Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

We Know How to Prevent Megafires

propublica.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 110 posts

Re: We Know How to Prevent Megafires

#61

Post by a1369209993 »

brudgers wrote: post #49
jefftk wrote: post #29

It's amazing how many obstacles we put in the way of planned burns, to prevent problems that we've been just have to accept when they happen unexpectedly on their own: Planned burns are human-made events and as such need to follow all environmental compliance rules. That includes the Clean Air Act, which limits the emission of PM 2.5, or fine particulate matter, from human-caused events. In California, those rules ar…

Clean air is the problem? Most people’s rational plan will be to breathing smoke because they can’t fly to the summer house, live in an apartment without central air, have to go to work, and don’t have the money for Marie Antoinette’s idea of “rational options.” They don’t live in a bubble where that flavor of bullshit is palatable.

They have to do that anyway when (not if) the forest burns down on its own, as seems to be happening now. If you don't have the money for Marie Antoinette's idea of "rational options", you're kind of fucked regardless of whether the problem is scheduled in advance or not. Maybe try supplying them with options rather than delaying the empirically inevitable?

Re: We Know How to Prevent Megafires

#62

Post by Jommi »

umvi wrote: post #5
perl4ever wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how a private individual would deal with the liability.

When I lived in the suburbs of Naples people would burn their trash in big piles whenever the garbage collectors went on strike and "nobody" was liable, even though sometimes the fire would spread and burn/damage stuff on the neighbor's property. Then again, Europeans don't have the same litigious culture/attitude that Americans have.

Is it the attitude or is it the system?

Re: We Know How to Prevent Megafires

#63

Post by NicolasGorden »

jefftk wrote: post #29

It's amazing how many obstacles we put in the way of planned burns, to prevent problems that we've been just have to accept when they happen unexpectedly on their own: Planned burns are human-made events and as such need to follow all environmental compliance rules. That includes the Clean Air Act, which limits the emission of PM 2.5, or fine particulate matter, from human-caused events. In California, those rules ar…

I think a big part of the problem is the concept of sacrifice is falling by the wayside.

I feel my grandparents had a much more realistic understanding of the world and it's trade offs.

I get it, yes, it sucks to have controlled burns. No, it doesn't suck as bad as out of control wildfires.

But people want to have their cake and eat it at the same time. It's always been that way, but I feel there are less forces constricting such unrealistic, out of touch perspectives with reality. I feel such a perspective comes with wealth and living outside of nature. Anyone who's hiked enough, or gone camping understands the trade off between the convenience of what you carry and the weight it creates.

I've heard highly intelligent people argue that we should 'increase X in the production of Y', where X is some point that pretty much everyone agrees is good. But when I mention, well that will necessitate an increase in the cost of production of Y, since you are adding extra processes, the concept is rejected. It's really quite fascinating to me to see this manifest in so many aspects.

Re: We Know How to Prevent Megafires

#64

Post by landryraccoon »

njarboe wrote: post #59
jeffbee wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you need to sell federal holdings for timber production? BLM and NFS lands are heavily logged. They used to be much more heavily logged, but the decline is market-based, not policy. The national forests aren't some kind of tree museum. They exist for providing wood to the nation.

You don't need to, as you point out that is the current case, but I think that private ownership would do a better job of extracting economic value from land that we want to put to economic use. Motorized recreational forest and timber production could work well together, but I have not seen that. In some places selective cutting is done, but usually the biggest trees are felled. It would be much better, I think, if…

I’m curious, why wouldn’t a private owner just clear cut all of the land for maximum value? Private land owners choose short term windfall over long term sustainability all the time. I don’t see why private owners would preserve old growth forests if the lumber is more financially profitable when cut down and sold.

Re: We Know How to Prevent Megafires

#65

Post by frosted-flakes »

brudgers wrote: post #48

Academics believe that between 4.4 million and 11.8 million acres burned each year in prehistoric California. Even the low end of this is several times what burned this year. I’m drawing a blank on how that level of burning would prevent “mega fires” unless the idea is to replace them with “super mega fires” several times larger.

The fires covered wide areas, but since they were so frequent, they didn't burn so hot and didn't destroy the forests, just the undergrowth.

