Cathy, this one’s for you:

Study: Large fires created Australian desert, from CNN

Continuing the ongoing discussion of Collapse, another example of humans fouling their nest. It doesn’t make sense, but it saddens me more to learn about indigenous cultures destroying the environment. I suppose I expect it of modern industrial humans, but have some naïve belief that indigenous cultures were more in touch with the natural world than we are. Despite loads of evidence to the contrary.

On the other hand, fires across the interior of an entire continent must have been pretty dramatic. Are there any Aboriginal myths or legends about something like this, I wonder?