The thoughts of chairman Bernie

Bernie Masters is a geologist/zoologist who spent 8 years as a member of the Western Australian Parliament. Married to Carolina since 1976 and living in south west WA, Bernie is involved in many community groups. This blog offers insights into politics, the environment and other issues that annoy or interest him. For something completely different, visit www.fiatechnology.com.au for information about vegetated floating islands - the natural way to improve water quality.

Friday, March 11, 2016

Exercise Helps Prevent Cancer in Many Ways

Exercise Helps Shrink Tumors and Combats Cancer in Many Ways

March 04, 2016

By Dr. Mercola

Compelling evidence suggests exercise is an important component of cancer prevention and care; slashing your risk of developing cancer, improving your chances of successful recuperation, and diminishing your risk of cancer recurrence. A pattern revealed in these studies is that the longer you exercise, the more pronounced the benefits. Studies show that both men and women who exercise during their early years have a lower risk of cancer later in life.

But like most things in life, exercise must also be done in moderation and be balanced. There is a sweet spot and excessive exercise can cause its own set of issues, but most in the U.S. are far from being at risk for this problem.

According to a 2003 paper ¹ published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise,"more than 100 epidemiologic studies on the role of physical activity and cancer prevention have been published." The authors note that:

"The data are clear in showing that physically active men and women have about a 30 to 40 percent reduction in the risk of developing colon cancer, compared with inactive persons …

With regard to breast cancer, there is reasonably clear evidence that physically active women have about a 20 to 30 percent reduction in risk, compared with inactive women.

It also appears that 30 to 60 min.· of moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity is needed to decrease the risk of breast cancer, and that there is likely a dose-response relation."

Adrenaline-Dependent Immune Cells Shrink Tumors

Most recently, research ²^,3,4 published in Cell Metabolism showed that active mice experienced a 50 percent reduction in tumor growth compared to inactive mice. The mechanism behind this rather remarkable occurrence is thought to be related to the rush of adrenaline that occurs during high intensity exercise.

The adrenaline helps circulate natural killer (NK) immune cells into tumors in the lung, liver, and skin, where they go to work to kill off and eliminate the cancerous cells.

To test this theory, the researchers injected mice with adrenaline. As predicted, they found that this caused NK cells to move into the bloodstream, and when a tumor was present, the NK cells would infiltrate it.

Then, to confirm the link between NK cells and tumor shrinkage, they used specially bred mice that do not have NK cells. In these mice, exercise had no effect on the tumors.

Blocking the flow of adrenaline had the same effect — the tumors remained, even when the mice exercised. As reported by Medical News Today:⁵

“The link between adrenaline-dependent mobilization of NK cells and tumor infiltration was identified as the immune signaling molecule, IL-6. Muscle tissue is known to release IL-6 during exercise.

What surprised the researchers was that adrenaline specifically called for IL-6 sensitive NK cells, and that the IL-6 molecules help to guide the immune cells to the tumors.” [Emphasis mine]

Exercise Is Potent Cancer Prevention

While the exact risk reduction varies from study to study, the literature consistently show that exercise helps reduce your risk of a variety of different cancers, and often to a significant degree.

