Manly Beach Drift 'wood' - August

A monthly summary of what has washed onto the shore or beach through the winds, tides, waves or human action. Marine debris, flora and fauna, dead or alive:

Crested Terns are back. Unusual footprints of a large shorebird. Unfortunately beach-nesting or just visiting Manly Beach for Australian birds is not on. We only share the beach with dogs. Daily, there are dogs ON the beach illegally. Today a large pony-like thing and a shrunken dwarf.


There were unusual shells along the beach.

Old wood-based media blowing along the beach.
Rich in glass chips, probably the remains of causing 'facial injuries' in Manly's nightlife, just washed down to the beach to glass beach users as well.
Three helicopters swooping in on the beach/surfers, adding noise pollution.
At the Queenscliff end of the beach one wonders about getting into contact with the toxic Manly Lagoon mouth. Is it safe to swim there? Too poor to decontaminate?
The southern end still has eroded stairs and is fenced off.

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Erosion: The large stairs at the southern end are still undermined and various debris is scattered at that end of the beach.
Noise: Ear-bursting building sites all along the beach front.
Glass, but a relative absence of the usual fast food packaging.
Daily illegal dogs: one white fluffy thing at Queenscliff and a large one on Manly Beach. A lot of council staff with a focus on parking revenue. Pity, they do not take advantage of collecting from dog owners that do not abide by the law.

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A small pod of dark dolphins swimming orderly behind the surfline. A large juvenile Australasian Gannet (Morus serrator) diving for fish.
The horizon cluttered with boats and ships, but free of that brown haze from yesterday.
The beach is free of visible pollution, shells and sand.
Along the beach a cacophony of building sites and road building/cleaning machinery. Noise pollution.

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A few plastic bits appearing again. Surfers Against Sewage just return the plastic garbage to the offender/sponsor. Better would be to charge for the removal of the anti-product from beaches. The ocean is to dear to be treated like a cheap tip.

A lot of large ships hovering for days on the horizon now. Tinnies whizzing, doing their best to scare any marine mammal away.

Noise pollution all along South and North Steyne, building sites, road building and the usual gas-guzzling vehicles. Manly on permanent beta.


Impervious Surfaces and Coastal Water Quality
A mobile factory has settled in at around 135 Steyne with various large machines along the beach. The asphalt truck/ machinery indicates, that they are 'paving a bit more of paradise'. Most sealcoating of roads/pavements contains toxic PAH which finally finds its way into the stormwater runoff or is blown away in the form of dust particles. PAH is toxic to mammals and the aquatic ecological system, it is also accumulative.

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Two Humpback Whales swimming slowly and in constant touch along Manly Beach. Following the curve of Manly and then Shelly Beach, they leave, hugging the coastline. Mother and calf logging? There was an unusual absence of combustion engines in the air and aqua-space.

The post-weekend beach-scape: A black plastic bag full of untreated dog feces ON the beach.

Plastic toys, balloons and polystyrene chips.


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With post rain and that tsunami feeling many birds behaved in unusual patterns:
Some Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, (Cacatua galerita),(audio) flew very high along the beach.
A Pelican (Pelecanus conspicillatus) left the lagoon end to head north.
A Laughing Kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae), (audio) was chased by a smart Australian Raven ( Corvus coronoides )(audio).
Welcome Swallows (Hirundo neoxena) surfed the sand dunes
Willie Wagtails (Rhipidura leucophrys), (audio) investigated the beach
Magpie-larks (Grallina cyanoleuca) pierced the air with their 'pee-wee' (audio)
Masked Lapwing (Vanellus miles) joined in (audio)
In the pines a faint Red Wattlebird (Anthochaera carnunculata), (audio)
High in the sky: Rainbow Lorikeets (Trichoglossus haematodus), (audio)

The surf had a thick greenish foam, that lingered and stained the beach sand in a slimy, bubbly green.

Strange media attention to people hassling aquatic wildlife at Shelly Beach Aquatic Reserve and killing a Wobbegong shark. One person's conservation efforts to save the Spotted Wobbegong (Orectolobus maculatus) are another's 'sports trophy' in spear fishing.

