111–120 of 210 posts
Lindy
This concept could be applied to mean that because the forest survived this event, we should expect to last much longer than previously assumed. (something like that at least...)
How much do we spend on forest firefighting? How much do we spend on "no logging" lobbying? How much do we spend on smoke inhalation property damage and all the public communications?
All that could be recouped AND an industry could be revived.
Many commentators have blamed climate change for the fires because it is fashionable, especially on the left, to do so. The reality is that the very small change in temperatures produced by climate change isn't sufficient to produce a change in the rate of fires. We'll have to wait a long time for climate change to produce such effects, if it ever does. I would lay the blame more on our society's technological stagna…
Controlled burns especially have become politically unpopular in recent decades, but they're tremendously effective. With controlled burns, we can burn small amounts of brush when the wind is blowing gently away from major population centers. If we want to fund technical solutions, I'd invest in software that models the best times and places to conduct these controlled burn operations FAR before we start discussing firefighting drones.
Why are there always so many fires in California?
Coastal California sees rain from about the end of October through February, then tapers off to about nothing by May. It then does not rain again until Halloween. I used to think "doesn't rain" meant "half an inch every couple of weeks" but it does not rain in fact at all, it's totally bone dry for the hottest part of the year, until late fall. Getting three inches over the weekend is enough precipitation in the bay…
I was elated to read this, and then disappointed at the comments here. It seems to be feeding an argument of “see, fires are natural and these trees are old - Climate Change is a fear-mongering hoax!” Firestorms are not the meandering fires that have long been a natural part of ecosystems. Ladder fires — where fire leaves the forest floor, up to the crowns, creating a wall of fire that can change weather patterns — a…
Are you saying firestorms don’t happen naturally? I don’t know how to interpret your comment.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why shut up? Your post was very informative and thanks to you I learned a lot of things! However, I bet that the scale of the wildfires in our apocalyptic late-Anthropocene is something hardly seen before in healthy forests... all these species would be better off with less of it.
> late-Anthropocene Is it always the late-Anthropocene, or do you know something?
I was elated to read this, and then disappointed at the comments here. It seems to be feeding an argument of “see, fires are natural and these trees are old - Climate Change is a fear-mongering hoax!” Firestorms are not the meandering fires that have long been a natural part of ecosystems. Ladder fires — where fire leaves the forest floor, up to the crowns, creating a wall of fire that can change weather patterns — a…
Old firefighting techniques have build up vast caches if flammable material that we cannot afford to remove by any other means than forest fires.
Changes in firefighting tactics should mean that once an area has burned, the next fire should be less severe, however the burns will take much longer to recover than they should.
Any time sequoias survive a fire is good news twice over. One, the danger for them in the next fire is diminished. Two, they now have space and the opportunity to reproduce, which is something we have been systemically denying them for generations.
selective harvesting (thinning), controlled burns and other tasks are hard sells to tree hugging Californians. However, it could be someone's livelihood AND a partial solution to the issues that come up. How much do we spend on forest firefighting? How much do we spend on "no logging" lobbying? How much do we spend on smoke inhalation property damage and all the public communications? All that could be recouped AND a…
Imagine this: what if we could create a biomachine that pulls CO2 out of the air and turns into carbon bricks. Now imagine that we not only have this biomachine but we have a use for all of these bricks. People want them really badly. So there is a huge incentive to speed up the process of pulling the CO2 out of the air.
We have that. The biomachines are trees, the bricks are wood, and the industry is logging. Why people who claim to care about the environment are opposed to it is baffling.
I was elated to read this, and then disappointed at the comments here. It seems to be feeding an argument of “see, fires are natural and these trees are old - Climate Change is a fear-mongering hoax!” Firestorms are not the meandering fires that have long been a natural part of ecosystems. Ladder fires — where fire leaves the forest floor, up to the crowns, creating a wall of fire that can change weather patterns — a…
Firestorms are not the meandering fires that have long been a natural part of ecosystems. Are you saying firestorms don’t happen naturally? I don’t know how to interpret your comment.
There is not and never has been in recorded history, a “natural” forest in California. They were anthropomorphic, but in a manner the Western eye refused to see. The indigenous peoples were not a bunch of ignorant riffraff living in a forest paradise wrought by God or Nature. They were the forest paradise, and when they were gone the forests began to change.
“Tending the Wilds” has great coverage of this topic, but if you are not into horticulture it might be a little dry. Still worth a skim.
I was elated to read this, and then disappointed at the comments here. It seems to be feeding an argument of “see, fires are natural and these trees are old - Climate Change is a fear-mongering hoax!” Firestorms are not the meandering fires that have long been a natural part of ecosystems. Ladder fires — where fire leaves the forest floor, up to the crowns, creating a wall of fire that can change weather patterns — a…
I hope so. Old firefighting techniques have build up vast caches if flammable material that we cannot afford to remove by any other means than forest fires. Changes in firefighting tactics should mean that once an area has burned, the next fire should be less severe, however the burns will take much longer to recover than they should. Any time sequoias survive a fire is good news twice over. One, the danger for them…
I see this repeated a lot. Can you talk specifically about the effect of early/mid 20th century firefighting in the Big Basin fire as compared to the Australian bushfires last year, the Siberian fires in 2019, and the Amazon fires this year and last?
I am not sure any prior firefighting occurred in Siberia. And I feel like a lot of people repeat that "firefighting has left too much fuel and that's causing these fires" as though it's conventional wisdom... but it's not quantified so I don't know if it's 100% of the cause or just contributing 10%. In fact, I don't even know how to measure the buildup of flammable material (kg/sq meter?) or how it effects fire intensity. It feels like the discussion around this can veer into being hopeful and unscientific.