Tobacco

Naomi Oreskes: Merchants of Doubt

Secretary of Health and Human Services [George H W Bush Administration]:
The question of whether or not tobacco smoke is carcinogenic … was conclusively resolved more than 20 years ago …
Involuntary smoking is a cause of disease, including lung cancer, in healthy nonsmokers. …
Ambient tobacco smoke also caused respiratory illness and decreased lung function in infants and young children and increased the risk of asthma.
As a physician … I believe that parents should refrain from smoking.
(Covering Letter)

Robert Windom [Physician nominated by President Ronald Reagan]:
Actions to protect nonsmokers from ETS [Environmental Tobacco Smoke] exposure not only are warranted, but are essential to protect public health. …
(Executive Summary, The Health Consequences of Involuntary Smoking, US Department of Health and Human Services, 1986)

Sylvester Stallone was paid $500,000 to use Brown and Williamson products in … five feature films to link smoking with power and strength, rather than sickness and death.
(p 139)

The industry promoted the idea of “sick building syndrome" to suggest that headaches and other problems suffered by workers in smoky atmospheres were caused by the buildings, not smoke. …

In December 1992, the EPA released Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking.
The report attributed 3,000 lung cancer deaths per year to secondhand smoke, as well as 150,000 to 300,000 cases of bronchitis and pneumonia in infants and young children.
Another 200,000 to 1,000,000 children had their asthma aggravated, and ETS also increased the risk of asthma in children who did not already have it.
(p 140)

Environmental tobacco smoke [is] a class A — a known human - carcinogen. …

[There is clear evidence] that ETS [increases] the risk of SIDS.

[In thirty studies of] high spousal exposure [seventeen] showed increased risk, nine at the 95% confidence level, and [eight] at the 90% level.
[Among] women who smoked, the lung cancer rate was even higher if their husbands also smoked.
This showed that ETS added extra risk on top of that carried by smoking itself.
(p 141)

S Fred Singer [Science and Environment Policy Project]:
Of the 30 studies reviewed by EPA, 24 showed no statistically significant correlation between secondary smoke and cancer, and the remaining 6 showed a correlation too small for researchers to rule out other factors than can affect the incidence of cancer, such as diet, outdoor air pollution, genetics or prior lung disease.

Unable to maneuver this issue through a barrier of long-held statistical standards, the EPA simply reduced the confidence interval for these studies from 95 to 90% — thereby doubling the margin for error and forcing the conclusion of increased risk.
If secondary smoke is so serious a problem, why did the EPA have to rig the numbers?
(Junk Science at the EPA, Draft Op-Ed, commissioned by APCO Associates on behalf of Philip Morris, 12 May, 1993, p 2)

US Department of Health and Human Services:
[There] is no risk-free level of exposure to second-hand smoke: even small amounts … can be harmful to people's health.
(The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke: A Report of the Surgeon General, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, June 27, 2006)

Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber:
Originally dubbed the “Restoring Integrity to Science Coalition,” the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition was later renamed to resemble the venerable American Association for the Advancement of Science.
[Unfortunately,] the resulting acronym was not terribly flattering — ASSC, or worse, the ASS Coalition — [so they capitalized the definite] article “the” at the beginning of the name, and TASSC was born …
(How Big Tobacco Helped Create “the Junkman”, PR Watch, Vol 7, No 3, 2000, p 6)

Philip Morris: Cost / Benefit Analysis of Smoking in the Czech Republic (Michael Sandel, Justice: Putting A Price Tag On Life, February, 2011)
Benefits	Tax revenue from cigarette sales Savings from early deaths ($1227 per person): Health care Pensions Housing costs
Costs	Increased health care costs
Net gain from smoking	$147 million

On The Benefits of Smoking

Nick Minchin (1953)

Liberal Senator for South Australia (1993 ‒ 2011)

Senator Nick Minchin has criticised the Federal Government's plan to increase the tax on cigarettes [on ABC television last night] as he told smokers to:

Go for it!
They die early, they actually save us money …

(Australian Associated Press, Senator Nick Minchin praises smokers 'dying early', news.com.au, 4 May, 2010)


In 1995, a Senate committee report recorded Minchin as expressing a minority view.

Senator Minchin wishes to record his dissent from the committee's statements:

• that it believes cigarettes are addictive, and
• that passive smoking causes a number of adverse health effects for non-smokers.