"The day you fail to find sharks cruising your favourite beach is the day you should really start to worry."

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An epidemic of 'convenient' 'one-mouthful-wrappers' and take-away & chuck coffee plastic garbage. There are definitely waves of usage, bound to fashion,'must do', 'must have'. Before it was the plastic water bottle one carries around jogging to look cool. Now it is the cup. Either way, the absence of mindful food and drink does not entice social responsibility. It is incorporated in the product/consumer mind: quick, convenient stuff for me, I, myself - the rest, the anti-product belongs to the public sphere. Chuck!

More green slime and frothy foam.
Garden clippings, mostly sawn wood washed onto the beach. Beach as cheap tip?

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A whale swam slowly along Manly beach towards Shelly beach. (Video) Both marine mammals and internal combustion vehicles take, unfortunately the same path along the shore. Boats usually 'park' ON Cabbage Tree Aquatic Reserve and then race off. The whales hug the shoreline going south now.

A very noisy chopper hovered over Manly Beach, vibrating all living beings. Deafening for all mammals, terrestial or aquatic. So much for acoustic comfort.
Along the Esplanade, pneumatic drills undoing the last jobs. Audible at the beach.

More of the convenient one-mouthful plastic wrappers left along the beach.

The daily illegal dog ON the beach.

At Queenscliff beach front the garages to house the CO2 intensive life-saving gear are apparently doubled. More habitat for combustion engines, less green space, more impervious surface and a new building on the sand dunes in times of 'planned retreat'.

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F o u r illegal dogs AND their owners ON Manly beach today. Two dogs at Queenscliff were allowed to freely urinate all over the sand. Think about it next time you roll on it, play with it or even eat it. Approaching the offending dog owners leads to verbal assaults and often physical threats. Emotional beasts defying the human law. Together with the feces draining from the walkway on to Manly Beach it poses a serious health hazard. There seems to be no enforcement of the law and an absence of a concerned community.

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Just like in August 2007, the 'green slime' (120809, above) of the day turns in to glowing waves of bioluminescence at night. (Video)

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Two school girls walking two rats on a leash ON the beach and around the pool. Doing their best to mingle with the wild rodent populations, facilitating a pathogen ecology for salmonella and typhus.
But why not, if cats are walked around Manly town to harrass the endemic bird population and dogs do IT ON the beach, then anything seems to go lacking effective regulation.

Divine swimmers doing the Queenscliff to Shelly Beach loop. Jet ski speeding further off. Incompatible ocean activities.

More plastic turning up as it gets warmer. All the plastic in the ocean and on the beach decompose, releasing hazardous chemicals (toxic bisphenol A (BPA) and PS oligomer ) to ALL life. Treating the beach or the Pacific as a cheap tip/externality will reveal itself as a toxic legacy for all to come.

Glass on the beach.

With great confidence they are building more at the low-lying 'sanddune/path' at Queenscliff. It appears to be doubling built habitat for CO2 gear (garages). Rising sea levels denial? No retreat, no deserting coastal strips.

Retrograde amnesia forgot the eroded volleyball posts just a short time ago. A new turf is quickly staked out and 'pay & play' can continue. Privatisation of the beach? Only the ocean and the sky pose a limit.

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Jelly stingers are back at Manly Beach with 11 degrees above average today. The cycle starts again: nutrient enriched hot ocean, glowing at night with bioluminescent dinoflagellates , then jelly fish and algea bloom. The ocean and atmosphere as a tip are being 'cooked up'.

Flies are also back after the weekend stampede. 900 million people are presently sprawling around the globe, 'seeking to get away from it all'. Fast food anti-products all along the beach.

An extra large oil tanker hovering at the horizon. The white sand could contain more than green slime and dog poo...

Toddlers baking at the beach in full sun for hours.

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Washed up right in front of the Corso a Rakali (Hydromys chrysogaster). The endemic 'water-rat' lives on Manly's rocky foreshore. It has a dense, water-repelling fur, partly webbed hind feet and a tapering tail with a white tip. It lives on aquatic invertebrates which it dissects with its specialised molars, it is a good swimmer. "It is reported to leave bigger ones out in the sun. As the bivalve heats up and dies, its valves gape, allowing the rat access to the interior." In mythology it features as a spouse of Moon.
As the unrestrained dogs and cats are allowed to freely enter its habitat it can be assumed, that this Australian local will soon vanish, just like the little Penguins. People choose to exchange rich biodiversity, which makes this place unique, for an impoverished monoculture.

