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Scientists say sudden oak death epidemic is no longer stoppable

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Scientists say sudden oak death epidemic is no longer stoppable

#101

Post by ars »

beatpanda wrote: post #96
ars wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Climate change is putting stress on ecosystems that causes them to change more rapidly than they have in the past. Is it? You keep reading this story and that story about how this crop failed, or changed or whatever, and they always blame climate change. Then you check and see - oh yah, that also happened in this year and that year. Climate change is becoming like dark energy - blame absolutely everything you don't…

And that attitude is why society isn't going to adjust in enough time to avoid a whole bunch of extinction and ecosystem collapse.

Wait, so you want to blame absolutely everything on climate change, so that people get super scared and do something about it?

That doesn't seem dishonest to you?

For example the story in this article has exactly zero to do with climate change - but I assume you would be happy to blame it on climate change anyway?

> to avoid a whole bunch of extinction and ecosystem collapse

Really? Who is predicting that? Only in the worst case scenarios will that happen, and the data is not trending that way. You are so caught up in your desire to fearmonger-for-change that you have gone a full circle: Now you are trying to prevent a catastrophe you yourself invented.

And that attitude is why society's belief in the reliability of science has never been lower.

Tell the truth. Don't lie to get change.

Re: Scientists say sudden oak death epidemic is no longer stoppable

#102

Post by danieltillett »

callmeed wrote: post #100
danieltillett wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Australian I find the CA eucalyptus very nostalgic. They are most certainly a fire hazard, but I am surprised to learn that they are considered useless for firewood. Here in Australia the best firewood is eucalyptus - it is a bastard to split though.

Yeah, it can work as firewood for heat if its thoroughly dried (1+ year). You have to split it before it dries. I guess I should clarify my previous post. Most people in CA don't burn wood for heat. I was specifically referring to burning wood for cooking (aka Santa Maria Style BBQ). For that, oak is superior and eucalyptus is a no-go.

Yes it does need to be dried to burn well. I have split by hand an awful lot of seasoned eucalyptus and it is hard work and takes real skill. It is even worse here in Australia as due to the native pests the wood contains a lot more knots. You get used to taking a good look at a log and deciding if that is worth splitting or not.

You can cook with it, but you need to let the fire die down and cook on the coals only - that is unless you love the taste of cough drops.

On the topic of building with it even young eucalyptus is OK if you let the timber season while strapped so it doesn’t twist and warp. The only problem is that it become like iron and is impossible to nail. When I was a kid we had a huge supply of seasoned eucalyptus that my brother and I used to build all sorts of things. We had to pre-drill all the nail holes before we could use it. If you did this it was a 100x better structural timber than pine.

Re: Scientists say sudden oak death epidemic is no longer stoppable

#103

Post by yongjik »

ars wrote: post #86
beatpanda wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Climate change is putting stress on ecosystems that causes them to change more rapidly than they have in the past. You could go back in history and find similar things, but you'd be hard pressed to go back in history and find as many things happening at the same time .

> Climate change is putting stress on ecosystems that causes them to change more rapidly than they have in the past. Is it? You keep reading this story and that story about how this crop failed, or changed or whatever, and they always blame climate change. Then you check and see - oh yah, that also happened in this year and that year. Climate change is becoming like dark energy - blame absolutely everything you don't…

That's like saying economic recession is a very slow and subtle process, and it's not responsible for every single person who lost job this year.

Which is perfectly true. In fact, you'll never be able to conclusively show that a single person is jobless because of the recession.

But when recession comes and millions lose jobs, I'll bet my ass that people will blame the economy and politicians will scramble to "do something".

Re: Scientists say sudden oak death epidemic is no longer stoppable

#104

Post by Dylan16807 »

chc wrote: post #62
Tossrock wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obscuring the subject to force a click. "This disease" instead of "Sudden oak death". The idea is that person will read the scary part, want to find out which particular disease it is, and click through. It's headline SEO 101.

The odds aren't great that a given person knows what "sudden oak death" is, so that doesn't seem to add much except an extra expectation on the reader. I'm pretty sure this headline is not far from what it would been as a newspaper headline 30 years ago. It would have just been "Disease" rather than "This disease" since newspaper headlines favor brevity, but using common nouns in headlines for things that aren't supe…

Yes. You either already know about the disease or you don't. The wording of "disease" vs. "sudden oak death" doesn't change how much I want to click at all.

It's not a situation where the title might obscure which disease is causing the problem. There's one problem.

