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California is not in drought

latimes.com

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Re: California is not in drought

#81

Post by edoceo »

njarboe wrote: post #72
rsj_hn wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed "Academics believe that between 4.4 million and 11.8 million acres burned each year in prehistoric California. Between 1982 and 1998, California’s agency land managers burned, on average, about 30,000 acres a year. Between 1999 and 2017, that number dropped to an annual 13,000 acres[...] California would need to burn 20 million acres — an area about the size of Maine — to restabilize in terms of fire." https:/…

Well, 4.4 million acres burned in 2020 and 1.7 million in 2018, so were a third of the way to that 20 million already.

old nature wanted ~5MM acres a year, we messed with it, then nature figures out a way to get what it wants (after some delay). I thought we'd learn our lesson with that firestorm in 1991 (my first big fire memory). silly me.

Re: California is not in drought

#82

Post by dqv »

splitstud wrote: post #75
dqv wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but the 77.3 million acres to grow the plants we eat pales in comparison to the 781 million acres we use for animal agriculture.[0] Why turn almond orchards into cropland when we can just use less of the land we use for animal production and turn that into cropland? I highly doubt all 781 million acres can only be used for animal grazing. [0]: https://extension.oregonstate.edu/bloomberg-illustrates-how-...

Makes perfect sense until you consider the massive amounts of inputs, measured in land or energy, it takes to grow those crops on the smaller amount of land footprint you ARE measuring.

We still us 1.5x the land for for growing feed for animals (excluding feed exports). If you're suggesting that feed requires less inputs, provide the sources that back up that suggestion.

Re: California is not in drought

#83

Post by rsj_hn »

zamfi wrote: post #70
greatgoat420 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't live in CA, and I have no real knowledge of logging, could you explain more about the "greedy loggers" comment? I get that controlled burns are good, but is CA usually known for forests used for lumber? I thought most lumber was grown in the northern parts of America.

Much of California’s forest was clear cut by the logging industry in the 1800s. The “old growth forests” are preserved and form a tiny fraction of what once was. California is no longer as big a source of lumber as it once was.

California is no longer a big source of lumber because it's near impossible to get lumber out of the forests. Not sure what 1800 has to do with anything -- 90% of the trees need to go, and they need to go now. If someone is willing to cut them down and haul them away, then we should let them do that. Hell, we should pay them to do it.

"According to the California Forestry Association, tree density in the Sierra Nevada is too high when compared with the region’s historical rates, creating an elevated fire hazard. It estimates there was an average of 40 trees per acre in the Sierras roughly 150 years ago but puts that number today at hundreds of trees per acre [...] The U.S. Forest Service estimates that California has 129 million dead trees, most in the central and southern Sierras. Insects and drought are to blame for the high numbers."

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/03/california-timber-firms-mayb...

But California makes this incredibly costly and difficult to do, even on private land. You need to submit 500 pages of paperwork for each cut, and the state has been notorious in dragging its heels to approve these harvesting plans.

In terms of the fascination with "old growth", an old growth tree is just a tree of a certain diameter, and these tend to survive forest fires.

Really the problem in California is that a lot of people from the East Coast have moved here and decided that forests were some precious resource that needs to be preserved as in Maine, rather than the dangerous pest that trees are in arid climates.

They just never got the memo that California is not New England and the role played by trees in our ecosystem is very different. California needs trees like Australia needs rabbits.

And so now we have 130 million dead trees, ready to kill hundreds of people, cause billions in property damage, and destroy air quality in the state, just so people can preserve these unscientific romantic notions of "preserving forests", when our top public policy priority should be to reduce the amount of land covered by forests back to safe levels.

Re: California is not in drought

#85

Post by edrxty »

javajosh wrote: post #64
rsj_hn wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The technology to prevent wildfires is controlled burns. The Ohlone indians would regularly do controlled burns, reducing the density of trees by 90%. A combination of anti-controlled burn mentality, building expensive homes in forested areas, and an antipathy to "greedy loggers" has turned California into a tinderbox waiting to go off. The state needs to liquidate 90% of its forests ASAP, because reducing carbon emi…

Would it be a good idea to log the trees and drop them in a bog, or the equivalent, so that the carbon isn't released into the atmosphere?

Or, you know, just build houses with them, preferably somewhere that isn't as water starved. When the houses get torn down, the wood ends up either recycled or in a landfill which is more or less the same thing.