A lot of post-event garbage and glass along the beach. The junkspace left behind these events should be a cost factor to the organisers.

At the Queenscliff end the diesel fumes from various buidling sites were so dense, that the beach could not be utilised.

The eroded large stairs at the southern end still have their foundations exposed. Rusty iron jarring amongst the rock and various mysterious mats are sloshed in the surf.

There was a large array of small shells.

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A very large pod of dolphins swimming along Manly Beach today. When they came closer to the shallow waters a yellow kayak raced too close to them, interfering with their route. A swooping helicopter finally put an end to the marine mammals visiting the beach.

Junkspace:
Noisy polluting sand-moving equipment at the Queenscliff end, 'doing the lagoon'.
At the horizon, an oil tanker emitting black plumes of pollution.
A lot of 'one mouthful' wrappers, a lot of sharp broken glass

Light pollution IN the ocean at Cabbage tree aquatic reserve & the Bower. A hassle for nocturnal marine life. Looks like the aquatic peeping and grabbing industry needs regulation.

On the Esplanade: Dog owners allow their beasts on extra long leashes to chase the Sulphur-crested Cockatoos which are picking up the pine seeds of the ground. The lawn is littered in dog turds. The leashes of careless dog-owners seem to get ever longer to the extend that even people get entangled in them now.

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Around the Queenscliff Rock Pool, many black flippers in the ocean close to the beach. Unfortunately they were not marine mammals, but many humans with lethal weapons. The scale of the operation was more akin to a professional Take and Go. The weapons seemed taller than the guys and a safety hazard for swimmers and walkers at Manly Beach. Armed 'sports' activities are not appropriate at a busy urban beach. It is just a matter of time before an 'accident' happens.

Where is the Manly Beach Watch, monitoring violations and pollution and collecting data on species?

Junkspace:
An unusual amount of very sharp glass all along the beach. Post event by-product. Soon signs should be erected: 'Danger! Do not go barefoot on Manly Beach. You carry all risks, ok! ' The usual amount of take-away garbage, left there by beach users. It is actually relatively rare that garbage gets washed in. Busy boat-days can lead to float-in junk. Unusual weather conditions bring minced plastic from the BIG Pacific tip.

Unusual large dead fish at the beach.

At the North Steyne Beach Club, the toilets on the beach side are being renovated. Could that be white paint tossed on to the beach sand?

Oil tanker at the horizon. The same as the days before? The uncluttered horizon will be a historical phenomenon.

At the Esplanade:
Large Red Wattlebirds (Anthochaera carnunculata) in pairs are very daring in the pines. They even clean the many garbage bins of insects.

Walking along the parade people devoting their lives tending to live-stock (dogs). Driven (CO2) to the beach, often three in harness, to empty all the 'meat' (CO2) at Manly Beach. How are these people prepared for emergency evacuations? Three 'calves' in the hummer and off to greener pastures?
Others in the stay at home nation, prefer to push multiples of their own species along, drowning out the screems with digital gear.

What a giant footprint!

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Three illegal dogs on Manly Beach today within a short time span. One dogowner allowed their two white inbred bull terriers to freely roam along the beach. This bully-behaviour had obvious effects on other beach users that felt uncomfortable. Potentially a dangerous situation

At North Steyne Beach, a dog owner sun-baking with a dog. As the beach seems to be a law-free arena, 'accidents' are about to happen. Will tourists really want to come to Manly to 'discover packs of dogs' and be harangued defenceless at the beach?

At this stage some risk factors at Manly Beach are dogs, glass, weapons (spearguns), fishing junk, kites and speeding vessels in the ocean.

Driftwood: July, June, May, April, March, February, January, 2009

Drinking Water Security

Sydney Belly
“Sydney Belly”, gastrointestinal illness and diarrhoea is probably as old as Sydney. As long as water and feces are being mashed up the winners are the pathogens. At the moment care facilities for the young and old are being hit by a norovirus (stomach cramps, diarrhoea and vomiting) again.

