Category: Article

Charlotte Amalie

THE MARRIAGE OF OPPOSITES BY ALICE HOFFMAN

All the following pieces are copies from various Google articles.
In this book with the title “Marriage of Opposites” Alice Hoffman says in her afterword, that Rachel Pizzarro’s life in her imagined story mirrors the known facts about Rachel as closely as possible.
I reckon it is very rewarding to find out more about the historical background of the book’s characters by googling for some more information. Right in the beginning of Hoffman’s book Rachel says that she rarely did as she was told. Out of all the numerous children that Rachel had, Jacobo Camille, the artist, is by far the most interesting. I would say this novel is extremely well written and that it is based on historical facts makes it all the more interesting.

The story is set on the Island of St. Thomas and in Paris. Charlotte Amalie is the place where Rachel and her family lived. Here are some facts about Charlotte Amalie:

“Charlotte Amalie (/ˈʃɑːrlət əˈmɑːljə/ or /-ˈæməliː/), located on St. Thomas, is the capital and largest city of the U.S. Virgin Islands, founded in 1666 as Taphus (meaning “beer houses” or “beer halls”[1]). In 1691, the town was renamed to Amalienborg (in English Charlotte Amalie) after Charlotte Amalie of Hesse-Kassel (1650–1714), queen consort to King Christian V of Denmark. It has a deep-water harbor that was once a haven for pirates and is now one of the busiest ports of call for cruise ships in the Caribbean, with about 1.5 million cruise ship passengers landing there in 2004. Protected by Hassel Island, the harbor has docking and fueling facilities, machine shops, and shipyards and was a U.S. submarine base until 1966. The town has been inhabited for centuries. When Christopher Columbus came here in 1493, the area was inhabited by Island Caribs and Taíno. It is on the southern shore at the head of Saint Thomas Harbor. In 2010 the city had a population of 18,481,[2][3] which makes it the largest city in the Virgin Islands Archipelago. Hundreds of ferries and yachts pass through town each week, and at times the population more than doubles.
The city is known for its Danish colonial architecture, building structure and history, and a dozen streets and places throughout the city have Danish names. Charlotte Amalie has buildings of historical importance including St. Thomas Synagogue, the second-oldest synagogue in the Western Hemisphere,[4] and the oldest Lutheran church in the Western Hemisphere, the Frederick Lutheran Church. The town has a long history of pirates, especially stories of Bluebeard and Blackbeard (Edward Teach). In the 17th century, the Danes built both Blackbeard’s Castle and Bluebeard’s Castle attributed to the pirates. Blackbeard’s Castle is a U.S. National Historic Landmark. Another tourist attraction is Fort Christian, the oldest standing structure in the Virgin Islands Archipelago. A copy of the Liberty Bell is in Emancipation Park, which is a tourist attraction.

The city was named Charlotte Amalie in honor of Charlotte Amalie of Hesse-Kassel in 1691”

I also found the following about THE DANISH WEST INDIES:

“The Danish West Indies (Danish: Dansk Vestindien) or Danish Antilles was a Danish colony in the Caribbean, consisting of the islands of Saint Thomas with 43 square miles (110 km2); Saint John with 42 square miles (110 km2); and Saint Croix with 100 square miles (260 km2). The Danish West India Guinea Company annexed the uninhabited island of Saint Thomas in 1672 and St. John in 1675. In 1733, Saint Croix was purchased from the French West India Company. When the Company went bankrupt in 1755, the King of Denmark-Norway assumed direct control of the three islands. The Danish West Indies was occupied by Britain in 1802–1803 and 1807–1815, during the Napoleonic Wars.
The intention of Danish colonization in the West Indies was to exploit the profitable triangular trade, involving the exportation of firearms and other manufactured goods to Africa in exchange for slaves who were then transported to the Caribbean to staff the sugar plantations. The final stage of the triangle was the exportation of cargo of sugar and rum to Denmark. The economy of the Danish West Indies was dependent on slavery. After a rebellion, slavery was officially abolished in 1848, leading to the near economic collapse of the plantations.
In 1852, the sale of the increasingly unprofitable colony was first debated in the Danish parliament. Denmark tried several times to sell or exchange the Danish West Indies in the late 19th and early 19th century, to the United States and the German Empire respectively. The islands were eventually sold for 25 million dollars to the United States, which took over the administration on 31 March 1917, renaming the islands the United States Virgin Islands.”