Re: California is not in drought

#86

Post by rsj_hn »

javajosh wrote: post #64
rsj_hn wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The technology to prevent wildfires is controlled burns. The Ohlone indians would regularly do controlled burns, reducing the density of trees by 90%. A combination of anti-controlled burn mentality, building expensive homes in forested areas, and an antipathy to "greedy loggers" has turned California into a tinderbox waiting to go off. The state needs to liquidate 90% of its forests ASAP, because reducing carbon emi…

Would it be a good idea to log the trees and drop them in a bog, or the equivalent, so that the carbon isn't released into the atmosphere?

not sure we have enough bogs to do that -- it might be an expensive proposition. It would be nice if we could find a way to mass produce petrified wood, though.

Re: California is not in drought

#87

Post by rsj_hn »

greatgoat420 wrote: post #69
rsj_hn wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The technology to prevent wildfires is controlled burns. The Ohlone indians would regularly do controlled burns, reducing the density of trees by 90%. A combination of anti-controlled burn mentality, building expensive homes in forested areas, and an antipathy to "greedy loggers" has turned California into a tinderbox waiting to go off. The state needs to liquidate 90% of its forests ASAP, because reducing carbon emi…

I don't live in CA, and I have no real knowledge of logging, could you explain more about the "greedy loggers" comment? I get that controlled burns are good, but is CA usually known for forests used for lumber? I thought most lumber was grown in the northern parts of America.

In 1974 (when the eco movement was ascendant), California passed a series of laws regulating the cutting of trees - even on private land. You now need to file these 500 page "timber harvesting plans" (THPs), pay expensive fees, and wait a few years for approval. Although legally the state is obligated to approve all compliant THPs, practically speaking they can find flaws in the THPs, drag their feet on approval, and you may need to take the state to court. So yes, it's incredibly hard to harvest trees in California compared to other states, which is why the amount of trees harvested in California is much lower than in other states.

The wounded souls crying about greedy timber companies clear cutting forests in the 17th Century or whatnot are strangely silent about the Ohlone regularly burning down 10 million acres a year. Because the Ohlone realized that in the arid western U.S. (what used to be called "the great American desert"), trees were dangerous elements that needed to be suppressed.

Re: California is not in drought

#88

Post by eigen »

rsj_hn wrote: post #40
slavoingilizov wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly do wells and cisterns prevent wildfires? Like many others this technology treats the symptom and doesn’t solve the problem.

The technology to prevent wildfires is controlled burns. The Ohlone indians would regularly do controlled burns, reducing the density of trees by 90%. A combination of anti-controlled burn mentality, building expensive homes in forested areas, and an antipathy to "greedy loggers" has turned California into a tinderbox waiting to go off. The state needs to liquidate 90% of its forests ASAP, because reducing carbon emi…

> The technology to prevent wildfires is controlled burns. ... A combination of anti-controlled burn mentality, building expensive homes in forested areas, and an antipathy to "greedy loggers" has turned California into a tinderbox waiting to go off.

Agricultural and Prescribed Burn Notices are currently approved in the vast majority of the state [1]. and you can see from the historical data [2] that only Aug - Oct have significant restrictions.

[1] https://ssl.arb.ca.gov/pfirs/cb3/cb3.php?id=16

[2] https://www.arb.ca.gov/smp/histor/histor.htm

Re: California is not in drought

#90

Post by eigen »

rsj_hn wrote: post #87
greatgoat420 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't live in CA, and I have no real knowledge of logging, could you explain more about the "greedy loggers" comment? I get that controlled burns are good, but is CA usually known for forests used for lumber? I thought most lumber was grown in the northern parts of America.

In 1974 (when the eco movement was ascendant), California passed a series of laws regulating the cutting of trees - even on private land. You now need to file these 500 page "timber harvesting plans" (THPs), pay expensive fees, and wait a few years for approval. Although legally the state is obligated to approve all compliant THPs, practically speaking they can find flaws in the THPs, drag their feet on approval, and…

> Although legally the state is obligated to approve all compliant THPs, practically speaking they can find flaws in the THPs, drag their feet on approval, and you may need to take the state to court.

this is for large-scale harvesting. I'm seeing individual lot tree removal is a pretty straightforward form [2]. provide reason, site plan, maybe arborist report, etc.

[1] https://caltreesplans.resources.ca.gov/Caltrees/Report/ShowR...

[2] https://www.placer.ca.gov/DocumentCenter/View/40240/Tree-Per...

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