Crypto in the drinking water
Bugs (“low levels of cryptosporidium”) found in Sydney's water supply it was reported yesterday are “not posing any threat to the city's drinking water supply“. A boggling check at Sydney Drinking Water Quality report claims that there are NO Cryptosporidium and Giardia found in the crystal clear water. Going a few days back, this seems to have been the case too.

Cryptosporidiosis
Cryptosporidium is a parasite resistant to most disinfectants. It is “ spread through feces of infected hosts and causes sometimes severe diarrhea in humans and animals.” Once it gets into the body via water, food or unhygienic practices, the symptoms are usually gastrointestinal illness, diarrhoea and sometimes vomiting. "...It is the most common non-viral cause of diarrhoea worldwide... People can literally die of diarrhoea: they can lose over 13 litres of fluid a day.“

Some Crypto cases: Rapidly growing populations outstrip infrastructure
Galway, the fastest growing city in Ireland is the prototype “where rapid expansion of housing developments has not been matched by infrastructure upgrades...236 laboratory confirmed cases of Cryptosporidium infection had been identified, with at least 40 resulting in hospitalisation...sewage is the major source of contamination.” Many in the tourist industry have “installed their own water filtration systems to reassure guests.”

The cause of the Milwaukee Cryptosporidium epidemic in 1993 was "found to be sewage that passed through the filtration system of one of the city's drinking water plants.” “ 400,000 people became infected and 60 people" (or 100) "died as a result of drinking infected water”.

The 1998 Sydney Water Crisis requiring 3 million residents to 'boil water ' was memorable for residents and visitors. Two small bugs, Cryptosporidium and Giardia led to changes in Sydney Water Corporation. Years on in 2007 the two pathogens are still causing “severe gastrointestinal illness”. In SA too there were “ 228 cases of cryptosporidiosis this year, compared to 52 for the same period last year.” Sewage and water mix in Australia, South Africa and many other places.How many is ok?
In Milwaukee there are no more than one Cryptosporidium oocyst per 10 litres allowed. It is “now a criminal offence in the UK to supply drinking-water that has more than one Cryptosporidium oocyst per 10 litres”. The 1998 Sydney incident "has shown no evidence of any illness that could be attributed to drinking water contamination. Accordingly, law suits claiming for illness among consumers have recently been withdrawn from Australia's high court.“

Wait- there is more than Crypto and Giardia
There are other pathogens, but there are chemicals that could have very adverse health effects on humans and animals. “Disinfection by-products (DBPs), endocrine disrupting chemicals, antibiotics, polymers and pesticides”. The question is no longer in a risk-society to aim for not having any harmful substances in the drinking water, but the “Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) ..which can be ingested for an entire lifetime (70 years) without appreciable health risk” Health and the possible cancer are a matter for probability/statistics. (Micropollutants, pdf)

“Balancing burgeoning public needs for safe drinking water with dwindling supplies will be a major challenge for public works managers and regulators in the years to come.”

Previous:
More on Sydney Water, Health and Pollution
Drinking water security and sewage
Reducing Risks when eating out

Reading:
The Sydney Water Crisis, Another Lesson in Health Risk Communication Failure, Dr. Steve E.Hrudey (Professor of Environmental Health Sciences in the Department of Public Health Sciences)
Organic Micropollutants in Water, pdf (www.waterquality.crc.org.au)
Galway Cryptosporidium Outbreak, Health Stream Article - Issue 46 - June 2007
Critical processes affecting Cryptosporidium oocyst survival in the environment, King, B.J. and Monis, P.T. (2007) Parasitology, 134 (Pt 3); 309-23.Health Stream Literature Summary - Issue 46 - June 2007
Waterquality, CRC, au
"Cryptosporidium"- tag, ABC

Image: Water sculpture for gathering clouds by Eora

Halloween – it's kinda spooky

Manly Council is attempting to facilitate 'community' top down. The chosen event this time is Halloween. “Make your Street Spookier” goes the postcard-blurb. We should engage in a “creepy” orgy of consuming and line the streets with debris (plastics): “fake cobwebs, bats" etc., streamers and sugar/coloured lollies and spend big on costumes. Strange ideas for a council that purports minimising waste and has a sustainability statement. The promise is that the road will be closed, but no mention is made where the many spectators will park and what the increased traffic hazard means for wildlife and adjoining streets capes.