The Synagogue on the Island of Saint Thomas is mentioned frequently in Hoffman’s novel. Here is some more background about this synagogue:

“Saint Thomas Synagogue was built in 1833, and is the second-oldest synagogue on United States soil (after the 1763 Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island). It also has the longest history of continuous use by a Jewish congregation in the nation. It was built for a congregation founded in 1796 by Sephardic Jews who had come to the Caribbean Basin to finance trade between Europe and the New World.[1]
Features[edit]

The synagogue as a number of distinctive and unique features. Most of the wooden features including the benches, the ark and the bimah are made from mahogany. The menorah dates back to the 11th century and is Spanish in origin. The chandeliers are European and are presumed Dutch. There are four pillars inside representing Sarah, Rachel, Rebecca and Leah, the four matriarchs of the Jewish people. But by far the most unusual feature of the synagogue is the sand floor. There are two theories behind this unusual occurrence. One is to represent the Israelite journey through the desert. Another theory is that it represents the Conversos who were forced to convert to Catholicism. Many continued to observe Judaism, so they usually met in their cellars and would use sand to muffle their prayers.
The congregation is affiliated with the Reform Jewish movement and the rabbi is a graduate of Hebrew Union College.

Here now a synopsis written I think by Tom Morrison:
ALICE HOFFMAN
“The Marriage of Opposites”

“Growing up on the idyllic island of St Thomas in the early 1800s, Rachel dreams of faraway Paris.
Her mother, a pillar of their tight-knit refugee community of Jews who escaped the European Inquisition, has never forgiven her daughter for refusing to live by the rules.
But Rachel’s fate is not in her own hands: in order to secure the future of her father’s business, she is married off to a widower with three children.
When her husband dies suddenly and his handsome nephew Frederic arrives from France to settle the estate, Rachel seizes control of her life, beginning a passionate love affair that sparks a scandal affecting her entire family, including her favourite son, Camille Pissarro, who will one day become a founder member of the Impressionists and one of history’s greatest artists.

Set in a world of lush, exquisite beauty, THE MARRIAGE OF OPPOSITES shows Alive Hoffman at the height of her considerable powers. The marriage of Rachel and Frederic is an unforgettable story of an extraordinary women and her forbidden love, from the internationally bestselling author of THE DOVEKEEPERS.”

‘Beautiful, harrowing . . .
A major contribution to twenty-first-century literature’
Tom Morrison, for The Dovekeepers

Jodi Picoult says: “Hoffman reminds us with every sentence that words have the power to transport us to alternate worlds, to heal a broken heart, and to tie us irrevocably to the people we love.”

http://alicehoffman.com/books/the-marriage-of-opposites/synopsis/

Alice Hoffman’s compelling tale of the artist Camille Pissarro and his mother

By Wendy Smith August 4, 2015

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/alice-hoffmans-compelling-tale-of-the-artist-camille-pissarro-and-his-mother/2015/08/04/86534d92-37fa-11e5-9739-170df8af8eb9_story.html

Ex-US Intelligence Chief on Islamic State’s Rise: ‘We Were Too Dumb’

 

“Without the Iraq war, Islamic State wouldn’t exist today, former US special forces chief Mike Flynn openly admits. In an interview, he explains IS’ rise to become a professional force and how the Americans allowed its future leader to slip out of their hands.”

 

 

Please go to SPIEGEL ONLINE INTERNATIONAL to read on.

 

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/former-us-intelligence-chief-discusses-development-of-is-a-1065131.html

 

Unreasonable Fear?

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/we-need-to-harden-up-unreasonable-fear-of-terrorism-serves-the-enemy-20151207-glhkt0.html

 

“Unreasoning fear and political panic only serve our enemy.”  This is what Peter Hartcher points out in this article in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Peter Hartcher is international editor.  (of the SMH)

I believe Peter Hartcher’s article is well worth reading. I hope the URL link works for you.

 

.     .       .      .       .

 

IMG_20151205_0002

Recently I mentioned in one of my posts how in the past little children were made scared of the “Weihnachtsmann” (Santa) so as to make them “good little boys and girls”.

I ask myself, are we in the Western societies all like “little children” that we can be frightened that much by our politicians?  Why do they not frighten us to do any travelling? After all accidents do happen, don’t they? How many people get killed or injured in traffic accidents every year?

Why are women not warned to get into a relationship with a man? After all possessive men may do terrible things. How many women get killed or injured by their partners every year?

