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French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

france24.com

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Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#261

Post by holoduke »

reco98gg wrote: post #140
Dibby053 wrote: post #57

For context on why this region is burning so easily: the Landes and Médoc are huge, artificial pine forests created in the 19th century under Napoleon III to drain and reclaim what was considered an inhospitable wetland, where shepherds famously walked around on stilts. Pine resin and needle litter makes it exceptionally flammable, and being an uninterrupted monoculture on flat land it lacks natural barriers to stop…

The main reason the forest is burning is global warming. There were 3 punishing heatwaves before the fire, it was just a matter of time. A part of the Fontainebleau forest, much more north, no pine trees, went in smoke earlier. Forests are burning near Madrid. It may make some people feel better to think that it is an isolated, local problem, but unfortunately global warming is the main culprit and we at least need t…

We have these fires in france since I was born in early 80s. As far as I remember we had them almost every year. Nothing new about it. Doesn't say that global warming doesn't exist. But to shut of any discussion because of global warming is just wrong

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#263

Post by palata »

tirant wrote: post #237
reco98gg wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main reason the forest is burning is global warming. There were 3 punishing heatwaves before the fire, it was just a matter of time. A part of the Fontainebleau forest, much more north, no pine trees, went in smoke earlier. Forests are burning near Madrid. It may make some people feel better to think that it is an isolated, local problem, but unfortunately global warming is the main culprit and we at least need t…

Blaming everything on global warming is extremely dangerous. It fails to address many other reasons why we are experiencing fires and creates an easy to blame enemy and a sensation that there's nothing we can do. We should really go way deeper than just blaming everything on an increase of temperatures, which nevertheless is actually happening. We, locals, have been warning already for decades of the increase of fire…

> Blaming everything on global warming is extremely dangerous

I don't think it's blaming on global warming. Global warming is just making those problems a lot worse.

It is just the beginning, on average it will get worse every year. Every kilogram of CO2 we emit makes it worse, so it won't stop worsening until we reach zero emissions.

> a sensation that there's nothing we can do.

On the contrary, I think there too much we must do because of global warming. There is so much that we certainly won't be able to do it all, meaning that the situation will get "more complicated" anyway. The more we do, the more we preserve.

To make a comparison that stays in the theme: saying "we won't stop it so there is nothing we can do" is like saying "this burning tree is dead anyway, so there is no need to save the rest of the forest". The tree is dead, it won't come back. And we know for sure that many other trees will die. But we should fight to preserve as much as we can from the forest. The less we do, the more we lose. But we will lose a lot anyway, maybe just not everything (depending on how well we fight).

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#264

Post by tmtvl »

tsimionescu wrote: post #232
tirant wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I come from the Mediterranean region and locally we know many explanations for that. Many of those pine forests are relatively new. Pine trees burn frequently, around every 20-30 years. In the past they used to be mixed with many other original trees, but during the recent century reforestation, pines were planted as the single tree species, making fires more prone to happen and more easily to spread. In the past, wa…

> Also, if we talk about past centuries, temperatures used to be higher during early middle age and before. These high temperatures are nothing new in terms of historical forest. This was the hottest year on record. 10 of the last 15 years have been the hottest year on record, consecutively. What makes you believe this fake information about the middle ages?

Someone heard about the Medieval Warm Period, looked at the Wikipedia page, saw the temperature data for the Greenland ice sheets and misinterpreted it to mean global temperature. It fits in well with the 'well, the Jurassic was warmer than today and there were no humans then, so you can't be sure that we're responsible for any climate change that may be happening' argument.

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#265

Post by jcattle »

tirant wrote: post #223
markdown wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pine forests have been there for centuries, so it being pine is no explanation at all for why it's burning so badly now .

I come from the Mediterranean region and locally we know many explanations for that. Many of those pine forests are relatively new. Pine trees burn frequently, around every 20-30 years. In the past they used to be mixed with many other original trees, but during the recent century reforestation, pines were planted as the single tree species, making fires more prone to happen and more easily to spread. In the past, wa…

None of what you are writing is applicable to Landes. Outside of scandinavia Landes region is some of the most intensely managed forest in Europe.

From planting to cutting is only around 30-50 years. With multiple thinnings in between. Also none of that forest existed 200 years ago and there never was anything other than pine planted there for those 200 years, in the beginning for resin, now for pulp.

And so none of it burned in the middle ages or was affected by any higher temperatures because it didn't exist back then.

