In the past, crop land was abundant and the population was sustainable, so that the resultant smoke and soot from these fires was absorbed into the atmosphere. As soon as the regular rains would come, all of the fires would be doused.

In our world today, the rural areas can no longer sustain such large populations and the weather is much less predictable due to our culture's environmental neglect in favor of individualized monetary gain.

Such ecological crimes can no longer be tolerated. We are all risking an ecological disaster of gigantic proportions, such as the uncontrolled burning of Indonesia which is occurring now. If the rains do not come, due to the El Niño phenomenon, there may be a major disaster ahead.

In the face of such a danger, it is time to act decisively to put out the fires now and to prevent such ecological crimes in the future.

The entire population of Indonesia should be mobilized. All able bodied persons who volunteer should be given paid time off work from their employers to take part in the fire fighting campaign. All modes of transportation must be made available to the emergency authorities for this purpose. Whatever shovels, buckets, machetes, and so on, that can be used to put out brush fires should be brought along by the volunteers. Act now, or you may regret not doing so later.

In the future, a infrared fire-detecting satellite could be set in orbit which would monitor for brush fires. The satellite could detect a fire, its fuel type, the time it started burning and its Global Positioning (GPS) coordinates.

With the GPS coordinates, a ground based property registry computer system could track down the owners of the property and issue an automatic and substantial monetary penalty for this ecological crime. If there is no owner registered to a field or jungle track, an investigation should be made by sending field personnel to the site to arrest the intruders.

If no action is taken, a second level penalty would involve criminal action. A person on the ground would think twice about burning if he/she knew that a satellite was looking down from the sky, and that an automatic penalty would be paid. In keeping with our basic cybernetic rights, we should be guaranteed no physical harm will come down from the satellite in the future.

There will be cries of "space-cop" from some sectors, but this is a matter which must be resolved by the political system of each nation. The use of such satellite surveillance data should be legalized by each nation which has this type of cultural problem, after giving all sectors the opportunity to fully express themselves.

Research has shown that by plowing under the crops after they have been harvested, a beneficial organic process takes place by using the previous crop as a fertilizer for the next one. Slashing and burning should be replaced by organic farming.

May we all learn to deal with our problems in a clear way, without the use of subterfuge or misinformation. help the valiant people suffering in South East Asia.

Atlanta, GA
September 25, 1997

Followup:

NY Times: From Way on High, Help in Fighting Forest Fires