Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Turnsky on June 23, 2003, 03:16:44 am
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i've just been watching them on the news, looks really nasty..
i wonder how bad it'll get before the australian firefighters offer an assist...
bushfires are more or less a seasonal thing in australia, which, more often than not, are started by some arsehole who happens to like to watch things burn..:doubt:
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They're fairly common out in the Midwest, too. Hell, was it last year that moron started a forest fire burning a Dear John letter?
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possibly
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That was more directed at other Americans, who might know this stuff.;)
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yes I beleve it was actualy a ranger who did that in Montana.
there sort of seasonal thing here too, in some parts of the contry, Montana, most of the desert states, Florada, parts of Calafornia, half the contry is burning at any given moment :)
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Originally posted by Turnsky
bushfires are more or less a seasonal thing in australia, which, more often than not, are started by some arsehole who happens to like to watch things burn..:doubt:
It's true... we don't have many natural disasters in Australia like earthquakes, tornadoes and the like, so some noble idiots have taken it upon themselves to make trouble for us. :rolleyes:
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haven't the seasonal fires been a staple of the austrailian climate for hundreds of thousands of years?
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Yeah, but these days, it's mostly human stupidity that starts the massive bushfires, not nature(lightning for example)
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well, point being, if some idiot didn't do it wouldn't it still happen anyway?
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Originally posted by Bobboau
haven't the seasonal fires been a staple of the austrailian climate for hundreds of thousands of years?
Yes and no. Yes, fires happened, and they happened seasonally. But they weren't really natural. The Aborigines went around torching the place so that it would regrow anew by the time they came back (they were semi-nomadic), and they did it for so long that particular types of trees developed reliance on the fires for reproduction (their seed pods only open in fire). But the fires devastated the landscape, it wasn't sustainable - it was just killing the environment far slower than what we're doing. For example, all the giant kangaroos (ie. 3m and taller) are long extinct.
Anyway, it's the intense topic of historical revisionism right now... whether the Aborigines were goodies or baddies.
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if it's been going on for so long that trees have developed not only a tolorence to it but in fact a relience, I would say that sounds sustainable, and posably part of a cycle that predates the Aborigines. though admitedly I'm probly not as well informed on the subject as you are (being that you live there and all :) )
[edit]you do live there right? hopeing I remembered that right[/edit]
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This is almost as annoying as Texans crying their eyes out cos their trailer got flattened by a tornado. Almost, but not quite.
*remembers back to natural disasters module of A-Level geography*
Hokay, IIRC, forest fires are much like floods. Both rejuvinate the ground and make it more fertile, and both make life difficult for us humies. Thus we try and prevent them, and just end up getting hit by worse ones because they build up until we can't contain them. Solution - don't live in a natural disastser area.
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yah in 2000 here in montana a town got burnt down because some idiots set the montain ablaze and in my town it was basicly where one of those surgical masks or stay inside. hell couldn't see 3 feet in front of you. I belive they were found and trialed for arson.Can't remember how much but it was a big fine with jail time.
i think we even made it on the national news for that one night
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*didn't know Arizona had forrests*
Sucks, **** happens. There's probably some fire going on in Orange county somewhere right now. Usually is between now and August.
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You're complaining that there are no more 3m kangaroos? Maybe I'm missing something, but that's like weeping over the fact that there are no deerlephants crossing the roads out here any more.:doubt:
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Ah come on Stryke, you want to see them clone mammoths as much as the rest of us :nod:
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Until I end up wrapping my front bumper around one, I don't mind.;)
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or getting bogged down in.... err nevermind:nervous:
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you know they should clone the Thylacine, I think they have a few good DNA samples, it's one of the few animals I realy would like to see cloned back from extinction.
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ah, yes the tasmanian tiger, one creature wiped out by human stupidity..
I live in tas BTW
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I almost miss that show.
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what show?
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Originally posted by Bobboau
if it's been going on for so long that trees have developed not only a tolorence to it but in fact a relience, I would say that sounds sustainable, and posably part of a cycle that predates the Aborigines. though admitedly I'm probly not as well informed on the subject as you are (being that you live there and all :) )
[edit]you do live there right? hopeing I remembered that right[/edit]
Yup, I do... anyway, a couple more facts for you: it's only two or three species that have developed this reliance; about 60% of Australian flora and 80% of Australian fauna were forced into extinction by the Aborigines. Not a pretty picture at all.
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Originally posted by Turnsky
what show?
Dude, Welcome to Tazmania. Commonly known as Taz.
It's kinda neat, the one thing I know about your country, is Taz.
