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Forest Service officials close all California national forests

latimes.com

231–236 of 236 posts

Re: Forest Service officials close all California national forests

#231
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think there should be a re-evaluation of whether or not to let people build or rebuild in especially fire-prone areas. This is already happening, not by government, but rather by the insurance markets. My friend has lived in a fire-prone area of Southern California for years. His home owners insurances rates have more than tripled in the last few years. He just recently moved (yep, Idaho).

Does the government subsidize fire insurance? I'm always taken aback when I see people rebuilding from a hurricane with subsidized wind and flood insurance. I understand why its nice for those that need it but has perverse incentives.

In California, if you can't get fire insurance through the private market, you generally have access to the FAIR Plan (https://www.cfpnet.com/about-fair-plan/). As the about page points out, it's not taxpayer funded - instead, companies writing home insurance in the state are required to contribute towards a share of risk in the plan.

Re: Forest Service officials close all California national forests

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have one piece of anectdata. I own some property in the Sierra foothills, and a couple of years ago spent considerable time talking to the California Department Forestry (CDF) fire chief for the area about clearing a fire break through it. It was part of a huge project. We agreed on the path, had the legal paperwork signed... and then... COVID, and then, 100% of local crews were dispatched to fight last year's fire…

I imagine a burned area becomes a pretty good fire break. So does this mean that less work will be needed (state-wide) when this fire season is over?

Yes. Although there will still be places that need work. The Detweiler fire burned across my place a few years ago. Mostly burned “cool” - ground fire not crown fire - so a lot of fuel got eliminated. Came back healthier. Still, it could use some work to create a defense line. There is a fire road through the property so it is possible to move equipment through there in case of a fire, so it is a defensible ridge. The neighboring canyon would be a death trap for a Cat crew if the fire jumped them.

Re: Forest Service officials close all California national forests

#233
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a thought experiment, I wonder what it would cost to build a European village scale town for 22k people (the population of SLT) and then literally build a moat around it as a firebreak.

Probably more effective to mandate less flammable construction, and stop forcing insurance companies to cover homes that have burned multiple times.

The insurance thing is interesting. Along the gulf coast insurance has retreated over time, and There are no significant areas that used to be developed that got wiped out in a hurricane and were not rebuilt. Perhaps the same will happen in California.

Re: Forest Service officials close all California national forests

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s 1.5 C per century. Where I sit, there was ice a mile thick 15,000 years ago. We are still coming out of the last ice age. Besides that, we have just come out of the so-called Little Ice Age, at the height of which people walked from Manhattan to Staten Island on the ice in New York Harbor. 1.5 C per century is inconsequential. Not only that, but I predict that humans will stop emitting CO2 in a few decades, in…

You are mentioning these geological time scales such as 15,000 years ago, but those figures representing delta are derived from a 42 year period. What is the delta if you account for the temperatures relating to any significant change in human consumption as opposed to this period which is the only one that coincides with fuel efficiency standards and increased environmental enforcement? Selecting a very small time p…

That is the length of the satellite record.

Re: Forest Service officials close all California national forests

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that the actual global atmospheric warming is minimal, 0.14 C/decade. [0] The actual problem is climate change in the western part of the United States, coupled with higher population density, poor forest management, and poor power line maintenance. [0] https://www.drroyspencer.com/2021/08/uah-global-temperature-...

I looked this up, thinking, there's no way that .15 C / decade is plausible, you're a wackjob. But there it is: https://www.co2.earth/global-warming-update Global warming has only increased the Earth's temperature by 1 degree Celsius? That doesn't seem like a lot.

Look at the satellite temperate record I showed. It is the only believable record at this point, because of terrestrial temperature manipulation by people like Hansen. The linear trend is 0.14 degrees per decade over the last 40 years.

Read Spencer’s book for an alternate point of view. Global warming is real, but it is not catastrophic.

Re: Forest Service officials close all California national forests

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s 1.5 C per century. Where I sit, there was ice a mile thick 15,000 years ago. We are still coming out of the last ice age. Besides that, we have just come out of the so-called Little Ice Age, at the height of which people walked from Manhattan to Staten Island on the ice in New York Harbor. 1.5 C per century is inconsequential. Not only that, but I predict that humans will stop emitting CO2 in a few decades, in…

> Where I sit, there was ice a mile thick 15,000 years ago. Besides that, we have just come out of the so-called Little Ice Age, at the height of which people walked from Manhattan to Staten Island on the ice in New York Harbor. At the last glacial maximum, global temperature was about 7°C cooler than today; the “Little Ice Age” wasn't a particular period of global cooling, but a set of unsynchronized localized pheno…

Based on the observed fact that as societies become more sophisticated, they shift away from coal and oil to renewables and nuclear.

What will happen is not dependent on the US or the EU. It depends entirely on India and China.

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