I’ve been saying this for some time now. Australia, as well known, is a boom and bust cycle country. It isn’t alone with this cycle either.
As we venture further into an unmanaged Anthropocene (as I truly believe we will need to shift from the illusion of stewards to outright engineers) these cycles are likely to become more pronounced. That is, bigger wets and harder dries.
The wets however provide the biggest threats for our more dangerous periods.
We have just had two exceptionally wet years and not only has our primary food industry enjoyed it, so too has our native and invasive flora… and then the next dry period came alone. Like all well adapted species, this wild flora did what it could only do; cut its overheads and downsize, that is, die back. This leads to fuel.
I’m unconvinced that the future will be unliveable; we will acknowledge our role to date already as geo-engineers and will take corrective or at the very least “band-aid” measures to persist. A large part of this will be the need to recognise the full meaning of the “boom” period.
It spells fuel for the next dry period. It also spells mass carbon movement from locked biological banks to happy go lucky free agents out to blanket our atmosphere just that little bit more.
Carbon is plant food, as Lord Monckton and his fellows may say, but they ignored the other side of the story and right now, south eastern Australia is feeling it first hand.
ABC has a link to an up-to-date map of fires across NSW for anyone who may be interest or could make use of it.
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