Why are we hesitant to let our children walk to school and home by themselves? They could get molested or kidnapped! Well, to how many children does this actually happen every year? Do we teach them not to be too trustful of strangers? What about the internet? Do we have control over how they use the internet?

What is your opinion on all of this?

 

 

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/we-need-to-harden-up-unreasonable-fear-of-terrorism-serves-the-enemy-20151207-glhkt0.html#ixzz3tflPehNs
Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook

 

Uta’s Diary, 20th November 2015, Queen Rania’s Views. And how to drink Red Wine!

Queen Rania: Let’s Drop The First ‘I’ In ISIS. There’s Nothing Islamic About Them

http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2015/03/06/queen-rania-isis-islamic_n_6781160.html?ir=Australia

Posted: 07/03/2015 LONDON — Queen Rania of Jordan said Thursday evening that there is nothing Islamic about the self-proclaimed Islamic State, or ISIS.

She was speaking with Huffington Post Editor-In-Chief Arianna Huffington as a part of The WorldPost Future of Work Conference.

Here is an extract of what Queen Rania said in this interview in March. For the full interview please go to the above links:

“Queen Rania said she thought there are different reasons people join ISIS, including desire for a sense of belonging, for adventure, for a job and/or for the religious rhetoric. She said she sees it as a pyramid:

At the top of the pyramid are those who actually generate that ideology, and I think they’re the worst. Fanaticism and extremism exists in every religion but it always remains on the fringes. And I think what makes it drift to the mainstream is the fact that they were supported. Some did support them with money, and they provided them with the infrastructure, which allowed them to then spread that ideology a lot more.
At the middle of the pyramid are those who … [believe] that there’s a political injustice. That they don’t have a stake in their own societies. That there’s no justice. And I think at the bottom of the pyramid are those who are probably uneducated and suffer from poverty and unemployment, and they are the most vulnerable. Apart from those on the top, it’s vulnerability that makes people fall prey to their kind of rhetoric.
Because there are different reasons why people join, she said, the fight against ISIS needs to be undertaken at different levels — including militarily. “But this can’t just be won on the battlefield,” she said. “At the heart of this war is ideology, and you cannot kill an ideology with a bullet. You can only kill it with a better idea.”

I think this pyramid of reasons is very well explained. Last night we opened a bottle of red wine. I had been a hot day. Our room temperature was still 27C. Our motto was always to drink red wine at room temperature. What if the temperature was well above 20C? I urged Peter to keep the opened bottle in the fridge. This morning I happened to notice an article about red wine in the Huffington Post. Here you can read it:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2015/11/19/red-wine-room-temp-sensor_n_8595676.html?ncid=edlinkauhpmg00000001

Among other things they say in this article: “Red wine drinkers, prepare to have your minds blown — when a winemaker says you should serve at ‘room temperature’, they’re not talking about the temperature of an Australian room.

The antiquated term dates back to medieval French drawing rooms which were about 14-16˚C and the average Aussie living room is closer to 20˚C.

So basically our wine-drinking habits are the European equivalent to drinking warm beer.”

TV Program: Kitchen Cabinet

I like watching Kitchen Cabinet with Annabel Crabb. To find out more about Annabel Crabb I looked up what was published in The Conversation in November 2014:

 

https://theconversation.com/i-want-a-wife-the-wife-drought-1970s-feminism-still-rings-true-34246

I Want a Wife, The Wife Drought – 1970s feminism still rings true

November 17, 2014 1.04am GMT

 

Three years ago Annabel Crabb argued on ABC’s The Drum that a lack of wives is what really holds back women in the Australian workforce. She jokingly suggested that what was needed was a “wife quota”.

 

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/programs/kitchen-cabinet/

 

I am glad that a new series of Kitchen Cabinet is to be seen now. Now, what does Annabel’s joke about a “wife quota” actually mean? She is a woman with three children and has come up with lots of difficulties to juggle work and motherhood. Most men do have a wife at home to look after things when they have to work. Most women do not have a “wife” and find it difficult to find necessary help at all times. Does anyone have an idea how a professional woman can combine work and motherhood successfully?

 

Stillness in Classrooms

http://www.theguardian.com/university-of-melbourne-partner-zone/2015/oct/06/imagine-if-we-taught-stillness-in-classrooms

Meditation education is having a real and positive impact on student learning and their wellbeing, writes the University of Melbourne’s Professor Lea Waters
Still waters … meditation is a way to help students enrich their education.

Imagine if we taught stillness in class

In our warp-speed world, stillness is a rare experience.

