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> “I think climate change is no more than 20 to 25% responsible for our current fire problems in the state, and most of it is due to the way our forests are,” S

> “I think climate change is no more than 20 to 25% responsible for our current fire problems in the state, and most of it is due to the way our forests are,” Stephens said. Directly in contrast with Gavin Newsom vs. Trump argument last year. I’m not aligned with Trump at all, but I have qualms about how we as liberals are easily strapped down by the media. Trump said “Mostly due to forest mismanagement” while Newsom said “With all due respect, Climate Change is the fundamental reason for forest fires”. I clearly remember how the entire media pounced on Trump. Not good. We ought to isolate character from facts. If you challenged Newsom in any way last year, you would have been labeled a right-wing Trumper instantly.

ceejayoz 5y ago
It gets a little more nuanced than that; if you want to blame forest management, you have to tackle the fact that the majority of California's forest is Federally owned. Quibbling over the degree of culpability and denying the existence of climate change entirely - remember, in that exchange, Trump said he thought it'd be getting cooler soon - are not the same, either.
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  I didn’t see this kind nuanced discussion last year - which is my point. Trump has said some of the most egregious things about climate change. I just see those orthogonal to this particular incident. I don’t think Trump was blaming California for it, he was blaming forest mismanagement whether federal or state. Anyhow, I’ve become extremely suspicious of any traditional media or social media driven story these days - the more people are aboard, the less I am inclined to believe because the machinery for argument no longer exists. Media has a conflict of interest with engagement metrics. Allow space for counter arguments and discussion.
  - jeffbee 5y ago
    Oh right, Trump was in no way trying to lay blame off on California. “Maybe we’re just going to have to make them pay for it because they don’t listen to us,” he added. "I’ve been telling them this now for three years, but they don’t want to listen,” Trump said on Thursday.
    - systemvoltage 5y ago
      Can we critize them both? I mean, Trump could be 100% wrong and it still doesn't change what Newsom said which was also politically motivated. Newsom was with leaders of Forest management agencies and yet wildly exaggerated claims that CC is the reason for forest fires.
      - jeffbee 5y ago
        Sure. I have a whole book of complaints about the Governor of California. But whether he raked national forests enough is not one of the complaints. Only the Secretary of Agriculture and their boss, The President of the United States, get the blame for that.
arminiusreturns 5y ago
This topic is one of the first ones that really took liberal academia down a few notches in my eyes. I grew up with a national forest as my backyard, and my grandfather was a logger in the area in the 70s. When I was a teenager, he and a bunch of old timers, including the Native American ones, were complaining about the forest management policies. They literally begged them to allow more thinning of the forest, more and larger control burns, etc. The out of town forest service (etc) PhDs all had a ton of reasons why they were wrong, and ignored their advice. At the time, I though the old timers just werent hip to science, were being curmudgeonly as old timers tend to be, and surely the PhD environmentalists knew what was what. Then, the pine beetle infestation hit, and they could not keep up with the needed thinning... and a few years after I left, boom, two ~500k acre fires hit, and it was absolutely devastating to the forest. At that point, I had learned how to read scientific papers, and started going back and looking at some of the justification papers for some of the policies (including wolf reintro) and I was astonished at how shoddy and poor the science was from these liberal academics. Not only was the science bad, but they essentially would ridicule the locals as a dumb redneck stereotype, given that the forest service etc would often cycle in people from across the country. The fires taught me that there is a lot of bad science out there, and that the term is often used as a cudgel against the lesser educated, so I can emphatically say, despite not being pro-Trump at all, that he was right on that one occasion. I said the same thing here when it happened and it spurred some decent discussion.

ceejayoz 5y ago

It gets a little more nuanced than that; if you want to blame forest management, you have to tackle the fact that the majority of California's forest is Federally owned. Quibbling over the degree of culpability and denying the existence of climate change entirely - remember, in that exchange, Trump said he thought it'd be getting cooler soon - are not the same, either.

systemvoltage 5y ago
I didn’t see this kind nuanced discussion last year - which is my point. Trump has said some of the most egregious things about climate change. I just see those orthogonal to this particular incident. I don’t think Trump was blaming California for it, he was blaming forest mismanagement whether federal or state. Anyhow, I’ve become extremely suspicious of any traditional media or social media driven story these days - the more people are aboard, the less I am inclined to believe because the machinery for argument no longer exists. Media has a conflict of interest with engagement metrics. Allow space for counter arguments and discussion.
- jeffbee 5y ago
  Oh right, Trump was in no way trying to lay blame off on California. “Maybe we’re just going to have to make them pay for it because they don’t listen to us,” he added. "I’ve been telling them this now for three years, but they don’t want to listen,” Trump said on Thursday.
  - systemvoltage 5y ago
    Can we critize them both? I mean, Trump could be 100% wrong and it still doesn't change what Newsom said which was also politically motivated. Newsom was with leaders of Forest management agencies and yet wildly exaggerated claims that CC is the reason for forest fires.
    - jeffbee 5y ago
      Sure. I have a whole book of complaints about the Governor of California. But whether he raked national forests enough is not one of the complaints. Only the Secretary of Agriculture and their boss, The President of the United States, get the blame for that.

arminiusreturns 5y ago

This topic is one of the first ones that really took liberal academia down a few notches in my eyes. I grew up with a national forest as my backyard, and my grandfather was a logger in the area in the 70s. When I was a teenager, he and a bunch of old timers, including the Native American ones, were complaining about the forest management policies. They literally begged them to allow more thinning of the forest, more and larger control burns, etc. The out of town forest service (etc) PhDs all had a ton of reasons why they were wrong, and ignored their advice. At the time, I though the old timers just werent hip to science, were being curmudgeonly as old timers tend to be, and surely the PhD environmentalists knew what was what. Then, the pine beetle infestation hit, and they could not keep up with the needed thinning... and a few years after I left, boom, two ~500k acre fires hit, and it was absolutely devastating to the forest. At that point, I had learned how to read scientific papers, and started going back and looking at some of the justification papers for some of the policies (including wolf reintro) and I was astonished at how shoddy and poor the science was from these liberal academics. Not only was the science bad, but they essentially would ridicule the locals as a dumb redneck stereotype, given that the forest service etc would often cycle in people from across the country. The fires taught me that there is a lot of bad science out there, and that the term is often used as a cudgel against the lesser educated, so I can emphatically say, despite not being pro-Trump at all, that he was right on that one occasion. I said the same thing here when it happened and it spurred some decent discussion.