Fire and devastation

[timetraveller]

I don't want to start a rant here but hands up all those who have more than two children and cannot understand why the price of houses is so high and the traffic density makes many cities grid locked. Extinction Rebellion might have their hearts in the right place but with half the worlds population there could be half as much pollution. It will be interesting to see how many of the activists go on to produce more than two offspring each.
The Thylacine is a really good example of convergent evolution. A marsupial, it evolved to fill the same ecological niche as the placental wolf and was physically similar. The split between placentals and marsupials was about 160 million years ago.

 

[Peter Holmes]

It seems a few Thylacine may have endured..... Hopefully.

tasmanian tiger sightings

View attachment 31931

I wouldn't hold your breath, the last confirmed Thylacine not in captivity was shot in 1930, their lifespan was around 7 years, I am not sure how large a gene pool has to be to sustain a species, but I very much doubt that there would be enough left to have sustained the species, and if by some miracle they have, probably not for much longer once they discover where they are.

 

[Gary Gittleson]

The North American Bison is an especially egregious example of inhumanity.

There was a government-sponsored campaign to exterminate them in order to starve out the Native Americans. Today, it would be called "ethnic cleansing".

As for this planet, count me as a pessimist.

Gary

 

[litnman]

Just watched a new clip where as of now 180 arsonist have been arrested. Can they be
charged with murder??

 

[chankly bore]

The 180 arsonists is an anti-green misrepresentation. 183 people were charged with having flouted total fire ban rules, such as operating grinding or welding equipment mostly.I'm not sure any arson was reported in N.S.W. I think 24 were illegal backburns or campfires allowed to remain alight. NO arsonists were reported in Victoria or on Kangaroo Island. Lightning strikes, some caused by pyro- cumulus (look it up) were the commonest cause. Our Bureau of Meteorology shows lightning strikes and it feckin' terrifies me. The pro-coal/ fossil fuel folk are now saying we need more fuel reduction burning, but this is treating the symptom, not the disease.Verifiable fact: a backburn last year in N.S.W. destroyed houses, so where do you go from there? In 2008 Professor Ross Garnaut predicted this year's fires with astounding accuracy.He was only paid lip service by both sides of politics. Look that up, too. If we were all in a Petrie dish we'd be a plague!

 

[stu spalding]

How much bison (buffalo) hide was used on British line shafting during the industrial revolution? Cheers. Stu.

 

[chankly bore]

Interesting fact (it didn't come from a conspiracy-theory bot site). S.U. carburettors? the "S.U." stands for Skinners' Union. I've also been inside the disused whale oil storage tanks in Albany W.A. the smell was the same as dismantling an old gearbox

 

[Albervin]

Nearly correct there Charlie. A misplaced apostrophe tells a different story. George Skinner and his brothers, Carl and John formed Skinners Union Carburetter Works in 1910. No idea why you mentioned the flensing works in Albany. Nothing to do with fire.

 

[chankly bore]

Just a reference to dead wildlife- bisons 'n' stuff. Thanks for the correction about Skinners. Obviously the M.G. owner who told me this was in error; I'm sorry I repeated it.

 

[Albervin]

Here is a satellite shot of the fires on the South Coast of NSW from last week. The red arrow is where my friend lives and the blue arrow is the nearest town. He sent his Vincent into town to be safe. Not necessarily the best decision.