~ a third column

“I started this blog because, like everyone who gets into blogging, I wanted to add a third column to my ... template.” ThreeColumnBlogger

Over the next week or so, health willing, I’m going to make an effort to update the Sails of Oblivion layout, so please excuse me if the page looks strange from time to time. I really want that third column ... mainly for the twitter feed and all that stuff which gets lost at the bottom. And I think it’s time for an improved header. And a fresh new look all round.

I saw a little wattlebird yesterday. Similar to the common red wattlebird but devoid of wattle and yellow-stained chest, and blessed with a distinctive, possibly even more demented range of vocalisations. Today there were some masked lapwings on one of the Monash Uni ovals. In the Valley Reserve I witnessed the wonderful display of a flirty grey fantail and, briefly, I think, an eastern spinebill.

As long as I can remember, there have been tiny brown and grey chirruping birds living outside the window of my study. Like all species, they have their own specific character - a thing which birders (unfortunately) call their ‘jizz’ - but until recently their identity has remained mysterious. Despite their abundance, it was a hard job pinning them down - even with the help of my new field guide. They do not look spectacular; they are not an imposing bird in any way, yet they colour the ambience here with their twitters and trills, and the flickering they do among the leaves. I am sure I would notice their absence.

I learned that they are brown thornbills - and with this knowledge a world opened up, just there, outside my window, of which I had no real prior awareness. Now I know their preferences, the months they breed, the kind of nests they make and the extent of their range. It’s all so ... fascinating. A name is a key - and never more so now we have the internet.

I am beginning to see the hot churning black hole at the centre of the birder’s mind; I am beginning to feel its irresistible attraction ...


This is the long-billed corella. The last few mornings I have heard the harsh, grating voices of a flock passing high above the house. The bird often looks scruffy because it has a habit of digging for tubers, including, helpfully, the bulb of the hideous onion weed. The individual above, (photographed by Noodle Snacks) is, however, perfectly presented, though the bloody bib suggests (falsely) that it may recently have been gnawing at something’s throat.

Yesterday, Polly imprisoned a daddy long legs in a small lidded container together with a snail in the hope that by morning they would have ‘mated’. Also, she’s acquired a device called an R5 which holds eighty games and can be plugged into the back of her DS - this will settle her for the next week or two

Speaking of mating, did you hear about the transgenic pig-sheep? I was excited for a while - and hopeful, thinking it might have some advantages for the environment. We farm pigs anyway; if they could grow wool as well as bacon, then there's got to be some kind of energy saving. Perhaps some of our sheep pastures could be turned to forests roamed by woolly free-range pigs? Disappointingly, the abomination turned out to be the Mangalitza, a rare porcine breed from Austria with no apparent sheep genetics. Still, the idea is there. There's no reason to give up hope entirely.

And if only there were a substance that was neither illegal nor poisonous which you could have just a little of as night begins to fall. Something to make you laugh and forget how tired and sick you feel, something to elevate the spirit and anaesthetise some of the wounds acquired during the day - and which did not give you a hangover. Is Big Pharma working on something like this? Would they be allowed to? And if they succeeded, would it be legal?



This is a an old car that burned in the black Saturday bushfires. It was part of a collection of valuable Australian antiques and was donated to the Melbourne Museum in the condition you see. The chassis of most modern cars warped, even melted in the terrible heat, but older cars, with heavier steel bodies, seem to have been able to hold their shape. Mind you, the insides were a charred and melted melange.

~ in the wake of the fires, ignorance triumphs

Sometimes, news of the outer world is almost too depressing to bear. And frustrating. Frustrating beyond belief. Sometimes, I think I would rather not know.

In the paper there is a photo of an industrious landowner from a bushfire-ravaged region of Victoria. A post-catastrophe ruling has allowed him to scour his property of vegetation. It allows the culling of trees within ten metres of homes and four metres of fence lines without approval from the council. Small land owners who have a poor relationship with nature can now raze their blocks with impunity.

Never mind that in the face of such mega-fires such a measure would have little effect. Never mind that trees can protect a dwelling by ‘dissipating fire energy’. Tree-culling is the first, most obvious response that comes to these simple minds. They see a pseudo-solution at the end of their nose and they act on it.

Being able to project our thinking beyond the immediately obvious is part of humanity’s brilliance, but too few of us bother to employ that ability. And stupid, destructive decisions result.

A dangerous assumption is being made by these people. They believe we have the right to put ourselves above nature, as if we are somehow separate from it, as if - as the bible would put it - it is our 'dominion'. Never mind that the air we breathe is generated by these trees. Never mind that as a species we are interwoven into a complex ecology of which these trees are a part. These people do not factor the big picture into the equation. That is the province of whinging greenies.

Then there are those who look to apportion blame for the mega-fires and are seeking damages in court - as if any human agency could have stood against such a potent natural force. Certainly, if we bury the power-lines there will be less chance of electricity causing fires. And better organisation might have saved lives. But the fires of February this year in Victoria were near to inevitable. In Australia, fires are a part of nature, no humans are required to start them. This is proven by the fire-adapted ecology of the Australian bush. But these litigators, perhaps, would sue nature for damages if they thought they could get a result.

Human agency is expected to control the fires, and if it fails it is damned. Again the presumption that we are apart. Again the ‘dominion’ paradigm. Rather than adapt [or re-adapt] to nature, we will control it, dominate it. This thinking lies at the root of many bad attitudes towards the earth.

