ABSTRACT
I want to begin with an incident that took place on Bikini in the Marshall Islands shortly after World War II. A young U.S. lieutenant who had not been to the South Pacific before was put in charge of cleaning up the island and specifically ordered to preserve the local flora and fauna as much as possible. He had the refuse swept into neat piles and decided to burn it as the most efficient means of disposal. Unfortunately, nobody had told him about burning coconuts. When coconuts burn they explode, with a force that hurls flaming bits of husk dozens of feet. The lieutenant’s carefully separated piles thus spread the fires to the surroundings, soon creating a conflagration that consumed the very local flora and fauna he had been ordered to protect. 1