[And, on] ABC1's Q&A:

… I defend the right of smokers in a liberal, free, democratic country to smoke …
If people choose to die of something, as a Liberal I think:

That's your problem.

(Mike Skeketee, Some sceptics make it a habit to be wrong, The Australian, 20 November, 2010)

Corrupting Science

Brown and Williamson Tobacco

• [Our] product is doubt,
• our message is truth — well stated, and
• our competition is the body of anti-cigarette fact that exists in the public mind. …

We have chosen the mass public as our consumer [because:]

• The Congress and federal agencies are already being dealt with … by the Tobacco Institute.
• It is a group with little exposure to the positive side of smoking and health
• It is the prime force in influencing [government policy, since] without public support little effort would be given to a crusade against cigarettes.

Doubt … is the best means of competing with the "body of fact" that exists in the mind of the general public.
It is also the means of establishing a controversy.
If we are successful in establishing a controversy at the public level, then there is an opportunity to put across the real facts about smoking and health.

(Memo to R A Pittman, 21 August 1969)

Philip Morris USA

Key Messages

• Science [should never] be corrupted to achieve political ends.
• Economic growth cannot afford to be held hostage to paternalistic, overregulation.
• Improving indoor air quality is a laudable goal that will never be accomplished as long as tobacco smoke is the sole focus of regulators.
• Unfounded fear — whether it be from dioxin, Alar, tobacco smoke, cellular telephones — only benefits plaintiff lawyers who are always trying to win a fast buck.

Strategies

• To form local coalitions to help us educate the local media, legislators and the public at large about the dangers of “junk science' and to caution them from taking regulatory steps before fully understanding the costs in both economic and human terms. …
• To implement our communications objective of identifying members of the media who might write supportive articles …
• [To] train and identify credible spokespeople …

Objectives

Our overriding objective is to discredit the EPA report [on Environmental Tobacco Smoke.]
[It] is our objective to prevent states and cities, as well as businesses from passing smoking bans.
[Where] possible we will proactively seek to pass accommodation legislation with preemption. …

• Associate EPA study with broader questions about agency research and government regulations.
• Link issue with other more "politically correct" products.
• Have non-industry messengers provide reasons for legislators, business executives and media to view EPA study with extreme caution. …

Assumptions

• No matter how strong the arguments, industry spokespeople are, in and of themselves, are not always credible or appropriate messengers.
• Non-industry spokespeople will challenge EPA study if issue is broadened beyond the scope of this individual report. …
• The right spokespeople will produce the right popular media response which will produce the right public response.
• A coalition building and grassroots strategy should be inter-woven with a communications strategy. …
• A single messenger speaking out on multiple messages will not have nearly as much impact as several messengers promoting one or two messages each.

Strategy One

Restoring Integrity to Science Coalition (RISC)

• A national coalition intended to educate the media, public officials and the public about the dangers of "junk science."
  Coalition will address credibility of government's scientific studies, risk assessment techniques and misuse of tax dollars.
• Coalition is composed of a board that includes scientists, business executives from "targeted" industries and other spokespeople seeking to improve quality of EPA research.

Strategy Three

Increase broad-based support for "holistic" approach to indoor air quality legislation.

• Ensure that in targeted states there is a comprehensive indoor air quality measure introduced in legislature.
• Mobilize grassroots support, particularly among labor and members of hospitality industry, in favor of "holistic" approach.

(Memo from Ellen Merlo [VP Corporate Affairs] to William Campbell [President and CEO], 17 February 1993)

My Lai

Live Long and Prosper: Ministry of Peace

William Westmoreland (1914 – 2005) [General and Chief of Staff, US Army]:
The Oriental doesn't put the same high price on life as does a Westerner.
Life is plentiful.
Live is cheap in the Orient.
(Peter Davis, Hearts and Minds, 1974)

Dallas Morning News:
Supposedly the purpose of fortified villages is to keep the Vietcong out. …
Vietnamese farmers are forced at gunpoint into these virtual concentration camps.
Their homes, possessions and crops are burned.
[Seven villagers had their] stomachs slashed, their livers extracted and put on display.
These victims were woman and children.
In another village, expectant mothers [had their stomachs] ripped open and their unborn babies removed.
(1 January 1963)

Vietnamese Democratic Bulletin:
It is certainly an ironic way to protect the peasant masses from Communism. …
(September 1963)

Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970):
The advantages of successful war are doubtful, but the disadvantages of unsuccessful war are certain.
(Power, 1938, p 103)

peaceandlonglife:
Fanaticism is the breeding ground of atrocity.
Atrocity is the breeding ground of fanaticism.

