Fire!

Remember the fires in Australia last month? Well. they are still burning even though they've dropped off the press radar since the accused arsonist was caught.

But the truth about why these fires occurred was not discussed at all, the planting of huge tree plantation for the paper industry was not revealed in the press. Arsonists are useful, too, in their own way.

This post at EconoSpeak, cheerily entitled The pulp and paper industry – a paradigm for Australia’s annihilation, describes why fires like these will continue, the tree farms make big money, and damn the consequences. Here are the punch lines, but read the whole thing:

It’s hard to think of a more damaging industrial paradigm than the global pulp and paper industry. The inherent irrationality of consumerism whereby individuals purchase superfluous and easily replaceable paper products at the cost of destroying all the elements of the natural world that keeps our children and our own selves alive. The air is polluted with huge industrial burn-offs of forest biomass. The water is sucked up from the streams and rivers by the thirstiest trees known to man. The soils are depleted by short rotations. Rural towns and communities are burnt to the ground by the inevitable and intense infernos that go hand-in-hand with high fuel loads in a warming and dryer environment. All in the name of getting rid of the wealth-destroying fetters of regulation. Hey! To Australia’s National Security Hotline: I see something suspicious. When all it takes to become an effective terrorist in Australia is to throw your cigarette out of the car on the next hot day.