“The ocean is my kitchen freezer," I saw a guy say on a TV fishing show as I flicked past. “When it’s time to eat, I just fish one out.” I hope so this was his way of saying we should look after the oceans...

Dualism – the concept that the soul is separate from the body – lies deep in the heart of these problematic attitudes. To the religious orthodoxy, who espouse ‘dominion’, the Earth is just a waiting room for the heaven-bound; it is there to feed us, clothe us as we demonstrate our goodness to god’s spy satellites. It is to god that we owe an obligation, not to nature. The religious do not have to worry about their children inhabiting a wasteland, because their children will ultimately be joining them in paradise. No wonder the needs of our base, temporal, sublunary earth are so often ignored in favour of human comfort.

Others subscribe to a milder form of Dualism. They consider the soul and body to be separate, but are not necessarily religious. Perhaps you are one of them? I know I used to be. It seemed impossible that my mind, my being, was nothing more than a sac of jelly between my ears. But the evidence - or lack of it - convinced me otherwise and with this realisation came a greater appreciation of the beauty and complexity of the natural system to which I, and my offspring, are inextricably bound.

To discard Dualism is to accept that the material world is the only world we will ever have and that we must respect it as thoroughly as we do each other.

*

Though no specific human agency can be blamed for the day of bushfires, humanity as a whole perhaps has a case to answer.

Do you think climate change might have had a bearing on the intensity of these fires? I do. It was the first thing that came to mind when I learnt of the devastation. In point of fact, it was already on my mind as I sweltered in the unprecedented heat.

Surely I was not the only one putting two and two together? I mean, extreme weather events are exactly what the climate scientists are predicting ...

But Kevin Rudd did not mention it in his speech of consolation. No one mentioned it. Indeed, it wasn’t until days afterwards that it was openly considered as a contributing factor. Weird, I thought. Later, a politician criticised another politician for bringing it up, saying it was disrespectful to politicise such tragic circumstances. Politicise? Politics? Climate change has deep political repercussions, but in itself it is as political as a blade of grass. It is the air we breathe. The food we eat. It is a fact of life which we ignore at our peril.

Why did they not draw reference to it? Would it really have made them seem as if they were taking political advantage? Or did it seem too tenuous and remote a thing to factor into the circumstances? Might it have offended the presumed backward sensibilities of the block-clearing country-dwellers? Whatever the case, don’t things have to change? Climate change will have to become a front and centre thing if we are ever to meet to successfully.

Clearing trees and increasing fuel burns may or may not offer some localised protection, but in the larger scale will make catastrophic bushfires more likely because they add carbon to the atmosphere and weaken nature’s mitigating effect on climate.

~ a clear path through the maelstrom

Hello, once more, again, after so long.

There have been all kinds of reasons why I’ve been silent, but probably most importantly I’ve been rethinking what this blog is about. I’ve learnt the hard way that more delicacy is required when discussing personal matters, so for better or worse, I’m going to steer away from them. I have a tendency to say imprudent things at inappropriate times, and it appears that I’ve carried it along with me into this medium … in spades …

That aside, I’m going to keep my posts shorter this time around. That way the blog won’t weigh too heavily on my other writing responsibilities. Single topic. Not too much digression.

My novel is going well by the way. I’m just about adhering to my page a day regimen. And I’m immersed. Living half my life here, half in the strange world of Nonesuch.

*

Some worrisome attitudes have been revealed in our reactions to the apocalyptic Victorian bushfires. In the aftermath, with some celerity, and true to human nature, people sought someone or something to blame. Arsonists, naturally, were the first to come into their sights. Those arrested were afforded special protective measures.

A clear second were the ‘environmentalists’ in local councils who prevented landowners from clearing native vegetation in proximity to their dwellings. I read of the outrage of one person who was not allowed to cut back grasses along the front of his property. Another, who had had been fined tens of thousands of dollars for illegally felling hundred of trees on his land, claimed to the media that he was vindicated and should be returned the money. One more suggested that, as a future rule, vegetation be cut back to however many metres from all public roads. [Recall that many roadside easements provide a refuge and throughway for native flora and fauna].

As victims, they could speak from a high moral ground. Suddenly, they no longer felt constrained by political correctness and, in emotional extremis, brought their bugbears to light. But these opinions are no less thoughtless or misguided because their owners have suffered. Demands such as these, coming from devastated people, ought never be appeased at the expense of a correct response. I sincerely hope that terrible decisions are not made in response to these people’s terrible sufferings.

To paraphrase The Age, climate change did not cause the bushfires, however it did make them more likely to happen, and to be more severe. As part of our response to climate change, the environmental lobby seeks to minimise our destructive effect on the environment. We must learn to live peacefully and equitably with the natural world, as we depend on it and are naturally a part of it.

If we are to house ourselves beyond the cities, in the midst of nature, as did the people of Flowerdale or King Lake, then rather than gouge out a sterile safe zone, we should seek to have as little impact as possible. What is the point of living amongst that beauty if your presence is a defacement? Rather than alter or destroy the flora and fauna in order to shield ourselves against a natural process such as fire – we should be building structures that are either fireproof or disposable, and making sensible plans for our own safety.

Idealistic, I suppose, but the truth as I see it. No human action could have prevented or caused the holocaust that day, fed by extreme winds, unreasonable heat and a bone dry land. Lessons are sure to be learned in time, but no credence should be given uninformed opinions or short-sighted prejudices. The environmentalists are not putting trees above people – in working to preserve the ecology which sustains us, they are working to preserve the future, the common good.

It is wrong to lay blame at their feet.