William Peers (1914 – 84)

General, US Army

1. During the period 16-19 March 1968, US Army troops of [Task Force] Barker, 11th Brigade, Americal Division, massacred a large number of noncombatants in two hamlets [My Lai and My Khe] of Son My Village, Quang Ngai Province, Republic of Vietnam.
   The precise number of Vietnamese killed cannot be determined but was at least 175 and may exceed 400.
2. The massacre occurred in conjunction with a combat operation which was intended
   • to neutralize Son My Village as a logistical support base and staging area, and
   • to destroy elements of an enemy battalion [mistakenly] thought to be located in the Son My area.
3. The massacre resulted primarily from the nature of the orders issued to persons in the chain of command within TF Barker.
4. The task force commander's order and the associated intelligence estimate issued prior to the operation were embellished [such that they] ultimately presented to the individual soldier a false and misleading picture of the Son My area as an armed enemy camp, largely devoid of civilian inhabitants.
5. Prior to the incident, there had developed within certain elements of the 11th Brigade a permissive attitude toward the treatment and safeguarding of noncombatants which (contributed to the mistreatment of such persons during the Son Ply Operation).
6. The permissive attitude in the treatment of Vietnamese was, on 16-19 March 1968, exemplified by an almost total disregard for the lives and property of the civilian population of Son My Village on the part of commanders and key staff officers of TF Barker.
7. On 16 March, soldiers at the squad and platoon level, within some elements of TF Barker, murdered noncombatants while under the supervision and control of their immediate superiors.
8. [Crimes] visited on the inhabitants of Son My Village included individual and group acts of murder, rape, sodomy, maiming, and assault on noncombatants and the mistreatment and killing of detainees. …
9. Some attempts were made to stop the criminal acts …
   [But,] with few exceptions, such efforts were too feeble or too late.
10. [There was] no evidence that any member [engaged in the] operation was under the influence of marijuana or other narcotics.

(Report of the Department of the Army Review of the Preliminary Investigations into the My Lai Incident, Department of Army, 1970)

Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970)

… South Vietnam was part of French Cochin-China, but after a long process of civil war, the French were excluded from the whole region.
A conference was summoned to meet at Geneva in 1954.
The conclusions reached were sensible and, if they had been carried out, no trouble would have arisen.
Vietnam was to be independent and neutral, and was to have a parliamentary government established by a General Election.
The Americans did not like this.
They professed to suspect that [a unified] Vietnam would become part of the Communist bloc if left to itself… in spite of reiterated statements by the Government of North Vietnam that they wished to be neutral. …

There were in South Vietnam three parties:

• the peasants [—] who constituted the large majority;
• the Buddhists; and
• a tiny minority of Christians [—] who had been supporters of the French.

The Americans [chose] to support [the Catholics.]
[Consequently, war] ensued between the American-supported minority and the Buddhists and peasants. …

It has been warfare of an incredibly brutal kind [—] brutal to a degree seldom equaled by any civilised power. …
It is generally admitted that there is no hope that the Americans can win this war. …

[8,000,000 South Vietnamese] have been put in barbed wire concentration camps involving forced labour.
The country — civilians, animals and crops, as well as warriors and jungle — has been sprayed with jelly gasoline and poison chemicals.
50,000 villages were burnt in 1962 alone. …

[The] anti-Communist Democratic Party of Vietnam told the International Control Commission that:

Decapitation, eviscerations and the public display of murdered women and children are common.

(The Labour Party's Foreign Policy, London School of Economics, 15 February, 1965)

John Kennedy (1917 – 63)

You can never defeat the Communist movement in Indochina until you get the support of natives …
[And] you won't get [that support,] until the French … pull out and give this country the right of self-determination and the right to govern themselves.
(1951)

[I believe] that no amount of military assistance in Indochina can conquer

• an enemy that is everywhere and at the same time nowhere,
• "an enemy of the people" which has the sympathy and covert support of the people.