JAMA Oncology, 2015 ⁶^,7	Men who stayed fit in middle age had a 55 percent lower risk of lung cancer and a 44 percent lower risk of bowel cancer after the age of 65. High levels of cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) in middle age also helped the men survive cancer, reducing their risk of dying from lung, bowel and prostate cancer by nearly one-third (32 percent).
Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention,2015 ⁸^,9,10	Women with a history of exercising for an average of 1.33 hours per week during their teen years had a 16 percent lower risk of dying from cancer, and a 15 percent lower all-cause mortality risk. Those who were active as teens and kept up their exercise habit as adults had a 20 percent lower risk of death from all causes.
Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 2015 ¹¹^,12	Aerobic exercise slowed the growth of breast cancer tumors in mice. By increasing tissue oxygenation, it also improved the effectiveness of chemotherapy.
Journal of Physical Activity and Health, 2014 ¹³	A systematic review of seven cohort studies and 14 case-control studies found that physical activity reduces the risk of breast cancer, particularly in post-menopausal women.
2013 International Liver Congress ¹⁴	Mice who exercised on a motorized treadmill for an hour each day, five days a week for 32 weeks, experienced fewer incidents of liver cancer (hepatocellular carcinoma) than sedentary mice.
Integrative Biology of Exercise meeting in 2012 ¹⁵	Exercise was shown to alter T cells to a more effective disease-fighting form, called "naïve" T cells, which boosts the ability of your immune system to fight emerging and existing cancer cells. This helps explain why exercise is beneficial both for cancer prevention and treatment.
Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention, 2009 ¹⁶	Weight training cut men’s risk of dying from cancer by 40 percent.
Cancer Causes & Control, 2010 ¹⁷	In women, strenuous activity at age 12 was associated with a reduced risk for breast cancer during pre- and post-menopause. Women who had engaged in moderate exercise during adulthood also had a significantly reduced risk of post-menopausal tumors.
American Journal of Public Health, 2010 ¹⁸	Women who were active at home during the day, engaging in heavy lifting or carrying rather than mostly sitting, had a 38 percent reduced risk of invasive breast cancers.

Exercise Improves Cancer Survival Rates and Cuts Recurrence

Should you end up with cancer, don’t fall for the old myth that rest is the best medicine. On the contrary, exercise has been shown to significantly boost your chances of recovery and survival.

For example, a 2005 Harvard study ¹⁹ found that breast cancer patients who exercised moderately for three to five hours a week lowered their odds of dying from cancer by about half, compared to sedentary patients. In fact, any amount of weekly exercise increased a patient's odds of surviving breast cancer to some degree, and this benefit remained constant regardless of whether women were diagnosed early on or after their cancer had spread.

Exercise has also been shown to minimize the side effects of conventional cancer therapy, and improve cancer patients’ quality of life.

A recent analysis ²⁰^,21 of 16 studies found that across the board, cancer patients assigned to an exercise program consistently report significantly better quality of life compared to those in the non-exercising control groups, including higher self-esteem and physical functioning, less fatigue, reduced length of hospital stays, and fewer doctor’s visits.

Some cancer organizations now promote exercise as part of standard cancer care, although this information has yet to fully filter down into general oncology. Two examples of organizations that promote exercise for cancer patients are the Macmillan Cancer Support organization in the U.K. and Johns Hopkins ²² in the U.S. Both encourage cancer patients to exercise for 2.5 hours per week.

Exercise also lowers your odds of cancer recurrence once you’ve successfully recuperated. A study published in 2012 found that breast and colon cancer patients who exercised regularly had half the recurrence rate compared to non-exercisers.²³

Exercise Combats Cancer in Many Ways

Exploring the relationship between exercise and cancer, a study ²⁴ in the British Medical Journal found that exercise affects several biological functions that may directly influence your cancer risk, including changes in energy balance, immune function, antioxidant defense, DNA repair, and hormone levels.

Indeed, there’s not just one mechanism responsible for its cancer-fighting effects. There are many, starting with the fact that exercise decreases your insulin resistance, which is a profoundly effective strategy to reduce your cancer risk. By creating a low sugar environment, you strongly discourage the growth and spread of cancer cells.

This is also one of the reasons why a high-fat diet tends to discourage cancer. A key point to remember is that while normal cells can use either glucose or ketones derived from fat as fuel, cancerous cells lack this metabolic flexibility and need glucose to survive and multiply. Cut off their supply of fuel, and you effectively starve the cancer cells to death.

Exercise, by lowering your blood sugar levels and normalizing your insulin sensitivity, has a similar effect — it essentially creates an environment that is less conducive to cancer growth.