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Originally posted by Knight Templar
Dude, Welcome to Tazmania. Commonly known as Taz.
It's kinda neat, the one thing I know about your country, is Taz.
oh that show, didn't know what you were on about there for a sec,
tassie devils don't spin, although they make just as much noise...
word for the wise, buy earplugs when you go camping in the tasmanian bush..;)
EDIT: tassie devil stuff
http://www.tased.edu.au/tot/fauna/devil.html
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how do you know that it was due to the natives and not climactic change?
note; I'm not the type of person that thinks every primitive culture lives in perfict harmony with nature, or my definition of harmony is somewhat diferent.
I do find it somewhat hard to beleve however that the relitivly small population could have eradicated such large percentages, especaly with some of the rather mean customers that were down there. but not imposable.
would you happen to have an article or some evedence on hand?
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Aborigines were on australian soil for about 40,000 years
wheras, europeans(my spelling sucks) have been in aust for over 200..
wee bit of a time difference there;)
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Originally posted by Bobboau
I do find it somewhat hard to beleve however that the relitivly small population could have eradicated such large percentages, especaly with some of the rather mean customers that were down there. but not imposable.
Eh? Define "Mean Customers" - Australia was unique because it had few large mammalian predators, and few predators at all really. Plus there were a lot of Aboriginals here, not as many as Europeans of course, but quite a few of them, and spread all over the nation.
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the largest predator that was down here was the thylacine, which was confined to tas(of course) now adays it's the devil, and both mostly ate carrion
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Depends I guess. If you mean mammals, when the settlers arrived, then yes I'd be inclined to agree with you. But don;t forget the crocs up north, or the other largeish predators in the fossil record. We never had anything particularly massive (at least, compared to they prey animals of the time, but we had some decent ones contempoary to the Aboriginals.
Hell, go back far enough, you find the Allosaurus and the Kronosaurs :D
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actually, nowadays.. excluding the saltwater croc (which could eat a gator for breakfast) humans are pretty much the largest meat-eater on land...
lesse.. cats, foxes, rodents, rabbits..wild dogs, water buffalo, camels, goats, pigs.. we've introduced practically them all;)
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well for starters in the Pleistocene era you had the Thylacoleo carnifex and prissidens, that would be fairly unpleasent to run into in the middle of the night, there was the Megalania prisca and Quinkana not mamalian but unpleasen none the least, there was a giant killer kangaroo who's name I can't remember (or find, but I remember reading about it a few years ago though), Sarcophilus laniaris, other non preditory animals that would probly rather kill you than look at you.
many of these went extinct less than 20,000 years ago, durring the last ice age, when many other animals around the world got it
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Originally posted by Turnsky
actually, nowadays.. excluding the saltwater croc (which could eat a gator for breakfast) humans are pretty much the largest meat-eater on land...
lions and stuff are larger than you ;)
but yeah, you gotta be more frightened by some small animals, when you're on the ground ( spideys, hornets, etc, some of them are very nasty, and many of them happen to live on the bigbig island :p ). water, on the other hand... "shudders"
edit: funny how "hornets" with the letters written in the propper order makes much more sense :doubt:
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sorry, i shoulda mentioned "in australia"..:p
and yes, we have the largest species of trapdoor spider..
the sydney funnel-web..
and australia, has LOTS of very poisonous creatures;)
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so that is why you go to sleep with a high powered gun
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no, that's for T-rex. for the lil friends, you have Green Baygon and/or Yellow Baygon :p
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nice, Wallaby's too. *hums theme to Rocko's Modern Life*
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What about Canadian forest fires...we've got those too. There is a reason why they sometimes call in Canadian equipment to fight forest fires. We've got more forest than many countries have territory :D
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well, I suppose every country has forest fires anyway. lots of them in south of France too. In the Landes, with all those pine trees, it burns like nothing.
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Hm, didnt know we had forest fires. I would imagine that the places most suceptible to them would be the Praries, and they're mostly barren AFAIK. But thats probably saying more about my knowledge of Canadian geography than it is about forest fires...
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Originally posted by Rictor
Hm, didnt know we had forest fires. I would imagine that the places most suceptible to them would be the Praries, and they're mostly barren AFAIK. But thats probably saying more about my knowledge of Canadian geography than it is about forest fires...
Probably not...Praries are typically grassland areas. Forest fires are in the boreal forest areas...northern areas of Ontario all the way through to British Columbia.
And you are right Venom...forest fires seem to be commonplace in many countries. Its a relatively natural process anyways. Its just annoying for species like ourselves.