(1954)

(Chris Matthews, Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero, Simon & Schuster, 2011, Reader's Digest, 2013, pp 67 & 98)

(A Disrespectful Loyalty, Episode 9: May 1970 – March 1973)




(Ken Burns & Lynn Novick, Things Fall Apart, PBS The Vietnam War, Episode 6: January – July 1968, 2017)

The Only Sin is Pride

The enemy has been defeated in battle after battle.
He continues to hope that America's will to persevere can be broken.
Well … he is wrong.

— Lyndon Johnson (1908 – 73)


[War] is killing people.
When you kill enough of them, the other guy quits.

— Curtis LeMay (1906 – 90), General & Chief of Staff, US Air Force.


All men make mistakes.
But a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the error.
The only sin is pride.

— Robert Kennedy (1925 – 68)

(John McNaughton, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs,
Draft Memorandum to Robert McNamara — Plan of Action for South Vietnam, 24 March 1965)

Robert McNamara (1916 – 2009) [Secretary of Defense, 1961-68]:
There may be a limit beyond which many Americans and much of the world will not permit the United States to go.
The picture of the world's greatest superpower killing or seriously injuring 1,000 non-combatants a week, while trying to pound a tiny backward nation into submission on an issue whose merits are hotly disputed, is not a pretty one.
(Resolve, Episode 4: January 1966 – June 1967)

There was no reason to believe that the prolonged infliction of grievous causalities, or the heavy punishment of air bombardment, will suffice to break the will of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong.
The continuation of our present course of action in South East Asia would be dangerous, costly in lives, and unsatisfactory for the American people.
(This Is What We Do, Episode 5: July – December 1967)

Ken Burns & Lynn Novick:
[In mid-1965] Undersecretary of State George Ball [told Johnson] the war could not be won.
The American people will grow weary of it.
Our troops will get bogged down in the jungles and rice paddies, he warned, while we slowly blow the country to pieces.
No one else agreed.

(The River Styx, Episode 3: January 1964 – December 1965)




(This Is What We Do, Episode 5: July – December 1967)




(Ken Burns & Lynn Novick, Déjà Vu, PBS The Vietnam War, Episode 1: 1858 – 1961, 2017)

Richard Nixon

PBS American Experience

Pure and Simple Politics

I saw Watergate as politics, pure and simple. …

By law and order, I mean law and order for everyone …

I have expressed to the appropriate authorities, my view that no individual holding … a position of major importance in the administration, should be given immunity from prosecution.
I condemn any attempts to cover-up in this case, no matter who is involved. …

[When] the President does it, that means that it is not illegal. …

Always remember, others may hate you, but those that hate you don't win,
unless you hate them.
And then, you destroy yourself.

— Richard Nixon (1913 – 94)


Nixon wanted the presidency so bad that there were no depths he wouldn't sink to.

— John Kennedy (1917 – 63), November 1960.


Robert Mann (1958):
[In 1968, Richard Nixon saw peace in Vietnam] as a direct threat to his [Presidential election] campaign.
So he actively began working to sabotage the peace talks by turning the South Vietnamese government against any preelection peace agreement.
[He] quietly sent word to the South Vietnamese that they should hold out for a better deal under a Nixon administration.
(The Complete Idiot's Guide to The Cold War, Alpha, 2002, p 213)

Richard Nixon (1913 – 94):
My God!, I would never do anything to encourage Saigon not to come to the [negotiating] table …
(Taped Conversation with President Johnson, 1968)

Daniel Ellsberg (1931):
It's not that we were on the wrong side.
We were the wrong side.
(Judith Ehrlich & Rick Goldsmith, The Most Dangerous Man in America, 2009)

Charles Ferguson (1955):
Infuriated by leaks to the media, Nixon orders John Ehrlichman to create a secret White House organisation to identify leakers and attack them, starting with Daniel Ellsberg.

Richard Nixon (1913 – 94):
Don't get the impression that you [in the media] arouse my anger.
One can only be angry with those he respects.