Parents are working longer hours and children’s lives are fully timetabled. Being “busy” has become the new social currency. It carries status. People marvel at those who are busy. The greeting “hello” has been replaced with the question “keeping busy?” It seems if you’re not busy, you’re not important.

Our addiction to being busy is having a detrimental impact on the wellbeing of children and teenagers. One in four young Australians experience symptoms of mental illness and mental illness accounts for over 50% of ill-heath statistics in 15-25 year olds. Children have forgotten how to be still. Their hearts, minds and bodies are always racing. What would happen if we taught stillness in schools and how do we go about doing this?

What would happen if we taught stillness in schools and how do we go about doing this?
Meditation education is proving to be an effective way to teach stillness in schools and is having a real and positive impact on student learning and wellbeing. The act of slowing down provides students with the opportunity to observe and understand how they think and feel. This enriches traditional academic education by showing students how they think and not just what to think.

Meditation is on the rise with schools bringing it into classes, sports fields, exam preparation, choir, school drama productions, school camps and academic learning. Meditation is the deliberate act of regulating our attention through observing our thoughts, emotions and physical sensations.

It can conjure up images of a yogi sitting in the lotus position chanting, but there are a wide variety of secular meditation practices that teach students how to focus their attention.

Self-observation exercises can be as simple as sitting, walking, eating, listening and learning with full attention.

Mindfulness-meditation is one for the more popular practices being taught at schools and involves a three-step mental process where students are asked to 1) focus their attention on a particular object (e.g. their own breathing), 2) notice when their attention has wandered away from the object and 3) bring their attention back to the attentional object.

Students engage in this practice with a stance of non-judgment and open curiosity which allows them to identify patterns in their thoughts and feelings, leading to a clearer mind and a more peaceful heart.

Groundbreaking research on meditation in schools is bringing together the three fields of psychology, education and neuroscience.

I led a team of researchers at the University of Melbourne who recently conducted a meta-review of meditation education that included 15 studies combining almost 1800 students from Australia, Canada, India, United Kingdom, United States, and Taiwan.

The results showed that meditation is beneficial in the majority of cases and led to higher optimism, positive emotion, self-concept, self-care and self-acceptance as well as reduced anxiety, stress, and depression in students. Meditation was also associated with faster information processing, greater attentional focus, working memory, creativity and cognitive flexibility.

The meditation programs that were the most effective were those that encouraged regular practice, those that went for a term or longer and those that were delivered by teachers (as compared to an external meditation instructor).

Our addiction to being busy is having a detrimental impact on children and teenagers, says Professor Lea Waters.

The meta-review found a strong case for infusing meditating into the culture of schools and making it a core part of teacher training. Schools can investigate the many youth-meditation programs that have been developed in countries such as Australia (Mindcapsules), Canada (Mindful Education), India (The Alice Project), Israel (The Mindfulness Language), United Kingdom (Mindfulness in Schools Project, DotB), and United States of America (Mindful Schools, MindUp, Learning to Breathe).

The idea of learning being supported by stillness and focused attention is an attractive and practical prospect for education and it is no surprise that meditation education is on the rise as a way to care for both the minds and hearts of our students and to provide some much needed down-time in a young person’s day.

Professor Lea Waters is Director of the Centre for Positive Psychology and Gerry Higgins Chair in Positive Psychology, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne

Sealevel Rise

https://theconversation.com/au/topics/sea-level-rise

 

Rising seas threaten to drown important mangrove forests, unless we intervene

October 15, 2015 6.33am AEDT

Mangroves put their roots down where few other plants will. Catherine Lovelock, Author provided

Authors

  1. Head, Department of Environmental Science, Macquarie University

  2. Professor of Biology, The University of Queensland

  3. ARC Future Fellow, University of Wollongong

Disclosure statement

Neil Saintilan receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Fulbright Commission

Catherine Lovelock receives funding from the Australian Research Council; Stream 2 of Natural resource management climate change impacts and adaptation research grants program. East Coast Cluster; CSIRO.

Kerrylee Rogers receives funding from the Australian Research Council (FT130100532)

Partners

The University of Queenslandand The University of Wollongong provide funding as members of The Conversation AU.

Republish this article

We believe in the free flow of information. We use a Creative Commons Attribution NoDerivatives licence, so you

can republish our articles for free, online or in print.

