Earlier this past semester, the Daily ran an editorial about the importance of scientific literacy in the general population. The conflagrations ravaging California during the past week couldn't have provided a more perfect example of what goes catastrophically wrong when policy is made in ignorance of scientific fact.
For thousands of years, fire has been a natural part of the landscape of the Southwest. Some plant life cycles are dependent on flames, and sporadic fires have shaped and become part of the ecology of the region as we know it.
As more and more residents pour into southern California, this central role of fire has been forgotten, as the phenomenon has been looked upon more as an ecological foe than friend. Homeowners spend millions of dollars conforming to meticulous building codes meant to resist the lick of flames, and fire departments are constantly on-call.
As many of us are now aware, the immediate extinguishing of smaller fires allows underbrush to accumulate to the point that the landscape becomes one giant tinderbox, ready to explode at the smallest spark. These more modest fires might be a standard ecological occurrence, but huge conflagrations of the size we saw last week are probably not.
The risk of fire has not prevented a large number of Americans from flocking to the Southwest, but we only have a limited amount of public resources to devote to combating the natural course of events that characterize the region.
Is it worth the expense of millions of tax dollars to fight a war that is probably not even winnable? This is a question that was raised, not without controversy, after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. At the time, many plugged their ears to such inquiries and vowed to rebuild New Orleans, no matter what the expense and in spite of the hurdles.
Perhaps those who swore to go back and rebuild the city just exactly as it was were perpetuating as much harm as those who wanted to leave New Orleans to rot.
When we develop in spite of our ecological surroundings instead of with them, we end up in a losing battle. Although those on the very left edge of the American political spectrum have been pushing such a message for quite a while, it has come time that their philosophies move into the mainstream.
Economically, it makes more sense to pay for precautions that avoid natural disasters rather than to expend money cleaning up after they wreak havoc. On a societal level, we cannot support instability of the sort seen in Louisiana after Katrina.
We are not advocating a return to the brush, but rather wish to see more sensible policies when it comes to development. Right now, a citizen of Michigan could pull up into a parking lot of his local Wal-Mart and see an asphalt landscape not too different from the one that his cousin sees in Columbus, Ohio or that his uncle sees in Phoenix, Ariz. Why is there an expectation of such standardization in environments that are so radically different?
As student journalists, we are not in prime position to offer up suggestions for more ecologically friendly development. Perhaps in San Diego, this will mean controlled burnings, and maybe in New Orleans it will mean a more nuanced understanding of sedimentary deltas. But even if we pass on the onus of planning to those who are better versed in ecology than we are, it is the responsibility of us all to recognize the importance of smarter development.
Smart growth will mean that science must take a central role as developers examine how their work might affect surrounding ecosystems. This is not about saving the cute little animals next door; it's about saving our own hides the next time a hurricane - or a forest fire - looms on the horizon.