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#266

Post by palata »

svara wrote: post #238
reco98gg wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main reason the forest is burning is global warming. There were 3 punishing heatwaves before the fire, it was just a matter of time. A part of the Fontainebleau forest, much more north, no pine trees, went in smoke earlier. Forests are burning near Madrid. It may make some people feel better to think that it is an isolated, local problem, but unfortunately global warming is the main culprit and we at least need t…

> Le sujet, c’est l’aridification du milieu. Pour revenir à cet incendie, ce n’est pas un problème de culture, mais de climat. A bit of a distinction without a difference. The climate is not changing back, it's the new normal. In that climate, this particular kind of agriculture (huge pine monocultures) has become a problem. It breaks my heart to say this, I've spent nearly all my childhood summers in my family's sum…

> The climate is not changing back, it's the new normal.

Climate won't get any "new normal" until we reach strictly zero emission.

As long as we emit CO2, climate will get worse. There is no new normal: every year it will get worse.

It doesn't invalidate your point though, that it cannot stay the same and we have to do something. I'm just nitpicking on the "new normal". There won't be a new normal until we stop emitting CO2, it will just get worse and worse.

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#267

Post by palata »

holoduke wrote: post #261
reco98gg wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main reason the forest is burning is global warming. There were 3 punishing heatwaves before the fire, it was just a matter of time. A part of the Fontainebleau forest, much more north, no pine trees, went in smoke earlier. Forests are burning near Madrid. It may make some people feel better to think that it is an isolated, local problem, but unfortunately global warming is the main culprit and we at least need t…

We have these fires in france since I was born in early 80s. As far as I remember we had them almost every year. Nothing new about it. Doesn't say that global warming doesn't exist. But to shut of any discussion because of global warming is just wrong

Not shutting the discussion of course, but it's important to realise that in the early 80s, that was exceptional.

Now it will happen more and more every year, there is no stopping that trend.

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#268

Post by apelapan »

jimnotgym wrote: post #255
apelapan wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealth is a sharper answer than capitalism, even though it is an overlapping one. To manage forrests and and other agriculture in the traditional way, we need extreme amounts of extreme poverty. We need millions and millions of people who are happy to spend 14 hours per day collecting sticks and tending sheep in the woods, in exchange for nothing more than a bowl of porridge. And they need to this every day all their…

I would happily live in the forest and keep a subsistence holding whilst managing the forest. Just give me minimum wage, a small startup grant, a couple of hundred acres of forest and freedom from property taxes.... I'll bundle all the sticks up for kindling. I'll create firebreaks, increase diversity. Genuine offer

Minimum wage is at least 10x too much. You would have no ownership and no startup grant.

There would also be no property taxes, but on the other hand there would also be no tax funded services like healthcare or education.

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#269

Post by palata »

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote: post #163
reco98gg wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main reason the forest is burning is global warming. There were 3 punishing heatwaves before the fire, it was just a matter of time. A part of the Fontainebleau forest, much more north, no pine trees, went in smoke earlier. Forests are burning near Madrid. It may make some people feel better to think that it is an isolated, local problem, but unfortunately global warming is the main culprit and we at least need t…

Regardless of your view on global warming, what's also vitally important is we don't do proper forest management anymore. We used to thin the trees and clear the underbrush, which drastically reduces flammability and the ability for forest fires to rapidly spread. But that's not seen as "environmentally friendly" these days.

The best way to prevent forest fires is to cut all the trees. No forest means no forest fire, right?

The problem (as always) is that it is complicated.

We are living in a mass extinction right now (orders of magnitudes faster than the one of the dinosaurs), mostly because of habitat loss. It has nothing to do with the climate (of course the climate is making it worse, but we screwed the biodiversity before that).

Is thinning the trees and clearing the underbrush good for the biodiversity? Probably not. Is it good to reduce flammability? Probably yes.

But I don't think it is fair to say that those who care about biodiversity are obviously wrong because preserving the biodiversity make forest more flammable. If you think like this, the solution is to go live in a bunker. Many people find that attractive (just look at how many dream about living in a bunker on mars), but I don't.

Re: French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

#270

Post by palata »

Den_VR wrote: post #145
ornornor wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People live there. So do animals and insects. Never mind the air pollution.

And later, different animals and insects will live there.

Depends on the time scale, I guess? We are living in a mass extinction that is orders of magnitudes faster than the one of the dinosaurs. So the norm, right now, is that later there will be fewer animals and insects.

In Europe, we've lost 80% of insects in the last 20 years, something like that? That was completely unrelated to climate change. I guess climate change is just coming to help with the remaining 20%.

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