Exercise also helps you shed excess fat and maintain a healthy weight (this is particularly true for high-intensity interval training). Excess weight is a significant risk factor, and obesity is responsible for an estimated 500,000 cancer cases worldwide each year.²⁵ The link between obesity and cancer is primarily hormone-driven, as fat cells produce excess estrogen.

This also helps explain why exercise during childhood reduces your lifetime cancer risk, and why obese children are at a significantly heightened risk of cancer in their adult years.

Physical activity also improves circulation, driving more oxygen into your tissues, and circulating immune cells in your blood. By improving blood flow to your liver, it also helps your body detoxify potentially harmful substances, including excess estrogen that may spur estrogen-sensitive cancers.

The Metabolic Theory of Cancer

Perhaps most importantly, exercise promotes mitochondrial health. Mitochondrial damage can trigger genetic mutations that can contribute to cancer, so optimizing the health of your mitochondria is a key component of cancer prevention. In fact, mitochondrial dysfunction is at the core of virtually all diseases.

By forcing your mitochondria — those little power stations that produce ATP in your cells — to work harder, your mitochondria start making reactive oxygen species (ROS), which act as signaling molecules. One of the functions they signal is to make more mitochondria.

So, when you exercise, your body will respond by creating more mitochondria to keep up with the heightened energy requirement. Travis Christofferson’s book, "Tripping Over the Truth: The Return of the Metabolic Theory of Cancer Illuminates a New and Hopeful Path to a Cure" goes into all of this in great detail, and is a must-read for anyone interested in preventing or recovering from cancer.

Exercise stimulates AMPK and SIRT1, which secondarily inhibits mTOR, which then stimulates mitochondrial biogenesis and mitophagy, both of which are deadly to cancer. In essence, cancer can be viewed as a metabolic disorder, and the key to prevention and recovery lies in restoring mitochondrial function and increasing mitochondrial numbers. Exercise helps you do both.

Also, besides creating an environment that discourages cancer growth, another reason why nutritional ketosis works so well for cancer is because it too boosts mitochondrial function and drives down inflammation.

Exercise Improves Your Odds of a Long and Healthy Life

If you want to prevent disease, exercise! Cancer is just one of a very long list of health problems that can arise as a result of chronic inactivity. Your metabolic and cardiovascular health is also largely dependent on exercise. In fact, one of the primary benefits of exercise is that it improves your insulin and leptin sensitivity and boosts your mitochondrial health, both of which play decisive roles in cancer and other chronic diseases.

Ideally you’ll want to establish a comprehensive exercise program that includes high-intensity exercises and strength training — both of which have been shown to be of particular benefit for cancer prevention. I also urge you to consider walking more, in addition to your regular workout regimen. Aim for about 7,000 to 10,000 steps (or about an hour-long walk) per day.

Also, avoid sitting as much as possible. If you can, limit your sitting to three hours a day or less, as the mere act of standing triggers beneficial changes in your biology.

Naturally, if you have cancer or any other chronic disease, you will need to tailor your exercise routine to your individual circumstances, taking into account your fitness level and current health. If at times you find you need to exercise at a lower intensity, or for shorter durations, don’t be discouraged. Always listen to your body and if you feel you need a break, take time to rest.

Just know that exercising for even just a few minutes a day is better than not exercising at all, and you'll likely find that your stamina increases over time, allowing you to complete more challenging workouts. If your immune system is severely compromised, you may want to exercise at home instead of visiting a public gym.

But, remember that exercise will ultimately help to boost your immune system, so it's very important to continue with your program even if you suffer from chronic illness or cancer.

Note:Dr Mercola is a controversial medical practitioner. He advocates against GM foods and for organic foods, for example, but provides little scientific evidence in support of either position. Nonetheless, this article appears to be scientifically sound, hence why I am happy to reproduce it here.

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Does Omega 3 assist the B group of vitamins to combat aging of the brain?

Omega-3 levels affect whether B vitamins can slow brain’s decline

While research has already established that B vitamin supplements can help slow mental decline in older people with memory problems, an international team have now found that having higher levels of Omega-3 fatty acids in your body could boost the B vitamins' effect.

