2009 Victorian bushfires

[Blademaster]

OK, this topic is a week old. When the Hell is this gonna end? I mean, isn't Australia mostly desert? You'd think the fire would hit a dead-end by now, or at least slow down enough to get under control...

Is there like a map or something showing what's been damaged, or comparing how much has burnt compared to last week? I don't get how this can still be happening.

[RedStarWarrior]

Australians suck, but they shouldn't have to deal with this shit.

Fucking fires are insane.

I wonder if people have been monitoring to see if they'll update Google Earth...

[shazza]

There has been some recent updates on Google Earth to preview the level of devastation that had occurred.

[PancaKe]

There are fundraiser concerts and stuff happening all over the country. And as always, there is tabloid media reporting things like "firefighters left not fighting fires whilst victoria burns down" and things like that.

I just feel bad for those who evacuated and come back to find their places looted. Looters are just as low as arsonists.

[mistysakura]

Blademaster: Victoria is mostly bush, not desert. The desert's mostly in central and northern Australia. Plus Victoria's not small. Not as big as Canada though.

Sang in the state memorial service today, and am now bloody tired. Not from physical exertion, but from the concentration... The service was very moving. But it was what happened before the service that made me realise how the bushfire has brought out the best in (most) people. Two of my friends took a taxi to the venue, and when the taxi driver found out that they were performing at the service, he gave them a free ride. Another of my friends was waiting for a tram to get to the venue, and perfect strangers stopped to give her a lift.

[Andrew]

Is it wrong when I was watching the ceremony this morning that the entire thing would be a bit more upbeat by playing "Disco Inferno?"

[PancaKe]

Too soon Andrew... too soon.

Although it IS funny...

[shazza]

That just went too far Andrew and was indeed too soon; we have lost over 200 Australians in this horrendous disaster and you try and make a cheap joke about their deaths? Surely you possess more maturity than that, I'm really surprised at you.

Sometimes enough is enough.
































































(Spoiler:) Just kidding man, high five for the epic 'Disco Inferno' comment.

[PancaKe]

This sounds really selfish of me; but I really want to go to one of those Fire & Flood gigs they're having to raise money for these people. There are some really good bands playing.

[Dark Sage]

This is why I hate environmentalists, tree huggers and other space cadets who implore us to protect the environment, even though the environment seems to hate humanity. New Orleans is wiped out in the biggest hurricane ever to hit the states, wildfires are decimating Victoria, and idiots still tell us to spend money on protecting the environment that is trying to kill us.

You think this sounds crazy? Think about it for a minute. Has the environment ever shown us that it even likes us? I think it hates us, to tell the truth.

Edit: This theory is not mine. There are many philosophers who believe, pessimistic as it may be, that nature resents humanity for the lousy job we have done as caretakers of this planet. In other words, it may well be that all these natural disasters are retribution for our shoddy ways of taking care of the planet. Still, even if it's our fault that thee environment is a mess, the environment shouldn't try to kill us for it.

[Heald]

The environment isn't actually conscious though, so that throws that theory out the window.

[mistysakura]

*raises eyebrow* Even if the environment were conscious and out to kill us, we can't live without it. It's like Stockholm Syndrome, lol.

And yeah, I do want to go to Sound Aid. If just to see Midnight Oil reformed and Peter Garrett back in rock star mode. I'd laugh my ass off.

[Blademaster]

Not to split hairs, but the planet's sentience isn't exactly something that can be scientifically proven/disproven. I mean, the planet does share certain characteristics with all lifeforms:

1. It displays homeostasis (It maintains a consistent temperature).
2. It displays metabolism (It absorbs what's good for it and expels what isn't).
3. It displays adaptation (It has endured countless millennia of bombardments by comets, asteroids, and meteorites, consistent polar reversal, reoccuring ice ages, global drought, global warming, cataclysmic disasters, chemical reactions that have wildly altered the composition of the land, sea, and sky, seismic activity that has ripped the planet apart and rebuilt it in countless different forms on the inside and the outside, etc., etc., etc..).
4. It displays organization (It has, for its entire 'life,' retained a similar elemental make-up as well as its geological composition of core, mantle, crust, and everything in-between.).
5. It responds to stimuli.

The only things the Earth doesn't do that are characteristic of life are growing and reproducing. So to say that the Earth isn't conscious is not really factual.

[PancaKe]

Continuing on with what Dark Sage was saying about the environment;

The Australian bush is actually an environment that is adapted to bushfires, and uses bushfire to regenerate itself. From what I've heard, environmentalists lobbied to stop backburning (burning the bush in a controlled fire to stop the path of a bushfire), and if they had been allowed to backburn areas, the bushfires wouldn't have been as bad.

I don't know.

[Heald]

Perhaps conscious was not the correct term to use. I'm thinking along the lines of, no, the environment doesn't actually think or is aware that humanity is destroying it and thus uses natural disasters to punish it, you half-wit.

[Blademaster]

As long as you're calling DS the half-wit and not me, I'll go with that.

[Katie]

I think you're wrong on pretty much every point dude.