorts of fuel reduction and this year they still went up in flames.
ABORIGINES DIDN’T BURN
Here’s an idea that gaining currency. Aborignies used fire to control the land. We’ve forgotten what they learned and now we’re suffering for it.
I might swollow this line if it wasn’t coming from the same people who fight against rights of indigenous population. Since when did they start caring about what aborigines did? They should talk treaty, changing Australia Day and more support for aboriginal communities. Then they can come back and discuss fire.
The other problem with this notion is it’s rubbish. Since when did the aborigines get the resources to carry about the sort of burning that would have been required to prevent these fires? Were they a nation of 20 million, with bull dozers, helicopters and fire trucks? No? Well we are. And despite our efforts we haven’t come close.
Aborigines used fire to clear and control land for hunting. In their area. It was an effective and intelligent way to make the land more productive to their needs. Like so much that they did, they worked with the land. But in many cases they used fire to turn bushland into savanna, where hunting is easier and kangaroos like to graze. They fact that large areas of untouched wilderness existed when white fellas arrives is testimony to the fact that they didn’t burn all of Australia.
And then there’s science. Carbon records show no increases burning after the arrival of aborigines. They burned stuff for their needs. But on the grand scheme of things it didn’t register as a blip on the radar.
CAN YOU SPARE A LOG?
Let’s talk about greenies again. Because they’re fun to pick on.
The other thing we can’t do, because of the fucking greenies, is pick up scrap timber on the roadside. Except we can. I know this because a mate of mine bought a trailer specifically so he could pick up roadside wood for his heater. And I googled it. Again, it’s called fact checking. Try it.
You can only collect trees that are already on the ground – do not cut down, break off or damage a standing tree or shrub, even if it is dead.
https://www.ffm.vic.gov.au/firewood/firewood-collection-in-your-region
So you can’t cut down trees willy-nilly but you can pick up wood on the roadside. Which is fucking plenty. Just how many people are burning timber for their heating in Australia? In our modern economy where heating is available at the flick of a switch, how many people still collect wood, take it home and burn it? Few enough that the roadside provides all the fallen timber they’ll ever need and plenty more besides.
STOP BLAMING THE FIRE FIGHTERS
I know you’re not aiming your loose canons of hate against the firefighters. I know that when you suggest burning was the issue you’re trying to frame the greens. But just who the fuck to you think actually does the burning? The greens? No. The firefighters. And it’s disgusting beyond words to see pricks like Barnaby Joyce trying to frame a political discussion around fuel reduction burning when our fire fighters are still out in the field.
To all of you trying to run this fuel reduction burning narrative, I tell you, give it a fucking rest okay.
