Letter to the Editor: Over-simplified generalisations and a lack of transparency

DEAR News Of The Area,

AS a scientist for over 40 years, a sustainability advisor for the past 18 years, and a resident of the Mid North Coast not far from the recently greenlit Great Koala National Park, I read with a mixture of curiosity and concern the 17 October “Letter to the Editor” apparently from Peter Flinn, President of The Howitt Society, titled “Climate Change ‘does not cause bushfires’.”

Scientists are obliged to keep an open mind around new thinking, consider alternative points of view, and avoid a dogmatic, inflexible approach to solving problems.

Yet the Howitt Society, a supposedly ‘learned’ body, seems to breach all these principles in their letter.

For them to say, quote, “climate change does not cause bushfires” is counter to the prevailing view of climate scientists and ecologists around the world.

Recent megafires in Australia, Canada, the United States, Spain, Greece, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Brazil and elsewhere overwhelmingly point to a warming climate, lower rainfall, drier vegetation, more intense thunderstorms and other unstable weather patterns resulting in more frequent wildfires globally.

For the Howitt Society to suggest that managing fuel loads will unilaterally and unequivocally solve the issue of megafires seems to be narrow-minded at best, and fairytale thinking at worst.

The ‘letter to the editor’ makes several unequivocal statements about scientific ‘facts’ that simply do not bear up to scrutiny. Fire management is incredibly complex and context dependant.
There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to responsibly managing forest fuel loads.

Done too frequently or too vigorously it can irreversibly damage ecosystems and reduce biodiversity.

For example, academic research done on Australia’s 2019-2020 megafires and published in the world’s most prestigious scientific journal, Nature, has identified the significant ecological damage that can result from well-intended, but essentially uninformed, fire management practices in forests.

The reason I feel so strongly about this letter is twofold – it presents opinions in the form of bold, authoritative statements and over-simplified generalisations, and its manner of delivery seems to reinforce a lack of transparency.

The Howitt Society presents only one perspective on wildfire control and prevention that hides behind a veil of authority yet is highly subjective and open to question.

The Society also seems to behave in a way that suggests that they, and they alone, have discovered ‘the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’

I was also surprised to find that Peter Flinn’s ‘Letter to the Editor’ is in fact just a word-for-word reprint of an earlier media release from the Society but ‘topped and tailed’ to look like a Letter to the Editor.

Hardly transparent.

If Coffs Coast NOTA was aware of this, or is responsible for it, it should publish a clarification in the next issue.

Regards,
Paul DAVIES,
Mid North Coast.