Halloween has its origin in the agricultural rites of death and renewal for a new sustainable year. Part of the produce had to be sacrificed to the land spirits and shared within the community. Dark forces had to be soothed with gifts and bonfires held darkness and death at bay. This renewal festival has long been co-opted and commercialised to flog off (mainly plastic) merchandise. Australia has just recently hopped on to this bandwagon.
The are a lot of spooky skeletons in the Australian closet. The plastic bats, spiders, owls, crows, skeletons, the cats, werewolves, haunted houses and zombies might be contemporary props to ward off the the inevitable hot dry future created by mischief-making adults. The horror is ususally projected onto the living native spiders and bats etc - till the ritual spray or habitat destruction puts an end to the spook. The defense mechanism must lay the blame on a sacrificial being, to heal the denial, the anxious state of being. Halloween is a welcomed purging as well as an economic healer now.

Children are very anxious about the future. A world without water and food , but permanent engulfing “bonfires” does not fuel much optimism. Responsible elders not looking after our only common home make the decisions to heat it up unbearable for all, make the sea rise and melt the ice. Daily, many members of this common household have to go forever. The land, waterways and air are used as rubbish tips and all loose their health. Degraded land and toxic landscapes are part of the inheritance. This 'house of horrors' might well be less inhabitable than what their parents inherited and squandered. The disruptive nature of economic and ecological inter generational equity is creepy. Apart from these many “natural disasters” of a turbulent future, children go through horror scenarios of neglect and child abuse in Australia. Irresponsible use of cars, guns and dogs also sacrifices many young lives. Haunted human relationships propagate in a spooky Zombie culture. It is bewitched how young people are denied independence and maybe a future too.

Till then, put on the big magical denial party and celebrate...
Images: 1. Children at Manly Beach, 2 & 3 Street art Berlin

Clothing and Manly Demographics

The immersive consumer market moved along with Manly's demographic trend. Mainly 20-39 year old Anglophones. Postindustrial society seems to provide few stay-at-work-incentives so a nation of 'stay-at-home moms and a few stay-at-home dads' is encouraged. The professional home-maker does not need work-clothes of course, instead a plethora of body-hack shops have sprung up. The make-over services range from blonding without an end, podiatrists' income generators, known as footwear and lots of 'scents to die for'. Internal bras are sure to come, plastic surgery for all is creeping in. Clothing is mainly synthetic and tends to look like life-long maternity wear.

In a post-factual world, lingerie fantasy-wear seems to be the new gear for hard yakka. No, it has nothing to do with the position of women in servitude submission or bondage. As undergarment or mainstream attire it is the uniform of many female 'success stories' that would 'make mum proud'. The drudgery of depressed motherhood is just part of this unsustainable fantasy game.

Dog-walking in Bushland Degrades Biodiversity

“Operation suburban storm”
Australia's growing population sprawls into 'nature', not because they like the 'bush', but it is a cost-effective way 'to get away from it all'. They take their unsustainable cultural luggage with them to not miss out on that sub-urban feeling. The unpacking happens, but on a bigger scale. First they create tabula rasa in the 'wide open spaces'. After that, the packages of McMansions, hummers, pets and lawn monoculture gets unrolled. 'Operation suburban storm' is the annihilation of Australian animals and plants. Should any creature survive this invasion, then the next growing together of the frontier settlements would run them out of a home. In no time the human settlements take up all the land-scape and resources. Destroying what is unique about Australia
The refuges for wildlife are fast disappearing in Australia. But even the 'protected' areas are being conquered and annexed for suburbia with a vengeance. From Manly to Byron Bay to all-over the wildland-urban interface is a battle zone where Australian wildlife is eradicated. One main cause for the ecological vandalism is the anti-social behaviour of dog owners, walking their foreign animals in the last reserves for Australian creatures. There is an abundance of signs, but very little enforcement is taking place all over NSW. It seems to be tolerated that the suburbs just annex 'their bush' as their dog loo.