Gerald Ford (1913 – 2006) [40th Vice President of the United States]:
[It's] my judgement that the evidence is overwhelming that he had nothing to do with the so-called cover-up.
So the President, in my judgement is innocent, and will be exonerated.
(27 July 1974)

I, Gerald R Ford, President of the United States, do grant a full, free and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon.
(8 September 1974)

Charles Ferguson (1955):
[The] pardon was part of a larger deal that eventually gave Nixon control over the tapes. …
For the rest of his life, Richard Nixon fought to keep the tapes secret.
After Nixon's death in 1994, Professor Stanley Kutler forced the release of many new tapes.

Gerald Ford (1913 – 2006) [38th President of the United States]:
There was no deal, period, under no circumstances.
(House Judiciary Committee Hearing)

Charles Ferguson (1955):
In 1978, Carter signed into law the Ethics in Government Act, which guaranteed the independence of special prosecutors.
It was allowed to expire in 1999 [under Bill Clinton.]

Bob Woodward (1943):
What was Watergate?
The five wars of Watergate:

1. [the war] against the anti-war movement,
2. [the war] against the news media,
3. the war against the Democrats,
4. the war against justice, and …
5. the war against history.

(Watergate, 2018)

The White House Tapes

Richard Nixon (1913 – 94):
For once we've got to use the maximum power of this country against this shit-ass little country, to win the war. …
[Henry, the] only place where you and I disagree … is with regard to the bombing.
You're so goddamned concerned about the civilians.
And I don't give a damn. …
I still think we ought to take the dikes out now.
Will that drown people?

Henry Kissinger (1923) [National Security Advisor]:
That will drown about 200,000 people.

Richard Nixon (1913 – 94):
Well, no …
I'd rather use a nuclear bomb.
Have you got that ready?

Henry Kissinger (1923):
That, I think, would just be too much.

Richard Nixon (1913 – 94):
I just want you to think big, Henry.
For Christ's sakes.
(25 April 1972)


Richard Nixon (1913 – 94):
Now, you remember Huston's plan?
I want it implemented on a thievery basis!
Goddamit, get in, get those files [at the Brookings Institution on Johnson's bombing halt.]
Blow the safe and get it.
(16 June 1971)

Richard Nixon (1913 – 94):
Those sonsofbitches [at The New York Times] are killing me.
We're up against … an enemy.
A conspiracy.
They're using any means.
We are going to use any means.

Did you get the Brooking Institute raided last night? …
No?
Get it done.
I want the Brookings safe cleaned out.
(1 July 1971)


Richard Nixon (1913 – 94):
Just say, [that the Watergate break-in] was a comedy of errors, and [the CIA] should call the FBI in, and say that, for the country, don't go any further into this one.
Tell them, lay off.
I don't want them to get any ideas that we're doing it because our concern is political.
(23 June 1972)

Richard Nixon (1913 – 94):
I want the most comprehensive notes on all those who have tried to do us in.
We haven't used the power in the first four years.
We haven't used the Bureau.
We haven't used the Justice Department.
But things are gonna change now.

John Dean (1928) [White House Counsel]:
That's an exciting prospect.
(25 September 1972)


Richard Nixon (1913 – 94):
A 35-year sentence [for the Watergate burglars]?
There were no weapons, right?
No injuries?
That's just ridiculous.
One of these blacks holds up a store with a goddamn gun, they give him two years.
Probation after six months. …
[The burglars] expect clemency within a reasonable times? …
You couldn't do it, say, in six months? …

John Dean (1928):
No. …

Richard Nixon (1913 – 94):
Jesus Christ.
The main thing is the isolation of the President from this.
Because that, fortunately, is totally true.
(28 February 1973)


John Dean (1928):
We have a cancer, within, close to the Presidency …
[Arrangements] had to be made …
[The burglars] had to be taken care of. …
And that is an obstruction of justice.

Richard Nixon (1913 – 94):
The fact that you're taking care of witnesses. …

John Dean (1928):
Now, the continuing blackmail [by the burglars] will go on …
People here are not pros at this.
This is the sort of thing mafia can people do.
Washing money?
We just don't know about these things.
We're not criminals.

Richard Nixon (1913 – 94):
That's right.
How much money do you need?

John Dean (1928):
I would say, a million dollars over the next two years.

