Its hard to overestimate the benefits of fire in temperate climates throughout the world.
Depends on where you are in the temperate and what sort of fire.
In the temperate its basically been a battle between the perennial grasses and the woody plants. The Komarek brothers showed there was a strong correlation between lightning strike frequency and oiginal extent of grasslands across North America. Nearly all of those grasslands are now cropland or pasture or used for forage production.
So if you took a college level ecology course taught by Hal, and another taught by the Nutty Professor... which one would provide you with more useful knowledge and the best value for your tuition money?
And which one would teach you how to be a pompous arrogant ass?
I think it's easy to see why the Nutty Professor got only a 2 out of 5 "Rate My Professor" rating at Iowa State, the lowest among his peers. My only question is how in hell did he even get a "2" rating?
