<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><head><meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"><meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 15 (filtered medium)"><style><!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:#0563C1;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:#954F72;
text-decoration:underline;}
p.MsoPlainText, li.MsoPlainText, div.MsoPlainText
{mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-link:"Plain Text Char";
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;}
span.PlainTextChar
{mso-style-name:"Plain Text Char";
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-link:"Plain Text";
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
--></style><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026" />
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoPlainText>Hi, Russ, <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Thanks for that report. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>What is it with the RabidRightWing pandemic?!! I suppose I have been ill-educated in some important way, but nothing in my 70 year intellectual history has prepared me to understand how fascist ideology could once again spread ... like wildfire ... across the world. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Do we need to deploy fire suppression analogies ... ideological fire breaks, forest floor clean up, forest thinning, limited burns. I hate to think of it. Or, as one FRIAM member proposes, should we just let it burn.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>We are having at <a href="https://wcc.sc.egov.usda.gov/nwcc/view?intervalType=+View+Current+&report=WYGRAPH×eries=Daily&format=plot&sitenum=922&interval=WATERYEAR">wettish year</a>, here in Santa Fe, so far. But as you see, the curve is starting to bend over, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we fell short again. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Nick<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Nicholas Thompson<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Clark University<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>ThompNickSon2@gmail.com<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>-----Original Message-----<br>From: Friam <friam-bounces@redfish.com> On Behalf Of Russell Standish<br>Sent: Friday, January 10, 2020 2:56 PM<br>To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <friam@redfish.com><br>Subject: Re: [FRIAM] fires in AU, WAS :Comcast blows! who else does legit internet in town.</p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>On Thu, Jan 09, 2020 at 10:10:24AM -0700, <a href="mailto:thompnickson2@gmail.com"><span style='color:windowtext;text-decoration:none'>thompnickson2@gmail.com</span></a> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>> Yes, Russ4, please give a sense of how things are from your point of view. Australia is one of the places that we think of going when things get really, REALLY, R E A L L Y bad here. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>> Nick <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Sort of like Nevil Shute's "On the Beach" I suppose. BTW my<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>grandfather actually knew him (by his real name Nevil<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Norway). Actually looking up Nevil's wikipedia entry, they probably<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>were nearly neighbours. My grandfather lived just outside Pearcedale,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>and Nevil's last years were spent at Langwarrin, the next district to<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>the North. They probably knew each other through the farming<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>community, and both being ex-Poms.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Back to the bushfires - these are like nothing anyone here has<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>experienced before. Whilst we've had bad fires before, they've all<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>been limited in both time and space. Bad for the people affected of<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>course, but generally forgotten about by the general population within<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>weeks. This is different. I would hazard a guess that more than 50% of<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>the population is affected, either directly or indirectly by poor air<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>quality. It has become a way of life to check the air quality app<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>before venturing outside, whether to go to work, shopping or<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>exercise. The smoke has even made its way across the Tasman and<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>affected some New Zealand cities. The only thing comparable I think<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>would be the 1997 Kalimantan fires in SE Asia.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Of course this was predicted as a consequence of climate change, that<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>we'd have increased drought and fires. And of course, our elected<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>buffoons are cut from the same cloth as the ones you have in the<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>US. Ten years ago, Australia had one of the first carbon taxes in the<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>world. Not really significant economically, and unlikely to have much<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>effect on fossil fuel use, but at least symbolically useful. That was<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>torn up by the conservative government elected on a platform of "there<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>is no climate change, burn baby burn". We've had a decade of<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>head-in-the-sand politics, with the energy industry screaming for some<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>policy certainty with respect to roll out of renewables and the<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>like. Instead, we get the government pleading with coal fired power<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>station operators to keep such stations open when the operators<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>decided to end-of-life them. It's madness.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>And when given the clear choice between explicit policies to change<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>the energy infrastructure, not open new coal mines and some other<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>(fairly mild ISTM) tinkering around the edges of the tax system, and<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>on the other side "we have no policies, but watch out for Bill shock"<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>(yes the opposition leader was called Bill), people chose the "we have<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>no policies" government. Elections these days (perhaps always were)<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>simply a popularity contest, not a rational decision.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>What is really disgusting is that once back in power, the PM actively<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>refused to meet with the fire chiefs back in April, who were warning<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>him of a bad upcoming bushfire season. Well I guess the ostrich got<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>his bum bitten by a lion. The silver lining in all of this is that<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>these fires affected so much of the population, that that should<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>fortify the PM to tell his rabid right wing to put a sock in it, and<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>proceed to develop policies for how to deal with climate change. IMHO,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>the boat sailed 30 years ago for actually preventing climate change -<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>the best we can do is mitigate or slow it down, and secondly adapt.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Anyway - my opinion, but one that I suspect is currently quite widely shared.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Cheers<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>-- <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>----------------------------------------------------------------------------<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Dr Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Principal, High Performance Coders <a href="mailto:hpcoder@hpcoders.com.au"><span style='color:windowtext;text-decoration:none'>hpcoder@hpcoders.com.au</span></a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText> <a href="http://www.hpcoders.com.au"><span style='color:windowtext;text-decoration:none'>http://www.hpcoders.com.au</span></a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>----------------------------------------------------------------------------<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>============================================================<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>to unsubscribe <a href="http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com"><span style='color:windowtext;text-decoration:none'>http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com</span></a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>archives back to 2003: <a href="http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/"><span style='color:windowtext;text-decoration:none'>http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/</span></a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>FRIAM-COMIC <a href="http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/"><span style='color:windowtext;text-decoration:none'>http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/</span></a> by Dr. Strangelove<o:p></o:p></p></div></body></html>