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2,000-year-old redwoods survive wildfire at California's oldest state park

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Re: 2,000-year-old redwoods survive wildfire at California's oldest state park

#121

Post by calvinmorrison »

gdubs wrote: post #99

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…

trees used to be used as wind breaks for farms, would it be possible to do some geo-engineering to prevent fires from spreading through passive design like gaps or roadways or something?

Re: 2,000-year-old redwoods survive wildfire at California's oldest state park

#122

Post by throwaway5752 »

refurb wrote: post #115
gdubs wrote: post #99

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.

Global warming is happening, and easily measurable and observed with the naked eye. Obviously large forest fires have occurred before humans doubled atmospheric CO2 levels in the last century.

The idea it is either natural or the result of human caused climate change is a false choice. The question is how much climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of them as a contributing factor. They occur naturally and climate change is predicted (and has so far been accurate) to make them more frequent and worse. Like hurricanes and droughts.

Re: 2,000-year-old redwoods survive wildfire at California's oldest state park

#123

Post by kaonwarb »

hinkley wrote: post #119
refurb wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

“Naturally“ is a mental trap we have walked ourselves into, with John Muir leading the charge. 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 wer…

Surely you acknowledge that forests in California predated human habitation thereof? (I could see a pedantic point in that they would not then be part of “recorded history,” if that were the point intended.)

Re: 2,000-year-old redwoods survive wildfire at California's oldest state park

#124

Post by frosted-flakes »

henearkr wrote: post #116
JackFr wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> late-Anthropocene Is it always the late-Anthropocene, or do you know something?

Lol. I am just reading a novel set in the future and where our current period is referred as such, because, at the end of this climate crisis and huge extinction event, humans decide to restore the biosphere to its last post-glacial state. The notion that the Anthropocene could end is interesting though, it may be a happy (like in the novel) or a scary end.

I'm intrigued. What's the book called?

Re: 2,000-year-old redwoods survive wildfire at California's oldest state park

#125

Post by bitwize »

mdonahoe wrote: post #67
DoreenMichele wrote: post #5

Redwoods not only survive the fires, they tend to proliferate afterwards. After lesser trees have been cleared out by the fires, redwood seedlings take root. Redwoods also thrive in low rain areas that are prone to fog because they benefit from the fog in a way that other trees do not. I once suggested redwoods as an alternate or additional metaphor for giftedness re Stephanie Tolan's "Is it a cheetah?" https://www.s…

I was thinking redwoods are like rich people. Their scale gives them unfair advantages compared to other plants. Also metaphors make weak arguments.

Now there's no more redwood oppression,

For they passed a noble law;

And the trees are all kept equal

By hatchet, axe, and saw.

Re: 2,000-year-old redwoods survive wildfire at California's oldest state park

#126

Post by leafboi »

gdubs wrote: post #99

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…

In all likelihood the answer is no. They won't survive.

Re: 2,000-year-old redwoods survive wildfire at California's oldest state park

#127

Post by danans »

blhack wrote: post #118
maerF0x0 wrote: post #112

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…

It's frustrating that such an obvious solution to this problem exists. Logging will create jobs, stimulate the economies of rural towns, help the forest ecology. 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 ince…

> Logging will create jobs, stimulate the economies of rural towns, help the forest ecology.

The types of plant growth that significantly increase wildfire risk significantly (by providing kindling) are not the big profitable trees, but rather the low growing brush and low diameter trees, for which there isn't much of a market (although Sierra Pacific Co. in CA is trying to turn those in to particle board).

Also, the forestry industry is very mechanized, and doesn't rely on a lot of human labor compared to the past.

https://www.npr.org/2018/08/29/642955787/will-more-logging-s...

Re: 2,000-year-old redwoods survive wildfire at California's oldest state park

#128

Post by leafboi »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #5

Redwoods not only survive the fires, they tend to proliferate afterwards. After lesser trees have been cleared out by the fires, redwood seedlings take root. Redwoods also thrive in low rain areas that are prone to fog because they benefit from the fog in a way that other trees do not. I once suggested redwoods as an alternate or additional metaphor for giftedness re Stephanie Tolan's "Is it a cheetah?" https://www.s…

What you're saying is true, but this fire was not a good thing. Trees don't do well when you set forest fires year after year after year.

Re: 2,000-year-old redwoods survive wildfire at California's oldest state park

#129

Post by hinkley »

kaonwarb wrote: post #123
hinkley wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Naturally“ is a mental trap we have walked ourselves into, with John Muir leading the charge. 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 wer…

Surely you acknowledge that forests in California predated human habitation thereof? (I could see a pedantic point in that they would not then be part of “recorded history,” if that were the point intended.)

I acknowledge that the forests of California are more than 12000 years old, yes. We have very little information on what those looked like [and some of that was systematically suppressed by the people who wrote the history books]. What we have is documentation of forests that were already under active but low-intensity cultivation for almost 10,000 years before someone with pen and paper saw them [and decided that a superior race would put them to much better use].

ETA: some unspoken colonialism that is the puppetmaster in this play. I am a systems thinker. You cannot address systemic problems without at least acknowledging how they started and propagated. False histories of false histories just make the problem worse by trivializing the scope, leading people to half measures.

Re: 2,000-year-old redwoods survive wildfire at California's oldest state park

#130

Post by dhosek »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #121
gdubs wrote: post #99

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…

trees used to be used as wind breaks for farms, would it be possible to do some geo-engineering to prevent fires from spreading through passive design like gaps or roadways or something?

Firebreaks are a long-standing fire management technique. The problem is that with an intense fire, it's possible for the flame to leap across the firebreak, even very wide ones when there are windy conditions (which an intense fire can exacerbate).

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

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