The team, from the Universities of Cape Town, Oslo, Oxford and the UAE, studied more than 250 people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in Oxford. MCI is when brain function is below what is normally expected for a person’s age but is not significant enough to interfere with daily life. While it is not as serious as dementia, if untreated it often progresses to become dementia.

Dr Celeste de Jager said: 'We previously found that B vitamins are able to slow or prevent the atrophy of the brain and memory decline in people with MCI. This was most effective in those who had above average blood levels of homocysteine, a factor related to B vitamin status that may be toxic to the brain. Scientists in our team initially found that there was a link between Omega-3 levels, homocysteine, and brain atrophy rates. We wanted to find out whether Omega-3 and B vitamins might interact to prevent cognitive decline.'

At the start of the study, each person was given a set of tests to measure their cognition, and had a blood test to determine the levels of two Omega-3 fatty acids commonly found in oily fish: docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA).

The participants were split into two randomly-selected groups, who received either a B-vitamin supplement or a placebo pill over two years. Their cognitive performance was also measured and the results compared with the baseline results from the start of the study.

Dr Abderrahim Oulhaj said: 'We found that for people with low levels of Omega-3, the vitamin supplements had little to no effect. But for those with high baseline Omega-3 levels, the B vitamins were very effective in preventing cognitive decline compared to the placebo. This result complements our previous finding that B vitamins slow the rate of brain atrophy in MCI only in those with a good Omega-3 level to start with.'

The team also found that levels of DHA might be more important than levels of EPA, although they caution that more research must be done to establish whether this is true.

Professor David Smith said: 'The next stage will be to see whether providing a combination of B vitamins and Omega-3 supplements can slow the conversion from MCI to Alzheimer's disease. This would be an important step in the prevention of Alzheimer's disease. We have high hopes that this trial would work but funding is not easy to obtain for such studies.'

Dr Doug Brown, Director of Research and Development at Alzheimer's Society said: 'These results help us to tease apart who could benefit from taking B vitamins, suggesting that they might only improve cognition in people who have high levels of Omega-3 oils in their blood. Encouragingly, these findings suggest that for some older people a combination of fish oil supplements and B vitamins may help to improve thinking and memory.

'As this study shows, the relationship between nutrition and brain health is complex and we need to see increased research efforts to help us understand the role that diet and nutrition can play in reducing a person’s risk of dementia.'

The paper, Omega-3 fatty acid status enhances the prevention of cognitive decline by B vitamins in Mild Cognitive Impairment, is published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease (doi:10.3233/JAD-150777).

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Why Aerial Firefighting Planes and Helicopters are a Waste of Money.

Water bombing and magic bullets.
by Roger Underwood

Back in the summer of 1960/61, when I was training to become a forestry officer, I was unlucky enough to be caught up as a firefighter in the great bushfires of that year. In the Dwellingup Fire, three towns were burnt out; a further town was burned out at Karridale, and in the lower southwest a massive fire took out thousands of hectares of beautiful karri forest south of Pemberton. This last fire was only contained when it ran into the southern ocean near Windy Harbour.

It was in the wake of these fires that I first began to glimpse the depth of the ignorance about bushfires that was then, and is still today, evident in Australian society.

This was demonstrated by a series of letters to the editor published in The West Australian newspaper in which well-meaning citizens proposed solutions to the bushfire problem in south-west forests. Many of these suggestions were so outlandish as to be laughable – for example, one writer urged the government to construct low stone walls all through the forest, modelled on the drystone walls he had seen on the moors of Scotland. Another advocated the installation of a reticulated sprinkler system over millions of acres of forest. How construction and maintenance of this system was to be funded, and where the water was to come from, were not explained.
More recently I recall a Perth environmentalist proposing that the government should station an army of firefighters permanently in the forest throughout the fire season, day and night. They would be so numerous, and so well placed, that any fire that started could be attacked and suppressed within minutes of starting. There was no suggestion as to how this army was to be recruited, trained, sustained in the field and paid-for. Given that a fire in heavy fuels in the jarrah forest, under quite normal summer weather conditions, can escalate from a spot fire to a crown fire in about fifteen minutes, I estimate that the number of firefighters needed to cover the two million hectares of forest would need to be of the order of 4 million men.