Vested bestial Interests
Being one of the largest pet owning communities per capita with substantial commercial interests backing it, this is a veracious force. Americans spend $41 billion p.a. on their pets, “ more than the gross domestic product of all but 64 countries in the world.” One could only guess, that Australia is not far behind. Locals consuming their 'annexed' “wilderness” hits a 'blind spot' with its guardians.

Some consume all the land-scape
Dog owners consume and degrade parks & reserves and deprive others of their enjoyment. It would be interesting to quantify the economics of this 'local consumption only' and compare it to the loss of the eco-tourism industry, even locals and visitors who would also like to immerse themselves in a green space, rich in bio-diversity. The canine community lobbies to not be 'restricted' from areas, where in fact it is them that deny the existence of wildlife or of visitors enjoying what they came for - wildlife.The loss of biodiversity is price-less (so far).
Study: Dog walkers degrade Australian Bush

New research has found that “Dog-walking in bushland significantly reduces bird diversity and abundance...We show that dog walking in woodland leads to a 35% reduction in bird diversity and 41% reduction in abundance, both in areas where dog walking is common and where dogs are prohibited...The effect occurs even in areas where dog-walking is common and where they are prohibited, indicating that birds don’t become accustomed to continued disturbance by dogs. This evidence clearly supports the long-term prohibition of dog-walking from sensitive conservation areas...Ground-dwellings birds appeared most affected: 50 percent of bird species observed in control sites were absent in dog-walked sites. The effect of dog-walking was most pronounced in the area immediately adjacent to the site where dogs were walked...There were 76 fewer birds within 10 metres of the trail when dog-walking occurred compared to control sites, suggesting birds were seeking refuge away from the immediate vicinity of threat." (Peter Banks and Jessica Bryant, Four-legged friend or foe? Dog walking displaces native birds from natural areas.)

Unchecked dog epidemic in Manly threatens rich biodiversity
The overabundance of dogs in Manly and the anti-social behaviour of their owners degrades the refuges of native animals (and plants), but also robs bushwalkers of their rights to experience these places unhassled. Some of Manly's unique residents such as the Little Penguin, ground dwelling and flight-less, the Bandicoot and many others are too often killed by dogs.

Let's keep Manly special and unique, and effectively protect our rich green areas from irresponsible vandals.

Previous:
On the Annexation of National Parks on the Cheap
Extinction and a world full of poodles
Leave some of Manly as Penguin habitat
ASBO,Dogs allowed to savage
When Rangers knock off...
Links:
More interesting reading on Manly ecology by Dr. Banks et al
Do Australian small mammals respond to native and introduced predator odours? BENJAMIN G. RUSSELL, PETER B. BANKS (2007)
"Introduced predators such as foxes and cats are twice as deadly as native predators to Australia’s unique native animals."

Fire, the Mythical Wand to create more Habitat for Humans

Global Warming on the Dry Continent
The destructive nature of wildfires will be amplified through global warming. In the Dry Continent, Australia 'the fire weather' is ubiquitous in the wildland-urban interface (WUI). At the moment fires rage in various National Parks, especially near human settlements such as Bundeena, The Basin and 'scrubland' near Newcastle. Two houses were burnt in in “fairly rugged bushland “.

Urbanisation of bushland areas
With the human sprawl over 'bush-land' and coasts, choosing to settle in 'getting away-from-it-all” leafy locations increases the costs and health hazards. The 'non-developed' green spaces such as National Parks and Reserves adjacent to urban areas have to be regularly burnt-off.
Many private landholders incinerate their land in the good old slash & burn method. Cheaply cleared land still fetches higher prices.

Incinerating protected forests & making a killing
The recent inferno in Greece destroyed 2 % of the land of which some where Europe's richest nature reserves. 67 people were killed. Many species of animals and plants are gone or have lost their refuge. Fire, as the magic wand to create more habitat for human populations, seems to have done its trailblazing for fresh real estate. The Peloponnese, untouched by mass tourism and '10 miles of virgin coastline' are now cleansed of 'protected forests' and ready to be monetarised.