And "sudden oak death" is sort of a fake name anyway.

Re: Scientists say sudden oak death epidemic is no longer stoppable

#105

Post by mdip »

Years ago all of the oak trees in my area were cut down due to being killed by the Emerald Ash Borer, a beetle. Fines were imposed for exporting fire wood outside of the affected counties (a common thing to do in my state where people take their chopped logs up to their cabins for bonfires) but it did little to keep the bug from spreading further and further.

Many of these trees were in large forests, but it's most noticeable in my area due to the sudden change in suburbia from large oak trees planted when the homes were originally built (some a half-century or more ago) now having unusual looking, small maple trees adorning the front of their property. It's sad to see yet another pest attacking those same trees.

Re: Scientists say sudden oak death epidemic is no longer stoppable

#106

Post by saintgimp »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #52

I'm sorry but isn't this just Darwinism in play here? You get natural selection, and various species that are selected against become extinct. But it's not like it's going to turn into some sort of desert, the area, after forest fires, will be replaced by another species that is presumably resistant to the fungus, and life moves on.

Actually, a lot of California is going to turn into some sort of desert. There are several borderline ecosystems that used to support mature trees but once we lost them to disease or fire no trees of any kind appear to be growing back; just chaparral.

Yes, Life (capital L) moves on, but perhaps not the kind of life that we'd prefer. We can just shrug and say, "Oh well" or we can take a moment to reflect on what, if anything, we might do to steer natural selection in directions we find more pleasant.

Re: Scientists say sudden oak death epidemic is no longer stoppable

#107

Post by samstave »

whyenot wrote: post #20

Five hundred years ago, Spaniards spread the seeds of european annual grasses as they traveled between missions in California. Within a century or two, a large part of the California landscape had changed. Annual grasses crowded out native perennial grasses, and we got our "golden hills." Nobody knows exactly what California looked like before the Spanish arrived or how many species may have gone extinct, but you can…

I'm just so amazed at how much fucked up devastation the Spanish are responsible for.

It's impressive.

Re: Scientists say sudden oak death epidemic is no longer stoppable

#108

Post by samstave »

losteric wrote: post #83
stevecalifornia wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not plant related, but equally fascinating: There used to be a lake bigger than Lake Tahoe in California between Fresno and Bakersfield. It It was the largest fresh water lake west of the Great Lakes (by surface area). It was drained for agriculture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulare_Lake

I wonder how all these lost lakes impacted the regional climate

I've often thought about this.

I've wondered; if we built a huge trench from the ocean into the Sahara desert, what would the environmental impact be??

Re: Scientists say sudden oak death epidemic is no longer stoppable

#109

Post by ars »

yongjik wrote: post #103
ars wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Climate change is putting stress on ecosystems that causes them to change more rapidly than they have in the past. Is it? You keep reading this story and that story about how this crop failed, or changed or whatever, and they always blame climate change. Then you check and see - oh yah, that also happened in this year and that year. Climate change is becoming like dark energy - blame absolutely everything you don't…

That's like saying economic recession is a very slow and subtle process, and it's not responsible for every single person who lost job this year. Which is perfectly true. In fact, you'll never be able to conclusively show that a single person is jobless because of the recession. But when recession comes and millions lose jobs, I'll bet my ass that people will blame the economy and politicians will scramble to "do som…

An economic recession is not in the slightest a slow and subtle process, your comparisons are off by orders of magnitude.

Re: Scientists say sudden oak death epidemic is no longer stoppable

#110

Post by kafkaesq »

stevecalifornia wrote: post #30
whyenot wrote: post #20

Five hundred years ago, Spaniards spread the seeds of european annual grasses as they traveled between missions in California. Within a century or two, a large part of the California landscape had changed. Annual grasses crowded out native perennial grasses, and we got our "golden hills." Nobody knows exactly what California looked like before the Spanish arrived or how many species may have gone extinct, but you can…

Not plant related, but equally fascinating: There used to be a lake bigger than Lake Tahoe in California between Fresno and Bakersfield. It It was the largest fresh water lake west of the Great Lakes (by surface area). It was drained for agriculture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulare_Lake

There used to be a fairly sizable indigenous community (referred to by English-speaking settlers as the Yokuts) in the vicinity of that lake. Some 70,000 strong at their pre-contact height (one of the highest regional populations in North America):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokuts_people

As a people they were apparently "drained" nearly out of existence, also, through the combined efforts of Mexican and European settlers, around the time that lake was drained (down to an estimated population of 600 by 1910).

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