And only the other day I read a proposal from a learned professor at the Australian National University, that the entire Australian forest estate be crisscrossed with parallel roads, two hundred metres or so apart, allowing the intervening strip to be regularly subjected to controlled burning, thus enabling wildfires to be contained in the low-fuel strips. No thought was given to the cost of building and maintaining the roads, especially in mountain country, let alone the fact that it would not work. Fires in heavy fuels in eucalypt forest can throw spotfires for kilometres, making any network of narrow fuel reduced strips just as meaningless as a low stone wall.
The modern equivalent of these stories are the calls for the government to increase its fleet of aerial water bombers, specifically the gargantuan DC10, or Very Large Air Tanker (VLAT). There are letters to the editor nearly every day, supported by calls for more and larger aircraft from retired politicians on talk-back radio, representatives of the aviation industry and journalists. Water bombing aircraft are also beloved of the uniformed firemen who dominate our emergency services, because they are the ultimate expression of "wet firefighting". Wet firefighting is fighting fires with water; uniformed firemen everywhere have been trained to know it is the only approach.

Thus, the water bomber is seen as the magic bullet, the answer to the bushfire maiden's prayer.

Interestingly, nothing along these lines is heard from the land management fraternity (of which I am one). We advocate fire prevention and damage mitigation, with desperate firefighting seen as the last resort, only needed when an effective land management program has broken down. We understand that forest fires must be fought "dry", that is, with bulldozers constructing containment lines. In this approach water is used for mopping up the fire edge, not for constructing the edge, which (in forest country) it cannot do. We regard the growing reliance on water bombing as a foolish approach to bushfire management.

Here I need to pause briefly and remind myself of the cautionary words of my father (who was a scientist, a philosopher, a teacher and a man of great tolerance): “Roger,” he admonished me one day when I was sounding off about something, “there is a big difference between being a fool and being simply miss-informed”.

This is all very well. But when it comes to bushfires, the misinformed are now in charge, or they are subject to political influence and manoeuvring by lobby groups who have no interest in effective bushfire management, such as the Australian greens. Misinformation thus leads to foolish decisions, and these in turn lead to bushfire disasters.

The calls for investment in more and bigger aerial water bombers rather than in effective pre-emption of bushfire damage is a classic demonstration of misinformed people making foolish proposals. Every experienced fire fighter in Australia (and in the USA and Canada) knows that water bombers can never control an intense forest wildfire.

Consider these factors:
• Firstly, because of atmospheric turbulence and smoke, water bombing aircraft cannot get at the seat of a rampaging forest fire; they must stand off from the head, and then the drop is evaporated by radiant heat well before the flames arrive;
• Secondly, in tall, dense forest, the water drop often cannot penetrate the canopy in sufficient volume to make a difference - it is intercepted by the tree crowns. This occurred over and again in the recent fire in ash forest in the Otway Ranges in Victoria - the water simply did not get to the ground.
• Thirdly, water bombers cannot (or do not) operate at night and under high winds, the very conditions when the most damaging forest fires occur. Three of the last four towns to burn in WA, and both towns that burned in Victoria in 2009, burned at night.
• Fourth, water bombing is extremely dangerous for aircrew as the aircraft are operating at low altitude, in uncontrolled airspace with poor visibility. It is only a matter of time before there is a shocking accident and an aircrew fatality.
• Water bombing can also be dangerous to people on the ground. If the drop from a Very Large Air Tanker is made from only marginally too low, the huge tonnage of water is capable of smashing houses and vehicles and killing firefighters;
• Fifth, water bombers use vast quantities of fresh water, probably one of the most precious resources in Australia, especially in Western Australia where the current drought is over 30 years in duration and reservoirs and ground water aquifers are drying up. Sea water could be used, provided the tankers have access to it, but dropping salt water onto catchment areas or farms would only add to the problems caused by the fire.