Re: We Know How to Prevent Megafires

#66

Post by jeffbee »

landryraccoon wrote: post #64
njarboe wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to, as you point out that is the current case, but I think that private ownership would do a better job of extracting economic value from land that we want to put to economic use. Motorized recreational forest and timber production could work well together, but I have not seen that. In some places selective cutting is done, but usually the biggest trees are felled. It would be much better, I think, if…

I’m curious, why wouldn’t a private owner just clear cut all of the land for maximum value? Private land owners choose short term windfall over long term sustainability all the time. I don’t see why private owners would preserve old growth forests if the lumber is more financially profitable when cut down and sold.

Yeah there's really no evidence that private interests would do anything other than clear-cut sections. Check out this picture. The USFS manages the green squares as part of Shasta-Trinity National Forest. The brown squares are private in-holdings.

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.9320397,-122.0779696,13898a,...

Re: We Know How to Prevent Megafires

#67

Post by brudgers »

a1369209993 wrote: post #61
brudgers wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clean air is the problem? Most people’s rational plan will be to breathing smoke because they can’t fly to the summer house, live in an apartment without central air, have to go to work, and don’t have the money for Marie Antoinette’s idea of “rational options.” They don’t live in a bubble where that flavor of bullshit is palatable.

They have to do that anyway when (not if) the forest burns down on its own, as seems to be happening now. If you don't have the money for Marie Antoinette's idea of "rational options", you're kind of fucked regardless of whether the problem is scheduled in advance or not. Maybe try supplying them with options rather than delaying the empirically inevitable?

[flagged]

Re: We Know How to Prevent Megafires

#68

Post by r00fus »

jeffbee wrote: post #36
njarboe wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes that would be cool. Unfortunately almost all of the old growth forest in the US was cut down and new trees of the size of old will take hundreds of years to grow. Many of the wilderness areas set aside in the 1970 had old growth forests and some are being managed in this way. The rest of the west forest service land is managed in an inconsistant way that changes somewhat with each administration. I think it would…

Why would you need to sell federal holdings for timber production? BLM and NFS lands are heavily logged. They used to be much more heavily logged, but the decline is market-based, not policy. The national forests aren't some kind of tree museum. They exist for providing wood to the nation.

I disagree with the premise that BLM held land is for “providing wood to the nation” especially if we’re clear cutting those forests for profits today and ignore sustainability.

Re: We Know How to Prevent Megafires

#69

Post by me_againnnnnn »

mschuster91 wrote: post #47
samcheng wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To save some people a search: CDF = California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, also known as "CALFIRE" CDCR = California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which in this context supplies convict labor to fight fires. One issue this year is that the California State Prisons are all horrifically overrun with COVID-19, thereby incapacitating what had previously been a critical firefighting functio…

Ideally, the state should not require (it is what it is) slave labor to fulfill basic needs of society. Yes I know in theory it is voluntary and everything, but it is wage dumping using forced labor - because without said slave labor the state would have to pay a lot more for a real standing force. As with most cost cutting measures, eventually the chickens will come home to roost, and there has been quite a horde of…

For example,90+% of the deaths from covid 19 in Sonoma county are from crowded, underfunded nursing homes. A problem that has been completely ignored for so many years. All the rules they made to fight the problem and none of them are actually changing the original problem.

Re: We Know How to Prevent Megafires

#70

Post by me_againnnnnn »

murgindrag wrote: post #44
jefftk wrote: post #29

It's amazing how many obstacles we put in the way of planned burns, to prevent problems that we've been just have to accept when they happen unexpectedly on their own: Planned burns are human-made events and as such need to follow all environmental compliance rules. That includes the Clean Air Act, which limits the emission of PM 2.5, or fine particulate matter, from human-caused events. In California, those rules ar…

One more odd thing is how fast we forget. There were no articles after-the-fact even indicating the fire was over, or how things were going. I searched major web sites like NY Times. Things were burning like crazy, and then reporting stopped. Is it over? Is it contained? Are San Francisco, Mountain View, and Stanford just gone? Reading the newspapers, you just don't know. I'd like to have a retrospective. How much da…

Yeah, the dispersal of emergency information about fires by using private media is an such an unbelievable joke. In this day and age and we get this complete incompetence ?
Post reply on HN