Stephen J. Pyne Quotes
What we need as much as money is consensus about how we live [with fire] in that countryside [prone to forest fires] or at least agreement about how to decide…. More than 72,000 communities are at risk and only 20% have a plan for protection.
There are several different strategies for fighting forest fires. Some argue to let them burn themselves out. Others want to burn old brush regularly under control. Still others want to fight every fire regardless of size. Most communities have not reached any decision on these points and as a result, for most communities, none of the strategies prove effective since none are planned for.
Stephen J. Pyne, Environmental Historian, Description of the national practice of forest fire fighting, “Why it’s so hard to control forest fires”, The Washington Post, September 15, 2003
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Technically, the probability has never changed. However, most probabilities are in relation to a specific event or time. A levee may have only a 1% probably of failing in a hurricane but if there are 10 hurricanes a year, the probability that the levee will fail at least once in 30 years is about 50%.
In Afghanistan and other Islamic nations where there is a fundamentalist view of women, many advocates of women’s rights have been assaulted and/or murdered. In some cases, on the grounds of blasphemy.
Stephen J. Pyne (1949-present) is an emeritus professor at Arizona State University, specializing in environmental history, the history of exploration, and especially the history of fire.