Finally, the whole business is obscenely expensive. The merest little helicopter water bomber costs a dollar a second for every second it is in the air, while the "Elvis" firecrane hired from the USA is about ten times more expensive. The Very Large Air Tanker operating out of NSW this year is said to cost nearly $50,000 an hour for every hour it is in the air, and not much less when it is simply on standby on the ground. And to this must be added the cost of the smaller aeroplane that flies ahead of the VLAT to mark its dropping target.

I have no idea what the "carbon footprint" of a VLAT is, as it has never been mentioned, especially by the environmentalists who are so enamoured of it, but it must be significant. I am happy to see a small number of light water bombers stationed around the southwest, because they can do useful work assisting ground crews in the control of relatively mild-intensity bushfires, and under some circumstances can "hold" a fire in a remote spot until the ground crews arrive, or can drench a house threatened by a grass fire. What I oppose is the ramping-up of the business to the extent we are now seeing in Australia, along with all the publicity that suggests this is not just a good thing, but is the responsible thing to do (when the opposite is the case). And I hate the sheer waste involved, not just of dollars, but the futile dropping of precious fresh water onto a raging forest fire, making not one iota of difference.

How well I recall the most recent bushfire in Kings Park in Perth. The air was thick with water bombing helicopters and fixed wing aeroplanes, dropping load after load of water, but the fire was only contained when it ran into the Swan River. Remembering this reminded me of the words of Stephen Pyne, the world's foremost bushfire historian and commentator:
"Air tankers are primarily political theatre, and only secondarily part of fire control. They have their place. But they dislodge attention from truly effective measures".

My frustration over all this is made more acute by re-reading the analysis of the trials of the DC10 VLAT by the CSIRO. After a number of water dropping trials, the CSIRO concluded:
1. Most of the drops featured a distinct pattern of break-up of the drop cloud in which a series of alternating thick and thin sections could be seen. The resulting drop footprints exhibited a corresponding pattern of heavy and light sections of coverage. Many of the light-coverage sections within the footprints were observed to allow the fire to pass across them with minimal slowing effect on spread rates.
2. Two drops delivered in open woodlands (as opposed to heavy forest) penetrated through the canopy and provided a good coverage of surface fuels. One of these drops rained gently through the canopy under the influence of a headwind. Another drop caused severe damage, snapping off trees ...This drop could have potentially injured people or damaged buildings....

The CSIRO scientists also looked at the effectiveness of the DC10 dropping fire retardant chemicals in the forest across the path of the headfire, a technique frequently recommended by supporters of aerial tankers. They concluded that this approach would only succeed for very low intensity fires, due to the ease with which a more intense fire would spot over the retardant line.

Overall, the CSIRO's conclusion of this study was that:
on the evidence collected, this aircraft is not suitable for achieving effective [bushfire] suppression under most Australian conditions.
Unfortunately, the CSIRO did not look at the Western Australian situation, where there are significant operational constraints. As far as I know we have only two airfields in the south west that the DC10 can use - Perth Airport, where it would compete for airspace with passenger jumbo jets, and the military airfield at Pearce which is well north of the south-west forest zone, giving long ferry times between drops. Furthermore, the operation of the DC10 requires a staff of over thirty, most of whom are doing nothing for most of the time. During a fire attack, the VLAT is led in by a second aircraft, whose job is to mark the drop zone. This is further crowding the air space over the fire. Turn-around re-fuelling and water or retardant reloading of the VLAT between drops takes up to an hour on the ground ... by which time the fire could already have outflanked the initial drop.

Despite all this, calls for the acquisition of a DC10 water bomber continue to come in thick and fast.