Evolving Technology
Our hominid relatives, Homo erectus or Homo ergaster used fire 790,000 ago. Homo sapiens refined the tool further for the use of slash & burn 'agriculture', and for causing violence against each other and the Earth: Firebombing, Napalm, Firestorms etc.Pandora's Box
Some mythology has it, that fire was stolen by Prometheus from the gods and given, along with meat to the humans he had created. The outwitted god Zeus went into a rage and had him chained on a rock and his liver picked daily by an eagle. The punishment for humanity was to create the first woman, Pandora, bearing a box/jar out of which all evil for human-kind could come foreward.

Boxed into her Oikos, then and now s/he is obsessed by (re) possessions, that are in smaller boxes. 'Unboxing ceremonies' are highlights of possessed consumer culture now, running out of private warehouses/boxes to store all the boxes which they fetch with their box-like internal-combustion tanks from the boxed in mall. Fire might enlarge the territory for MORE McMansions/boxes. In the end they all exit in boxes back into the fire.

In the meantime Pandora's Box is wide open...

Links:
Fire, the Magic Wand to create more Habitat for Humans, Pt I
World Fire Atlas, ESA
Prometheus, Lord Byron

Update, 021007 The Cost of Sprawl

• Do check out the MSM images for 'sheds and houses' IN the bush (in bushfire-prone areas).
• The BIG DRY HEAT made in Australia is "inevitable". "Australia could be 5 degrees Celsius hotter and 40 to 80 per cent drier by 2070"
• Arson was involved when "..fires described as suspicious tore through 250 hectares and gutted a house on the state's North Coast."
• "...Bushfires destroyed a house and several sheds " on the North Coast, now they are working hard on the "asset protection zone".
• Interesting image here, Q.: How much bush has to be burnt down (contained) before a house is safe?

Image 1: Part of Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Berlin by Peter Eisenman

Plastic foods, cheap thrills & sensory deprivation

Stuck in the congested poodle-pram-parade at Manly Beach beach today. Double and triple decker prams, often with dogs in harness and undivided attention to their mobile.

Should the unmanageable brood get noticed, then their mouths get stuffed with highly processed and packaged food, or anything out of plastic. Drink and food come out of plastics for baby or toddler. The sugar and preservative rich diet makes the kids crazy and unmanageable, if the sheer number of kids per person is not manageable in the first place. Tantrum toddlers can all be put back in place in their restraining vehicles and pushed (ideally) away from oneself.

This highly nutritious life-sustaining diet is usually cooked up by many caring cooks. It is the processing and not even the cost of transport, that leaves a huge footprint on the environment. The impoverished and degraded Earth will later bestow a hot and life-less future on these offspring.

Should there still be any (hyper)-activity, then plastic toys or sedatives might do the trick. At lunch carers feast in eateries, while the kid is still restrained in its baby 4x4 isolation chamber. Keeping the 'kid busy' might be done by other restaurant patrons.

The food provided later on at school time is found to be “disgraceful” by an food expert. Government sponsored educational campaigns to get parents not to feed them 'fizzy drinks and bags of chips' failed. Mums defied the program and are supplying junk food to (their) school children, it developed into a flourishing business to subvert that "low fat rubbish".

“...Reports of child abuse in Australia have doubled in the last five years ... That translates to one new case every two minutes.” Restraining the development of motor skills, the age appropriate development of the CNS, language development and inappropriate foods would have to qualify as a form of abuse too.

Young babies can use visual clues to pick up on the community of language users if they are given a chance of face to face interaction. The jogging parent on their wearable, checking out the pack of dogs, is usually pushing the pram away from their gaze. The child/ren at the bottom of the double deckers has a very limited impression of the world. The ones seeing nothing but a black plastic gauze for the first bit of their life, might be 'in the dark' for some time.

Well, at the end of the day it is time to hose the many plastic toys down, give the dog a spin on the beach, pack the pram, plastic bikes, dogs etc into the 4WD and drive into a hot turbulent future.
Life in a pram with a fit mum
Global food crisis looms as climate change and population growth strip fertile land
Dyspraxia