 

Getting to the root of it all

Mangroves grow along tropical coasts. Unique amongst the world’s plants, they can survive in salt water and can filter seawater. The rain of leaf-fall from tropical mangrove forests provides food for crabs and other herbivores, the foundation of a food web that extends to fish (and therefore people) right across the tropics.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of mangroves are their roots, used to anchor the plant on unstable ground and buttress against wind, waves and currents. The form of root architecture varies greatly between families of mangrove, including the dense prop-roots (Rhizophora), cathedral-like buttresses (Bruguiera), and numerous pneumatophores – literally narrow breathing–tubes – of the common grey mangrove of southeast Australia (Avicennia).

Prop roots on a mangrove Ruth Reef

A high proportion of the living mass of mangroves exists below-ground. This means mangroves are the most efficient ecosystem globally in the capture and sequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. The uniquely oxygen-poor, salty characteristics of mangrove soil provides the perfect setting for long-term preservation of carbon below ground. The typical mangrove forest sequesters several times more carbon dioxide than a tropical rainforest of comparable size.

Mangrove roots trap sediment as currents carrying suspended particles are intercepted and slowed. Between the carbon sequestered below-ground, and the sediment trapped within the tangle of roots, mangroves are effectively able to raise the height of the land over time.

Keeping up with rising seas

Analysis of these sediments shows mangroves can deal with low to moderate sea-level rise by building up land. But how will mangroves respond to future rising seas when people are in the way?

We and other colleagues measured how fast mangrove forests in the Indo-Pacific region increase the height of the land. We used a tool called Surface Elevation Table-Marker Horizon, as you see in the video below.

 

Mangroves also build up land height by accumulating roots below ground. Previous studies have focused on this. Our study, using up to 16 years of data across a range of coastal settings, shows that sediment build up is also important.

We also compared the rate of land height increase in mangroves to local tidal gauges, to assess whether mangroves were keeping pace with the local rate of sea-level rise.

In most cases (90 out of 153 monitoring stations) mangroves were lagging behind. This is not an immediate problem if mangroves are already high enough to delay the effect of expected sea-level rise. However, mangroves at the low end of their elevation are highly vulnerable.

We used this insight to model how long mangroves might survive rising seas across the Indo-Pacific. We used a range of sea-level rise projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, including a low-range scenario (48 cm by 2010), high-range (63 cm by 2100) and extreme (1.4 m by 2100).

Mangrove forests with a high tidal range and/or high sediment supply such as Northern Australia, eastern Borneo, east Africa and the Bay of Bengal proved to be relatively resilient. Most of these forests will likely survive well into the second half of the century under low and moderate rates of sea-level rise.

The prospect of mangrove survival to 2070 under the 63 cm and 1.4 m scenarios was poor for the Gulf of Thailand, the southeast coast of Sumatra, the north coasts of Java and Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

Dams holding mangroves back

Our results imply that factors that prevent sediment building up may prevent mangroves responding to sea-level rise. This might include dams holding sediment within water catchments.

This impact is already being felt. An 80% reduction in sediment delivery to the Chao Phraya River delta has, for example, contributed to kilometres of mangrove shoreline retreat.

Similar developments are planned for the Mekong River. These threats compound those already being felt, including the widespread conversion of mangrove to aquaculture.

Appreciation of the financial contribution of mangroves has been slowing the trend of decline. However, long-term survival will require planning that includes both the continued provision of sediment supply, and in many cases the provision of retreat pathways, to allow mangroves to respond to sea level in ways they always have.

 

 

The Tragedy of escaped Fires

There is no single solution to the tragedy of escaped fires</h1>

<span><a href=”http://theconversation.com/profiles/trent-penman-197032″>Trent Penman</a>, <em><a href=”http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-melbourne”>University of Melbourne</a></em></span>

Prescribed burning is a highly contentious topic, particularly this week after an escaped burn near Lancefield in Victoria. The burn jumped its containment under high winds, resulting in the reported loss of two homes and several other buildings. The government has announced an independent investigation of the incident, due to report in a couple of weeks

This is not the first time this has happened. In November 2011, a prescribed burn in Margaret River in Western Australia escaped and burned down some 30 houses.

In September 2013, a similar incident occurred at the base of the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, where no houses were lost but several buildings were reportedly damaged.

The incidents have prompted questions over whether prescribed burning is worth the risk, and whether property losses could be prevented through better management. The loss of one or many houses from fire impacts not only on the residents of that house, but the entire community.

Unfortunately, house loss from fire is part of the risk of living in a fire-prone land and there is always going to be pressure on land managers to try and reduce this risk.