The explanation for this popularity was given to me by a Californian fire chief with whom I became friends at an international conference on bushfires in Washington in 2011. There was not a single bushfire professional in the USA who supported the massive investment in aerial water bombing that has occurred in recent years, he said. In the first place it was known that they were ineffective on anything but a relatively mild forest fire, and even then only operated as support to firefighters on the ground. In the second place, their cost was so great that every other part of the fire and forest management system had to be sacrificed to fund them.

On the other hand, my friend explained, the whole shebang had taken on a political and media life of its own. Nobody cared whether or not it was cost-effective; the important thing was that it made fantastic television and the politicians and emergency service chiefs who ordered them could bask in a glow of popular acclaim, and adulation in the media. City people, with no bushfire experience or any understanding of the effectiveness of the water bombers, are seduced by their glamour and drama. Water bombing, as a friend remarked, is not firefighting but "theatre for the masses".

As I write, the support for water bombers in Australia is becoming almost hysterical. The Gold Medal goes to radio compere Ian McNamara of "Macca on a Sunday Morning" fame. He said it is a "no brainer" not to have multiple air forces of water bombers stationed all over the country, the more the better. This opinion is supported by the greens who see the water bomber as a substitute for fuel reduction burning, which they hate.

However, the most insidious contribution to the water bombing issue comes from an alliance between the Australian aviation industry and Australian journalists. The aviation industry sees the ramping-up of aerial firefighting simply as good business. They have no interest in its effectiveness ... their game is to sell or hire more aircraft, and the bigger and more expensive the aircraft, the better. And they need no advertising program! This is provided for free by the Australian media.

The approach of the aviation industry is reprehensible, but understandable, because it is the way salesmen and business lobbyists always operate. What is not acceptable is the way the love affair between journalists and aerial water bombers is leading to terrible investment decisions by governments. Cost/effectiveness is never discussed. It is enough that water bombers make grand television and dramatic pictures. The West Australian newspaper these days rarely has a photograph of a firefighter. Every fire story is accompanied by a picture of a water bomber, sweeping in overhead and ejecting its load of water. The West Australian also has aviation correspondent Geoffrey "Biggles" Thomas, who writes a regular column. He is an unabashed supporter of the aviation industry, and blatantly promotes investment in more and bigger water bombers.

I realise I am wasting my breath. With the adulation of the media, the lobbying of gullible politicians by the aviation industry, the support from populists like "Macca", and the influence of the greens and the uniformed firemen, the outcome is foregone. By next summer Western Australia will be mimicking the basket-case jurisdictions in Victoria and NSW, and will be acquiring more helicopters, perhaps even the proven-to-be-useless DC10. All of this will be funded by a multi-million dollar budget ... while at the same time, resourcing of fuel reduction burning and other programs for improving bushfire prevention, damage mitigation and townsite protection, will languish.

I do remember my father's words - you cannot call someone stupid who is merely misinformed. But in the bushfire world I have seen, too many times, the dangerous outcomes that flow when the misinformed make foolish decisions.

As I wrote elsewhere a year or so ago:
... the most fundamental tool of the bushfire manager is not the fire tanker, the bulldozer, or even the water bomber. It is the match. The only way to minimise fire intensity and damage is by reducing the amount of fuel before a fire starts. Military people refer to this approach as the pre-emptive strike … we call it fuel reduction.

I also remind myself of the words of the great Victorian forester and administrator Alf Leslie. He had a favourite saying: “When it comes to public policy, stupidity nearly always wins”.

Never is this better illustrated than in the way our bushfire authorities and the greater community have been seduced by the glamour of the water bomber. This is the ultimate in stupid policy: a publicly funded program that is obscenely expensive but basically useless.

January 18, 2016

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Lessons from a would-be suicide bomber on how to defeat terrorism

Lessons from a would-be suicide bomber on how to defeat terrorism

January 13, 2016

Andrew MacLeod

Visiting Professor, Public Policy, King's College London

A picture given to me for my 40th birthday hangs in my home study. It is a lovely still-life of a fruit bowl masterfully drawn in coloured pencil. Amarah (not her real name), a 19-year-old intern, drew it for me during the time I worked for the United Nations in Islamabad.