Richard Nixon (1913 – 94):
We could get that. …
I know where it could be gotten. …

John Dean (1928):
We cannot let you be tarnished. …

Richard Nixon (1913 – 94):
The obstruction of justice. …
We're all in it.
I think, up to this point, we had certain choices.
But that's gone.
(21 March 1973)


Henry Kissinger (1923):
I don't know a damn thing about Watergate, and I don't want to.
But where are the civil libertarians?
A judge gives somebody a 55-year sentence in order to make him talk.
Where's the protection of the Fifth Amendment? …
It was a simple case of burglary.
First offenders.
People who would never do it again.

Richard Nixon (1913 – 94):
Trying to make them talk, it's unbelievable.
(27 March 1973)


Lowell Weicker (1931) [Senator from Connecticut (R), Watergate Committee]:
I thing the political repercussions … are gonna be a lot worse if we don't get all than facts than if we do get all the facts. …
I think the nation, the Republican Party, the entire political system, is hurt far more by facts being concealed, by witnesses being shielded than by fellows like McCord and others coming forth and laying it all on the line.
(Television interview)

Richard Nixon (1913 – 94):
I want you to get the goods Weicker.
I think we've got to play a damn tough game on him.
Have they done the checking on his financial statements?
Is his income tax being checked yet?
(30 March 1973)


Richard Nixon (1913 – 94):
Today … I accepted the resignations of two of my closest associates in the White House.
Bob Haldeman.
John Ehrlichman. …
I want the American people to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that, during my term as president, justice will be pursued fairly, fully, and impartially.
No matter who's involved.
(30 April 1973)

Charles Ferguson (1955):
Shortly afterwards, Nixon secretly rehired Haldeman and Ehrlichman as consultants …
By this point, Kissinger had secretly taped 15,000 phone calls.
He later destroyed the tapes.
Others were secretly taping each other, planting rumors, hiring criminal lawyers, and looking for new jobs.
(Things Fall Apart, Watergate, Episode 3, 2018)


Richard Nixon (1913 – 94):
I frankly thought [the Watergate burglary] was a CIA thing. …
This was a Dean plot, period.
I didn't do it. …
Suppose I had called him in, and said,

Look, concoct a story to the CIA …

Well, Goddammit, he can't say that.
It's … it's totally privileged. …
And beyond that, it's totally not true.
(11 May 1973)

Richard Nixon (1913 – 94):
I haven't got a tape [of my conversations with John Dean.]
I don't have any tape.
(6 June 1973)

Pat Buchanan (1938) [Strategist and Speechwriter]:
I sent Nixon a memo, I said,

You're gonna have to keep the Dean tapes … and all the other foreign policy tapes.
Take the rest of them out and burn them …
[Get] rid of the Archie Cox and the special prosecutor's office of the independent counsel.
Shut the thing down because this is gonna grow into a monster, and it will kill us.

Charles Ferguson (1955):
What did you think when you learned that [Vice President Spiro Agnew] had, in fact, been taking bribes in?

Pat Buchanan (1938):
… I wrote him a note, and I said …

I think [that, by resigning,] you've set a standard for courage in politics by a Vice President that will stand for a long time.

I just told him how much I admired him and regret what was happening to him.

Would you like to know more?

The Future Eaters

Tim Flannery

Tim Flannery (1956):
[Future] eating is … a cycle …
[By] the beginning of the 16th century … the Maori had really hit rock bottom.
{[There] was far too many people and not enough food. …}
[From] then on we see [the first glimmerings of] conserving their resources for the future … that was to play an increasingly important role in the new societies that they were beginning to invent. …

Wikipedia:
Outside the mainland of Afro-Eurasia … megafaunal extinctions followed a distinctive landmass-by-landmass pattern that closely parallels the spread of humans into previously uninhabited regions of the world, and which shows no correlation with climatic history …
An analysis of Sporormiella fungal spores (which derive mainly from the dung of megaherbivores) in swamp sediment cores spanning the last 130,000 years from Lynch’s Crater in Queensland, Australia showed that the megafauna of that region virtually disappeared about 41,000 years ago, at a time when climate changes were minimal …
[The] change was accompanied by an increase in charcoal, and was followed by a transition from rainforest to fire-tolerant sclerophyll vegetation.
The high-resolution chronology of the changes supports the hypothesis that human hunting alone eliminated the megafauna, and that the subsequent change in flora was most likely a consequence of the elimination of browsers and an increase in fire.
The increase in fire lagged the disappearance of megafauna by about a century, and most likely resulted from accumulation of fuel once browsing stopped.
(27 January 2013)