How fire agencies plan prescribed burns

Fire management agencies around the country take great care in planning and implementing prescribed burns. An agency responsible for a burn will spend weeks and sometimes months planning the logistics of a burn.

In this process they must give consideration to a host of factors such as fuel loads, biodiversity, water and assets such as houses and infrastructure that may be at risk, both within the burn area and outside it.

Before the burn, access tracks are cleared to make it safe for operations, and the agency will inform neighbours through media, letterbox drops and occasionally public meetings.On the day (or days) of a burn, an agency must only burn if the weather conditions both during the planned operation and in the following days are within given prescriptions.

They must also consider where the smoke will go and how that may impact traffic, local residents, schools, and hospitals. Given the range of people affected by a fire and the values they hold, the plans of agencies will never please all of the people all of the time.

But the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.  A common thread to most of these incidents is that the weather that eventuated was far more dangerous for fires than was predicted when the burn started. For example, the Margaret River enquiryfound that wind speeds were 35% higher than predicted. Everyone has made plans on a Monday for the following weekend only to find the forecast has changed and what originally looked like a nice day at the beach is now cold and wet.

Prescribed burn planners need to do just this and plan based on the week’s weather forecast before starting a prescribed burn. This is not to criticise weather forecasts made by the Bureau of Meteorology, it is simply the reality that fire management agencies have to live with.

Agencies incorporate this risk into the decision-making process when first developing the prescriptions for conducting a burn. They are incorporated again by ground crews for every fire when the decision is made to ignite each prescribed burn.

 

Many would question, is it worth persisting with prescribed burning if we have to endure these losses? The answer is not a simple yes or no, but a question of where and how much prescribed burning is needed to change the risk to the things we value in the landscape.

Nobody wants to see people and property affected by wildfire, but the harsh reality is that we have created the problem by developing cities and towns in high fire risk areas. Australia is not unique in this respect as this is a problem in many fire-prone landscapes around the globe.

Many people opt for a tree change and move away from the urban centres to the urban fringes or semi-rural landscapes to get the feeling of naturalness. Often these people do not realise or appreciate the nature of the risk to which they are exposed. Fire agencies are faced with an increasingly complex situation where they are attempting to reduce risk to people and property while maintaining the environmental values which attracted residents to the area in the first place.

Our research here and that of others, has shown the most effective means of reducing risk to property in these interface zones is by agencies reducing fuels next to houses (where the risk of burns escaping and impacting on the communities is highest) and by residents adequately preparing their property for fire. There is a shared risk that needs to be acknowledged by all parties.

Is the risk of a prescribed burn escaping and impacting on people and property higher than the risk of not undertaking the prescribed burn and having a wildfire impact upon the same area resulting in the same or greater loss?

Would agencies be better investing in engagement with communities to prepare them for the upcoming fire season and treat less area adjacent to houses?

These are questions that researchers, land managers and residents in fire-prone landscapes are constantly grappling with. Those who have experienced damaging wildfires often argue the agencies should have done more before the fire, but if you lose your house in a prescribed fire you might be of a different mindset.

In my opinion, there is no single solution. The answer will vary across the country and will be dependent on what risk from fire residents are willing to accept.

<p><span><a href=”http://theconversation.com/profiles/trent-penman-197032″>Trent Penman</a>, Lecturer, Bushfire Behaviour and Management, <em><a href=”http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-melbourne”>University of Melbourne</a></em></span></p>

<p>This article was originally published on <a href=”http://theconversation.com”>The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href=”https://theconversation.com/there-is-no-single-solution-to-the-tragedy-of-escaped-fires-48828″>original article</a>.</p>

Demand for Housing in Australia, an Article in The Conversation

https://theconversation.com/five-reasons-the-turnbull-government-shouldnt-let-us-spend-super-on-a-home-48306?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+September+30+2015+-+3512&utm_content=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+September+30+2015+-+3512+CID_91ef742d7e0f59bcb338c2d333e3e147&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=Five%20reasons%20the%20Turnbull%20government%20shouldnt%20let%20us%20spend%20super%20on%20a%20home

I would recommend that people who have any thoughts on the subject of housing affordability, go to the above article. I copy here the first few sentences which might make you curious to read on.

“Five reasons the Turnbull government shouldn’t let us spend super on a home
September 30, 2015 6.10am AEST

Allowing first homebuyers to cash out their super to buy a home is a seductive idea with a long history. Like the nine-headed Hydra, which replaced each severed head with two more, each time the idea is cut down it seems to return even stronger.

. . . . ”