Amarah had had a tough life until then. She was not well-off and struggled to stay at university. She was an only child brought up by a single parent. What was more difficult was that she was brought up by a single father. In her culture this made for a very bleak future for a young woman.

Amarah was volunteering with the massive two-and-a-half-year-long relief and reconstruction campaign following the 2005 Kashmir earthquake. Over the time we worked together, our conversations covered many subjects, from religion (she, a devout Muslim, and I, an avowed atheist) to politics (Pakistan was still a dictatorship), to life in general.

By the time I turned 40 we had become close friends – perhaps too close for our age, religious and cultural differences – hence why the picture has such meaning. I liked her and hoped that she would have a good life.

“What will you do after you graduate?” I once asked her.

“I want to be a suicide bomber,” she said in a matter-of-fact way.

“How would you feel if I died in your attack?” I asked.

“I would be upset,” she said, “not because you would die, but because as a non-believer you would go to hell. I like you and would miss you in paradise. I would like to see you for eternity but can’t. That makes me sad.”

In a strange way it was a lovely thing to say – how much she would want to spend eternity with me even though she would have taken me from “this life” on earth.

Suicide bombing is evil, as is terrorism. There is no justification for it and it must be defeated. But how? Many people like to say that terrorists are insane. They would read the above story and think Amarah was mad and perhaps I was nuts to listen to her.

There is another view, however. To defeat terror we must understand it. Listening to Amarah’s thinking process and justification is critical to finding a path to achieve this.

Theological foundations

Most Muslims, Jews and Christians believe in the same Abrahamic God. Gaining access to God’s afterlife is the key reward for following the codes of conduct set out by their religious traditions.

The Qur’an, Torah and New Testament give Muslims, Jews and Christians guidance on how to reach eternity with their common God through righteousness and piety.

However, all three texts also have episodes of violence and butchery between their pages which, when taken out of context or manipulated by evil, have been used to motivate and encourage acts of violence.

So are the perpetrators of this evil “crazy”? And how do we defeat them?

Imagine if your life was pretty bleak and you had to have 60 years of miserable existence before gaining entrance to heaven. Imagine, then, if someone showed you a shortcut to escape this difficult life and gain access to heaven early.

Would following the shortcut be crazy? Or would it be logical?

If you were told that dying while trying to rescue a drowning child at sea would gain you access to heaven, would a believer attempt it? Such altruism surely would be rewarded? What about trying to kill an infidel who is intent on corrupting the “lifestyle” that God wants humanity to follow?

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks calls this thought process “altruistic evil” because of the flawed belief that such evil is what “God wants”.

Today, nearly a decade on, Amarah no longer wants to explode. Instead she works in the Pakistan arm of a major international bank. Creating a career and a sense of hope for Amarah removed the desire to take the shortcut to heaven.

Defeating terror

Amarah’s story provides guidance on how to defeat terror in three ways.

Long-term education support programs for susceptible communities, foreign and domestic, need to be followed.

A ruthless crackdown on fundamentalist social media recruiting, like with anti-paedophilia programs, must occur.

Organisations, like Islamic State, that provide the logistics and planning for terrorist attacks must be defeated. Strong foreign and domestic security responses by armed and security forces must take place – including judicious use of drones and military action where necessary.

The motivation to shortcut the way to heaven must be tackled. Long-term economic growth in foreign and domestic susceptible communities is key to the long-term defeat of the shortcut’s allure.

We must make life worth living for all. Economic disadvantage – including leaving people to fester in refugee camps – does not help this aim.

Killing innocents as collateral damage is also a powerful motivator. Military action – while often necessary – has consequences and needs to be very carefully balanced.

Only with a long-term approach of education, economic growth and security action can terrorism be defeated.